The Exodus Towers

To go farther would strain resources to the limit. After a brief debate with all the various leaders, Skyler pointed out that unless they could somehow actually hold that ground, which was impossible given their numbers and the limited aura towers, the best course of action was to simply unleash the “ring of extermination” once a week, in order to keep the buffer zone around the camp as clear as possible. Any scavenging missions beyond that one-klick area would require special permission and would be handled by two teams working together.

By the height of wet season, the camp was running like a machine again.

Climbers worked their way up or down the Elevator cord daily, sometimes even in multiples. Subhuman encounters around camp dropped to manageable levels as the weekly purges became a camp routine. Indeed, the colonists became accustomed to the creatures, and most were now adept at fighting them. The sight of rifles slung over shoulders, or pistols holstered at the waist, became the norm.

Every month, with only some variance, Melville Station would receive another forty “volunteers” from Darwin. The people who could be vouched for by friends or relatives in camp always integrated quickly enough. Everyone else, those chosen via suspect criteria by Russell Blackfield, were kept on the station under guard for a few days, and then sent to places where they could be watched around the clock. To everyone’s amazement, and intense suspicion, none showed signs of being spies. A few reported that Russell no longer bothered to pick the migrants, that he’d delegated the task to one of the old Orbital Council members. One migrant, Skyler heard, told of a newfound sense of purpose in Darwin. Gardens apparently flourished, and along with the farm platforms Russell had schemed out of Tania, the food situation was almost under control. Neither Tania nor Zane was overly troubled by this news, as neither felt the colony could handle too many more migrants. Soon the ecosystems surrounding each Elevator would no longer have need of one another, and this worried Skyler.

Skyler woke one December morning to the familiar sound of rain rattling against the roof of the APC, which had become his home. He checked the adjacent vehicle and found Ana’s bunk was empty, which was not uncommon since she’d finished mourning her brother. Depression behind her, the girl woke early with an abundance of energy and often slipped out to wander the camp before Skyler stirred. She had a voracious appetite to learn, and he rarely found her in the same place twice when he called the crew together. Sometimes she would be helping load or unload a climber. He’d found her helping in the gardens, pouring concrete, dismantling electronics for parts, and fishing. Always she would be under the tutelage of one camp expert or another, and she made fast friends with just about everyone she spent time with.

None of this troubled Skyler in the least. A multitude of friends within the colony meant she wouldn’t always be following him around like a puppy. Not that he didn’t enjoy her company. She was bright and funny and, sometimes, impossible. Where Tania always seemed to enter into conversations as an equal, Ana either played the eager student or the headstrong, passionate firebrand. There was little in the way of middle ground for her, and it made her constant company an exhausting affair.

So her absence most mornings didn’t bother Skyler at all, and indeed he learned to love the early hours as he used to. Coffee and a serving of oatmeal with fresh fruit or avocado. He’d sit around a small heater and sip his drink, discussing everything and nothing with whoever happened to join him. Pablo usually, though he talked little. Vanessa could hold her own on just about any topic, but tended to sleep late.

Karl would drop by to share a cup once in a while. They saw each other most mornings anyway, for the list reviews, and anyway the older man’s motor home was all the way on the other side of camp. Word had it he’d taken a lover, a woman of similar age who had been some midlevel analyst on Platz Station, and Karl’s rare appearances for morning coffee seemed to corroborate the rumor.

And so Skyler was surprised that morning when he found Karl seated at the cook fire, next to a pot of boiling water and a pair of mugs.

“This is a rare honor,” Skyler said as he pulled on a sweater. All of the vehicles left behind by Gabriel were parked with their back doors facing one another, forming a ring. A fire pit had been set up in the center of this, surrounded by a mismatched collection of plastic chairs and tables. Rain drummed on a giant blue and white patio umbrella that covered the small communal space, tied to the roof racks of the surrounding vehicles.

“I miss seeing your pretty face in the morning light,” he shot back. With two hands he carefully extended a full mug to Skyler. A few drops sloshed over the side and sizzled as they hit the portable stove.

After a careful sip, Skyler rubbed his eyes and settled into a low beach chair. The constant prattle of raindrops on the umbrella drowned out the sounds of the colony around them. “What dire problem has you making me coffee at six in the morning, Karl?”

“The comm’s out again,” he said flatly.

“Give it a good smack on the side.”

“Tried that. But it seems some water dripped through a hole in the roof of the container and fried the antenna dish.”

“Is there a spare?” Skyler asked. “Wait, don’t answer. You wouldn’t be here if there was.”

Karl took a noisy slurp at his own drink. “I was thinking, maybe you and the others could bring back a larger dish, more powerful. We’ve got plenty of surplus juice coming in from the campus thor, and it would give us a lot more bandwidth to Melville. Hell, we could even reach the farms or New Anchor without the relays.”

“Have one in mind, or are we supposed to track one down?”

In answer Karl slipped a slate from his inner jacket pocket and handed it across. The thin black tablet’s screen came to life as soon as Skyler’s thumb brushed its surface.

“Those boys from Eden have started an effort to do a photo survey of the city, so we can ‘scout’ from the comfort of the comm room.”

“Smart,” Skyler said. An image appeared on the screen of Belém’s skyline, taken from the eastern slums somewhere north of the Elevator base. Karl had dropped a marker on one office building’s rooftop. It appeared to be the largest building in Belém, with a logo of PGF marking its side. Skyler zoomed in. As he did, he realized the genius of a photo survey. The image was fantastically high resolution and even had illusory depth to it. Skyler tracked in until he looked at a single window on the building’s top floor, and still he could make out small details. This one image of the city alone could be studied and marked up for potential scavenging all without leaving the safety of home. “Very smart.”

He panned the image until he found Karl’s marker again. The notation pointed to a white dish-and-antenna assembly on the roof.

“It’s about a meter tall,” Karl said. “Compact but heavy. I suspect you’ll need bolt cutters or even a torch.”

“Rain has hammered that thing for five years,” Skyler noted. He usually eschewed electronics that he didn’t find indoors. “It might not even work.”

“Hydrophobic coating. I’ve seen that model before. Expensive as hell, but it’ll last ten wet seasons without batting an eye.”

Skyler zoomed in even farther, almost as impressed with the sharpness of the image as he was with the clean, white surfaces of the comm tower. Karl had it right; there wasn’t a sign of discoloration or rust anywhere on it.

The rest was details. By noon that day, Skyler and his crew were clanging up the steps of Belém’s largest building.

Chapter 31

Darwin, Australia

10.NOV.2283

“IS HE IN?” Sam asked the stranger sitting outside Grillo’s Nightcliff office.

“No,” the woman said. She had frayed red hair and a narrow face laced with worry lines. Her gaze drifted to the parcel Samantha carried. “That for him?”

Sam looked down at the package tucked under her left arm. The plastic bag that covered the book had a visible coat of sandy dust on it, just like her clothing, skin, and hair.

“You can leave it with me,” the woman said.

“No,” Sam replied. “He asked me to bring it to him specifically. He was very clear on that.”

“Well, you’ll have to wait till Monday. He’s gone to Lyons, and tomorrow is the Holy Day.”

A shiver ran along Sam’s back at the mention of Grillo’s original base of operations, out on Darwin’s eastern edge just beyond the Maze. As far as she knew, Kelly lived there now, supposedly as a Jacobite nun called Sister Josephine.

“Thanks,” Sam said. She turned and walked out, the idea forming in her mind with each step down the long stairwell that would let her out of Nightcliff’s tower.

Outside a stiff breeze whipped light rain about. She tucked the parcel back under her combat vest and continued to walk. Halfway across the yard she caught a glimpse of the door that led to the cell block where she’d been held. She flirted with the idea of dropping in to see Vaughn, to apologize for using him. To make amends. And perhaps …

No. Another time. She had a small opportunity here to find out where Kelly was, to perhaps catch some additional small clue from her friend as to just what the hell she was doing.

Sam walked on. She slipped through the side door next to Nightcliff’s main gate with a polite wave to the guards, ignoring their suggestion that she wait for someone to escort her back. It was a halfhearted request, anyway, given the metamorphosis Darwin’s streets had experienced.

She followed the fortress wall, leaving Ryland Square to the east. The skyscrapers quickly gave way to smaller structures ranging from five to fifty stories high, pressed together as if they’d been through a trash compactor. Tight alleys wormed between the loosely defined blocks, plunging into darkness.

Sam picked one at random and ducked into the Maze. The light rain that had been swirling about her like a swarm of tiny translucent insects stopped almost instantly, replaced by eerie droplets that tumbled down from the endless balconies and awnings above. Day turned to twilight and then night in the span of five steps, as completely as if she’d stepped indoors. She glanced straight up, past the clotheslines and exposed pipes, past the buckets that captured water or served as toilets, past the occasional face in the darkness, watching her out of vigilance or, perhaps, boredom. Above it all she could just make out a crooked gray line that was the sky. Even if the sun had been out she doubted she could have used it to tell her direction. She’d have to rely on asking, but this didn’t concern her. She still wore her combat gear from the mission, and such garb made people wary even in a city as jaded as Darwin. Plus, her reputation among the Jacobites preceded her more and more these days. Grillo, it seemed, had put the word out that she was to be treated as a friend. A sneer-worthy heathen friend, yes, but still a friend.

She’d been through the Maze on foot only a few times before, but always with Skyler to lead the way. Things were different back then, dangerous in a different way. Swarms of people flowed through the twisting alleys like blood through arteries. Vendors and beggars alike shouted pleas for attention. Scrawny children dressed in rags would trail along behind them, gawking at their weapons, their combat gear, the sight of boots that didn’t have holes worn through.

None of that remained. The alleys were practically empty of people. She passed one old woman who lugged a burlap sack that reeked of mold. A few turns later she came across two children, six or seven years old, splashing back and forth through a puddle. Their laughter seemed completely alien in this place. When they saw Samantha, though, the kids ran off. One whistled, a long blast followed by a short. Not ten steps later Sam heard and then saw a street patrol approaching; five young men in thrown-together Jacobite robes. They were armed with faith, but since that would go only so far they also carried clubs of various shapes and sizes. One carried a lantern that gave off bright yellow light from an LED.

The tallest, armed with a baseball bat, jerked his head upward once. The simple motion asked, “Who the fuck are you and what are you doing here?”

Sam was opening her mouth to explain when the light from the lantern illuminated her enough that recognition dawned on the leader’s face. His posture changed in an instant. “She’s okay,” the lanky youth said. “Ang mentioned her, one of Grillo’s.” His companions followed his lead and visibly relaxed.

“Which way to Lyons?” Sam asked, still grappling with the idea that Grillo had passed word down this far about her. Whatever he’d said, it didn’t appear to include detaining her if she was found wandering alone. She tapped the package under her arm in hopes it would imply she had a specific errand. The one with the lantern pointed in the direction they’d approached from. “Thanks,” she said.

“It’s a long way,” the leader said. “We’ll take you.”

“That’s all right,” Samantha said. “Stick to your duty.” She went for a tone that suggested she had some authority to tell them what to do, and it worked. The leader gave her a nod and continued down the winding street with only a single glance back.

Sam picked up her pace then. If word of her impromptu visit arrived ahead of her, she might not get the chance to learn anything useful. The narrow streets and crooked alleys began to blur together, and twice she found herself at a dead end, forced to double back and find another route. An old man with a bicycle-powered rickshaw gave her a lift past Rancid Creek in exchange for two of the candy bars she kept tucked in a pocket of her vest. Food bribes always worked best, she’d found. The threat of violence came in a close second.

He dropped her off just after sunset at the Maze’s eastern edge, a few blocks west of the stadium, waving his chocolate payment in victorious fashion as he pedaled away. He clearly thought he’d taken advantage of her, but after catching a whiff of Rancid Creek Sam felt the payment was well justified.