“Look out.” Cowl pointed up at an arch overhead. “Scanner. Probably isn’t catching everyone, but no reason to take chances.” He pulled out his tablet, grinning like a cat with a mouse.
“Ok, we get it. You are good with the computer shit.”
“Awww. You don’t have to thank me,” Cowl quipped as he flicked his fingers over the glowing tablet. It caught a few stares. Here in the Tiers, people didn’t have much technology available.
The mess of red hair appeared again, bobbing above the crowd as the man ducked into a door in the wall.
Starke tightened his fingers around the handle of his handgun, the ribbed fabric of his tank top sliding over the grip.
“That’s probably the front right there,” he said as Cowl slipped the tablet back into his pocket. “You stick close, ok?”
“You don’t have to babysit me.”
Starke ground his teeth and ducked around the last few stragglers at the edge of the crowd and into the store front. A sign overhead blinked “closed”. It looked like some sort of convenience store. Refurbished tech or patched up machinery, shit that you could find at pretty much any no-account dealership. Friedrich liked guns, though, and he always took whatever Taser rounds Starke couldn’t find use for on his own. He was a good person to get the rougher stuff from, when Starke’s more trustworthy contacts fell through. The important thing was that he had a voice in the community. People came to him to get weapons when they didn’t have any other options to protect themselves. Whether it was against crime or guards, didn’t much matter. They trusted him, and he made use of it.
The shop was empty, lights dim over rows of tempered glass protecting a heap of worthless shit. It was the door with the “staff only” sign that was worth the most.
“Listen up, baby bro. Never, never come into one of these joints if you aren’t packing.”
“I’m always packing.”
That wasn’t untrue…unfortunately. “You see, most of the guys who run these shops have stuff that’s valuable, yeah, but nothing too high end. If they have that shit they keep it somewhere else. No one here is gonna want to get themselves killed over a few packages of bullets and busted up guns. So you pull a piece on them and they back down real quick.”
Cowl reached for the sawn-off that he always kept cradled in the hollow of his back and Starke grabbed his hand before he could pull it out.
“That doesn’t mean it’s your first move.”
He shrugged. “Can’t hurt.”
Starke shook his head. “You’d be surprised.”
Red light pooled on the floor before the door. The handle had been broken off at some point, and the jagged pieces of metal left behind jutted out from under electrical tape. An attempt to keep the ends from cutting an unwary hand.
Starke reached for it and it twisted violently away from him. The door swung back and Red’s face, mostly hidden in a mane of shaggy dreadlocks, stared out at Starke in horror. His eyes widened for a half a second and he slumped forward, sliding along the door and leaving a crimson streak behind.
“Hey, freeze!” a voice called from inside as gunshots rang out. Inside the cluttered room behind the door, a City guard turned his gun towards Starke.
Starke grabbed the handle and jerked the door closed, pulling Red’s corpse along with it.
“Let’s go!” Bullets hit the door, the “thunk” of the low-impact taser rounds shaking the metal.
Starke grabbed Cowl’s shirt, shoving him towards the exit.
Could this have gone any worse?
Chapter Two: Backfire
The crowds closed around them like an amorphous blob, sucking them along in the current. Cowl tried to grab his gun again, but Starke kept a firm hand on his wrist. A few yells echoed behind them, pushing the crowd like ripples in a lake.
“Shit!” Starke yanked Cowl along ahead of him, doing his best to keep himself between Cowl and the guards. ”Don’t pull your gun, just run!”
He risked a glance back, and caught sight of a guard’s head, bobbing above the crowd as he jumped to get a glimpse of them.
Shit, he shouldn’t look back. If they managed to get out of this, the guards might still be able to ID them.
“I got our tags turned off.” Cowl turned to look back but Starke pushed his face away from the guard.
The people around them seemed to be figuring out what was happening. They began to peel away from the chase, opening up a path for Starke and Cowl. They could run faster, but now the guards would be able to get a bead on them much easier. If they downgraded their rounds to non-lethal, they wouldn’t hesitate to shoot either. There would be no threat of collateral damage.
“We gotta get out of here.” Starke pulled Cowl towards a low lying walkway. “Closest exit is a couple of yards north along the wall. We can get out the airlock from there.”
“The Pit?” Gasps interrupted Cowl’s strained voice.
“I’ll figure it out when we get some distance. We gotta get out of the lights and away from the crowds. Come on.”
Cowl picked up the pace, his thin frame easily slipping around the people who were too slow to move out of the way. Starke let him go and pulled his handgun. He wasn’t going to shoot, not in here, but the sight of it motivated the people ahead who still hadn’t figured out the danger.
The wall of packed pods seemed to be falling in on them, growing with each step they took. Starke bounced off an oversized man with a cart of produce and grabbed the railing to stop from slamming into it. A few feet below, rows of widely spaced grates drank in the excess moisture. That was the best way out.
“Here!” he yelled, catching Cowl’s eye. “Jump.”
Without waiting for a reply he threw his leg over the top rung and grabbed Cowl’s shoulder, pulling him up in front of him. The urge to look back at their pursuers gripped Starke’s neck, dragging him backward. He focused instead on the short drop as he slid off the railing.
A few screams followed him from above. His feet hit the grating, sending the echoes into the expanse below along with the droplets of runoff. Cowl hit a second later, stumbling as his foot caught in one of the holes. One misstep down here, and they would have a broken ankle to deal with, if not worse.
A Taser bullet bounced off the wall and through the metal, ricocheting into the darkness.
“There.” Starke tapped Cowl’s shoulder, pointing out the ladder that stuck up through a yellow-ringed access hole not far away.
The “plink, plink, plink” of droplets falling joined with their panting as they scrambled over the grate, stumbling towards their goal. Gusts of wind, the product of the massive fans meant to disperse the oxygen out of the vents, blew Starke’s hair around his face, stinging his eyes.
The yells of the guards blended into the eerie ambiance as Cowl grabbed the top rung of the ladder and slid down into the darkness below. Starke fought the need to check on their pursuers before ducking down after him.
The wind turned into a tunnel of air, swallowing Starke and whipping droplets of reeking water into his face. He hit the floor and immediately water climbed up his calves, soaking through his pants.
The metal above them reverberated with the footsteps of the guards. At least it was dark. They couldn’t see Cowl’s face down here.
“Where now?” Cowl asked.
Starke spit the water out of his mouth and risked a second to look up. One of the guards had already grabbed onto the ladder and was making his way down.
“Right ahead.” Starke pointed out a thick yellow line of caked paint that dragged along the wall, just barely visible in the divided light from above.
Water rushed away from Cowl in a wave as he started jogging along the sloped floor, soaking Starke all the way up to his chest as he struggled to follow. A few desperate squeals echoed around them as invisible rats attempted to escape the rush of the wake.
“Hey. Stop!” one of the guards yelled.
“No way they’re gonna shoot down here,” Cowl said, his voices e
choing around them. “They’ll just kill themselves, too.”
“People are idiots. Don’t expect them to figure that out. Just keep moving.”
The yellow line ran its course, ending in a bold, golden box emblazoned into the wall. Starke slammed into it and immediately ran his hand along the sides until it slipped into a small groove. A simple latch sat flush with the door. Starke pulled it towards him, straining with the weight. It should have been just above water level, but a good portion of black-tainted water rushed through when he finally pulled it free. Inside, a warm, red glow illuminated a walkway, suspended over a seemingly endless drop. This space between the double walls of the city was present in all but the housing units and walkways.
Cowl clambered in and Starke ducked as a bullet ricocheted off the wall not far from his face, a flash of light marking its passage.
“What’d I tell you?” Starke said, gasping in a breath full of stale air as he climbed in after Cowl.
He pushed Cowl ahead of him, not bothering to close the door. In the time it took for him to do it, the guards would already be on him. The airlock would have to win them some time.
Cowl reached the door to the airlock a half a second before Starke, skidding on the grating. Starke grabbed his shoulder, steadying him and punching the code into the keypad. Another bullet flew overhead, disappearing into the expanse above them. The door slid open with a loud protest and Starke ducked inside, catching Cowl’s arm as he tried to turn to look behind him.
“Don’t…” he said, shoving his hand away from the gun. Still trying to fight. This kid was too quick to pull his weapon. Sure way to get himself vented.
The door slid shut behind them and the cylinder filled with the whoosh of exchanging air.
Starke struggled to sort through the memories of the scaffolding outside. This was the Tiers, not the Hub, and some of the maintenance scaffolds weren’t held up as well. He’d still found himself traversing them often enough, for both his day job and his less-than-legal nightly activities. He’d only been on this side of the Farming Tier once or twice.
Maybe the guards wouldn’t follow them out. But there was no way to guarantee that. The best way to get clear of them would be to go straight down.
Before he could decide on one course of action, the outer doors slid open.
“Which way?” Cowl asked.
“Head towards the Hub. Let’s see if we can’t beat them to the finish line. They shouldn’t follow too much longer.” The metal cried under Starke’s shoes as he followed Cowl to the right, climbing up a series of short ladders.
“Where were you guys supposed to be working today?” Cowl asked.
“Shit.” Starke leaned around him. A few spotlights illuminated Bunker’s colossal body, blocking the most direct path to the Hub.
The footsteps of the guards shook the old walkway as they climbed out after them.
“Just go,” Starke said, scanning the walk ahead. There weren’t any workers directly ahead. Cowl picked up his pace, jumping down a few landings. Starke pulled his handgun again and dug the suppressor out of its pouch in his holster. If they ran into any guards, it would probably be too late for it to do any good, but he had more room to turn and get a shot out here, and it would be foolish not to even try.
His shoulder bumped the wall as he twisted to get a good look behind him.
Three guards. Could he get them from here? Probably not with his handgun, and getting closer at this point was just going to risk revealing his identity. If they hadn’t already gotten a good look.
“Starke? I thought you were off today.” Starke skidded to a halt just in time to avoid slamming into Cowl’s back.
Starke peered around Cowl’s shoulder and swore. Dallard, one of his co-workers, stood a few feet away, his orange coveralls marked with flecks of rust and oil smears. His suspicion was obvious, despite the goggles and the face mask that covered his mouth and nose.
His eyes flitted back to the guards, stumbling over the walkway and back to Cowl and Starke.
That look wasn’t a good one. He was going to cave and call them over.
“Dallard.” Starke slipped the handgun carefully out front so that it was clearly visible, carefully maneuvering Cowl towards the wall as he did. Dallard tensed. “We are just passing through.”
He stared at the gun for a long time. Starke turned to catch a look at the guards out of the corner of his eye. The second he did, Dallard yelled.
Before he could even get a good pitch, Starke squeezed the trigger. The gun bucked in his hands, sending a jolt of electricity through his arm. It quickly sank into his stomach and turned into nausea as Dallard hit the metal hard.
“Hell.” Cowl turned away and held his arm over his mouth. He felt it, too.
They’d killed their fair share in the Pit, but it was far too dark to see. He’d probably never even seen a body this close.
Fifteen was too young to see violence done, if there was ever a good age.
Starke shoved Dallard’s body off the edge of the scaffolding, trying to ignore the guilt that built up in his chest like pressure in a volcanic rift. He had his baby brother to think about.
The lights on the scaffold quit only a few steps ahead. It got dark fast, but the floodlights on the hull of Bunker were enough to light their way. Only a few feet ahead the scaffolding ended abruptly, replaced by a tankle of thick cords descending into the Pit. Starke swore. Someone must have been using the lift.
The guards would be able to see them soon, if they hadn’t already heard the shot.
Starke scanned the space, deliberately avoiding Cowl’s searching gaze. He’d just killed a guy in front of him for what seemed like no reason. There wasn’t anywhere to run down here, anyway.
Cowl knew Dallard, too.
Stop, focus.
The low hum of a generator filled Starke’s ears. He was used to the sound. It was a constant during work hours even if it was muted by the boxes the generators were locked in. Normally he wouldn’t have even thought of it, but for the adrenaline that was surely forcing its way through every vein of his body.
The box sat only a few feet away, precariously balanced on the edge of the walkway. It was probably what was powering the elevator.
Starke jumped forward, grasping the lock in both hands.
“Starke…”
“Shut up!” Starke hissed. He spun the combination lock between his fingers, sighing in relief when his fumbling fingers managed to put in the right sequence the first time. The lock popped open and the rumble of the generator roared louder, free of its cage.
Starke flipped the switch, letting the shuddering beast calm for half a second before he grabbed the handles and dragged it from the shell. The weight tore at his muscles, fighting him every inch.
With a final yank, he pulled the machine free and sent it careening over the side.
“Get in,” he said, waving Cowl forward.
The guards wandered above them scanning the walkways. It wouldn’t be long before they caught sight of them.
“There is no way in hell I can fit in there.” Cowl balked, pulling away from Starke.
“I’ll make it work. It’s better than a shallow grave. Come on.” Starke grabbed his wrist, yanking him towards the box. This is what he got for bringing his brother along. He should have come alone. What was he even thinking?
Cowl clambered into the box, carefully bending his knees to force his skinny body into the room afforded. When he quit squirming deeper, Starke pushed down the knee that jutted out over the lip, ignoring the complaints that ripped from Cowl’s lips, and shut the lid.
He hesitated a moment, turning the lock over in his hands. If he didn’t find a good hiding spot, Cowl would be locked in there forever. He’d face a very slow, terrifying death.
If Starke left it open, the guards could easily check on what was inside.
“Sorry, kid,” he muttered, slipping the bar in place and spinning the lock. The ache in his chest grew. Now he had no ch
oice. He had to find a hiding place. The worst case scenario right now was that he’d catch a bullet and leave Cowl alone in that box. There was one obvious choice. Not that he liked it.
Starke dropped to his stomach and edged toward the end of the walkway. Doing it without the harness and safety line that he usually had tied snugly in place made his stomach do flips. He’d just have to depend on his arms a bit more than usual.
The support bar was in its typical place, and thankfully, not rusted through like so many were. Starke eased down onto it, hanging from his hands for a moment. Part of him wanted to just lean back and let the harness take his weight, like he usually would have. But this time, the safety was just a ghost in his mind.
The thud of heavy footfalls above seemed to battle Starke’s own heartbeat for a half a moment as he adjusted his grip and slid his foot along the wall, feeling for anything to step on.
The light flashed above, casting golden squares along the wall. A loose panel caught on Starke’s foot, giving him a momentary lift. He carefully leaned some weight onto it, swinging one hand forward to grasp another bar. The light glinted off a few more support bars.
Muscles burning, Starke lifted his body on his arms and reached his leg upward.
The guard stopped above him, his feet directly above Starke’s face.
Starke’s foot slipped and his body swung down violently, jerking against his already strained muscles. Above him, the guard paused. No, not now. If he looked down…
Starke adjusted his grip, arresting his breath deep in his chest despite how adamantly it beat at his body for release.
The moments eased by, each moment drawn out like a rubber band about to snap. The guard tugged momentarily at the lock on the box before turning his light back the way he came and walking away. Starke reached again, kicking his foot up and over a low bar. Dragging his body up against the grating above, he managed to slip the other foot over and slid in until his back rested on the bar, his feet braced against either side.
Infraction Page 4