Chapter 1
“Josh, do you see them?”
Sheriff Hayden Duke splashed through the damp alley. His breathing was ragged, his legs burning from the effort. He had lost sight of the suspects almost a minute ago.
He told himself for the hundredth time that he should spend more time on his stamina, but damn if there weren’t a million other things to do.
“No sign of them, Boss,” his Deputy replied, voice tinny and distant through the star shaped transceiver on Hayden’s collar.
“You’re kidding?” Hayden said.
Deputy Bradshaw should have been at the other end of the alley. Hayden had seen his quarry duck down this way, into the slender spaces between the blocks where most of the city’s hooligans liked to screw around, rolling and smoking, and getting way too friendly with the mess of wiring and pipes that were the lifeblood of Metro.
It was almost a rite of passage these days to make trouble for Law. To make trouble for him.
And he was getting too old for this shit.
Not that he was old, even by Metro standards. Thirty-six years, one hundred forty-seven days. Natalia still called him the baby because he was two years younger than her.
Thirty-eight? Now that was old.
He came to a stop at an intersection between the blocks, turning his head to look down each of the strands. Dim lighting tried to follow the lines of the Metro’s above deck utilities, but a large portion of them had gone dark over the years while others were reduced to a harsh flicker. For anyone less familiar with the strands it might have been an eerie, frightening effect.
For him, it was business as usual.
He glanced up, letting a couple of raindrops tap him on the cheek. He smiled. Natalia and her team had only finished repairing the elemental generators last week, and this was the first time the randomizer had delivered precipitation. No one in Metro had felt the crisp moisture in nearly four months, and he wanted to savor it because he had no idea how long it would last. The generators were old, like everything else on the Pilgrim, and each breakdown was becoming more time-consuming and difficult to patch.
How old were they? He wasn’t quite sure. His grandfather hadn’t been able to remember the launch before he passed, and he claimed his grandfather hadn’t been able to recall, either. The Pilgrim Assistance Service Station was no help there, either. Its storage units had corrupted at some point, losing troves of data about the origin of the ship, including the date it had left their homeworld.
Earth.
He only knew it from pictures and videos, the ones the PASS hadn’t lost. A beautiful place, teeming with life. Not just people. Animals and plants, too. Green and blue and brown and silver. All the water you could ever want to drink. All the space you could ever need to roam. All the technology you could imagine to live a life of ease and comfort.
The cities there made the fifty-thousand in Metro look microscopic.
“Where are you?” Hayden whispered, squinting his eyes to dull the flickering lights a little more. If his targets hadn’t come out the other end of the alley, they had to be in one of the strands, trying to hide.
He reached to the belt at his hip, drawing his sidearm. He was supposed to be off his shift by now, back in his cube and getting a little sleep. Natalia would be there waiting for him. He smiled. He knew she was going to give him shit for being late. She knew he was going to jaw back at her about the miscreants of their society that kept him working overtime.
His grandfather had told him stories about his time as Sheriff of Metro. Back then, they had drones that navigated the strands, keeping an eye out for illicit activity. People those days were a lot better behaved, and a lot more respectful of the delicate nature of the systems that kept them all alive.
It would have been nice if the Block Seven Fire had served notice that entering the strands was always a bad idea, but it was just too damn tempting. There were only a few places to go to avoid attention, and this was one of them.
“Wilson, do you copy?” Hayden said, tapping his transceiver with his chin.
“Roger, Boss,” his Second Deputy said, her tone a little too perky for his liking. “What do you need?”
“I’m going Block Eight dash one forty-two dash four,” he said, giving her the coordinates of the specific strand to his left, so she would know where he was if he didn’t come back out. Not that a Sheriff had ever not come back out, but it was part of protocol. “Get someone at the end of Eight dash one forty-two dash six.”
“Affirmative, Sheriff,” Wilson said.
“They might have already come out that way, sir,” Josh said.
“I know,” Hayden agreed. “We do the best we can.”
Metro Law was short on deputies, just like it had been since before Hayden was alive. More and more citizens were being guided toward Engineering, since keeping them all supplied with fresh air and water was more important than catching up to every minor offender. There was a continuum to the effort versus the crime, and while Hayden tended to be more tenacious than the Sheriffs that had gone before him, his resources were ultimately limited.
He started down the alley; gun pointed up toward the membrane that simulated a sky. He had only used the weapon three times in eighteen years, and he never wanted to make it four, if for no other reason than there were only so many rounds for it remaining. The weapon was loaded with stunners, but he had discovered during his first year as a Deputy that non-lethal didn’t mean never-lethal. Not everyone reacted the same to the electric charge, and there were circumstances where it could kill.
Killing someone, even by accident, and living with it, was one of the hardest things he had to do, every day for the last fourteen years.
Every day for the rest of his life.
He moved slowly, careful not to splash too hard and betray his approach.
He knew from experience that 142-4 intersected with 143-1, and from there led back to the two main splits on either side of the row of blocks. While his suspects could wind through the strands back here like they were in a maze, they would have to emerge on one of the splits in order to get out completely.
Assuming they hadn’t already taken 142-6.
Which they probably had.
He was tempted to call off the search. To drop it and go home. He was tired. Natalia was waiting. So what if a couple of kids had wandered back here? He had been young once, too.
He paused, wiping the rain out of his eyes. There was a pull to keep going. There was always the potential for distracted young couples to damage the conduits that ran through the strands and cause serious problems. He had seen it happen twice in the eight years since he had been promoted to Sheriff. If he thought Natalia would give him a hard time for being late, he could guess what she would have to say about him not doing everything in his power to keep the lines up.
Natalia understood the nature of the strands were a flaw in the ship’s design. An oversight by the designers, who had probably never considered how the Generation ship would evolve over the years. In their minds, Metro was going to be a utopia. A place where everyone got along just fine, and everyone worked together for the common good as one big happy family, fifty-thousand members strong. A place where no one would wander into the alleys between buildings. A place that didn’t need Law at all.
How wrong they had been.
Metro wasn’t bad, overall, but a utopia? The records were lost to the PASS, but he didn’t think it had ever been that. The more their technology broke down, the more comforts they lost, the less organized things became. Yes, they were still following population control protocols, rationing, that sort of thing, but there was a whole black market beneath the ordered surface where citizens were trading what they had for other things they didn’t or wanted more of, and you never could discount human ingenuity.
He sighed and kept walking, reaching 143-1 and transmitting the position back to Wilson.
“Roger, Sheriff,” she replied. “Nothing from the splits yet.”
“Roger,” he said softly.
He glanced up again. The blocks were dark this time of night. Only a few cube lights were on, letting a little bit of extra light filter into the strands. He needed it. The access lighting through here was in bad shape, most of it burned out.
He took a few more steps, resolving himself to ensure the area was clear. It might take another hour, but he was sure Natalia would thank him for it in the end. He reached the junction between 143-1 and 143-3, glancing down the other strands before crossing over.
He froze when he heard a sudden series of pops and pangs from somewhere far off, way beyond the perimeter of Metro, deep in the inaccessible heart of the Pilgrim.
He cursed, kneeling down instinctively, putting his hand on the wet ground to keep himself steady as the entire city started to shake. The vibration ran from what they called the north end of Metro back to the south, traveling across the entire shell of the city. He watched the small puddles on the ground spread in ripples, using the size of the waves to help judge the intensity.
The superstructure was flexing. That’s what Natalia said. Something outside the ship was putting pressure on it, causing some kind of turbulence.
The turbs. That’s what they had taken to calling them.
What caused it?
He had no idea. None of them did. They didn’t have access to that information. They didn’t have access to anything outside of Metro. There were corridors. There were passageways. There were conduits. They were all sealed. All locked. All closed off.
They were passengers, all fifty-thousand of them. Pilgrims, as the name of their vessel implied. On their way from Earth to somewhere else, the descendants of a group of settlers that wanted to hand down a new life on the other side of the galaxy to them.
Where? He didn’t know.
When? He didn’t know.
Why? He didn’t know.
There were a fair number of people in Metro who were certain they should have gotten where they were going by now. They insisted the breakdowns in the elemental generators were proof that the journey had already lasted longer than the ship’s progenitors had ever intended.
Hayden didn’t know if it was true or not, and he didn’t care all that much. They hadn’t arrived. The seals hadn’t opened. There was nowhere else for them to go. Regardless, he did sometimes find himself questioning the purpose of the journey. Having seen the photos of Earth, he couldn’t think of a reason why they had abandoned it.
But what could he do about it?
What could any of them do about it?
Nothing.
Dust and small pieces of debris broke away from the blocks and floated to the ground around him. The ship continued to shudder, the initial shudder beginning to subside before a second, more intense trembling replaced it. This wasn’t the first time the ship had encountered outside interference, but it had been increasing in recent weeks. Engineering was working on the problem, trying to determine a cause from the limited readings the systems internal to Metro allowed.
Personally, Hayden didn’t think the reason for it mattered. Only their preparation.
He remained in place, glancing up at the blocks over his head. He could see them swaying, shifting with the movement of the Pilgrim. More of the cube lights were going on as the residents awakened to the shaking. There were tolerances built in. The ship’s builders had assumed there would be some measure of friction and had designed Metro accordingly. Even so, time and repetition were taking their toll. On their buildings. On their psyches. On their belief that they would ever make it to wherever it was they had been going in the first place.
He dropped those thoughts when he heard the shouting.
Chapter 2
Hayden pushed himself to his feet. “Josh, I need backup, one forty-three dash three, heading toward one forty-three dash five, asap.”
“Roger, Sheriff,” Josh replied. “I’m on my way.”
Hayden kept running. The cry had been muffled, quieted, leaving him with only the initial sound to go on.
What the hell was happening in here?
He reached the next intersection, crossing through it to one forty-three five without slowing. A loud crack above the membrane sky signaled especially bad turbulence, and he came off his feet as the floor moved beneath him, sending him toward the side of the block. He clenched his teeth, twisting himself to keep his weight from slamming into the conduits that ran along the side, throwing his shoulder out above the lines to take the blow. He grimaced at the flare of pain, bouncing from the wall and regaining his footing.
He heard another cry.
He reached the end of one forty-three five and turned to one forty-three six, passing the change in direction to his Deputy.
“Sheriff,” Josh said. “We’ve got a Code Blue from Engineering.”
Hayden noticed the rain had stopped.
Damn. It figured. Poor Natalia.
“Wilson,” he said. “Contact Engineering for me. Tell them we’re on our way. Josh, stall for me, okay?”
“Sheriff?” Josh said.
“I know,” Hayden said. “You don’t need to spout protocol at me. Someone’s in the strands, and they’re in trouble.”
What he had heard wasn’t normal. He knew it was a risk to ignore the Code Blue, but he had to take it.
“Josh, do you have my back on this one or not?” he said when his Deputy didn’t respond right away.
“I’ll do my best, sir,” Josh replied. “Natalia’s going to be pissed.”
“I know. She’ll forgive me.”
He hoped.
He also hoped it was nothing too serious. A fall and a broken bone, maybe.
A sound like that? It was wishful thinking.
He crossed another junction, radioing his position back to Wilson. He made it halfway down the strand, eyes casting out in both directions, looking for any sign of trouble. There. On the ground ahead of him.
What was that?
He came to a stop and knelt down over the object. A knife?
It was homemade, a small piece of machined metal strapped to what looked like the handle of a spoon, wrapped in cloth to soften it to the hand. He had seen similar makeshift weapons a few times before, and they never went along with anything good. He scooped it up and shoved it between his belt and his pants and then stared down the strands.
Nothing.
He froze, considering the problem. There was an access hatch beside him, an entry point to one of the maintenance boxes that dotted the city. The boxes themselves were supposed to be locked, and only Engineering and Law held the codes.
It wouldn’t have been the first lock that failed.
He reached for the access panel with one hand, holding his stunner level in the other. The rumbling was beginning to lessen, the turbulence easing back. Code Blue meant he was supposed to drop everything and head to Engineering. But a knife?
He tapped the button to open the hatch. It flashed a message to him on its small screen:
“Locked. Enter code.”
He stared at it for a moment. It was still locked. Whoever had dropped the knife couldn’t be hiding inside.
He turned away, listening. The turbulence had passed. The city was settling down again. He hadn’t heard anything that would suggest catastrophic damage, but he knew all it would take to kill every last one of them would be for the atmospheric generators and their backups to both fail at the same time.
He sighed. He was wasting his time in here.
He took a step away from the maintenance box. He paused and turned back to it. He had been promoted to Sheriff over Josh and the other deputies in part because of his instinct.
Hayden keyed in the code, quickly entering the eight digit sequence.
The door slid open.
He barely had time to react. A large form came out at him, a fist angling toward his face.
He reacted without thinking, dropping away from the fist, turning aside. His assailant’s momentum carried him past, and Hayden moved in behind. He wanted to shove his opponent into the opposite block, but there was too much risk of damaging a conduit. Instead, he kicked them hard in the back of the leg, bringing them to a knee.
“Metro Law,” he said. “Stay down.”
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