Webb clapped him on the shoulder and got down to his knees and put his eye to the door seam. He patted his pockets and cursed.
“They took my multi-tool. There’s got to be…” He sat back on his heels and looked around. His eyes landed on Hugo. “Give me your dog tags,” he said, holding out his hand.
“Why?”
“Hugo, we’ve got a precious few hours before the shrimp comes back to practice on us. Do you want to waste time on stupid questions? Hand them over.”
Hugo felt something in his chest clench and he clutched at the metal through his clothes. There was sympathy in Webb’s glance but urgency too. Hugo lifted the chain over his head, throat tight and held them out.
Webb was just reaching for them when all the lights went out.
“Shit,” Webb cursed in the dark. “What the hell…?”
“Quiet,” Hugo said, fumbling his dog tags back on. He listened. There was a muffled shout and some very distant noise, so dampened by the layers of concrete around them it was impossible to make out.
“What’s going on?”
“The power’s gone,” Hugo said. “Listen.”
Webb went silent again. More voices and hurried footsteps were heard somewhere above their heads, followed by a crash. But other than that… silence. No humming of generators or wires or breath of ventilation.
“Christ. Do you think it’s the whole colony?”
“Let’s hope not. Move back.”
“What are you doing?” Webb asked as Hugo groped in the darkness and pushed his friend back from the door.
“These locks are electric. Maybe we can force it now there’s no power.”
Hugo felt for the door then took a step back and kicked. He paused to listen but the only noises were still indefinable distances away so he kicked again and felt the metal give.
“Move over,” Webb said and Hugo made room. They held on to each other in the dark and got into position.
“One, two, three,” Webb counted and they both pounded the door with their booted feet. The metal groaned.
“Again,” Webb said, bracing against him but then Hugo grabbed him to still him. “What?”
“Shh,” Hugo hissed and felt his way to the door, listening.
“Kale? Webb?” The voice came from somewhere.
“Dana!” Hugo cried.
“Shit, is that her?” Webb scrambled to join him at the door.
“Kale?” she called again.
“Dana,” Webb bellowed, pounding on the door. “We’re in here.”
They heard boot steps and then a light shone under the door. “Webb, is that you?”
“We’re both in here,” Webb said. “Christ Above, it’s good to hear your voice. How did you find us?”
“No time for that now,” Dana snapped. “We need to get the hell away from -”
She was cut off by a deafening blast that shook the walls around them.
“Jesus,” Webb cursed. “What the hell is going on?”
“Dana, can you get the door open?” Hugo said.
“Yes, just hang on, will you? Oh for the love of… which genius has been kicking at the door?”
“What’s wrong?”
“The manual release is all bent. Stand back.”
They heard the straining of protesting metal. More shouts echoed in the building, closer this time.
“Can you do it?” Hugo called through the door as Dana paused.
“Will you just leave off nagging me?”
“Don’t worry, Hugo,” Webb said. “Your sister is freakishly strong. How do you think we got out of that room?”
Hugo didn’t have time to process that because with a scrape and a clank the door was released and Dana was shining a lenslight in his face.
“You,” she snapped, pointing at him.
“Dana, honey,” Webb said, stepping between them. “You can tear your brother a new one when we get out of here, ok? First, let’s move.”
“What happened?” Dana said, keeping the light on Hugo’s face.
“It’s nothing,” Hugo said, swiping at the dried blood on his face with his sleeve. “Was it you that cut the power?”
“No,” Dana said, something creeping into her voice. “You won’t believe what’s happening.”
“No time,” Webb insisted, shouldering past her and into the passage. “Quick, Dana, where’s the way out?”
He halted when another crash echoed through from outside and the ground trembled under their feet.
“Dana, explain what’s happening,” Hugo said.
Dana gave the empty corridor a nervous sweep with the lenslight. “It’s the Havenites. They’re storming the District.”
“They’re doing what?”
Her eyes were wide. “Hundreds banded together and stormed the walls. I think someone’s tipped the Elders off about what the Ghosts have been up to… and they’re saying they’ve got guns.”
“It’s true,” Webb said.
“They’re mad,” Dana said. Even in the poor light of the lenslight she looked pale. “What’s even madder: the Ghosts are fighting back. I was able to slip through in the confusion.”
“We need to get the hell out of dodge,” Webb said. “We do not want to be in this building when the colony takes it.”
“No,” Hugo said. Webb and Dana looked at him. “This is our chance.”
“Hugo,” Webb pleaded. “We’re caught in the middle of a civil uprising here, both sides of which want us dead.”
“I don’t care,” Hugo said. “Ariel is not prepared for this. This is how we take him.”
“He’s right,” Dana said, drawing herself up and throwing Webb a defiant look. “This will be our only chance.”
Webb threw a glance to the ceiling. “Jesus, Mary and Joseph. God save me from Hugos.”
“Come on,” Hugo said, taking the light from Dana and starting up the corridor. The others followed, Webb still muttering. Hugo paused at every corner to listen and look for light, but they encountered no one else and moved quickly. He chose the way from memory and eventually came to the stairs up to the kitchen.
The beam from the lenslight showed the kitchen had been hastily deserted. Food was left steaming on rapidly cooling heat pads and half-prepared on chopping boards. He moved across the room to the knife rack and started grabbing what he could, shoving a long blade in his belt and a smaller one in his boot.
Dana was next to him doing the same, examining the edges as best she could in the poor light.
“Webb,” she snapped.
Hugo shone the light back into the kitchen as Webb moved away from the fridge, stuffing the last of something into his mouth.
“Shut up, I’m starving,” he mumbled around his mouthful.
“Focus,” Hugo said and Webb mumbled something profane, wiped his hands on his clothes and cast his eyes over the knife rack. When he’d also armed himself, they left and found themselves in the carpeted hallways between the rec rooms.
“Shut the light off,” Dana hissed and Hugo did. They stood flat against the wall in the solid dark. There were high-pitched voices not far away and the beams from lenslights and torches cut through the darkness in the direction of some of the rooms. There was the frenzied chatter of people talking into wrist panels and comm links and getting brisk, panicked replies.
“They have no idea what they’ve done,” Dana breathed.
“Oh I think they do,” Webb said, a grim satisfaction in his tone.
“Their whole colony’s turned against them,” Dana said.
“They turned on it first,” Webb muttered.
“This way,” Hugo said and they felt their way along in the dark.
“Do we even know where to find him in this place?” Dana whispered as they rounded a corner. Hugo clicked their light back on, sweeping it over a wide open space with game tables with cards and panels abandoned in drifts across their surfaces and bar dotted with half-finished drinks spanning one wall.
“There,” he said as
the beam lit up an ornamental building plan on the opposite wall.
“This is so the jerks can find the bathing suites and the dining room,” Webb said, glaring at the plan as Hugo examined it, getting their bearings. “I can’t believe the Elders have let these weasels live like this.”
“They can’t have known the whole truth,” Dana said.
“Quiet,” Hugo hissed and they heard voices approaching.
“Quick,” Webb said and ducked between one of the game tables and the wall.
They all crouched in the narrow space and held their breath. There was a whine as someone forced an electric door open and then hurrying footsteps and bobbing beams of lenslights.
“Get more men to the central boulevard,” someone was barking. A harried reply came from wrist panel speakers. “I don’t give a shit,” the man replied as his and his companion’s lenslights flashed off the walls over their heads. “They break through there, the south entrance is theirs. Get back up -”
“They’ve broken through the boundary wall,” his companion muttered. “Shots were fired. The gatehouse on the port side is a pile of smoking rubble.”
“Fuck. Pull away from there. Fall back to the stronghold.”
There was silence again as they passed through another door and the room was dark and empty again.
“Shit,” Dana murmured in the dark when none of them had moved. “This is serious.”
“A private army with guns versus a million pissed Havenites,” Webb said. “This is not going to end quick or easy.”
Hugo didn’t speak. He stood and flashed his light around. It landed on some of the abandoned panels on the smooth green of the gaming table. He scrambled over, grabbing a panel and turning it over and over to try and find the power button.
“This is not the time for cards Hugo,” Webb muttered as he and Dana shimmied out.
Hugo found the switch, booted up the panel and handed it to Webb. “Can you hack this thing to connect to the solarnet?”
Webb took the panel and frowned at the simulated game of Dead Man’s Candle on the screen. “These things are very basic…”
“They should still have solarnet connections,” Dana said. “To download the latest game software.”
“Get it connected. We’re sending a message out.”
“To who?” Webb asked.
“Anita Rami,” Hugo said.
“Why?” Webb’s voice was heavy.
“One way or another, this is ending today,” Hugo said, feeling a shiver run over his skin as he said the words. “And we’re going to need help getting away.”
“The Service won’t help us,” Dana said, looking equal parts wary and bitter.
“Rami will,” Hugo said and turned away. “Get working on it, Webb. I have the secure comm numbers when you’re ready.”
Webb looked uncertain but when Hugo said no more, he shrugged and started tapping at the screen. “If you say so.”
“I trust you can work and run?” Hugo said, starting for the door.
“Where are we going?” Dana panted as she drew level with him.
“Ariel only hurts people when they’re tied to a table,” Hugo said, keeping his pace up. “He’s a coward. We’ll find him in the safest place here.”
“The Conference Suite,” Webb agreed. “The elevators won’t be working, though.”
“This way,” Hugo said, turning across an empty hallway and scanning around for the service door he’d found on the plan.
“Should we try and get some guns?” Dana asked as more muffled shots were heard.
“The last thing we want right now is to be caught with guns,” Webb said, voice starting to sound strained.
“Kale, wait,” Dana commanded, stopping where they were to take Webb by the shoulder and spin him to face her. “Are you ok?” she asked.
Hugo felt a stab of guilt and angled the light so that Dana could better examine the clone. His skin was pale and he was breathing through his teeth.
“I’m fine,” he grunted, lifting the panel again and trying to carry on but Dana stepped in his way.
She grabbed Hugo’s wrist and angled the lenslight down to Webb’s waist. “You’re bleeding again.”
“It’s kind of tough cheese,” Webb said. “Come on, there’s no time.”
“Kale,” Dana pleaded.
“Hey,” Webb snapped. “Can we keep focused? I’ll be fine. Let’s go.”
Hugo nodded. “Webb’s right. We keep moving.”
Hugo turned and carried on. The service door was up ahead, painted to match the walls. Hugo didn’t stop to look at the lock but kicked at it. The fine wood splintered and gave way to his boot and then they were climbing metal stairs in a narrow space with bare concrete walls.
“This comes out on the roof space,” Hugo said as they climbed past more service doors. “There will be no cover. But if that plan was right, the lift shaft up to the Conference Suite has an external access hatch…”
“Less talking more climbing,” Webb panted from behind.
The noise from outside gained volume as they climbed.
“Alright Hugo, let’s have those numbers,” Webb said as they reached the top. Hugo reeled off Rami’s secure connection code and the clone’s fingers flew across the screen.
“Done,” Webb said, pocketing the panel. “Let’s hope Anita’s checking her messages.”
Hugo nodded. “She will be. She’ll be here in ten hours. Twelve at the most.”
“And she’ll really help us get Ariel away?” Dana asked.
Hugo nodded, hoping he was right.
The door at the top was also locked and sturdier than the last. Dana growled at Webb to stay back and she and Hugo shouldered at it until it dented enough for them to force the bar lock and shove their way through. They ran out onto the open roof space, blinking in dull light and shivering in the chilly air.
Hugo stopped and stared. Webb walked in a daze to the edge of the roof. The Storage District was in total darkness. The maze of warehouses and avenues were misshapen hulks and hollows in the colony’s dull green glow. Below there were the flashes of torches and lenslights, hand-held flood lights and the sweeping beams of head-torches. The noise was like nothing Hugo had ever heard. The only large-scale combat Hugo had ever seen had been in space. The clamour aboard a fighting ship during or after a battle was nothing like this.
This was primal, ferocious and racked with fury. Gunfire and screams punctuated the seething, continuous roar of people tearing each other apart. There was crashing, bangs and the wining of moped and low-flyer engines. It all ebbed and flowed like an ocean as units of the Ghosts’ defence pushed forward or were pushed back from the stronghold. His brain could not make sense of the clashing of hand-held weapons, the strangled noises and the cries of the injured and dying.
“Ariel’s army is already beaten,” Dana breathed as she stared out over the darkness full of fighting.
“They’re going to take as many people with them as they can.” Webb’s voice was flat.
Dana shook her head and Hugo felt his gut surge with the pointlessness of it all. But he shook himself and stepped back.
“We need to hurry. They’re almost at the building.”
Webb and Dana nodded and Hugo turned back to scan the roof space. It was wide and open with many outcroppings that housed the building’s electric relays, ventilation, cooling and heating systems, all now eerily quiet. The comm rigs were mounted on frames, stretching the aerials and dishes up toward the hull. Behind them were more built-up and windowless levels that had clearly been added since its construction, with the lift shaft jutting from the side. Craning his neck, Hugo could make out the background illumination reflecting off the plexiglass of Ariel’s Conference Suite at the top.
“Be careful, they’ll be on watch,” Dana said, slinking up to one of the outbuildings and hugging the wall tight. She led the way to the shaft, running the open distances with light feet and taking them on a round route to a relay house near the
lift shaft.
Hugo stepped to the edge and peered round and up. The plexiglass room was almost directly above them. There was no light from inside. Doubt nagged at him but he pushed it aside and searched the shaft for the access hatch.
“There,” he said, pointing.
“Looks too thick to force open,” Dana murmured.
“I can probably get that open with a knife,” Webb said. “Hugo, what’s the plan when we get up there?”
“Plan?” Hugo said.
“You still don’t have a plan?”
“I’m making this up as I go,” Hugo muttered.
“Jesus, now you tell me.”
“Relax,” Dana said. “We’ll think of something.”
“Did either of you even attend Strategy classes at the academy?” Webb muttered.
“Yes,” Hugo replied shortly, rolling up his sleeves and checking his boot knife. “But you didn’t and you’re the best strategist of all of us. Now stay focused and see if you can come up with something.”
Hugo didn’t leave Webb time to protest but ran across to the lift shaft, the others in tow. Webb pulled out one of the smaller kitchen knives and started work on the lock in the beam of their light as he kept up a continuous stream of indignant mutterings. Hugo exchanged a brief, amused glance with his sister over his head. He was struck again by how the softening of her face made her look like Catherine, their sister who Dana had never even met. As if reading his thoughts, her expression hardened and she turned back to watch Webb.
A few more clicks and curses and the door swung open. Hugo leant into the shaft.
“The car’s above us,” he said. “At the top level. The only way into the room will be through it.”
Dana took the light and leant through the opening, craning her neck up. “There’s an emergency hatch in the car,” she said. “Webb, how are you at hacking a lock when hanging over a chasm?”
“I guess we’re about to find out,” he said, zipping up his coverall.
Hugo glanced at the dark patch at his side.
“I’ll be fine,” Webb murmured, following Hugo’s example and rolling up his sleeves. “I’ll have to be. Someone just hold the light steady for me, ok?”
Haven (The Orbit Series Book 2) Page 29