Landfall (The Reach, Book 2) by Mark R. Healy Page B

couldn’t quite put his finger on.  Perhaps he had simply seen too many places just like it that had been occupied by the scum of the Earth, and could not shake the taint.
    Above them, thick bunches of blue, black and orange cables ran along the ceiling, loosely bundled together in rusted metal cable trays.  In many places these proved inadequate, the cables and wires spilling out and drooping over the edges of the tray , where they snagged annoyingly at the top of Duran’s IV pole as he pushed it along.
    “So uh… did you guys build your base out of a toilet or something?” he asked Zoe at one point.
    “Something like that.”
    “I mean, even for Gaslight, this is pretty shitty.”
    “No one comes looking for us here.”
    A cockroach scuttled away from Duran’s feet, and another narrowly avoided being crushed under the wheels of the IV pole.
    “On the upside, you could open a bug bar factory here,” he said with an effort, finding himself out of breath already.  “Plenty of raw materials.  Feed the hungry masses and make a nice profit as well.”
    Zoe smiled patiently at his little jest.  “Whatever pays the bills, right?”
    She pointed to an adjoining tunnel and they turned into it.  Duran looked back, imagining that they’d already come a long way, but the room in which he’d awoken was only a few metres behind them.  That was demoralising.  He was weaker than he’d thought.  Even the simple act of walking was tough going in his current condition.
    “How long have you been here?” he said as he fought to hide that he was struggling and out of breath.
    “Me?  A couple of years.”
    “And how long were you an Enforcer before that?”
    “Long enough to learn that I didn’t belong with them.”
    “What doing?  Flatfoot?”
    “Yeah.  Patrolling Maintenance for the most part.  Worked the gate a bit, too.”
    “You uh…”  He sucked in another lungful of air.  “You ever do a stretch down in Link or in the slums?”
    “No, I avoided that somehow.  They assigned me to the Reach barracks right from the start.”
    “You didn’t see the worst of it, then.”
    “Is it really that much worse down in the slums than it is here?” Zoe said.  “Everywhere is bad.”
    Duran grimaced.  “You wouldn’t be saying that if you’d worked the slums.”
    “That’s right, they put you there for a while, didn’t they?”
    Duran stopped and turned to her.  “Exactly how much about me do you know?”
    “Enough,” she said enigmatically.
    “Do you know why they put me out there to patrol the slums?”
    Her eyes betrayed no emotion.  “Yes.”
    “You know about the Atrium.”
    “Yes.  And I know it wasn’t your fault, Alec.”
    Duran scoffed and began to shuffle forward again.
    “I’m not so sure of that.”
    “I’ve seen the files.  You weren’t treated well by Prazor, or by anyone else in the ranks.  It’s exactly the sort of thing that sickens me.  Yet another Enforcer failure.”
    “I didn’t do my job.  I got what I deserved.”
    Zoe ignored that remark, pointing to a hole in the wall up ahead.
    “Through there.  Not far to go.”
    Duran was breathing hard, like he’d just climbed a hundred floors of the Reach, but he didn’t stop.  The hole drew closer and closer as he shuffled and scraped along, until finally he was at the edge of it.  He looked inside.
    It was another small chamber, much like the one in which he had awoken.  Three people were inside.  The first was seated at a large terminal, poring over close to ten different windows and video feeds at once.  He swivelled to greet them, his chair squeaking noisily, and then offered them both a smile.  He was a tubby man with dark red hair and a neatly trimmed moustache.
    “Howdy.  Sleeping beauty’s up,” he said cheerily.
    “Duran, this is Robson,” Zoe said.
    Duran nodded to the man, then looked over at the other two in the room.  A tall and wiry man with a gaunt face stood against the wall, idly