Zero-G (2 page)

Prakesh Kumar takes the stairs two at a time, his arms pumping.

Suki is screaming at him to hurry. He can see the intense lights from the Air Lab ceiling through the open door at the top, and he raises a hand to his face, shielding his eyes.

He takes the last step and explodes out onto the roof of the control room complex, jogging behind Suki. Her hair – green this month – flares out behind her. Prakesh still has his heavy lab coat on, and he rips it from his shoulders as he runs, letting it fall to the ground behind him. They're running down a narrow canyon, bulky air-conditioning units on either side humming quietly.

“This way,” Suki says over her shoulder. He can see the tear tracks down her face, gleaming under the lights. He nods, trying to control his breathing.

They sprint out of the mouth of the canyon. There's an open area on the roof, and Prakesh sees that there are other techs there, huddled in a small group off to one side. Prakesh doesn't know all of them, but he recognises Julian Novak from genomics, and the new guy, Iko, from maintenance. Prakesh isn't particularly fond of Julian. The man's lazy, prone to taking shortcuts in his work. He gives Prakesh a guarded nod. His dark hair hangs down over his face, and he's chewing something, his mouth moving mechanically.

Suki comes to a clumsy stop, pointing to the other side of the roof, beyond another bank of aircon units. “He's over there. We found him when we…” she trails off, doubling over and clutching her side.

“It's OK,” Prakesh says. But it doesn't feel OK. Not by a long shot. He can feel his heart pounding, the sweat soaking into his shirt. “Do we have a name? Do we know who it is?”

“It's Benson,” says Julian, talking around whatever he's chewing.

Prakesh's eyes widen. James Benson. Quiet, cheerful, hard worker. He's been at the Air Lab forever – Prakesh remembers working with him on some project years ago.

“Did he say why he's doing this? Did you talk to him?”

Julian shrugs.

Prakesh's anger flares. How can the man be so calm? He has a sudden desire to tell him to handle it, see if he keeps that smug look on his face then.

But he can't. He's in charge of the Air Lab now, and that means this is his show.

“How long's he been up here?” he asks Suki.

She takes a moment to answer. “Twenty minutes,” she says. “I think.”

Prakesh grabs her shoulder “I want you to get a Mark Six and jack it all the way up. Make sure he doesn't see you doing it.”

“It'll never work!”

“Just do it, Suki. And do
not
put it in place before I tell you.”

He strides off without waiting for her to reply. The aircon units run right up to the edge of the building. The control room complex is in the corner of the hangar, six storeys high, and Prakesh can see the Air Lab stretching out below him. He can see the enormous man-made forest dotted with algae pools. From up here, it seems like every square foot of extra space has been given over to growing food. Prakesh sees dark soil, brown climbing frames, the emerald green of the plants, the blinking lights of the hydroponic systems.

He looks down at the edge of the roof. There's less than a foot of space between the aircon units and thin air.

Prakesh takes a deep breath, holds it, then lets it out through his nose. He puts one foot on the edge, slipping his body around the aircon unit, his hand hunting for a hold.

Benson is a little way along. He's middle-aged, with the lean body and huge arms of someone who has spent years carrying heavy sacks of soil and fertiliser. His face is ashen-grey, his eyes closed. He's facing outwards, his hair buffeted by a stream from the aircon unit, and beyond him, a single step away, is a sixty-foot drop to the ground below.

The smell in the drained pipeline is like a living thing. It crawls into my nose and squats there, prickly and burning. I almost gag, manage to keep it down. The floor in the pipe is uneven, criss-crossed with ridges and bent metal, spotted with puddles of soupy water.

I'm on all fours, a few feet into the tunnel, when I hear Carver come down behind me. I flick on my torch as he lands, illuminating walls stained with gunk.

“Well, Royo was right,” Carver says. “Kev would
never
fit down here.”

I look back, playing my torch across his body. For me, the space is tight, but for Carver it looks as if he's been squeezed into the pipe, his shoulders bumping up against the roof.

We start forward. As I push myself around a corner, forcing my body into the wall for balance, my hand slips. My forearm slides into the muck, which soaks through my jumpsuit. It takes every ounce of willpower I have not to start hammering on the walls.

“Everything OK?” Carver says.

“Couldn't be better,” I say through clenched teeth.

Another right turn, then we'll be in the plant itself. The next T-junction should have a grate which we can lift up.

It doesn't take us long to get there – the
patoosh-patoosh
of the machinery in the plant is coming down into the pipe, more felt than heard. The smell has grown stronger, too – something I didn't think was possible. The inside of my nose feels scoured.

There's a crackle in my ear. Royo. “Tracer unit, come back.”

I look down at my wrist, at the thick flexible rubber band with the small digital display. It's the companion to my earpiece – each stomper unit gets its own dedicated channel on the system, and ours is 535.

I touch my wrist, keying the transmit button. “Copy. Loud and clear, Captain.”

“Report.”

I keep my voice low. “We're getting close. We should be inside the plant in two minutes.”

“Good. We've got a team standing—”

There's a burst of static on the line, fading and vanishing inside a second. It's loud enough to make me wince.

“—static, Carver. When are you fixing it?” Royo says. If anything, he sounds even more annoyed.

“Gimme a break,” Carver say from behind me. “I'm still trying to find out why it's even there. The frequencies on SPOCS are supposed to be discrete, so we don't pick up any radio—”

“
Carver
.”

“Fine, fine,” he mutters. “Hope you and Kev are having
fun
up there.”

I crawl round a corner, and suddenly there's a grate above my head, sending thin strips of light down into the pipe.

“We're here,” I whisper. “Gotta go.”

“Copy that,” says Royo.

Someone walks across the grate.

The light blinks out. I see boot soles, and footsteps boom down into the tiny crawlspace. I wait until the owner of the boots recedes into the distance, then keep crawling.

I can see the exit up ahead – it's another grate, with pinpricks of light leaking in. I look back over my shoulder as I get close; Carver catches my eye, and nods. Very slowly, I put a hand on the grate and push.

The metal grinds as it lifts up, and I freeze.

There are no shouts, no running feet. I lift it up the rest of the way and haul myself out.

I've come up behind one of the waste vats. It's an enormous metal cylinder, one of dozens dotted around the walls of the room, gleaming under the spotlights in the ceiling. The vats form a loose U-shape around an open area on the plant floor. The smell here is a little better, the stench of waste cut by the tang of disinfectant.

I pad to the side, moving on the balls of my feet, and Carver slips out of the grate behind me. He gets to his feet, hugging the wall as he moves into the shadows.

I rest a hand on the cold surface of the vat. I can feel it humming and vibrating as it churns the wastewater, separating out the good and the bad. They mix the water with bacteria to eat the waste, sending the oxygen produced back into the system. When the water's clean, it recirculates, flowing to water points across the lower sectors.

I sneak a peek around the side of the vat. I don't see the hostages. What I do see is a man with a stinger coming right towards our hiding place.

For a terrifying second, Prakesh doesn't know what to say. If he startles Benson, the man could slip right off the ledge.

Benson saves him the trouble. The eyes in that grey face slide open, and he looks over.

“What do you want?” he says. His voice is calm, as if he's asking Prakesh to deal with a routine lab matter. But Prakesh can't stop looking at Benson's feet, the toes already out over the edge.

“Hey, James,” he says, going for nonchalance and failing. “I was, um … I was hoping I could talk to you.”

“Oh yeah? About what?”

About what?
Prakesh almost laughs. He can feel his palm sweating against the metal aircon unit. There's no manual for these kinds of situations, no step-by-step procedure you can rely on.

“Let's talk about why you're up here,” Prakesh says. “How about it, huh?”

“Do you know how long I've been at the Air Lab?” Benson says, looking out at the vast hangar.

Prakesh's mind whirs away, trying to remember. “I don't—”

“Twenty years. I was here when old Xi Peng was running the place, long before you came along.” He says it without malice, as if it's just a fact he's learned to live with. Prakesh supposes he has.

“Twenty years,” Benson says again. “And I've hated it for nineteen and a half of them.”

“We can change that,” Prakesh says. He can hear noise on the ground below. He has to keep Benson's attention. If he jumps before the Mark Six is ready …

“Really?” Benson actually laughs. “How? You think changing my role or putting me at a better time on the shift roster is gonna make me
happier
?”

Prakesh starts to speak, but Benson talks over him. “I got nobody. Never had nobody. Didn't think I needed them, neither. But it wears you down, you know?”

He jabs a finger outwards, pointing at the hangar wall.

“They,” he says. “Them. They take us for granted. We give them food, all of them, and they treat us like dirt.”

“James,” says Prakesh. “You have to listen to me. We need you.
I
need you.”

Benson ignores him. “Even you. Especially you. With that genetic breakthrough of yours, they should have put you in charge of the whole damn station. How do you stand it?”

“They made me head of the Air Lab,” Prakesh says. “That's enough for me.” He's feeling embarrassed somehow, like he shouldn't be talking about his success. He desperately wants to look back over his shoulder, hoping against hope that a stomper or a councillor or
someone
will appear on the rooftop, ready to step in.

“I always respected you,” Benson says. “You seem like a decent guy. But I don't want to do this any more. You can't make me.”

And before Prakesh can do anything, Benson closes his eyes and steps forward off the roof.

The man is my age, his face pockmarked with acne scars, wearing an old flannel shirt under a khaki jacket. When he comes round the side of the vat, Carver and I are pressed up against it, deep in the shadows.

The man stops, looking back over his shoulder. The stinger in his hands is homemade, cobbled together from spare parts, but perfectly capable of ruining your day.

I feel Carver tense beside me. I'm already working out the angles, the fastest and quietest way to take him down. If he gets even a single word off—

“We don't need any heroes here,” someone says from across the room, out of my field of view. The man in the flannel shirt turns, striding back across the floor. I breathe out, long and slow.

The voice is faint, but I can just make out the words. “Everybody just stay on the ground, and we all walk away.”

I sneak another peek round the side of the vat, taking in the floor of the plant. I can see some of the hostage takers, their backs to me, and a few people lying face down on the floor, but I can't get a clear look at the whole plant. Carver slips past me, placing a hand at the small of my back, moving silently to the next vat along.

I hear another voice – one of the hostages, I think. There's a muffled thump, followed by a groan of pain.

“Ivan,” the first voice hisses.

“Sorry, Mikhail.”

Carver puts up a closed fist:
Wait
. He takes a look of his own, scanning the plant, then pulls back into the shadows.

I catch his attention, pointing in the direction of the hostage takers, then hold up six fingers, three on each hand.

He shakes his head, quick-quick, then holds up a fist and two fingers. Seven.

I risk another look. There he is: he was out of my field of view, standing off to one side, over by the far wall. I can't pick out his features from here, but he has a massive beard, falling all the way to his stomach.

Carver taps his ear, looking at me questioningly. I nod, then key the transmit button on my wristband.

“Captain Royo,” I say, keeping my voice to a low murmur. “This is Riley, come back.”

“Copy, Hale. What do you see?”

Carver has moved further along the back of the vat, and is peering round the far end. He looks back at me, flashes seven fingers again, then a thumbs-up.

“We've got seven of them. They're carrying stingers, homemade. I don't see any other weapons.”

“And the hostages?”

“They look OK for now.”

Mikhail speaks again. “We don't want to hurt anyone. Not unless we have to,” he says. He's just in my field of view. His accent is syrup-thick. The set of his shoulders and his posture speak of a man in his thirties or forties, but he has an ancient face, jagged with wrinkles and scars. His head is ringed with grey hair, long and greasy.

“Confirm seven hostiles,” says Royo. “Can you—”

As he speaks, the earpiece gives off a burst of static, so loud I almost tear the unit from my ear.

My heart starts hammering. I slip around the back of the vat, praying the sound didn't go further than my ringing eardrum. I flick the SPOCS to a dead channel.

“You hear that?” someone says. Whoever it is starts walking towards my hiding place, his footsteps getting louder. Not good. I shrink back against the tank, willing myself to be as still as possible. Carver has dropped to one knee, so deep in the shadows that I can barely make him out.

“What is it, Anton?” says the leader from the other side of the room.

“Heard something,” Anton says. “Just checking it out.”

“OK. Be careful.”

The man is going to be on me in seconds – and this time I can't count on him turning away. If I run, he'll hear me. If we take him out, if the others don't see him again in a minute or two, they'll come looking for him. I hear his footsteps, getting closer, see his shadow growing larger on the wall.

And then, all at once, the idea is there.

I can see Carver getting ready to move, a shifting shape in the shadows. I signal him with a raised hand, then shake my head.

The gap between the wall and the vat is maybe four feet. I push my back against the vat, facing the wall, then raise first one leg, then the other. When I'm locked into position, suspended a few feet off the ground, I start to push my upper body a little way up the side of the vat. One leg at time, I walk myself up the wall, always sliding my upper body first, always keeping my feet below waist level.

Being a tracer teaches you about friction. Friction maintains grip. Friction keeps you defying gravity in places you shouldn't be able to. Friction – perfectly calibrated pressure between two surfaces – can keep your hand on a wall, or your fingers on an edge for the extra half-second you need to pull yourself over. Friction keeps us alive.

I try to keep my movements smooth. When I'm on a run, sprinting through the station, I don't worry too much about making noise – matter of fact, the more I make, the longer people have to see me coming, and get out of the way. But if I make a sound now, I'm dead.

“If anybody's back here, come out now,” Anton says again, the word given a metallic edge in the tight space. “We won't hurt you.”

I'm ten feet up, but it's not enough – he'll see me. I force myself to keep sliding upwards. A foot. Another. The muscles in my thighs are starting to burn.

Anton comes into view. He's a tall man, heavily muscled, wearing a ragged blue jumpsuit. He's right underneath me. I can feel sweat pooling in the small of my back. If he looks up, he can't possibly miss me. He won't even have to aim. I feel a burning need to look at Carver, to see if he's still there, but I don't dare turn my head.

Just as these thoughts run through my mind, my shoe slips on the metal wall, giving off a tiny screech.

He had to have heard that. He must have. Any second now, he's going to look up and put a bullet into me.

But he doesn't. He looks everywhere, except above his head.

The burn in my thighs has become a raging fire, adding to the ache in my knees and ankles. I can't stay where I am – if I don't go up, or slide down, I'm going to fall right on top of him.

I will my legs to stay locked, keeping me in place.

He turns, and begins to walk the other way, intending to check behind the other vats. If Carver doesn't move, the man is going to trip right over him.

Carefully, I look to my left. Carver isn't there. He's moved away, slipping down the vats. I can just see him at the far corner of the room. “I'm OK,” he says, his voice barely audible on my SPOCS.

My lungs feel like they're going to rip through my torso, but I exhale as quietly as I dare. I'm about to slide down when I stop.

Climbing is quiet. Getting down is always noisy. No matter how carefully you do it, there's always sound. I might bring the man back this way, even more determined.

But if I go up, I can stay quiet, and get an even better view of the plant

Slowly, ever so slowly, I begin sliding up the vat, walking up the wall, treating each step as if there's crushed glass under my feet.

“What are you doing?” Carver says. I don't answer.

It seems like hours before I reach the top of the vat. Getting onto it isn't easy – I have to stretch out as I come over the lip, and for a minute the edge digs painfully into my lower back. But then I slide onto it, face-up, pulling my feet off the wall.

The air up here is just as dank, slick with the stink of human waste. The voices below me are muffled. Not knowing what's happening in here must be driving Royo insane. He'll be pacing, furious at us for going silent on him.

You're in a world of shit
, I think, and have to force myself not laugh.

“Carver,” I whisper.

Carver speaks almost immediately, frantic with worry, abandoning SPOCS protocol. “Riley, talk to me.”

“I'm up on one of the waste vats. They haven't seen me.”

“You need to stay where you are. They've got two of them looking for us now. They know something's wrong.”

Royo must have been listening in. “Tracers, report. We're ready to go out here. Give me hostile positions,
now
.”

“Standby,” I whisper. I slide across the top of the vat as I talk. The surface is convex, and as I near the edge I have to work to keep myself in place, but I finally get a good view of the plant.

The waste vats line the walls, surrounded by a ganglia of pipes and valves. The hostage takers are spread across the floor, talking in low voices. Two of them are patrolling the vats on my right, looking for Carver. Two more stand over the hostages, all lying in a small cluster on the floor. Mikhail is over by the main door.

“You find anything back there?” one of them yells.

The answer comes from below me. “Nothing, man. I don't like this.”

The questioner nods, turning to the others. “Spread out. There's someone else here.”

I look down. And that's when I see a woman, one of the hostage takers, staring up at me.