by Rob Boffard
I will my legs to stay locked, keeping me in place.
He turns, and begins to walk the other way, intending to check behind the other vats. If Carver doesn’t move, the man is going to trip right over him.
Carefully, I look to my left. Carver isn’t there. He’s moved away, slipping down the vats. I can just see him at the far corner of the room. “I’m OK,” he says, his voice barely audible on my SPOCS.
My lungs feel like they’re going to rip through my torso, but I exhale as quietly as I dare. I’m about to slide down when I stop.
Climbing is quiet. Getting down is always noisy. No matter how carefully you do it, there’s always sound. I might bring the man back this way, even more determined.
But if I go up, I can stay quiet, and get an even better view of the plant
Slowly, ever so slowly, I begin sliding up the vat, walking up the wall, treating each step as if there’s crushed glass under my feet.
“What are you doing?” Carver says. I don’t answer.
It seems like hours before I reach the top of the vat. Getting onto it isn’t easy – I have to stretch out as I come over the lip, and for a minute the edge digs painfully into my lower back. But then I slide onto it, face-up, pulling my feet off the wall.
The air up here is just as dank, slick with the stink of human waste. The voices below me are muffled. Not knowing what’s happening in here must be driving Royo insane. He’ll be pacing, furious at us for going silent on him.
You’re in a world of shit, I think, and have to force myself not laugh.
“Carver,” I whisper.
Carver speaks almost immediately, frantic with worry, abandoning SPOCS protocol. “Riley, talk to me.”
“I’m up on one of the waste vats. They haven’t seen me.”
“You need to stay where you are. They’ve got two of them looking for us now. They know something’s wrong.”
Royo must have been listening in. “Tracers, report. We’re ready to go out here. Give me hostile positions, now.”
“Standby,” I whisper. I slide across the top of the vat as I talk. The surface is convex, and as I near the edge I have to work to keep myself in place, but I finally get a good view of the plant.
The waste vats line the walls, surrounded by a ganglia of pipes and valves. The hostage takers are spread across the floor, talking in low voices. Two of them are patrolling the vats on my right, looking for Carver. Two more stand over the hostages, all lying in a small cluster on the floor. Mikhail is over by the main door.
“You find anything back there?” one of them yells.
The answer comes from below me. “Nothing, man. I don’t like this.”
The questioner nods, turning to the others. “Spread out. There’s someone else here.”
I look down. And that’s when I see a woman, one of the hostage takers, staring up at me.
8
Prakesh
“Now, Suki!” Prakesh shouts. “Do it now!”
Everything happens at once. Benson screams – the scream of a man who realises what he’s done, and desperately wants to take it back. He throws his arms out as if he’s about to hug someone. At the same time, Prakesh hears metal on metal as Suki, or whoever she’s with, shoves the Mark Six into place.
Benson vanishes. A half-second later, there’s a strange sound, as if a giant has been punched in the stomach. It’s followed by a crack so sharp that it reverberates off the walls of the Air Lab. Benson screams again, and this time it’s a scream of pain.
Prakesh closes his eyes for a moment, then looks over the edge.
The Mark Six is destroyed, its surface pushed inwards. It’s a transparent, inflatable greenhouse, six feet square, a lightweight alternative to the steel and plastic ones they used before. Suki did what she was told, pumping it up out of sight, then pushing it into place when she heard Prakesh call out.
Benson hit hard enough to rip the surface. If it had been pumped up even a little bit less, he would have gone straight through it. But it was enough to bounce him sideways, stopping the fall. He’s broken his leg – Prakesh can see the bone poking up through the fabric of his pants. Benson is writhing in pain, surrounded by techs, who are calling for stretchers and medkits. No one is looking at him except for Suki, who looks like she wants to throw up.
Slowly, very slowly, Prakesh finds his way back onto the roof. He puts his hands on his knees, bending over. He’s curiously light-headed. Depression, he thinks, not entirely sure what the thought is connected to until he remembers what Benson said. That can’t happen again. I need to pay more attention to the techs. I’ll get Benson help, whatever he needs …
He hears applause and raises his head. The group of techs on the roof are cheering, running towards him. Only Julian Novak hangs back, still chewing, his expression entirely neutral. Then Prakesh is surrounded by beaming faces and eager voices, and he lets Julian slip from his mind.
9
Riley
Before I can pull myself back onto the vat, the woman raises her stinger. “Up there! On the tank!” she shouts.
“Where?”
“Third from the right! By the pipes.”
“Just one?”
“Watch the hostages.”
“Somebody fire!”
I hear the crack of the stingers, and the bullets pinging off the metal. I’m on my back, frantically looking for an escape route. I have to move – a single ricochet off the roof or one of the pipes could end me.
Carver’s in my ear again. “Riley! I’m coming!”
“No!” I say, shouting over the gunfire. “I got this.”
I regret the words the second they’re out of my mouth. A stinger bullet slams into the vat ahead of me, spitting up sparks. The bullets aren’t designed to go through metal, but they’ll make a real mess of anything softer. Another bullet whips by, scoring a hot line above my ankle, only just missing.
Royo is barking in my ear. “Hale, we’re hearing gunfire! I need an update!”
I’m trying to stay as low as possible. Maybe I can slip off the back of the vat, drop down, make a run for it. I could draw my stinger, return fire. But I’m an awful shot, always have been, and finding a target under fire will just get me killed. I dig in my pockets, feeling for anything that could help. Half a protein bar. A tiny battery. I’m going by feel, and I’m about to admit defeat when my fingers grasp something else.
The box. Carver’s sticky bomb. I’d forgotten all about it.
“The sticky,” I say, hoping SPOCS picks my voice up over the gunfire. “How big’s the blast?”
“Not big enough to take out seven people with guns!”
“Just humour me.”
“You set that thing off, you’re looking at a powerful, concentrated blast of three or four feet. Maybe less. But I don’t see how…”
I’ve already flipped myself, and begun to move on all fours towards the edge. There’s a seam, running down the middle of the vat, a vertical weld joining the two halves. Before I can even think about it, I’m scooting around on my stomach, ducking as another stinger bullet hits the metal above my head.
“Hale!” Royo shouts. “Get to cover. We’re breaching now.”
I fumble with the box, popping the lid off and squashing the putty down. I replace the lid, then slam the whole thing down on the seam.
I roll right off the side of the vat. A second later, the sticky explodes.
10
Riley
The sticky doesn’t just blow a hole in the vat. It ruptures it, ripping the welded seam apart.
The bang hits my ears right as the shock waves ripple across my falling body, followed a second later by the sharp stench of shit and piss. I hear the terrified shouts of the hostage takers as a tidal wave of waste rolls towards them. An image flashes into my mind of the hostages, caught prone, submerged in the filth.
I twist in mid-air, tuck my arms, hit the ground, roll, come up on all fours in the torrent. There’s not enough sewerage to flood the
plant, but it rolls out in a great, sluggish, frothing wave. It’s a dark brown, almost black, with misshapen lumps floating in the slurry. In the distance, an alarm is blaring.
I’m up on my feet, bursting into a run, when there’s another enormous bang. The door to the plant explodes inwards, and stompers surge into the room. Kev is among them, sprinting to the side, trying to flank the hostage takers. His feet kick up huge waves of liquid as he runs. He hits one of the gunmen shoulder first, knocking him flying, then swings a punch at another. The floor is a confusion of brown sludge and screaming, scrambling, sliding bodies. Carver is roaring in my ear
Mikhail. It takes me a minute to pick him out in the chaos. He’s raised his gun, taking aim at the nearest stomper.
He’s the one. I can’t take down every hostage taker, not on a floor that’s this slippery, not in the chaos of a firefight, but if I get their leader …
I’m already running, the sea of muck rising up my shins, soaking through my pants. Mikhail fires. The stomper gives a strangled cry, flying over backwards as the bullet takes him in the chest.
My foot connects with something loose and slippery, and with a sick horror I feel myself flailing forward. On instinct, I tuck for a roll. The wet muck soaks through my jumpsuit and the shirt beneath it to touch my bare skin, shockingly cold.
But then I’m through the roll and on my feet, still running. For a moment, I can’t see Mikhail – just stompers and hostages, diving and slipping across the floor. Then I spot him. He’s almost at the doors, elbowing stompers out of the way when they try to grab him.
“Move!” I yell, dodging past a hostage. Her huge, panicked eyes are the only thing in her face not slick with filth.
Mikhail is past the doors now. Two stompers are giving chase, but they’re not fast enough, and they can’t risk firing – a missed shot would go right into the gallery.
I bolt through the doors, now no more than shredded chunks of metal. As I pull free of the muck, as my feet kiss solid ground, I lean forward and drop my centre of gravity, swinging my arms, pushing myself into a full sprint.
Think you’re fast, Mikhail? Let’s see if you can outrun me.
The shadows from the catwalks cut the floor into pieces. The area past the plant is filled with the crush – the people that pack the floor of every gallery and corridor in Outer Earth, a slow-moving morass of humanity. Mikhail is still shoving people out of the way, powering through the crowd. I do the same, trying to keep sight of him, shouting his name as I elbow people aside.
No one tries to stop him. They’re all gawking at the scene in the plant. He’s at the edge of the gallery, pulling away, sprinting into one of the corridors leading off the floor. I see him look back over his shoulder as he does. I’m still fighting my way through the crowd. If I don’t get free in the next five seconds, I’m going to lose him.
“No!” I scream as he slips out of sight. I’m furious with the people in the crowd. They stand there like statues, not moving until I put a hand on their chests or pull their shoulders to the sides.
My SPOCS unit is filled with shouted orders from dozens of stompers, coming across the all-channels setting. “Carver?” I shout, hoping that I can be heard through the chaos.
The noise vanishes, replaced by his voice, calmer than it should be. “Copy, Ry.”
My words are rendered ragged by my running. “I’m chasing Mikhail. We’re on the bottom level, heading towards the furnaces. I need you to cut him off for me.”
“No can do. I’m way behind you.”
“Kev?” I can feel a stitch creeping down my left side as I run, jabbing me with every step.
“He’s here. Beating someone to a pulp with his own stinger.”
I don’t respond, partly because I’m trying to save my breath, and partly because I know what he’s going to say next and don’t want him to say it.
“You’ll have to call Anna.”
There’s a sharp turn in the corridor. I’m coming up on it too quickly, and jump towards the wall, using it to arrest my momentum and change direction in one movement. I see Mikhail, pushing past a group of people standing outside the door to the furnaces. He’s sprinting past, heading for the stairwell at the far end.
“She’s on a different channel today. Uh … 349,” says Carver.
I have to glance down at my wristband as I flick through the channels. I spin past 349, and have to pull the dial back.
“Anna, this is Riley, come back.”
For a moment, there’s no sound except the pounding of my feet. “Anna,” I say again. “Riley here. You copy?”
“What do you want?” Anna says, her crisp accent coming through on the line perfectly. She sounds like she just woke up from a nice doze.
“Where are you?” I say.
She pauses before answering. “Level 6 in New Germany.”
Mikhail hits the stairs, taking them three at a time. I’m closing, but nowhere near fast enough. “I’ve got a runner heading your way,” I say. “He’s climbing the stairwell on the Apogee border side. I need you to take him out.”
Static explodes in my ear, and I nearly tear the SPOCS unit out and hurl it at the wall.
The noise dies, and Anna snickers. “What’s the matter? Too fast for you?”
“Just do it,” I say, as I sprint past the door to the furnace. A blast of dry heat whips by me as I pass, and then I’m at the stairs.
“If you’re going to give me orders, I’ll let you keep chasing him.”
I can hear Mikhail above me. His thundering footfalls shake the stairwell.
“Anna, now is not the time,” I say, the words burning a stitch in my side. Above me, Mikhail’s thundering footfalls shake the stairwell. “He’s coming from below you. Middle-aged, long hair, dark overalls, backpack.”
Anna yawns. I hear it come over the comms, a little swelling exclamation mark, and I want to reach through the frequencies and smack her.
“I’ll see what I can do,” Anna says.
The bottom of the stairs is littered with garbage and scraps of twisted metal. I take the steps as fast as I can, dodging around wide-eyed onlookers, tracking the noise of Mikhail’s thundering footsteps above me. He’s got too much of a head start. Anna might get there in time, but she might not. I need to close the gap.
I climb as fast as I can, my legs pistoning out in front of me, my thighs screaming. The stairwell is a dark, tight space, with half the lights missing from their sockets. There’s a woman working a plasma cutter just below Level 3. I smell her before I hear her, the scent of ozone sharp and pungent, and I have to shield my eyes as I dash past. I’m already looking up towards the next set of stairs, and that’s when I see it.
The landing above me isn’t flush with the wall. There’s a gap. Five feet wide, an open space beyond the railing at the landing’s edge. I didn’t realise I was on this particular stairwell – the gap reaches all the way from Level 1 to Level 6, something the construction corps used to get building materials between the levels, back when the station was built.
There’s a railing, waist-high and flecked with rust, separating the landing from the gap. Before I can even think about it, I jump. My right foot lands square on the rail, and I use it to launch myself at the wall, flying into space.
If I don’t pull this off, if I don’t swing my body a hundred and eighty degrees at just the right moment, I’ll fall, screaming, all the way to the bottom.
My left foot connects with the wall, sending a shock wave up into my knee.
Time slows, then stops.
I can pick out every detail. The rough texture of the metal. My pants stretched tight against my leg as my knee bends. The feeling in my hips as I start to twist.
The word running through my mind is friction. My foot needs to stay in immobile contact with that wall. If it doesn’t, I’m finished.
And then, as time begins to speed up again, the yell escapes my lips, forcing its way out as I push back off the wall and spin my body, injecting that tin
y bit of extra energy into my movements. I throw my hands up, as high as they can go.
My palms slam into the edge of the landing above. There’s a split second where I’m scrabbling at it, but my body takes over. I swing forward, then on the way back I use the momentum to thrust myself upwards. A second later, I’m up and over the railing. My arms are burning, and I can actually feel the blood powering through my veins, but I’m alive. And I can hear Mikhail, closer now. His breathing echoes off the walls, hot and ragged.
I ignore the pounding in my own chest, ignore the stitch which has turned my side to a searing flame, and charge after him into the corridor. I’m frantically scanning my mental map of New Germany – where does the corridor lead? The hab units? Or is this the sector where they’ve got the mess hall on the upper levels?
The lights above us flicker, then die completely, plunging the corridor into darkness. When they click back on, Anna Beck is there, in front of Mikhail, running right at him, her slingshot raised in front of her like a shield.
She fires, the slingshot strips snapping forward with a high-pitched crack. Whatever she’s loaded it with whips through the air, too fast to see, and takes Mikhail dead in the chest.
11
Knox
Knox strips naked, then washes his hands, holding them up so the water drips down his arms. It’s scalding hot, and the industrial detergent he uses makes his skin feel as if it’s been scoured.
He shakes the water off into the metal basin, then turns his attention to his chest. Two strips of tape, their edges peeling, form an X above his heart. He peels the tape off, wincing, using one finger to hold the tiny transmitter underneath it in place.
Two thin wires run off the transmitter, terminating under his skin, and he touches the entry wounds gingerly. No infection. Good.
He replaces the tape, smoothing it down, then washes his hands again. The skin on them is red and raw, peeling away on the ball of his left thumb. He bites down on a stray piece, tearing it off and spitting it into the basin, then gives his thumb and forefingers another quick scrub.