Daylight Runner by Oisin McGann Page A

could see where he was putting his hands. Her mind grasped at something, a faint hope. With the flashlight pointing downward, he couldn’t see anything above him. She reached back quietly and felt the nearest struts that hung from the ceiling. There was a bar crossing between them. It was strong enough to hold her. With painstaking care, she silently lifted herself onto the bar, getting her stomach up and over it. The man was getting closer. Gripping the struts on either side, she balanced herself on her stomach and straightened out her body, lifting her head and feet as high as she could. The pressure of the bar on her abdomen was almost unbearable.
    The man’s light came closer, closer, until he wascrawling by underneath her. He saw the wall ahead of him and stopped. With his bigger body, he moved with difficulty along the duct, and when he turned to look behind him, he had to hold on to the edges to keep his balance. The bar dug into Cleo’s stomach, and she held her breath until it felt as if her lungs would burst. The man was still looking down at the surface ahead of him. Taking one hand off the duct, he leaned back on his knees so that he could look up. For an instant their eyes met, and Cleo did the only thing she could. She swung her legs down and kicked out at him with all her might.
    One of her feet caught his head, and he toppled forward. His gun fell clattering into the darkness and, for a second, she thought he would follow it, but he caught the bottom of the strut and hung on, dangling below her. Her balance gone, she fell back onto the top of the vent. The man was starting to climb back up, with murder written on his face. Pulling the pepper spray from her pocket, she gave him a long blast in the eyes, and he roared in pain, pulling his head away. She tore the flashlight from his head, and fell back on her side. In desperation, she kicked at his fingers, hammering at them with her feet until his grip failed and he fell with a scream into the gloom. Somewhere below, there was a muffled thud.
    She listened for a while, but heard nothing more. He could be dead. If he was, she wasn’t sure what to do. Her whole body was shaking, but she knew she mustn’t loseher head now. Strapping the flashlight onto her head, she made her way carefully back along the duct, making as little noise as possible. There was no sign of anybody else. When she got close to the ladder, she turned off the flashlight and slid along on her belly. Waiting as long as she dared, she listened for any sound of the others, but there was nothing. Climbing out onto the rungs, she scaled up to a catwalk that was illuminated by electric lights. Sounds carried down it: voices in conversation, whirring flywheels, music and noise from computer games.
    It was a pedal station. People. Normal, chatty, ordinary, unarmed people. She smiled in relief as she walked into the hall where nearly three dozen people were sitting astride cycling machines, pedaling power into the city’s system. Collapsing on a rest couch, she buried her face in her knees, comforted by the drab, dull familiarity of it all.
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    Sol was on a tram, making his way back to Ana’s and pondering his next move. He knew a few of the places his father went gambling, but he was wary of visiting any of them if Gregor really had run up a big debt.
    He thought back to that cop, Mercier, and wondered what he knew. But it was the other one who was in charge. Ponderosa, from the ISS. Sol decided that if these were the men investigating his father, he should find out what he could about them. The tram was stopping near acafé, so he jumped off and went inside. He took the nearest available webscreen, where he did a search on Ponderosa. The only information on him was his list of awards; it was impressive. The single picture of him was one where he was shaking hands with Mayor Haddad as she presented him with a medal for Distinguished Service. There was nothing else