Skybreach (The Reach #3) (21 page)

“That’s a very good question.  I’m not sure it was a coincidence that he was there.”

“Do you think he’s working with them?  With Children of Earth?” she said.

Duran mulled over that question.  Knile had caused the explosion in the Atrium a few years ago, hadn’t he?  Maybe he
was
affiliated with them in some way.  It made sense.

“Maybe,” he said.  He turned to Robson.  “Are your surveillance systems still working?”

Robson whistled through his teeth.  “Kinda.  They’ve taken a bit of a hit.  I think that explosion cut the power to a bunch of places.”

“If I give you the location of a security door that Oberend passed through a short while ago, do you think you could find out where he went?”

Robson glanced awkwardly at Zoe.  “Uh, I know you have a personal
thing
going on with this guy and all, but don’t you think that maybe de Villiers was right?  Maybe we should cut our losses and just get out of here while we still can.”

“No,” Duran said sharply before Zoe could answer.  “We haven’t come this far to just walk away now.  I still believe we can make a difference here.  Don’t you?”

Both Zoe and Robson seemed unsure of themselves, so Duran ploughed on regardless.

“Let’s get started.  We’ll find Oberend and then see where that leads us.”

As Robson turned back to the keyboard, Duran couldn’t be sure whether his desire to push forward came from wanting to help save the Reach, or simply because he was still seeking vengeance on Knile.  In the end, it didn’t matter.  There was no point retreating.  He had to keep going now.

He felt Zoe’s breath on his neck as she leaned in close.  “I just hope this guy doesn’t end up costing you everything, Alec.”

Duran said nothing, not daring to speak the words that lingered in his mind.

He already has.

21

Knile closed the lid on the machine, a beige box about the size of
one of those microwave ovens that people still used around the place, and tapped a sequence of commands on its front panel.  It beeped twice, and then a clock icon appeared to indicate the operation had begun.  He watched it for a moment to ensure that everything was running smoothly, then exhaled noisily.

He squeezed his eyes shut and scrubbed at his face wearily.  His head hurt.  He’d been staring at this machine for hours on end, not really certain that he was manipulating it correctly, yet ploughing on regardless.  Although Yun had given him a brief lesson on how it worked, this was something that fell well outside Knile’s sphere of knowledge.  Working with DNA sequences was not part of his regular routine, that was for sure.

Still, he had to keep at it.  There was simply no one else to do the job.

“No sleeping on the job.”  Knile opened his eyes to see Talia seated before him, a whimsical smile on her face.  She lifted her boot and gave him a playful nudge on the thigh.  “You still with us, sandman?”

“I wasn’t sleeping,” Knile said.  “I was meditating on the wonders of DNA.”

“Oh, I see.  So you’re some kind of science guy now, huh?” Talia said, amusement twinkling in her eyes.

“Yeah, right.”  He grimaced.  “I’m not sure I fit that mould.  I mean, this DNA stuff is important, and I’m worried that I’m going to stuff it up.  If I get it wrong, the chips won’t work.  We won’t get through the Stormgates.”

“You’ll be fine,” she reassured him.  “Yun wouldn’t have chosen you if he didn’t think you could do it.”

“Or maybe there was just no other choice
.  It’s not like he has a lot of options.”  He sighed.  “I almost wish I was somewhere crawling through air ducts instead of this.”

“Plenty of time for that later, no doubt.”  Talia scooched her chair forward until their knees almost touched.  “So,” she said with a sultry stare.  “
What are you going to do to me?”

“Huh?”

She smiled.  “
What do I have to do for this DNA thing?”

Knile realised he’d stopped breathing for a moment.  He exhaled and gave a little laugh to cover it.

“Oh, right.  Sure thing.”

He reached for a swab and began to remove it from it’s plastic slip.  From his periphery he noted Talia still staring at him, as if she were evaluating his response to her proximity, her flirtatious mood. 
Her manner toward him had changed since they’d reunited again.
  She seemed much more direct, more confident toward him, as if she’d cast aside the inhibitions of the past somewhere along the way.

For his own part, Knile couldn’t help but look at her differently as well.  Now that his obsession with Mianda had ended – in a way, at least – he felt as though his vision had somehow cleared.  He was finally seeing Talia as she really was; not the tomboy kid he’d grown up with, but as a woman who had matured and blossomed into undeniable loveliness.

And when she regarded him with those cool, hazel eyes, he had to admit that he felt something in return.

“There’s a few hoops you have to jump through before we do this,” he told her.
 
“Yun said I have to check with everyone.”

“Shoot.”

“Have you eaten in the past hour?” he said.

“Nope.”

“Washed your mouth out with water?”

“Yes.  I’ve been a good little girl and followed the instructions, Knile.”

“Okay, then.”  He held the swab poised before her.  “Open up.”  She made an ‘O’ with her mouth, still watching him attentively.  Knile inserted the swab and rubbed it against the inside of her cheek.  “Lift your tongue for a sec.”  She complied, and he dabbed under there as well.  “That should do it.”

He withdrew the swab and she closed her mouth.  “That’s it, huh?  You don’t have to stab me with needles or anything?”

“That’s it.”  He carefully placed the swab in a tube so that it could dry.  “I could stab you with a needle for laughs if you really wanted.”

She smirked as she got up to leave.  “I really don’t.”

“So what about you?  What has Silvestri got you doing now?”

She stopped and turned back to him.  “He’s got me keeping watch over at the southern entrance.  He’s been shoring up the other entrances as well.  The rioters are starting to target residences as well as shops and vendors.  We have to be careful they don’t come busting in here.”  She shook her head disparagingly.  “Stupid bastards.”

“They’re scared.  They’ve seen the footage from Link, and they know there’s a very thin line between safety and mayhem.”

“I guess so.”

He considered for a moment.  “What about Silvestri?  I haven’t seen him around here much over the last few hours.”

“He’s been rotating around, keeping an eye on things.”

“Keeping an eye on you, I’ll bet.”

A broad grin spread across her face.  “What’s the matter, Knile?  You jealous?”

“No.”  Knile shifted uncomfortably.  “He just seems to be keeping you very close lately.”

She leaned down and gently placed a hand on his knee, her face close to his.

“You don’t have to worry about him,” she whispered.  She stared at him for a moment longer, the corners of her mouth curved upward slightly, and then she turned and stalked away.

Knile frowned as he watched her leave.  He wasn’t particularly reassured by what she’d said.  In fact, he was pretty sure that she was having fun with this whole scenario.  She was probably laughing–

“Knile!” Yun said, interruptin
g Knile’s train of thought.  The tech appeared at the door.  He took a hurried sip from a cup of coffee and blinked rapidly, as if staving off exhaustion.  “Have Holger and the other brawlers supplied samples yet?”

“I haven’t seen them,” Knile said.

Yun made an exasperated sound in the back of his throat.  “Give him a call, will you?  We need those guys processed before nightfall.  They’re hitting a weapons cache tonight up on Seventy-Two, and that could take hours.  We might not get another chance with them.
”

“Yeah, okay.  Hey!” Knile called as Yun turned to leave.

“What?” Yun said.  He stopped abruptly and inadvertently slopped his coffee on the floor, grunting in annoyance once again.  “Terrific,” he muttered.

“How are the chips coming along?”

“Getting there,” Yun said, wiping the front of his shirt.  “The first couple of prototypes were bunk.  Didn’t come out right.  The next one is looking promising.”

He disappeared without waiting for a response, and Knile pulled out his holophone and began scrolling through his contacts for Holger’s number.

He stopped, spotting a number that was unfamiliar to him, and then he suddenly remembered what it was.

The number Hank gave me.  What did he call it?  The
longwave.

Knile had completely forgotten about the number after the explosion, the flight from Duran, the broadcast from the Consortium.  The lockdown, the riots.

It had been a hectic time.  It was no wonder that it had slipped his mind, he supposed.

Knile stared at the digits on the screen, wondering who it could be.  Who would have contacted Hank in order to reach Knile?  It didn’t make sense.

Perhaps it was one of Knile’s old contacts, someone who had heard of his return.  Or, on the other hand, it could have been one of his old enemies hoping to track him down.

I should delete it.  I don’t have time for this shit.

Still, curiosity was beginning to get the better of him.  His intuition was telling him that he needed to get to the bottom of the mystery, as odd as it seemed.

The DNA sequencer beside him beeped as it completed its analysis.  He glared at it in annoyance.  If he returned his attention to the machine, he would be forced to spend the next half an hour filtering the data as Yun had instructed, preparing it for encoding with the algorithm.  He would be trapped there while the puzzling question of the longwave gnawed at him incessantly.

He looked back at the phone.

It can’t hurt.  One quick call and then I can get on with things.

He selected the number of the longwave, got up and paced over to the storeroom nearby as it began to ring.

Surprisingly, someone answered almost immediately.

“Hello?”

There was no video feed, and Knile didn’t recognise the voice.

“Who is this?” he said.

There was a pause. 
“Knile?”

“I said, who is this?” Knile said.

“It’s… it’s Ursie.”

Knile stopped pacing and stared blankly at the wall, disbelieving.

“Ursie?”

“Yeah.  It’s me.”

“What is this?  Where are you, Ursie?  What do you want?”

“Look, I know you hate me,”
she said quickly, running her words together,
“but please don’t hang up on me.  Please.”

“I don’t get it.  Why are you calling me?”

“I can explain all of that.  Just don’t hang up.”

“I won’t make any promises
.  You might as well start talking and we’ll see how it plays out.”

“Listen, I’m up in Habitat Thirty-One.”

“Huh?  Where’s that?”

“It’s what you call Habitat One.  That’s not its real name.  Anyway, it’s complicated.”

“I’ll bet.”  Knile glanced at the doorway, feeling like an errant child who was doing something he shouldn’t, and fearful that his parents might walk in.  “Go on.”

“Things didn’t work out for me up here, Knile.  My Sponsor, the guy you met on the roof – his name was van Asch.  Turns out he was a psycher like me, only he saw his abilities as a curse.  He wanted to experiment on me to find a ‘cure’.”

“I think I might have floated that possibility to you at the time,” Knile said, his voice filled with irony.

“Yeah.  You were right about that, too.”

Knile glanced at his watch.  “Ursie, I’ve got a lot to do here.  Is there a reason you went to all this trouble to get in touch with me?”

“Yes, there is.  First,
I just wanted to
say how sorry I am about what happened between you and me.  When the whole thing started I figured you’d be some criminal, some dumb mark who didn’t deserve a passkey in the first place.  I figured it would be easy to take it, that I wouldn’t feel a shred of remorse afterwards.  But as I got to know you on that climb, when I found out the things that had happened to you… in the end I didn’t really know what to do.”

“I don’t remember you having any misgivings about hopping on the railcar.”

He heard her sigh.
“I know that you must hate me–”

“Will you stop saying that?  I don’t hate you.”

She hesitated.
“You don’t?”