Skyfall (45 page)

It had to be the Underground. Gregor. She had a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. She turned and ran for home.

The lobby was almost completely deserted, an internal lift waiting. It took only a couple of moments to get upstairs to the front door of her apartment.

‘Mum? Dad?'

‘KESRA!' Her mother flung herself through the doorway of the bedroom, grabbing Kes in a tight hug. ‘I thought I'd lost you. I thought I'd lost you both …'

‘Mum, calm down, you're choking me. MUM!'

Eventually her mother disentangled herself. ‘Where've you been?' Then she noticed her daughter's appearance. ‘Kesra! What happened to you? Are you hurt?'

‘I…' Kes looked at her mother, whose eyes were red with crying, her face blotchy. ‘Mum, it's okay. I'm back. I got … caught up in something, that's all.' Kes took her mother's hand and led her over to the threadbare couch. ‘Where's Dad? He's not home yet?'

To Kes's surprise, her mother burst into tears again. ‘Oh, Sky!'

‘Mum! What's wrong?'

‘I thought you must have heard. I thought you knew.'

‘Knew what? Mum, talk to me.'

‘Your father … there was an explosion … the recyc dome …'

Kes could feel the room swaying around her and her mother's voice coming from a long way off.

‘What happened to Dad? Is he all right? Mum?'

‘He's gone, Kes. It's all gone.'

‘Dad?'

‘The whole dome. They destroyed the whole dome. Those shifties blew out the whole dome …'

‘No, they can't have … It's impossible …'

But when she looked at her mother's distraught face, Kes realised with a sickening lurch that it was completely possible. Numb, she crossed to the apartment window. Their dome wasn't high enough to have a view of the city, only of other domes and domestems, but she knew. She knew that somewhere out there, kilometres to the north, an enormous plume of smoke was rising up from the underworld below Port North Central, belching smoke and flames into the lower levels of the city, and that somewhere in the midst of all that was her father.

‘Kesra?' From the couch, her mother watched, but before she could say another word, the front door burst open and four armoured security agents stormed into the room.

‘Remain still! Do
not
move!' barked one, then when he was satisfied that all was clear, he shouted back into the hallway. ‘Secure!'

The yelling and crashing woke the Bean and his plaintive wail floated out from the bedroom. Kes's mother started to rise, but one of the agents shoved her roughly back down.

‘I said do
not
move!' he growled.

‘My baby is crying …'

‘Let it cry.'

‘Let her get the child.' Another man entered the apartment, a short, stocky man with cold, dark eyes. He crossed to where Kes still stood by the window and regarded her with a flinty expression. ‘Miss Anatale. My name is Jenx. We've never had the pleasure of meeting, but, believe me, I feel as though I know you already.'

‘What do you want?'

The man smiled. ‘I'm sure you know, Kesra.'

‘Kes …' Her mother returned from the bedroom, Savi clutched to her shoulder. ‘Who is this?'

Jenx turned to face her, still smiling pleasantly.

‘I'm the Prelate's head of citywide security, Mrs Anatale. And may I offer my sincerest condolences on your loss. Sadly ironic, really …'

‘With respect, Mr Jenx, what in the sky are you talking about?'

‘Kesra knows, I'm sure.' He turned back to Kes, who kept her expression blank.

‘I'm sorry, I have no idea.'

‘Now, Kesra, we both know that's an outright lie. You returned up here from the underworld less than an hour ago.' He held up a hand to cut short Kes's protest before she could even make it. ‘Don't bother denying it, Kesra. Even with the current situation, some of our security programs are still operating. What really interests me, though, is that there's no record at all of you ever having gone down there. No record, in fact, of you even leaving this dome. Which is odd, because we also have footage of you getting into a maglift two days ago with Larinan Man and a yet-to-be-indentified stranger. So don't waste any more of my time.'

‘What's this man talking about, Kes? What's going on?' Her mother's expression was pleading.

‘It's okay, Mum.' Kes stared levelly back at Jenx. ‘What do you want?'

‘I want the girl. And Larinan Mann, too, if that's possible, but he's a secondary consideration.'

‘She's dead. She died on the way down. Lari got injured at the same time. Ratz doesn't think he'll live, either.'

Jenx regarded her with his gimlet stare. ‘I don't believe you, Miss Anatale, not for a second. Now, there are several ways we can do this. Either you can tell me what I need to know, or we can do this somewhere … less comfortable.'

Kes stared at the security chief. ‘Fine,' she said. ‘Take me, then. See if it helps.'

‘Are you certain that's what you really want, Kesra?' Jenx inclined his head towards her mother and baby brother. ‘You do understand, don't you, that your whole family is now under suspicion of sedition and terrorism and it won't just be you I take into custody. If, on the other hand, you tell me now what you know, I'll leave you all in peace. For the moment.'

For a long moment Kes glared at the man. ‘North,' she finally said.

‘What?'

‘They're heading north. That's all I know.'

‘Who?'

‘Lari, Gregor and his daughter Jem, and Saria.'

Now the security chief smiled. ‘I knew you'd see things my way.' He turned to the security agent standing nearest the door. ‘You know what to do. Go!'

The man left at a fast run, his footsteps echoing down the corridor. ‘What happens now?' Kes asked Jenx.

‘Now? Now I go and find your boyfriend and we'll see if we can put a stop to this whole disaster before it goes any further.'

‘Disaster?' Kes's mother interjected.

‘Disaster, Mrs Anatale,' Jenx confirmed. ‘The terrorist movement of which your daughter is a member is currently in the process of destroying everything that keeps this city functioning. In all honesty, it's probably too late already to avert what's coming. I suspect that what's happening out there now is just the beginning, but we can try.'

‘It's not that bad,' Kes argued, but Jenx turned back to her and now his stare was completely hard.

‘It's worse than you can possibly imagine, Kesra. This city was balanced on a knife edge, and your friends have just pushed us off it. The damage they've done tonight is irreparable. The maglifts will never function properly again. Port North Central is cut off from the rest of the city. Water, waste and recyc systems for a hundred thousand people are now crippled beyond repair. There's already rioting going on in middle-level domes around Central, and it's going to spread. All of it a direct result of you and Larinan Mann assisting Kravanratz and his band of terrorists. So don't try and sugar-coat it. You've helped kill this city tonight, Kesra.'

Without another word, Jenx turned on his heel and marched off, leaving the apartment door open behind him. Even before he'd gone, Kes's mother was staring at her.

‘Is it true?'

‘It's not like he described it …'

‘You've been helping the Underground?'

‘I never realised what they'd do. They wanted me to befriend Lari for information, that's all I ever …'

But her mother rose from the couch, still clutching the Bean to her chest, marched into her bedroom and closed the door firmly behind her.

A sharp pain in Kes's stomach reminded her how long it had been since she'd had anything to eat, so she grabbed two protein supps from the kitchenette and bolted them with a glass of slightly bitter water. It stopped the hunger, but it didn't come close to filling the yawning hole that had opened up inside her.

Her father. Gone.

And she'd killed him.

No.
Gregor
killed him. Gregor Kravanratz and his psychotic daughter and their insane shiftie plans …

The terminal beeped. A com was coming in. The signal was scratchy and flickered with interference, but to her amazement the face of Janil Mann appeared on the display.

‘I've just been talking to Jenx. He says they're heading north. Is that right?'

‘Yes.'

‘Where exactly?'

‘I don't know. I left and came back up here.'

‘You shouldn't have.'

‘I had to get to my family.'

‘This city's going to die, Kesra. It's already going down fast and hard.'

‘I know. Lari told me.'

The comlink crackled again and Janil's image leapt slightly.

‘Listen, I don't know how long this link is going to hold up. I'm about to get out of Port North Central.'

‘I thought the maglifts were down?'

Janil offered a grim smile. ‘There are other ways. Listen, Kesra, I don't know if you're going to see the copygen again …'

‘I doubt it.'

‘… but if you do, tell him Dad's dead, would you?'

Janil said something else, but the link crackled badly.

‘What was that?'

‘… out. If you can. While you can …'

‘I'm not getting this.'

‘If … getting out, then you should. Now. No matter what the Prelate thinks, we're not going to be …'

The connection died. Kes stared at the blank display.

‘Was he telling the truth?' She hadn't heard her mother come out of the bedroom, but when Kes looked up she was standing behind her. She'd heard the whole conversation.

‘I think so. Lari said the same thing.'

Her mother looked thoughtful, then said, ‘Could you get out?'

‘Possibly. If I could get a lift and find my way back into the underworld, and then find Lari and the others …' She stood up and looked into her mother's eyes. ‘But I won't. My place is here with you and Savi.'

‘No.'

‘What?'

‘How many other people in the city know about this, do you think?'

‘Not many.'

‘Good. Go and pack. Clothes and food.'

‘Mum, I'm not—'

‘You are. And that's final.'

‘I can't.'

‘Listen to me, Kesra.' Her mother licked her lips. ‘If what Janil Mann just told you is true, the only choice we have is to go. Now. Run while we can.'

‘We?'

‘Of course. The three of us. We take your brother and anything we can carry, and we get the sky out of this city before it comes crashing down. If we can meet your … friends … then we will. Otherwise we'll just do the best we can. And if something goes wrong, if one of us can't make it then the other will take Savi and keep going, for as long as they can. Promise me.'

The two women looked at each other. Through the grief and anger, there was something else in her mother's eyes, Kes realised: a spark of determination she'd never seen there before.

Kes nodded. ‘Okay. Let's go.'

They marched through the night in silence. The only sounds were the crunch of their footsteps on the broken ground and the hollow thump of distant explosions which occasionally boomed across the ancient city. Whenever he looked up, Lari could see the lights of Port City still filling the sky, but muted now, filtered by a thickening layer of smoke and dust being thrown up into the air as the Underground brought more domes crashing down.

Each time the rumble of another ‘action' echoed across the wasteland, Lari would close his eyes, willing his brain not to hear it, or at least not to think about what it meant. Above his head, he knew his world was dying.

‘Being murdered,' he muttered. A few steps ahead, Jem looked back.

‘What was that?'

‘Nothing.'

Silence.

Towards the middle of the night, without warning, there were suddenly flyers everywhere.

‘Shi!' Gregor led them quickly down from the flat causeway into a broken field of angled wreckage. ‘They're onto something.'

Crouched below an enormous slab of weathered concrete, the four waited while a flyer screamed overhead.

Gregor was puzzled. ‘I don't get it. It must be chaos up there by now. They should be dealing with the explosions, not looking for us.'

Nobody answered and after a few moments he led them back out.

Until dawn, they weaved through the broken ground, ducking into cover every few minutes as the flyers tore the sky, weaving between the domestems at dizzying speeds.

‘I don't understand how they haven't found us,' Lari said to Saria at one point. ‘They can track body heat a mile away.'

The Darklander grinned. ‘There are ways around that, if you know what you're doin''

‘Obviously. But we're not doing anything to disguise it.'

She raised an eyebrow. ‘You don't reckon all this cold, dead rock we keep hiding under does a pretty good job?'

‘Their sensors are probably getting messed up by the domestems and all the smoke in the air,' Gregor added.

‘If you say so,' Lari replied coldly.

‘Listen, copygen …' Jem began, but her father placed a hand on her arm to quiet her.

‘He'll come around,' he said.

The sky I will,
Lari thought.

Dawn set the sky into another flood of light and they holed up for the day in the ruins of an old stone building with an enormous concrete cross jutting at a crazy angle from the roof.

‘What happens when we get to the edge of the city?' Jem asked Gregor as they settled in. Her father thought a moment before answering.

‘I guess I'll leave you there, and the three of you can head out, or stay in the cityshadow as long as you can. I'll leave it up to you.'

‘You won't come?'

‘No. There's more work to do here.'

‘Like you haven't done enough already.' Lari didn't hide his anger.

‘Just deal with it, copygen, okay?' Jem snapped.

‘Deal with it? People are dying up there, Jem. Don't you get it? Dying because your father's killing them.'

‘People have been dying down here for centuries, Larinan.' Gregor's tone was gentle.

‘That doesn't make what you're doing right.'

‘No, not right, but necessary, perhaps.'

‘You disgust me, both of you.'

‘This was inevitable, Larinan. One way or another. You know that. Sky! You were the one who opened
my
eyes to that particular fact.'

Lari fell silent. He wished he'd never heard the words ‘entropy scenario'.

Outside, the sound of the flyers faded with the dawn.

‘They're going home. We should get some sleep. Another big walk tonight.'

‘How long until we reach the edge?'

‘Depends on how much hiding we have to do. It's not far ahead. With luck, we could even get there tonight.'

Listening to them, Lari almost hoped they'd get caught.
Let them face up to what they've done up there while there's still time,
he thought. But then Saria came across to where he'd settled, lay down, curled herself into the curve of his body and seemed to fall asleep in an instant. The warmth of her pressing against him sent a shiver through him, and Lari knew that getting caught wasn't an option.

Lari and Saria woke late. Night had fallen and Gregor had a small fire going.

‘Here, eat something.' He offered them some food. Where it had come from Lari had no idea, but he took it all the same.

‘Shouldn't we be moving? I thought we were in a hurry.'

‘Not any more. Listen.'

Outside, the city was silent. Not a single resonator hummed, not a single explosion rent the air.

‘What's happened?'

‘They're not flying.'

‘Why?'

‘Who knows? Perhaps they can't. Perhaps that's how bad things have become up there.'

Lari walked up the centre of the hall and stood in the enormous arched doorway, staring up. Between the domestems, the skycity glowed, but not with its usual luminescence. Large parts of Port City were in complete darkness, blacked out and turning sections of the sky into an empty void. Between these the sky glowed with the angry red of fires reflecting against the drifting smoke.

‘It's a sight I never wanted to see, Larinan.' Gregor was suddenly beside him. ‘You'll have to trust me on that. This was never my intention, but it's the only way to ensure safety for Saria and Jem and you.'

‘No,' Lari said, ‘it's not the only way. Just
your
way.'

Gregor looked as though he was going to argue the point, but instead he said, ‘It doesn't matter now, anyway. What's done is done. We should get moving.' He called back into the building. ‘Come on, you two, let's go.'

Gradually, their course wound them back to the embankment and they clambered up it before turning east again and continuing their march. The silence was unsettling. Lari knew that terrible events were unfolding, but from down here they were happening in silence. He wondered what his father and brother were doing.

The whole night passed like that, spent in silent reflection. More and more they came across small groups of people, clans mostly, all moving west with an odd urgency. Most of the time Gregor would hide them at the first sign of anyone approaching, but on two occasions people spotted them first, and they found themselves staring into hollow, gaunt faces as they passed. The first group walked on without comment, but the second stopped, blocking the roadway.

‘You!' The old man leading spat into the dirt at Gregor's feet and nodded sharply upwards. ‘This your work, then, is it?'

‘Some of it. The rest they're bringing on themselves.'

The old man looked grim. ‘I always said you were a dangerous man, Ratz. Never wanted you down here, I didn't.'

‘I know.' Gregor stood his ground and didn't look at all apologetic.

‘Where're you headed?' The old man's face became expressionless. The group behind him, ragged men and women and a couple of scrawny children, listened carefully.

‘Me? Nowhere. I'm staying here to face it with the rest of you. But first I'm taking my daughter and her sister here to the city edge.'

‘What good'll that do them, eh? Gonna burn them up like you?'

‘They can live out there. Both of them.'

The old man's eyes flickered over Jem and Saria, taking in the dark complexions, the black hair and the almond eyes. Then they came to rest on Lari.

‘What about him? He don't look like he's gonna be much good out there.'

‘The boy can take his chances. Not much good sending out two girls and no fellas.'

‘True, I guess.' The man looked thoughtful. ‘East, eh?'

‘That's the plan.'

‘Don't you move, Ratz. You wait right there.'

The man pulled his group a few metres away and there was a whispered conversation before they turned back to Gregor.

‘You willing to take these two?'

The children, a girl and a boy, were pushed gently forward.

‘How old are they?'

‘Older than they look. He's nine and she's ten.'

Gregor looked the two up and down. ‘It'll make things harder for my girls.'

The old man laughed, a sharp, cracking sound. ‘Like you haven't made things harder for everyone else, Ratz. Seems to me you owe us at least this much. None of us'd have a hope in the sky of surviving out there, but these two are still young. They don' eat much, and they'll do their bit.'

‘What do you think? It's your call.' Gregor turned to Jem, but it was Saria who answered.

‘They can come.'

One of the women in the old man's group began to sob. The two children were propelled forward and Saria took their hands.

‘Good luck,' said the old man. ‘Sky knows you'll need it out there.'

Then the man led his depleted group west again along the embankment. They quickly faded into the night.

‘Two more mouths to feed,' Gregor muttered.

‘There's plenty out there for everyone,' Saria answered.

‘You know that for a fact?'

‘I saw it.'

There didn't seem to be any answer to that, so they marched on. The night crawled past silently, the only break towards dawn when the echo of a flyer floated down from somewhere in the smoke above.

‘You hear it?' Jem asked.

‘Shh! Yes.' Gregor cocked one ear to the sky. ‘It's high, though. I don't think it's searching. Not for us, anyway.'

They walked a while longer, the hum of the flyer's resonators following with a faint, unearthly wail, until they finally stopped for the day.

‘Sleep,' Gregor commanded, and they did.

During the afternoon Lari dreamt he was standing on the balcony outside his dome. Below, Port City sparkled, and beside him his mother stood, arms outstretched to the approaching sunrise, her hair streaming in the wind, her face alight.

Then he was inside, in his old room that he shared with Janil. He was only five and he lay in the dark, bruises on his arms where other children's fingers had poked, prodded and punched. He muffled his sobs with his pillow and tried to shut out the taunts that still rang in his ears:
Copygen! Sister!

In the tear-thick darkness, someone touched him, fingertips resting lightly for a moment on the back of his neck.

‘It's okay, little brother,' Janil's voice was a whisper from the night. ‘Mum and Dad'll look after it. I'll look out for you. Don't worry.'

Lari woke in the underworld with his brother's voice still ringing from his dream.

His whole body ached from nights of sleeping on hard concrete. Slowly he rose and stretched, yawning, feeling his muscles and joints crack and creak as he worked some sensation back into them.

They'd hidden in a half-collapsed ruin, and in the doorway, her face lifted to the dying light, Saria stood on her own. A few metres away the two clan children slept in a pool of deep shadow. Standing there, framed by the late afternoon, the Darklander girl looked impossibly fragile, but at the same time seemed to exude some strange power. It was like she could tap deep into the earth.

Lari moved towards her, as close as he could until his wristband chimed. The noise startled her.

‘What was that?'

‘Sorry.' He backed away slightly, into the shadow. ‘I didn't mean to … It was just my band. Warning me.'

About what?'

‘Exposure. It's still too bright out there.'

‘What happens if you get caught in it?'

‘You've seen what happens. You saw it in DGAP. I'd burn. Like him.' Lari pointed at the still sleeping Gregor.

‘You'd burn …'A startled expression flickered across Saria's face, but it vanished instantly.

Lari looked past her, out into the afternoon. Seen in broad daylight, the underworld took on a different appearance. It was no longer the dead city made up of pools of shadow and darkness. In fact, it had a curiously benign appearance. The old buildings didn't look either cavernous or threatening but simply decrepit.

‘What's it like out there? Out where we're going?'

Saria regarded him steadily. ‘Different. Alive. Not like this.'

‘Can we live out there?'

‘I sure hope so.'

While they'd been talking, he'd taken a couple of unconscious steps towards her, and his wristband chimed again.

‘Shi! I'd better get properly back into the shade. Don't want to max out now.'

Lari slept again for a couple of hours, a fitful, restless sleep, until he was woken by a rough shake from Jem.

‘Get up. We're going.'

‘Good to see you, too,' he snapped back, but she'd already walked away.

What am I getting myself into?
Lari wondered as he wandered outside to where the rest of the group were waiting.

‘Not far, now.' Gregor pointed along the road. ‘Just a couple more kilometres.'