Earthbound (The Reach, Book 1)

by Mark R. Healy

  “Obviously not well enough to know that I don’t like getting up two hours early to come in for my shift,” he joked, but Duran made no reaction. Yeesh. The guy has an even bigger stick up his ass than usual, Parnell thought.

  “How long till it boots?” Duran said.

  Parnell shrugged. “Not too long. I normally kick it off and go for a cup of grinds, and by then it’s usually humming away.” He gestured to the empty chair again. “Singh’s terminal is a bit quicker. Next time if you–”

  “It’s ready,” Duran interjected, pointing at the glowing blue login screen.

  “So it is,” Parnell muttered. He pulled himself in close to the keyboard and then entered his credentials. In a few moments the console was ready. “What was the name again?”

  “Wilt.”

  “That’s all you’ve got?”

  “What else do you need?”

  Parnell sighed and grimaced, making a disgruntled little movement of his head.

  “Okay, we’ll start there and see what we get.” He punched in the letters and waited for the system to access the database. A few moments later a list of about twenty names came up on the display. “Here we go.”

  “So what have we got?” Duran said, edging closer.

  “There’s a few Wilts around the place.” Parnell began scrolling through the names, watching the accompanying images pop up on the display. “Little old lady down in Gaslight. A man and his wife out in West Link. One kid with them. What are we looking for here, Duran?”

  “There!” Duran said suddenly, pointing. Parnell, who had already cycled past the entry, now back-pedalled to the one Duran had spotted.

  “Alton Wilt,” Parnell said thoughtfully, examining the face on the screen. The man had short black hair and narrow eyes that were set into a face that could have been carved out of granite. “Mean-looking cuss.”

  “Alton Wilt,” Duran repeated. “Yeah, I know the name. The guys down in the Link barracks used to mention him. Never ran across him myself.”

  “Let’s check the rap sheet,” Parnell said, selecting the record and drilling further into the data. A long list of entries came up and Parnell began to flick through them with an ever-widening look of astonishment on his face. “Aggravated assault, murder, deprivation of liberty, drug trafficking…” Parnell looked up at Duran. “If you’re looking for a badass, I think you found him.”

  “Do we have any data on his recent movements? Anyone he’s associated with?”

  “Doubt it. The guy lives out in Link, and he doesn’t have a permit to access the Reach…” He trailed off. “What the fuck?”

  “What is it?”

  Parnell shook his head. “According to transit records, this guy is in the Reach. Right now. He’s been accessing the main elevators for the last twenty-four hours and going up and down like a friggin’ yoyo.”

  “How is that possible? Why haven’t we been seeing alarms?”

  “You tell me, Duran. More problems with the monitoring systems, maybe?”

  “Well, let’s shut off his access immediately. I want him locked down.”

  “That’s what I’m trying to tell you, Inspector. This guy doesn’t have any access at all. He shouldn’t be allowed anywhere, and yet somehow he’s jumping around like a bowling ball on a bungee cord.”

  “How is he doing it?”

  “I can only guess that the alarms are being overridden somewhere else in the system.”

  “Then turn off the overrides.”

  “Nuh-uh. Not on my pay grade. I don’t have the access. You’ll need to bug someone higher up the food chain, Duran.”

  “Then how do I find him?”

  Parnell held up a finger. “That, I can help you with.” He tapped on the keyboard and accessed another database. “Elevator access, here we go.” Parnell leaned in close and peered at the recorded transactions. “He just got off at Manufacturing, Level One-Five-Three, not even half an hour ago. You could probably still smell his fart in elevator.”

  “That’s good to know,” Duran said, and his mouth formed a grim smile as he turned away.

  This wasn’t much to go on, but it was something.

  He paused at the door. “Parnell,” he said. “Thanks.”

  Parnell nodded. “Can I go back to bed now?”

  Duran gave him a weary grin and then got moving out toward the main elevators.

  Find Alton Wilt, and I might just find Knile Oberend, he thought. That’s assuming one of them doesn’t kill the other before I get there.

  29

  The tiny elevator trundled upward with Ursie and Knile stuffed inside like turkeys in an oven. There was no light within, but the barrage of sounds that assaulted them was almost overwhelming: rollers squeaking as they crept up the guides; ragged breathing of the occupants still reeling from their flight; the elevator car rattling and shuddering as if it were battling its way through a series of obstacles as it ascended; and long, drawn out groans from the traction cables above. Ursie imagined those cables, the only things keeping them suspended, struggling under the weight and ready to give out at any moment.

  Inside, Ursie and Knile sat hunched with their arms and legs and belongings tangled together with uncomfortable tightness. Ursie squirmed and wriggled her limbs as she tried to move about, but she had little success. One of her arms was stuck firmly behind Knile’s knee.

  “What the hell kind of elevator is this?” Ursie said awkwardly. “One for midgets?”

  “Definitely not one for people,” Knile said. “I think it was used for conveying small items between two locations.”

  “What do you mean, ‘you think’? I thought you knew everything.”

  “You’ve got to remember that the way the Reach is now configured is nothing like its original purpose. It was a military installation with a completely different layout. All of the levels were reconfigured in the years after they left. So right now, this little conveyor links a room in the Greenhouse to another in Manufacturing. In the old days it would have linked two rooms with different functions.”

  “Do you think those guys will follow us up here?”

  “Not likely. This elevator was decommissioned a long time ago. I know how to reroute the power to make it run again. They don’t. Once we’re done here I’ll shut it down again.”

  “Is there one of these things that could take us all the way to the top?” Ursie said jokingly.

  “Would you really want to be this close to me while this thing crawls up one hundred levels?”

  “Good point.”

  Knile shifted a little to ease the pressure on his neck. That had been a close call, down in the Greenhouse. They’d only just managed to shake the man in the suit as he’d pursued them through the network of offices. Somehow they’d reached the innocuous little back room in which the elevator terminated, its doors well hidden behind an old filing cabinet. Knile hoped their pursuers wouldn’t figure out that he and Ursie had taken the elevator. With any luck the two of them could get a good head start before Wilt’s men figured out what was going on.

  Either way, Knile felt uneasy. The net was closing in. They were onto him, this Wilt character and his men. Knile would have to be on his guard for the rest of the ascent toward the Atrium. He’d been pursued by Enforcers in the past, but they operated within rules and guidelines. Procedures. Knile had learned to anticipate their movements. Wilt and his men, on the other hand, were not encumbered by the same bureaucracy. They operated with a different methodology. They would come at him from different vectors, with strategies that he might not have anticipated.

  As they were drawn upward in darkness, Knile was already recalibrating his route from Manufacturing to the Atrium in a way that he hoped would compensate for these new variables. Much of his plan was salvageable, but a few minor tweaks here and there would hopefully keep them out of Wilt’s clutches long enough for them to make it to the Atrium.

  A vertical strip of vivid white suddenly rolled into view like a beam of light descendi
ng from the heavens, and the elevator ground to a sudden halt. Knile fumbled for the catch on the inner door, sliding it aside, then jammed his fingers into the brilliant stripe and began to push. The gap widened, and then the outer doors gave up their resistance in a rush, hitting home with a loud thunk.

  Knile half crawled, half tumbled out of the elevator, shoving away the cardboard boxes that had been stacked in front of the door as he went. He turned to retrieve his backpack, offering a hand to Ursie as she climbed out after him.

  As they stood and looked around the room, they heard the distant sound of the Reach klaxon sounding out across the city like a forlorn wail far below.

  “Another day begins at the Reach,” Knile said, taking his holophone and reversing the changes he’d made to the elevator, deactivating it again so that no one could follow them. “We have to move. The workers in Manufacturing will be rolling in any minute.”

  They left the storeroom where the elevator came out, Knile setting a brisk pace as he led the way. He remembered the first time he had been here. It had seemed like an ants’ nest, a hive of interconnecting tunnels and criss-crossing apertures that were arranged haphazardly with no thought to purpose or function. The architects must have been drunk when they’d dreamed it all up, he figured, their slack fingers unable to keep the pen in a straight line as it had been drawn across the page.

  “Who made this place?” Ursie said, obviously perplexed.

  “The same ones who made the rest of it. The military. They used to build and store munitions, weapons, and their machines of war up here.” Knile pointed at a great hole in the ceiling that curved away into darkness. “All of these tunnels were carved out of the steel, but no one really knows why. I guess it was for some secret military purpose. One theory I heard was that these were part of some sort of huge assembly line, and components were carried through the tunnels in gravity fields to the next stage of construction. I don’t know if I believe that.”

  As they passed underneath the hole, Ursie looked up into the inky blackness.

  “Please tell me you’re not taking me in one of those,” she said, a shiver running down her spine at the thought of it.

  “Hey, even I’m not stupid enough to try running around in there. That’s a sure way to get lost.” He glanced behind them apprehensively. “We have to get out of these maintenance uniforms, fast. Those guys who are looking for us know what we’re wearing now. We have to change it up.”

  The both stopped dead at that moment, hearing movement up ahead, and a white goat suddenly appeared from an adjoining tunnel. It swung its head toward them and let out a short bleat.

  “What in the fuck…?” Ursie said.

  Knile did not share her surprise and got moving again right away.

  “They keep the livestock in this tier,” he said. “There are abattoirs and holding pens for these guys all over the place. This fella must have escaped.”

  They passed the goat, who showed no fear of them. It even advanced with its mouth parted, lips drawn back, revealing stumpy teeth, as if it might be searching for a finger or an article of clothing to devour.

  “Ew, get back, you ugly bastard,” Ursie said, moving away from it skittishly. “Back!”

  Knile snorted with laughter. “How ironic would that be? To come all this way only to be eaten by Cletus the goat?”

  “Hilarious,” Ursie drawled, watching the beast carefully as it gave up the pursuit.

  There was more noise further down the tunnel, the distinct sound of human voices and boots, and Knile directed her down an adjoining tunnel.

  “Here come the morning shift,” he muttered. “This way, quick.”

  They moved past a series of smaller offices. A man sat behind a desk in one of them, glancing up when he saw them. Knile half expected him to get up or call after them, but instead he simply nodded politely and went back to his paperwork.

  “Just a maintenance guy with an apprentice, come to check up on some faulty gear,” Knile whispered. “That’s all we are to most of them. Except Wilt and his men.”

  Knile found the room he had been looking for and went inside. It was cluttered with shelves full of saws and knives and other wickedly curved blades of all descriptions. Knile proceeded past them to a cupboard at the rear.

  “We’re not going to fight these guys, are we?” Ursie said, taken aback.

  “No.”

  “So what is this, the ninja supply room?” Ursie said.

  Knile opened the cupboard and rifled through the garments that hung within.

  “It’s a workshop for the meatworks,” Knile said. He pulled out a long coat and gave it a once-over. “It’s also where we make a quick change.”

  He began to pull his maintenance coveralls off, and Ursie began to do the same.

  “Grab one,” Knile said, inclining his head toward the cupboard. He opened the long coat and began to slip it on. It was lined with grubby and blackened wool.

  Ursie hesitated as she perused the hanging garments, and Knile, obviously frustrated, reached past her and pulled out the first one in line.

  “Here.”

  “That’s going to be way too long for me,” Ursie said, making no attempt to take it from him.

  Knile waved his hand in exasperation. “Then just take one that fits.”

  Ursie examined them for a moment, then pulled out a shorter coat and began to put it on.

  “Not that one. Get one with the wool liner.”

  “Why?”

  “Just do it,” he snapped, tossing the maintenance uniforms under a bench. “And hurry up, unless you want to find your own way from here.”

  Ursie did as he instructed, choosing a coat lined with the same putrid wool, and slipped it on. It reached down to mid-calf, her dark jeans jutting out from where it ended. She jogged to catch up to Knile as he reached the door.

  “I can’t imagine how many old men have drenched this thing in sweat since it was last washed,” Ursie said sourly.

  “There’ll be something nicer to wear later, I promise,” Knile said sarcastically. He snatched a cap from a nearby bench and wedged it down on her head. “Keep your face down. The less people who think you’re a kid, the better.”

  When they emerged from the room there were four workers dressed in sky-blue shirts and grey trousers heading down the corridor toward them. Knile took Ursie by the elbow and guided her in the other direction.

  “Hey, Frankie!” one of the workers called after them. “Thought you had the week off.”

  “Frankie?” Knile called casually over his shoulder. “Nah, man. I’m Pete, down from Section Fourteen. Just droppin’ back some tools Lenny borrowed on Thursday.”

  “Oh, sorry,” the man said. “Thought you were someone else.”

  Knile waved but did not stop to chat further. “No probs, man. Have a good one.”

  “Yeah, you too.”

  They hurried on to the end of the corridor and up a flight of stairs. More workers were heading downward and one of them eyed Ursie suspiciously, a dowdy woman whose blue shirt strained at the seams to hold in her considerable girth. The woman’s eyes flicked across to Knile, who smiled casually, and then back to the girl.

  “Morning,” she said slowly, somewhat warily, Knile thought, but she continued on her way regardless.

  At the top of the stairs, a group of men and women in the azure uniforms were shuffling through a doorway. Inside there came the sounds of heavy machinery starting up. These folk paid no attention to Knile and Ursie, chattering away at each other over the clamour of saws and orbital grinders.

  They’d made it past the bulk of the crowd when Knile pointed furtively to the next staircase he wished to climb, and Ursie changed her course accordingly.

  Then out of nowhere, the man with the star tattoo on his cheekbone appeared around the corner just in front of them. His gaze passed over them without recognition, but then he did an almost comical double take, his eyes becoming wide with surprise. He reached into his jacket for his gun
, but Knile reacted first, leaping forward and slamming the man across the chin before he could draw the weapon. The man grunted and dropped heavily, and as he lay stunned, Knile slipped his hand to the holster and took the gun. At a glance, he thought it might have been a 9mm semi, but at that moment he didn’t really care.

  Then Knile was running, jamming the pistol into his belt, pushing Ursie onward and up the stairs.

  Someone cried out in alarm and Knile looked back to see the man groggily swinging a smaller pistol in the air, one that he’d taken from an ankle holster. The weapon discharged, the round slapping harmlessly into the roof, and now everyone was screaming. Everyone was running.

  This might work in our favour, Knile thought as they reached the top of the stairs. No one’s going to take any notice of a man and a kid while the lunatic with the gun is holding court.

  But his optimism was short-lived. At the end of the next corridor there was another man in a similar get-up – the same jacket and shirt, and he was holding a gun at his side.

  “Here!” Knile commanded, yanking Ursie aside as they changed course again. “The place is crawling with these bastards.”

  They ran past a series of doorways, and Knile scanned the labels on each as he tried to determine what lay beyond. He stopped abruptly at one and produced the tiny silver implements he had used many times over the years to pick locks. He fidgeted at the keyhole for a few seconds and then the door clicked open. They went inside.

  Behind them, Knile could hear the footsteps of their pursuers closing in.

  30

  Ursie was immediately struck by the stench.

  Crowding in behind Knile, she was unable to see anything past the bulk of his shoulders and the folds of the black long coat he had donned. Now, as she was accosted by this putrid miasma, she wasn’t sure she wanted to see what was in here.

  The first image that her mind conjured was a room crowded with rotten corpses, and the thought made her want to puke.

  “It’s poison!” she gasped, fumbling for her respirator.

  “No,” Knile said, turning to close the door behind them. “Look.”