Equinox Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  Blurb

  Logo

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Epilogue

  About The Author

  Acknowledgements

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Other Books by Lara Morgan

  Five hundred years into the future, the world is a different place. The Melt has sunk most of the coastal cities and Newperth is divided into the haves, the “Centrals”; the have-nots, the “Bankers”; and the fringe dwellers, the “Ferals”.

  Rosie thought exposing the evil Helios corporation would be the end of all her problems. But it was just the beginning.

  Bent on revenge, Rosie is still working in secret to try to take down Helios. But her dad is locked away, Pip has abandoned her, and Riley isn’t telling her the full story. Where can she turn for help? And how many more sacrifices is she prepared to make to destroy helios?

  CHAPTER 1

  Rosie took a steadying breath, licked her finger and touched it to her eye. The identification-distorter lens stuck to her skin and she lifted it off her iris. First one, then the other. Then she swallowed them. Gross. She gagged and leaned on the sink. They always tasted foul, like rotten fish scales.

  She was alone in the shuttle station bathroom and the harsh sounds of her coughing echoed off the pristine tiled walls.

  “That’s three minutes.” Riley’s voice came through the receptor in her ear. “Put the new ones in and get out of there.” Rosie didn’t bother replying. He couldn’t hear her anyway; they never used reverse coms for a job because the signal could be tracked. Helios thought Riley was dead, and he wanted to keep it that way.

  Rosie rubbed her eyes. The disintegrating lenses made her nauseous, no doubt affected by the message capsule she’d swallowed earlier. She ignored it as best she could, her hand only a little shaky as she carefully slipped the replacement lenses on. Now any ident readers would clock her as Bridget Faraday, a scientist’s daughter. The lenses had a microscopic camera in them as well, so when she looked in the mirror above the basin Riley could see her. She blinked, speaking slowly so he could read her lips.

  “Are they working?”

  “Vision’s clear,” he said. “Get out of there.”

  She tossed the Central dress she’d been wearing in the rubbish disintegrator, ran the decolouriser over her hair to strip out the blond, and chucked that away as well. She ripped her clothes out of her bag and dressed in her own pants, black singlet and white over shirt. She gave herself a final once-over in the mirror.

  “Rosie, get going.” Riley’s tone was sharp.

  She resisted the urge to mouth something rude at him and turned to the corner above the bathroom door, pointing the jammer at the invisible surveillance hub. The jammer flashed once. She had ten seconds before the shuttle station cameras kicked in again. Rosie slipped the device in her pocket and headed out.

  It had taken her four minutes and fifty-three seconds to change this time. Was that a record? She pretended to be idly checking her personal com as she walked back down the corridor to the street.

  Outside Central shuttle station A, the sidewalks weren’t as crowded as usual. Instead of the habitual mass, only a thin stream of pedestrians passed her. It left her feeling exposed.

  The station was the hub for the city’s cosmetic alteration parlours and, because it was so busy, Riley often used it as a pick-up point for messages from his contacts. A good crowd made it easier for Rosie to become just one of the masses. Today, she’d met a Central party girl called Sharia in one of the enhancement cafes. She had disguised herself as a Central and it seemed to go okay, but she couldn’t help being nervous. Plus what the girl had told her was doing her head in. Hadn’t anything they’d done on Mars made a difference?

  After she’d leaked Riley’s parents’ files about the MalX to the news wavers and they’d gone global, she’d thought they’d dealt Helios a massive blow.

  Now everyone knew Helios existed. More importantly, everyone knew Helios had created the MalX. They’d heard how MalX-infected mosquitoes had been accidentally sent to Earth in a shipment and how they’d escaped, spreading the disease. The Senate and Orbitcorp had publically denounced Helios, calling them enemy number one. The Mars Enclave was gone, blown up. She’d seen it happen – made it happen – and damn near died in the process.

  But now Helios was at it again. If the message was right.

  She increased her pace, going straight past the elevator tubes shooting people up to the suspended station. It was depressing to know Helios hadn’t been destroyed, but deep down she wasn’t surprised. Only low-level operatives had been caught in the manhunt the Senate and Orbitcorp had run, and most of them had mysteriously died in custody. Hardly a shock, given the moles Helios had in both the Senate and Orbitcorp. Riley said it was likely some of them were still there, despite both organisations’ much publicised declarations that they were rooting out any Helios supporters in their ranks.

  We won’t rest until our corridors are once more places of safety and hope for the people, was the latest sound bite from the authorities.

  Security and hope. Rosie snorted. She and Riley had blown a damn base up and Helios was still around. Clearly the invisible puppetmasters behind Helios were as strong as ever. And the problem was no one knew who they were. Not even Riley.

  It was ferociously hot and she was suddenly thirsty as the sweet scent of engineered berries from a juice bar assailed her. She wondered if she could risk stopping for a drink. Maybe not. A group of Senate guards was strolling in her direction. One was talking nonstop into a com and they all had one eye covered by opaque shields. Scanners. Rosie slipped alongside some fat guys in noodle franchise uniforms. Helios had impersonated Senate guards before. It didn’t hurt to be too careful, even with the ident-distorter lens. She forced herself not to turn around as they passed, keeping close to the noodle guys, who were bitching about a club they’d been in the night before.

  “Take the Rim line.” Riley’s voice came again in her ear. “Central West C just had a quarantine scare; it’s closed for UEDC.”

  United Earth Disease Control. That was the third MalX scare in Central this week. That explained the sidewalk space. Rosie changed her direction, dodging past the noodle guys and swinging towards the sky street crossing.

  It was a long walk to the closest Rim station, and by the time she got there the nanos in her over shirt were struggling to evaporate all the sweat. Rosie looked up at the entrance scanner and made sure it clocked her fake ident as she went in. She’d passed more guards on her way and was jumpy with nerves. Somehow Riley must have picked up on her nervousness. He spoke softly, “Calm down. The message capsule has another seven hours at least before it disintegrates.”

  Easy for him to say; he wasn’t the one who’d swallowed it. It sat in her gut like a lump of congealed starch. She threaded her way through the busy station, looking for the next shuttle east. She had to go through a convoluted shuttle switching process – one of their security protocols – before she headed to where Riley w
as.

  Rim South station was more crowded than usual thanks to the Central line closure and it took her almost ten minutes to push through and find a shuttle. The shops that lined the station projected loud advertisements for their wares, and huge floating screens hovered above the commuters, showing news wave after news wave. She stood in the line for a shuttle and watched as she waited.

  The latest quarantine news flickered silently on one screen, alongside a list of shuttles delayed due to the detection of disease carriers. Yet another displayed vision from the southern Asiatic States where the MalX had taken the strongest hold. There was also a constantly changing tally of the dead in glowing orange numbers. It was now just over five million.

  “Can you believe that?” A short man in a brown coat that stunk of rancid oil pushed up next to her and nodded at a news wave about the Oceanus mission. It showed images of a deep space freight ship with debris drifting from a massive hole in its hull.

  Oceanus colony ship hull breeched. Leviathan breaks apart, scrolled along the bottom of the screen in big black type. Five hundred dead. American Republic claims United Earth Commission delays on the wormhole project to blame.

  “Sons of bitches,” the man murmured, staring at the wave. “I was going to sign up to go.”

  Oceanus was one of the projects Aunt Essie was now assigned to. It was a recently terraformed planet in the Gliese system, twenty light-years from Earth, and the UEC had been calling for colonists. It took months to reach it on the current ships. The United Earth Commission had been promising to build a stable wormhole to cut the distance, but so far nothing had eventuated. The planet had become the shining hope for people desperate to escape the MalX, especially now Mars was closed to colonists since Helios had been exposed. Oceanus was a water planet with pristine new growth, touted as some kind of utopia, but getting there was risky. Ships didn’t always make it – maintaining power and shields all that way was difficult. There was plenty of space junk out there waiting to tap a hole in the sides of ships, and all the money in the world couldn’t stop a hull breech in space.

  Rosie could understand people wanting to take the risk; she might live in the Rim now, but she still felt like a Banker. She knew the odds, and at the moment they were stacked in the MalX’s favour.

  As she stood watching, the news wave vision suddenly blurred. A high-pitched beeping cut through the noise of the station and a new piece of vision began streaming along the bottom of the Oceanus news wave. Bold black letters cut over the now frozen picture of the Leviathan.

  Not gone, not forgotten, they said. An image of the Helios logo of the horse and rider over a sun flashed on the screen, followed by pictures of people dying of the MalX, their limbs wasted, skin red with the rash. What will they do next? The black words proclaimed. What will you do to find them? Stop Helios. Save our world. An image of a man in silhouette, one raised hand brandishing a sword, appeared, followed by the words, Rogue Waves. You can’t stop the fight.

  Rosie’s eyes filled with tears at the pictures of the dying people and she looked quickly away. It reminded her too much of her mum in the final days before the MalX took her. Around her, people were exclaiming and staring at the screens.

  “Tell it, Rogue!” someone shouted.

  “Bastards!” someone else called.

  It was a common reaction when one of the anonymous broadcasts cut through. They’d been happening more regularly of late.

  “Well-timed distraction.” Riley’s voice was soft, and tinged with pride. He wouldn’t tell her, but Rosie was sure he knew who was making the broadcasts. Maybe he was making them himself.

  “Shuttle,” someone called. The crowd surged forwards and she had to fight to stay on her feet. She ended up pressed up against the brown-coated man as they crowded though the doors.

  Rosie rode the shuttle system for the next two hours, switching lines four times until she finally got on the North Coast route. It was her last change. The shuttle reached the river and paused at the bridge checkpoint where the Senate scanned the carriages for any MalX carriers. Everyone was terrified that the MalX would mutate and start transferring from human to human, so now infection scans were everywhere. Anyone infected was taken away to a Senate-run hospice, usually by force. Some of them were never seen again.

  The cabin was half full and Rosie had been lulled into a relaxed state by the low hum of conversation and wasn’t prepared for the sudden screeching alarm. It split the air like a blade scraping down metal. She jerked up, heart racing, and immediately felt ill. Her vision blurred. The sound was disorientating, designed to make you dizzy to reduce resistance. The doors burst open and two men in full disease-control suiting came in.

  “Everyone sit down!” the first one shouted, his voice amplified by his helmet. They were dressed head to toe in white, and one carried a small case and scanner. The first man had a pulse gun and was plainly the soldier escort for the medic. Fear rippled through the carriage like a contagion.

  The woman next to Rosie shrieked, clutching at the child on her lap. She wasn’t the only one. At the other end, a man started to kick desperately at the plasglass window.

  “Stop!” The soldier ran towards him, people scrambling out of his way. The alarm abruptly shut off. Rosie’s vision cleared and she heard the unmistakable whine of a pulse weapon charging.

  “Stop!” the soldier shouted again.

  “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” the man cried, but he was still trying to kick through the glass. The soldier fired, the sound a concussive whump in the confined space. Everyone screamed and Rosie ducked down behind the seat in front of her.

  The pulse hit the man in the back. He slumped down, head lolling. The red rash of the MalX on his neckline was exposed as the soldier pulled him backwards by his shirt. Rosie had seen it that bad before. If the shot hadn’t killed him, the man would be dead in a few months.

  The cabin of the shuttle was still with shock and suppressed fear: everyone thankful it wasn’t them, terrified one day it might be. It was barely a comfort for Rosie to know she was immune to the MalX.

  She wondered if the man had a family. He was around the same age as her dad. The guilt hit her hard. Helios had taken her dad, tortured him and infected him with the MalX. And Pip had saved him. This man wasn’t going to be so lucky. Unlike her dad, or her aunt, and even her, the MalX cure in Pip’s blood wasn’t something this man could get. He would die, as would thousands of others, and there was nothing she could do about it. Pip was gone and she had no idea where he was.

  “Rosie. Rosie!” Riley was calling her name.

  She blinked. The medic was now pushing a shot of something into the fallen man’s neck and she realised her hands were curled in fists.

  “Rosie, are you all right?”

  She forced her hand to uncurl and raised it in front of her eyes, forming an O with her thumb and finger. Okay. There was an audible short breath. “Good,” he said. “You know what to do. I’ll see you soon.” The com went dead as he cut off its signal.

  CHAPTER 2

  Rosie slouched down, picked the wafer-thin disc from her ear and ground it to dust under her boot. Now she had no contact with Riley, but she couldn’t risk the earpiece being detected by the soldier.

  The soldier was scanning everyone’s idents. She sat up again as he came to her and waved the machine over her eyes. He surveyed her through the panel of his helmet as the machine beeped.

  “I’m just going home,” Rosie said.

  The soldier checked his handheld and Rosie worked on keeping her face neutral. Riley had put her image in the ident system so there shouldn’t be a problem. It should read her as Bridget.

  “Been in the Banks the last week?” he asked. “No.” Damn, she’d answered too quickly. She sounded jumpy.

  The man’s eyes narrowed a fraction and the woman beside her shifted nervously.

  “Raimes,” the medic called. “The team’s at the doors.”

  Outside, four more suited agents were waitin
g to be let in. The soldier gave Rosie a last look then walked away.

  Rosie let out the breath she’d been holding. She’d been certain that he’d been about to consider a DNA scan and that would have been a real problem. Not even Riley could fake DNA.

  The other agents came in and took the unconscious man away in a disease capsule and Raimes finished scanning the rest of the carriage without bothering to go back to her. The woman who’d been sitting next to Rosie made a point of moving to another seat.

  Rosie just turned and stared out the window. She was starting to feel really ill now from the message capsule in her gut.

  The shuttle finally started moving again over the bridge. The north side of the river was a patchwork of research stations and residential estates for the scientists – all Senate owned and controlled – and beyond that were acres and acres of farms.

  Rosie got out at the next stop. A road continued on past the small shuttle stop towards the research stations. On either side of the road were the estates. High walls and code-controlled gates delineated them.

  Riley had taken over a derelict house in a section of the estates that had been shut down. There’d been a MalX scare the year before and the Senate had closed down a whole estate on the western side. It was a perfect spot to hide. All the surveillance tech had been dismantled and the only thing to worry about was the occasional sweeps by Senate helijets. No one in the other estates would think of exposing themselves to a possible MalX risk. The Senate only checked on it to keep the Ferals out. As far as the Senate was concerned, Ferals should stay where they belonged – in the camps downriver and in the old city. The Ferals were the poorest people in Newperth, and ranked just above rodents on the Senate importance radar.

  Pip had been a Feral when she’d first met him. At least he’d been pretending to be one, under orders from Helios. Stop thinking about Pip!

  Rosie forced her mind back to the present and headed along a footpath that ran between the wall of the estates and the river. On her left the tops of the twelve-storey skyfarm towers rose beyond the estates, green against the pale sun-bleached sky.