Skybreach (The Reach #3) (20 page)

However, moving about wasn’t an easy task.  People were running everywhere, shouting, screaming, crying out for loved ones.  They fell over each other in the near darkness, creating trip hazards as others floundered past.  As the smoke thickened, Duran’s eyes began to sting, and he started to cough and wheeze uncontrollably.

Ashen fragments lodged uncomfortably in his mouth and throat, so he lifted his shirt and wrapped the fabric over the lower part of his face in an attempt to filter it out.  He was knocked down once, but rolled and got to his feet again as quickly as he could.  He knew that if he lay there for too long he would be trampled under the stampede.

Continuing to cough and shoulder his way through the crowd, he somehow made it to the open area that led to the stairwell.

Then he could only stare in horror.

At the head of the stairs, a pair of massive steel doors were slowly and inexorably sliding together, and before it a mass of people writhed and screamed and clawed at each other as they attempted to squeeze through the ever diminishing aperture.

Over the crazed shouts of those around him, Duran could hear the rumble of the doors as they scraped across the floor.

They’re shutting us in
, Duran thought, aghast. 
They’re willing to let us all burn or choke to death to contain the fire.

He turned back the way he had come, but the smoke was thicker that way.  He knew with a kind of dread certainty that he wouldn’t make it.  He was out of options.

He’d already tried calling Robson a few minutes ago to try to open the security door through which Knile had disappeared, but his earpiece had gone dead.  Dialling on his phone had proved similarly fruitless.  He couldn’t get through.  Either the network was overloaded, or it had been damaged in some way.  Now he tried again, hoping that Robson might have access to reverse the momentum of these doors, but once again, his holophone would not connect.

Duran was on his own.

Despite his best attempts to remain calm, Duran too began to succumb to panic.  He lurched forward, throwing himself against the swarm of humanity, struggling to make his way toward the exit.  He could see people being crushed against the doors on either side – a woman with a child in her arms, an old man with a grey beard.  A pair of teenagers.  Normally this would have been the kind of thing to appal Duran, that the weaker ones had been forced to fend for themselves, but now he only allowed himself a brief moment of empathy.  The animal instinct to survive had begun to push aside rational thought.

The doors were still closing, and he could see that he wasn’t going to make it in time.  Not with this many people.

Suddenly there was a loud crack behind him, then another, and people around him began to scatter.  A man appeared brandishing a 9mm handgun with a carbon fibre finish, his face sweaty, a wild look in his eyes.

“Get the fuck out the way!” he boomed, levelling the gun at those crowding around the door.  “Step back or I’ll put a hole in every one of you fuckers!”

Those before Duran peeled away, whimpering in dismay, but Duran stood his ground.  The man approached, directing the gun at Duran’s face belligerently.

“You wanna dance, tough guy?” he said.

Duran simply stared back at him impassively, making no attempt to reply.  The man edged around him, keeping him in his sights while he cast uneasy glances at the crowd, and then he moved on toward the doors.  He raised the 9mm and fired again, causing the few that were left in front of him to move aside.

Duran followed in his wake, careful not to make any sudden movements.  He had no doubts the guy would put a round in his face if he felt threatened in any way.

Then the man was through the doorway, disappearing on the other side with one final glance over his shoulder, and the crowd came to life once more, surging inward as they had done a few moments before.  Having fallen in behind the gunman, Duran now found himself much closer to the opening.  The doors loomed large, thick and heavy as they continued to grind their way together, but now he was a chance
of making it
.  A young girl appeared at his side, screaming as the man behind her clawed at her hair.  Duran elbowed the man in the face, causing him to reel backward, and then he pushed the girl before him.  Moments later they squeezed through the opening, then tumbled out the other side at the head of the stairs.

The girl looked at Duran as if she wanted to say something but couldn’t.  Duran hacked noisily as he tried to clear his throat, then gave her a curt nod.

He got to his feet and began to stagger down the stairs, but dared not look back.  The tortured screams of those behind him were enough to give him nightmares, without seeing the look on their faces as well.

Then the doors thudded home and sealed the level, and then the only sound Duran could hear was his own ragged breathing.

The power was still active on the levels below the explosion, and Duran was able to make it back to
Scimitar unhindered.  Inside he found Zoe and Robson at the control room, watching a series of video feeds that were streaming in from various parts of the Reach and Link.

“Alec,” Zoe breathed as she saw him, her relief evident.  “You made it.”  She went to him and embraced him fervently.  “You weren’t answering your phone.”

“It wasn’t working,” he explained.  “I tried, but…”  He pinched his thumb and forefinger to the bridge of his nose.

“What is it?”

“It’s a hellhole in there.  I almost didn’t make it out.”

“What did you see?” Robson said from his chair nearby.

“I was there at the explosion.  I think it was the janitors.  Children of Earth must have disguised themselves.”  He shook his head.  “They have so much firepower.  It’s unbelievable.”

“This Gudbrand guy must have been stockpiling for years,” Zoe said.  “They’ve been working up to this for a long time.”

Duran nodded, then gestured at the terminal.  “What’s the fallout?”

“Well, if you thought things were bad,” Robson said, “you ain’t seen nothing yet.”

Duran moved closer.  “What’s going on?”

“The Consortium sent out a broadcast,” Zoe said.  “They’ve initiated a lockdown on the Reach.”

“What does that mean exactly?”

“They’re pulling the Enforcers back to the Reach,” Robson said, pointing to a feed showing a place Duran recognised well – the Enforcer barracks in Link.  It was going up in smoke.  “All of them.”

“What?” Duran said, incredulous.  “But the slums… Link will be overrun.”

“Uh-huh,” Robson said.  “That’s already happening.”  He tapped the terminal where another structure was ablaze.  “Grove is burning, too.  No more strawberry souffles from there, I guess.”

“I don’t get it, why–?”

“They’re pulling out, Alec,” Zoe said soberly.  “The Consortium are leaving.”

Duran gaped at her.  “They’re shutting down the Wire?”

“They didn’t say as much, but I think we can read between the lines.”

The three of them stood there silently, each contemplating the implications of the Consortium’s actions.  It was an unmitigated disaster, Duran decided.  The entire Reach, and by extension Link, was built around the Consortium and their operation of the Wire.  With those entities removed from the equation, everything else would crumble.

He looked at the screen again.

Everything was
already
crumbling.

A doorway opened at the end of the corridor, and de Villiers appeared with a hard expression on his face, Jovanovic hot on his heels.  He had a backpack slung over his shoulder, and as he made his way past them to rummage through the gear at the back of the room he offered no greeting.  Jovanovic, too, remained silent, an air of awkwardness about her.

“What’s going on?” Zoe said.

“
What’s going on?
” de Villiers said over his shoulder, a note of incredulity in his voice.  “Are you blind?”

“I mean with you two?” she said, glancing at Jovanovic, who merely turned her eyes to the floor and said nothing.

“We’re getting out of here,” de Villiers said, stuffing a battery cell inside his backpack.  “Right now.”

“Out of what?” Zoe said, confused.

“The Reach,” de Villiers said, as if it should have been obvious.  He straightened and looked at her.  “We’re done.”

Zoe glared at him.  “Wait a minute, you’re not–”

“You can’t see what’s going on, can you?” de Villiers said, glancing between Zoe, Duran and Robson.  “This,” he said pointing at the monitor, “is exactly what we’ve been fighting against this whole time, the thing we’ve been trying to prevent.  We were trying to restore the balance, prevent an uprising, but now it’s too late. 
It’s here
.”

“So you’re running,” Duran said disdainfully.

De Villiers glared at him.  “Why am I even talking to you, Duran?  Weren’t you the one who had the chance to kill Prazor just a few days ago?  Weren’t you were the one who could have made a meaningful change?  Instead, you just threw it away.”  He shook his head.  “You fucking coward.”

“Oh, so I’m the coward?  When you’re the one turning tail at the first sign of trouble.”

De Villiers shoo
k his head disparagingly.  “The chaos won’t stop.  Not now.  The train is heading for the cliff and it can’t be pulled back.”

“We can still do something,” Zoe insisted.

“Not now.  Not anymore.  Last week
,
or a month ago, maybe.  A year ago.  If we’d gotten our shit together earlier we could have prevented it, but now…”  He guffawed bitterly.  “Now we’re just passengers along for the ride.  All that’s left is to watch it erupt in flame.”

De Villiers attempted to shove past them, but Zoe caught his arm.

“Where are you going to go?” she said.  “The whole world is falling apart.  You can’t escape that.”

“Anywhere but here.”  De Villiers glanced around at them, almost pityingly.  “This place is a ticking time bomb.  You want to stay here?  Fine.  But you can leave me out of it.”

“So you’re going to throw away everything we’ve worked for?” Zoe said.  “Just like that?”

De Villiers shrugged away from her and gave them a deranged laugh.

“You guys are funny.”  He pointed at each in turn.  “You’re like three bodyguards standing over a corpse, pretending you can still protect it.”  He bared his teeth. 
“It’s too late!”
he roared.  “We failed, okay?  We failed, and now this place is going to tear itself apart.  The only thing left to do is to get out while we still can.”  He shouldered past them and back out into the corridor without another word, leaving them standing there dumbfounded.

Jovanovic moved to follow him, and Zoe stepped in front of her to bar her way.

“Jo, wait,” she said.  “You’re not buying into what he said, are you?”

Jovanovic met her eyes reluctantly.  “I’m sorry, Zoe, but I am.  He’s right,” she said quietly.  She looked at each of them.  “I hope you make it, wherever you go.”

Jovanovic stepped around Zoe and followed de Villiers down the corridor.  As her footsteps receded, the three remaining occupants of the room looked at each other, dismayed.

“Did that actually just happen?” Robson said.  “I mean, what the hell?”

“They’re scared,” Zoe said.  “They’ll be back when things calm down.”  She seemed unconvinced by her own words.

“What do we do in the meantime?” Robson said.

Duran stood and watched the multiple feeds coming in on the terminal; scenes of mayhem, of destruction, of despair.  He felt a sense of hopelessness wash over him, a feeling of insignificance.  What could he and Zoe and Robson do against this great tide of ruin?  How could they possibly stop Children of Earth, let alone repair the damage that had been done?

He thought back to the explosion, and the image of Knile Oberend suddenly filled his mind.

“Oberend,” he said thoughtfully, and the other two turned to him.

“Did you say something?” Zoe said.

“Knile Oberend was there.  At the explosion.”

“The guy you’ve been chasing?” Robson said.  “What’s he go
t to do with this?”