by Rob Boffard
But before any conclusions can form, there’s a bang. The sound is enormous, replaced instantly by a ringing in my ears. The chair Garner is in pitches backwards. Her chest flares with blood, staining her blue scarf black.
She seems to fall in slow motion, her arms thrown out to the sides, like she’s trying to break her fall. For one horrible moment, I see the surprise on her face, the life already beginning to fade from her eyes. She hits the ground, and then there’s just silence. Nothing but the ringing in my ears.
I turn, and see Amira. She’s holding a stinger out in front of her. And as I watch, she swings the gun around until it points directly at my chest.
52
Prakesh
The other techs must have cleared out when the smoke came down. Prakesh is alone on the floor of the Air Lab, and he can’t remember the last time the place was so silent. The only sound is the distant hum of the ventilation system, sucking the last of the smoke away from the labs. Most of it’s gone already, and the few wisps that remain are hanging around at canopy level.
In truth, the smoke was never really going to hurt the trees, or the algae. That was just something Prakesh told Riley to give him a chance to get away. He needed time to think.
He heads for the mobile lab, making a detour around the bloodied patch where Riley beat the crap out of Zhao. He keeps glancing up at the main window of the control room, but it’s reflecting some of the light at him, turning it into a shining white beacon which reveals nothing.
He has to think of a way to stay with her.
Prakesh is well aware that he’s done what he said he would. He got Riley and Amira into the Air Lab. They’ve found Garner. Prakesh doesn’t know what she’ll tell them, or what they’ll do next, but he knows that there’ll be no good reason for him to stay with them. Riley will tell him to lie low, to stay in the Air Lab, to let her and Amira take care of … whatever the hell they need to take care of.
Riley can handle herself. Prakesh knows that. But it doesn’t stop him wanting to stay with her. If he’s with her, he can …
He groans in frustration, resting his hands on the edge of an algae tank. His fingertips just touch the water, sending out a ripple which distorts his reflection.
She doesn’t want you, he thinks. Not in the way you want her.
He pushes off, striding towards the mobile lab. He’ll check on the trees anyway. Get some equipment, test soil pH levels, check the temperature of the algae ponds, do something to get his mind off it.
It takes him a few minutes to make his way to the mobile lab. Most of the equipment was in the stores, destroyed in the fire, but there are still a few units scattered across the shelves here. Prakesh looks at them without seeing. Eventually, he grabs a pH monitor, more or less automatically, and turns to leave. Maybe he’s overthinking this. Maybe he can …
There’s a noise, right at the edge of his hearing, almost inaudible. An echoing bang.
He pauses for a moment, confused, and it takes him a second to identify the sound. Stinger fire. A single shot. He listens hard, but the sound doesn’t repeat itself. At first, he thinks it’s coming from somewhere in the Air Lab, but it was barely there to begin with, and the echoes smudge the sound. He can’t place the source.
Prakesh turns around, meaning to investigate.
And finds another stinger barrel less than an inch from his face.
The barrel is a giant black hole, sucking in light. Prakesh becomes exquisitely aware of every movement, of every twitch in his fingers and every breath he takes. He makes himself focus, makes himself look past the barrel and see the person behind it.
It’s a stomper. The underarms of his grey uniform are soaked with sweat, and his dark skin and shorn head gleam with it. Prakesh has seen him before, although it takes him a moment to remember where. He was one of the stompers who busted into Arthur Gray’s room by the monorail tracks.
“Show me ID,” the stomper says.
Prakesh tries to breathe. “I’m a tech. OK? I work in the Air Lab.”
“Show me ID,” the stomper says again.
“Seriously, don’t shoot me, my name is Prakesh Kumar. I was there when Arthur—”
“Show me ID, now.” The stomper’s grip on the stinger makes it pretty clear that he won’t ask again, and he doesn’t show the slightest hint of recognition when he hears Prakesh’s name.
Prakesh’s hand moves to where the pocket of his lab coat would be if he were still wearing one, then stops. “I lost it.”
He doesn’t have time to berate himself for how stupid that sounds, because he sees the stomper’s trigger finger move ever so slightly. “Wrong answer,” the stomper says. “I’ve got techs evacuating, talking about more smoke, and now I find you. Move.”
Prakesh starts to walk, painfully aware of the stinger. He doesn’t know what to do with his hands.
There’s another bang, distant and echoing. Both Prakesh and the stomper are facing the control room when it comes, and it’s impossible to miss the flash, the tiny white-yellow burst of stinger fire, from the control room windows.
“Riley,” Prakesh breathes.
And before the stomper can stop him, he’s running.
53
Riley
Time stops.
Amira has the stinger clasped in both hands, her finger inside the trigger guard. A tiny wisp of smoke is curling from the barrel, catching light from a nearby screen. For one weird instant, I wonder how she managed to keep the gun on her when she was captured by Zhao.
Above it, her eyes are cold. She has the same expression she had back at the brig, when she broke me out. Sorrow and anger, fighting for control.
I slowly find the words, my voice shaking. “Amira, what are you doing?”
“Don’t,” she says.
Her voice cracks a little. Does she have to reload? Can she fire again straightaway? Impossible to tell.
My eyes fall on Garner’s body. Her legs have tilted to the side as her chair toppled over, and she lies sprawled across the floor. As I watch, her hand, splayed out above her head, twitches ever so slightly. “She’s still alive.” I look at Amira, trying to hide the desperation in my voice. “We have to help her.”
“I said, don’t.”
She takes a step forward, the gun still pointed right at my chest. “Turn around.”
I do as she says, trembling. I’m running over the last few hours in my mind, trying to find out why she’s doing this. I see her breaking me out of the brig. Back in the Caves, trying to get us to go to find Garner without the rest of the crew. Telling the Dancers to split up when we were attacked by Zhao. And now, her and me, alone with Garner.
“It wasn’t real, was it?” I mutter, and I’m surprised to hear a tiny core of steel in my own voice. “None of it. You planned it all.”
The gun lightly touches the back of my head.
“I’m sorry, Riley,” she says. “I wish it didn’t have to happen this way, but it does.”
My gaze is drawn back to Garner, and this time the hand is still. Something inside me says to keep her talking. Buy time. Prakesh might come back.
“Tell me why. You owe me that much,” I say.
“You’re the only one Garner would have spoken to. You were the one who had to find her. But once we’d got the information, that word, whatever it is, there was no reason for her to live. And no reason for you to, either.”
The realisation settles over me, heavy, like a thick blanket. “You’re one of Darnell’s sleepers. One of the Sons of Earth.”
“Yes.” She says it in a whisper.
Call it instinct. Call it whatever the hell you want, but I know that she’s about to squeeze the trigger. Right now. Right this second.
I whip my head to the side. She fires. The bullet is so close that I feel it whip-crack past my ear. She screams in fury, swinging the gun around. But my instinct is still in control. I’m just along for the ride.
I snap my left arm upwards, grabbing her wrist and twisting.
She snarls, but doesn’t let go of the gun, leaning into the move. I can feel her shifting stance, trying to pull me off balance. Her free hand swings round, and claps me on the ear, which explodes in ringing pain. I’m immediately nauseous, and she tries to throw me off, but somehow I hold on.
It can’t be her. This twisting, slashing thing on top of me can’t be Amira. It’s someone else, something else, something that’s taken over her body. This can’t be the same person who saved me, all those years ago.
But a part of me – the instinct, the part that kept me alive when Amira pulled the trigger – knows different.
Amira is the best fighter I’ve ever seen, anywhere. The only hope in hell I have of beating her is to get to that gun.
And then I remember something else.
She was also one of the best teachers.
We fall to the floor. She gets on top of me, her nails scratching across my forehead, reopening the cut I got from the Lieren. She jerks against my grip on her wrist, trying to bring the gun round, trying to push it into my face.
I reach up and pull, swinging the gun past my face and to the side. My breath catches in my throat – Amira is so quick that she might just have pulled the trigger right then – but she doesn’t, and then the gun is on my right, and she’s off balance.
I swing it back the other way in one sudden movement. The stinger flicks out of her grip, skittering across the floor. She howls in frustration, torn between fighting me and going for it. I seize the opportunity, hitting her sideways across the cheek. She tumbles off me, and I scramble for the gun, hunting for it in the half-light.
My fingers close on the barrel just as Amira lunges forward and drops a knee into my back. The agony flares upwards along my spine. I smash into the ground, and it takes every ounce of control I have not to let go of the gun. My fist is closed so tight around it that I can feel every tendon in my hand.
I buck my body upwards. Amira crashes off me, coming to rest on her knees. With a gasping cry, I swing the gun round, the metal slipping under my fingers, fumbling with the trigger guard.
I’m lying on my side, the gun in both hands, pointed right at her. The only sound is our breathing, heavy and ragged.
She slowly raises her hands. “You don’t understand, Riley. What we’re doing? All of this? It’s for the greater good. Humanity nearly destroyed the planet. If we continue to exist, then we’ll return, and we’ll do it again. The only way to make sure the Earth survives is for us not to.”
My thumb touches the stinger’s safety catch – it’s off, and I keep it that way. But there’s no way of telling how many bullets are still inside. My body is humming with adrenaline and pain, and the gun shakes in my grip.
“You don’t believe that. You can’t.”
Unbelievably, she smiles. “You forget,” she whispers. “I saved Outer Earth. I saved it. I ran the Core.”
My eyes flick to her hand, her missing fingers.
“I believed in it back then,” she continues. “Believed it was worth fighting for. But nothing changed. We still kill and rape and steal and destroy. We don’t deserve to live. We never did. And without us, the Earth can recover.”
“Shut up!” I scream. Tears prick the sides of my eyes. This can’t be happening. It’s as if the insane Darnell is there, speaking through Amira, using her like a puppet. “What about the Dancers? What about us? Do we deserve to die?”
Regret floods her face. “I knew none of you would understand. I wanted to make you see, but I didn’t know how. You would have stopped me. You would have stopped us. I always knew I’d have to choose between the Dancers and doing the right thing. I just made my choice. That’s all.”
The betrayal gives way to anger, bright and hot. “The bombing, the fire, the heat convectors … is that what you want? For everyone to suffer?”
There’s a flicker of doubt. Just for a moment. “No. I just did what Janice Okwembu asked me to. I had to find you, bring you to Garner, and get the code.”
“But Darnell has Okwembu. He said he’s going to kill her.”
Now she laughs, getting to her feet. “I work for her. So does Darnell – he’s just the face. She came to me two years ago and asked me to join them.”
“That’s impossible. Back up!”
Amira has taken a few steps towards me, and stops, her hands raised. “How do you think that idiot Darnell got into Apex?”
Iapetus. “The word Garner gave me. What’s it for? What does it do?”
“If you think you can get something out of me, then I’m sorry to disappoint you. I don’t know what it’s for. It’s something Okwembu needs, that’s all.”
“Some kind of destruct code, is that it? She going to blow up the station?”
“Maybe.”
The ringing in my ears has gone, replaced by a dull roar. I don’t know whether it’s the blood rushing through my veins, or something else entirely.
“I don’t know what made you think this way,” I say, “but they’ve brainwashed you. Even if we don’t deserve to live on Earth, we deserve a chance. The people here aren’t monsters. They didn’t kill the planet. Amira, these are innocent people.”
“They aren’t innocent. No one here is. Everyone deserves what’s coming.”
I cut her off. “What about me?”
She falls silent. I keep talking: “You saved me once, Amira. If you believed we all deserved to suffer, you would have left me with the men in that corridor. But you didn’t, did you? And after all we’ve been through, all we’ve done together, you want to throw it away?”
Prakesh has been gone too long. He should have come back by now. But even as the thought occurs, I realise a part of me wants him to stay away. I don’t want anyone to see this. Any of it.
Right then, I see that Amira has shifted ever so subtly, rocking back on her heels.
To anybody else, it would be something almost imperceptible. But I’ve been running with Amira for long enough, and in one horrible moment I understand what she’s about to do.
“No,” I whisper. With a cry of triumph, she launches herself towards me.
I pull the trigger.
54
Riley
The sound of the gunshot fills the room. The whole world.
The bullet takes Amira in the stomach. She makes the oddest sound – a kind of phuh. Her grace and agility vanishes, sucked out of her, her body becoming a flying rag-doll, crashing to the ground. The fabric of her tank top is soaked with blood.
As she rolls to a stop at my feet, she begins screaming. She clutches her ruined stomach, sweat beading her forehead.
I drop to my knees, pressing down on her stomach, causing her to howl in pain again. I’ve gut-shot her. I didn’t even aim. My hands are drenched in seconds, slick and hot with her blood.
“I have to stop the bleeding,” I say. “We can get you to a hospital. I think there’s one near here. If we just …”
She reaches up and grips my hand. For an absurd moment, I think she’s going to continue attacking me, but she doesn’t. The pain is written on her face, rippling under the surface, but it’s been shrouded by a kind of calm.
“You don’t have to do that,” she says. A tiny sliver of blood trickles from the corner of her mouth.
After a moment, she says, “I was told to kill you first, then Garner. Not to wait, not to talk, just to do it. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t.”
“Amira …”
Her voice, husky now, coming in bubbling gasps. “You mustn’t stop Okwembu. This has to happen. It needs to happen.”
The anger is back, all at once, like a light turning on. Blinding, white-hot fury erupts and I slam my fist on the ground next to her head. She barely flinches.
“Why do you keep saying that?” I scream. “There are people on this station. People with lives, with families. Who the hell are you to say that they should die?”
She doesn’t reply. I’m crying openly now, the tears dropping off my cheeks onto Amira’s chest.
I should let her die. In pain.
The thought shocks me, but I can’t shake it. She lied to me, to the Dancers. She betrayed us in the worst way possible. She deserves this.
“Everything you taught me,” I say. “Was it all a lie too? Was everything leading up to … to this?”
Something changes in her expression. Like a barrier falling away.
“No,” she whispers. “When I saved you … that wasn’t a lie. And you became everything I hoped you would be.”
Blood pools around her. I reach for her hand again, grip it tight. She gasps in pain, a noise which becomes an awful moan. My hatred cracks, then shatters.
Amira closes her eyes. Her face is a pale, ghostly white, and it seems like all her will leaves her at once. “You need to get to Apex.”
“I can get there from here. Maybe the code will let me in somehow.”
“No,” she says. The air whistles out with her voice, obscuring her words. “That’s not what the code does, I’m sure of it. You can’t get in from the adjoining sectors. It’s more secure than here. It has to be. Even if you could somehow find a way to get the doors down, you’re running out of time.”
She opens her eyes again, and looks at me. For a moment, I’m back in that corridor, seeing her hold out her hand to me, her eyes burning with life, as if daring me to accept. The same fire is in her eyes now, her hand gripping onto mine.
“Riley,” she says. “You have to run the Core. It’s the only way you’ll get there. You have to.”
“I can’t do it.”
“You have to,” she says again, the pain adding an edge to her words. “Run fast. Get ready for the gravity change. Don’t stop. Whatever you do, don’t stop running.”
“Amira …”
But what else is there to say? I feel as if I’m in zero gravity already, tumbling out of control.
“There’s only one other thing I need to ask you,” she says. “You need to finish it.”
I shake my head, stunned. “I’m not. I can’t.”