Tracer

by Rob Boffard

  He came into the Core because he wanted to take me down himself, right here. It’s the kind of twisted logic that would appeal to someone like him. But he didn’t think. Didn’t realise how much the cold would affect him.

  For the first time, I may just have the edge.

  Could I wait him out? Stay here until he dies of hypothermia? It sounds so ridiculous I have to force myself not to laugh. Even if I was able to somehow not die of cold myself, and even if he kept missing my hiding place in a room with very few hiding places, there’s just no time. Okwembu is still out there, and the heat convectors are still inactive.

  What are you going to do if they come after you in the Core?

  What I always do, Prakesh. I run.

  I have to wait until he’s far enough away. He’s getting agitated, moving towards the bottom of the reactor. I force myself to keep breathing, to flex my fingers and toes, to keep the blood flowing. The seconds stretch into minutes.

  “Where are you?” he yells.

  Slowly, I slip out from behind the cables. I can see him; he’s below, and won’t see me unless he looks straight up. Moving very quietly, I position myself on the reactor, ready to push off towards the shaft leading to Apex as soon as it comes into view. Under me, the reactor hums, the vibration gripping the soles of my shoes.

  I see the shaft entrance. With one movement, I push myself off the reactor, floating towards it.

  Darnell bellows as he spots me. I sneak a glance back. He’s still below me, but – no – he’s gaining. Maybe he pushed off harder. I will myself forwards, tucking my arms, streamlining my body. Behind me, Darnell raves. There’s no joy in his voice now; just pure hatred.

  The first part of the shaft is hard. The wall rises up to meet me again, and I have to push off it, adjusting to the gravity as I go, willing myself not to look back. I can see the ramp below me. Slowly, I change my aim, bring my body around – it’s hard without anything to push off, but I do it. He’s got closer, no more than a few yards away. The blade glints in the dim light, and I can hear his breathing, deep and hard, echoing around the shaft. I’m shivering uncontrollably now – whether from fear or the cold, I don’t know.

  Then I realise: the gravity. It’s coming back as we get further away from the reactor, and I can use it to my advantage. Like the Apogee shaft, the ramp here curves downwards, circling the walls. I don’t have to run down the whole catwalk. I can jump from side to side, letting the low gravity cushion my fall. And the lower I go, the less problematic the station’s spin will be.

  “You’re mine, Hale,” he says.

  I look back over my shoulder.

  “You’ll have to catch me first.”

  I hit the ramp, and almost immediately bounce back upwards. But this time, I push myself out over the shaft aiming for a lower part of the catwalk on the far side. The low gravity means that I can drop down a few levels of the ramp each time.

  The move surprises Darnell, but he recovers quickly. I can hear him in the air behind me as I drop onto the catwalk below. My heart is pounding, but I force myself to run, to jump down again, this time back to the other side of the shaft. When I look back over my shoulder, I see Darnell: he didn’t quite reach the catwalk, and is scrambling over the railing on the far side, cursing with the effort. The knife is jammed in his waistband.

  “What’s the matter, Oren?” I shout. “Can’t jump high enough?”

  He doesn’t say anything. He just roars. I don’t waste any more time gloating, just start moving down the ramp. It’s not long before I start running. The gravity is still low, so I have to control my strides, but almost immediately I start to leave him behind. He’s running now, moving down the ramp behind me, but before long I’m far ahead of him. His panting gets softer and softer. When I get to the bottom, maybe I can get out and trap him in here, somehow …

  I still have no idea how I can get the doors at the bottom of the shaft open. If they can only be opened from the outside, I’ll be dead in minutes.

  No choice. I have to keep running.

  It’s an age before I reach the bottom of the shaft. The last few minutes are a haze of exhaustion and pain, coursing through my body and sizzling in the cut on my side. As I reach the floor, my feet tangle up, and I crash to the ground, crying out.

  I force myself to get up. I can’t hear Darnell any more, but I have to move. I’m colder than I’ve ever been in my life. I can no longer feel my feet, or my hands.

  The bottom of the shaft here is similar to the Apogee end. Same elevator, same cable points. There’s got to be a way to open these doors. Whatever’s on the other side – even if it’s Okwembu, waiting with a stinger – I have to get out of here.

  I spot a control panel, tucked away by the elevator, and my heart leaps. As I approach, I can see it’s simple enough: a small digital readout, and a single switch. There aren’t any labels, but I don’t need them. I hit the switch, scarcely daring to breathe.

  The doors clunk, sputter and begin to open. At that same instant, I hear Darnell above me.

  He’s coming down the last few coils of catwalk. Without thinking, without even looking, I drop through the opening doors, into Apex.

  I land heavily and roll, my side flaring with pain. The temperature changes so quickly that pins and needles cascade through my body. The room is brightly lit, a huge space with white walls and glaring fluorescents. But I don’t have time to take in the details. I’m looking for the door controls. There. One on either side of the room, just like back in Apogee, much newer and better maintained than their partners on the other side.

  I can still hear him, panting, as he moves towards the open doors. How close is he? No way to tell. I have to lock the doors. I spring to the first control panel, jab at the touch-screen, searching for the option to close.

  Seal Reactor Access? asks the panel. I hit Confirm so hard that a spear of pain shoots back into my finger. No time. Run. I’m pushing my body to the limit, but I still feel as if my legs won’t move fast enough, like the cold has sealed my bones in place. Then I’m at the other panel, hunting through the options.

  Above me the doors start to close, grinding shut. I look upwards – just in time to see him come down the last part of the ramp. The doors are closing too slowly. He’ll be through them in seconds.

  Move, I tell myself, but it’s like I’m back in the reactor, watching him fly towards me. My legs have turned to lead.

  The doors move towards each other, inch by inch. Darnell hits the floor and makes one last desperate jump towards them.

  68

  Darnell

  Darnell is halfway through the doors when they close on his torso.

  The metal teeth bring his descent to a shuddering halt, first slowing him, then holding him, then biting down as the enormous, grinding motors try to push the doors closed.

  He feels his ribs break – the sound is a soft snap, like pulling a twig off a tree. He almost blacks out from the agony. He’s upside-down, clawing at the air, his face twisted with pain. Something below his ribs gives way, and he screams. The darkness rushes in.

  Before it closes on him completely, he sees Riley Hale. She’s standing below him, her eyes wide, staring in mute horror. No more than a few feet away.

  You’re mine.

  Darnell starts to twist his body. He can feel his legs flailing at the air above the doors, and he plants his hands on the other side of them, begins to push. He feels bone scrape bone, and he screams again, the thick cords of muscle in his neck tight enough to snap. The doors’ motors are stuck in a high-pitched whine, and he can smell the sharp stench of burning electronics.

  With a final wrench, Darnell rips his body free of the doors. When he hits the ground, it’s as if an enormous hand has torn away his midsection. His legs have stopped working, and a dull pain emanates from the base of his spine.

  Hale is slowly backing away. As Darnell screams her name, she turns and runs.

  His hands still work. He can still do something. His k
nife has slipped out of his waistband, and lies in arm’s reach. Darnell grabs it, groaning as the world turns grey and scarlet. But he can still see her. She’s directly ahead, her back to him, presenting a perfect target. Darnell summons all the strength he has left, raising his arm as high as he can, crooking his elbow.

  You always pull to the right, he thinks. You have to adjust for that.

  His muscle memory is perfect, each movement sliding into place, and his arm is fully extended when he releases the knife. It’s a perfect throw.

  The blade spins through the air, heading right towards Riley Hale, a flickering star in an impossibly bright universe. For an instant, Darnell thinks it’s going to hit its mark. Right when it counts, he’s found his aim.

  The knife goes wide.

  It ricochets off the wall with a clang, the blade flickering as it bounces away. Hale looks back, startled, and the stupid, animal confusion in her eyes fuels Darnell’s anger. He starts to pull himself across the floor, slamming his elbows into it, his ribs tenting the fabric of his shirt. If he can just get to her …

  His arms give out. His face slams into the ground, all the strength draining away at once. He lies there, heaving, his hands balled into fists. He’s not supposed to die here. He’s supposed to die with everyone else, the only one laughing in a sea of screams. This isn’t fair.

  He lifts his head once more. The tracer is still staring at him.

  “You cuh. You can’t imagine,” he says, and then stops. His throat has forgotten how to form words, and kicking it back into action nearly wipes him out.

  “You can’t imagine what you’ll find in there,” he says. A spray of blood shoots out from between his teeth as he speaks. “You can’t run from it. No one can.”

  His eyes find hers.

  “It’s going to burn you alive.”

  The grey and scarlet turn black, like a piece of silk in a fire, and then there’s nothing at all.

  69

  Riley

  For the longest time, I can’t move.

  I’m expecting him to twitch, for him to look up and come for me again. He doesn’t. I should retrieve the knife, plant it in his heart, make sure, but the thought of being close to him again makes me shudder.

  Crushed. His organs turned to pulp. The old Riley would have felt something.

  The new one doesn’t care.

  After a minute, my legs give out. I go down on one knee, breathing hard. The shivering is back, stronger now, and needle-jabs of pain are ricocheting through my body. The temptation to close my eyes and drift away is so strong that I have to will my eyes to stay open. Focus on something. Anything.

  That’s when I see it. A water point. Standing in the corner, gleaming under the lights. I’m up so fast that it’s a full second before the pain in my side kicks in. I ignore it, stumbling over to the water point, fumbling with the switch. The tap clicks, whirrs, and falls silent, dry as my throat.

  I hang my head, more furious than I’m willing to admit, but as I do so the tap whirrs again, startling me, and begins to gush water. I let out a small cry of relief, and stick my head under the tap, greedily sucking it in, gulping in huge mouthfuls of water. I drink, and drink, and drink.

  After a while, I drink too much. Coughing and spluttering, I collapse against the water point, but I’m surprised at how good I feel. Amazing how a little water can change things around.

  I wipe my mouth; I’m still shivering, but the tremors are smaller now. Slowly, I strip myself of my gloves and undo my jacket. I’m no expert on frostbite, but it looks as if I managed to protect my hands for just long enough. Before long, they’re flaring with powerful, reassuring pain, flushed with red.

  I’m alone. No Okwembu. Or anyone else. Every surface is a gleaming white, lit by strips of lighting where the walls meet the ceilings and floors. There aren’t any crates or pieces of equipment that I can see, or even any control panels on the walls. Unlike Apogee – or any other sector – it’s quiet here. I can still hear the groaning of the hull, but I have to strain to do so.

  And then I notice something. It’s cooler here.

  When I was on the other side of the station, the temperature was almost unbearable. But here, it’s actually pleasant. Darnell – and Okwembu – must have kept the convection fins active for Apex. I’ve got to find a way to turn the rest of the station’s convectors back on. How much time do I have left?

  No way to tell.

  I don’t look at Darnell’s body as I leave. I’m done with him. Trying to be as quiet as possible, I make my way to one of the corridors running off the main room. The light is dimmer here. There are doors recessed into the walls; I’m curious to know what’s behind them, but there’s no time.

  The small, dark place where I put Yao, Amira and everyone else pulses. I fight it back. I can’t be scared now, can’t afford to be scared. Darnell is out of commission – I hope – but that doesn’t mean his plan is. And it doesn’t mean Okwembu isn’t still out there.

  I hit a T-junction. As I reach it, I flatten myself against the wall and close my eyes, listening hard. If Okwembu wasn’t waiting for me when I came out of the Core, then there’s every chance she’ll be in one of the corridors, just waiting for me to show myself so she can put a bullet in my chest. I suddenly remember Darnell’s knife, and curse myself for not retrieving it.

  I can’t hear anything: just the quiet hum of the lights, and behind them, like a ripple in a puddle of water, the sound of the station. I slip round the corner and pad quietly down the deserted passage, almost breaking into a run, deciding that it’s better to be quiet.

  There are stairs at the end of the corridor. Again, I hesitate before stepping onto them, wary that Okwembu could be waiting above or below me. Again, I hear nothing. Scarcely daring to breathe, I step into the stairwell, and start down it.

  It’s a few levels before I’m breathing again. I’m oddly reassured by just how much noise the stairs make when stepped on, giving off odd clangs every time my feet come down. Anybody listening would be able to hear me coming – but I’d be able to hear them, too. After a few levels, there cease to be any more corridors leading off. I’m getting close.

  A few minutes later, I reach the bottom level. Ahead of me is a single small corridor, and at the end of it what must be the door to the control room. I don’t know what I was expecting – a set of blast doors, maybe, or some complicated locking mechanism – but it’s like every other door in the station.

  I walk up to it, glancing nervously over my shoulder. There’s a small keypad on one side of the door. Under the usual circumstances, there’d probably be several heavily armed elite officers on guard here, so other security measures in such a tight space probably wouldn’t be necessary.

  Still, the sight of the keypad gives me pause. There’ll be no way to guess the code. Does this mean I’ve got to find Okwembu? Force the code out of her? My shoulders sag. I can’t spend time tracking someone in an unfamiliar sector, where they know the layout and I don’t, where they’re armed and rested and I’m exhausted and defenceless.

  It’s then that a little green light blinks at the bottom of the keypad, so quickly that I nearly miss it. I freeze, hardly daring to believe I’ve seen it, but after thirty seconds or so it blinks again.

  The door’s unlocked.

  This is too easy. Okwembu is waiting inside, knowing that I’ll come to her. She’ll shoot me the moment I’m through the door.

  But there’s no other choice. I have to get in there. I cast around for something to hide behind, anything to give me cover, but there’s nothing in the corridor.

  What if I didn’t have to take cover out here? What if I could surprise her, and get behind something inside the control room before she shoots? It might buy me a few crucial seconds. And while Okwembu might fire in the direction of the corridor, she might be a little more hesitant to shoot if she could hit the controls.

  Which would be a bit more relevant if she wasn’t so intent on destroying the station.<
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  I shake off the thought, and take a step back from the door, breathing hard. I rest my finger on the keypad’s Enter button, tell myself to push it, but I hold back. Every cell in my body is screaming for me to turn around, to go find somewhere dark and warm and safe, and let everything disappear. I have to remind myself that there’s nowhere like that any more.

  I push the button.

  The door whooshes open, and I throw myself through, tucking into a roll. I catch a blurred glimpse of several terminals, and then I’m in the roll, my heart in my mouth, expecting to hear the awful bang of a gunshot. I swing my head to the side, preparing to dive behind the nearest bit of cover. But as I do so, I get a look at the room, and I check my movement, coming to a stop on all fours.

  The control room is deserted.

  Terrified, I flick my head from side to side, hunting out hiding places, anywhere that she could be waiting. But there’s no place to hide. Slowly, I stand, gazing around me.

  Wherever Okwembu is, it’s not here. The main control room of Outer Earth is narrow, barely wider than the corridor outside. The walls on either side of me are crowded with banks of screens, bathing the room in an orange glow. There aren’t any keyboards or control pads, so I’m guessing the screens are touch-based. Several chairs are scattered around, overturned.

  Slowly, I wander down the room. It’s tiny. There’s not even a viewing port: just bank after bank of terminals. There’s no retinal scanner that I can see, nothing that Darnell would use Foster’s eyeball on. It must be hidden away somewhere.

  By now, I’m expecting to hear klaxons, computerised voices reading off dire warnings, but the room is quiet. I turn back to the door, hoping against hope that there’s a way to lock it. There’s another keypad, but it’s also blinking green, and without the code, I won’t be able to close it. I walk back and thumb the Enter button, and the door shuts with a hiss.

  Okwembu’s absence nags at me. Where is she? I can’t think of a single reason why she wouldn’t be in the control room. Maybe she’s watching from a distance, or listening. Waiting for me to trigger a trap.