Earthbound (The Reach, Book 1)

by Mark R. Healy

  “He’s one of Giroux’s inner circle. Good guy.”

  “I don’t think I remember him,” Knile said.

  “A lot’s changed since you were away, Knile. You can’t seem to grasp that.”

  Knile sensed the bitterness in Roman’s tone. “Guess I need to open my eyes, right?”

  “Might help.”

  “Well, now that you mention it, I can see a few things that are different about you, Roman. You were only about nine or ten when I left, and now you’re this tall, gangly teenager.” Knile reached across and tweaked Roman’s bicep playfully. “You’ve even grown some good cart-pullin’ muscles there.”

  “I’m not just a taller version of the kid you left behind.”

  Knile flinched inwardly at the bluntness of Roman’s words.

  “I know that.”

  “How would you know that, Knile?”

  “Roman, I–”

  “Look, just save it,” Roman said evenly. His anger seemed to have subsided, replaced by a pensiveness that belied his age. “I don’t want apologies. I don’t want to hear you say you’re sorry a hundred times. That won’t change anything. You taught me a lot of lessons out here in these streets. You taught me how to put together a filtration unit, how to solder old expansion boards to make something work, and, when all that failed, how to steal and evade the Enforcers. You and Talia and the others taught me how to survive. And I guess the final lesson you taught me was that we really are in this alone, that I can’t rely on anyone else to get me through life. I have to stand on my own two feet.”

  Knile kicked a stone with his boot, all too aware of the desolation that hid behind those words.

  “That’s really not a lesson I meant to teach you, Roman. Not that way.”

  “But it’s one that we all have to learn, just the same.”

  “Not like that. No one should have to learn it like that.”

  Knile looked away. He was beginning to regret his attempt to reconnect with Roman. Perhaps he would have been better off leaving the past undisturbed instead of blundering in with his ham-fisted apologies, knocking away scabs and leaving the wounds raw once again. And now here he was with the boy finally opening up, just as Knile had planned, but he wasn’t liking anything he was hearing. Not one bit.

  “Dumb shit,” he cursed to himself under his breath.

  On the edge of the road the hungry people continued to watch the convoy go past, some glancing up from their tasks and their conversations, vaguely interested, others standing stock still and watching the food-laden carts trundle past as if they’d been hypnotised. One man, wearing a dusty black coat and hat, glanced up at Knile and then quickly averted his eyes again, fiddling absently with what looked like a deck of cards in his hands.

  “Anyway, I learned those lessons well,” Roman went on. “So well that I’ve even found a way out of this life.”

  “Oh?” Knile said. “Where are you going?”

  “I’m headed off-world.”

  Knile waited for the punchline, but there was none forthcoming. The expression on Roman’s face suggested he was deadly serious.

  “Huh?” Knile said, flabbergasted.

  “I’m getting out of here. I’m going to one of the colonies. Maybe one of the Jupiter ones.”

  “What are you talking about, Roman? Is Giroux helping you out?”

  “No, Giroux can’t help,” Roman said. “I found my own way.”

  “Which is?”

  “I’ve been on a bunch of these convoys now. Maybe twenty or thirty in the last couple of years. I’ve kept my eyes and my ears open whenever I’m in the Reach, just like you taught me.”

  Knile was beginning to wonder if Roman was about to embark on some sort of suicide mission, and the very thought of it made him queasy.

  “I don’t like where this is going,” Knile said.

  “Keep it in your pants, Knile. Relax. I made it into the Candidate program.”

  Knile shrugged, dumbfounded. “What the hell is the Candidate program?”

  “Well, I saw these kids about my age wandering around in blue uniforms near the transfer station one day. They were doing little odd jobs – carrying stuff, escorting people to elevators, that kind of thing. Saw them at least two or three times before I worked up the courage to ask one of them what they were doing. The kid told me he was a Candidate. Turns out these kids in blue are chosen to jump the queue and head off-world. They’re the brightest and best of those that are left here on Earth.”

  “So how did you end up in this program, then?”

  “The only way to get into the program is by taking an aptitude test. I got to know Mr. Honeybul on a few of my visits–”

  “Mr. Honeybul?”

  “He’s the administrator of the program. So after he got to know me, he agreed to let me take an aptitude test. Said it was not something he’d usually do, but… I guess I got lucky.”

  “So you passed?”

  “With flying colours. Mr. Honeybul said it was one of the best results he’d ever seen.”

  “Well, that’s great,” Knile said, feeling genuine relief. He felt as though a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders. “Why aren’t you there now?”

  Roman shrugged. “Mr. Honeybul has to pull a few strings to get me certified for residence in the Reach. It was going to happen last week, but there were delays. It’ll happen soon enough.”

  “It’s weird,” Knile said. “I know the Reach inside out, but I’ve never heard of this program until now.”

  “You said yourself that you’ve been away a few years.”

  “Yeah, I guess. Anyway, I’m really proud of you, man,” Knile said, reaching across and ruffling Roman’s hair. The boy seemed genuinely pleased by the praise and blushed accordingly.

  Knile laughed and, relaxing, his eyes drifted to the street beyond. His gaze fell upon another man in a coat looking surreptitiously at the convoy, ostensibly focussed on filling a bucket with murky brown water from a well. To the casual observer there was nothing much to see, but Knile sensed otherwise. The subtleties in this man’s behaviour, coupled with the demeanour of the man with the deck of cards, practically shouted at Knile that something was wrong.

  “Something’s about to go down,” he said quietly, and Roman was instantly alert. The boy had learned to listen for that warning note in Knile’s voice, an understanding that had meant the difference between life and death on more than one occasion. Their years apart had not dulled his sensitivity in the slightest. For Roman, it was something so ingrained that it had become second nature.

  “Where?” Roman whispered.

  “Just get ready,” Knile said. “When it happens, get under the cart.”

  “The guards,” Roman said, nodding to the men carrying weapons in a close perimeter around the convoy. “They’ll take care of it.”

  “Don’t count on it.”

  Knile saw another man weaving his way through the crowd up ahead, brow shiny with sweat, eyes flitting across the crowd nervously, then two more from another direction.

  Here it comes.

  Knile turned to the nearest guard a few paces away.

  “We’ve got a problem here,” he said.

  The guard took a moment to realise that Knile was addressing him.

  “Huh? No stopping. No coffee breaks. You know how it works.”

  “No, not that. Look around you.”

  “Hey, who are you, anyway?” the guard said, stepping closer. “I don’t think I’ve–”

  There was a blur of movement behind the guard, and suddenly the side of his face came apart as an assailant raked an axe across his head. There was a scream from the crowd and Knile spun instinctively, pressing his hand down on Roman’s shoulder and shoving him under the cart.

  “Stay down!” he bellowed, then turned back to the street. Knile almost tripped over the guard, who lay unmoving on the cracked asphalt with a crimson pool already spreading around his head. People on the edges of the road suddenly scattered a
mid terrified cries. Knile edged toward the body, hoping to find the guard’s rifle on the ground, but then he saw the assailant raising the gun toward him only a few paces away. Knile lurched behind the cart as the weapon roared, and he only narrowly avoided the round. He landed heavily on the road, banging his chin painfully and scraping his knuckles.

  Then all hell broke loose.

  The guards responded, opening fire on the assailant and peppering him with rounds in the chest and neck. He was knocked off his feet before he could return fire and fell to the ground, dead.

  From the corner of his eye Knile saw the other assailants moving in. As the commoners fled, the cover of the attackers slipped away and they were left starkly exposed, but by now they had abandoned any pretence of subterfuge. They zeroed in on the guards like vultures, their makeshift blades and clubs striking necks and arms and legs, anything that might be open to attack. Three of the guards fell almost instantly and were hacked and bashed as they lay on the ground. One of the guards began to shout orders and the others dropped back, closer to the carts as they attempted to rally.

  Other commoners, emboldened by the confusion, began to scamper forward as they tried to pilfer the goods that lay under the protective covering on the carts. There were warning shouts from the guards, but these seemed to fall on deaf ears. Then one of the thieves was shot dead, bullets tearing at his head and neck, and the others scattered like startled rats.

  Knile knew it wouldn’t be long until they’d be back.

  One of the gardeners fell next to Knile, gaping wounds in his shoulder and chest. He made a piteous moaning sound as he reached out to Knile for help. Knile clasped his hand and began to pull him under the cart, but by the time he had drawn him closer the man’s eyes had become sightless, his life having already fled his body.

  Knile checked on Roman, and, finding the boy still huddled under the cart, stuck his head up to see if he could find a way out of this mess. Some of the guards had found cover by the carts, while others grappled hand to hand with the assailants. As he watched he saw something small and shiny arc through the air and land near the cart at the rear of the convoy.

  “Get down!” he screamed, but his words were lost in the pandemonium.

  The explosive detonated and the cart bucked into the air before dropping back down again. It sat there keeling to one side like a sinking boat. Two of the guards who had been hunkered down beside it were tossed aside and lay rolling around on the ground in agony, blood spilling from wounds in their legs and torsos.

  “We have to get out of here!” Knile yelled at the nearest guard, but the man ignored him as he took a shot at a man rushing toward him.

  “We don’t abandon the convoy,” Roman said, glaring up at Knile.

  “Listen to me, Roman. If we stay here, we die.”

  “You can run if you want,” the boy said. “You’ll be the only one.”

  Knile cursed and raised his head again. The commoners were edging forward once more as they probed for an opportunity to reach the carts. He knew that he couldn’t leave Roman stranded here, but by the same token, he knew that they would be sitting ducks out here in the street. Sooner or later the sheer weight of numbers against them would overpower them. These people had been overcome by a kind of bloodlust now that the convoy was in disarray and they wouldn’t stop until they got what they wanted.

  Casting his eye across the line of carts, Knile suddenly had an idea.

  He moved into a crouch and sprang out from behind the cart, keeping low and moving toward the back of the convoy. He passed the first guard, squirming around both him and the Grove gardeners huddled there, then continued on past the second. Suddenly he sensed movement behind him and swivelled instinctively, his hand snaking out and grasping the wrist of an assailant, the shiv blade caught just centimetres from his ribs. Knile swung his fist in counter-attack but stopped short.

  The boy couldn’t have been older than eight or nine. He was emaciated and pale, his face covered in dirt, and as Knile locked gazes with him, he could see there was a terrible resignation in the boy’s eyes, like he knew that he was about to die but was beyond feeling any kind of fear or desperation. It was almost as if he welcomed the thought of it.

  Looking down at him, Knile felt a moment of hatred. Not for the boy, but for the world itself, that it had become the kind of place where a boy such as this could exist.

  Knile twisted sharply and shiv clattered to the asphalt. He released the boy’s wrist and simply nodded, and the boy scurried off into a nearby alley without looking back.

  Knile knew that the time for caution was over.

  He ran full pelt, past the startled guards to the rear of the convoy, straight at the cart at the back of the line. One of its wheels had been blown off in the explosion, and Knile drove in at the high side, slamming his shoulder into the frame while jamming one arm under the good wheel and lifting with all his might. He roared with the exertion, his boots slipping on the asphalt as he braced himself, and then the cart edged upward. The added leverage allowed him to get his shoulder underneath it and he drove upward with his legs. The cart hung upright for the briefest moment, then toppled over with a loud crash.

  Fruit, vegetables and herbs cascaded from the tray and tumbled across the asphalt, an avalanche of green and red and yellow.

  Time seemed to stop. Those who had been fighting turned their heads and stared, immobilised by the spectacle. The screams of men and clatter of combat abated and an odd silence descended on the street. Knile felt like the eye of the storm had just passed over him.

  Then things began to move again in a hurry. Commoners ran forward from all directions, and the assailants themselves broke off their fighting as they joined in the mad scramble for food. Knile got out of there quickly, not wanting to be swallowed up in the rush. There were already screams and cries of anger as people were trampled and pushed out of the way. He made it back to his cart and hauled Roman unceremoniously out from under it.

  “Pull!” he cried. “Pull with everything you’ve got.”

  The other gardeners reacted slowly, emerging from cover as if in a daze, but they quickly followed Knile’s example, gripping their carts and straining forward as the hungry masses flocked to the spillage behind them. The convoy guards grouped together in a loose knot and jogged along at the rear, keeping watch behind, and several also put their shoulders to the carts to help quicken the pace.

  Ahead, the Reach awaited them.

  11

  Knile’s mouth was dry and his throat felt like it was on fire, but he did not relent on his furious pace, even though he knew he was probably breathing in toxic air through his mouth. It was the one time he regretted not having a full respirator that covered more of his face. Roman doggedly kept up with him, sometimes helping with the cart, and other times allowing Knile to take the brunt of the load. They had not exchanged a single word since the attack.

  Now they were well and truly in the shadow of the Reach. It soared above them, breathtakingly immense, and from this angle there was no way to see where it ended or where the space elevator began at its peak. It simply seemed as though the Reach itself stretched up high enough to touch the edges of space and perhaps beyond.

  Initially there had been no conversation between any of the guards or those pulling the carts, but now that they were close to reaching safety, one of the guards decided to speak his mind.

  “What the hell were you doing back there?” he said angrily, jogging up beside Knile.

  “Saving… your ass… that’s what,” Knile managed to get out.

  “Do you know how much you just cost us? That stuff is worth a fortune.”

  “You can put it on my goddamn tab, all right? If we stayed there, we were dead. Simple.”

  “And who the hell are you, anyway? I don’t think I’ve even seen you before today.”

  “He’s all right,” Roman said, gasping. “I know him.”

  The guard waved at them. “We’re going to sort this shit out
later, and Giroux is going to know about it. For now, just keep pulling.”

  Within a few minutes they turned a corner and came in sight of the entrance to the Reach, a large opening about the size and shape of an aircraft hangar. It was a highly adaptable space, able to accommodate huge vehicles and loads if required. Today it was shaped into a far narrower configuration, allowing the entry of people through three smaller separate gates.

  Knile realised that he was totally unprepared for what was about to happen. With the ambush and the unexpected flight to safety, he had found no time in which to gather his thoughts and decide the best way to approach the Enforcers at the gate. When confronted by situations such as this in the past, he’d always chosen his words very carefully beforehand. He’d always gone in with a plan.

  Now he was too exhausted to even think straight. For a moment he was almost overwhelmed by panic and considered making a run for it, taking flight in order to give himself enough time to come up with another strategy.

  He glanced at his wristwatch from the corner of his eye.

  Time. It was slipping away too fast already. There was no chance to turn back. He knew he had to press on now or stay earthbound forever.

  Keep going. Stay on your toes.

  There were many people waiting to gain entry to the Reach, some with legitimate credentials, legitimate business inside, and others like Knile who were just trying their luck. The Enforcers were everywhere – manning the gates, occupying the snipers’ nests above, walking along lines and checking fingertip IDs, turning away those who were not meant to be there. One of them peeled away from his post and came jogging over to the convoy.

  “Finally, it’s the damn Grovers,” he said cheerily. He frowned as Knile and Roman and many of the other gardeners doubled over, spent. “What’s going on? You guys look like you just ran a marathon.”

  “You could say that,” one of the guards said, stepping forward. “We got hijacked back there. Bastards took a good bite out of us.”

  The Enforcer surveyed the other carts that had stopped nearby, then looked down at tablet in his hand.