Read Online Skyfall by Anthony Eaton - Free Book Online Page A

the recyc guys to get in and find out what was going on, but he got bailed up in the foyer. Didn’t even get as far as the internal lifts.’
    â€˜Strange.’
    Gregor walked back out into the common. ‘Come on.’
    The masked girl fell into step beside him, and, as they stepped into the throng, four large men formed up around them. Together, the group strode out, the crowd parting around them. At the hub they stopped and the girl produced two wrist bands from somewhere inside her robe.
    â€˜Who are we today?’ Gregor asked, as she waved them, one after another, across the allocation plate.
    â€˜A couple of mid-level hydroponics techs. Where are we going?’
    â€˜Down.’
    She nodded and spoke the appropriate commands into the allocator. Within seconds a maglift arrived and, after dismissing their guards with a brief nod, Gregor and the girl stepped inside and took their handgrips. Neither spoke as the lift navigated through the system, constantly dropping lower in the process. The newspanel burbled a story about a power outage in a mid-level section of the city.
    â€˜Was that one of ours?’ Gregor enquired, raising an eyebrow.
    â€˜Nah. Not us.’
    â€˜Strange. Seems to be happening more and more above mid level, lately.’
    â€˜It’s nothing new, though. The lower levels have had outages as long as I can remember.’
    â€˜True.’ Gregor nodded. ‘But when it happens down here it doesn’t make the webs. It makes you wonder, doesn’t it?’
    Portal 87, Ground Level Use caution beyond this point, the lift controller intoned.
    â€˜Let’s go.’
    The doors slid open and they stepped out into the darkness.
    The lift hummed back up into the network and the two stood, letting their eyes adapt to the gloom. For most citizens of Port City, stepping into the underworld from the cosseted security of a maglift would be as unthinkable as stepping onto the moon. Gregor had seen grown men reduced to blubbering messes when forced through the lift doors, out into the dim, haunted world that they’d lived above their entire lives.
    Not Gregor, though. For him there was something strangely liberating about coming down here. Something that made his body relax and his face smooth into a genuine smile. He crouched and picked up a handful of the grey, grainy gravel that crunched underfoot, letting it trickle slowly between his fingers, enjoying its cold dustiness before turning to the girl again.
    â€˜You all set?’
    â€˜Just a moment.’ In one fluid motion she pulled the mask from her face. Her features were striking – dark eyes and skin the colour of light caf. Her scalp was covered in short, dark hair that clung in tight curls. ‘That feels better.’
    She looks so young, Gregor thought. And it was true – with her mask on the girl seemed somehow older, harder. Removing it revealed a pretty face with high, wide cheeks and a broad but small nose. Her eyes, though, were cold. And there was the tattoo, small but still obvious, etched in ink on the side of her neck …
    The girl stretched her hands and looked up into the tangle of conduits, domes and shafts that crazed the sky. A slight breeze, cold and dusty, slithered between the ancient, blackened buildings and immediately she turned her face to it. As she did, she looked just like any other twelve-year-old girl.
    â€˜That feels so good.’
    Gregor’s smile broadened. ‘You’re your mother’s daughter, all right.’
    Abruptly she lowered her arms and the gleam of pleasure that had lit her face faded.
    â€˜You know I hate it when you say things like that.’
    â€˜Fact remains, though. When you do that, you look just like her.’
    The girl sighed. ‘I’ll take your word for it.’ Her wristband chimed gently. ‘We’d better stick to the shadows. It’s still too early to be out. Even down here.’
    â€˜Let’s go,