Third Transmission Read online

  Six put on the cap and buttoned the coat over his chest. The disguise wouldn’t stand up to close examination; while Six could usually pass for eighteen, he was still clearly younger than most CNS personnel, and the clothes under his coat were cut differently to the standard uniform. But if he was spotted at a distance, he was confident that the alarm wouldn’t be raised.

  The Deck had been able to acquire some blueprints of the ship’s interior, and Six had made some educated guesses about where the SARS canisters would be. They would be held in a room with only one door, so it could be easily guarded. The room would be on one of the lower floors, so if the ship was boarded the attackers couldn’t easily reach them. It would also have powerlines from both the primary and secondary generators on the ship. Without a human host the virus had to be kept between 15 and 25 degrees Celsius or it would die. While the canisters had temperature regulators, the batteries only had thirty minutes of power. The ship had been travelling for three hours, so they must be plugged into a power socket somewhere – and Six was betting that ChaoSonic wouldn’t rely solely on the primary generator.

  Only two rooms on the CNS Gomorrah matched that description. And one was just up ahead.

  Footsteps.

  Six stepped sideways into a dripping alcove. He crouched, becoming little more than a shadow.

  An officer strode past, heels clicking against the steel floor. He didn’t glance left or right, and was gone in seconds. Six stood silently, then got moving.

  The door was unguarded. Not a good sign. Six twisted the valve, and the door groaned open.

  He poked his head inside. No luck – just a pantry. Shelves stacked with dried meals in cardboard boxes, all bearing the same logo as the CNS hats. A walk-in freezer up the back, with grey frost spiderwebbing out from behind the door. Six walked in, thinking he should at least check if the canisters were in the freezer –

  – a soldier was sitting in the corner of the pantry, munching on potato chips. He looked up at Six.

  Six froze.

  The soldier froze too. Crumbs spilled out of his open mouth.

  By the time the guy realised that Six wasn’t an officer here to bust him for pillaging supplies, Six was already running across the pantry towards him. The soldier swore and reached for his gun, rising to his feet.

  Bam! Six’s foot thumped into the man’s shoulder, and he spun a full 360 degrees. The gun flipped out across the room, burying itself in an open box of biscuits.

  Six aimed his next punch at the soldier’s head, but his opponent saw it coming. He ducked under the blow and charged, picking Six up by the torso and driving him backwards towards the shelves.

  Six twisted, whirling his body around so they were both facing the same way. Then he reached backwards over his shoulders, grabbed the soldier’s tunic, and threw him up over his head.

  The soldier slammed into the shelves, back first, upside down, and started to fall. Six smacked him in the face with the back of his hand as he fell, three times before he hit the ground – crack! crack, crack! – keeping him disoriented and weak. Then, when the soldier hit the floor, headfirst, Six grabbed his feet and dragged him over to the walk-in freezer.

  The door opened with a wheezy hiss, and the soldier grunted as Six threw him in. He slid across the ice, baffled and dazed, then tried to climb to his feet.

  Six slammed the freezer door, whipped out his cutting torch, and used it to melt the metal around the edges. The chill quickly hardened the liquid metal, fusing the door shut. Steel that is cooled quickly is always much more brittle than steel that has been left to harden gradually; use fast-cooled steel to make a car and it’ll shatter like glass in crash-testing. But Six figured his rush-job weld would be enough to hold the soldier in for a while.

  As Six retreated back towards the pantry door, he heard a thump from inside the freezer. The soldier was trying to kick the door down. It held, but it was noisy. Anyone who entered the pantry would hear it.

  Six walked back into the corridor, closed the pantry door, and used the cutting torch to weld the valve in place. Now no-one could open the door, and any noises the soldier made in the freezer were inaudible. Muffled by two layers of metal.

  Six put his cutting torch away, and started walking towards the other room he’d identified on the blueprints. One more room to check, and – he glanced at his watch – thirty-seven minutes to go. He was doing fine.

  A shadow flitted by up ahead. Six hesitated. Was that just someone walking past? Or had someone seen him and ducked out of sight?

  No reason to take the risk. Six ran forwards, heading for the corner where he’d spotted the shape. He rounded the corner –

  – and someone was there, staring back at him. But he wasn’t a CNS soldier. He was dressed in black commando gear, including a ski mask and a pack strapped to his torso around the shoulders and the stomach. He clasped a pickaxe in his right hand.

  I’m not the only one after the SARS, Six realised.

  He lunged towards the commando, fist first, aiming to strike beneath the ribs. The commando parried expertly, deflecting the blow rather than blocking it. Six’s attack had too much momentum – he stumbled forwards when his fist didn’t connect.

  The commando was ready for that, and swung the pickaxe, underhanded. The blade carved through the air towards the flesh under Six’s jaw. Heart pounding, Six pushed himself to the side, crashing into the commando’s knee. The axe missed Six’s neck – its point snagged the collar of Six’s stolen coat instead. The commando lifted the pickaxe, and Six was pulled up into the air.

  He tried to kick the commando in the ribs, but his captor was already twisting aside. Six banged his head against the wall of the corridor as the commando drove the pickaxe into it, nailing him there by his coat. Then he reached behind Six’s back and pulled two of the four throwing knives out of his belt.

  Six struggled, but the commando slammed him back against the wall. If I yell, the alarm will be raised, he thought. But if I don’t, I’m going to get my throat cut.

  As if reading his mind, the commando clamped his gloved palm over Six’s mouth. He twirled one of the knives in his free hand, then grasped it by the hilt and drove it towards Six’s wrist.

  Thunk! The blade pierced Six’s coat and thudded into the wall, but Six didn’t feel it touch his skin. It must have gone through the edge of the cuff, missing his wrist by millimetres. The commando gripped the other knife, held down Six’s other arm and did the same thing.

  Now Six was pinned to the wall in three places; the pickaxe through his collar, and the knives through his left and right sleeves. He wasn’t hurt, but he couldn’t move.

  The commando grabbed Six’s scuba mask and the oxygen bottle and hooked the straps into the clips on his belt. Then he said, ‘See you round,’ and sprinted off down the corridor.

  Six clamped his teeth around the handle of the pickaxe, and wrenched it out of the wall. It fell to the floor with a thunk. Why didn’t he disarm me? he wondered. In fact, why not kill me? I’m clearly here for the same thing he is, and if he saw the knives on my belt he must have seen the gun and the cutting torch.

  If the commando had been ChaoSonic, he would have disarmed Six, sounded the alarm, and held him for interrogation. If he had been one of the South Coast rebels, he would have broken Six’s neck, or at least pinned him by his actual wrists rather than just his sleeves.

  Six tugged his arms downwards until the knives sheared through the coat, and he landed on the floor. Whoever the commando was, he had wanted Six alive and unharmed – and that wasn’t necessarily a good sign.

  He might have been working for Vanish. He might have been Vanish himself.

  Three weeks ago, Six’s twin brother, Kyntak, had been kidnapped. Six had gone on a rescue mission, only to be captured himself. And there had been one more prisoner – a clone of Six with one arm and one eye, one who’d been grown specifically for organ transplants.

  It turned out that the mastermind behind the abduction had dis
covered that Six had a genetic abnormality that protected him from ageing. He wanted to transplant his brain into Six’s superhuman body, so he could live forever. Six and Kyntak had both escaped, but the Deck never found their captor. Only his body, with the brain scooped out.

  His name was Vanish – and Six figured that he could be anyone by now. Tall, short, fat, thin. These days, Six examined the face of every stranger he passed on the street. Looking for a trace of Vanish’s smug smile.

  But why would he be here? To taunt Six? To check he was still physically healthy – ripe for transplantation?

  Or to steal the SARS canisters, before Six could get to them or ChaoSonic could use them?

  ‘Damn it,’ Six hissed, and he sprinted down the corridor.

  Not a lot was known for sure about Vanish, but he had definitely been a weapons dealer from time to time. He bought and sold almost anything. His hands were the worst ones for the SARS to fall into – because after that, it could end up anywhere.

  The door to the other room was just ahead. It seemed to be iron rather than steel – greasy and rough. There were guards on either side of it. They were lying on the ground, dead or unconscious.

  Six spun the valve and kicked open the door, already knowing what he would find.

  The room was painted white, and bore all the signs of being a laboratory. Hazard suits hung from hooks on the wall. A small chamber had been carved into the back, once separated from the room by a window. Chunks of the glass were now puddled all over the floor. Six could see three empty power ports in the chamber. He was betting that three stainless-steel viral-containment canisters had rested there.

  The commando must have them. Soon they would be in Vanish’s hands, if they weren’t already.

  ChaoSonic wouldn’t be able to destroy the South Coast anymore, but if Vanish got away with them, the Deck would never be able to track them down. Not until they were detonated in a populated area, after he sold them back to ChaoSonic or to a third party.

  Six couldn’t let that happen. He hit a button on his phone.

  ‘Hey, hey,’ Kyntak said.

  ‘I couldn’t find the canisters,’ Six said. ‘But I’m pretty sure they’re still on the ship. So I need immediate evac.’

  ‘You going to sink it?’ Kyntak said. Six could hear that he was grinning. ‘Awesome!’

  ‘Just make sure a chopper’s here to pick me up in …’ Six checked his watch. Twenty-nine minutes before the ship reached the South Coast, the crew realised the SARS was gone, and every soldier on the ship was hunting Six.

  ‘Ten minutes,’ he finished. Long enough to set the SOL-bomb and sink the ship with Vanish and the SARS still on board.

  ‘Roger that. We’re nice and close – we did a quick flyover a few minutes ago to see if the ship was carrying aircraft.’

  ‘And is it?’

  ‘None visible. Some of the crew took pot shots at us with assault rifles, but no damage was done. We flew out of radar range, but we’re turning back now. See you soon.’

  Six raced back down the corridor towards the engine room. Pipes and doors whizzed by on both sides. His shadow splattered over the walls as he ran.

  What’s Vanish’s getaway plan? he wondered. He must know they’ll be looking for him soon. Maybe I’m not the only one with a chopper coming to –

  Four CNS troops rounded a corner up ahead, maybe 10 metres away. Six changed his mad dash into a brisk march, but one of them was already staring at him.

  ‘Freeze!’

  Instinct took over. Six grabbed a steel hatch to his right by the valve, ripped it out of the wall. The rusty steel screeched as the hinges snapped. Six bashed it against a thick white pipe to his left, and ducked.

  The pipe ruptured, and hot water burst out into the corridor. A few stinging flecks landed on the back of Six’s neck, but most of it sprayed down the corridor at the soldiers. They covered their faces with their arms, howling. The spray of water became a flood down the side of the pipe as the pressure equalised, and Six charged towards the soldiers.

  They recovered quickly – the water hadn’t been hot enough to cause severe burns. They reached for their guns as Six sprinted towards them, still carrying the steel lid.

  Six jumped, lifted the lid out in front of him, and landed on it, knees first. The lid skimmed across the sheen of hot water on the floor, like a puck across an air-hockey table. Six spun towards the soldiers, who didn’t quite get their guns up in time.

  He drove his arms out to the sides as he reached the soldiers. His elbows and fists slammed into the legs of the middle two troops, who tumbled into the air like astronauts.

  Once Six had smashed through the line and they had a clear shot, the other two soldiers opened fire. Six grabbed the rear side of the lid and pulled, capsizing it so the bullets slammed into the underside. Six’s side of the lid rippled like a puddle in an earthquake.

  They’ll pause, he thought. All soldiers pause to see if they hit their target.

  Sure enough, the gunfire stopped for a moment. A moment was all Six needed. He rose to his feet, wrenched the lid up from the floor, and hurled it at the soldiers like a giant steel discus.

  He didn’t wait to see if it hit them. He just ran.

  The engine room was only a few corridors away. Once the four soldiers recovered and raised the alarm, it was going to be much harder to get into. Six’s feet slapped the floor, bap bap bap, as he sprinted through the gloomy labyrinth.

  Then the door was up ahead – big and industrial. Only one guard; Six guessed that most of the crew was on deck. Lucky for him. Unlucky for the guard.

  Six was spinning on the ball of his foot even as the guard’s head turned to face him. His other heel whipped through the air towards the guard’s cheekbone.

  The guard raised his arm to try to block the blow. Mistake – if Six’s spinning heel-kick had connected, the guard would have escaped with a short sleep, a large bruise and a headache. Instead, the impact broke his arm in both the radius and ulna bones, and he screamed.

  Six whipped the hat off the guard’s head, scrunched it into a ball and stuffed it into his mouth. Then he pulled the guard’s coat over his face and knotted it under his neck so he couldn’t see or spit out the hat.

  The guard’s undamaged arm was flailing wildly in the air, searching for Six with a closed fist. Six ripped the guard’s belt out of the loops in his trousers, and used it to bind the guard’s arm to his torso. The guard fell, smacking the back of his head against the floor. With one arm broken and the other tied, he couldn’t remove the blindfold or climb to his feet. He looked like a turtle on its back.

  Six reached down to knock the guard out, but then a klaxon started screaming behind him. He turned, and saw a flashing red light behind a steel-mesh cage.

  The alarm had been sounded.

  ‘Sorry,’ Six said to the guard. ‘Got to run.’ Then he pulled down the lever next to the engine room door, and the barrier rolled aside.

  Hot air spilled out over his face. Sweaty engineers stared at him as he stepped through the door. They let go of their levers, dropped their tools. Six drew the Parrot and pointed it at them. With his other hand, he pulled out the SOL-bomb.

  ‘This is a bomb,’ he announced, pushing the arm button. The bomb started blinking. ‘In ten minutes this ship is going to sink. That should be just enough time to get to the lifeboats.’

  He pushed another button and tossed the bomb casually to the ground. The screen read proximity sensor activated.

  ‘That means you can’t move it without setting it off,’ Six said. ‘It can’t be disarmed, delayed or shielded, so don’t try.’

  The engineers all stared at him.

  ‘Why are you still here?’ he demanded.

  These guys weren’t soldiers. ChaoSonic had trained them for mechanical crises, not hijack situations. They fled, tumbling out of the engine room like cockroaches away from a light bulb.

  As they ran, Six scoured the room for other entrances or exits. There a
ppeared to be none. So he ran out after them and dragged the door closed behind him. He didn’t think there was time to weld it shut, but he couldn’t leave it unlocked. Despite what he’d said, there might be someone on board capable of disarming the bomb – or someone dumb enough to kill themselves trying. Six wound the valve closed and ripped it off the door. Then he bashed it against the floor, bending the screw beyond usefulness.

  The CNS crew would need cutting torches of their own to get in – and they wouldn’t have the time.

  He glanced at his watch. Eight minutes until the chopper arrived, nine minutes until the SOL-bomb blew. Time to go.

  He ran up the corridor towards the nearest ladder, and climbed it. Even over the roaring of the klaxon, he could hear the CNS soldiers shouting to one another. The pounding of booted feet. Six told himself that the panic was a good thing – no-one would be looking too closely at his face or his stolen BDUs.

  The ladder rose through a central corridor which was flooded with people. Soldiers were running along its length, with technicians and chefs and who knew who else.

  ‘Battle stations!’ someone was yelling.

  ‘Abandon ship!’ Six roared. He didn’t want anyone to die here – the sooner they got the message that the Gomorrah was going to sink, the better. ‘Abandon ship!’

  As he reached the top of the ladder he shoved a hatch open and found himself in an aircraft hangar, with two Sweeper-1010 fighter jets, half a dozen speedboats, and a rack of high-pressure diving suits. There was no-one in here yet, but Six didn’t know whether or not those speedboats were lifeboats. If they were, he’d have a lot of company very soon.

  He sprinted to the hangar doors and pushed open the small personnel door beside them, revealing the panic he’d created.