Tracer (15 page)

Okwembu raises an eyebrow, and I tail off, but she doesn’t interrupt me, and doesn’t appear angry.

“Well, I hope you’ll think about it,” she says after a long moment, her voice so soft I have to strain to hear her.

We fall silent. After a few moments, I meet her
gaze. “That’s not all, is it? You didn’t come down here just to ask me to testify.”

“Actually, I came down here to visit a friend,” she says. “But since you mention it, there is something else.”

She leans forward. “I need to know that you told the protection officers everything. If there’s something you held back, you need to let me know, and you need to do it now. Nothing will happen to you,
but you must tell me. I can’t stress how important it is.”

I shrug. “We did a job for him, and it didn’t feel right. He took my … Prakesh, and two of my crew. We tailed him, we got lucky. That’s all.”

But she doesn’t sit back. “When we found Marshall’s body, one of his eyes was missing. We think it has something to do with why he wanted Foster out of the way, and whatever Oren Darnell was planning.
I think you know about it too, Riley. And I think you haven’t been honest with us.” Her voice is still deathly quiet.

I plaster disgust on my face, hoping that I’m not overdoing it. “I didn’t know that. His eye, I mean. Why? Why would Gray do that?”

I can feel her pale gaze trying to reach in, as if she wants to dig around in my mind. Eventually, she sits back, her eyes still on me. “I know
you and your friends sometimes take on jobs that involve carrying things that …” She pauses, choosing her words. “Well, let’s just say that sometimes what you do is not in the best interests of Outer Earth. We let the tracers exist because you perform a valuable service, and we know that by doing that, we risk that you might transport something dangerous. Something which we should perhaps know about.”

The sweat on my face has dried to a thin crust, itching gently. I force myself to keep my hands in my lap. Her words aren’t a threat, not really, but there’s no mistaking the cold intent behind them.

She continues. “I will be watching you, Ms Hale. You would do well to remember that nothing lasts forever.”

Abruptly, she stands up, and gives me a curt nod before drawing the curtain aside. I rise
to my feet, and I’m about to follow when she turns back. Her voice is cool, but business-like. “I’d like you to think some more about appearing at the trial.”

I want more than anything for her to go, and I nod, which seems to satisfy her. She turns away, motioning for her guard to follow. The sound of their footsteps echoes in the wards as they march off, and I hear her exchanging a few words
with Dr Singh. The warmth in her voice is back, as if she flicked a
switch. I remain where I am, unable, for a moment, to move.

I pull my jacket around myself, but the cold that I felt earlier refuses to vanish, running icy fingers up the back of my neck. I can’t help but think back to when the man from the council came to see my mother and me in our little room in Apogee. I remember his uniform,
a heavy grey tunic with red highlights, tight around the throat. The look of sorrow on his face as he told us about the massive explosion on atmosphere entry, the catastrophic reactor failure. That there would be no new colony on Earth, no terraforming, no resources to send home. That John Hale and his crew would not be coming back.

His hands are cuffed first, the thick metal bands ratcheting around his wrists in front of him. He has to put his hands through the slot in the plastic, then step back once he’s restrained. Two stompers hold his legs at the knees, a third holds his arms, and a fourth snaps ankle cuffs on. The chain between his wrists and ankles is too long, clattering the floor whenever he moves.

They march Darnell out of his cell, one on each side. The stompers walk fast, and he struggles to match their long strides with his cuffed feet. He keeps his eyes focused on the floor in front of him, careful not to betray his excitement. He doesn’t even know which stomper is the guard who promised to free him. They wear full body armour, their faces covered by dark visors and thick, angular helmets.

He can’t help grinning when they walk out into the corridors, past the crowds assembled outside the brig. There are dozens of them, and they’re all booing and jeering, shouting his name and laughing. Darnell scans the crowd. He’s looking for those who aren’t booing. Those who are watching intently.

Darnell has been seeding sleepers in Outer Earth for over a year, tapping into the creeping network
of the voluntary human extinction movement. The movement itself was a joke, something that was never going to be taken seriously, so it wasn’t difficult to find those who had become disillusioned with it.

It was easier than Darnell would have imagined. These people were emotionally vulnerable, sick of waiting, sick of asking nicely. Even the ones who hadn’t considered doing what Darnell asked
them to do were easily led in that direction. All he had to do was give them a little push.

And the best part? The beliefs, ideas, whatever you called them, were like viruses. Give them the right conditions, and they thrive. They multiply. They make copies of themselves. And the more revolutionary the idea – the more potent the virus – the harder it would be to eradicate. Soon there was a new
network, reaching across Outer Earth: a network of people fuelled by the ideas they carried.

Unless …

It’s possible – just possible – that the stompers are messing with him. That they found out about his sleepers, and decided to have a little fun, holding out hope and intending to snatch it away. There’ll be no signal, no rogue guard leading him to safety.

For the first time, Darnell feels
a twinge of fear. If he is found guilty – and he will be – they’ll stand him up against a wall right there, in front of everyone.

Oren Darnell isn’t afraid of dying. But he is afraid of dying without his revenge.

“Move it,” mutters one of the guards. Darnell, lost in his thoughts, has slowed down, and the stompers holding him nearly yank him off his feet. He stumbles, keeping himself going with
the thought of the stompers’ faces melting off in screaming agony.

And just then, just as he regains his balance, the stomper on his left looks at him and nods. Ever so slightly. His black faceplate reveals nothing, reflecting Darnell’s own face back at him. The moment is brief, and then the stomper is eyes front again, dragging Darnell onwards.

He can hear the gallery ahead. The noise is intense,
pushed into a concentrated roar by the corridors surrounding the open space. Darnell smiles to himself, and somehow manages to stand a little straighter, his body dwarfing the stompers around him.

Darnell doesn’t know what the signal will be, but he’ll be ready.

I don’t want to go to Darnell’s trial, but after a while I find myself heading there anyway. Maybe Okwembu’s more persuasive than even she realises. I’m not testifying though, whatever she thinks.

When I left the hospital in New Germany, I toyed with going up to Gardens to see Prakesh – now that Darnell’s gone, the water in his sector is probably running freely again, so he’ll be in
a good mood – but I decided I couldn’t face the crush. I began running back towards the market in Apogee, thinking I could maybe go and see Madala and pick up that job he was talking about.

But the joy I’d felt earlier is gone, replaced by a growing unease. My movements feel stilted and slow, and I can’t get Okwembu’s words out of my head. You have to be pretty ruthless to stay in the council’s
top spot for ten years, but it’s unsettling to see it up close.

I’m wearing an old hoodie under my jacket, and as I hit the Apogee border I pull the hood up. The corridors have become even more crowded, the crush building inside them as people
hustle to the gallery for the best spots. Instead, I force my way up the stairwells, eventually emerging onto the Level 3 catwalk. It’s only just filling
up with people, and is a lot quieter than the chaos down below. The noise is insane: a roaring mix of laughter, shouts, and calls from merchants taking advantage of a captive audience. They’ve set up stalls along the walls – one of them has even managed to score a prime spot in the centre. He’s a blur behind his table, dishing out what look like cooked beetles, the crates behind him overflowing
with traded objects. The smell of frying food drifts up from below in thick clouds. The atmosphere is buoyant, almost like a festival.

The sea of people spread out on the gallery floor stops dead by the far wall, brought up short by a line of waist-high barricades. There are stompers behind it, facing the crowd. They wear black full-face masks, and thick helmets squashed onto their heads. Every
one of them is holding a stinger. Behind them, two people are putting the finishing touches on a platform – a dais of some kind, made of steel plates and welded pipes.

A little way down the catwalk, I see Amira and Carver, leaning over the railing. Amira waves me over.

“Didn’t expect to see you here,” she says, having to raise her voice above the noise. “Everything OK with the job?”

I pull
the painkillers out and give them a shake. “Smooth as.”

“Good. We’ve been getting a lot of new work offers after yesterday, so we need to stay focused.”

“Relax, boss,” says Carver, leaning with his back to the railing and stretching his neck out, gazing up at the ceiling. “We’re golden. Or at least, Riley’s golden,” he adds, jerking a thumb in my direction. “I’ve never had so many people request
a tracer personally.”

“Where are the Twins?” I ask.

“Back at the Nest,” says Amira. “Although Kevin still isn’t
too happy about last night.” She gives Carver a pointed look. He’s suddenly gone very quiet.

There’s movement off to one side of the gallery. A roar goes up from the crowd and, at first, I think Darnell is being brought out, but then I see that it’s the council, led by Okwembu, walking
towards the dais. There are six of them, grey men and women who look nervous facing the people, as if it’s them being judged. Only Okwembu, standing out front, looks confident and proud, her chin up, raising a hand to greet the crowd. Her eyes sweep the catwalks above her. It might be my imagination, but I swear that when she looks at the area I’m standing in, she smiles.

“Okwembu came to see
me,” I mutter, then wish I hadn’t.

“What?” Amira yells – the noise has rocketed, a thundering boom in the enclosed space that has my stomach rumbling with its sheer force.

I reluctantly raise my voice a notch, leaning in closer. “Okwembu. When I was at the hospital in New Germany, she was there. She asked to see me.”

I see Amira’s eyes widen in astonishment, and she’s about to say something
when Darnell is hustled out of one of the corridors, and the crowd explodes.

He wears the same grey prison jumpsuit, his hands cuffed in front of him, his ankles shackled. His arms are gripped on each side by stompers in full body armour. Darnell dwarfs his escort, and they have to march in double time simply to keep up with his huge strides. The leering grin is back on his face.

I’m half expecting
people to throw things, but nothing comes – they don’t want to waste anything, I guess. It doesn’t stop them from jeering, and loud boos and catcalls are hurled out from all around me.

Amira leans into my field of view, but I can’t hear what she’s saying, and after a moment of fruitless shouting she gives up.
Her eyes hold plenty of unanswered questions, and it’s clear we’re not done just yet.

Darnell is led to the area in front of the council platform. The stompers don’t raise their stingers, but even from the catwalk, I can see them tense.

On the platform, one of the men steps forward, and the crowd noise ebbs slightly. He’s surprisingly young – his forties, maybe, which is unusual for a council member. Most of them make their way up the political ranks over time: level chief to
deputy sector chief and then representing their home sector on the council. That can take years – spots on the council don’t open often.

The man is holding some sort of device to his mouth, which allows him to transmit through the comms.

“Oren Darnell,” his voice booms, echoing off the walls. “You are accused by this council of the following crimes …”

As he begins to list the charges, someone
grips my shoulder and pulls me backwards.

For a terrible moment, I’m certain it’s one of the Lieren, and I’m about to have a blade rammed into the small of my back. I spin around, ready to attack, and find myself staring into the face of an old woman. She’s wearing a blue headscarf, and it takes a second for me to place her.

The market. The strange woman in the crowd.

She embraces me, placing
her mouth by my right ear. “I can’t believe I found you again,” she says, her high voice cutting through the noise. I try to say something, to ask who she is, but she cuts me off, squeezing me tighter, her voice urgent and husky in my ear. “My name is Grace Garner. I was Marshall Foster’s assistant. I have to talk to you – there’s something you need to know.”

“Tell me,” I say.

Garner pulls back,
looks me in the eyes. “Not here. We need to talk in private.”

A million questions fly around my head. Why is she telling me? And how does she know who I am? The fear is back, the cold fingers tracing the curve of my neck. Behind me, I can feel Amira and Carver tensing, not knowing who the woman is, or whether I’m in any danger. The people around me are starting to take an interest; I can see
a couple straining to hear our conversation, desperate to catch what might be a new piece of gossip. In the background, I can still hear the man from the council rattling off a list of crimes.

I’m about to tell her to go and wait in the Nest, or the market, but an idea suddenly hits.

“Go to Gardens,” I say. “The Air Lab. Ask for a man named Prakesh Kumar –
Prakesh Kumar
,” I repeat, raising my
voice. “Tell him I sent you, and tell him that you’re to wait for me there. I’ll come and find you.”