Remote Control (5 page)

We must look like rats in a maze
, Six thought. Eight Deck agents hiding from thirty hostile troops in a roofless apartment block.

“What are we going to do?” hissed Nine. “There’s no way down! That helicopter’s going to shoot us to pieces!”

Six stared up into the fog. The silhouette of a big Twin-600 helicopter was forming above them. As it got closer Six saw a gunner leaning out of the side, scanning the corridors below. He was holding a bulky Pelican GN860—a super–machine gun capable of pumping out huge slugs at a rate of 900,000 per minute.

Okay, focus!
Six thought.
What do they want?

They want to kill us,
he answered himself. But if that was the case, why hadn’t they? They could have blown up the building. They could have left the soldiers out of it completely and mown the agents down from the helicopter. There were a million methods for killing people more efficiently than this.

So they’re not trying to kill us. Not
all
of us. They need something from us. But what? How can I form a strategy when I don’t know what they want?

New thought. What
didn’t
they want? They didn’t want Methryn Crexe alive. Six frowned. What else had they done?

They’ve blown up the stairs.
Six’s eyes widened.
So whatever it is they want from us, they can’t get it if we’re on the floor below.

But there’s no way down!

Think. Just because there are no stairs and no elevator, does that mean there’s no way down?

He peered back into the stairwell. The stairs and landings were gone, and there were no hand or footholds in the walls. But the doors were still intact. If someone opened the one directly below them from the other side, they could drop down and grab hold of the doorway.

Six whirled around to face the others.

“Wait here,” he said. “Stay low. Don’t give away your position by firing, unless they see you and shoot first. I’m going to create a distraction, draw them away. Then I’ll come back for you.” He checked his watch. 12:09:48.

“Six, the stairwell is a dead end,” Agent Five objected. “We’re sitting ducks here.”

“We trust you, Six,” Two said, ignoring Five. “Go.”

Six sprinted into the fog without another word.

Three soldiers loomed out of the mist in the corridor in front of him, but Six didn’t slow down. He ran into a crouch-jump, hurling himself a meter and a half into the air, then slammed shoulder-first into the skull of one of the soldiers.

Before the unlucky commando had even hit the ground, Six had executed a perfect landing and was back on his feet—with the other two troops on either side of him, leveling their weapons.

Six whirled around and leaned back, swinging his foot out from under him as he did so. In a wild sweeping kick, he smashed
into the knees of the commando on one side and, lifting his leg higher as he spun, the head of the other.

Both soldiers fell, one with a dislocated knee and the other with a bruised skull. Six crouched down and pressed his fingers swiftly under the jaw of the first, forcing him into a deep sleep.

Six didn’t have time for a thorough examination, but he could see from the equipment of the soldiers that they weren’t ChaoSonic troops—they never carried knives—and the TV remotes were a bizarre twist.

The helicopter thundered overhead. Six could see shadows moving in the fog as more troops approached. Once they saw him, they would soon see the other agents by the stairwell. It was time for his diversion.

Six unclipped an OT-78 grenade from his belt. In one smooth motion he pulled the pin with his thumb, swung to face the chopper, and hurled the grenade into the air.

A red light blinked on it as it spun lazily towards the helicopter.

The gunner wasted a fraction of a second staring at it. Then he dropped the Pelican and dived out of the hold. A climbing rope unraveled behind him as he plummeted earthward.

The grenade clipped the tail of the chopper.

Boom!

The rear end of the helicopter disintegrated in a ball of white-hot energy. The main rotor splintered, sending shards of the blades flying in all directions. The chassis pitched sideways, engine screaming, and one of the landing skis fell off. With a hiss, the ejector seat shot forward out of the cockpit and a large black parachute bloomed immediately behind it.

Six took cover as the skeletal frame dived towards the floor of the corridor. The nearby soldiers shouted as they did the same.

Clang!
The cockpit and chassis slammed into a corridor wall, shattering it into dust and debris. Six felt the floor shudder with the impact.

He was on his feet before the echoes had died away. He braced himself for an explosion, but none came. The fuel tank hadn’t ignited. He could still hear the chattering of helicopter blades, so he had a sinking feeling that there was more air support coming. But at least…

There was a loud crack, and a strong black net wrapped itself around Six. He stumbled and fell, palms first, onto the concrete. Turning his head, he saw the gunner from the helicopter drop a launcher to the floor, and draw an AM-92 tranquilizer pistol.

It was incredible that the soldier was still walking, let alone launching nets. But Six stifled his astonishment and began tearing at the rope with his fingers. It wouldn’t break. It was some kind of synthetic nylon fiber that cut and burned his skin.

There was movement in the fog. The commandos were clambering back to their feet, and the gunner was approaching.

Tearing the net didn’t seem to be an option. Six tried to stand up, but all six corners of the net were weighted with ball bearings. They swung in as he stood, banging painfully against his ankles and tightening the net around his legs. He lost his balance and fell back down onto the concrete.

I can’t let them neutralize me
, Six thought,
or the others are as good as dead.
He wriggled forward across the floor, the ball bearings rolling noisily as they dragged behind him. He stretched out his hand, wincing as the nylon ropes tightened over him, and grabbed the foot of one of the three soldiers he had already knocked out.

He pulled the soldier back towards him by the ankle, not
daring to waste time looking to see how close the gunner was. He reached out, releasing a clasp on the soldier’s belt, and the diamond-edged Feather knife fell to the floor.

The gunner raised the tranq gun. Took aim.

Six swished the knife outward in a straight line, and the net zipped open like a body bag. He dived through the gap, just as a tranquilizer dart snapped out of the pistol and slammed into the floor.

One of the soldiers made a dive for him. Six smacked his elbow down into his neck and slipped out of his grip. With the remains of the net still tangled around one hand, he dashed into the foggy corridors once again, heading for the outer wall.

Okay
, he thought as he ran,
that’s one helicopter and at least four soldiers down. What’s left?

Another helicopter and at least twenty-five more soldiers, he surmised. It wasn’t looking good. Retreat was definitely still their best option. He had to get the others off the second floor. He sprinted down the foggy corridor, heading towards the apartment containing Crexe’s body. When he was about seven meters from the door, three commandos burst through it, turning to face him.

Six dived into a rolling position and swung his arms out like clubs as he hit the floor. One commando was knocked over as Six’s shoulder collided with his knee, and the other two were taken out by Six’s whirling arms.

Blunt
, Six reflected,
but efficient.

He ran past the door they had come through and turned into the room with the shattered closet wall. He hoisted the sledgehammer from the floor onto his shoulder and, with a mighty swing, drove it right through the boarded-up window.

The wood splintered easily, leaving a meterwide hole through which Six could see the dim outlines of the streets and buildings of the City below. Clutching the sledgehammer in one hand and the knife and net in the other, Six dived into the void.

It took him less than a second to establish that the remaining Twin was not on this side of the building.
Good
, he thought.
It’s about time I had some luck.

He began to plummet towards the distant ground, but a meter below the window, he stabbed his knife into the wall. The plaster cracked with the force of the blow, and the knife was driven in almost to the hilt. Six gripped on to the handle firmly, and he stopped falling.

He checked his watch: 12:12:33. Almost three minutes had passed since he’d seen the others—he had to hurry. Taking down the helicopter had ensured that the soldiers were focused on finding him, but he wasn’t sure how long that would last.

Dangling from one hand high above the ground, with the sledgehammer clamped between his knees, Six used his free hand to untangle the net. Except for the slit he had made with the knife, the nylon cords were intact. He attached one corner to the handle of the Feather with a clove hitch and lifted the sledgehammer again.

Six had abseiled many times before, although usually with the proper equipment—a climbing rope, a harness, a carabiner, gloves, and a pickax. Doing it with only a net and a knife while carrying a sledgehammer was like trying to play Beethoven on a piano lacking half its strings.

But there was no time to improvise anything better. He could still hear the chattering of gunfire and the pounding of
helicopter blades. Resting his feet against the wall to stop his body from swinging in the breeze, he looked around for a first-floor window to climb through.

And he found it. Like most of the windows in the building, it was boarded up, but Six was sure he could break through the barrier with the sledge. He lowered himself until he was holding the bottom of the net. Then he rappelled towards the window, walking horizontally across the wall of the building with the net in one hand.

He could
just
reach; if he held the bottom of the net at arm’s length in his left hand, and stretched out with his right as far as he could, he could touch the boards sealing the window. He looked back at the knife in the wall with the net wrapped around it. It still looked stable.

Taking a deep breath, he hefted the sledgehammer and swung it.

Crack!
The wooden boards splintered on impact, leaving an opening wide enough to climb through. Six put the sledge between his knees and reached for the sill.

Thump!
His knee banged against the frame as he fell through the window, and he tumbled to the floor in a cloud of dust.

Immediately he rolled out of the room into the first-floor corridor and ducked behind the wall, out of sight of the window. His instincts proved correct. Like a giant black bird, the helicopter loomed in the window and the opposite wall boiled with bullet holes as the Twin’s gunner opened fire with the GN-860.

But as long as the helicopter was hovering beside the building and peering in the first-floor windows, the Deck agents on the roofless second floor were safe. Six clambered to his feet and began to run towards the hollowed-out stairwell, shaking the dust off his fatigues as he went.

He glanced at his watch. 12:16:21—almost seven minutes had gone by since he had seen the agents. He hoped they were still safe.

The stairwell door had been jammed shut by the explosion, but the hinges seemed intact. Six took aim about fifteen centimeters above the handle, where the lock should be, and gave the door a hefty kick.

The door swung outward with a crash, showering plaster into the stairwell. Chunks fell to the basement level, cracking against the mound of debris which had once been the staircase, almost invisible in the darkness.

Six pressed a hand against the door frame, testing its strength. It seemed capable of holding his weight. Gripping it with one hand, he leaned out into the well and switched on his radio.

“Assault team, do you copy?” he whispered.

Only static came back.

“Kyntak, can you hear me?” he tried.

Still nothing. Six was about to try again when Agent Nine poked his head out of the door on the floor above, silhouetted in the foggy light. He looked down at Six.

“Whoa,” he said. “How’d you get down there?”

“It wasn’t easy. The rest of you will have to come this way. Just drop and I’ll catch you.”

Nine nodded nervously. “Okay. Ready?”

“Yes. Go.”

Nine stepped through the doorway into the well, and Six caught him with one arm and swung him into the first-floor corridor. Nine landed in a catlike stance, rattled but safe.

Six looked up. “Who’s next?”

It took less than two minutes to ferry agents Four, Five, Eight, and Ten to the first floor. The sounds of gunfire still raged on upstairs—Six hoped that this was just because the attacking soldiers were using it as a scare tactic.

He leaned out through the doorway again, but no one seemed to be coming down.

He took a swift head count. “Where’s Two?” he demanded. “And Kyntak?”

“I haven’t seen Kyntak since we left the van,” Nine said. “But Two was with us at the door.”

Six peered out again and looked up. There was no movement above.

He glanced at his watch again—12:19:30. The longer the other agents stayed, the more danger they were in. He wouldn’t leave Kyntak and Two behind, but he couldn’t risk the lives of the others.

“Go,” he said. “Now. The floor is structurally weakest in the center of each apartment—use your grenades to break through it, and get back to the trucks in the basement. Head for the Deck. I’ll find Kyntak and Two.”

The agents nodded and headed down the corridor, following Agent Five. They were soon out of sight around a corner.

The stairwell door was still open. Six put his foot on the handle and climbed up onto the top of the door. It rocked on its hinges, but being thick and heavy, its inertia was too strong for the movement to dislodge him.

He ducked instinctively as another blast of gunfire came from the floor above, closer this time. Keeping one hand on the door, he drew his Owl pistol from his belt and aimed it at the upper doorway.