Sunspire (The Reach, Book 4) (5 page)

He helped Yun and Roman as they reached the ledge, and Talia dropped nimbly beside them, followed by Duran and Zoe.

There was a gaping rend in the wall nearby, what looked like the result of an explosion, and together they ducked through as the debris continued to rain down around them.

Silvestri realised that they’d made it to somewhere in the Plant Rooms.

And they weren’t alone.

As they started forward, a gun muzzle flashed as a warning shot went whizzing over their heads.

“Who the fuck are you?” someone called from the gloom.  Silvestri looked and saw a smattering of faces peering at them from behind the cover of metal cabinets and bulky machine parts that had been turned into bulwarks.  Each of them toted a rifle, and these were now pointed at Silvestri and his companions.

Another voice.  “What’s going on up there?  What happened?”

“The Wire’s been cut,” Silvestri shouted at them.  “We need to get out of here.”

“The Wire?  That’s bullshit,” one of the men said.  “It can’t be done.”

“Why don’t you head up there and see for yourself?” Talia suggested hotly.

“Look,” Silvestri said, “we’re not here to fight anyone.  Just–”

There was a thunderous crash outside, and Silvestri turned to see a massive wad of jagged metal smash through the platform on which they’d been standing moments before.  Splinters of metal and grit exploded through the rend in the wall, and Silvestri stumbled as he tried to put some distance between himself and the danger.

“That’s far enough!” one of the men called out.  “Get down on the ground until we sort this shit out!”

“Are you fucking stupid?” Zoe replied, nursing a cut on her forearm.  “Can’t you see what’s going on?”

“All I know is that you’re full of shit,” the man said.  “Now, get down or we’ll put you down.”

Zoe dropped her hand to her rifle and glanced across at Silvestri, and he could see the question that was in her eyes.

Do we just take these bastards down?

Silvestri glanced around them again, trying to count off their enemy, but then he shook his head.  They were sitting ducks out here.  Their enemy had the advantage of numbers, as well as cover.  The odds were against them, no question about it.

Silvestri sank to one knee.  “You heard him,” he said.  “Do what he says.”

Zoe scowled at him disapprovingly, and Duran just shook his head.  Talia followed his lead, dropping to her knees in submission.

“All the way down,” the man called out.  “All of you.  I want to see–”

There was another ear-splitting squeal of shredding metal, and the entire room shuddered
and jolted as if it had been slammed by a giant hammer.  Daylight was suddenly pouring in around them, and Silvestri saw with horror that a huge swath of the wall of the Reach above them was being torn aside like the lid of a sardine can.  He was on his feet a split second later, hauling Talia with him, and then they were running.

The men who had confronted them were doing the same, scattering deeper inside the Plant Rooms as debris began to rain down from above.

“Stick together!” Silvestri screamed, but he couldn’t be sure anyone had heard him.  “This way!”

He led them along a steel walkway as massive struts fell around them.  The sunlight that had flooded into the room disappeared again as more of the structure collapsed, and then there was darkness.

Silvestri’s holophone cut into the gloom, revealing a jumble of machinery and steel and rubble.  The rumbling from outside seemed to have subsided, creating a moment of respite from the chaos.

Perhaps we’re through the worst of it
, he thought, although he didn’t quite believe it.

Nearby, Talia came limping out of the darkness, Roman and Yun trailing close on her heels.

“You okay?” he said.

She nodded brusquely.  “I’ll live.”

They found Zoe and Duran a short way ahead, and something else – a captive who lay squirming under the considerable pressure of Duran’s knee.

“Stupid bastard tripped,” Duran said as they arrived.  He leaned down toward the man’s face.  “Looks like your friends left without you, huh?”

“Is he armed?” Silvestri said.

Zoe lifted a rifle for him to see.  “Not anymore.”

Silvestri gave a curt nod.  “Let him up.”

Duran glared up at him.  “What for?”

“He’s no danger to us.  Not now.”

“A minute ago he was ready to put a bullet in our skulls,” Duran said.

“I won’t hurt you,” the man croaked.  “Honest.”

“Duran,” Silvestri said patiently.  “Let him up.”

Duran waited a moment longer, clearly unimpressed, then stood, taking a step away from the man to allow him room to get up.  The man rolled into a sitting position, then scooched backward clumsily out of their way.

“What’s your name?” Silvestri said evenly.

The man looked at each of them in turn, perhaps wondering if they might be toying with him, stringing him along until they decided to execute him.

“I’m Durbin,” he said.  He was a dark-haired man in his mid-twenties, with a narrow jaw and a scar on his left cheek.  “I won’t try to hurt anyone,” he said again.  “You can leave.”

“Yeah, thanks,” Zoe said sarcastically.  “Real nice of you to have a change of heart.”

“That wasn’t me yelling at you before,” Durbin said.  “That was Evans.  He’s gone.”

“Who are you people?” Silvestri said.  “What were you doing here?”

“We’re part of the militia, trying to take control of the Wire.  A bunch of our men went on ahead to the Atrium last night.  They were going to try to make it to the roof.”

“And what about you?”

“We stayed behind to stop anyone who might be trying to head through here from below.”

“So what happened?” Zoe said.

Durbin scratched at his face.  “Redmen showed up last night, must’ve fought their way through the lower levels.  Maybe four or five of them.  We had a pretty good position, managed to hold ’em there for an hour or two.  I thought they were about to break through, but then, they just left.”

“Why?” Silvestri said.

Durbin shrugged.  “Fuck knows, man.  We thought they were regrouping or trying to flank us or something, but they never showed up again.”

“What time was that?” Silvestri said.

“Maybe two in the morning, something like that.”

Silvestri glanced across at Talia.  “Do you think they got word that the habitat was destroyed?”

Talia pursed her lips.  “It’s possible.  That would have made them turn around.  I mean, why bother trying to control the roo
f if there’s nothing left above?”

Durbin glanced between them, confused.  “Wait a minute… are you telling me that you weren’t shitting about the Wire?  It was really destroyed?”

“I’m afraid so,” Silvestri said.  Then he pointed his rifle at Durbin’s face.  “Now, why don’t you roll over and close your eyes, then count to one hundred.”

Durbin stared up at him, wide-eyed.  “You’re going to kill me, aren’t you?”

“No.  I just don’t want you to see where we’re going.”

6

Talia poked her head out from behind the corner and stared along the walkway.  Beyond, the rumble of the Plant Rooms continued unabated.  The great machines, half-hidden in the gloom, continued to turn and grind as they had done for countless years before, carrying out the functions for which they had been designed, oblivious to the mayhem that was going on in other parts of the Reach.

She turned back to see Zoe still fiddling with the lock on the maintenance office door.  She had hooked a piece of metal into the keyhole and was now wiggling it back and forth, a disconcerted grimace on her face.

“Do you have any clue what you’re doing?” Roman said, his arms crossed impatiently.

Zoe gave him a sidelong glare.  “Gimme a break.  It’s been a while since I had to do this.  Up until yesterday I had a friend who was very good at opening doors for me.
”

“Whatever you say.”

Talia could understand Roman’s eagerness to move on.  They’d been making their way down through the Plant Rooms for an hour now, and at one point they’d almost come afoul of a much larger group – possibly the men who’d accosted them earlier.  They’d been forced to hunker down in the crawl space of one of the mechanisms, the six of them wedged together claustrophobically until the men had passed.

At other times, the distant boom of massive falling objects and the thunderous groan of metal had told Talia that the Reach was still coming apart, that the destruction was not yet complete.

She just wanted to be as far away from here as possible, as quickly as they could manage.

Evidently, she was not the only one feeling this way.  A few moment
s later, Duran stepped forward and gripped Zoe by the shoulder.

“Let me try mine,” he said.

Zoe’s scowl deepened, but she allowed herself to be guided to the side.  Duran steadied himself and took a deep breath, then stepped forward and rammed his boot against the lock.

The door crashed inward amid an explosion of splinters and tinkling bits of metal.

“Smooth, Alec,” Zoe said wryly.

“Efficient,” he said with a perfunctory grin.

Inside the office they found what they’d been looking for – a terminal that was still connected to the network.  Yun seated himself before it and began to search through floor plans as he and Silvestri attempted to figure out the quickest way to progress downward.

Talia continued on further into the room, and found simple living quarters at the rear.  There was a plain single bed covered in grey sheets, a wardrobe containing several sets of grubby overalls, and a bedside table with a scuffed digital alarm clock.

Talia moved inside.  On the far wall, a rounded window, caked with grime, looked out on the world outside.  Something glinted out there, like a flash of sunlight in a mirror, and Talia edged around the bed to take a closer look.

Above, dark clouds roiled in the sky, and as she watched, Talia saw fire rain down like hail, glimmering red and yellow-white orbs that plummeted through the sky.  Some seemed to burn up, disappearing into nothingness before they could touch the ground, while others slammed headlong into Link far below.

Across the city, fires had sprung up everywhere.  Link was beginning to resemble a cauldron, covered in smoke and glinting cinders.

“What is it?” Roman said at her shoulder.

“Bad news.  There’s fire raining down on Link.  Must be bits of the habitat, or maybe the Wire itself, co
ming apart and falling back to Earth.”

As they stood there, another fiery fragment shot past, trailing black smoke as it careened toward the city.

“I thought this world was bad before, but now…”  Roman shook his head.

“Who would’ve thought things could get worse, huh?” Talia said pensively.

“And now there’s no Wire, no way out.  Do you think they have a backup plan?  The Consortium, I mean.”

“To do what?”

“To get their people to safety.  Them, and the Redmen.  Surely they must have spaceships or something off-world, right?  I keep expecting to hear them in the sky any moment.”

Talia glanced over at him.  “I don’t think so, Roman.  They don’t build those grav-busters anymore, not since they made the space elevators.”  She shook her head.  “There’s no one coming.  Those people in the Consortium… they’re on their own, just like we are.”

They stood at the window for several minutes in silence, taking in the beautiful, awful sight of falling debris, and then Silvestri and Yun appeared in the doorway.

“We’re done,” Silvestri said.  “Yun uploaded floor
plans to his holophone, and we also found some more information on Sunspire Mountain.  It’s approximately–”  He stopped, catching sight of what was happening outside, and moved across to join them at the window.  “
Damn
,” he said appreciatively.

“It’s kinda mesmerising,” Talia agreed.  She turned to Yun, who was digging through the drawer beside the bed.  “I thought you said we had more time to make it off the roof before the Wire came down.”