Impact

by Rob Boffard

  “I’m sorry,” I say, picking my words carefully. “I didn’t have a choice. There was no one else who could help me.”

  Eric stalks away before I’m finished, coming to a stop by the railing, leaning on it like he’s admiring the sunrise. My cheek is throbbing, and I can taste blood in my mouth.

  Harlan shuffles over. “You OK?”

  “Fine,” I say.

  “Don’t mind Eric. He’ll come round. Nomad attack wasn’t too bad–couple of his folks got hurt, but nothing serious.”

  I look down at my feet, then back up, into his eyes. Before he can do anything, I pull him into a hug. He’s taller than me, and I have to stand on tiptoe to put my head next to his.

  “Then thank you,” I say. “For everything.”

  “It’s OK,” he says, laughing a little, patting my back, as if he’s not quite sure how to take this. I pull away, and he nods, two quick dips of the head.

  “I’m going to head out,” I say. “The sooner I get moving, the better.”

  A dark expression crosses Harlan’s face. “Come on now. You aren’t still talking about—”

  “They’re out there,” I say, thinking of Prakesh, and Carver. And Okwembu. “I have to find them.”

  “You got nothing between those ears of yours?” he says, tapping his forehead. “You. Won’t. Make. It. Nobody would. Even the Nomads don’t go that far west.”

  He pats the air, like he’s trying to calm the situation. “Listen. Listen, now. Why don’t you just come with me? You can make a life out here for yourself. Plenty of people have. There aren’t a lot of us, but we do all right. It’s better than dying out there, when you don’t even know if your friends are alive or—”

  “Stop,” I say.

  Harlan doesn’t. “It’s suicide,” he says, angry now. “It’s insanity. You almost got dead from that infection, and now you want to walk to Anchorage?”

  “Anchorage?” Eric is still angry–I can see it in the way his mouth is set–but he’s confused, too. “What the hell is she going to Anchorage for? Doesn’t she know what happens out there?”

  “I told her!” Harlan’s eyebrows skyrocket. “She won’t listen.”

  “I’ll be fine,” I say, but neither of them is paying attention to me now.

  “We can’t let her go, Eric. She’ll die out there.”

  “That’s on her,” Eric says. “And you, since apparently you didn’t do a good enough job of telling her how bad an idea it is.”

  “But she’ll—”

  I stick two fingers in my mouth, and whistle. The piercing sound explodes across the rooftop before drifting off into the cold morning air. It brings both of them up short.

  “I’m going, OK?” I say. I turn to Eric. “You won’t see me again, I promise. Just let me say goodbye to Finkler, and I’ll be on my way.”

  Eric nods. “Good. Listen to Harlan, though. You’re insane, thinking you’ll make it to Anchorage.”

  I’ve managed to contain my anger so far, holding it back with an effort of will, but Eric’s words almost make that will fail completely. I want to grab him, shout at him, make him understand.

  In my last months on Outer Earth, I was scared. All the time. Scared of people who want to hurt me, scared of losing the people I love, scared of getting someone killed. I thought I could do it–I thought I could live with it. But it didn’t matter. I ended up losing them anyway. And in the process, everything I know was ripped away.

  So I’m done being scared. I’m sick of it. Eric thinks I’m insane? No. It would be insane to not go, to not try and get my friends back. If I don’t, I’ll spend the rest of my life wondering if they’re still out there. I’ll spend the rest of my life knowing that I had a chance to track down Okwembu, and didn’t.

  I don’t say any of this. Somehow, I get that anger back under control. Because Eric doesn’t deserve it–not after I put him and his people in danger. Not after they helped me.

  “OK, Eric, listen,” Harlan says. “If she’s gonna be hard-headed about it, then at least help her out with some supplies. A better coat or something. I saw your people wearing some pretty heavy gear, and I know Marla’s still got a full storage locker, saw it when I was down there.”

  Eric says nothing. When Harlan speaks again, he sounds like he’s panicking. “What about the seaplane?” he says, pointing. “That one, in the river? I know it’s rusted all to shit, but we could fix it up!”

  “Good luck with that. Believe me, we tried. Thing’s shot to shit. You’d be better off asking the Nomads for theirs.” He turns, looking Harlan dead in the eyes. “You want the one out front? You’re welcome to it. Just get the hell out.”

  He turns and stalks past me, almost shoving me out of the way. I jump back just in time.

  “Wait a second,” Harlan says, jogging after him. “The Nomads have a seaplane? Since when did that happen?”

  Seaplane…

  As Harlan and Eric vanish down the passage, I jog over to the railings, doing it without thinking, pleased to feel my leg take the speed. From up here, I can see across to the river, clogged with trash and debris. The dilapidated boats bob in the current. I notice the one that caught my eye the night before–the enormous white cylinder, supported by two pontoons, bobbing on the water’s surface.

  I know what a plane does, although I haven’t needed to think about it until this moment. It’s not exactly the kind of thing worth teaching people who live on a space station. That thing must be able to fly–or did, a very long time ago. Right now, I’m amazed it’s even able to float.

  And the Nomads have one. One that sounds like it’s still working.

  I don’t give myself a chance to consider the flaws in the idea. I push off the railing, and start jogging after Eric and Harlan.

  41

  Prakesh

  They sleep ten to a room, curled up on the floor. There used to be bunk beds on the walls–Prakesh saw the places where cots were bolted on–but they’re long gone. There’s no light in the ceiling, and when the door behind them is banged shut the room is in total darkness. The bodies inside it quickly raise the temperature, and the smell of sweat mixes with the coppery tang of dried urine.

  At least the room is large enough for all the workers. They huddle in small groups, sitting against the wall or trying to stretch out on the hard floor. Prakesh tries to find a spot, tripping over outstretched feet more than once.

  He’s too tired to sleep, and too wired to do anything but sit and stare into the darkness. The last few hours passed in an exhausted blur: more soil bags, another dose of slop in that mess hall, some water, a chance to use the bathroom. Then this… hole. He saw Jojo come in with them, caught a glimpse of his face before the door was shut, but he doesn’t know if he should call out for him.

  He keeps seeing Carver, vanishing under a hail of feet and fists. Keeps seeing the look on his face. Prakesh curls his hand into a fist of his own.

  Jojo’s voice comes out of the darkness, so close that Prakesh nearly jumps. “Hey. Y-y-you… uh, awake?”

  The kid is right next to him, his mouth by his ear, but Prakesh can’t see a thing. “Yeah,” he says, keeping his voice low.

  Jojo’s stutter seems to be less prominent, as if the fact that it’s too dark to see him means he finds it easier to speak. “W-we can talk now, if y-y-you want. W-what’s it like?”

  His question catches Prakesh off guard. “What do you mean?”

  “Outside the sh-ship.”

  Prakesh tries to marshal his thoughts. It’s hard to even know where to start. “We weren’t out there long,” he says. “We got picked up by Ray and Nessa.”

  “I hate them. R-R-Ray ’ssssssspecially. So w-where are you from? I’m f-f-from Denali, up north, or I w-was before my p-p-p-” He stops, and makes two of those gulping sounds again. “Parents brought me here. Th-th-they n-named me J-Joseph, but th-they always called m-m-me Jojo. Everyone d-d-does.”

  “Where are your parents now?”

  “D-d-dead
.” He says it without regret, like it’s a simple fact, and that alone is enough to make Prakesh’s stomach clench. It’s enough to remind him of his own parents, on Outer Earth. Thinking about them is like walking on the edge of a gaping hole. He knows he’ll never see them again, but even trying to comprehend that fact is like leaning out over the hole, daring gravity to take him.

  “B-b-but I’m g-gonna get back there,” Jojo says. “My uncle st-stayed b-b-behind. He’s w-waiting fffff-for me. I know he is.”

  Prakesh nods, knowing Jojo can’t see him, but not sure what else to say.

  Jojo saves him the trouble. “So w-where are you from?”

  Prakesh takes a breath. “Outer Earth.”

  “Like the ssss-space station?” Jojo says. It’s impossible to miss the excitement in his voice.

  “That’s right.”

  “But that’s a m-m-million m-miles away! W-why did you come down here?”

  Because I unleashed a virus that destroyed the station. Because we couldn’t stop people from leaving. Because no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t do the right thing.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Prakesh says. “We’re here now, and that’s all there is.”

  Jojo pauses, as if turning this over in his mind. Prakesh takes the moment. “Jojo,” he says, leaning in closer. “How many people on this ship? How many prisoners?”

  Jojo shrugs–Prakesh can feel it, feel JoJo’s shoulders brushing his. “Th-thirty of us in the farm. M-m-m-maybe another thirty somewhere else?”

  “What about the guards?”

  “Twenty-f-f-five, I think? B-but they got all the guns and they never let us near them and th-th-they—” He stops, and takes a couple of hitching breaths.

  “How long have you been here?” Prakesh says.

  Another shrug. “A c-c-couple years. I d-d-don’t r-really know. L-lost time. But P-P-Prophet says we have to w-work for the—”

  He stops, coughing, like he hasn’t talked this much in years, and isn’t used to it. “Engine,” he says eventually, without a single hitch in the word. “The Engine.”

  “And what is the Engine?” Prakesh says.

  “W-we don’t know. It’s b-b-below decks, and they d-d-don’t l-let us go there.”

  “You’ve never been?”

  Jojo makes a negative sound. “Th-they keep their f-f-f-f-f-fuel down there, right at the bottom of the sh-sh-ship. Th-th-they won’t l-let anyone near it.” A note of excitement creeps into his voice. “One day w-w-we’re gonna burn this place down. All of it. G-go off and f-f-f-find a suh-spot of our own.”

  Prakesh hears movement–someone scrabbling across the floor in front of them. He feels hot breath on his face. “You two shut up. Shut up right now.”

  “We were just—” Prakesh says.

  The man cuts him off. “I don’t give a shit. I don’t want our rations taken away because you felt like a conversation.”

  “Hey f-f-f-f-f-” Jojo says in a harsh whisper, not quite managing to get the curse out. He swallows loudly. “I’ll talk if I w-want. Just ’cos you got n-n-nothin’ good to say…”

  He trails off. For a moment, Prakesh wonders if the other man is going to retaliate, but then the hot breath on his face vanishes and he hears the man withdrawing to the other wall.

  Jojo shifts his body a little. “F-f-fraid he’s right. We shouldn’t r-r-really be talking. I’ll s-s-s-s-s-see you tomorrow.”

  He turns away. Someone snores loudly, groaning in their sleep.

  Prakesh sits in the darkness, thinking hard. And the more he thinks the angrier he gets.

  He’s been on the edge of a long drop before, only that time it was for real. After Riley brought him the news about Resin, that it was his genetic experiments that caused it, Prakesh almost took his own life. The grief and despair was almost too much to take. He stood on the roof of the Air Lab control room, seconds away from stepping off. It was only a last-second thought that stopped him.

  He was going to save as many people as possible. It didn’t matter where they ended up, whether they stayed on the station or came to the planet below: he was going to dedicate the rest of his life to that goal. It was the only way to atone for what he’d done.

  It’s what he thought he was doing, when he helped stop Riley from destroying the Shinso Maru’s fusion reactor. Saving lives.

  But it didn’t work. Everybody he tried to help is either dead, or trapped here. His colleagues, his friends, his parents–another clench of his stomach muscles, an involuntary reaction. And Riley–gods, even the thought of what happened to Riley is enough to make him want to pound the walls, scream and roar until they come in and knock his head right off his shoulders.

  What would Riley do? If she were here right now?

  That’s when Prakesh has a thought that is as clear and sharp as the one he had on the control room roof. She’d fight. She’d do whatever it took to get to safety. She’d never give up, never, no matter how bad things got.

  As sleep finally takes him, Prakesh has time to think one last thing. He’s going to escape. No, not just escape. He’s going to do what he promised himself, and get the rest of these people off this ship.

  42

  Riley

  I put on an extra burst of speed, coming alongside Harlan as he reaches the stairs. My legs grumble, but I ignore them.

  Harlan is still shouting at Eric. “There’s a working seaplane out there, E? And you haven’t gone to check it out? Are you crazy? That’s what you’ve always wanted!”

  We’ve reached the lobby. Eric ignores us, striding right past the desk at the back, not looking at the pile of bodies stacked in the far corner. He glances up at the mezzanine, where a guard is staring into the distance, half hidden behind a pillar, his rifle held at ease on his shoulder.

  “Eric, wait up a second,” I say, aware of his short temper but not caring.

  “Jesus,” Eric mutters, not breaking stride. “Finkler!” he shouts, bellowing down the passage where Finkler has his surgery. When there’s no response, he starts striding towards it, only to be brought up short when the guard on the mezzanine speaks.

  “He ain’t there,” the guard says. “Went below.”

  Eric’s face twists in irritation. He turns on his heel, heading deeper into the hospital. “Come,” he says to me. “I’ll let Finkler look you over once more, and then you get the hell out.”

  I lag behind him and Harlan, my mind moving at light speed. I don’t have the faintest idea how I’m going to get to the seaplane, but I am damn well going to try.

  We head deeper into the hospital. It’s not until we’ve actually gone down the second flight of stairs that I realise we’re underground. It’s quiet down here, and warmer. What was it that Eric told Finkler, before the Nomads arrived? Stay up top.

  The corridor we’re in is dark, but there’s a dim glow coming from round a corner. As we turn it, I see a small door set into a dead end, with a glimmering fluorescent light above it. There are two guards outside, both wearing thick, bulky black jackets. They spring to attention when they see Eric, dropping their rifles.

  Eric nods to them, and pushes open the door.

  It’s the sound I notice first. It’s like the noise of a gallery on Outer Earth–the hum of people, the almost subsonic rumble of machines, the clanking of old metal. In the galleries, the lights were set far above the floor–here, they’re just above our heads, intensely bright. I have to squint to see.

  We’ve come out onto a small metal platform in the top corner of a huge open space. After the closed-in passages, the size of it is startling. The floor below us has been cordoned off into discrete sections: a vegetable garden here, a common area there, an enormous section with cots and mattresses scattered around it. Wood panels separate each section. A group of children sit cross-legged on the floor in one corner, with two adults showing them something on a board that’s been stuck to the wall. It’s as if the entirety of Outer Earth has been condensed down into a space around half the size of the st
ation dock.

  There’s a narrow metal stairway leading down from our platform. Eric descends, not bothering to check if we’re following.

  As we get closer to the ground, I see that the space isn’t as regular as I first thought. Jagged sections of concrete jut out of the wall, flat on top, with bent metal bars poking out of the sides like stray hairs on skin. Previous floors, perhaps, long since fallen away, opening the space up. And there’s an even stranger structure diagonally across from us: a curving ramp, also made of concrete, with a high lip around its outer edge. It rises from the floor, bending back on itself. It must have been used for vehicles, like the ones Harlan and I saw on the road.

  It stops before it reaches its highest point, ending in an explosion of metal rods. There’s a depression in the wall beyond it, what looks like an exit to the outside world, now completely bricked up.

  The moment Eric hits the floor, he’s besieged on all sides, asked a thousand questions, his input begged for, his attention needed. The people–his people–are all thin, all dressed in threadbare clothing. Plenty of them are missing hands, or arms, or legs. He has a few seconds for each one, never lingering, giving clipped, direct answers to every question thrown at him.

  Some of the people glance at me, with a few of the glances lingering longer than I’d like. I feel my face going red, a hot flush creeping under the skin. When I brought the Nomads to their door last night, I didn’t know I was risking… this.

  “They used to put cars here.”

  Harlan is standing next to me, gazing around the space with pride. “Not that there’s been a car down here for a thousand years. There used to be whole floors of ’em, just lined up next to each other. That’d be quite something, wouldn’t it?”

  I nod, more stunned than I’d like to admit. “How do the Nomads not know about this place?” I say.

  “Eric’s smart. It’s why I married him. He—”

  “Wait, you and Eric were married?”

  “Sure. Twenty years and counting.”

  He flashes me a smile. I decide not to mention the fact that Eric apparently doesn’t want him around any more.