by Jack Heath
‘Guess again,’ Nai replied. Her heart was racing, caught between fear and fury. If Vanish thought he could just wander in, interrupting her mission and spouting slander about her father, and then start giving her orders, he was dead wrong. Emphasis on dead. He would pay for this.
But not today. She was outnumbered, unprepared and barely armed. It didn’t matter how Vanish had tricked Lerke into sending her there. Sometime soon she’d be training a sniper rifle on the back of Vanish’s skull from 10 kliks away, but what mattered right now was getting out alive.
‘I’m going to count to five,’ Vanish said. ‘And then I’m going to shoot you with this tranquilliser pistol.’
She had no tools. No weapons except her gun, which was out of reach behind her back. No backup to call. Nothing she could do but talk him out of it.
‘But I’d rather you did as I asked,’ Vanish said. ‘The tranq dart might leave an ugly scar. One.’
‘Last chance to surrender,’ Nai said, heart racing. ‘You don’t know what I’m capable of.’
Vanish smirked. ‘Actually, I do. That’s the whole point. Two.’
‘I’m wearing a tracer,’ she lied. ‘My father will find me.’
‘Like I said, he gave you to me. He’s not going to come looking. Three.’
‘You’re lying!’ she screeched.
‘Last chance,’ Vanish said. ‘Four.’
Fear won out over fury. ‘You don’t want to do this.’
‘Pretty sure I do,’ Vanish said. ‘Five.’
The gunshot was deafening as it boomed around the car park.
Nai staggered backwards with shock, even though no bullet or dart had hit her.
Instead, she saw a splash of blood hit Vanish as the chest of the Spade behind him burst outwards. Vanish spun around, pointing his pistol towards the stairwell. A huge soldier was clambering down the last flight of stairs, assault rifle raised. Two more rounds spat out of the barrel, and the other two Spades went down, one with a blown-out stomach, one with a shredded neck.
Nai didn’t know if this new threat was after her, or Vanish, or both or neither. She just turned and ran, sprinting away into the darkness with hardly a sound, hoping to get away from the carnage before a stray round hit her.
She heard Vanish’s tranquillliser pistol fire somewhere behind her, twice, three times – not at her, but at the giant – and then she heard an engine rumbling up ahead. She dived aside, concealing herself behind a pillar as a big black truck rattled down the ramp into the car park, headlights cleaving through the darkness. It roared past her at a reckless speed, nearly scraping not only her pillar but the ceiling above it. It was huge in the enclosed space.
Nai turned to watch it as it thundered towards the stairwell door. What the hell was going on?
The truck braked sharply, twisted sideways, and drifted across the concrete like a rally car around a tight bend. As she turned to watch, Nai caught a glimpse of Vanish as the headlights swept across him – he was standing over the bodies of the dead Spades and the big soldier, from whose neck two tranquilliser darts protruded. Vanish’s stolen eyes were hard and unafraid. His lips were drawn back in a snarl.
The driver jumped out of the truck, firing a Vulture shotgun into the air as he landed. Chunks of the ceiling rained down in a grey blizzard, screening Vanish from view.
Apparently oblivious to Nai’s presence in the darkness behind him, the driver marched forwards into the curtain of falling dust, and disappeared. Nai was just wondering whether he was coming back, whether it was safe to make a run for the ramp, when he reappeared, dragging the unconscious form of the huge soldier. As the dust and smoke cleared behind him, Nai saw that Vanish had disappeared, presumably aware that his pistol was no match for the driver’s Vulture.
The driver rolled up the rear door of the truck, lifted the soldier, and dumped him on the floor inside.
Nai wasn’t sticking around to watch any more of this freak show. She ran. Her feet barely seemed to touch the ground as she hurtled up the ramp and out of the Deck into the grungy daylight.
Time to go see my father, she thought. He needs to know what just happened.
The cells were not as Six had last seen them. The guard station was crammed with Deck agents, all Spades, who had assault rifles trained on Six and Ace before the door was halfway open. Past them, Six could see that the face-card agents, the Kings, Queens and Jacks, had set up a command centre in one of the empty cells. A few agents stood outside the cell, another layer of defence – and another agent stood watching the prisoners who’d been forced to share a cell.
‘Identify yourselves,’ one of the Spades in the guard station yelled. The barrel of his gun was pointed at Six’s forehead.
‘Agent Six of Hearts,’ Six shouted, hands raised.
‘Agent Ace of Diamonds,’ Ace said.
‘Who’s he?’ the Spade demanded, pointing at the unconscious giant.
‘Neutralised hostile,’ Six said. ‘Here to be processed and interrogated.’ He wondered if the Spade was a real agent, or if he was one of Vanish’s henchmen.
There was a pause as the agents called up Six and Ace’s profiles on a screen, and checked that their faces matched. Ordinarily, an agent’s identity would be verified with fingerprint scans and blood tests as well as facial recognition. This was makeshift security – the Deck wasn’t running at full capacity.
The Spade who’d spoken looked at the screen, looked at them again, and then waved them through. The others lowered their weapons, but didn’t put them down. Sooner or later, someone less welcome than Six or Ace was going to try to come through that door – and they would be ready.
As Six walked towards the command centre, he realised that it wasn’t the only cell that had been cleared out. The three cells before it had been seized to house the wounded and the dead.
Six stared at the rows of bunks, horrified. There were agents he’d worked alongside, mouths open, staring at the ceiling as the doctors swarmed around them. Their clothes were black and shiny with blood, and they were breathing in shaky gasps. Some had limbs missing – messy stumps, covered with bandages that were already darkening with arterial blood.
There were barely enough beds for the wounded, so the dead had been piled up against the walls. There were at least a dozen of them. Males and females of every age. Hearts, Clubs, Diamonds.
And even a Joker. Six staggered back against the wall, dropping the giant, and feeling the blood drain out of his face. Grysat was slumped against the floor of a cell.
‘They need me,’ Ace said quietly. She walked in, grabbed a roll of bandages and joined the fray, leaving Six outside in the corridor.
‘Six,’ someone said. Six couldn’t tear his gaze away from Grysat. The receptionist’s eyes were open, staring through the wall to a point a million miles behind it.
‘Six,’ King said again. He was standing in the cell that had become the command centre. His gaze was unflinching. ‘Get in here.’
Six nodded and walked forwards, legs shaky. He saw the Queen of Hearts, sitting on a chair in a corner with her elbows on her knees and worry in her eyes. The King of Diamonds, who usually refused to use his codename and was therefore known around the Deck as Sammy, was pacing from side to side, biting the nails of one hand and twisting the air into intricate shapes with the other. There were a dozen other people Six didn’t recognise – agents from other departments, he supposed. Six noted that the QS was absent – where was Vanish? What was he up to?
Six wanted to tell King what he’d learned about Vanish. But there were strangers in the room, and they were armed – and some of them were Spades. If they worked for Vanish, they would fight to protect his secret. And then more people would die.
Kyntak was leaning against a wall, face pale. He forced a smile at Six. ‘Hey, bro. What’s up?’
‘People trying to kill me,’ Six said. ‘You?’
‘Same old.’
‘Are you injured?’ King asked Six.
�
�No,’ Six said. He pointed at the unconscious soldier outside. ‘And I’ve got a prisoner for you.’
King nodded. He turned to one of the agents. ‘Clear another cell, put Six’s hostile in it.’ Looking at Six, he said, ‘How long will he be unconscious?’
‘A while,’ Six said. ‘Ace of Diamonds hit him pretty hard with a crowbar.’
‘Suits me fine,’ King said coldly. ‘Tell me everything you’ve seen.’
It took only a couple of minutes for Six to recount everything he had observed since getting back to the Deck. The alarms, the power failure, and the lone, unarmed soldier. The brief fight, and Ace’s life-saving intervention. He got the feeling that he wasn’t providing much useful information.
King frowned. ‘Unarmed, you say?’
‘No weapons at all,’ Six said.
‘That’s not true of the others,’ King told him. ‘They’ve all got guns, and judging by the damage, they’re loaded with some kind of fragmenting or hollow-point rounds. I’ve told all my agents to shoot on sight before they get their limbs blown off. That goes for you too.’
Six nodded. ‘What casualties have we sustained so far?’
King was silent for a long time. Then he said, ‘Thirteen confirmed dead, twelve wounded, eight unaccounted for.’
Six stared at him, shocked. The Deck only had fifty-four personnel. If King was right, that number had just dropped to twenty-one.
‘They’ve crippled us,’ Six said. ‘This is ChaoSonic, it’s got to be. They’ve declared war.’
‘Sir?’ It was one of the agents King had sent to clear a cell. ‘The prisoner is secured.’
‘Let’s wake him up,’ King said.
The soldier snorted awake as soon as the smelling salts were cracked under his nostrils. Six watched his eyes open. They betrayed no sense of surprise or confusion as they scanned the room and its occupants. And then they settled firmly on the wall.
‘Can you hear me?’ King asked.
‘Can you hear me?’ the soldier muttered at the same moment.
‘I’ll take that as a yes,’ King said.
‘I’ll take that as a yes,’ the soldier said, still staring at the wall.
King glanced at Six. Six shrugged slightly, unnerved. He’d learned numerous strategies for resisting interrogation, but repeating everything the interrogator said – this was something he’d never seen before.
King turned back to the soldier. ‘No more games.’
‘No more –’
King slammed his fist into the soldier’s jaw, wrenching it sideways, twisting his neck. Six saw a seam of blood appear on the soldier’s lip.
King clenched and unclenched his fist. ‘Who do you work for?’
The soldier mouthed the words as King said them. King hit him again, this time in the kidneys. The soldier never took his eyes off the wall.
‘Who sent you?’ King demanded.
‘Who sent you?’ the soldier repeated, just as loudly.
King kicked the soldier’s chair, and it toppled sideways, crashing to the floor. Six thought he heard the steel rungs crack the soldier’s ribs. King kneeled on the floor, preparing for another punch.
‘Who are you?’
Six grabbed King by the elbow and pulled him back, stopping him. This approach clearly wasn’t going to get the questions answered. King was just punishing the soldier for what had happened to the Deck, an agency that had taken him many years to build.
Punishment needed to be meted out. But not this kind, and not right now.
King lunged forwards again.
‘King!’ Six yelled, still holding his elbow. King shook him free, and lifted his foot to stomp on the soldier’s face.
Six said, ‘Dad!’
Six had never called King ‘Dad’ before in his life, and it worked. King froze, as shocked as he might have been if a shop-window dummy had come to life and slapped his face.
Six pulled him back. ‘Don’t do this,’ he said, voice low. ‘We’ll get them. We’ll get all of them.’
King’s teeth were clenched. His eyes were marbled with veins.
‘Just wait, okay?’ Six said. ‘Wait.’
King took a deep, shaky breath. Then he nodded.
Kyntak broke the silence. ‘He stares off to one side like he’s afraid of what he might see,’ he said, staring at the man cuffed to the chair. ‘He never makes eye contact. And the repeating things, the talking over – it sounds compulsive rather than mocking.’
‘Compulsive rather than mocking,’ the soldier was muttering.
‘I’ve seen this before,’ Six said suddenly. He thought back to Chemal Allich’s launch party, to the girl who’d come out of Tiresias. The sidelong stare. How she’d mouthed the words of the speech as Allich spoke them.
‘This man has come through Allich’s machine,’ Six said.
Then he thought of the bizarre business with the cards and the envelopes. How the girl had handed one envelope to Allich, received an identical one with the card in it, and gone back into the machine. Then Allich had opened the girl’s envelope to reveal an identical card.
Spiders of dread crept up the back of Six’s neck, though he wasn’t yet sure what he’d figured out.
‘You think the teleporter screws up their brains?’ King asked. ‘The trauma of being blasted apart and reassembled?’
One envelope. Two envelopes. Card goes in, card comes out. Six suddenly thought of the conversation he’d had with the man sitting next to him at the launch. Where’s she being sent? To 710. Not far.
His blood ran cold as a theory appeared in his mind, not with gradual realisation, but fully formed and horrifying.
‘Why?’ King continued. ‘Why would Allich send troops through her machine to wipe us out?’
It’s strange – in a way, the rest of the demonstration is a formality. We already know she’ll succeed. But she has to do it anyway.
Suddenly Six was looking at the past eight hours in an entirely different way. Everything had been misunderstood.
He grabbed one of the agents, and pointed at another. ‘You, get some anaesthetic. We need to knock him out again. And you, get Sammy. Ask him to send the best Diamond agent he can find with a background in physics. I need to know if something’s possible.’
The agents nodded and ran off.
Kyntak frowned. ‘Don’t keep us in the dark, Six. Tell us what you’re thinking.’
Six tilted his head towards the soldier. ‘We can’t talk in front of him. Not while he’s awake.’
‘You think he’s bugged?’ King asked.
Six shook his head, but said nothing.
The first agent came back with a syringe. He took off the cap and tapped the side with his fingernail.
The soldier didn’t struggle as the needle slipped into his neck. His eyes flicked closed a few seconds later.
Sammy, the King of Diamonds, strode in with the other agent Six had sent. He was still chewing his nails, but with concentration rather than nervousness.
‘Sammy,’ Six said, ‘I need a physicist.’
‘You’ve got one,’ Sammy said. ‘Me. You want to know something about Allich’s teleport?’
Six was starting to feel sick. ‘I want to know if I’m crazy.’
Sammy looked him in the eye. ‘Why would you think that?’
‘Because I don’t think Allich’s device is just a teleport,’ Six said. ‘I think it’s a time machine.’
THE LAWS OF PHYSICS
‘Okay,’ Sammy said. His gaze was measured and even, but Six heard urgency in his voice. ‘I need you to describe everything you saw at Allich’s facility, absolutely everything, in detail. Got it?’
‘No way,’ Kyntak was saying. ‘I’ve seen a lot of crazy things in this City, but nothing that crazy. Time travel is impossible. The theory of relativity –’
‘– prohibits matter or information travelling faster than the speed of light,’ Sammy said. ‘I know. Let’s hear what Six has to say, and then decide what’s impossib
le.’
Six knew how Kyntak felt. While he’d led a bizarre life, full of things that were hard to accept – King telling Six that he was a genetic experiment, Vanish revealing that he was over a hundred years old, Nai ageing more than a decade in less than a year – the idea of a time machine turned his whole world upside down. It was like he’d stepped sideways into a parallel universe, where the rules were different and nothing seemed quite real.
Six told them everything that had happened, from when he walked through the doors of Allich’s party with Ace, to when they jumped out the second-floor window less than an hour later. No-one interrupted him.
When he’d finished, Sammy started asking him questions about the machine itself – how tall was it, how wide, what kind of metal did the parts look like they were made of. Six found a marker and drew some neat, detailed diagrams on the cell wall, complete with estimated measurements and labels to indicate the colours and textures of the various components.
Silence filled the cell. Sammy stepped forwards slowly, and reached out to touch the diagram with his finger, like an archaeologist who had just unearthed an ancient tomb.
‘We can’t waste time,’ King said. ‘Those soldiers are still out there, and –’
‘I know,’ Sammy said. ‘I’m figuring out the quickest way to explain this.’
He stared at the diagram, brow furrowed.
‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Okay.’
Silence again.
‘Modern time-travel theory,’ Sammy began, ‘usually involves breaking the light–speed barrier. You know why?’
Kyntak nodded, King and the other agents shook their heads. Six stayed motionless. He had thought he understood the theory of relativity, but now he wasn’t so sure.
‘Okay,’ Sammy said again. ‘If you leave the Deck at one o’clock and start walking towards the Seawall, you could conceivably arrive at six o’clock. Yes?’
Silence.
‘But now let’s say you ran instead of walking. If you left the Deck at the same time, one o’clock, you’d get there at four o’clock instead of six.’