“I know how it works,” Knile said curtly. “Anything else?”
Fallon shrugged. “Maybe a tip?”
In answer, Knile swivelled and began to walk away.
“How about a thank you?” Fallon called after him. “A nod of gratitude?”
Knile waited in the shadows as the door closed. He heard Fallon engage the locks again, and as the man’s footsteps receded back inside the apartment Knile began to creep along the nearest wall. With the clock running, he’d need to find a way of getting deeper within the city as soon as possible.
There was no time to rest. He had a lot to do in a short amount of time.
Forgoing stealth for a moment, Knile stepped out from under the eaves and into the middle of the street, looking out across the expanse of the city ahead. Soaring into the night sky and dwarfing everything around it, a great edifice of curved black steel rose up like a mountain in the distance, stretching kilometres upward into the heavens. Dotted by a thousand pinpricks of light, it was so vast that it seemed to cast a shadow across the city even in the dark of evening.
A thing to evoke both awe and trepidation, it filled Knile with conflicting emotions. Not only was it his hope and his salvation, but it was the refuge of his darkest memories as well.
It was the last place he had seen Mianda alive.
The last way off this dying world.
They called it the Reach.
2
The outer edges of the city, the area collectively known as the slums, were not unfamiliar to Knile. Before escaping to the lowlands he’d spent many years living here, scratching out a lowly existence as he dreamed of something more. Within these streets he’d made a lot of allies, as well as a lot of enemies, but he doubted there were many of those left on either side. The slums churned through people fast – inhabitants either died of starvation or from exposure to toxins, were murdered for their possessions, or somehow got past the wall that led to the inner city of Link. There were only the odd few, like Fallon, who carved out an existence here on a more permanent basis.
Knile stood for a moment in the street, staring up at the sky. The Reach was like a giant magnet, he thought, thrusting out from the earth, cold and hard and uncaring. Dragged toward it from all directions were the detritus of humanity, the few people that still inhabited the planet bunching up against its walls like flotsam from a far-distant tide. The Reach stood like a beacon of hope, a seductive and mesmerising vision that made promises of freedom to all those who would look upon it.
For all but a few, those promises were left unfulfilled.
As Knile watched, a searchlight swept out from the Reach and waved back and forth, falling upon the luminous outline of a dirigible that hung in the sky like a pale, bloated tick. It lingered there for a few moments before winking out again, and the dirigible was once more lost against the black sky.
“Idiots,” Knile muttered, shaking his head.
There was another explosion in the distance, and with that he decided to get moving. There was no law out here, no sanctuary, and the gangs that had formed amid the chaos spent most of their time trying to destroy each other as they attempted to climb an imaginary hierarchy. Their tussles with each other were frequent, their battles for supremacy a never-ending cycle.
The truth of it was, they were all equal out here. They were all nothing.
Forty-six hours, twenty minutes.
That wasn’t much time. Not to make it to the top of the Reach.
How much had changed, Knile wondered, since the last time he’d been there? How much of his knowledge of the slums, of Link and its inner workings was still relevant?
It doesn’t matter. First things first. Get through the wall and into Link. Get out of the slums.
Despite the excitement that this chance to escape had stirred in him, there was a horrible sense of disappointment gnawing at Knile’s insides. He was still thinking about Mianda. The chances of her still being alive had been so remote that it bordered on the impossible, and yet he couldn’t let himself believe that she was really gone. There was a tiny voice in the back of his mind that told him she was still out there, that they could one day be together again.
The same voice told him that maybe he would find her somewhere up there. Somewhere in the Reach. That there still might be a chance for them.
Let it go. She’s dead.
Footsteps approached from a side street, and Knile felt sudden panic surge within him. He pressed against a hollow in the wall beside him. It was not a great hiding place, but the best he could manage at short notice. His nerves jangled in preparation for flight, aware that he would be left with no other option should his disguise prove too flimsy.
The footsteps grew louder, and then a group of about a dozen appeared and came walking toward him. In the darkened confines of the hollow he seemed to have escaped their notice for now. They refrained from making loud noises, showing some measure of discretion, but there was a confident air about them as they moved along. They chatted and giggled amongst themselves, their voices muted further by their respirators. Their posture held none of the stiffness Knile had seen from others earlier.
Strength in numbers, he thought.
If they saw him, he suspected they would probably bash him and search him for valuables. That was the best scenario.
In reality they might do something much worse.
Knile edged further back into the hollow, tried to make himself invisible. In the dim light he could see the vague outline of tattoos on the right arms of the passers-by, which he suspected might be the brandings of their gang. As they neared, a woman with dreadlocks and a teardrop tattoo under one eye glanced in his direction, and for a moment his heart stopped. Knile involuntarily held his breath and pressed his back harder against the wall, wishing he could melt into it. The gaze of the woman was hard and cold above the piece of cloth wrapped about her face as a makeshift respirator.
Then she looked away and continued on with the others, never faltering or breaking stride. He could only assume she hadn’t seen him. People who wandered the slums at night weren’t in the habit of doling out lenience to lone travellers.
It was good to know he could still find the shadows when he needed them.
The gang disappeared around a bend and Knile remembered to breathe again. He let the air in his lungs trickle out silently between his lips before slowly drawing in another gasp. He dug into his nostrils and pulled out the tiny cones that filtered the gunk out of the air. Right at that moment they felt more like a hindrance to his breathing than a help.
Knile slowly eased forward, stepping cautiously out into the street. He placed the respirators back inside his nostrils. As he moved along, he used his knowledge of the backstreets to keep out of the better-travelled roads, and as a result his encounters with other people were few. In a little over two hours he came upon the wall that surrounded Link. It rose up several storeys high, an imposing mass of steel and concrete with a diameter of several kilometres that surrounded the Reach, drawing the line between Link and the slums.
The line between hope and despair, Knile thought. Or between despair and even deeper despair.
He found concealment under the staircase of an old apartment block and observed the checkpoint, an archway cut into the wall, from a short distance away. At this time of night there was not a lot of traffic moving through. There were men dressed in black gathered around the arch, members of a group known as Enforcers, the equivalent to lawmen in these troubled times. They stood idly against the ramparts with their rifles slung over their shoulders, talking and laughing as if they had not a care in the world. As he watched, Knile saw a woman hobbling forward uncertainly toward the archway, her hand outstretched. The Enforcers simply waved at her, dismissing her as if they were swatting away a fly, but when she kept moving forward, one of them roused himself and strode over to her, grabbing her roughly by the wrist. He brought up a scanner and waved it across her fingertips in search of identification, but the proc
edure evidently came up empty, for he then gripped her shoulder and turned her away. He gave her a second shove for good measure that made her stumble and almost fall.
“You come back again and we won’t be so gentle,” he called out.
No one got through the checkpoint without the proper ID chip embedded in their skin. Knile knew that as well as anyone. Trying to scale or break through the wall was also out of the question. It was too well guarded for that.
There wasn’t time to arrange a fake chip. That could take days, or even weeks, since the contacts Knile had once established here were most likely gone.
That left him with only one other option.
Knile got up and began to walk confidently toward the archway. He let his boots ring out on the asphalt, no longer making any attempt to hide his presence. He quickened his pace, walking faster now. Then he began to run.
Knile pumped his arms and set his face in determination, striding out as he closed in rapidly on the checkpoint. He counted six, seven Enforcers. Maybe eight. One by one their conversations came to a stilted halt and they turned in his direction.
He must have looked like a madman careening at them.
He did not relent, and even quickened his pace as he came closer.
He bore down on them now, close enough to see the expressions on their faces: surprise, confusion, disbelief. They were not used to being approached like this. Not by someone from the slums. They demanded fear and respect from those outside the walls, and they almost always got it.
“Slow down!” one of them yelled through his respirator, finally reacting and bringing up his rifle in Knile’s direction. Others followed his lead and did the same, training their sights onto Knile like a firing squad. Knile took a few more steps before slowing his pace and coming to a stop a few paces before them, breathless.
“Did she come through here?” Knile shouted, doubling over.
The Enforcers looked at each other, confused.
“Huh?” one of them said.
“The whore! Goes by the name of Sienna.” Knile straightened. “At least, that’s what she called herself last week. Might be Candy.”
One of the Enforcers stepped forward, a tubby man with an old-fashioned and bulky respirator.
“You better start making sense, dipshit.”
“Listen,” Knile said urgently, still trying to regain his breath, “and pay attention to what I’m telling you. One of my girls, goes by the name of Sienna, or might be Candy or Lizzy, is on her way into Link right now. To your barracks.”
The Enforcer shrugged and gave a nervous laugh. “Good for her.”
“Good for her?” Knile practically shouted, feigning hysteria. “Good for her?” He laughed. “You know she’s a time bomb, right?”
“What are you talking about?” the tubby Enforcer said.
“She’s got Sailor’s Scratch, man. Got a real bad case of it. I told her to stay off the streets for a week till it goes away, but the bitch is crazy for the creds. Said she needs the cash. She got out.” Knile shook his head. “You turn your head for one second–”
“What the fuck is Sailor’s Scratch?” the Enforcer said.
Knile pursed his lips and tapped on his chin. “Well, let me put it this way, man. If she gives a couple of your buddies over in the barracks a special ‘lap dance’ tonight, they’re gonna wake up tomorrow with a rash so bad they won’t be able to sit down for a week.”
One of the other Enforcers cursed.
“Yeah,” Knile went on. “Highly contagious, too. You’ll all have it by the end of the week, most likely.”
“Dammit, why didn’t you say that?” the tubby Enforcer said, exasperated. He stepped aside. “Go and get her back!”
“Sure, sure,” Knile said, starting forward, but another of the Enforcers, tall and burly, stepped up and placed a hand on Knile’s chest.
“ID,” the Enforcer said. “You’ve gotta have a work pass to get in here, just like your whores.”
Knile grimaced up at him. “Don’t have one.”
“Why not?”
Knile laughed. “Do I look like a whore? That’s not my thing, man. I make my living out here in the slums. Never applied for a work pass. Never needed it till now.”
The Enforcer’s eyes were steely. “Then you don’t go through.”
“Fuck it, I’ll go,” the tubby Enforcer said, his voice bubbling with panic just under the surface. “What does she look like?”
Knile considered. “Uh, kinda dirty blonde with fair skin. About an average rack. Brown eyes. Or might be hazel, not sure.” Knile shrugged. “I’m not big on details, as long as they’re bringing in the creds, if y’know what I mean.” He winked lasciviously.
“Well, that’s like finding a needle in a haystack,” Tubby said. “You said her name was Senner?”
“Sienna. Or Candy, or might be Lizzy. She has a few names. Real creative, this one–”
“Shut up.” The tubby Enforcer pressed his hand to his temple, his irritation growing by the second. “All right, I’ll give you an escort and you can point her out.” He waved at Knile. “But this won’t happen again.”
Knile made no attempt to follow.
“Come on, move it,” Tubby said.
Knile looked wistfully over his shoulder. “Shit, man, I’ve gotta get back to my girls–”
“I said move it!” Tubby bellowed. He grabbed Knile by the arm and began to drag him through the archway as the other Enforcers looked on. They began to cluster together, whispering to each other in concern.
“Hey, is that the one you hit last night?” one said.
“Shit, I hope not, man. Although I haven’t felt quite right down there today…”
The rest of the conversation was lost as Knile was dragged past the checkpoint and into the inner precinct of Link.
“This is bullshit,” Tubby was saying angrily. “Your girls could have their passes revoked because of this. All of them.”
“Aw, c’mon, man. It’s one slip-up. I really need this.”
The buildings within Link were in better condition than out in the slums, but even here the poverty was evident. People were still doing it tough. Plants were becoming harder to grow due to the worsening pollution, and the maintenance of the city was starting to slip.
People hurried about the streets, the fear and desperation that permeated every inch of the slums greatly lessened. But looking into the eyes of passers-by, seeing their posture and their demeanour, it was evident that, even here, things were not going well.
“The barracks are about a block away,” Tubby said, striding on ahead with such an effort that he’d adopted a kind of waddle. “For your sake, I hope there’s been no damage done.”
“Hey, me too, man. Me too.” They bustled through a crowd of workers in overalls coming from the other direction, their faces streaked with dirt and grease after a long day. “This kind of shit is bad for business.”
“Bad for business, hah!” Tubby scoffed. “If I end up with a rash on my balls, I’m gonna personally come and find the rat hole you live in and kick your ass.” He shimmied out the way of more people coming in the opposite direction, cursing at the delay. “Hey, what’s your name, anyway?” he said, turning, but then he stopped dead.
Knile was nowhere to be seen.
3
Link was the remains of a once sprawling city whose name had long been discarded. Oddly, there were more people living here now than in the city’s heyday. They crowded in for one reason only – because at the centre of this cluster of low-rise apartments and factories stood the most important building on Earth – the Reach.
The streets of Link were familiar to Knile, just as those in the slums were, but there were more changes here inside the wall. Blockades had been erected in several places, channelling the flow of human traffic through more checkpoints and away from places Knile could only assume had been deemed off-limits by the Enforcers. He became mildly irritated after confronting the first one, exasperated after
the second, and infuriated after the third.
“Seriously?” he muttered to himself, hunkering down at the edge of an alley as he observed the Enforcers ahead. They stood around the blockade, listless and seemingly disinterested in their duty.
Knile checked his watch, then cast his gaze to the sky. Dawn was coming. That was bad news for a couple of reasons. Firstly, he was behind schedule. All of this backtracking, hiding and rerouting due to the blockades had sucked away more time than he’d realised. Secondly, his greatest ally, the darkness, was ebbing away. His ability to mask his movements was going to become that much more difficult once the sun rose.
Knile’s first destination was not much further past this blockade. It would do no good to backtrack again, since he’d just end up having to come back this way in any case. There had to be a way past it.
He immediately ruled out talking his way through. After his stunt at the wall, he had no doubt there would be an alert out for someone fitting his description. Most Enforcers were stupid and lazy, but not that stupid and lazy. They’d be onto him if he tried it again.
There was something in his favour at this blockade, however, that had not been there at the wall – the nature of his surroundings. Here he could climb and disguise his passage much more effectively by using the buildings that bordered the blockade. They offered footholds and openings that were simply not present in a solid vertical monolith like the wall.
Without waiting to consider further, he turned and got moving.
The first step was perhaps the hardest. In order to reach the old fire escape that hung along the wall of the alley, Knile had to first mount a dumpster and then edge his way precariously along, dangling from a thin metal pipe. It had detached from the wall at some point in the past, and now it wobbled disconcertingly as he progressed along its length. As he neared the fire escape, the pipe pivoted back toward the brickwork, and Knile’s fingers were jammed painfully between the two. He stifled a scream of pain, biting his lip as he pulled his fingers free.
Earthbound (The Reach, Book 1) Page 2