Duran scowled. “Shut up, Feng. You’re talking too much,” he muttered to himself.
Feng took a bottle from the fridge behind him and placed it on the counter. “That’s seven creds.”
Deimona uncapped the drink and took a swig, making no attempt to pay.
“Breach Team, wait for the target to clear the store before moving in,” Duran cautioned.
Deimona place the bottle back on the counter and wiped his forearm across his mouth.
“I’m also looking to catch a little Breeze,” he said. “You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”
“Yeah, man, I got Breeze. Sure. I don’t deal it out of the store, though.” Feng laughed nervously. “I can meet you later. Say, in an hour? Over on Seventh?”
“How much you sellin’ for?”
“Uh, whatever, man. I’m sure we can work something out.”
Deimona’s eyes narrowed. “A dealer who doesn’t give a shit about the creds, huh? You in this for charity?”
Feng wiped sweat from his brow and his false smile faltered. “Nah, man–”
“You know what I think? I think you’ve got an Enforcer dick up your ass.”
The two men stared at each other, their gazes locked, bodies still. The bubbles that crept up the sides of the half-empty bottle of cola were the only things that moved in the entire store.
Duran opened his mouth to bark an order, but as he did so, Feng fumbled under the counter for the weapon he’d hidden earlier. Deimona moved like lightning, gripping a 9mm from behind his back and firing off a round in one fluid motion, sending Feng’s brains splattering across the refrigerator that sat against the back wall. Then he was gone, bashing through the door with such force that he almost knocked it off its hinges. In moments he had reunited with his crew back out in the street.
“Breach Team, go go go!” Duran yelled.
Chaos ensued as Deimona and the others tried to flee. They’d only made it a few paces before they were cut off by the Breach Team at either end of the street. There was gunfire through the video feed, and it was also loud enough to be heard outside as it echoed through the streets of Juncture Nine.
Tunks sat forward so suddenly that his belly almost knocked the monitor over.
“Is that… pulse weapons they’re packing?” he said, disbelieving, cocking his ear as he attempted to make out the distinctive sound of the weapons.
“These guys aren’t amateurs, Tunks,” Duran said. “They’ve got access to serious hardware.”
The leader of the Breach Team could now be heard through a loudspeaker.
“Deimona, you’re under arrest for illegal entry into the Reach. You are trespassing. You and those aiding and abetting you will–”
He was drowned out by more gunfire and shouts from Deimona’s crew as they tried to coordinate themselves.
“They’ll fall back, probably into Feng’s place,” Tunks said. “They’ll be trapped.”
As if to contradict him, the crew suddenly sprang up as one and sped down the street in the opposite direction to which they had come. They moved with such startling fluidity that, on the monitor, they appeared like shadows scattering under the streetlights.
“No,” Duran breathed.
There was a hail of bullets and three of the crew fell, but the others were upon the Enforcers with such speed that they caught them off guard, their pulse weapons punching through the Breach Team’s body armour, one after the other.
“They’re out,” Duran said, aghast. For the first time he felt as though he weren’t in complete control of the situation, and that thought sat like a lump of ice in his abdomen.
The gunfire was louder now, and Duran’s hand went instinctively to the .40-calibre pistol at his hip.
“They’re headed this way,” he said.
“Huh? So what?” Tunks said. “Let the Breach Team give chase.”
Duran moved to the doorway. “They’re already too far behind.”
“What? Oh, hell no,” Tunks said. “Fuck your personal crusade, Duran. I don’t care if you get your ass handed to you over this–”
Duran heard no more, already out the door and hurtling along the alleyway. He heard footsteps behind him and saw Constable Symes following on his heels, his sidearm clutched in his fist. He looked as though he wasn’t exactly sure what to do with it.
“Stay in the command centre,” Duran said. “I’ve got this.”
“No, I’m with you,” Symes said bravely. “All the way.”
Duran nodded and waved for him to follow.
They don’t get past, Duran thought. Whatever happens, they don’t get past. I’m finished if they do. I won’t survive another embarrassment like the Atrium.
He could hear the footsteps of Deimona and the others approaching and positioned himself on the corner of the alleyway. Duran signalled silently for Symes to take the next one along, figuring they might split up. Much to Duran’s chagrin, Symes trotted over to the alleyway and then turned into it, disappearing out of sight moments later.
“Find cover,” Duran hissed, but the constable was gone.
There was no time to go after him. The fugitives were already in the alley. Duran edged back, watching surreptitiously as the men approached. There were two that he could see, running right at him at full tilt.
Duran waited for the right moment, that split second when their cover on either side was most sparse. Another five steps. Three. Two. Then he swivelled and brought up the .40-cal.
The first shot took one of the men in the shoulder, and the second shot punched through his chest. The other man tried to find concealment, but another shot from Duran shattered his ankle. He screamed in pain and began firing indiscriminately. Part of the wall next to Duran was pulverised into dust by a pulse round, and the spray of grit splashed across Duran’s face and caught in his eyes.
Duran dropped to one knee, taking an instant to steady himself as more pulse rounds detonated all around him like cannonballs. He squeezed the heel of his palm across one eye to clear his vision.
He pulled the trigger, and the shot collected the fugitive in the neck. The man fell backward with a shout and then lay silent and still.
Duran started forward cautiously, aware that one or both of them might have been foxing, but he soon found that they weren’t. Both were dead.
Deimona was not there.
There were shots fired in the next alley, and Duran cursed, sprinting back the way he had come. After a brief exchange, everything went silent again, and as Duran reached the place where Symes had disappeared, he pressed against the wall. He could see no movement in the alley at all.
With the .40-cal held in two hands at his side, Duran began to creep forward.
Above, frightened faces began to appear in the apartment windows. Some lingered, eager to witness the action, while others disappeared almost as suddenly as they had come, switching off lights or drawing curtains to avoid bringing unwanted attention upon themselves. Duran kept his attention on the alleyway, but there was still no sign of movement before him.
Then he heard something. A scuffling sound, a grunt of exertion. Something sliding.
A body being dragged? he wondered.
Duran continued to place one foot after the other, and now his .40-cal had risen to a forty-five degree angle from the ground. He was ready to take the shot. He just needed the target to appear.
He rounded a dumpster and saw the body slumped against the wall, unmoving. Even in the dim light there was no doubt about the identity of the person who lay there.
Symes.
Duran edged forward and pressed his fingers to Symes’ neck. There was no pulse. Looking down he could see a ragged, wet tear in Symes’ chest where the pulse weapon had chewed through clothing and flesh and bone.
You’re in safe hands.
“I’m sorry, kid,” was all he could say.
Duran got back to his feet, reeling. Where was the killer? Where was Deimona? Had he backtracked along the alley and
headed back toward Feng’s?
Duran heard that scuffling sound again and then a muffled scream from above. Looking up, he could see the terrified face of one of the citizens at their window, and not far away the form of a man scaling the wall. As the light from the apartment fell across him, Duran saw the unmistakable dragon tattoos on the man’s arm. Deimona.
Duran brought up his weapon, but Deimona reached the roof and swung out of sight before he could take the shot.
Damn! What is this guy? Part mountain goat?
Duran got moving again. He ran at full speed, one eye on the path before him and the other on the rooftops. He saw Deimona leap between buildings, his powerful and muscular form bridging the distances with seeming effortlessness. Duran knew that he would lose him if he stayed at ground level, so he burst through the door of the next building he came to, past a startled cleaning woman with a blue handkerchief tied around her hair, up the stairs to the first floor. His strides only got longer, and on the second floor a wide-eyed old man hobbled so quickly back inside his apartment that he almost fell over.
The third floor went past, then the fourth. Duran’s lungs were about to explode.
He reached the exit to the roof and plunged through the doorway, spotting Deimona two buildings over, striding out and about to make another jump.
He was too fast, too powerful, and Duran was breathing heavily from the climb. He’d never catch him.
Duran dropped to one knee, brought up his .40-cal and steadied himself, one eye squeezed shut.
I’m finished if this guy gets away.
He couldn’t make this shot. It was an impossible shot. There was no way…
Deimona jumped and Duran’s gun snarled. The fugitive cried out, spinning and twisting in the air, and then he dropped out of sight as the echoing sound of the gunshot disappeared into the distance.
Duran choked back his own sense of surprise and disbelief. Had he actually just seen that? Had he actually just knocked Deimona out of the air like a clay pigeon at a shooting competition?
He scampered back down through the building and over to the street where Deimona had fallen, wondering what he would find. Surely it had been a ruse, a clever ploy by Deimona to throw Duran off his track.
Deimona had probably doubled back and already disappeared into the gloom, leaving Duran to chase after this red herring.
But sure enough, when Duran reached the spot he found the man with the tattooed arms lying there on the asphalt surrounded by a pool of blood. Wary citizens of Juncture Nine were beginning to appear in their doorways, curious now that the furore seemed to have quietened down, their faces peeking out from yellow cracks and over the lips of windowsills as they craned their necks for a better view of the carnage.
Duran stood over Deimona’s body and checked for a pulse, but he was dead. It was over. In the half-light he could see a wet patch, a gunshot wound in Deimona’s chest.
“Right through the goddamn heart,” Duran said, dazed. He glanced down at the pistol in his hand as if it were a magic wand, an enigma whose power he’d been blind to until now.
He’d been saved by a miracle.
Maybe this is the turning point for Alec Duran, he thought, allowing himself to feel a tiny bud of hope. In moments it began to blossom, the self-confidence that he’d owned so long ago grudgingly reawakening inside of him. The kind of confidence he’d found in such abundance before things had gone bad at the Atrium.
People began to crowd around and Duran holstered his weapon.
“You bastards are never going to give up, are you?” he said quietly to the dead man. “So how do I stop you all?” There was no response from Deimona, no movement of his sightless eyes.
Duran already knew the answer.
One at a time.
10
The dirigible skimmed across the sky so low that the ropes that hung from its underbelly almost touched the rooftops on the buildings below. Knile glanced up as its bloated shadow drifted across the street. It was close enough for him to make out the faces of one or two of the occupants as they leaned out of the gondola and looked down on the city beneath them. With dread Knile realised that one of them was a child younger than Roman, an innocent floating toward the unforgiving defences around the Reach. Toward destruction.
Turn back, he thought. Turn back now while you still can.
But the dirigible continued on its path, an inexorable curve that would lead it toward the towering monument in the distance.
Down on the street, the convoy was making good progress. Knile gripped tighter on the wooden handle as he helped pull a cart laden with produce, trying his best to concentrate on the task at hand. It wasn’t easy. There was a knot in his stomach as he thought about approaching the gate that lay at the bottom of the Reach, a feeling that he was rushing things, that he wasn’t prepared. That was true, of course, but there had been no other choice. This opportunity had come upon him so suddenly, offering salvation should he choose the right path and destruction should he not. He had to rely on his ability to improvise if he was going to make it through to the end.
As such, he couldn’t decide if each plodding step along the asphalt was bringing him closer to freedom or closer to death.
To his left, Roman shuffled along with a handle tucked under his arm, doing his best to shoulder his end of the load. It was not by chance that Knile had ended up beside him – he’d sought the boy out when assuming his place – but Roman had maintained a stoic silence for the duration of the journey, failing to acknowledge that Knile was even there.
Knile had considered a dozen ways of apologising during the journey, imagining ways he could smooth things over with Roman, but up to this point he had held his tongue. All of the excuses he’d come up with sounded weak before they’d even left his mouth. If he couldn’t even accept them himself, how could he expect the boy to do so?
Instead, he decided to talk. Not to beg forgiveness or make up stories about why he hadn’t been around. Just talk.
“Did you know it was once a military installation?” he began. “The Reach.” He looked over at Roman, but the boy kept his eyes on the road ahead. “That’s how it started. Probably why it’s so ugly, too. It was built to be functional, not for the aesthetics. Over the years there were parts taken off, and others added on, and that’s why it looks the way it does. All lumpy and asymmetrical, like they didn’t have a clue what they were doing.”
Roman wiped sweat from his brow but gave no indication he was listening. Knile went on.
“Don’t let looks fool you, though. It’s quite the piece of engineering. They had to develop a new kind of alloy just to make it strong enough to stand up under its own immense weight. The tallest man-made structure ever built, back in the grand old days of progress.
“The military used the Reach not only as a way of getting personnel and equipment into space, but also as a kind of city. Infantry, officers and support staff and their families lived inside. There were residential levels, industrial levels where weapons and spacecraft were assembled, greenhouses for growing food, manufacturing plants, you name it.
“Of course, with the breakdown of society and the colonisation of other worlds, the military gradually left. Did you know that, once, there were almost fifty space elevators in operation across the globe? When fossil fuels dried up, so did the rocket fuel, and elevators became the preferred way of getting things into space. When they eventually stopped building grav-buster spacecraft, the elevators became the only way to get into space. Those elevators worked day and night ferrying people off the planet. One by one over the years the elevators were all shut down or destroyed, and now there’s none left at all, apart from this big ugly joint, the place we call the Reach. Figures that it would be the last, since it was built stronger than a brick shithouse. It wasn’t built for commerce, like the others. It was built to be defensible.
“That’s not its real name, by the way. ‘The Reach’ is just a nickname. The military called it–”
“I don’t care,” Roman said finally. He glared at Knile. “You can keep talking the whole way there, if you like. I’m not listening.”
Knile grimaced. “It’s a long way there. I don’t know if I can talk that long.”
“You’re doing a good job so far.”
“C’mon. Don’t leave me hangin’, Roman.”
“I’m trying to do a job here.”
Knile glanced back at the heavily laden cart behind them. It had been covered in thin, stretchy fabric that protected it from the harsh conditions outside Grove.
“You can’t talk and pull at the same time?” Knile said. Roman turned his attention back to the road. Knile was about to say more, but then decided to give it a rest. He wasn’t getting anywhere.
Knile looked at the faces around them on the street, and it was apparent that these people were very much aware of the cargo being hauled past them. They watched the convoy with a kind of lust, a deep longing that was fueled by their hunger and their discontentment with eating sludge every day instead of real food.
Knile felt both pity for them and, at the same time, a vague sense of unease. Desperate folk could be dangerous and unpredictable. While it was unlikely the people of Link would risk being cast out into the slums for causing unrest, Knile was suddenly thankful for the security detail.
“I just hope we don’t get eaten before we get there,” Knile muttered, turning away from the gaze of one particularly wild-eyed woman.
“We don’t get trouble,” Roman said. “Not with the guns along for the ride.”
“Good to know.” Knile decided to see if he could squeeze a few more words out of the boy, inclining his head in the direction of the Reach. “So what happens once we get there, anyway?”
“We take the merch through to the transfer station and unload it. Little Gus normally does the deal, makes sure the creds land in Giroux’s account, and then we load up the supplies being sent back to Grove and get out of there.”
“Little Gus?”
Roman pointed to the front of the convoy where a short man with a clipboard walked beside one of the carts.
Earthbound (The Reach, Book 1) Page 8