Remote Control (19 page)

The elevator hummed smoothly downward. Now there were three floors of enemy soldiers between him and freedom.
How did I expect to get away with this?
he wondered.
Once the alarm is raised, I’m as good as dead—even if they don’t shut down the elevators, there will still be a hundred or more troops after me. And this facility is too small and linear to hide in.

He clenched one hand into a fist and thumped it lightly against the back wall. He didn’t want to die like this. His body would never be found, so King would never know what had become of him. Kyntak would suffer the same fate. The Spades would continue hunting for him, but he would be unable to prove his innocence and be branded a traitor forever. Harry would wait loyally outside the warehouse fence for hours, days, maybe even weeks—however long it took for him to get spotted by bystanders or soldiers. And who knows what would happen then? Nai would never be rescued, wherever she was, and she would grow up believing that he and Kyntak had abandoned her.

It’s not too late to turn back
, he thought. He was well disguised, and certain that the alarm hadn’t been sounded yet. But he was immediately ashamed. To abort the rescue now would almost certainly mean condemning Kyntak, his brother, his closest friend, to death. Logically, he knew it was the best course of action, because there was almost no hope of both him and Kyntak making it out of here alive. But it would also be the most selfish thing he had ever done.

The elevator stopped and the doors slid open. Six hesitated. Could he walk right back out the way he came, and still live with himself?

No
, he decided.
I’m doing this. There’s nothing left for me out there. Nai is missing, Two is dead, King is under investigation, and the Deck has disowned me. If I leave now, Kyntak dies and I’m completely on my own.

He was ashamed of that thought too.
I consider backing out for selfish reasons, then I decide to stay for even more selfish reasons.
“Everyone was right about me,” he whispered to himself. “I am a monster.”

He stepped out of the elevator and turned left instinctively. He was in a long corridor with only one wall. Instead of the other, there was a row of huge roller-doors with dark alcoves in between so they had room to slide. They didn’t end at the floor or the ceiling—they disappeared into narrow trenches at each end, giving Six the impression that they were probably several meters taller than the corridor.

Cell doors, he guessed. More surface area than the walls, almost impossible to open from the inside. He felt a thrill of adrenaline run through his veins. He was close.

He could see one soldier patrolling the corridor, walking slowly away from him. Six figured he had perhaps three minutes before the soldier reached the end and turned around. He risked a quick glance over his shoulder. There was a guard behind him as well, standing impassively in front of one of the roller-doors. He wasn’t looking in Six’s direction.

One soldier patrolling, one stationary
, he thought.
What are the chances that the one standing still is outside Kyntak’s cell?

But there was no sense in approaching the guard until he knew for sure. Doing so would almost certainly lead to the base being put on alert status, and if Kyntak was in a different cell, then soldiers would be coming down ten at a time in the elevator while he searched all the others.

Each giant door had a circular blue button on the edge. Six pressed the first one and heard a solid click as the mechanical dead bolt disengaged. He put the palm of his hand against the edge of the door and pushed.

The door was heavy, but it rolled aside in silence. Six didn’t open it all the way—just enough to peer through. This room looked less like a cell than an infirmary or a surgical operating room—there were two people-size tables with padded headrests
on the ends, two long white desks with several drawers, a stainless-steel sink in the far corner, and a polished glass cabinet filled with sharp instruments.

No Kyntak. No anyone. Six retreated into the corridor and pushed the door slowly closed.

He glanced up and down the corridor again. One soldier still patrolling, one standing guard. Each a fair distance away, and neither facing him. So far, so good. He walked to the next door, pushed the button, and rolled it open.

This wasn’t a cell either, just a dark, empty room with a window and a small button panel on one wall. The window looked into the next room, which did appear to be a cell—it had reflective walls and a block in the center, topped with restraining clamps and a headrest.

One-way glass, Six realized. This was where Vanish officials could watch the prisoners. But why? If they were clamped to a table, what would they be doing that was worth watching? Perhaps one of the buttons on the panel released the clamps.

Again, no Kyntak. He stepped back and closed the door.

He skipped the next door, knowing that it led to the empty cell. He pushed the button on the door after that, opened it, and poked his head inside. Another cell, identical to the one he’d seen through the one-way glass of the observation room. Empty again. There was probably another observation room on the other side.

He stepped back, about to roll the door closed, when he heard a noise—a thin wheeze. He turned his head sharply. The patrolling soldier hadn’t turned around yet, and the stationary one hadn’t even glanced his way. He looked back into the cell and frowned. There was someone—or something—inside.

He stepped across the threshold and bent down. A figure was crouched beside the table, a skinny teenage boy who scampered
backward across the floor as Six moved. There was something ungainly and graceless about the way he was crawling, something not entirely human, and as soon as he hit the corner and could retreat no farther, Six saw what it was. The boy had only one arm—his left one had been amputated at the shoulder.

Six approached him slowly and carefully. The boy in the corner didn’t look up at him. He had some kind of mask over his mouth, a clear plastic bulb with a valve on the side—the wheezing gasps Six had heard were coming from it harder and faster now. A respirator, Six realized. Something had to be wrong with his lungs.

As the boy’s long, greasy hair slid aside, Six saw that the missing arm wasn’t his only physical oddity. Half of his face and neck was scarred a dull brown, as if he’d had first-degree burns on one side of his body. Both of his ears were missing. The eye on the burned side of his face was cheap glass and didn’t even match—it was chocolate-brown instead of blue. There was no eyelid to cover it—it stared crazily over Six’s shoulder.

“What happened to you?” Six asked, aghast.

The boy let out a rasping squeal, shoved off the wall, and scurried across the cell to another corner, farther away from Six. Six kept walking towards him. “I’m not going to hurt you,” he said quietly. “I’m here to help.” Inside, his horror was slowly being eaten away by fury. Who would do this to a child? And why?

With a thin groan, the boy threw himself at Six, arm outstretched, fingers clawing at Six’s face. He didn’t quite make the distance, and Six had to step forward and catch him as he fell. The boy’s respirator hissed again and he looked up at Six, his real eye widening with fear.

Six gasped, icy spiders crawling up his spine. The eye was the same as his own. The undamaged half of the boy’s face was a
precise copy. And now Six saw that the boy was exactly his height. He considered again the respirator mask, the missing ears, the missing arm—the skin which had not been burned, as he first thought, but stolen for grafts. And he was willing to bet that if he removed the boy’s shirt, he would see surgical scars over the heart and lungs.

He didn’t know how the boy had come to be here, and he didn’t know why, but there was no doubt about it—he was a clone of Six. He’d been created just eight months ago, solely for the use of his organs and limbs. Six stared in horror at his own left hand, flexing the fingers unconsciously, as its previous owner howled and tore himself out of Six’s grip.

Six had wondered how Vanish had got a sample of his DNA to compare to Kyntak’s, given that the Lab computers had been wiped. Now he knew. After making the clone and taking parts of it to heal Six, Crexe had kept it alive with a respirator, a pace-maker, and probably some kind of artificial kidney. When Crexe was arrested and his soldiers had either fled or been incarcerated, the clone must have been left lying forgotten on a hospital bed at the Lab. Vanish troops broke in less than a month later and probably brought him straight here. He had doubtless been carefully studied and relentlessly tested since then.

The clone whimpered and bashed his fist into the floor; the blow was pathetically weak. Six’s pity was almost unbearable—
It’s so unfair
, he thought.
His eyes are barely open before surgeons cripple and disfigure him for life, then he lives off an IV drip until he’s abducted and locked up. He can’t speak English. He can’t hear, or see, or breathe properly. All he’s ever felt is pain, fear, and confusion.

Six looked at the sinews in the boy’s arm and legs—he was skin and bone. Six knew that his own genes weren’t the sole cause of his incredible strength and speed; they had only provided potential. It had taken years of strenuous exercise, training, and dieting to make the most of them. This boy had been fed minimally and had probably never even been outside.

Then Six heard footsteps, approaching slowly. They were distant—presumably coming from the soldier patrolling the corridor outside. Six’s three minutes were up. The soldier had reached the end of the corridor and turned around.

Six pressed his palm against the roller-door, thinking.
If the door is still slightly open when the soldier passes, he’ll raise his gun and open the door the rest of the way. I’ll be completely exposed.

I could slide the door closed now
, he thought,
but then I’d be trapped in here until they bring the clone his next meal, and that could be hours—someone could easily see me through the one-way mirror before it happens. Not an option.

Six approached the opening and pressed his back against the edge of the door. The footsteps drew closer.

Six knew that perceptions were affected by expectations. A person could search for something right in front of him and fail to see it, simply because it wasn’t where he thought it would be. An obscurely shaped scribble or an inkblot could reveal things about the viewer, who would perceive it differently depending on his thoughts. And a soldier who saw an open door which he expected to be closed would experience a split second of confusion as his brain tried to reconcile his vision with his imagination.

The footsteps faltered—the soldier had hesitated. Six threw the roller-door aside and exploded into the corridor. He lashed out with his foot, the heel slamming into the soldier’s visor and cracking the shatterproof glass.

The soldier reeled back with the impact, his shoulder slapping against the wall, but he recovered quickly. Six dived after him, not wanting to give him time to aim his Eagle. He shoved the soldier against the wall and held him there, forcing the wrist of his gun arm against his torso. The barrel of the gun was trapped sideways, pointing at the empty end of the corridor.

The soldier had reached for his knife with his free hand. Six yelped as it slashed up across his forearm, slicing through the sleeve of his disguise. Droplets of blood splattered onto his visor, and he whirled around, twisting the guard’s arm out in front of him and holding the blade at a safe distance.

Now he was facing away from the soldier, crushing him between his back and the wall. The soldier’s gun was pressed flat between them, and Six was squeezing the wrist of the hand that held the knife, trying to cut off the circulation.

Apparently realizing that he was going to lose this scuffle, the guard pulled the trigger of his Eagle, firing into the empty corridor. The noise of twenty rounds being discharged right behind Six’s back was deafening, and he could feel the burning of the muzzle against his arm. He twisted around, reached down, and grabbed the soldier’s remote, tearing it off his belt. He leaped backward, pointing the remote at the soldier, who was swinging his Eagle to face Six, and jammed his thumb down on the
SYNCAL
button.

The soldier went limp instantly, falling against the wall. Six was already turning back towards the elevator as he slid heavily to the floor.

The other guard was running towards Six, presumably sounding the alarm with his helmet mike. Six couldn’t hear it—his radio was either off or on the wrong frequency. The guard had raised his Eagle, but Six lifted his Raptor and fired three shots.
The first round missed, but the second hit the armor on the soldier’s left shin, and the third clipped his right ankle, punching straight through. He tumbled over as his leg gave way underneath him, sprawling on the floor of the corridor. He stretched out a hand towards his fallen gun, but couldn’t reach it. As Six ran towards him he retracted the hand and flopped awkwardly onto his side like an asphyxiating fish, reaching for his Raptor.

“Don’t,” Six yelled as he ran. “Put your hands on your head.”

The guard ignored him and pulled his gun out of its holster. He fell back onto his front, bracing his elbows against the ground and aiming at Six. Six fired immediately, the first two rounds splintering the guard’s fingers and the third shooting over his head and grazing his ankle.

The guard howled as the gun fell from his ruined hand. “Why doesn’t anyone ever do what they’re told?” Six muttered as he approached him.

Does one remote work for any soldier’s nanomachines?
he wondered. He pointed the stolen remote at the guard and hit
MORPHINE
. The whimpering quieted, and then stopped. The guard writhed slowly on the ground, apparently disoriented by the drug. Six hit
SYNCAL
and the guard’s head fell to the floor, face-first, and all his limbs went slack.

Six made only a cursory examination of the guard’s wounds. He might limp for the rest of his life and never be able to shoot again, but the bleeding wasn’t life threatening.
Good
, Six thought.
If he raised the alarm, I don’t have time to be dressing wounds.