City of the Falling Sky (11 page)

Your job will be to sneak into the Endrin
compound, find these worms, collect a small container full of them,
and put that container on the 7.45 train to Arivel in two days’
time.

On the easternmost side of the Endrin
perimeter, there is a drain, a sewerage tunnel that spills into the
river. If someone were to go into this drain and climb up through
the first manhole, they would emerge in the open air cultivation
unit, which is where I believe the worms are being kept. There is
no housing for employees in this area and there are no security
cameras. You will be unseen at night.

If you wish to accept, I will pay generously
in cash.

My name will not be given to you. Putting the
worms on the train that I mentioned will be the only thing you need
to remember.

Seckry reread the email three times before he
fully accepted what he was reading. They wanted him to break into
Endrin’s headquarters? He’d be arrested if he was caught. And go
through a sewer? He couldn’t imagine it.

In bed that night, even though his body was
exhausted, his mind was racing. He kept trying to guess the amount
of money that the job would pay, and more than that, he kept
thinking of the self satisfaction he’d have at stealing something
from Endrin, the company that stole his home.

When he woke in the morning, he jumped into
his computer chair and read the email again.

No security cameras. No one around. No one
would ever know.

Seckry couldn’t believe he was doing this,
but he started typing.

I’ll get the worms for you.

Seckraman

He pondered over the send button for several
minutes before hitting it.

That was it. Done. He was breaking in.

He suddenly felt panic flood over him. What
was he getting himself into?

Seckry spent the next day down at the arcade
again, practising collecting items on the sample levels of
Friction. For most of the day, though, he was browsing through
Henrei’s avatar catalogue, fantasising about buying each and every
one of the creatures on offer with whatever money he was going to
get. There were all sorts of ogres, animals, robots and humans to
choose from and each looked more exciting than the next.

But when the evening came around, Seckry
could do nothing but think about the task that lay before him.
Twice he logged onto his computer and wrote an apology letter to
his anonymous employer, whose email address was simply the letters
[email protected], saying that he was no longer available to do the
job. But both times he stopped himself before sending.

Soon enough, it was midnight, and if he
didn’t leave now, it’d be too late. With hands trembling with
anticipation, he grabbed a plastic food container from the kitchen
and a large towel for the dirt, shoved them into his backpack, and
left as quietly as possible. If his mum knew what he was doing
she’d go insane.

He boarded the monorail and sat alone in the
empty carriage, whilst the flickering lights clicked on and
off.

A rail attendant joined him.

“
Well, well, we have a
customer,” he said merrily. “Not often you find someone riding the
monos after midnight.”

“
I’d like a ticket to the
Riverside stop, please,” Seckry said shakily.

“
Riverside? By the Endrin
building? What you doing round there? The closest thing by foot
from that stop is the casino.”

“
Yeah, um . . . of course,”
Seckry said. “I’m hitting the machines, you know.” He looked around
uncomfortably while the attendant raised one of his
eyebrows.

“
How old are you?” the
attendant said.

“
Eighteen,” Seckry said
unconvincingly. He usually had trouble convincingly people he was
fifteen, never mind eighteen.

“
Eighteen huh,” the
attendant said ponderingly. “Well here’s your ticket.”

Just as the attendant was about to leave the
carriage, he turned back and said, ‘Hey.”

Seckry gulped.

“
Yes?”

“
I heard there’s a bit of a
fault on the Golden Giveaway machines. Paying out a bit more often
than they should be, you know? Just a little heads up.”

“
Oh . . . thanks,” Seckry
said, swallowing his relief.

When he exited the carriage, he followed the
gullies around until he reached the river.

It was stinking. It was hard to see much in
the dark, but Seckry was sure there was a dead rat floating
nearby.

He waded through it as fast as he could until
he reached the sewer he was looking for. He gave a quick glance
behind him before pulling himself up into the echoing tube.

It was even darker inside, almost pitch
black, and he could feel wet, rancid effluent bubbling over his
trainers. He ran his fingers across the wall to keep his balance,
until he felt something furry and warm touch his hand, making him
shudder and speed up. Eventually he found the sturdy coldness of
metal. A ladder.

He was trying to be as silent as he could,
but lifting the lid made a slight grinding noise, and he couldn’t
help but cough and heave a little as he emerged from the stinking
pipe.

He took in his surroundings. It was an awe
inspiring sight.

Every building in the Endrin compound was
white, a pure bright white, dazzling in the glow of fluorescent
tubes that were dotted around. Seckry had never seen anything so
clean and perfect. It was like stepping into another world.

Focus
, he thought to himself. If he
didn’t, he’d be caught, and there was no telling what would happen
to him if he was.

He scanned around him for any sign of worms
but there were none. The floor here was concrete, but to his left
was a gate with a warning above it.

RINTIDE SITE. KEEP CLEAR

Rintide. That was the name of the species of
worm.

Seckry passed through the gate, not
hesitating for another moment. In front of him the floor was made
of fluffy soil, and it was undulating with hundreds of little red
lights. Were they the worms?

Seckry had no idea about different species of
worms, but he had never seen any that emitted bright red light
before. He leaned down and sure enough, the little bright lights
were worms, wriggling so frantically it looked as though they were
in pain.

He knew he had to be quick so he dropped to
his knees and started scooping as fast as he could. Seckry couldn’t
be sure, but there was something strange about the earth here. It
was as though every handful was full of static electricity. It
seemed to make the palm of his hand tingle unpleasantly. He noticed
that as the worms were dropping into his tub, they were losing
their colour, reverting to the burgundy-brown shade that Seckry
usually associated with worms. They were also wriggling less
frantically in the tub.

As he was scooping, Seckry realised his arm
was starting to go numb. He tried scooping faster but the numbness
seemed to be spreading through his body and into his mind. He
started to feel dizzy.

“
Don’t be sick,
” he
told himself quietly. “
Don’t be sick now.
”

What was happening to him? He he had to get
up and go before he collapsed face first into the mud.

He clicked his container shut and dropped it
into his backpack, then he forced himself to stand up and it took
all his energy to do so.

But as he turned to run, his heart froze.

A breath.

Someone was behind him.

Seckry stood absolutely still, praying to
Gedin that it was just a whisper of the wind and not the noise of a
human.

But there it was again. A short outing of
breath, like a whimper, a sob.

He was shaking, terrified that he’d been
caught. He stood where he was, waiting for someone to grab him. But
they didn’t.

Just that same short cry again, with a snivel
this time too.

Seckry turned around slowly, and there, in
the darkest corner of the mud patch, he caught a glimpse of a
figure, illuminated briefly by the undulating glow worms.

It was a girl. How had he not noticed her
while he had been digging?

“
Hey,
” Seckry
whispered softly, and the girl flashed her eyes at him. They were
large and dark, eyeing him widely with fear and
confusion.

“
What are you doing here?”
Seckry asked, and he looked away quickly as he realised that she
was completely naked, huddled in the mud, hugging her own knees
close to her chest.

There was a long silence before she said, “I
don’t know,” in a weak voice.

Who was this girl? She couldn’t be an Endrin
employee, she was too young. Seckry wasn’t certain, but he thought
she must be around the same age as him, fifteen or sixteen.

Right then there was a crack in the air, like
a thunderbolt, and floodlights started bleaching the complex.

That was it. He had to get out.

“
Come on!” he said urgently,
and grabbed the girl’s hand to help her up. She slipped on the
boggy surface, and struggled to get back to her feet again, her
knees shaking as if her legs had never been used before.

With a bit of help, Seckry got her over to
the manhole, kicked off the cover and hoisted her down.

Seckry’s fingers were tingling. He had never
been aware of touching someone’s skin as much as he was now. He
could feel her soft, damp flesh under his palms, slipping and
sliding from the slimy mud. As he held her tight to keep hold of
her, he could feel the tendons of her muscle tissue and the bones
in her arms.

He jumped down himself, slid the manhole
cover back into its place and waded as fast as he could through the
sludge of filth until they came out into the river.

Seckry dragged the girl up onto the bank and
into the cover of some corrugated metal sheeting. He took off his
jacket and wrapped it around her. She was small, shorter than
Seckry, and the jacket draped down to her knees.

They waited in silence for as long as they
could manage. There wasn’t a sound.

When Seckry realised no one was coming after
them he took a deep breath.

What was he going to do with this girl? He
couldn’t leave her here. She was petrified.

“
What’s your name?” he asked
her.

Her eyes searched around and she shook her
head. “I don’t know.”

She was trying to cover her legs, aware that
they were exposed, but Seckry wasn’t looking at them. He was trying
his best to avert his gaze from her eyes. They were so large and
deep, so round and dark that they were almost like a baby’s, taking
in the world for the first time.

Seckry knew they had to leave. Even though
they couldn’t hear anyone, Seckry was sure there’d be Endrin guards
scouting the perimeters by now. There was only one thing he could
do.

“
You’ll have to come with
me. You can’t stay here.”

The girl nodded shakily.

“
I live over the other side
of the city, do you think you can walk to the monorail station over
there?”

She nodded again.

They made their way to the stop as quickly as
they could.

As the monorail approached, Seckry saw that
it was being serviced by the same attendant that had been on his
outward journey.

“
Hello again,” Seckry said
meekly as they boarded.

The attendant looked at Seckry and then the
girl, then at Seckry again.

“
Good night on the machines,
eh?” he said suspiciously.

“
Um . . . yeah,” Seckry
said.

Luckily he didn’t give them any trouble, and
when they arrived at the flat, Seckry turned on the shower as
quietly as he could and gave the girl a towel and some spare
pyjamas of Leena’s that were lying around. She thanked him and
Seckry closed the bathroom door. After she had finished, Seckry
jumped in the shower himself.

It was only then that he had time to reflect.
What had he done? He felt sick with fear and regret. What if they
had him on security camera? And what was the girl doing there in
the mud? Would Endrin be looking for her?

The worst thing that plagued him now was that
he was going to have to explain to his mum why there was a strange
girl sleeping in the spare bed. He was going to have to tell her
that he broke into Endrin.

When he got to his bedroom the girl was fast
asleep.

He lay down on his bed quietly and watched
her. Seeing somebody in that bed seemed strange and out of
place.

He eventually laid his head on his pillow and
tried to get to sleep, but his mind wouldn’t rest, and it was only
at five o’clock in the morning that he drifted off.

Seckry woke to the sound of shouting.

“
Who do you think you are?
You lead my brother on, lure him into your little trap so he can
get cornered by that horrible boy and now you’ve managed to seduce
him again! Wait a minute . . . those are
my
pyjamas!”

Seckry’s eyes flashed open. “Leena, no!” he
shouted.

He scrambled out of his sheets and stumbled
into the living area.

“
This isn’t Natania!” he
exclaimed.

Leena was stood with her fists clenched and
her mouth screwed into a vicious snarl, staring intently at the
poor girl he’d found last night as though she was about to rip her
to shreds with her fingernails.

“
This isn’t Natania! This
isn’t Natania!” Seckry repeated, jumping in front of his sister
before any damage was dealt.