Earthbound (The Reach, Book 1)

by Mark R. Healy

  “Sorry. Didn’t know I had that in me.”

  They kept moving, varying their course randomly as they went. They also began to climb through tunnels that sprouted above them, an attempt to throw off their pursuers further. They had been going for what must have been thirty minutes or more, still with no sign of an exit, when Knile finally called a halt to their flight.

  “Stop here, Ursie,” he said. “We need to try to figure out where we’re going.”

  “What about those assholes? Won’t they be coming?”

  “No doubt, but hopefully we’re out of their reach for now. We need to stop running blindly.”

  Ursie slid down the curved wall of the tunnel, somewhat gratefully, Knile thought, and he clambered down beside her and brought out his holophone. As he turned off the flashlight the tunnel was bathed in the eerie greenish-blue glow of the phone.

  “What are you doing?” Ursie said.

  “Trying to find some schematics for these tunnels. I ran across the plans once before, but they were too convoluted for me to really consider using them for travel.”

  “Because no one would actually be stupid enough to wander through these things, right?”

  “Right.”

  Ursie rubbed her face wearily. “We’re going to die in here.”

  “No.”

  “Then we’ll make it out, only to have Wilt put a bullet through our faces.”

  “Cut the defeatist bullshit,” Knile snapped. “That’s not getting us anywhere. We’ve both survived on the streets. We’ve had to fight to make it through every single day in the past. I know you’re stronger than that.”

  “But how are we going to get around those guys? They’re like a goddamn army.” She looked over at him. “Maybe we should call this whole thing off.”

  “Like I said, kid, any time you want to walk, you can walk. I’m not going to force you to do anything you don’t want to. But I’m not turning back. Not now.”

  There was silence between them for a very long time after that. Knile continued to scroll through seemingly endless plans and diagrams, taking notes in another application as he went, whispering to himself as he thought out loud. He glanced briefly over at her, noting how she was slumped in sullen silence, rubbing her fingers against the case inside her satchel again as if it were a magic lamp that might spawn a genie to rescue them from their plight.

  Knile couldn’t blame her for being scared. It was one thing to play cat and mouse on the streets with Enforcers, and another thing entirely to be the object of a manhunt by a gang of ruthless thugs. She was just a kid, after all. He would have been scared at her age.

  Shit, I’m scared at my age, he thought. I’m just better at hiding it.

  He hadn’t once considered turning around and throwing himself at Wilt’s feet to beg for mercy. There was no positive outcome from that. For one thing, he highly doubted that Wilt was capable of such a thing. Men like Wilt didn’t bargain or dole out compassion, no matter what they said. That offer of leniency was merely a ruse, an empty promise designed to expedite their capture. Once the passkey had been obtained, there would be no sense in allowing Knile or Ursie to live.

  The guy had even admitted that he’d killed innocent people for less.

  Aside from that, there was another very important reason Knile didn’t want to go back to Wilt. Knile wanted this passkey to remain in his possession more than anything. It was his ticket out of here, the gateway to his dreams. The passkey was going to open up a pathway that would lead to a better life, a life where he had a future. The last thing he wanted was to hand it over to some guy who wanted to steal that future.

  He put those thoughts aside and concentrated on the schematics he had brought up on his phone. He spent close to ten minutes scrolling through them before he began to see a pattern emerge.

  Ursie suddenly made a curt hissing noise, and Knile instinctively thumbed the power button on the holophone, plunging them into darkness once again. At the end of the corridor he could see a faint outline of light as someone moved about in an adjoining tunnel.

  “They’re coming,” Ursie whispered in horror.

  “I think I can get us out of here,” Knile said, climbing to his feet.

  “You found a way out already?”

  “Kinda.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means that now we have a slightly better shot at getting out of here than we did ten minutes ago.”

  He lifted the flashlight, but Ursie clutched at it before he could turn it on.

  “Don’t use that,” she said. “They’ll find us.”

  “We don’t have any choice.” His thumb dropped and the tunnel was filled with light again. “It’s either that or we fall down one of these pits and break our necks. Go!”

  They made haste away from their pursuers, Knile directing Ursie on the turns they needed to make in order to escape the tunnels. In truth, he knew that they were going to need a hefty slice of luck to make it out there in any sort of timely manner. There was only so much he’d been able to glean from the schematics, just a few rough ideas. Given enough time, maybe hours or a whole day, they’d have found their way out, but that was less than ideal. They were still running against the clock. They needed to get out in order to reach the Wire before his ride left, and also before they eventually ran across Wilt’s men in this labyrinth.

  They came to a narrower tunnel that led upward like a ramp, and together they scrambled to the top. Knile could hear rapid footsteps in the tunnel behind them. Whoever was coming, they were moving fast. And they were closing the gap.

  “Keep going!” Knile said.

  At the top of the ramp, the tunnel flattened out and there was another sizeable hole in the floor. Ursie did not hesitate with this one, but it was larger than before and she almost didn’t make it, stumbling and crying out as she hit the other side. Knile vaulted after her and almost landed on top of her, but somehow kept his feet. He helped her up and they rounded a sharp bend, then he pointed to the ceiling.

  “Up here,” he said. “We need to get higher.”

  He assisted her into the aperture, and as she struggled and kicked her way upward he heard their pursuers scuttling up the ramp like a host of angry beetles.

  Then they were at the top, their boots slapping against the steel floor as they neared the gap. Knile looked up at the aperture.

  I’m not going to make it, he thought.

  As Ursie disappeared above him, Knile turned and saw the flashlight beams scattering across the tunnel. Instinctively he ran toward them, pumping his arms and hitting full tilt in a matter of strides as he rounded the bend. As the tunnel straightened he saw a man leaping across the gap in the floor, and as he landed, Knile collided with his chest. The two of them went sprawling backward, Knile onto the floor of the tunnel, and the pursuer back out over the gap. As a second man vaulted into the air, hot on the heels of the first, the two men became entangled, and together they dropped down into the void. A gun went off twice, creating white staccato flashes in the darkness. The men shrieked in surprise and terror, but their voices were soon lost in the depths of the labyrinth as they hurtled downward at breakneck speed.

  Knile lost track of time as they moved from one tunnel to the next, forever winding their way upward through the network of shafts. He checked his watch at one point and realised that they had been at it for hours, and for the first time he began to despair that they wouldn’t reach the Atrium in time.

  Then, abruptly, there was light ahead, and they could hear the sound of people and machines echoing through the tunnel from outside.

  “Thank god,” Ursie said shakily. “I was beginning to wonder if we’d ever make it out of here.”

  “Never in doubt,” Knile said, even though he’d thought the same thing a few moments before.

  They crept to the lip of the opening and peered down. It appeared to be a factory floor of some kind, with rows of machinery atop trowelled concrete floors. Yellow line-markers that
surrounded the machines and ran along pathways to designate their edges were wearing thing, now barely visible at all. A worker wearing a hairnet passed underneath, her eyes directed down at a tablet in her hand, and then she passed out of sight.

  Knile dropped his face lower to scan the area around them, and then, without another word, slipped nimbly to the floor below. Looking around to ensure that he hadn’t been seen, he then raised his eyes to Ursie and gestured for her to follow.

  Ursie did not hesitate, plunging over the edge and into Knile’s arms. Whether it was eagerness to be out of the tunnels or some newfound sense of adventure, he wasn’t sure, but either way he was glad of her decisiveness.

  “You okay?” he said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Follow me.”

  He led her along the factory floor. Glancing around, Knile decided that this must be the aluminium recycling plant. There was a conveyor belt full of scrap metal being fed into what looked like a centrifuge unit, and from there another conveyor led up to a brick combustion system. A worker stood overseeing it all, and another was checking gauges on the centrifuge, but they paid Knile and Ursie no attention. There were perhaps one or two curious glances at the two of them decked out in their fur-lined coats, but workers visiting other sections for one reason or another was not unheard of, and no one stopped them to ask what they were doing.

  Outside there were still plenty of people moving about on this level of Manufacturing, but thankfully none of Wilt’s men. Knile hoped they would still be wasting their energy searching the tunnels below. In any case, sooner or later they would broaden their search area again as they realised their quarry had slipped away. At most he and Ursie had bought themselves an hour or two of time. That was all.

  They passed through another series of avenues before Knile raised his finger and pointed at a vehicle, a white commercial van that stood stationary outside an establishment that was fronted by large stainless steel doors.

  “There,” he said. “That’s what we’re looking for.”

  The van sat on six squat black wheels, and the sliding door on its side had been thrown open. Inside, there was something hanging from the roof that was indistinct in the gloom.

  “What is it?” Ursie said.

  “It’s our ride out of here.”

  A worker came through the stainless steel doors, dressed in a long coat much like the one Knile wore and carrying a haunch of beef on his shoulder. He stepped half into the van, securing the beef onto a large meathook, then disappeared back through the doors.

  “Go,” Knile said, walking briskly over to the van.

  “What exactly are we doing here?” Ursie said, almost jogging as she attempted to tag along.

  “Get in the van,” Knile said. “Right to the back.”

  She looked at him, shocked.

  “We’re getting in the damn freezer?”

  “Won’t be for long.” He ducked his head into the driver’s compartment and checked the manifest. “Yeah, this is it. This one is headed where we want to go.”

  “We’re gonna be ice cubes, man!” she hissed.

  “You’ve got the coat, you’ll be fine.” He pushed her toward the opening. “Quick, now. Before he comes back.” She hesitated. “Or you can wait here for Wilt to have his way with you.”

  She glowered at him but did as he asked, and Knile bundled in behind her as the man emerged again with another side of beef bound for Lux.

  32

  Hunched in the back of the refrigerated compartment, Ursie shifted uncomfortably. She was already cold by the time the workman slid the door shut and started the van’s electric motor. Left in almost pitch black darkness again, Ursie couldn’t help but be creeped out by the vague silhouettes of meat slabs that hung from the ceiling in front of them. In her imagination they were like people hanging from nooses, people who had been gagged, stripped of their skin, strung up and left to bleed to death. An odd notion, no doubt, but one that she couldn’t shake.

  Perhaps it was just a reaction to seeing meat and bone in this kind of quantity that made her uneasy, she decided. Where she came from, meat was a rare commodity, a luxury that was meant only for people more fortunate than her.

  She shivered, not entirely from the cold.

  Knile sidled close to her and wrapped his long coat around her to afford her some extra warmth.

  “Stay calm,” he instructed quietly. “I’ve done this before. The trip isn’t long and the coats will keep us warm until we get out.”

  “Is this really necessary? What if this guy decides to park somewhere and forgets about us?”

  “He won’t. And yes, it’s necessary. The Enforcers have a stronger presence around the elevators the higher you go in the Reach. This is our best and quickest option.” He paused. “Or we could have climbed up the exterior walls again, if you’d really wanted to.”

  “Okay, good point.”

  The momentum of the van shifted as it wound around several corners, and then it slowed. There were a series of sharp thuds as the wheels crossed over a rut beneath them.

  “That should be the elevator,” Knile said.

  They could hear the driver talking animatedly to someone outside the van, sharing a joke or two, and then there was a harsh blaring noise and the sound of something large and heavy rolling across behind them. The chatter stopped and for a moment everything was still.

  Then Ursie heard the elevator groan and felt pressure from underneath as it began to ascend.

  Her teeth were now chattering, the cold seeping in through folds of her clothing that she couldn’t protect. Knile pushed her head down further until it was under the breast of his coat.

  “Almost there, kid,” he said.

  Soon after, the elevator came to a smooth halt, and the klaxon sounded again. The rolling noise returned, reversing its direction this time, and Ursie decided that it must have been some sort of gate or protective barrier that enclosed the elevator during operation. As the noise stopped, the van went into reverse and slowly backed out of the compartment with a series of high-pitched beeps.

  “What’s that?” Ursie said, alarmed.

  “It’s just a warning that the van is in reverse.” A thought occurred to Knile. “Have you ever taken a ride in a vehicle like this?”

  “No.”

  “Have you ever seen a vehicle like this? Or any sort of car?”

  “No. Who uses these things anymore? I’ve only seen them in an old video reel one night at the Arbor Bar down on Sixty-Nine. There were a bunch of old bastards sitting around reminiscing about the old days and how much better they were.”

  “They were better.”

  “Yeah. Well, anyhow, this is my first time in a car.”

  “So now you can go and join those old bastards in the bar. Throw in your own thoughts when the conversation turns from dementia and false teeth to cars.”

  “Look forward to it.”

  The van ceased its backward motion and then started off again the right way, running for only a couple of minutes before stopping again.

  “Be ready,” Knile whispered. “This is our stop.”

  The driver’s door opened and then shut with a slam, rocking the van gently from side to side. Heavy footsteps sounded as he strode around the front of the vehicle, and then the sliding door was flung open, sending a bright spear of light into the compartment. The driver grunted as he struggled with the first side of meat, then lifted it away and disappeared from view.

  “Wait,” Knile said, pushing forward through the hanging meat as he moved to the door. The dismembered limbs moved like pendulums in his wake. Knile plucked a haunch from a meathook and placed it on his shoulder as he exited the van. He looked very much the part, Ursie thought, just another meat worker in his long coat who was going about his job. When he’d made sure the coast was clear, he set the haunch back on the hook and beckoned to Ursie.

  “Move it.”

  Ursie clenched her jaw and forced her way through the frozen slabs of
cow, or goat, or whatever they were, and took Knile’s hand as he helped her down. He guided her away from the van just as the workman returned again from a nearby door. He did not even bother to look their way.

  As they moved, Ursie felt the numbness in her extremities begin to lessen. She tried to get the circulation in her body going again, shaking her fingers and stamping her feet in an attempt to rid herself of the numbness entirely.

  “You okay?”

  “I can’t feel my hands or my feet.” She pressed a wrist gingerly to her nose. “Or my face.”

  “You’ll be fine. It will pass.” He clapped her heartily on the shoulder.

  “Yeah. I’ll cope.” Ursie raised her face for the first time since stepping out of the van, and what she saw almost made her stop in her tracks.

  Knile noted her reaction with an amused smile.

  “So, let me be the first to welcome you to Lux.”

  For a moment, Ursie couldn’t quite believe what she was seeing. This place seemed at such odds with everything else she’d experienced that she almost believed that van was some kind of interdimensional portal, that it had taken them to some magical place that wasn’t even Earth anymore. At least, not the Earth that Ursie knew.

  The first thing that caught her eye about this place was how it gleamed. Every single part of it seemed freshly buffed. There were polished marble floors and alabaster garden edges that ran along the centre of the thoroughfare; perfectly rounded pillars, inlaid with ornate patterns that ran up to the high ceilings; spotless glass windows on either side of the avenue that gave glimpses of boutiques and cafes nestled in behind.

  Then there were the vehicles.

  Ursie saw maybe half a dozen of them – small mechanical three-wheeled contraptions that were large enough to seat two people inside. They were curved in a kind of teardrop shape with a large bubble-like window at the front through which the occupants could look out at their surroundings. They whirred about in near silence at a slow pace, not much faster than a walk.