by Jack Heath
Kyntak found a small pouch in the rubber skin, and deposited the tube inside. 'Got it.'
'Can you see through walls?' Jack asked. 'Or am I thinking of Superman?'
'Who's Superman?'
'A religious figure from pre-takeover times, I think. I was joking.'
'Oh. Well, I can't see through walls.'
Jack tossed him a collapsible telescope. 'Now you can. Press the lens against the wall and extend it to turn it on. The battery's good for twenty minutes.'
'How does it work? X-ray?'
'I tried that, but my test-subjects kept getting eye-cancer. So this one uses magnetism.'
Kyntak hoped Jack was kidding again. 'Thanks. Is that everything?'
Jack ran a hand through his curly hair. 'That's all I got,' he said. 'Good luck.'
The Deck wouldn't be much without Six, Kyntak thought. 'For both our sakes,' he replied.
* * *
Kyntak parked the sedan on the shoulder of a highway about two kliks from the building. He figured that was safe. Other cars rumbled past from time to time, headed for various destinations at various speeds, providing his vehicle with a certain amount of camouflage.
He stepped out of the car and pulled off his coat, revealing the reflective skin. Then he scrambled down the concrete embankment toward the endless fields of rubble and debris below.
When he reached the flat surface, he started running. Kyntak could sprint at almost 40 kliks per hour, but here the broken bricks and crooked shards of plastic slowed him down. He kept his head low, partly to reduce his visibility from the road, partly to sweep the ground for hazards as he ran.
After about two minutes he skidded to a halt, kicking up a cloud of dust. The dust drifted past a dark metal cube, illuminating a spiderweb of laser tripwires. Perhaps the cube was rigged to explode if the beams were breached. Maybe it simply sounded an alarm.
Six would have spotted this, he thought. Therefore it's new. Set up to catch whoever came after him.
The laser beams faded from view as the ashes settled, but Kyntak had already memorised their positions. He hopscotched from one safe patch to the next until he was clear of the trap. Then he kept running through the broken rocks.
His gaze stayed low. There could be inner rings of security.
The building appeared up ahead, a square silhouette in the swirling fog. Six's phone was inside. Probably some ChaoSonic soldiers, too. Possibly – hopefully – Six himself.
Kyntak stopped moving. He crouched in the fog for a few minutes, just watching.
No-one left the building. No-one came in, either.
He crept closer, willing himself to believe that the rubber skin made him invisible. The silence was overpowering. Under different circumstances, Kyntak would have bet a hundred credits that the building was empty.
He circled it until he reached the back door and flattened himself against it, listening. No sound.
Stretching out Jack's telescope, he pressed the lens against the door. The eyepiece gave him a grainy, monochromatic view of the empty corridor behind it.
Kyntak tried the handle. Locked. He squirted some of Jack's lock-picking liquid into the lock, and listened for fifteen seconds as the acidic gel ate the tumblers. They crackled as he turned the handle and pulled.
The corridor wasn't much different in colour than it had been in black and white. Dirty, but not disused. Kyntak could see patterns in the grime beneath his feet – some parts had been more recently walked on that others. He followed the most recent trail, as quickly as he dared.
It led through the dirty shadows to another door, bolted shut from the outside.
Who locks a room from the outside, Kyntak thought, within a locked, deserted building?
Someone who's keeping a prisoner.
He extended the telescope and pressed it against the door–
And froze.
What the hell was that?
Chapter Seven: The Plan
The building wasn't what Six had expected. For one thing, there was an incredible amount of space around it – two, perhaps even three metres. In Six's time, adjacent buildings were never further apart than the width of a motorcycle.
The second thing to surprise him was the impracticality of it. The windows on the street-side wall looked too clear to be bulletproof. The front door was wooden, and even if it concealed steel panels, it had been hung crookedly in the frame, leaving gaps through which gaseous neurotoxins could easily be pumped. The dented sedan rested on the driveway rather than behind the bars of the car-port, where it could be easily sabotaged.
What kind of operational headquarters was this?
'Welcome to my humble home,' Ash said, as she walked up the front path toward the door.
'You live here?'
She shot him a defensive look. 'You got a problem with that?'
'Me? No,' Six said. 'But you should.'
'The best security isn't obvious to casual observers,' Benjamin said. He sounded like he was trying to protect the girl's feelings.
'Wrong,' Six said. 'The best security is obvious, so as to deter intruders. And by the way, I'm no casual observer.'
Ash twisted the key in the lock. 'Take it from a thief,' she said. 'Ostentatious security draws us in. Gets us wondering what might be inside. Shut your mouth for a minute, would you?'
She pushed the door open. 'Hi Dad!'
Dad? Six thought.
There was no response from inside the house. Ash beckoned. Benjamin followed her into the house, with Six trailing reluctantly behind.
He found himself in a dusty living area. A plastic-rimmed clock ticked on the wall. Some kind of qualification had been framed and placed upon a scratched wooden side-table. The cream carpet was thin and grey in certain pathways, indicating to Six that people usually passed through this room without sitting down.
Today, however, a middle-aged man with faded corduroy trousers and a vaguely bohemian air sat cross-legged on the couch.
'Hi Dad,' Ash said again.
The man's hazel eyes swivelled behind thick glasses. 'Oh. Hi.' He cleared his throat, as though he hadn't spoken in a while. 'Hi Ash.'
Benjamin raised his hand. 'Hey Mr Arthur.'
'Benjamin.' The man turned to look at Six. 'Hello there.'
'Dad, this is Quentin,' Ash said. 'He goes to school with Benjamin. I'm helping them with their group project.'
Six frowned. Quentin?
'Nice to meet you, Quentin,' Arthur said. Something caught his eye on the street, and he turned to face the window.
Six looked back at Ash, who was already moving deeper into the house. Apparently, the conversation was over.
Ashley's bedroom was spare compared to the rest of the house. She had a bed, and a desktop PC which looked like it had been custom-built from outdated components. Besides a few books on an unpainted shelf, she seemed to have no other possessions.
Six entered the room, and shut the door behind him. 'What's wrong with your father?'
Ash's voice was icy. 'Nothing's wrong with my father.'
Six let it go. Antagonising his hosts further would serve no purpose.
'So I've got good news and bad news,' Benjamin said.
'Bad first,' Ash prompted.
'Uh... it doesn't really work that way around.'
'Fine. Good first.'
'I've found the ununoctium.'
Six turned his head toward Benjamin fast enough to give whiplash to a human. 'Where?'
'Yeah, that's the bad news,' Benjamin said. 'It's at the top of Vepa Tower.'
Ash swore.
'What's that?' Six asked.
'A trap, is what it is,' Ash said. 'Seventy floors high. Only one entrance, protected by a military checkpoint. The scientists live on-site, so there are hardly any comings or goings. Anybody who tries to get in will be scrutinised for hours. And the computer systems are impenetrable, so we can't authorise ourselves to get in.'
'How do you know so much about it?'
'We cased it
once before. The world's biggest uncut pink diamond was shipped there for verification before it was purchased by the museum of natural history.'
'And you couldn't get in?'
'We didn't try. It's impossible.' Ash turned back to Benjamin. 'How do you know it's up there?'
'Stabilising ununoctium is really, really complicated and difficult.' Benjamin sat down on Ash's bed. 'A journalist asked the defense minister what precautions had been taken to prevent an explosion. The minister gave the usual speech – a very safe procedure, several layers of security, blah, blah, blah – and then said the tests were being done on the top floor of Vepa, so as even if there was an explosion, the civilian population had nothing to worry about. It's a long way away from the nearest town, and it's too high up to risk causing an earthquake.'
'How do I get there?' Six asked.
Benjamin stared at him. 'Did you hear anything I just said? It's impossible to get in.'
'For you, maybe. Do you have a map?'
'You're not going without us,' Ash said.
Six raised an eyebrow. 'Are you going to stop me?'
'The soldiers will.'
'Unlikely.' Six turned to leave. He could find a map elsewhere.
'Wait.'
Six looked back. Ash's brow was furrowed in furious thought. Her gaze was on Six, but he didn't feel like she was seeing him.
Why is she so desperate to come with me? he wondered.
'Benjamin,' Ash said. 'Did you ever finish that microwave emitter?'
Benjamin shook his head. 'I never got it working. The amount of heat required to melt a padlock–'
'Forget the heat. Can it transmit microwaves over, say, four hundred metres?'
'Sure. Weak ones.'
'That's all we need.' Ash pulled a screwdriver out of her handbag, opened the cupboard door and started unwinding the bolts which attached the coat hook to the wall.
'What are you thinking?' Benjamin asked.
'I'm thinking we'll need rope.'
* * *
'You're sure this won't give us cancer, or something?' Ash asked.
'What?'
She raised her voice to be heard over the drumming of the wheels. She'd borrowed her Dad's car, which wasn't well insulated for sound. 'You're sure this won't give us cancer?'
Benjamin chuckled nervously on the back seat as he adjusted the settings on the tubular machine. 'On the electromagnetic radiation spectrum,' he said, 'microwave radiation is about as safe as visible light.'
'So why are there all those warning labels on the back of my microwave oven?'
'Because you're likely to get electrocuted if you fiddle around back there. And I should know – I made this out of bits of an old microwave. But there's no need for you to worry about cancer or electric shock. We're far more likely to get blown up.'
The steering wheel shuddered in Ash's hands. She knew he was only half kidding. 'Great,' she said. 'Thanks.'
The boy from the future sat in the passenger seat, watching the desert crawl past behind the window. 'This was your idea,' he said.
'Using the emitter? Yes,' Ash said. 'Doing it tonight? No. That was your idea.'
'The longer we wait, the more the past is influenced by my presence,' Six said. 'And we don't know how long the ununoctium will be in Vepa Tower. Waiting could have catastrophic consequences.'
'I just like to be careful,' Ash said. 'That's all. I triple-check things.'
Benjamin said, 'Does that mean you'll be asking twice more?'
'Pedant.'
Six leaned forward, and pointed. 'There. The tower.'
Ash peered into the blackness between the stars. 'You sure?'
He nodded.
Ash turned off the headlights. It was unlikely that anyone would be looking in their direction with a pair of binoculars, but she didn't want to take the risk.
'Benjamin,' she said. 'How close do you need to be?'
Benjamin consulted his GPS. 'Another three hundred metres would do it.'
After a few seconds, Ash lifted her foot off the accelerator and let the car roll to a gradual stop so the brake lights didn't flash.
Benjamin opened the door, climbed out, and pulled the microwave emitter after him by its rubber handles. He leaned back in. 'Keep the radio channels open.'
'Got it.'
'Good luck. Both of you.'
'You too,' Ash said. She couldn't meet his eye. If she saw that he was scared, she would get scared too.
Six said nothing.
Benjamin closed the door. Ash drove away, leaving him behind in the blackness.
* * *
Ash rubbed her palms together, trying to ward off the cold. Her breath clouded in front of her face. Her toes were numb.
She and Six were crouched in the shadows about two hundred metres from the tower. They'd left the car in a shallow ditch behind a low dune. Six was motionless, apparently impervious to the chilling breeze. A coil of nylon climbing rope was draped over his shoulder.
Up ahead, soldiers moved back and forth from tent to tent, spotlit under the halogen lamps. Equipment jingled on their belts. Heavy boots thudded the dirt.
There were twice as many soldiers as there had been a minute ago. It was changeover time. Half of them had just finished an eight hour shift. The other half were about to begin their watch.
Behind them, a concrete bunker lay in the shadows. The lights in the windows were out. The scientists were probably asleep. Behind that, Vepa Tower loomed against the night sky, seventy storeys high. A solitary red light blinked on top, warding off passing aircraft.
'If you succeed in changing the future,' Ash whispered, 'you'll disappear. Right?'
'Probably.'
'So you and I will never have met.'
Six nodded. He didn't seem perturbed by this.
Ash planned to steal the ununoctium, rather than letting Six destroy it. That way, the future would still be changed, and Six would disappear, leaving Ash with several million dollars worth of rare elements to sell.
But if she and Six had never met, then she wouldn't be here to steal the ununoctium. So what would happen then?
Maybe I'll find myself with an $11 million violin in my hands, she thought. It was Six's appearance which screwed that up.
'We wouldn't be able to see them,' Six said. 'In my time.'
Ash looked over. 'Hmm?'
Six pointed at the soldiers. 'We'd have to be much closer. Where I come from – when I come from – there's so much pollution in the air that no-one can see more than a few metres ahead of them.'
Ash frowned. 'Can't the government do something about that?'
'No government. Just ChaoSonic – the corporation which owns all other corporations.'
'In this country? Or in the whole world?'
'The rest of the world is underwater. We would be too, if it weren't for the Seawall.' Six inhaled deeply. A faint smile flitted across his thin lips. 'I didn't plan to come here. But I'm glad of the chance to see, and breathe.'
Ash tried to picture a world of smog and walls and lawlessness. She couldn't.
'What made the world the way it is?' she asked. 'A plague? A meteor? Nuclear war?'
'Zombies?' the radio crackled. Ash had forgotten that Benjamin was listening in.
Six shook his head. 'There was no sudden catastrophe. No apocalypse. Just greed, eating civilisation one small bite at a time.'
Ash shivered, not just from the cold. 'Are you almost ready?' she asked Benjamin.
'I've switched it on,' he said. 'Now we just have to wait.'
They couldn't get through the checkpoint while it was manned, so they needed to make the soldiers evacuate. But because the computer systems were so secure, they couldn't stage a fake alarm.
So they would have to create a real one.
From his position on the other side of the base, Benjamin was pointing the microwave emitter at the top floor of the tower. In theory, the emitter should agitate the electrons in the ununoctium and trip the warning sensors,
without disturbing the nucleus and creating an explosion.
Benjamin's theories usually worked in practice. Usually. Just the same, Ash's teeth were pressed together as she waited for the alarm.
Ash had expected Six to ask if turning up the power would blow up the ununoctium, completing his objective. But he hadn't – in fact, he had expressed concern for the safety of the soldiers and scientists, and had insisted on examining the microwave emitter. Whatever else he was, he wasn't a murderer.
Lucky for me, Ash thought. Because if I steal the ununoctium, and he doesn't disappear–
An alarm shrieked from the checkpoint. Even at this distance, Ash had to clamp her palms over her ears. Whirling red lights appeared on the tip of each fence post.
The soldiers were well-trained. They hesitated only a fraction of a second before springing into action. Some worked on opening the razor-wire gates, while others disappeared into the bunker to help the scientists evacuate. By the time the civilians stumbled out in flannelette pyjamas and bath robes, the gates were open. Everyone fled the checkpoint across well-worn paths in the dust.
The radio crackled. 'Are they leaving?'
'Like frightened rabbits,' Ash said. 'Worst security procedure ever.'
'In fairness, every sensor is telling them that the tower is about to explode. Is Six ready?'
'He's–'
Ash turned around. Six was gone.
She looked back at the tower. Six was sprinting toward the razor wire fence, and had already crossed an impossible distance. He must have started running as soon as she took her eyes off him.
He vaulted over the fence rather than diverting toward the open gate. When he landed inside the compound, he pulled the coat hook off his belt and swung it on the climbing rope, around and around, so fast that it looked like the propeller in a jet engine.
Then he let go.
The hook rocketed upwards with much more velocity than Ash had expected. It sailed past the fifth-floor window for which she had advised him to aim, and kept shooting up into the darkness until it was out of sight. The rope kept unspooling from the coil over his shoulder.
After a moment, the rope stopped unravelling. Six gave it two brisk tugs and then started climbing, hand over hand. After only a few seconds, he was so high that Ash couldn't see him any more.
'Six is in,' Ash said.
'Great,' Benjamin replied. 'I may lose radio contact with you when you get inside, but you can phone me if you need to. In ten minutes I'll be outside the front gate with the car. In forty-five minutes, the scientists will return to shut off the alarm. Make sure you're out before then.'
