by Jack Heath
The eight carriers were bookended by two teams of three agents, bulked up with full body armour, although Six wasn’t sure the special bullets the soldiers were using wouldn’t penetrate it. They each carried ri?es loaded with tranquilliser rounds. Sammy had reasoned that although the time-soldiers couldn’t be killed, there was no rule that said they couldn’t be knocked out. Ace had proved it.
‘Ready to go?’ Kyntak asked. He was carrying the soldier Six had captured over his shoulder. They had discussed leaving him behind, but decided that his immortality may offer some protection to them. As long as he was among them, they were protected from any kind of mass attack, like nerve gas or grenade blasts or anything else the time-soldiers had come armed with.
Everyone was ready to climb the ladder. Six just had to push the button.
‘Yes,’ Six said. ‘Get back.’
They all trooped back to the line. An agent passed Six the detonator – a basic grey box with an extendable antenna and three switches.
‘Detonation in three,’ Six said, flicking the first switch.
‘Two.’ He flicked the second.
‘One.’
It took a nanosecond for the signal to travel through the air from the detonator to the explosives. Six barely heard the click of the last switch before the whole corridor lurched, the air thrumming with energy, and a tsunami of smoke and vaporised concrete blasted out of the cell up ahead. Six sneezed violently as brick dust filled his nostrils.
The air hadn’t even cleared before King said, ‘There’s a good chance they heard that.’
‘No,’ Six replied. ‘If they had, they’d already be here. Let’s move.’
The group marched forwards towards the demolished cell. Looking up, Six saw that the hole they’d made was almost a perfect square. The night sky above glowed with re?ected City lights.
He lifted the ladder and propped it against the edge of the square above. He checked the safety on his tranq rifle. And then he started climbing.
Six’s shoes clunked against the metal. When he was seven rungs up, he heard the agent behind him start climbing the ladder. When he was twelve rungs up, he heard the one after that start.
Six paused as he neared the top. He cocked his head and listened. He could hear a light breeze, traffic on a distant highway, and the breathing of the agents on the ladder below him. Nothing suspicious.
Six climbed up another rung so as he could see above the lip of the hole. He scanned the left side. There were a couple of cars parked near the Deck’s main building, and the bony frame of a bicycle rusting on the ground in the foggy distance. Nothing suspicious. He turned his head to the right. Silent streets, empty of everything but shadows and grime. No sign of soldiers or pedestrians or other agents or anybody.
Six turned his head to look behind him – and his heart kicked his ribs as he found himself looking into the barrel of a gun.
Held by a giant time-soldier.
Surrounded by half a dozen other giant time-soldiers.
They had known where the Deck agents were. They had known about the escape plan in advance, and they had set up a trap.
Adrenaline blasting through his body, Six let go of the ladder.
Even as he started to fall, he was raising his rifle and taking aim at the closest soldier’s face. He shouted ‘Get back!’ to the agents behind him as he pulled the trigger and felt the gun shake in his hands and saw the giant’s head twitch backwards as the dart exploded harmlessly against his visor, and then the soldiers disappeared from view as Six fell below the edge of the hole and crashed down on top of the agent on the ladder beneath him.
The agent grunted in surprise and lost his grip, and the two of them plummeted towards the third one, Six roaring ‘Retreat!’ as he saw that the group around the bottom of the ladder still weren’t moving.
He slammed down on top of the other two agents and immediately bounced off them, landing on his back. The square hole above was now directly in front of him, and he saw a soldier’s face peering down into it, helmet strapped tight onto his skull, eyes turned sideways like those of the girl Allich had used for her demonstration. Six fired his rifle again, but missed – the dart shattered against the concrete ceiling. As Six was lining up a second shot, the soldier jumped down through the hole, rushing towards Six, boots first.
Six rolled aside, scuffing up a cloud of dust as the soldier landed next to him.
‘Run,’ he yelled, just in case the other agents were still standing nearby and hadn’t realised retreat was their only option. He heard one of the soldiers mimicking his words. ‘They’re all out there! Get back to the –’
A splatter of pain burst inside Six’s skull as the soldier’s foot slammed into it. For a moment the world not only seemed to spin around him, but it also looked off-colour, like a TV screen put too close to a magnet. When his gaze steadied, he was looking right into the eyes of the soldier who’d kicked him, the one with the helmet – and now that he was up close, he saw the crooked nose and the jaw line scar. It was the same soldier Six had captured earlier.
Six whipped his head around, trying to spot Kyntak. If the soldier had broken away from him …
Kyntak was retreating with the others, trying to reach the safety on his gun without dropping the prisoner he carried over one arm.
What the hell? Six thought. Not only are they all giants – they’re all the same man!
He didn’t have time to finish this train of thought. The helmeted soldier was charging forwards. Six saw another identical man land in a crouch behind him – it was the one he’d shot, the one with the visor. The soldiers were coming down into the cells.
Six fired his rifle at Helmet. The dart crumpled against his Kevlar vest. Six swung the rifle forwards, aiming to hit the soldier in the sternum with the grip – but Helmet saw the blow coming. He grabbed the rifle with gloved hands and wrenched it away from Six, all without breaking stride. Six was slammed against the wall of the cell, a big, thick forearm across his throat.
Another soldier jumped down through the hole and landed on the floor. And then another.
The soldier who’d pinned Six, Helmet, wasn’t pressing hard enough to choke him. He just held Six there. He knows how this fight is supposed to go, Six realised. He knows he won’t be able to choke me to death, so he doesn’t even try.
Rather than feeling encouraged by this knowledge, Six felt hopelessness seep into his bones. The outcome of this battle was predetermined. And though he didn’t know exactly how it would end, he was pinned to the wall in a cell with four soldiers who could see the future. It didn’t look good.
Six clenched his teeth until the muscles bulged through his cheeks. If I’m going to lose, he thought, it’s not going to be because I gave up.
He threw a kick at Helmet’s knee. Helmet twisted aside, dodging the strike – and his arm came off Six’s neck. Six fell to the floor, and squeezed his right hand into the tightest fist he’d ever made.
These soldiers weren’t superhuman. They just seemed that way because they saw everything in advance. The way to overcome that, Six realised, was with brute force. He was going to throw a punch so hard, so fast, with so much energy that it wouldn’t matter if Helmet saw it coming or not.
Six launched himself forwards.
He twisted his body in mid-air, focusing all his weight into the strike. A ripple of force thundered through his arm as it swung through the air. The muscles in his shoulder flexed, passing the energy up into his bicep and tricep, which tensed up and threw the energy out into his forearm, which channelled it all into his rock-hard fist. His knuckles rocketed through the air so fast he was surprised they didn’t travel back in time.
Helmet didn’t even try to block the strike – he must have known he wouldn’t succeed.
WHAM!
His head jerked backwards as Six’s fist slammed down onto it, and his eyes rolled upwards until Six could see just the whites. Only as Helmet crumpled to the ground did Six realise that he was screaming li
ke a swooping bird of prey.
His arm fell to his side. His breaths came in shuddering heaves.
Their powers are limited, he thought. And now he understood why. The time-soldiers couldn’t change their fates too much – because doing so would create a paradox. If one of them were shot in the leg, he would know about it in advance, so he could put on body-armour to avoid injury. But he couldn’t use his future knowledge to dodge the bullet, because then he wouldn’t be hit by it, and therefore wouldn’t know about it in the first place.
This was how Ace had managed to take down that first soldier with a crowbar to the side of the head. He had never known what hit him – and therefore couldn’t protect himself against it without paradoxing.
These men, these identical killers, were perhaps the most potent enemy Six had ever faced. They were immortal. They were inhumanly strong. They didn’t seem to feel pain. And they defied the normal laws of cause and effect.
But they could be fought. It was possible.
The soldier with the visor turned to face Six. He glanced down at Helmet, showing no sign of surprise. Then he leaped forwards, fist first.
Six made no move to block the strike; Visor wouldn’t have thrown it if it wasn’t going to connect. Instead, he shifted his weight sideways, ensuring a steady foundation for when the impact came – and he tilted his head, so he was facing the oncoming blow, and bowed slightly.
The punch landed just below Six’s hairline, hard enough to dent thick aluminium. Six felt the shock spiral down through his entire body. But he didn’t fall. The soldier’s fist had collided with the top of Six’s forehead, where his skull was thickest. It had been designed that way by decades of genetic research and millions of years of evolution before that.
Six didn’t give Visor time for a second shot. He reared up and kicked him in the chest, slamming his foot forwards so hard that it catapulted Visor backwards across the cell until his hundred-plus kilogram body crashed into the wall.
The other soldiers had left the cell. Six staggered out into the corridor after them. The agents had disappeared. Presumably they had run past the guard station and through the triple-reinforced steel doors, back into the Deck. There were two soldiers walking towards the doors.
Six had to buy the other agents some time, help them ?nd another way to escape. He charged at the soldiers from behind, fists raised.
Mistake. As Six launched into a ?ying tackle, the soldier he was aiming at ducked and turned to face him, all in one seamless motion. He punched Six in the sternum as he fiew overhead, adding violent force to Six’s out-of-control dive, and sending him smashing backwards into the steel doors. Six flopped down onto the floor.
Sweat was in his eyes. Dust was sticking to his brow. His ribs ached. His coccyx ached. Everything ached.
Got to move, he thought. Got to keep them occupied.
He dragged himself to his feet. The soldiers were unholstering their guns. Six had left his tranq rifie in Crexe’s old cell. He couldn’t reach the panel to key in the buttons that would open the steel door and let him out. He had no choice but to rush them again, attack them with raw physical force –
– and then someone pushed him back down onto the floor. His view was blocked by a dusty shape. Six looked up, trying to see the agent’s face.
It was Kyntak. He was standing directly in front of Six, screening him from the soldiers. But he wasn’t moving. This seemed to be the end of his plan.
‘Kyntak,’ Six hissed. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Saving your skin,’ Kyntak murmured. And then Six saw that he was holding the unconscious soldier in front of him, a human shield.
The other soldiers couldn’t fire their guns. Not because they weren’t willing to – they literally couldn’t. As long as Six and Kyntak were behind their invincible prisoner, they were safe.
From guns, Six thought. But now the soldiers were walking towards them, with slow, measured steps. Either they knew the twins would escape before they arrived, or they knew they’d be able to kill them both before they got the door open.
‘The keypad,’ Kyntak said.
‘I can’t reach it.’
‘Stay close.’
Kyntak eased to the right. Six shuffied along the floor behind him, reached up, and punched in the code.
The door slid open.
Six and Kyntak dived backwards through the doorway, Kyntak dragging the sleeping soldier behind him. Six slammed his hand down on the emergency close button on the other side. The door slid shut.
For a moment Six thought he smelled something strange. The air tasted almost metallic. Then the scent was gone before he could place it.
That’s weird, he thought.
‘We need to ?nd the others,’ Kyntak was saying.
Six nodded.
Their Project Falcon refiexes and strength were the only things that stood a chance against the time-soldiers, Six knew. Without him or Kyntak there to defend them, the other Deck agents would be rats in a cat kennel.
‘Which way would they have gone?’ Kyntak asked.
Six hesitated.
At the same time, they each pointed in different directions down the corridor, and said, ‘This way.’
There’s no way of knowing for sure, Six thought.
‘We split up,’ Kyntak said. ‘When one of us finds them, call the other.’
‘Okay,’ Six said. ‘You want the soldier, or should I take him?’
The soldier was protection – the only bulletproof vest that was worth anything against the soldiers’ ammunition. But he was also a signi?cant burden, weighing over a hundred kilograms.
‘I’ll take him,’ Kyntak said. ‘I’ve grown fond of him. He’s like an especially warm scarf.’
Six nodded. ‘See you soon.’
And they ran in opposite directions.
Six figured the first place he should check was the cafeteria. It was spacious enough to hold everyone, for one thing. And it had big heavy doors, which could be easily barricaded with tables and chairs. It seemed a likely destination for the fieeing agents.
This had been a lousy day. Only – he looked at his watch – nineteen hours ago, he’d been running along the deck of a warship, acid rain burning holes through his skin. Between then and now, he’d been shot at and beaten up, and had watched dozens of people die.
Six had become accustomed to suffering. He could hardly imagine life without it. But he wasn’t used to failure – and today had been ?lled with that too. He hadn’t found the SARS. He hadn’t found the nuclear warhead. He hadn’t rescued Allich’s prisoner.
But maybe, just maybe, he could save the other agents. Maybe he wasn’t completely useless.
He pushed open the cafeteria doors. The fact that they were unlocked told him everything he needed to know. The place was deserted – tables and chairs and heat trays all empty, waiting for diners who might never return.
Six was about to turn away, go looking somewhere else. But something caught his eye. A shiver of movement near the entrance to the kitchens.
Even as his gaze snapped towards it, it was gone. Six couldn’t tell what it had been. The corner of the cafeteria was completely still.
Whoever or whatever it had been, they must have heard him enter. And if it was a soldier, surely he wouldn’t be hiding.
‘Identify yourself,’ Six called.
Nothing. Silence.
Six took a step forwards into the cafeteria. The doors creaked closed behind him.
He could smell something odd in the air – the same odour as before. It reminded him of cooking, but he couldn’t tell which food. Surely no-one could be making a meal?
Six walked past the tables and chairs towards the kitchen door. He saw movement again. A slight shimmering in the air, like the rippling effect that appears above blacktop on a hot day.
And suddenly Six could place the smell. It was butanethiol.
Butanethiol was a chemical compound that had an unpleasant stench, but was harmless in small am
ounts. For this reason, it was used as a safety feature in airborne compounds that were colourless and odourless – like natural gas.
Flammable gas. Explosive gas.
Six shoved open the door to the kitchens. The smell was overpowering in here, and the air all around him was warping and shivering. He saw that the gas nozzles on the stovetops had been ripped off, nullifying the auto-stop safety features. Gagging on the bad air, Six ran along the line of stoves, twisting all the valves back to zero, stopping more deadly gas from pouring into the room.
Had the soldiers done this? Was their plan to poison the air in the Deck, killing all the agents no matter where they were hiding? But that would take days, and surely –
And then Six saw the bomb.
It was small – a cube of only about thirty centimetres to a side. But it was clearly a bomb – it had a primer, a detonator, a power source. And it didn’t need to be large. Not when flammable gas had stained the air all over the Deck, magnifying the blast a thousand times, turning the whole building into one giant explosive.
There was no timer. It could go off at any second. For a moment Six imagined that he could hear ticking – but that was ridiculous, as modern bombs almost never had clockwork mechanisms. A bomb about to explode would beep, or vibrate –
Vvvt. Vvvt.
Six stumbled backwards, eyes wide, jaw falling open. His mouth ?lled with the coppery taste of the gas, and he started coughing. He ran out of the kitchens and was halfway across the cafeteria before he realised that the vibration had come from the phone in his pocket.
He snapped it open. ‘Kyntak.’
‘I found the others,’ Kyntak said. ‘We’re barricaded in the –’
‘You have to get out,’ Six said. ‘Right now. There’s a bomb in the kitchens, right next to a massive gas leak.’
