Tracer (24 page)

He gestures behind us. At every door, there are people holding weapons: homemade blades, lengths of pipe, even one or two homemade stingers. Had we tried to fight our way through, we would have been dead in seconds.

Syria stands aside, and we head to the stairs at the far end of the corridor. We’re not running, but every so often we have to flatten ourselves against
the wall to let someone else squeeze past. Several times, we’re looked at with suspicion, but no one else stops us. We’re both on edge, and I’m aware of time slipping away. My stomach is a knotted ball of hunger. Around us, Outer Earth rumbles and creaks, the sound getting increasingly louder as we continue deeper into the Caves.

Kev’s father is as big as I remember, and seems to open his mouth even less than his son. He greets us at the entrance to the hab, a huge, heavily muscled man, with arms thick from endless shifts lifting containers in the sector kitchens. He doesn’t say anything when he sees us, just nods, and gestures behind him. There, lying on a cot and looking poisonous, is Carver. Behind him are
the Twins, leaning against the wall by the bed, their arms folded.

And with them: Prakesh.

Yao spots me, then so does Kev, and then everyone is talking at once. The relief at seeing everyone there must show on my face, because Kev flashes me a rare smile.

Kev’s family are clustered one bunk down, huddled together: his grandfather is nothing more than a wizened face peeking out of a bundle of
blankets. His mother sits on the edge of the bunk, holding Kev’s baby brother in her arms. She stands when she sees me, forcing a smile onto her face.

“You’re the last, right?” she asks. The swaddled baby is held
before her like a shield. She rolls the edge of the blanket between her finger and thumb, worrying the fabric.

We nod, and she shouts to her husband, “Ira, that’s it. You can close
the door now.”

I turn to Kev. “What happened at the market …” I say, and I’m surprised to find my voice catching. “Thank you.”

“Tell me you found our stash,” says Yao.

“Saved my life. How many of those do you have?”

“A few,” Kev says. As he turns his head, his face catches the light, and I notice the bruises there, already turning an ugly purple. I reach up, gently running my hand over his
cheek. He doesn’t flinch, but he must see the look on my face, because he shrugs and then looks away. “No big deal.”

I catch his mother staring at me. Kev told me once that they wanted him to be a ship pilot, training at the academy in Tzevya, and they’re still not happy with how he spends his time. Or who he spends it with.

Yao’s face is crusted with dried blood, but she looks OK. She smiles
as well, and gives me a thumbs-up. Around us, the dorm is quiet, with only a few people sprawled on the beds. They’re either straining to hear us or doing their best to ignore us; right now, I don’t care. Kev passes around protein bars, some fruit, some water. I’m not proud about digging into his family’s food supply, but we can’t do anything unless we eat.

“The Air Lab?” I ask Prakesh, as I
swallow a bite of protein bar.

“Wouldn’t let me in,” he says. “Lost my ID in the fire.”

“That means Garner could be anywhere,” Amira says. “And with Darnell in Apex …”

“The what now?” Carver says. Yao and Kevin stare at us, open-mouthed. Even Kev’s family start listening.

“Darnell made it into Apex?” Yao whispers. “And who’s Garner?”

“You don’t know?” I say, confused. “You didn’t see the
comms?”

“This is Caves,” says Carver. “Nothing works down here.”

Kev looks sideways at him. “What?” Carver says. “It’s the truth.”

Amira and I fill them in, starting with Darnell’s latest broadcast. After we’re done, nobody says anything for a minute. Carver’s face has gone pale.

“How is he doing this?” asks Yao, rubbing her ankle. “You don’t just waltz into Apex. They’ve got security codes,
scanners, watchdog programs, killer robots for all I know. Things that do nothing but keep people out.”

Nobody answers. It’s almost certainly my imagination, but it seems like the room just got a tiny bit hotter, the air a little thicker, as if someone was blowing smoke. A thin film of sweat coats my forehead.

“I think I know,” I say quietly, and everybody turns to me. I take a breath. “Or at
least, I think I know how to find out.”

I tell them about Grace Garner and what Okwembu wanted from her. “I was hoping she’d made it to Gardens and found Prakesh,” I say.

“Why does it have to be us?” says Carver.

I look at him. “What do you mean?”

“There’s got to be an easier way to find her. Why should we stick our necks out by hightailing it up to Gardens?”

“Because there’s no one else.
No one we can trust.”

“How do you even know she’s in there? P-Man said he couldn’t find her.”

“It’s our best shot. We look there first. If she’s not there, we can search the rest of the sector.”

“Amira, back me up here,” says Carver. “You can’t think this is a good idea.”

Amira’s silent for a moment, looking away. When she turns back to us, her face is hard. “Well, let’s see, Aaron. What I
think is that I have one tracer with a dislocated shoulder, and two more who look like they tried to punch out a meteorite. My fastest tracer” – her gaze falls on me – “is currently the most wanted person on Outer Earth. And I just took down eight stompers getting Riley out of the brig.”

“Amira …” says Carver, but she cuts him off. “And that’s not even taking into account the rioting, the looting,
or the fact that every one of us is apparently going to die in a matter of hours – and we still don’t know how. Do I think going up to Gardens is a good idea? I think it’s a terrible idea. But we’re going to do it anyway.”

Her voice hasn’t risen; it’s softer now, as quiet as a blade slipping out of a sheath. “We are not,” she says, and her voice is a husky whisper. She clears her throat. “We
are not going to rely on anyone else. If Riley thinks this Garner person has information that could stop Darnell, then she and I are going to find her. We’re going to do it fast, and we’re going to do it now.”

There’s silence. “What do you mean, ‘she and I’?” I ask.

“Yeah,” echoes Yao. “You can’t be thinking about going by yourselves?”

“That’s exactly what we’re doing,” says Amira.

“Come on,”
says Carver. “My arm’s busted, but my legs still work fine, promise.”

“You stay here. That’s an order.”

“Sorry, Amira,” says Yao quietly. “But Carver’s right. If you want to go to Gardens, fine. But you’re not leaving us here. Not on something like this.”

Amira takes a long, deep breath, fighting back her anger. “All right,” she says, through gritted teeth.

“I’m coming too,” says Prakesh.
He’s been quiet for a while, and all eyes turn towards him.

“No,” says Amira, exasperated. “They’re tracers. They can run. You can’t. We don’t have time to baby-sit.”

“You’re going to Gardens,” says Prakesh, his voice hard. “How were you planning on getting in there?”

“We’ll figure something out.”

“Not very smart. Riley always told me you were better than that.”

Behind us, Kev’s family has
drawn tighter together on the bed. His dad, Ira, is there now, his arms around his wife. Kev’s grandfather is still staring at the ceiling, his lips moving silently.

Prakesh steps forward, squaring up to Amira. She doesn’t move, her dark eyes locked on his. “I can’t get to Gardens on my own,” says Prakesh. “It’s getting dangerous out there. I don’t know the best routes, the ones that’ll be quiet.
But you do. And you won’t get into the labs without me. We need each other.”

For a minute, Amira just stares at Prakesh. I’m expecting her to refuse, but eventually she gives a curt nod. Prakesh is about to say something, but she raises a finger to silence him. “We won’t wait for you. You run at our speed, and if you get into trouble, you’re on your own.”

Prakesh half smiles, and turns to me.
“Ready to give me a crash course, Riley?”

But Amira isn’t finished. “We take the monorail tracks. Get to the top of the sector, then cut around all the way towards Gardens. They won’t be running the monorail right now, not when there’s no food to ship.”

“The tracks?” I ask. “You think we can make it?”

“It’ll be safer than running out in the open. Quicker too, if we watch our step.”

I’m about
to protest further, but then I realise she’s right. It’s dangerous, but better than risking the catwalks.

It doesn’t take us long to get ready. We leave the Caves, walking
single file down the tight corridors, and this time nobody stops us. As soon as we enter the ground-floor corridor, we start running. Amira takes point, leading us up the station levels to the tracks; behind her are Yao, Kev
and Carver, with Prakesh and me bringing up the rear. I’m not used to being in the back, and I’m nervous that he’ll fall behind or get hurt. But although he’s no tracer, and has to pull himself over jumps and walls that we take in a single leap, he stays with us. Somehow. I can hear his breathing behind me as I run, heavy and hard.

The comms screens are black mirrors, reflecting us as we sprint
past. I half expect them to spring to life, the face of Oren Darnell to appear, but they stay silent.

To get to the tracks, we have to cross through the gallery, and we hear the crowd before we see it. The noise is a huge, angry buzz, as if every insect burned in the Food Lab fire came back for revenge. We’re still in one of the ground-floor corridors; the lights have gone, plunging it into near-darkness,
with only the distant light from the galleries providing any illumination. The horrible noise fills the space. Before us is the exit to the gallery floor, and even at a distance we can see it’s packed with people.

I’ve already heard from Yao how different groups are reacting to Darnell. The Caves are pulling in tight, letting hardly anyone in. The rest of New Germany is in chaos, with rumours
of food riots, and the other sectors aren’t much better. Yao says she heard that Tzevya is doing OK – there’s a curfew of some kind, and an armed group preparing to find a way into Apex.

Amira raises a fist, bringing us to a halt behind her. We pause, breathing heavily, standing in a loose circle. My hips ache with the effort, and a stitch is gnawing at my side. Prakesh comes in last, his face
flushed, but Amira glances at him and his expression hardens. She turns away from him, beckoning us closer.

“No running,” she says, her voice rough with exertion. “Single file through the crowd, and don’t talk to anyone. Go for the corridor at the far end, and wait. We’ll keep going when everyone’s through.” With that, she plunges into the crowd.

I pull my hood up, hiding my face, and glance
at Prakesh. He gestures me ahead, and I step into the galleries. The noise explodes around me. There’s a full-scale protest going on; at the far end, I can see a line of stompers with riot shields, protecting what looks like one of their captains. He has that speaking device, and as I slip through the crowd, he raises it to his mouth. “If everybody could remain calm,” he begins, and is drowned out
by a fresh roar of protest. Something flies through the air, and he has to leap back as the projectile smashes on the platform.

It’s hard to tell what the crowd want – whether they believe their leaders can just bring them Darnell, or if they want new leaders entirely. One of the stompers raises something above his head, but before I can see him bring it down I’m given a rough push to the right.
Someone gets into my face, yelling, and I instinctively raise a hand in apology before hurriedly moving on. My heart seems to have climbed from its regular position to my throat, choking me. I’ve lost track of both the Dancers and Prakesh.

I turn sideways to slip through a narrow gap in the thick crowd, and as I turn my head I see something that causes my heart to leap from my throat right into
my mouth.

Zhao Zheng, the man who controls the Lieren, is standing a few feet away.

His back is to me, but there’s no mistaking the bald head, lined with thick, jagged tattoos, or the hands, covered with tarnished metal, hanging at the end of unnaturally long arms. He wears a black, sleeveless vest, and is surrounded by four – no, five – Lieren. There’s a small space around them, and
people
seem to be giving them some room. If I’d taken a different route, I might have gone right through the middle of them.

Someone bumps into me from behind, and suddenly I’m being propelled right towards Zhao’s back.

In one horrifying instant, I see the chain of events locking into place before me, the knives coming out, the split second before I’m cut to ribbons, the triumphant smile on Zhao’s
face.

But I pull myself up, almost touching him, regaining my balance even as the noise from the crowd is drowned out by the roaring in my ears. At the edge of the group, one of the Lieren senses movement, starts to turn his head, but I quickly step backwards, vanishing into the crowd.

It’s a little while before I breathe again.

As I reach the edge of the gallery, I can see people spilling
into the corridor beyond, but I quickly catch sight of the Dancers. It takes me a second to see Prakesh as well, leaning against the wall, his hands on his knees. Amira sees me as I slip through, but then the look of relief on her face is replaced with one of horror. Before I can say anything, there’s a hand on my shoulder, and I feel the cold touch of those metal rings.

Zhao Zheng leans in until
his face is right up close to my ear. “Going somewhere?” he whispers.

There are at least ten Lieren. They stand on either side of their leader, fingering blades and flexing fists. The light from the gallery makes them into silhouettes, turning their bodies into little more than dark apparitions.

Zhao gives a nasty smile, twisted by a small scar on the right corner of his mouth. The top of the scar meets the tip of one of his tattoos: a huge, slashing black
mark, running up his cheek and around his head.