Earthbound (The Reach, Book 1) (22 page)

Prazor stared at the image of the woman on his phone and shook his head.

“That’s not good enough, Veronica,” he said, and Duran picked up a note of pleading in his voice.  “Not by half.”

“I understand your predicament, Commissioner, but there’s really nothing I can do.”

“This is a two-way agreement.  You know that.  If you want to keep things open from this side, you have to give me some blasted help!”

There was a pause.

“Have your administrators raise taxes again.”

Prazor threw back his head, exasperated.  “They can’t keep doing that and you know it.”

“Why not?”

Prazor gave Duran a sidelong glance and then grimaced.

“Veronica, something’s come up.  I’ll need to call you back.”

The woman carried on as if she hadn’t heard him.

“You need to make this work, Commissioner.  For your own sake.”

Prazor swiped his finger across the holophone and tossed it on the desk, where it skidded and spun across the glossy oak so far that it almost fell from the other edge.  As he pushed out of his
chair and walked over to the window, Prazor thrust his hands into his pockets and wiggled them around as if searching for answers amongst the lint.

Duran was acutely aware of his poor timing, but also knew that it couldn’t be helped.

“I’m sorry to interrupt you, Commissioner–”

“What is it, Alec?  What’s got you in such a tizz?”

Duran got up and joined the old man over at the window, where tainted yellow sunlight streamed in around them, painting the cream carpet a deep shade of orange.

“I need men.  We need to start a sweep of the Reach immediately.”

“What?  Again?  Didn’t we just have this conversation?”

“That was for Deimona–”

“Who’s been neutralised, from what I hear.”

“He was, yes, but there’s a more important target who just showed up on our radar.”

Prazor arched a bushy eyebrow.  “Who now?”

“Knile Oberend.”

Prazor looked puzzled.  “Oberend?”  He seemed to search Duran’s face as if evaluating his words, then looked out the window again, shaking his head.  “I should have known this would happen.”

“What do you mean?”

“Look, Alec, I know you have history with Oberend.  I know you must have spent the last three years cursing his name, but you have to let it go.”

“Commissioner, I just saw a video feed–”

“Oberend is dead,” Prazor said sharply.  “You need to let it go, Alec.”

“I saw him–”

“It doesn’t matter what you saw.  I can’t give you the men in any case.”  He rounded on the younger man.  “Do you know how many resources I had to shift just to satisfy your requirements for the Deimona takedown?  Do you know how much effort that took?”

“I appreciate that, but–”

“And did you also know that I’ve had to lay off almost fifty men in the last six months?”  His eyes bored into Duran.  “Fifty blasted Enforcers who aren’t out there in the streets anymore.  Fifty men I had to take off the gates and patrols and checkpoints that we have to protect.”  He stared down at the city of Link baking in the afternoon sun almost two kilometres below.  “It can’t be done.”

“What’s going on?” Duran said uneasily.  “I just came from surveillance and they told me that most of the gear is being shut down.  What’s happening to us, Commissioner?  It wasn’t like this a few years ago when I was sent away.”

Prazor gripped Duran’s shoulder affectionately, his anger dissipating.

“Do you know why the space elevator that sits on top of the Reach has been running all of these years?  It’s because the Consortium keep it open.  This is a business for them.  They extract the only things of worth left on this planet and lift them up into space on behalf of off-world buyers.  Sometimes, that’s people – relatives or loved ones who were left behind.  Other times it’s arte
facts or old pieces of hardware that, for whatever reason, have some value to someone out there in the habitats.

“Over the past couple of years it has become increasingly obvious that this business model of theirs is beginning to fall apart.  The margins are getting smaller.  There’s almost nothing down here left to take.  And so, the creds aren’t flowing downward much anymore.  The economy here is starting to fall apart.”

He looked at Duran with watery eyes.  “They’re going to pull out of here soon, Alec.  I know it.  They’ll shut the Wire down.  When that happens, the Enforcers will become obsolete.  Everything will fall to pieces, descend into chaos, and what’s left of this planet of ours will collapse into anarchy.”

Duran felt numb.  “There has to be something we can do.”

“There is,” Prazor said.  “We keep things ticking along, stretch things out as far as we can.  Make everyone think that we still have control, even if that’s not quite the reality.”

Always one for keeping up appearances,
Duran thought.

“Yes, I understand,” Duran said.

“I always liked you, Alec.  That’s why I brought you back and gave you another chance.  Don’t go and lose your head now when I need you.”

Duran was adamant.  “Commissioner, I need to follow through on this thing with Oberend.  The facial recognition came up with a very close match for someone entering the Reach today.  I believe Oberend may have survived after all.”

Prazor chewed his lip.  “Very well.  Look into it if you must, but I can’t give you more men.  Those I gave you for Deimona have already been reassigned, and I can’t have them chasing ghosts and spectres on a whim.”  He gathered up the holophone again and began heading for the door.  “Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to head up to Administration.”

“You don’t think he’s really alive, do you?”

“No, Alec.  I don’t.”

“You remember what he did, right?” Duran said, and Prazor paused at the door to look back at him.  “You remember the explosion, what happened in the Atrium?”

Prazor seemed to blanch, although his expression did not change.

“I remember.”

“And what happens if it’s really him, and he makes it up there once more?” Duran said.  “What happens if he does it again?”

Prazor’s mouth compr
essed into a thin line.  “Then God help us, Alec.  God help us all.”

19

Knile led Ursie through the corridors of Gaslight at a brisk pace.  At times the place was nothing but pokey little corridors and avenues, inhabited by shady characters leaning against walls and staring out from under hoodies and caps as they scrutinised those passing by.  Other levels opened up considerably with much taller ceilings and open spaces,
the preferred abodes of law-abiding men and women and their families.

Higher up in Gaslight, Knile knew that the largest of these spaces, the cavernous habitat of Juncture Nine, offered a tantalising network of dark streets and alleyways that were perfect for sneaking about undetected.  Today, however, that was not the route that Knile wished to take.  The pathway that he had created up through the Reach all those years ago deviated to another place entirely.

“Hey, buddy,” a skinny man with slicked-
back hair said, stepping in front of Knile.  His eyes were twitchy and his feet restless, as if the world wasn’t moving quite as fast as he wanted and he was eager for it to catch up.  “You lookin’ to fly?”

“No, I’m good,” Knile said, barely breaking stride as he pushed past the man.

“What about you, little lady?” the man called after them.  “Looks like you could use some fresh air.”

“We don’t want what you’re selling, creep,” Ursie said.  “Get lost.”

The man stopped, already scanning the thoroughfare for his next target.

“You change your mind, you know where to find me,” he said over the din of the crowd.

“Yeah, lying dead in a ditch,” Knile muttered.

“I swear, every second guy on the street is pushing something lately,” Ursie said.

“Man’s gotta make a living,” Knile said, his voice filled with irony.  “What’s the flavour of the week these days?”

“You name it.  Crank, Tranq, Trash–”

“Trash?” Knile said.  “They’re selling something called Trash?”

“Yup.”

Knile pretended to weigh this up.  “Any good?”

Ursie rolled her eyes.  “Yeah.  Really hits the spot.”  She rubbed the tips of her fingers together.  “If you’ve got the cash, Breeze is what you really want.”

“Haven’t heard of it.  Must be a recent invention.”

“It’s kinda the shiny new toy for the wealthy.  Harder to get, though.  There’s only one cook, from what I hear.”  She shrugged.  “Doesn’t matter to me.  I don’t touch any of that shit.”

They came to a stairwell and Knile stopped abruptly, thrusting out a hand to bar Ursie’s progress.  She opened her mouth to complain, then saw the Enforcer standing at the top of the stairs, his face buried in a holophone.  He glanced up as a young woman in a tight black skirt sauntered past, then went back to the phone.

“Problem?” Ursie said.

“Maybe.  I don’t know if these guys are looking for me yet.  Better to assume they are, I guess.”  He surveyed the close confines of the stairwell uneasily.  “And that means I don’t want to get too close to any of them.”

“So where to?”

He nodded behind them.  “Back this way.”

They moved back along through the crowd in the direction from which they had come.  Knile watched the inhabitants with increasing bleariness, his fatigue becoming more pronounced with each step.  He blinked and rubbed at his eyes as those around him began to blur into one.  He distantly wondered how they put themselves through this routine every day, these insignificant cogs in the great mechanism of the Reach.  They all played their part, he supposed, feeding the economy and paying their taxes, but those working here were too poor to ever earn their way off-world.  They would live and die in these dim corridors without any hope of ever moving on to someplace better.

Maybe that was all many of them wanted, he supposed.  Maybe their aspirations reached no higher than this insipid existence.  And that was why, he figured, he had never felt as though he was one of them.  He knew he was destined for something more.

The crowd thinned as Knile led Ursie through the less frequented areas of the level.  They came to an alcove that housed a grey fire door that was covered in scratches and a single splattered stain, as if someone had hurled a rotten tomato against it, the guts of which had slid all the way to the floor after the initial impact.  Three youths lounged against the curved spaces of the alcove like grubs nestled in a hollow log, their conversation coming to an abrupt halt, laughter replaced by unwelcome glares.

“The fuck do you want?” one of them said to Knile.  He wore a baseball cap backward on his head and his faded blue jeans seemed to be several sizes too big.

Knile glanced over his shoulder.  “An Enforcer’s headed this way.  Doing inspections by the looks of it.  Saw him haul someone off.”  Knile shrugged.  “Thought you’d like to know.”

“Who cares?” the boy said, waving dismissively.

“Nah, man,” the girl next to him.  “I got pinched last month.  I don’t need this shit.”

She stepped past the boy and made a hasty exit down
the adjoining corridor.  The two boys who were left looked at each other, then decided that they might as well follow her.  They pushed off the wall and ambled past Knile and Ursie, attempting to appear cool and casual.  Their nervous glances up the corridor betrayed them, however, and after a few steps they fell into a kind of shuffling jog as they pursued the girl.

“Stand watch,” Knile instructed urgently, stepping over to the door and pulling out the holophone Giroux had given him, as well as the grey cable he had purchased downstairs.

“What for?” Ursie said.  “I thought you made up that story about the Enforcer.”

“I did, but I don’t want anyone to see what I’m about to do.”

He attached one end of the cable to the holophone and the other to the access panel on the door, then proceeded to tap away busily on the phone’s display.

“What are we doing in this place?” Ursie said.

“Taking a detour through a maintenance shaft.  I’d prefer to use the main passageways usually.  This way is slower, and I don’t like jacking more systems than necessary in case of alarms.  But with that Enforcer hanging around, this will have to do.”

Ursie glanced up and down the corridor.  It was empty.

“How do you know so much about this place, man?” she said.

“Huh?”

“The Reach.  How do you know so much about how it works?”

“Because I devoted my life to figuring it all out,” he said, only half paying attention to her as his fingers danced on the phone.  “While everyone else was trying to earn an honest living I was squirming through undiscovered passageways, studying the systems, figuring out the most important people… whatever it took.”