Remote Control

by Jack Heath

  Kyntak pulled it off and tossed it to him. “It’s short-range radio—you can’t contact the Deck with it.”

  “Watch me,” Six said, fiddling with the frequency and putting the helmet on. He muttered a few words, then took it off and threw it back. “This is what I want you to say.”

  The mobile phone groaned, vibrating its way slowly across the QS’s desk. She hit SAVE on her computer menu and picked the phone up, staring at the screen.

  Caller: unknown.

  That was unusual—unprecedented, even. This was her personal cell phone. She kept her work and personal life completely separate. That way she didn’t need to surround herself with security at home. Only her husband and his daughter had this number, and neither of them had blocked their caller ID. More to the point, the phone was rigged with a descrambler that should theoretically reveal the identity of the caller even if he or she had blocked it. Whoever was calling her had more sophisticated encryption than her decryption, which she had thought would be impossible.

  That rules out a wrong number, she thought. And it probably means that the cell phone won’t be able to record the call.

  She wanted to see who it was; in fact, she needed to. This marked a security breach, and one that couldn’t be investigated unless she answered. But she wanted the conversation recorded.

  She had a minidisk recorder in her desk. She slipped the mike into a groove she’d cut into the phone. It should record the actual sound rather than the signal. It would be good enough.

  “Who am I speaking to?”

  “The Joker,” came the whisper. “Authorization code one seven one two one nine seven five. You can confirm that with any of the Queens and Kings of Hearts and Diamonds, but I’ll change it very soon. I needn’t tell you that I wouldn’t be calling you except under dire circumstances.”

  That can’t really be one of the Jokers, she thought. What “dire circumstances” could there be? But no good will come of contradicting him—keep him talking. Collect info.

  “How did you get this number?” she demanded.

  “I’ve tracked down harder things than that. You don’t believe me—I would expect no less until you’ve confirmed the code. But do it later. I have information for you.”

  “What kind of information?”

  “An agent and an employee will soon be in need of immediate evacuation from a hot zone. Agent Six of Hearts and Kyntak.”

  The QS gripped the side of her desk. “Where?”

  “A warehouse near an airfield—you’ll see the coordinates at http://cww.prog91167/sim23053306.ds.”

  “What do you mean, hot zone?” the QS asked. “What kind of hostiles, and how many?”

  “Private army, at least two hundred strong, probably heavily armed, but they’ll be disoriented, due to a situation that Six will brief you on later. More soldiers will arrive soon, perhaps as many again, but they’re not reinforcements—they’ll create confusion and panic.”

  “Are you going to tell me exactly what is going on?” the QS demanded.

  “The decisions are not yours to make—you are to follow my instructions.” The voice was even, cold. “Validate the code I gave you. Get as many agents as you can and go to the warehouse, but stay outside the perimeter. When Six and Kyntak come out, evacuate them. Be invisible. Don’t get caught in the cross fire. Understand?”

  “Will they want to be evacuated?” the QS asked. “My troops have orders to arrest Agent Six of Hearts, and he knows it.”

  “The evidence against him was fabricated in order to sabotage his investigation. He resisted arrest under my orders. Argue protocol later—you will be needed soon.”

  The line clicked dead. The QS placed her phone gently on the desk, rubbed her temples for five seconds, and then picked up the landline to dial King of Hearts.

  “So if the Deck agents are being invisible,” Kyntak said, as he threw the helmet back to Six, “then who’s the distraction? Who’s going to break in and save us?”

  Six had removed a battery from the first fallen gun he had found, and was now pressing the metal nodules against his tongue. A tangy, hot tingling raced across his taste buds, and he withdrew the battery hastily. It was fully charged. Excellent.

  He jammed the helmet back onto his head and recited another phone number to Harry as he stuck the ends of the wires into the lump of C-4 inside the vacuum tube and used the ChaoPull to remove the air from it. He beckoned to Kyntak and they left the improvised EMP device on the floor and ran to stand behind the tank.

  “I am connecting you to that number now, Agent Six of Hearts,” Harry said in Six’s radio.

  “When the Deck agents arrive, get out of their way,” Six told him, “and cloak so no one sees you.”

  “Seriously,” Kyntak said, still waiting for the answer. “Who you gonna call?”

  The line clicked, and a voice answered.

  “Serfie Thaldurken.”

  “I know the location of Vanish’s base of operations,” Six said. “And I know that he’s trapped there right now. I got your number from a dossier you wrote about him, and thought that you might be interested.”

  “Who is this?”

  “Your enemy’s enemy,” said Six. “Listen carefully…”

  PANIC

  Six told Thaldurken most of the things he had learned about Vanish since reading the dossier. Not just the nanomachines and the body switching, but also further details about his past crimes: that Vanish had purchased a bot from Earle Shuji, now destroyed, and that he had broken into the Lab to steal Chelsea Tridya’s drug.

  He didn’t reveal that he himself worked for the Deck, or that he was one of the Project Falcon kids. He also left out the parts about the self-replicating telomeres and the clone in the cell. The last thing he wanted was ChaoSonic abducting the clone and starting its super-soldier project all over again.

  He listed the information he knew about the facility and its inhabitants. Thaldurken seemed keen to let him talk—probably so the call could be traced. That didn’t bother Six. Even if the trace was better than Harry’s shielding mechanism, it would just lead ChaoSonic forces to the facility, which was exactly where he wanted them to be.

  “If I were you, I’d get to the facility ASAP,” Six finished. “Something tells me Vanish isn’t going to be there for much longer.” He terminated the call before Thaldurken could say anything else.

  Six knew that he and Kyntak could never fight their way out through so many Vanish commandos. And there was nowhere to hide, which ruled out his usual strategy. So the plan was to give those troops bigger problems to worry about. If the base was being attacked by ChaoSonic forces, hopefully the two of them could get out during the confusion.

  The battery was in his left hand and the wires leading to the vacuum tube filled with C-4 were clenched in his right. He peered out around the edge of the tank, looking at the tube on the floor, and trying to calculate which direction it would fly off in when the plastic explosive inside detonated. Impossible to tell, he thought—it’s completely sealed. I hope it doesn’t crack. That will fragment the pulse and make it useless.

  A large enough EMP would short out any electronic device switched on within its blast radius. Six hoped it would kill the nanomachines. But even if it didn’t, it would shut down all the remote controls. That would be almost as good. Vanish’s soldiers would no longer have the advantage.

  “Are you ready?” he asked Kyntak.

  Kyntak put his fingers in his ears. “Why do I get the feeling that this is going to hurt?”

  “Here goes nothing,” Six said. He jammed the wires against the nodule on the battery.

  Nothing happened.

  Six frowned. What had he done wrong? The battery was charged, the wires were embedded in the C-4, no air was in the tube, the coil was firmly attached. Why hadn’t the EMP gone off? He tapped the wires against the battery a few more times.

  “Six,” Kyntak said, pointing at the battery, “that side’s positive; the other side’s negati
ve.”

  Six grudgingly turned the battery over and held the wires near the correct nodule.

  “Where would you be without me?” Kyntak asked smugly.

  Six touched the wires to the metal.

  With a noise like a giant champagne cork being popped, the vacuum tube exploded upward, slamming into the roof of the warehouse. The wires burst out the end, cracking backward towards Six and Kyntak like a burning bullwhip. They both spasmed as the EMP fried the microscopic circuits in their nanomachines, blasting throbs of electricity through their arteries.

  The vacuum tube clanked to the ground and the burning wires twisted slowly down through the air like streamers at a party.

  Kyntak raised an eyebrow. “Okay, that was pretty cool.”

  Six picked up the remote and reattached the battery. He pointed it at himself and clicked ACCELERANT.

  Nothing happened. He waved a hand in front of his face and it appeared to move at normal speed. He pointed the remote at Kyntak and pushed SYNCAL.

  “Hey!” Kyntak yelled, snatching it away from Six. He didn’t fall asleep, and it looked like his limbs were responding normally.

  “Well, it worked on us,” Six said, dropping the remote. “Now let’s just hope it worked on the guys outside.”

  Six walked over to the glass cube, sandwiched between the doorway and the bus. He could no longer see the silhouettes on the other side; either the soldiers had given up and gone away or, more likely, they were momentarily stunned by the EMP. From now on they would be functioning without accelerant, morphine, or locators. He and Kyntak might make it out alive after all.

  Kyntak was approaching behind him. “Well done for making it this far, but there’s one part of your insane plan I still don’t quite get. Why’d you call the psychoanalyst? Isn’t the presence of

  ChaoSonic soldiers going to make it harder for us to walk out of here, rather than easier?”

  Six turned to survey the room again. His eyes settled on the almost-finished tank. “Who said anything about walking?” he asked.

  The controls were nothing like those of a car. Six didn’t know what the cabin of a tank was supposed to look like, but the interior seemed new. Vanish had probably designed his own control mechanism. There were two levers with a wheel in between, and Six had spent almost a full minute trying to move the tank using the wheel before realizing that it was probably designed to aim the gun, which hadn’t been completely built yet. After that it only took him a moment to establish that the two levers controlled the treads on either side. He could make the tank roll forward by pushing them both and backward by pulling them, and he could rotate the tank on the spot by pulling one and pushing the other.

  This seemed to be the first time the tank had been switched on, which made sense given that it was incomplete. The EMP hadn’t busted any of its circuits, but the downside was that Six had no idea which functions would work and which wouldn’t. The missing gun wasn’t the only handicap. The interior had no seats, so Six had to operate the controls standing up. There was no lock on the inside of the roof hatch. If someone outside wanted to open it, all they would have to do was pull. The screen for observing the outside world wasn’t connected to any digi-cams, so Six had to make do with the narrow view through the dark strip of bulletproof glass that circled the cabin. Kyntak was providing additional surveillance—he was currently testing a pull-down periscope he’d found.

  But it was still a tank—and Six was confident that it could take them out.

  They had pushed the bus out of the way. Now only the nanomachine-manufacturing cube stood between them and the stairwell. They had decided not to move it—pushing it aside would leave a gap wide enough for soldiers to pour through long before it was wide enough to drive the tank past. Besides, the cube was made of glass—thick enough to repel bullets, but not to stop a tank. And ChaoSonic soldiers would be arriving any second—Six knew that the nanotechnology was not much safer in ChaoSonic hands than in Vanish’s.

  “Ready?” he called to Kyntak. He could feel the engine growling beneath his feet.

  “Ready,” Kyntak said. He gripped the sides of the periscope with both hands—the closest thing possible to bracing himself in the seatless cabin.

  Six threw both levers ahead, and the front of the tank lifted slightly off the concrete as the treads spun into motion. Six braced his feet against the floor as he leaned forward, making sure that the momentum didn’t throw him over backward or weaken his grip on the levers. Dust and grit exploded out from under the tank as it thundered towards the glass cube. Six watched it rush up to the nose of the tank through the darkened glass.

  The wall of the cube didn’t shatter; it cracked into jagged splinters, and the tank bounced slightly backward. Six was hurled against the controls, and he used the extra momentum to push the levers as hard as he could. The treads kept whirring underneath the tank, and it shoved against the glass, bending the fragments inward with an earsplitting creak. Soon they were crumbling to the floor and the tank crushed them under the treads.

  “Are you okay?” Six yelled back as he plowed the tank through the matrix of machinery inside the cube and slammed it against the opposite panel of glass.

  “I’m fine,” Kyntak shouted. “Keep going!”

  Through the web of cracks in the remaining pane, Six saw the soldiers raising their guns as they retreated. Sparks exploded out from the nose of the tank as it scraped against the shuddering glass.

  The drive through the first panel had taken away too much momentum. Six pulled both levers back, and the treads shrieked as they changed direction. The tank rolled backward until it was half-outside the cube, spitting shreds of machinery from underneath as it went.

  The soldiers were apparently smart enough to realize that Six and Kyntak weren’t giving in—the tank was taking a run-up. They started to flee up the concrete stairs. Six threw the levers forward, the giant motor roared beneath him, and the tank thundered across the debris-strewn floor.

  This time the glass did shatter. Huge blades of it exploded out into the stairwell, and the tank smashed through, knocking out chunks from the sides of the doorway as it went. Bullets crashed against the steel roof, fired by the soldiers on the flight above. Kyntak left the periscope and stumbled across the cabin to the hatch, where he employed all his weight to keep it firmly closed. Good instinct, Six thought as the gunfire stopped and he heard boots land on the roof of the tank. They know they can’t penetrate it with weapons, so now they’ll try to board us.

  “What are you waiting for?” Kyntak demanded, dragging the hatch down as hostile fingers pried at it from above. “Let’s go!”

  Six slammed the levers against the panel, and the tank lurched on towards the staircase. He heard stumbling from above as the soldiers on the roof lost their balance. “Hang on,” he yelled back to Kyntak as the treads reached the steps.

  The whole cabin lurched as the tank mounted the concrete stairs, treads clanking as they fought for grip. Six heard panicked screams as the soldiers who’d been trying to pull open the hatch flew backward off the roof. The first step crunched when the weight of the tank cracked it, but there was more concrete underneath; the stairs were climbable. Six crouched with his knees bent, the balls of his feet pressed against the lopsided floor of the cabin as if he were waiting for the starter pistol. His knuckles were white around the control levers.

  The staircase was huge, but only just wide enough for the tank. Sparks flew off the stairwell wall as the armored shell scraped past. The tank ground its way to the top of the flight of stairs, and Six heard bullets ricocheting off the hull once again. He ignored them—he was headed for the wall. Turn left!

  He pulled the left lever back, but kept the right as far forward as it could go—the tank spun left with surprising agility, turning towards the next flight of stairs. The right treads mounted the wall and tilted the cabin sideways—Six pulled the left lever back even farther, making the left treads roll backward. The ground shivered as the tank smack
ed down onto the landing with a thud.

  The motor growled in anticipation as Six rotated the tank to face the next flight. The bullets rained down from above and star-bursts of sparks fizzed near the window. Wasting no time, Six pushed the levers against their hinges again, and the tank thundered up the second flight of stairs, cement dust shooting out from under it as it went.

  Six thought back to his original journey down these stairs. There had been four flights. The tank lurched as it reached the second landing—two to go.

  Kyntak was looking into the periscope. Suddenly he staggered backward and grabbed the hatch again. “Six,” he roared. “Incoming!”

  A pair of boots landed on the roof, and footsteps clanked above Six’s head. He pulled the right lever back and thrust the left one forward, spinning the tank to the right, and then pulled them both back, reversing into the wall. The cabin shook and the concrete gave way with a crack; Six heard the thumps as the soldier stumbled backward and hit the wall. He shoved both levers forward again, and the tank climbed the third flight of stairs.

  A trench was splintering its way up the wall. The stairwell was crumbling. Sturdy though the steps were, they had been designed to carry people, not tanks. Six kept the treads spinning as fast as they would go, and the tank bounced upward as the concrete cracked beneath it. It mounted the third landing, and Six turned it around again. He couldn’t see the last landing and the doorway through the narrow window, but he knew the soldiers must be on it. The hail of bullets chipping the nose of the tank had intensified.

  Why haven’t they retreated through the door to the barracks? he wondered. That could be much more easily defended than this last landing, and they’d be closer to the armory. Without heavier artillery they had no hope of stopping the tank.