Authors: Jack Heath
“I’m headed back to the Deck now,” Six said as he turned a corner. Fluorescent lamps were flickering on throughout the streets as the fog darkened around the car. The roads and paths were becoming more crowded; people of all ages were driving, walking, jogging, and cycling in and out of the gloom.
Because the lamps lit the City better than the feeble daylight, most of the citizens chose to emerge from their houses at night-time. The suffocating fog kept the temperature much the same, and because the City was in the Southern Hemisphere, the summer solstice was only five hours longer than the winter one—perfect conditions for the nocturnal.
Six had the feeling that ChaoSonic would standardize the weather completely if they could—make a permanent grey middle ground between day and night, tone the wind down to a dull breeze, and set the temperature to an eternal nineteen degrees Celsius. Consumers reacted more predictably in unchanging environments. But he took some comfort from the knowledge that ChaoSonic didn’t have that power. No one did. Regardless of what happened down here in the City—skies soiled, bombs dropped, people murdered—the world just kept on turning, obliviously spinning its infinite loops around the sun.
Maybe life’s greatest condolence
, he thought,
is how little difference any of us makes to the big picture. And maybe our greatest strength is that we never stop trying.
“We’ve only got an hour and fifty minutes left until the deadline,” King was saying in his headset. “What’s your ETA?”
“About ten minutes,” Six replied. “What’s the situation with the money?”
“I’ll conference the call to Grysat; he’ll explain that.”
There was a short pause, then Grysat’s voice came on the line. “Can you hear me, Six?”
“I read you,” Six said. He swerved to overtake a motorcycle; the driver pulled back, sensibly. “What’s the plan?”
“I’ve rounded up a hundred million credits,” Grysat began. “It’s ready to be transferred to the account in the ransom demand at the click of a mouse.”
“Have you rigged it so it can be traced?” Six asked. “They’ll check for that.”
“Each digital credit has time-activated beacon software on it, which is armed only after it’s been moved twice. So when we move it into the kidnappers’ account, they’ll scan it, but they shouldn’t see anything because it hasn’t been armed. When they move it again to hide it from us, that’s the trigger. That’s when every single credit of the money will send out the name and password of the account it’s in.”
“Will they be able to stop it?”
“It’s likely they won’t even notice,” Grysat said. “The burst of data takes seven microseconds, so even if it sets off their security alarms, the damage will be done long before they work out what has happened. And once it’s armed, the beacon can’t be disarmed, so even if they know it’s there, they can’t do anything about it. Worst-case scenario, they scan it thoroughly a second
time and see the armed beacon, and then they try to launder the money digitally. But laundering a hundred million credits in less than twelve hours is difficult, and even if they succeed, when the beacon is activated we’ll have the names and passwords of all the accounts the money ends up in.”
“So we could get it back,” Six said, “and follow a digital trail to the kidnappers?”
“Exactly. Relax, Six. The money is taken care of. You just focus on getting Kyntak.”
“I’m setting up a team to stake out the drop-off point,” King said, taking over. “They’ll be in their civvies, fully briefed, and ready to leave in thirty minutes.”
So they’ll be there and in place about an hour before the drop-off
, Six thought.
It’ll have to do.
“How many?”
“Five Hearts, three Clubs. Enough to watch every entrance to the street corner.”
“Six? I have more information for you.” The new voice on the line was Ace of Diamonds.
“I’m listening,” said Six.
“The unconscious soldiers have all been brought back to the Deck.”
“Are they responding to interrogation?”
“I can’t wake them up.”
Six frowned. “Any of them?”
“They’re still unconscious. All fourteen of them.”
“But how?” said Six.
“Someone must have shot them with tranquilizer darts. There are trace amounts of Syncal-4 in their bloodstreams—nothing like the amount they pumped into you, but enough to keep them sleeping for another half hour at least. I can’t find any needle marks, but it could be another strange kind of dart.”
Six frowned. “None of the Deck agents were armed with tranquilizers.”
“It’s the best explanation I have,” Ace said.
Six thought about the woman who’d grabbed him from behind, and her cryptic warning. Could she have shot some of the soldiers with a tranq gun? Or perhaps Kyntak had picked one up and used it.
“I’ll come down and take a look after I see King.” Six swung his car into the parking garage.
The line clicked dead.
It isn’t right
, Retuni Lerke thought.
My sons, taken from me so many times. None to raise as my own.
The fire had hurt most. In one blazing sweep, Six, Kyntak, and Sevadonn had been released into the City to do as they pleased. He had not been given the chance to bring them up like a good father should—and they had been too young to shoulder their own responsibilities without a wise guiding hand.
They’re still too young
, he thought.
Sixteen? They’ve grown up quickly, but they shouldn’t have had to. What sixteen-year-old is ready to be responsible for all his actions?
No wonder they had turned out so wrong.
He knew Crexe was dead—and he was glad. The fire had been Crexe’s intervention, and it had torn all their lives apart. Years later, Crexe had crippled the old man’s fourth son, mere hours after growing him. Lerke’s glorious genome. Used to make a mere organ donor. And then Crexe had killed Sevadonn, the child Lerke had been closest to. The use of Crexe’s corpse as bait had seemed a fitting end.
Lerke coughed, and scuffed his feet angrily against the carpet. His elation had been temporary. Crexe had been the lesser of two evils, or at least the more foolish. Vanish was smarter. He had already captured Kyntak. Kyntak was the old man’s least favorite son, but the loss of a child still hurt. What kind of father stops caring for his children, even once they fail him?
Without help, Six would certainly fall. He was headed down a dark path. Vanish would get the better of him, and then Lerke would be left with no sons at all. Four years of design, sixteen years of observation, all wasted—Project Falcon terminated at last and nothing to show for it. Lerke had sent Nai to act as Six’s guardian angel, but he was far from sure she would be protection enough.
And she couldn’t be Lerke’s living legacy, not in the same way that Six or Kyntak could. He had made her strong of body and mind, and she was growing up to become something very special. But she didn’t have the same telomeres—Lerke had been watched too closely as he designed her to include them. He certainly hadn’t been prepared to reveal his genetic invention to Crexe. Lerke had never even wanted a daughter; Crexe had been the one who insisted that the next generation should be female, and had demanded all sorts of other specifications. Lerke had fought it every step of the way, but it had been futile.
With Sevadonn dead, the nameless one crippled, and Kyntak captured by Vanish and therefore doomed, only Six could be a living testament to Lerke’s genius. And if he, too, were to die at Vanish’s hands, Lerke’s heart would break.
He could have no more children. Designing them was hard, raising them was harder, and he lacked the energy to make more, even if he had the resources. Six was his final chance to leave a
lasting impression on the City, make Retuni Lerke a name that people would remember. But Six was in a deadly situation he didn’t understand.
Like any parent, Lerke was torn.
Do I show faith in the abilities of my son
, he wondered,
or step in to protect him? Can I really let him face Vanish, and lose? Is there anything I can do to prevent it?
There was a way, he realized. He could stop Six from trying to rescue Kyntak. And then he could concentrate on keeping Nai safe, without having to worry about Six. It was risky—but less risky than letting him stay on his current path. Choose your battles, and you’ll win most of them.
The decision was made. The old man picked up the telephone.
Six pushed the button for King’s floor. The elevator doors slid closed.
His phone buzzed in his pocket. He flipped it open and put it to his ear. “Yes?”
“I want you to go to the drop-off point right now.” It was King. “Stop what you’re doing, and go.”
Six frowned. “I’m almost at your office. Has something happened?”
“Trust me,” King said. “It’s important. If you don’t hurry…you might not make the rendezvous.”
His voice sounded measured, hesitant. Six got the feeling that he was choosing his words carefully. “Is someone in the room with you?” he asked. “Say, ‘Okay, call me when you get there’ for yes.”
“Not yet.”
The elevator doors slid open. Six hesitated before going through them. Not yet? “King, what’s going on? Is this—”
“Just do what I tell you,” King interrupted. “Go to the drop-off point. That’s an order.” He ended the call.
Six put his hand over the laser to stop the doors from closing. He stood uncertainly on the threshold.
If I go to the drop-off point now
, he thought,
there’ll be no other agents backing me up. Why would King send me there so soon?
He sounded on edge, Six thought. Was that because of the imminent deadline, or because someone had compromised him? If there’d been someone in the room, he would have said so. Was someone listening in on the line?
The phone lines in the Deck were protected by the same firewall as the computer networks, and should be almost impossible to hack into unless you were actually inside the building.
But the kidnappers have amazing manpower as far as infantry goes
, Six thought.
Maybe their computer hackers are equally good.
Insufficient information to act upon, Six thought. He looked at his watch: 17:22:02. He’d go to see King in person, and if he was okay and sent him straight to the rendezvous, he’d have only wasted a minute or two.
He let the doors close behind him and started jogging towards King’s office. Then he stopped.
There were two figures coming out of the stairwell at the far end of the corridor, both wearing black suits and anti-flash goggles. They were carrying pistols.
One waited at the stairwell door, gun lowered. The other headed towards King’s office.
Something clicked in Six’s head. The monitoring of telephone conversations would be easier if you were already behind the firewall, and had a surveillance team inside the building.
He looked closely at their uniforms. Each had a silver circle on the shoulder with a black shape in the center. The Spades, he realized. But why were they here, in the red building?
Stop what you’re doing, and go. If you don’t hurry…you might not make the rendezvous.
They’re looking for me
, he realized.
Someone has tipped them off about Project Falcon, and now they’ve come for me!
His first instinct was to run to King’s office to protect him. If the Spades knew about Six, they’d probably know that King had been covering for him, and King would be in danger. But logic stopped him. There was no way out of King’s office other than the front door, so they’d both be sitting ducks.
King had said to get out of the building—and he hadn’t used Six’s name when he called. That suggested he thought the Spades couldn’t implicate him yet—and so it would be best for Six to follow his instructions.
Six turned back towards the elevator. There were two similarly dressed agents at the stairwell at the other end of the corridor. One was guarding the door, the other was headed his way.
Six pushed the button and waited for the doors to open. His heart was pounding in his chest as he felt the Spades agent draw nearer. They were sure to have seen him by now, so his fate depended on their orders. Apprehend and arrest King? If so, they would go to King’s office and leave Six alone. Locate and apprehend Agent Six of Hearts? Then they would attack him in a matter of seconds.
The elevator doors slid open. Six walked in as casually and calmly as he could, and pushed the button for the ground floor.
He waited for the doors to shut. Footsteps were drawing closer from either side—the agent who had been headed towards
King’s office evidently hadn’t gone in. Both Spades were coming towards the elevator. Six jabbed the button for the ground floor again, even though he knew that wouldn’t make the doors close any quicker.
The footsteps were very near now.
Six sank into a close-quarters boxing stance: knees slightly bent, most body weight resting on his back leg, one forearm extended to guard his torso and his other fist hovering next to his cheek. A punch, no matter how strong or well placed, was inadequate next to an accurate bullet, but it seemed to be his only option. The setting was on his side—the enclosed space of the elevator leveled the playing field a little—optimum range for most pistols in combat was between two and eight meters, and the elevator was less than two meters square.
The quiet footsteps stopped. Six sensed that the two agents were standing on either side of the elevator. He squeezed his fists tighter.
The doors began to slide shut. There was a grunt of dismay from one of the Spades, who tried to stop them with his free hand. His fingers didn’t find the laser in time, and he pulled his hand back before it could be crushed between the doors.
Six took a deep breath. There would be more Spades waiting for him in the lobby. He needed a plan of action.
He had nothing he could use to disguise himself. He was still in the civvies he had worn to Shuji’s house—a long black coat, dark blue jeans, and grey running shoes. He couldn’t pass himself off as another agent.
He could fight his way out, but where would that lead? The lobby could be full of people—Hearts and Diamonds. If Six tried to fight a squad of Spades in the presence of so many of his colleagues, some of them would almost certainly be hurt or killed.
Enclosed gunfights always had collateral damage. Procedure dictated that once an agent was implicated in Code-breaking behavior, he was not allowed to leave Deck custody until he was proven innocent; all other considerations were secondary, including the life of the agent in question and that of any bystander caught in the cross fire. And it wasn’t as if the other agents could just leave for their own safety when the Spades showed up, because standard protocol was to put the Deck into lockdown status as soon as an agent became a suspect. No one could enter or leave.