by Jack Heath
Hiss.
“Most supervillains would be happy with just the ultrastrength roller-door, and maybe a stupid nickname,” Kyntak said. “Speaking of which, who are you?”
The man kept watching the needle. “They call me Vanish,” he said.
Kyntak blinked. “Seriously?”
Vanish nodded.
“Wow, scary.” Kyntak strained against the clamps on his wrists. “Why are the clamps made of copper? You’re too cheap for steel?”
“Copper is an excellent conductor. I can fry you at the touch of a button. Also, while it’s more than strong enough to hold you, it’s more ductile than the walls, the floor, and the ceiling, all of which are thick glass. Even if you managed to get off the table, you couldn’t use the clamps to break the walls.
“Your records show uncommon ingenuity. I felt that just the door wasn’t enough for a hundred percent certainty. Hence the oxygen burst once every two minutes through the valve above your head, instead of an air duct. And hence the blood draining.”
He smiled his curious smile. “I take no pleasure in making you uncomfortable. But you won’t be here for much longer.”
The syringe was nearly full. Kyntak’s head was starting to ache and his vision was sparkling—symptoms of blood loss, he knew. “How much money did you ask for? I just want to know what I’m worth.”
“To them, you seem to be worth a hundred million credits,” Vanish said. “But to me, you’re priceless.”
“If you hadn’t already stolen all of my blood, I’d blush,” Kyntak said.
“You’ll feel better if you sleep,” Vanish said, glancing at his watch. “I have a ransom to collect.”
The wall slid smoothly aside, and Vanish and the woman left. Kyntak tried to keep his eyelids open, but the light from the walls seemed to be becoming brighter, and he had to squint against it. The sound of his brain straining for blood was roaring in his ears, and there was a throbbing behind his eyeballs.
Six, he thought as reality faded away to make room for uneasy dreams. Where are you?
People gawked from a safe distance as Six swung in to land. It had taken him a while to find a street wide enough so that the parachute wouldn’t become tangled on the buildings on either side and long enough for him to take a slow descent and a run down after landing, but not so large that there was much traffic. On the road he’d finally chosen, the streetlamps were the only illumination for the asphalt and the pedestrians; there were no headlights to be seen.
Six pulled both handles to keep the canopy level. The chute cast a curved shadow onto the street as it dipped below the lamps, a shadow which shrank and darkened as he neared the surface.
He hit the ground running, at first with only cursory taps against the road and then with the force of a sprint as the parachute sank farther and he was once again bearing his own weight. After a few seconds the tilt of the parachute caught the still night air and dragged back against him. He skidded into a landing crouch immediately, and the black canopy rolled lightly over his head.
Once he was sure that the last folds of the parachute had sunk to the ground, Six pulled it off and started to fold it, trying to ignore the stares of the pedestrians. It’s not every night that someone falls out of the sky in front of them, he supposed. I wish my life were like that.
He wondered what he would be doing right now if he wasn’t superhuman. Would he be watching television or playing video games if he had been born to normal parents in a quiet neighborhood, instead of grown in a vat under Retuni Lerke’s watchful eye? Would he have a day job at a ChaoSonic fast-food outlet? Would he be in the local under-eighteen soccer team?
It was pointless to daydream. Like it or not, he was Agent Six of Hearts. Fast, strong, smart. A tough career that was only getting tougher. Too few friends, too many enemies.
He would never lead a normal life. In fact, the way today was going he’d be lucky to see another sunrise. But the people staring at him could live the way they did because there were people standing up for them. Six, his colleagues, and other people like them. There was some comfort in that. He could never experience normality, but he was part of it. He helped to make it possible.
It was 18:24:18, only thirty-five minutes before the drop-off, and he still didn’t have a plan. He didn’t even know whether Grysat had managed to deposit the bugged money into Vanish’s account before the Spades had locked down the Deck. And the downside of his miraculous escape from the QS was that he’d lost almost all of his equipment: the AM-77, the Eagle, the lock-release gun, and the katana, not to mention the detonator for his Detasheet.
The silk canvas slipped out of his hands as he tried to stuff it into the backpack—it seemed to be caught on something. Looking up, he saw that a sneaker-clad foot was pressed down on the corner of it.
“You’re standing on my parachute,” Six said, glaring up at the teenager.
“This is my parachute,” the teenager said, arms folded across his jacket.
“Sorry,” Six said, standing up. “I didn’t see your name on it when I landed in front of all these people, thirty seconds ago.”
“Hey, Thriek,” a teenage girl said, approaching. “What’s this loser doing with your parachute?”
“Says it’s his,” the boy said, curling one hand into a fist. “I think he’s trying to steal it.”
Six stared at them both for a moment. Then he looked at the group of approaching teens, the girls either staring at their hands in boredom or giggling, the boys all wearing bluntly indignant expressions. Then he burst out laughing. He couldn’t say why for sure—the ridiculousness of his day suddenly hit him.
“You think this is funny?” Thriek demanded. “Are you disrespecting me?”
Six laughed even harder. If they only knew, he thought. So this is how kids my age are supposed to act.
His next burst of chuckles caught in his throat. Kids his age. Normal kids. He looked around at them. Caps, sheer jackets, loose grey jeans, button-up sneakers.
“Hey!” Thriek yelled, walking across the parachute towards Six. “What do you think you’re staring at?”
“A wardrobe,” Six said, a faint smile on his lips. He gave a mighty tug on the chute, pulling it out from under the approaching teenager.
Thriek yelped as he fell, landing on his backside. One of the girls standing nearby laughed, and Thriek roared as he scrambled to his feet and charged at Six, who stepped neatly to one side and grabbed Thriek’s collar as he passed, pulling the teen backward. Wrapping his right arm around Thriek’s elbows and holding the boy’s arms behind his back, Six grabbed the wrists of Thriek’s jacket with his left hand, and it slipped neatly off him. The boy thrashed out of Six’s grip and swung a loose fist at his head, which Six ducked easily as he picked up the jacket. As he put his left arm into the sleeve, he grabbed Thriek’s ankle with his right hand and the boy fell to the ground. Six crouched down and pulled off Thriek’s jeans, which were baggy enough to come down easily. He put them on over his own jeans, then took off the kid’s sneakers and grabbed his mobile phone.
Thriek scuttled off into the darkness as Six put on the shoes, his friends following close behind.
Six needed to know whether the ransom money had been bugged and put in Vanish’s account. The easiest way to find out was to call Grysat. The Spades would be listening. He’d have to try to make it innocuous. He typed the number into Thriek’s phone and hit CALL.
“Yes?” Grysat’s voice was strained.
“Hey, man, it’s Steve,” Six said, hoping Grysat would recognize his voice. “How’s it going?”
There was a pause. “Oh, hi!” Grysat said finally. “Sorry, believe it or not I was actually expecting a call from a different Steve. How are you?”
“I’m good,” Six said. “Are we still on for dinner at seven?” (Are we going ahead with the trade?)
Grysat sighed theatrically. “I’ve been held up at work,” he said. “I would’ve told you, but there’s something wrong with all the phones and th
ey can’t dial out.” (The Spades are monitoring all the calls, and the Deck agents can’t make any.) “But the others should still be going, so you’re welcome to go without me.” (I’ve paid the money; you can still make the trade.)
“That’s a shame, man,” Six said. “I mean, yeah, I’ll go, but I wish you could come too. Are you okay? You don’t sound all that good.”
“I think I might’ve come down with something,” Grysat said, “but it’s probably just a twenty-four-hour bug.” (The Spades will give up and leave soon; we’ll be okay.)
“Get well soon, buddy,” Six said. “Good luck at work.”
“I’ll be fine. Enjoy your dinner.” (We’re safe. Get to the rendezvous point.)
“Yeah, see you around.” Six hit END.
He was relieved. Grysat had managed to pay the money before the Spades had put the Deck in lockdown. Six didn’t know what shape Kyntak would be in. He could have been tested, tortured, or had samples of himself sold to ChaoSonic for analysis. And Six didn’t know how easily he could track down Vanish after the exchange was made. If ChaoSonic had been searching for him for as long as Shuji had suggested, he doubted that his luck would be much better.
And he didn’t know how he was going to clear his name with the Spades. But Six had no doubt that if the money hadn’t been paid, he would never have seen Kyntak again.
452nd Street was one of the oldest streets in this part of the City, but it was barely a street anymore. So many bridges had been put over it that it was practically a tunnel. It had been rebuilt and redirected around new buildings so many times that any resemblance to the straight line it had once been was completely lost. And eventually it had become so blocked by new infrastructure that ChaoSonic had stopped keeping it uninterrupted—there were hundreds of trenches and skyscrapers that broke it along its length, each causing a dead end and a new beginning in the street. Because of this, the spot where it hit the Seawall was essentially a T-intersection made of three cul-de-sacs—the street running alongside the wall made the top of the T, and an eighty-meter chunk of 452nd Street made the bottom. All three points were now blocked at the end by buildings. There was nowhere for cars to get in, and pedestrians entered and exited either through the subway at the center of the intersection or through one of the surrounding buildings. High above the road there was a monorail leading back to 449th Street, but while it was still connected to the massive labyrinth of monorail lines which patterned the City, business hadn’t been good enough for ChaoSonic to keep sending carriages to the spot. The T-shaped intersection was known as “the Timeout.” It was frequented mainly by the citizens who worked in the surrounding buildings, but there were a few cafes on the corners, luring outsiders into the area for strong, bitter coffee. And the activity didn’t stop at night. Three floors of one building were taken up by Insomnia, a nightclub that slashed refracted blue lasers against its tinted windows and pumped bass-drenched beats into the Timeout from dusk until dawn.
Six had been on enough surveillance and reconnaissance missions to know that tailing someone in a nightclub was all but impossible—so if he was going to observe the Timeout and wait for Kyntak to be dropped off, behind those tinted windows might be the best place to do it. And the nightclub had two entrances, one inside the Timeout and one outside. Insomnia was probably the least conspicuous way into the intersection.
The nightclub’s fluorescent sign came into view as Six rounded a corner. The blue faded smoothly to green before sliding into a violent crimson. There was a logo next to it—an eye with black-light lashes, making the painted iris glow. It was only 18:43:06 and already there was a throng of people outside the doors. Three clean-shaven heads rose above the crowd on broad shoulders: bouncers, standing by the doors with their tree-trunk arms folded across barrel chests.
Six slipped into the crowd. The bouncers weren’t there to check for ID. Since ChaoSonic had replaced government in the Takeover, only about one in ten nightclubs cared what age you were. The bouncers were there firstly to scare the patrons straight—fewer rules would be broken if everyone knew there were bigger, tougher people hanging around. Secondly, the bouncers had the right to refuse entry to anyone they felt like—anyone who looked like he wasn’t there to spend money.
Six bobbed up and down gently to the beat as he waited in line, trying to blend in, not making eye contact with anybody. It was 18:49:29.
The bouncer was almost half a meter taller than Six. He peered down incuriously at him for less than a second before shoving him roughly across the threshold. Six climbed the stairs quickly, dodging the people stumbling back down them. Broken glass and drinking straws flattened under his feet as he reached the top of the stairs.
Insomnia was already packed. The sea of gyrating, waving heads with bleached, dyed, gelled, and blow-dried hair on the dance floor below Six made the garishly lit ceiling seem uncomfortably low.
The noise hit him like a kick in the chest. He’d never been inside a nightclub before, and hadn’t expected it to be so loud. People went to nightclubs for fun, he thought. They dressed in style, met their friends, danced wildly, and drank too much. Six didn’t do any of these things himself, but he could understand the appeal of each. Dressing up impressed and attracted other people. Seeing friends signified a welcome relief from work, a life independent of employment. The physical exertions involved in wild dancing released endorphins in the brain, creating chemical happiness.
But who could enjoy music this loud? he wondered. Where was the fun in being slowly deafened?
Six had met a wide variety of people in his sixteen years. But he still didn’t feel like he understood humans. Maybe the variety is the problem, he thought. I should spend less time with secret agents and murderers. I need to meet more normal people.
Six’s ears were adjusting to the volume. One of the more subtle benefits of his designer DNA was a valve in each auditory canal. This was pressed up against the outside of each eardrum and would quickly dilate or contract depending on the volume of the noise surrounding him, in much the same way as pupils in the eyes of humans adjust to light. This meant that his hearing abilities were more sophisticated and robust than those of everyone else—but as with eyes, the valve could not completely close. Sudden noises still hurt, and prolonged exposure to noise of more than 110 decibels was harmful. The music of the nightclub was exceeding that. He pulled the earplugs he’d found in the armory out of his pockets and put them in his ears, dulling the repeated thuds to a tolerable volume.
Six leaned over the bar and ordered a ChaoCola. He couldn’t watch the Timeout and dance at the same time, but he would look suspicious standing still without a drink in his hand.
The dance floor seemed less claustrophobic than it had from above. The waving of hands in the air and the swishing hair above heads created the illusion that people were larger than they actually were. Once Six was among them, he saw that everyone at least had space to bend their knees and sway their hips—the only movements required for nightclub dancing. Six pushed his way through, trying to look as though he was working his way towards someone.
A feathery-haired girl appeared seemingly out of nowhere in front of him, and his reflexes barely had time to stop himself from bumping into her. Her face registered surprise—apparently she hadn’t seen him either—before offering an apologetic smile. Six waited for her to move out of his way.
She looked him up and down, then blushed. “Do you want to dance?” she shouted.
Six shook his head, stepped around her, and kept moving. His clothes were enough to make him blend in. He didn’t need to dance as well.
Six reached the window quickly. He leaned against the sill, ignoring the bouncing people surrounding him. Kyntak would either be there or he wouldn’t, but either way, Vanish would want to know who came to the rendezvous, and Six wanted to avoid being spotted.
Kidnappers were among the most information-hungry of all Code-breakers. There were many different aspects of the crime to balance: abduction, contai
nment, negotiation, and subsequent escape. It required careful planning, swift and precise execution, and accurate prediction of the ransom recipient’s actions. Four out of five kidnappings failed. The remaining twenty percent worked because the kidnappers knew everything. They had plenty of concealed surveillance before and during the event. They had tapped phones, bugged rooms, inside sources.
According to Shuji, Vanish had a large network at his disposal. Therefore, the Timeout was being watched. If Kyntak didn’t appear, Six would find whoever was watching it and follow him or her back to their base. He looked at his watch. 18:54:11.
There were two monorail cars sitting on the rails above the Timeout. They were probably there for a private party, where middle-aged guests in rich tuxedos and gowns would sip expensive drinks. Six wished that this was his vantage point, instead of Insomnia.
He had absentmindedly finished his ChaoCola. He glanced around, but the only bin was the one near the exit, so he licked the last of the sticky residue off his cup and straw and placed them on the sill.
“Hey!”
Six glanced over his shoulder. A short man in a white undershirt was approaching him—wearing earplugs, Six was surprised to see.
“Were you looking at my girlfriend?” the man demanded angrily.
Six turned back to the window. “No.”
“You calling my girlfriend a liar?” the man exploded.
“Go away,” Six said. He wondered if the girl who’d asked him to dance was the one the man was referring to. But she had looked about Six’s age—much younger than this guy.
“Want to take it outside?” The man was balling his fists.
Six gritted his teeth. Why do I bother defending these people? he wondered. He looked back at the man, narrowing his eyes, and held his gaze for a full second before replying, trying to squeeze every drop of his ice-cold contempt for humanity into his words. “Go away.”