Sunspire (The Reach, Book 4) (7 page)

“The peace isn’t going to last here,” Duran said.
 
“No way.”

“Agreed,” Silvestri said.  “Let’s keep going.”  He turned to Yun.  “What’s the quickest way out of here?”

“I think it’s that way,” Yun said, pointing.

“What’s the plan?” Talia said as they began to walk.

“Make it to the Greenhouses,” Silvestri said.  “Then, it sounds like our best bet might be Level Ninety-Six.”

8

Knile stopped and looked back along the Skywalk.  A little way down the tunnel, Tobias and Ursie laboured as they tried to keep pace.  Although Knile had dropped his walking speed to little more than a crawl in the last few hours, it wasn’t helping.  The others were faltering badly, and it was only going to get worse from here.

Tobias, who had offered his seat on the sweepdrone to Ursie after she had begun to lag behind, was barely lifting his feet with each step, preferring to drag his boots across the floor in an awkward kind of shuffle.  The sweepdrone itself now emitted a high-pitched keening sound, like a
wounded animal forced to push
beyond its limits.  Its battery was so low that it was barely moving at all anymore, so much so that Tobias was able to comfortably keep up with it at his lowly pace.

What a mess
, Knile thought to himself as he watched them. 
A weak old man, a sick girl, and a half-dead Redman trying to make it across a space tube that seemingly has no end.

Tobias gave him a little half smile and a good-natured wave to indicate that all was well, but then he dropped the hand to his chest and began to rub back and forth, the smile melting away into a scowl.

“You need to stop,” Knile said.  “This isn’t working.”

Tobias began to offer a retort, but his words became lodged in his throat.  He hocked noisily.

“Nothin’ wrong with me,” he said, licking at dry lips.  “Just the ol’ ticker needs a massage now and again.”

“The sweepdrone is done,” Knile said, gesturing at the vehicle as Ursie allowed it to squeal to a halt.  “And it looks like you are, too, Tobias.”

“Rubbish,” Tobias spat.  “I’m not–”

“He’s right, Tobias,” Ursie said, resigned.  “We need to find another way to go about this, or we’re not going to make it.”

Tobias pouted at her but said nothing.

“What about recharging the battery on the sweepdrone?” Knile suggested.  “Is there any way to do that?”

Tobias gave him a doubtful look.  “Not out here.  Not without connectors and a power grid and whatnot.”

Knile glanced along the tunnel in each direction, searching for inspiration, but none came.  His eyes dropped to the floor, and he stared at the narrow groove in the centre of the aisle.  He dropped to one knee.  Initially he had assumed that this was merely a join in the structure, the place where two modular components had been welded together, but now he could see a series of scratch marks amid its shiny metal exterior.

“What
is
this thing?” he said, running his finger along the groove, tracing the contours of the abrasions.

Tobias hunkered down next to him, a curious expression on his face.  He remained there for a few moments longer, then raised his eyebrows, as if he had made some kind of
discovery.

“The handcar!” he said.  “Yeah, I remember that thing!”

“What handcar?” Knile said.  “What are you talking about?”

“It’s how they used to move cargo along this tunnel.  Nothin’ much more than a flatbed tray a few metres long, if memory serves, but it could haul people along just as easy as it did a pallet of machine parts.”  He tapped the groove.  “Used to run along this here slot, like a monorail.”

“Where would it be?”

“There used to be one between each way station,” Tobias said, sweeping his hand toward the darkness ahead of them.  “Could be anywhere between here and there.”  He considered.  “Or maybe they pulled ’em out altogether at the end.”  He shrugged.  “Dunno.”

“It doesn’t do us any good if there’s no power to run it.”

“You might get it workin’ with the hand crank, if it has one.”

Knile got to his feet.  “It sounds like our best shot.  Maybe our only shot.  If I can find one and bring it back here, it might do the job.”

“So what do we do in the meantime?” Ursie said.

“You keep driving the sweepdrone forward until it croaks,” Knile said.  “When it does, stay with Lazarus and rest.  Wait for me to come back.”

Ursie glanced behind them apprehensively, from where noises of straining metal were still echoing along the tunnel.

“I don’t know if that’s such a good idea with this place falling apart around us,” she said.

“We don’t have any other options.  I’m not leaving Lazarus behind, and Tobias is going to have a heart attack if he keeps going.”

Tobias gave him an indignant glare.  “Like hell, fella.  I can keep–”

“Listen,” Knile said, stepping forward and clasping a hand on his
shoulder.  “I appreciate the bravado, I really do, but we need to face reality here.  We need you, Tobias.  Ursie and
I
don’t know how this place works.  If something happens to you, we’re screwed.  Understand?”

Tobias nodded reluctantly.  “Yeah, I get it.”

“So I’m going to keep moving forward as fast as I can.  I need to find this handcar thing and bring it back.  You and Ursie just need to look after yourselves until I get here.”

“All right,” Ursie said, obviously realising that Knile would not be swayed from his plan.  “Go and do what you have to do.  We’ll keep chugging along as best we can.”

Knile nodded.  “All right.  Sounds like a plan.”

He turned and began to move briskly away, fighting against his own fatigue and the pain of blisters on his feet as he pushed onward as quickly as he could.  Ursie was not the only one who was concerned about what was happening behind them – Knile himself had wondered if he might be consigning his three companions to death by leaving them in his wake, where they ran the possibility of being swallowed up in the collapse of the Skywalk.  However, that was simply something that was out of his control.  He couldn’t carry all three of them, and nor could he prevent the Skywalk from tearing itself apart.

He had to concentrate on what he
could
do.  Find the handcar, get it working.  Start moving the group along at a more rapid pace.

He glanced behind himself
, and Ursie and Tobias were already disappearing into the gloom of the tunnel, little more than dim silhouettes in the distance.  The old man had taken the station cap from his grey head, and now sat fanning himself with it as he slumped against the sweepdrone.

Knile returned his eyes to the front and locked them onto the groove in the floor.

He set his jaw in determination and began to run.

9

Talia had never seen the Greenhouses
before.  In the past, when she’d imagined what they might look like,
she’d pictured neat plots of dark, nutrient-rich soil, immaculately curated plants, and clean, salubrious environs in which they could grow.

What she found now, after the turmoil of recent times, was a desecrated mess; a mirror of other parts of the Reach.

The place had been raided
.  That shouldn’t have been surprising, she supposed.  When things had fallen apart, this would undoubtedly have been
one of the first targets
for those seeking to loot and pillage.  Many of the raised gardens had been toppled or smashed apart, the soil from within spilling out across the floor.  The imprint of looters’ boots were everywhere, a multitude of tracks leading haphazardly in every direction.  Even now, the stragglers crawled on hands and knees through the remnants of the garden
s
, foraging for something edible that may have been missed by those who came before them.  As Talia and the others moved past, they turned to watch them with glittering, distrustful eyes.

“Stupid,” Roman muttered at her side.

“Huh?”

Roman shook his head.  “These people are stupid.  They’re destroying
the Reach’s only
source of food.  It doesn’t make any sense.”

“They’re just desperate,” Talia said.  They passed a young girl sitting silently in the dirt, the tracks of tears scoring her grubby cheeks.  She watched them pass while her mother dug at a cluster of roots nearby.  “At this point, they just want to make sure they have enough to eat today.  They’re not thinking about tomorrow or next week.”

“Yeah.  I’m not sure how they ever grew anything here in the first place,” Roman said in disgust.  “Even before they tore it apart.”

“It’s not exactly Grove,” Silvestri said, “but until a few days ago, it was enough to feed most of the Reach.  Not that you would think that by what’s left of it.”

They had been moving through the Greenhouse levels for several hours, working their way downward toward Gaslight, and it seemed that nowhere had escaped the attention of the looters.  The destruction of the place seemed utterly complete, the bulk of the produce already
plundered
, and now the scavengers had moved in to pick over the bones.  Talia was aghast at how quickly it had all happened, how thoroughly the rot had permeated every corner of the Reach.  It seemed evident that the Reach had been balancing on a knife edge for some time, and as soon as it had tipped, things
had happened fast.

She was brought out of her musings by the sound of Silvestri’s voice.

“Heads up.  Company over by the staircase.”

Talia looked and saw a group of around ten men and women loitering at the end of the expansive chamber through which they were headed.  Silvestri began to slow, but Duran continued to press on.

“Don’t pull back,” Duran said tersely, his eyes never leaving the group.  “Keep going.”

Silvestri reached for Duran’s sleeve.  “We need to consider this–”

“You heard him,” Zoe said, and the two of them moved ahead.  Silvestri glanced at Talia, clearly unimpressed, but he followed them nonetheless.

As they neared, a man in a leather jacket stepped out from the group and waited patiently for them to approach, a shotgun dangling from one hand.  The others spread out behind him, and Talia couldn’t help but think of those old checkpoints the Enforcers had once assembled down in Link.

“Mornin’,” the man in leather said amiably.  “Passing through?”

“Just making our way down to Gaslight,” Silvestri said.  “We’re not looking for trouble.”

The man pursed his lips.  “You won’t get none here.  Not if you follow the rules.”

“Which are?” Duran said sceptically.

“Just hand over anything you’ve taken from the Greenhouses, and we’ll let you go past.  Simple as that.  We’re the new custodians of these parts, and we’re…”  He shrugged.  “Well, protective of what’s ours.”

“We’ve taken nothing from here,” Silvestri said.  “I can assure you of that.”

“So what’s in the bags?” the man said, gesturing to the parcel under Roman’s arm.

“Those were given to us in Lux,” Duran said.  “Now step aside, pal.”

A second man stepped up beside the first, chewing idly on a plump carrot.

“I don’t like the way you’re talkin’,
pal
,” he said.  “Better learn some manners.”

“And what are you going to do if we don’t?” Zoe said.

The man grinned lasciviously and waggled the carrot back and forth.  “I’m gonna stick this all the way up your ass, pretty lady.  Then I’m going to–”

Duran’s gun was in his hand in a blink of an eye, and a moment later the carrot exploded as a bullet tore it to shreds, spraying orange pulp across the man’s neck and face.

“Fuck!” he screamed in surprise, and then guns were drawn on both sides.  Talia fumbled for her .22, which felt hugely inadequate against the rifles and shotguns pointed back at her, but she did not back down.

“Don’t think you’re going to be sticking that anywhere, now,” Duran said, his .38 held steady toward the nearest man.

“That was stupid,” the man in the leather jacket said, holding the shotgun ready.  His eyes flitted across the assault rifles pointed at him by Silvestri and Zoe.  “Real stupid.”

“Here’s the deal,” Duran said loudly.  “You can let us pass, forget this ever happened, and look for some easier marks to come your way.  Or you can die right now over a couple of apples.  Your call.”

The man sneered at him.  “Times like these, people die for less.”

“So what are you waiting for?” Duran said, unflappable.  “Let’s swap some lead.”

The man glared at Duran for a moment longer, then lowered the shotgun.

“Let ’em go,” he said.

“What?” the man with the carrot stump said.  “You’re not–”

“Shut the fuck up, Moonie.  We’re letting ’em go.”