Landfall (The Reach, Book 2)

by Mark R. Healy

  But now that she thought about it, maybe there was a quicker way to achieve the same result.

  She pulled out her holophone and searched through her contacts. She did not have numbers for Hildi or Giroux, but there was a general contact for Grove that might put her in touch with the right people, or even Roman himself.

  The other end picked up almost immediately, and a young man with neatly combed black hair appeared on the display.

  “Good morning, Grove exports.”

  “Hi,” Talia said. “I’m looking for Giroux.”

  The young man all but rolled his eyes. “I’m sorry, Giroux does not take direct calls. If you have a customer identification–”

  “This is not a business call. This is a personal matter that’s very important.”

  “I’m sure it is, but I’m not the person to speak to about that.”

  “Who is?”

  The man sighed. “If you have a customer identification number–”

  “I’m a personal friend of Giroux. If you’ll hand the phone over to him, he’ll tell you.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Talia Anders.”

  “Doesn’t sound familiar.”

  Talia grunted, exasperated. “Listen, a boy’s life is in danger. I need to speak to Giroux right now.”

  “Which boy?” The man’s patience seemed to be running thin. “What are you talking about?”

  “His name is Roman.”

  “I don’t know him.”

  “Please, just put me through to Giroux–”

  “I’m sorry, I can’t do that. And now I have other matters to attend to.”

  Talia’s desperation grew. “Put me through to Giroux, you stuck-up little bastard, or I’ll come over there and–”

  The image of the man disappeared abruptly as the call was disconnected. Talia stood staring helplessly at the blank screen.

  Well handled, Talia.

  “Okay, that approach isn’t going to work,” she said to herself. “Time to go back to Plan A.”

  She fixed the respirator to her face and headed to the door, this time showing no hesitation in turning the handle. There was work of her own that was awaiting her in the basement, she knew, and she had an important deadline to meet by noon the next day, but that was not enough reason to make her think twice about leaving. Right now, she needed to find Roman. Everything else could wait.

  The orange glow of morning light stabbed into Talia’s retinas like glinting knives after the relative gloom of the interior of her house. The pavement and asphalt outside glistened in the aftermath of an early-morning shower, a deluge that had undoubtedly dumped more toxins from the sky across the exposed surfaces of the city. Talia stepped carefully around the deeper puddles, showing caution even though the poisons were unlikely to permeate the leather of her boots on contact.

  One could never be too careful after a storm had passed through.

  So intent was Talia on her feet that she almost collided with a man standing on the footpath in front of her house.

  “Mornin’, Talia,” he said, smiling beneath his respirator. There was dirt crusted on his face and a yellow residue around his eyes that might have been dried mucus. His pallid skin was flaky and grew darker toward his hairline, as if he’d been wearing something on his head that had stained his flesh.

  Talia started, cursing her inattentiveness.

  “Crumb,” she said, recognising the man. “So nice to see you.” She smiled sardonically.

  “I was just ’bout to say the same thing,” he said amiably.

  She’d seen Crumb around a lot lately. She didn’t know much about him – not what he did for a living, or even his real name, but enough to know she didn’t want to hang around for a leisurely chat. She looked upon him as she would a stray dog, the type that, once fed even the slightest morsel, would follow you around for the rest of your days in the hope of receiving another.

  She kept walking.

  “Say, you lookin’ hot today, Talia,” Crumb said, loping along beside her to catch up.

  Talia rolled her eyes. “Damn, Crumb. You’ve been brushing up on your moves, haven’t you? That’s pretty smooth.”

  “You think?” he said, oblivious to her sarcasm.

  “No. Now go away.”

  “Where you headed, girl?” Crumb persisted.

  “Out.”

  “Need some company, yeah?”

  “No.”

  “Fine-lookin’ woman such as you, ’course you do.”

  “I said go away, Crumb.”

  “Aww, now, wait a second, darlin’. I seen some visions of you and me together. Powerful apparitions, y’know?”

  “Yeah, me too.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Yeah. I was on one side of the planet, and you were on the other. At the bottom of a deep, dark pit.”

  He made a wheezing sound under his respirator that might have been laughter.

  “Now, now, girl, don’t you be–”

  “Get out of my sight, Crumb,” Talia snapped. “I mean it.”

  Crumb kept up with her for a few more paces, his expression darkening to a scowl, and then his eyes fell upon two Enforcers who stood in the road up ahead talking to a group of youths sitting on the curb. Crumb faltered, then, with one last glare at Talia, broke off and went on his own way.

  Talia shook her head. There had been a time when cretins such as Crumb had not been so prevalent, but these days they were more or less the norm. Talia couldn’t seem to walk around her own neighbourhood now without sighting them, hiding in the shadows and watching, talking amongst themselves, scheming with barely concealed greed.

  She felt like an outcast in the streets she had once thought of as her own.

  Perhaps that was what had hurt Talia the most in recent times. These days she felt like a relic, something that had been left behind. In her younger days she, Knile and the others in their gang had lived in poverty, worse than she experienced now. They had been afraid of Enforcers and of rival gangs, and had never known where their next meal might come from.

  It hadn’t been much of a life, but at least they had experienced a kind of togetherness. A camaraderie.

  The sharing of their problems, of their misery, of their fears, had somehow made it all bearable. They had divided the weight of it. Together they had made it through, and even experienced times of happiness through the despair.

  When the group had fractured, all of that ended. Knile and Mianda had headed their own way. Roman had moved to Grove, and the others in the group had gone their separate ways. For Talia, something vital had been lost. It wasn’t just her companions who had left, but in many ways her support structure, her ability to cope with the hardships of life.

  Over the years she’d told herself that she was doing okay, but seeing Knile and Roman again had been like a cold bucket of water in the face. She’d been deluding herself all this time. She knew now that she’d been on a gradual slide toward despair over the past few years, that things were getting worse and that she was unlikely to turn things around unless something drastic changed.

  Maybe this was it. Maybe this was her moment. If she could pull Roman out of this mess and repair the damage that had been done, perhaps they could have a future together. She and the boy could be a family again.

  Maybe she could reclaim that feeling of belonging once more. And perhaps that was even more important than the other goal she’d been working toward all this time, the one that centred on leaving this world behind.

  She continued along the street. Wisps of steam curled from the asphalt in the wake of the storm. The youths who sat on the curb gave her passing glances from under their hoodies as the Enforcers continued to interrogate them about some private matter.

  Talia glanced skyward. The klaxon would soon be sounding at the Reach. She wondered how much time she had before the convoy set off from Grove again, and if Roman would be a part of it.

  What if he disappeared into the Reach and never ca
me back out again?

  Talia quickened her pace, turning down a narrow alleyway that would take her in the direction of Grove.

  She stopped dead. Crumb was standing there not far away, somehow having gotten in front of her again. He was very still and intent, his expression far more sinister than it had been when she’d last seen him.

  “What the fuck?” she said, trying to hide the trepidation in her voice behind a veil of outrage. “Are you following me, Crumb?”

  “No.”

  There was no trace of that air of pleasantness from before. His attempts at charm had been discarded. Talia didn’t like it.

  “Get out of my way, creep,” she said, starting forward and waving at him imperiously.

  Crumb held out a hand to bar her way. “We’re gonna have to do this the hard way, darlin’,” he said quietly.

  She didn’t realise that someone was behind her until it was too late.

  5

  Knile awoke to the sound of a distant clamour, like the moan of a thousand tormented voices crying out in dread and fear, a piteous wail that was unfathomably deep and sorrowful. Still mired in dreams and with thoughts muddled, he imagined countless saggy grey faces turned up at him, watching from the depths of some dark and inescapable pit with blank eyes and slack jaws. From between their mottled and colourless lips came that noise – that drawn-out, wordless howl that somehow resonated in his bones and made him feel cold and empty inside.

  It’s the klaxon, he thought remotely. It’s just the klaxon.

  He pushed himself off the floor, still panicked, and kept going until his back hit the wall. He looked around.

  Where was he? He didn’t know this place.

  Weak daylight was filtering in from a round window high up on one wall, like the porthole in the hull of a ship. For a moment he wondered if these unfamiliar confines were the innards of the railcar itself. Was he rocketing skyward along the Wire toward the sanctuary of Habitat One right now?

  He pushed himself to his feet and his knees popped as he straightened. He groaned. Every muscle in his body felt like it had been tenderised with a crowbar. Even his fingers felt stiff as he clenched them, as if he’d been struck down by some sudden and thoroughly debilitating case of arthritis. He worked his neck back and forth as he tried to clear his addled senses.

  The Atrium. Ursie. She left, and I came back down into the Reach.

  Yes, he remembered now. It was all coming back.

  High above, Ursie had undoubtedly made it to Habitat One, having taken his place on the railcar that had lifted her upward into the night. He’d been duped, that was for sure. Thinking back to his journey up the Reach, he couldn’t be exactly sure of how many thoughts she’d planted in his head. How many times had she deceived him with her illusions? Her manipulation of him had been so subtle, so complete, that he had been left completely dumbfounded by the end of it.

  You got me, kid. I’ll give you that.

  After he’d left the Atrium, he’d made his way back down into the Plant Rooms and found a compact, out-of-the-way office in which to hide while he caught up on some much-needed rest. He’d only meant to sleep for an hour or two before getting moving again, but if the klaxon had already gone off, it was clear that he’d overdone it by a good margin. He must have been out for close to ten hours.

  Is it any wonder, after the events of the past few days?

  Knile scrubbed at his face as he tried to get some feeling back in his cheeks and his lips. He’d been through some tough times in the past, but nothing quite like the last forty-eight hours. The pace that he’d set had been relentless, the demands on his body and his mind unprecedented, and in many ways he was amazed that he was still breathing. He’d narrowly escaped death more than once. Things could have played out very differently had luck not been on his side.

  There wasn’t much point berating himself for resting so long, he decided. It was done, and in truth, he’d needed it. He still had a lot of work to do, and he wanted to operate with a mind that was clear of fatigue if possible.

  With the klaxon sounding, workers might be filtering through the offices and workshops around him any time soon. Knile had to get out before he was discovered.

  There was a small grey laminate desk jammed into one corner, and Knile eased himself gingerly into the tattered swivel chair that sat beside it. He pulled his holophone from his backpack and tried to get his plan clear in his mind.

  He had to find Roman. He had to get the boy out of the Candidate program before it was too late. Then he needed to go find Talia and work out how to move forward from there. Beyond that, things were somewhat vague. Knile wanted the three of them to leave Earth together. He was adamant about that. His revelation on the roof with Ursie had instilled in him a powerful desire to rekindle the relationship the three of them had once shared, and for them to find a future together. He wasn’t exactly sure how he was going to orchestrate their departure together – organising passkeys for himself and Mianda had been a near-impossible task, let alone gaining three passkeys simultaneously – but between them he was sure that they would find a way.

  As he sat in the chair he thought back to the mad rush of the day before. He had called Talia and told her of Roman’s predicament, asked her to help. With any luck she would be on her way to see him right now. Perhaps, if she was lucky, she might have even found the boy by now. The first part of Knile’s plan might already be well in motion.

  Knile selected Talia’s number on the holophone and waited patiently as it rang. There was no answer. He drummed his fingers on the desk, causing tiny dust motes to drift up into the shaft of light that speared in through the porthole. He called the number again and waited.

  Three rings. Four.

  “Come on. Pick up, Talia.”

  Two more rings.

  Then there was a soft beep as the phone picked up.

  “Hello?” Knile said.

  There was no response, no image on the display, but Knile thought he could hear breathing on the other end.

  “Talia, are you there?” Still nothing. “Talia, I’m sorry about yesterday, putting you on the spot like that. I understand if you don’t want to talk to me, but–”

  There was another beep and the connection went dead.

  Knile put the phone in his pocket and sighed, rubbing his eyebrows in consternation. He wasn’t quite sure what to make of that exchange. His first thought was that Talia was angry with him for leaving her with the responsibility of rescuing Roman, and that was entirely fair. Knile had been selfish, he’d admitted that. It was only after his discussion with Ursie on the roof, his realisation about what he truly wanted, that he recognised the flaws in his thinking and in the way he had treated others.

  If he’d alienated Talia, that would be just one more bridge he had to rebuild on this long journey that was ahead of him.

  On the other hand, perhaps he was reading too much into it. Talia might simply have been in an area with bad reception. She might call back later once it improved to see what he wanted. Or perhaps she had been busy and couldn’t talk right then.

  There was no point getting wound up about it until he knew all the facts.

  In either case, Knile was in the dark about both Talia and Roman for now. That was not an ideal place to be, because he didn’t know if Talia had the situation in hand or not.

  Roman might still be headed toward danger for all he knew.

  So what can I do?

  If Roman was headed in with the Grove convoy, he would be down at the entrance in the next hour or so. There was no way that Knile was going to be able to reach him in time. There were a couple of hundred levels between them and, without access to the main elevators, descending that quickly was simply not possible.

  Knile wasn’t even sure he could make it to the ground level in time for tomorrow’s convoy. That would mean another forty-eight hours before he could meet the boy.

  That might be too late.

  Knile thumped his fist on the desk, cu
rsing the cloying sense of drowsiness that clung to his thoughts and prevented him from thinking clearly. There had to be a better way of doing this than to run from one end of the Reach to the other with nothing more than a mad sense of hope to guide him.

  Stop Roman from joining the Candidate program. That’s what you have to do.

  Then the answer came to him. He’d been looking at this thing from the wrong end.

  All he had to do was stop the one who controlled the Candidate program. Hoyer Honeybul was the key. If the old man was removed from the equation, there was no way Roman could fall into the wrong hands. The Candidate program would fall apart.

  Knile pulled himself up to the little desk and activated the terminal in front of him. Luckily the information he sought was public domain – there was no need for him to even hack any databases.

  He scanned through the directory listing until he found the entry pertaining to Honeybul, then took note of the address.

  He smiled wryly.

  He was heading back to Lux.

  6

  Duran awoke to an incessant buzzing sound. It came at him in waves, staccato bursts that needled him like a jagged finger poking him incessantly in the ribs. He grimaced and wriggled as he tried to escape it, but it was everywhere. It was unrelenting. It grated on him so much that it forced him upward through the monstrously heavy stupor that enveloped him, a cocoon that felt like a lead blanket, and as he pried his eyes open, a low moan escaped his lips.

  There was a hand on his chest pushing him back down, and he found that he was too weak to fight against it. He tried to open his eyes, but his eyelids felt as though they had been stuck together by a thick, viscous glue. He rubbed at his eyes with his fists, scouring away sleep and grit and god knew what else, and finally he was able to see.