Sunspire (The Reach, Book 4) (25 page)

“He escaped,” Yefim said sheepishly.

“Yes.  He escaped.  And since that day, you and I have scoured the Reach in search of the boy, trying in vain to track him down.”

“Yes, I know–”

“And then…
then
, as the Reach fell into ruin and we decided it was time to leave, who should we stumble into?  On our very own doorstep in Lux?”

“Roman.  Uh, Ciro.”

“
Yes
.  And do you know what that means?”

“What?”

“It means that destiny brought us back together.  That was no chance encounter.  The Greatness is at work in all of this.”

“And we should have taken the boy right then, in Lux, instead of chasing him half-way across the lowlands,” Yefim said.

Rojas took a step back, appalled.  “Do you understand nothing of my crusade, Yefim?  Ciro had surrounded himself with heavily armed companions.  The only way to take him down would have been through a firefight, a most unsatisfactory demise.”  He stepped close again.  “When I take Ciro’s life, I will do it slowly, at my leisure.  I will watch him writhe before me and beg for forgiveness before I send him to the next plane of existence.”

“They knew we were following them,” Yefim said.  “The boy and his companions.  They were onto us.  I told you that several times.  We were never going to–”

“We were wearing hoods.  There was no way for Ciro to know it was us.”

“Nevertheless, I–”

“I am
not
turning back,” Rojas grated.  He turned and gestured to the quad bikes.  “I spent half of my fortune acquiring these vehicles, just so we could chase the dirigible.  We’ve followed Ciro across the Reach, Link, and now the lowlands.”  He jabbed a finger solidly into Yefim’s chest.  “Now it’s your job to find out where to go from here.  Get to it.”

Yefim’s mouth twisted sourly, but he did as he was told.  Behind them, the boy cleared his throat.

“So I brought you to the crash.  A deal’s a deal.  How about I get paid now?”

“You will receive your payment in the next life, when your good deeds pass through to the next plane of existence,” Rojas said.  “Return home now, with my thanks.”

“Huh?  What the
heck are you talking about, mister?”

“He’s telling you to get lost, kid,” Yefim said.

“But where’s my creds?”

“I told you,” Rojas said, moving over toward his quad bike, “your reward awaits you in the next life.”

“What if I don’t want to wait that long?”

Rojas considered.  “I could send you there sooner, if you prefer.”

The boy’s anger turned to unease.  “Uh, can I at least get a ride back home?  That’s a long way to walk, and there’s raiders about–”

“The exercise will do you good,” Rojas said unsympathetically.

The boy’s face began to turn red.  “You fuckin’ cheapskates!  Fuckin’ weirdos!  Who ever heard of demons and spirits and shit like that?  I hope you fuckin’ rot out here!”

Rojas began to stride menacingly toward him and, at that, the boy turned and fled, stumbling across the dirt as he cast a fearful glance
over his shoulder.  Rojas stopped, watching him go for a moment, then turned back to Yefim.

“So, where do we start?” he said, getting back onto the quad bike.

Yefim cast an eye at the sky as he considered.  “They flew almost dead east when they left the city, so it makes sense to check in that direction first.”  He pointed to a rise.  “We’ll look for tracks up there, toward those ruins.”

Rojas nodded, then started up the quad bike.

“Then let’s get to it.”

Mother guide me
, he thought as he pulled away from the dirigible and began up the slope.

Ciro was out there somewhere.  He knew it.

And Rojas was going to find him.

30

Duran and Zoe came upon Nix Junction during the night.  The entrance appeared through the smoke of a nearby blaze, its angular and weathered ramparts protruding upward like an asymmetrical steel crown.  Beyond, the structure curved downward as it led to the subway through which the shuttles had
once droned on, day and night.

In its heyday this station had seen thousands of feet pass through its doors every hour, a ceaseless parade of humanity crossing back and forth across the many destinations offered by the city.

Now it sat alone and forgotten, scattered with graffiti and rust, an innocuous relic of a forgotten time.

Not surprisingly, it was boarded up as tight as a drum.

Duran stood looking up at the heavily barred doors as he considered what to do next.

“So, do we knock?” Zoe said.

Duran ran his hands along the steel plating that had been welded across the entrance, probing for a weakness that he knew did not exist.

“We aren’t getting through here,” he said.  “In fact, it doesn’t look like anyone has come this way in a long time.”

“So?”

“So that means Jovanovic and de Villiers must have gotten in somewhere else.”

Zoe glanced about doubtfully.  “Should be easy to find in the pitch black dark.”

“Or maybe they found a way to the subway from another station, then worked their way back here.”

“And since we have no idea which one that might have been, we could traipse half-way across the city and still not find anything.”

Duran turned back and shook his head.  They’d already tried calling Jovanovic’s and de Villiers’ holophones, but there had been no answer.  Zoe had suggested that they had probably ditched their old devices to avoid being traced, and were now using new gear.

Either that, or they just didn’t want to pick up any calls from Zoe.

“It has to be close,” he said after a moment.  “Jovanovic was out on a supply run.  She said they were doing repairs on the shuttle, so they’d need to come and go quite a bit.  It doesn’t make sense that they’d travel a few blocks every time they needed to get out.  The entrance won’t be far away.”

“Yeah.  I guess so.”

They began to search the surrounds.  It did not seem to be a heavily frequented area these days, since no commerce was conducted here and there was nothing to
steal, and as a result, the
two of them were left unmolested as they went about their business.  In the distance, Link was still a hive of activity – gunfire, explosions, and the echo of voices could all be heard – but the chaos seemed almost disconnected, as if they’d passed through into a bubble of relative tranquility.

They’d been searching for almost half an hour before Duran found his first clue.  His flashlight fell upon scratches on the pavement that lay before a metal door in an alley across the street.

“Here,” he said.  “Someone’s been using this entrance.”

“So what?”

“The area is practically deserted.  No one lives here.”  He shrugged at her disdainful glare.  “Look, it’s the best I’ve got.”

She nodded.  “Let’s try it.”

The door was locked, but Duran was able to force it using a broad, sturdy knife he’d taken from his father’s house.  As the door cracked open, he shone the flashlight through the gap.  Inside was an unremarkable sight – a filthy room, its tiled floor strewn with garbage.  It might have once been a laundry for the apartment block, but now there was nothing about it that was identifiable.

“Clear,” he said.  “Moving in.”

They progressed through several rooms that were in a similar state to the first, and then Duran found a staircase leading downward.  At the bottom was a dank basement, cluttered with boxy, rusted appliances and garbage.  It stank like a sewer.

Rats fled in the gleam of the flashlight.

“You take me to all the best places, Alec,” Zoe said.

“Perfect for a candlelit dinner, huh?”

“What’s the first course?”

“Rat.  Same as the second course.  And the dessert.”

They wound their way along, heading ever deeper into the bowels of the building, and eventually hit a dead end.  Duran doubled back, turning in a different direction, and soon he found what he was looking for.

Ahead, a ragged hole had been knocked in the brickwork, creating an inky black aperture that led away into nothingness.

“That’s it,” he said.  “Has to be.”

“Well, we’ve come this far.  No point turning around now.”

They proceeded onward as rats scurried about their ankles.  Duran could feel the faint touch of a cold wind emanating from the hole, like the icy breath of some unseen creature waiting patiently in the dark.  As they entered, the flashlight revealed the walls of a narrow tunnel, rough-hewn from what looked like solid rock.

The walls glistened with moisture, and their footsteps echoed eerily about them.

“Watch your step,” Zoe said, placing a hand on his shoulder.

“Don’t worry about me.  I–”

Two points of light ignited a short distance away at the end of the tunnel, and Duran saw the muzzle of a handgun swing in his direction.

“Turn around,” a man’s voice said quietly.  “Turn around and go back the way you came.”  There was an undercurrent of menace in his tone that was hard to miss.

“Take it easy,” Duran said.  “We’re not here to cause trouble–”

“Go back the way you came, or die where you stand.”

“This is Nix Junction, right?  We were told to come here.”

“The fuck you were,” the man said in his unnervingly low voice.

“Jovanovic and de Villiers are friends of ours,” Zoe said.  “They told us we could meet them here.”

There was silence for a moment, then whispered voices.  One of the flashlights dropped away.

“Names?” the man said.

“Zoe.  And this is Duran.”

“Well, Zoe and Duran, listen carefully. 
Real
carefully.  I want you to walk forward with your hands in the air. 
Slowly
.  You do something that I don’t like, I drop you.  No questions asked.  You got that?”

“Yeah, we’ve got it,” Duran said.  He began to walk forward as instructed, squinting at the light that was directed into his face.  After no more than a dozen paces, they stepped clear of the tunnel and emerged into a long concrete stairwell.

“Stop.  Stand still and don’t move.”  Duran complied, and the man’s hands brushed over his torso and his legs, removing his weapons as they went.  He repeated the procedure with Zoe, then stepped back.  In the reflected glow of the flashlight Duran could see that the man was stocky, his head bald, and he wore a bemused expression on his face.  Another man stood by, expressionless, a shotgun levelled in their direction.

“Satisfied?” Duran said.

“You better hope someone knows you down there,” the man said.  “Otherwise, you’re rat food.”

They proceeded down the stairwell with the two men in tow, and after around thirty steps they reached the bottom.  The tunnel opened out, revealing an expansive subway lit by the
harsh white
glow of string lights that had been threaded above the platform.  On the track sat a dated shuttle in a state of disrepair, draped in cables and wit
h much of its inner
workings revealed by missing panels.  There were voices coming from inside, and several people could be seen in other parts of the chamber, busy at various tasks.

“Yo, Jovanovic!” the bald man called out.  “De Villiers!  Got some people here looking for you.”

The voices from inside the shuttle went quiet, and moments later a familiar face appeared at the door.

“Zoe, you made it!” Jovanovic said, surprised and delighted.  She stepped over onto the platform and ran to Zoe, gripping her in a fierce hug.  “I had a feeling you’d change your mind.”

Zoe smiled.  “Yeah, well we–”

“What the hell is this?” a voice boomed from the shuttle’s doorway.

They turned to see de Villiers standing there, his fingers working away at a greasy rag while he eyed the newcomers with something akin to disgust.

“De Villers, how’s it going?” Zoe said casually.

“Jo, how did they know we were here?” de Villiers said, arching an eyebrow.

Jovanovic shrugged.  “I ran into them on the street a few hours ago.  Told them about what we’d been up to.”

De Villiers smiled sourly.  “Would have been nice if you’d asked for permission to do that first.”

“You aren’t the boss of me,” Jovanovic said.  “Never have been, never will.”

De Villiers ignored her.  “So you two finally got out of the Reach, huh?  Thought you were going to stay there.  That was your plan, wasn’t it?”

“Some things changed.  We realised you were right,” Duran said to him.  He thought of his father again, lying in his bed with a belly full of pills.  “We should have left sooner.”

“Don’t try to kiss my ass now, Duran,” de Villiers said.  “You’re not getting on this rig, no matter what you say.  Don’t bother trying to sweet talk your way in.”