Skybreach (The Reach #3) (12 page)

“And if your silver tongue fails you?”

“We fight.”

“So that’s why you brought me, huh?” she smirked.  “Because I’m the muscle.”

“Or perhaps I just think you’re a good talker.”

She grunted.  “You should have brought Knile for that.  He can talk his way out of anything.”

The corridor opened out into a broader area with a high ceiling.  The metal walkway sounded hollow under their boots as they walked through, and somewhere below them Talia could hear the dull echo of industry – clanking machines and the thud of blunt objects striking metal.  Over on one side of the room, a large man in grey overalls was poring over a panel full of blinking lights.  He glanced over his shoulder at the two newcomers and Silvestri waved companionably at him, trying his best to sell the idea that they were meant to be there.  The man seemed disinterested, turning his attention back to what he was doing a moment later.

They passed through to the other side, then took a left as Silvestri had suggested.

“Locals seem friendly,” Talia muttered.

“As long as they don’t trouble us, I couldn’t
care less about their conversation skills.”  He went quiet for a moment, then added, “You’ve got a thing for him, don’t you?”

“Huh?”

“Knile.  There’s something between you.”

She frowned, shaking her head.  “Where did this come from?”

“It’s just an observation.”

She shrugged.  “Of course there’s a bond there.  We were companions for years.”

“No, I mean something more.  Something beyond friendship.”

“If you’re asking me if Knile and I are together, then the answer is no.”  She looked across at him.  “Why are you asking me this now?”

“I’m just not sure if he feels the same way about you.”

Talia snorted.  “What are you, the love doctor?”  She looked across at him, and something occurred to her.  “Are you hitting on me, Silvestri?”

He gave her an uneasy grin, one that lacked its usual confidence.

“I’m a professional.  I wouldn’t even think of doing such a thing in the middle of a mission.”

“Let me guess – you woke up this morning and flipped that coin of yours and decided that today would be a good day to try your luck with me.  Is that it?”

“No.”

“Is that the only reason you brought me along?”

He stopped walking abruptly.  “Please, Talia.  I wasn’t trying
to upset you
.  I brought you along because I need your help.”  He spread his hands wide.  “I suppose I’m not
the best when it comes to small
talk.  I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, okay.”  She smiled and whispered conspiratorially.  “I’m not really upset.  I’m just trying to mess with your head.”

“Mission accomplished,” he muttered.

They began walking again.  “What’s Holger and hi
s brawlers doing, anyway?” Talia
said.  “Why couldn’t they help?”

“A crate of our weapons didn’t make it through the gates when we relocated.  They’re out trying to obtain new ones.  Not an easy task considering the current climate.”

He stopped at a scuffed metal doorway and pressed his fingers to the security panel.  It turned green, and Silvestri gave Talia a wink.

“Aksel came through with the security, at least,” he said.

He turned the handle, then proceeded inward.  They found themselves inside an old storeroom with shelves that were practically bare, containing empty cardboard boxes, some cables and a few other dusty old relics.  A metallic grey pedestal fan sat in one corner, drooping forward like an old man with a hunched back.

“Is this it?” Talia said.

Silvestri glanced around sc
eptically.  “Seems not.”  He gave the room a final, cursory glance and then returned to the corridor.  “Let’s try the next one.  This way.”

She fell into step with him again.  “Do you think we can actually pull this off?” she said a moment later.  “Skybreach, I mean.”

“I wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t think we could.”

“But what about how you’re always telling me that you play the odds?  From where I stand, this mission is starting to seem like a long shot.”

Silvestri pulled out his holophone and began to scrutinis
e the floorplan again, and Talia couldn’t be sure if he was concentrating on the task before them or if he simply didn’t want to answer her question.  When he finally spoke, his voice had taken on a pensive tone.

“The odds aren’t in our favour, but I’ve invested too much into this game to pull out now.  I’m all in.  Besides,” he said with a rueful smirk, “this is the only game left that’s worth winning, isn’t it?”

“I guess so.”

“Now,” he said, his voice sounding strong and reassured once again, “are you going to tell me about that thing in your back pocket?”

Her hand wandered to her pocket self-consciously and she snuck her finger inside.

“You noticed, huh?” she said.

“Yes.  What’s the story?”

She dug her hand into her pants and pulled out a length of what looked to be some kind of stiff, dark brown fabric.

“I found some leather scraps when I was cleaning out one of the crates last night.  Well,” she amended, “not
real
leather.  That faux leather shit they make these days.”  She gripped one end of the strap in her fist.  “Anyway, seeing it there reminded me of something from a long time ago.”

“What was it?”

Talia took a moment before answering.  “My mother and I lived together in a shithole down in Link when I was a kid.  She was a seamstress once, but when that fell through she became a cleaner, and she used to earn some creds on the side by stitching up thugs who’d gotten themselves cut up in knife fights, bar room brawls, that kind of thing.  It helped to pay the bills for a while.  Eventually she had me helping out as well.  She showed me how to handle a needle and thread and how to make a neat stitch.”  She twisted her mouth.  “It’s the only thing she ever really taught me before she ran off with one of the bastards who came in for a patch up job.”

“Sorry to hear that,” Silvestri said.

“I was on the street after that.  It’s a
tough life out there for a ten-year-
old, y’know?  Dog eat dog.  You never know who to trust, because the other kids are always trying to climb over the top of you, get the edge on you.  I got into a lot of disagreements back then.  A lot of brawls.  And that wasn’t a good thing.  I was smaller than most of the others and not as strong, and I took a beating more often than not.”

She began to wind the strap around her forearm as they walked.  “There was one kid who had the run of the neighbourhood.  Big guy with bright red hair.  He’d fixed a bunch of rusty nails to an old glove, or a gauntlet, and he messed up a few kids with it.  Took one kid’s eye out, even.”  She finished winding the leather strap around her forearm and slipped the end of it through a snug little notch, effectively fastening it.  “I didn’t have muscles and I wasn’t particularly fast, so I figured I needed to protect myself if I wanted to survive.  I made a leather arm brace for myself, just like this one.  Figured it was better than nothing.

“The kid came at me one afternoon, right on dusk.  I can still hear his footsteps on the pavement as he closed in.”  She shook her head.  “I was so scared.  Terrified.  But he had me cornered and I had no option but to stand my ground.

“He swung at me with the glove, and I held up my arm to fend him off.  It hurt like hell, just from the force of the strike, but the guard on my arm did its job.  It kept the nails from slicing me up like a side of beef.  The kid stood over me, leering like an idiot as he waited for me to cry out and start bleeding all over the place.  That was what all the other kids had done.  While he stood there I got the jump on him.  I swung the rock
that was
in my other fist and hit him right in the jaw with it.  Knocked him on his ass good and proper.  By the time he got up I was gone, and he was missing three of his teeth.”  Her lips curled up at the memory.  “That earned me some respect.  They didn’t come after me so much after that.”

“Glad to hear it,” Silvestri said appreciatively.  “But why did you make the arm brace now?  The people we’re going up against are going to be equipped with more than a fist full of rusty nails.”

Talia seemed to think that over.  “I guess I’m just gearing up for the next fight.”

They found another storeroom, but, much like the first, there was not much to be found inside
.  They continued on through the next, then the one after that, and then they finally found what they were looking for.

“Here,” Silvestri said excitedly, holding up a canister and checking against the specifications on his holophone that
Yun had provided.  “This one and this one.”  He hefted one of the canisters and handed it to Talia, who staggered under the weight.

“Damn, these are heavy,” she said, regaining her balance.

“That’s why you’re here.  You’re the muscle, remember?”

She smiled.  “Smartass.  How many do I have to carry?”

“As many as you can.  Yun said we–”

He stopped suddenly and his head whipped toward the doorway.  Talia turned and saw the big guy they’d seen at the panel
of lights earlier, his large frame filling much of the doorway.

Behind him Talia could see two other men.

“Yeah, here they are,” the man said belligerently.  “I figured they were up to something.”

12

Knile stepped out into Level Fifty-Three, one of the commercial hubs of Gaslight, and for once he didn’t feel like he was the centre of attention.

Lately it had seemed as though everyone had been against him.  He’d gotten on the wrong side of the Enforcers again – nothing unusual about that – but he’d also had to contend with Alton Wilt’s men, and then the Consortium and the Redmen as well.  Since his return to the Reach, everyone had seemed to want him dead for one reason or another, and that had not been a particularly pleasant situation to be caught up in.

Today, however, Knile sensed a shift in the attitudes of those around him.  These people were wary, on edge, but none of them seemed to find Knile particularly interesting.

He wasn’t sporting a circular marking on his forehead.

I guess I should thank you for that at least, Children of Earth.  I no longer feel like public enemy number one.

If Jozef Gudbrand and his followers had wanted to create unrest in the Reach, they had succeeded.  Even thoug
h he had spoken to none of the people
around him, Knile could sense the tension that had pervaded Gaslight.  It was written across the
commoners’
faces.  It was in their eyes, in their suspicious glances.  Conversations were stilted and terse, even perfunctory.

Knile decided that, like these others, he did not want to linger here longer than necessary.  People who were skittish and on edge were often like sticks of dynamite, just waiting for an errant spark to set them off.  He didn’t want to be around when the panic escalated, for obvious reasons.

In contradiction to other areas of Gaslight, the marketplace on Level Fifty-Three sported a relatively large crowd.  Knile wasn’t hugely surprised by this; the marketplace was one of the more popular locations in all of Gaslight, containing many of the finest vendors the place had to offer.  Aside from those bartering and purchasing goods, there was also a maintenance crew working on a camera in the ceiling, and several clumps of janitors who seemed to have gathered for their morning break.  Their clothing was easily recognisable – grey coveralls with vertical yellow stripes across the shoulders and matching yellow station caps.  They stood about their parked cleaning carts munching on sugary dirt-buns and sipping steaming brews, generally giving no indication that they were about to return to work any time soon.  The behaviour was not unusual for cleaners in Gaslight – one look around at the state of the place was enough to suggest that they weren’t the most industrious folk – but Knile hadn’t seen this many in one place in a long time.

Perhaps with the recent unrest, he figured, there was a feeling among them that there would be safety in numbers.

Further afield, Knile could see a number of Enforcers gathered outside the Consortium office on the other side of the marketplace.  In the past the Enforcers had been shunned by the Consortium, explicitly instructed to keep their noses out of business that was not theirs.  It seemed that, since the recent attack, that mindset might have changed.  There were around fifteen
Enforcers spread out across the marketplace, scrutinising those passing by with a great deal of interest.

It seemed that Commissioner Prazor had finally come up with a response to the threat posed by the insurgents, although Knile wasn’t sure if it was going to help.  The generally apathetic Enforcers were unlikely to withstand the fervour of Children of Earth should they be confronted with any kind of real threat.

“Dirt-buns, dirt cheap!” a young woman exclaimed at Knile’s side.  He turned to see her brandishing a bun in each hand and waving them at him like she was directing a dirigible in for a landing.  Behind her, the stall seemed to be running low, with only a handful left.