Free Tracer by Rob Boffard Page A

Carver. I’m expecting a wisecrack, but his voice is calm. “Amira’s right. You don’t just rip out someone’s eyeball or hold kidnapped techs in the Air Lab – he’ll have somewhere quiet and out of the way. And if you show up in the Labs, he’ll kill you
and
Prakesh.”
    “So what do we do?” I say. My voice cracks on the last word.
    “We stick tothe plan,” Amira says again. “We find Gray. We track him. He leads us right to them.”
    Another burst of guilt as I remember that we sent Kev and Yao over to Darnell’s. “What about the Twins?”
    “They can handle themselves,” Amira says.
    She doesn’t wait for a response, taking off down the corridor in a run. After a moment, Carver and I join her, running in tight formation. As we turn the corner,we see more people in the corridor ahead, right in our path.
    Amira yells over her shoulder, “Riley, point!” and I accelerate, bursting ahead to overtake her.
    There’s an art to running in a group. You have to move in single file, creating as narrow a profile as possible. Even then, you have to know when to break formation to cut through the crush of people. The fastest tracer sets the pace andthe route, and I pick the quickest one I know, heading back past the mess hall and into the maze of corridors on the bottom level.
    There are crowds we have to fight through by the habs – the ones in this part of the sector are dorm-style, designed to hold a lot of people. There aren’t any mining or factory facilities in Apogee, and over the years more and more people have moved in. There areplenty of families here, which means the corridors are always crowded and noisy – mostly with kids, no matter what the hour is.
    As we descend, I come round a corner on a stairwell to find a ball flying right at my head. I have to spin to the side to avoid it, nearly colliding with the wall. Amira knocks the ball back without stopping – it’s nothing more than rags held together with tight stripsof cloth. The kids are in a tight group at the top of the stairs, and one of them catches the ball above his head, a huge smile on his face. I have to suppress the urge to shout at him. How can he be so happy when Prakesh is …
    I fight it off. Let my movements and the rhythm of my breathing take over. Every so often, when the crush forces us to break out of single file, I’ll catch a glimpse ofthe other two Dancers cutting in alongside me.
    I might have pure speed on my side, but Amira moves witha devastating economy, each foot placed exactly, perfectly balanced, her shoulders tilted back and her eyes on the horizon. Her scarf billows out behind her, the faded red material catching the light.
    Carver’s technique is less precise, but his sheer brute strength and long arms mean he cantake the biggest of jumps with ease. As we near the market, we reach a small open area, where the passage we’re in narrows to a dead end by a bank of terminals. Another walkway runs parallel, above and to the left. Amira and I have to tic-tac off the opposite wall to reach it, but Carver just flings himself upwards in one huge leap, hauling himself over.
    Sometimes, the crush of the crowds forcesus away from each other, but we always link back up. Just when I think I’ve got ahead of them, Amira will appear, or Carver, shooting out of a darkened passage where the lights have burned out, or slipping through a crowd. It feels horribly wrong to be running away from where Prakesh is, but Amira’s right. The only way is to stick to the plan.
    The crush gets thicker the closer we get to the market.More and more often, we’re having to spread out to find the gaps. But we’ve made good time, and we soon reach the huge hangar doors marking the entrance. Merchants have spilled out the doors, their makeshift tables jumbled together. The air is hot, thick with smoke from improvised forges and furnaces. I can smell iron, and spices.
    My throat is parched, and I’m grateful when Amira pulls a smallflask