Hit List (23 page)

The Ghost took a step forwards.

“I’ll drop it,” Ash warned.

“I don’t think you will.” He took another step.

Ash let the cord drop a little further. He kept coming.

“I think you realize that if you drop it, you’ll have no more leverage,” he said. “And there’ll be nothing to stop me killing you.”

He was six metres away now. “But if you hand it over,” he said, “I’ll let you go.”

He was an excellent liar – for a second, Ash almost believed him. The awkward smile he’d flashed her at the dance was back.

“Why would I hurt you?” he said. “Once I have the hard drive, I can just leave.”

He was four metres away.

“Hey,” Ash said, “you can make people disappear, walk through walls and pull knives out of thin air, right?”

He frowned. “So?”

Ash smiled grimly. “So, can you fly?”

And she tossed the drive over the edge.

“No!” the Ghost roared. He reached out, tried to grab the drive, missed. It spun and tumbled through the void, vanishing into the darkness. There was a distant
crash
as it
splintered into thousands of useless pieces.

The Ghost turned his murderous gaze on Ash, teeth bared, and pointed the harpoon gun at her heart.

She was backed up against the edge of the roof. There was nowhere to run.

“Can
you
?” he growled.

Ash didn’t answer. Instead, she stepped backwards off the edge.

Ash fell.

The Ghost was sucked out of sight and replaced by a blur of windows. Ash saw her reflection for the first time since getting shot – a blackened cheek shimmered back at her, in a halo of
fluttering hair.

Her guts felt hollow. Her arms and legs flailed uselessly. She couldn’t fly.

But she wasn’t going to die, either. Not today.

She shoved a hand into her pocket and grabbed the canister of compressed hydrogen sewn into the lining.

Shouldn’t have let me change on the plane, she thought.

She hit the button.

The balloons in her clothes swelled up, starting with the ones near her pocket, and spreading out to cover the rest of her body. A hissing filled the air as the pressure equalized.

With growing panic, she saw that she was still accelerating. The balloons weren’t slowing her down at all. She should have expected that, since all objects fall at the same rate regardless
of their weight – Benjamin’s invention was designed to decrease the force with which she’d hit the ground, not the speed.

That reasoning had been easy to accept in his basement laboratory. It was much harder now, plummeting towards the ground at two hundred kilometres per hour.

But she trusted Benjamin. She had always trusted Benjamin.

And so she did what he’d taught her, spreading her arms and legs like a skydiver, increasing the wind drag, fighting the urge to try and stay upright. If she landed on her feet, both legs
would snap like plywood.

Her clothes bulged more and more. The balloons started squeezing her chest, making it hard to breathe. She shut her eyes as the ground rushed up towards her. At the last second, she crossed her
swollen forearms over her face, protecting it from the impact.

WHAM!
It was like getting kicked in the sternum. The shock rippled out across her limbs as her head bounced against her inflated sleeves. Suddenly she was in the air again –
she’d bounced off the ground like a giant beach ball. She spun sideways in the air, landing on her back, and with a sharp bang, a balloon near her knee popped.

The hydrogen squealed out of her clothes swiftly, and she sank to the ground. She sat up dizzily as her body returned to its normal shape.

Looking down to see what had popped the balloon, she saw the shattered hard drive – all that was left of the first non-human intelligence on earth. She laughed.

“Well done, Alice,” she said. “You got me.”

“And now
I’ve
got you.”

Ash choked on her breath. She tried to get up, look around, see who had spoken, but someone was already grabbing her from behind. She felt the familiar cold sting of handcuffs closing around her
wrists as she was hauled to her feet.

No, she thought. No, no, no!

“Hello, Ashley,” Detective Wright said. His nose looked broken, and he was favouring one arm, but there was an enormous smile on his face. “I’m arresting you as an
accomplice to the murder of Hammond Buckland. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention, when questioned, something which you later rely on in court.
Anything you do say may be given in evidence.”

Murder? “I didn’t kill Hammond Buckland!” Ash protested. “You’re making a mistake!”

Wright’s radio crackled. “Detective?”

Wright held down the button. “Go ahead.”

Is this the end? Ash wondered. Is it over? Am I caught?

Maybe that would be best. She was so tired. Tired of running, tired of fighting, tired of hiding. Maybe this was the only way out of that life.

But after all the things she’d done, was she really going to get locked away for the one thing she
didn’t
do?

No, she decided. There was a way out of this and she was going to find it.

“Sir, we’ve found Michael Peachey,” the radio was saying. “He’s beat up pretty bad, but we’ve got the paramedics working on him, and they reckon he’s
going to pull through. He’ll be back under lock and key in no time.”

Wright smiled. “Some days,” he told Ash, “I really love my job.”

And then, hands still behind her back, Ash pulled a magnesium flare off Wright’s belt and set it off.

A blade of fire lanced out from the end as the hydrogen in the air ignited, quadrupling the heat. Wright recoiled from the brightness, yelling. Every instinct told Ash to drop the blazing stick,
but she held on, teeth clenched. She spun the flare in her hands like a baton, turning the fiery tip to face the chain that linked her cuffs together. Then she
pulled
.

The red-hot metal snapped, and she was free.

She didn’t give Wright time to regain his sight. She sprinted into the darkness, away from him, away from Peachey, away from Alice, away from the Ghost, away from this whole nightmare. She
tripped, rolling along the grass, stifling the flames on her jeans, and then she clambered to her feet and didn’t stop running until suddenly she found herself kilometres away, legs giving
out beneath her.

A week had passed.

After escaping from the Googleplex, Ash had found Benjamin waiting for her on the Parkway, just as they’d planned. They trudged back to HBS International, where they found Hammond
Buckland, holding Benjamin’s ransom in a briefcase, waiting for the bank to open so he could let them out. He was astonished to see them already loose, and asked hundreds of questions on the
flight home. They told him everything, except what they had learned about his connection to the Ghost. Sometimes, Ash knew, it was safest to feign ignorance. She wasn’t sure she trusted
Buckland any more.

“You don’t have to do this,” Benjamin said.

“I know,” Ash replied.

It was almost ten at night and they were walking, hand in hand, through the quiet streets of their home town. A woman snored on a nearby bus stop bench. A possum in an overturned rubbish bin
froze as they passed, eyes gleaming in the dark, and waited until they were gone before continuing to rummage.

Her burns were mostly healed, but she still covered them with make-up, especially in front of her dad. She’d been keeping her hair draped over her chipped ear, and it was getting easier to
remember not to casually tuck it back. At first, when she looked in the mirror, she had been reminded of a feral cat. Now, gradually, the damage was becoming a part of her.

She and Benjamin had just been on their first date. Dinner at a secluded restaurant, dessert at a rooftop café, and then a long walk through the paths and parks of the city. Ash had never
seen him look so happy. Why did I wait so long? she wondered.

But now they were here and it was time for Benjamin to go home.

“Are you sure?” he said.

“I’m sure.”

“There’s no going back.”

“I know.”

“You don’t have to do this,” he said again.

“No,” she said. “But I’m going to.”

He nodded. His eyes were beginning to shine with tears.

“Come visit me sometime?” she said.

“I will,” he said.

She kissed him on the cheek, and turned to walk away. When she looked back, he was still standing under the street lamp. Her heart felt like it would burst. But this was one place she
wouldn’t let him follow her.

“Go home,” she said.

“I’ll miss you.”

“You too – but you’ve gotta go.”

Benjamin bit his lip. “Goodbye, Ash,” he said, and then he walked away, out of the light. She waited until he was out of sight, and then she turned back to the building they’d
stopped at.

She’d tried giving away the money she’d stolen, she’d tried stealing things only from bad people, and she’d even tried her hand as a rescuer. Nothing had eased her
conscience. There was only one thing left.

She walked into the police station.

Detective Damien Wright was in the foyer, sifting through an evidence bag. He saw her, and did a double take, eyes widening, hands already shrinking into fists. He lunged forwards – then
stopped, confused. She wasn’t running away.

“I’m here to turn myself in,” Ash said. And she held out her hands for the cuffs.

All the characters of
Hit List
are fictional, along with most of the locations – the Hallett State Remand Centre, HBS International Bank, and Narahm School for Girls.

But there are, as always, some truths among the lies. There really is a program called ALICE that mimics human conversation. It was designed by Dr. Richard Wallace in the nineties, and has since
become open-source – you can talk to a primitive version of it on
jackheath.com.au
.

The learning chatterbot that Benjamin referred to also exists. It’s called Jabberwacky, and while I think a future adaptation of Jabberwacky is far more likely to become self-aware than
ALICE is, I decided the name wouldn’t sound as good on an SOS. Call it artistic licence.

Unless this book has somehow outlasted one of the world’s most successful companies, you probably already know that Google® is also real. They are worth $39 billion, they know more
than the CIA, and they let their employees take their dogs to work. If you look at Building 41 of the Googleplex on Google Earth, you’ll see that it’s covered in solar panels, and that
there are endless pools not so far away.

Vincent van Gogh’s ear has never been found.

Thank you to my amazing partner, Venetia, whose strength and love make everything possible.

Thanks to my family, Mum and Dad and Tom, whose pride is the most inspiring part of my life.

Thanks to Sam MacGregor, whose enthusiasm helped this book get off the ground.

Thank you to my terrific agent, Clare Forster; you are the reason I tell all aspiring writers to get agents.

Thank you to Claire Craig, who always knows when to rein me in and when to let me off the leash. Your passion for your work is invaluable. Thanks to the rest of the team at Pan, especially Sue
Bobbermein, Brianne Collins, Ali Lavau, Kate Nash, and Cate Paterson. You guys have always got my back.

Thank you to the guards at the Belconnen Remand Centre for giving me the tour and answering my questions. Every prison scene I ever write will be better thanks to you.

Thank you to Google®, for making the rest of my research so easy.

Thanks to a few writers who shared their wisdom and gave me encouragement and who are overdue for a mention: Tristan Bancks, Michael Gerard Bauer, Amanda Betts, Gavin Bishop, Ben Brown, Melanie
Drewery, Melaina Faranda, Andy Griffiths, Martin Harrison, Gregg Hurwitz, Ingrid Jonach, Ross Kinnaird, William Kostakis, Jeff Lindsay, Dawn McMillan, Linda McNabb, Kyle Mewburn, Patrick Ness,
Michael Pryor, Helen Fields, Berndt Sellheim, KJ Taylor, and Mark Walden.

And lastly, thank you to the fans. It’s a pleasure and a privilege to lead you on this journey.

Jack Heath is an award-winning author of action-adventure books. He started writing his first book when he was thirteen years old and had a publishing contract for it at
eighteen.

When he’s not writing, Jack is performing street magic, composing film music, teaching or lecturing at schools and festivals, or playing a variety of instruments, including the piano and
the bass guitar. He stoically ignores his lack of qualifications or training in any of these areas.

Jack lives in Canberra, Australia, with his fiancée, Venetia, and their cat, Onyx.