Dead Man Running (12 page)

‘There's one in Jack's old office,' King said. He fished a key from his pocket and held it out.

Six took it. ‘How will I contact you if I need backup?'

‘Backup?' King said. ‘There won't be any backup. It takes hours to get out to the Seawall, over it, find the right coordinates, and get down to the bottom. It's a very dangerous journey, even for you. I can't risk the lives of any other agents.'

Except Ten, apparently, Six thought. But he said nothing.

‘However,' King said. ‘I can give you this.'

He offered Six a stubby pistol-shaped object. When Six held out his hand to take it, King grabbed his wrist, pressed the muzzle against his forearm, and pulled the trigger.

Six cried out as a thick needle punctured his flesh. He snatched the gun out of King's hand. The wound on his arm made a hissing sound – something must have been sprayed on to seal it. ‘What the hell?'

‘Now there's a tracking device in you – you should be able to feel it under the skin. This way I'll be able to follow your location. If you find Double Tap's transmitter down there but you can't destroy it, squeeze the device until it bursts, and we'll drop a bomb. You'll have sixty minutes to get away. There's also an epinephrine capsule inside the device, so you should get an energy boost when it pops.'

Six handed him back the injector. ‘You could've warned me.'

‘Sorry. The tenser the muscles are, the harder it is to get the transmitter to the required depth. What else do you want?'

My old life back, Six thought. With a home to go to and friends and family I can still recognise and a job that means something.

‘Flares,' he said. ‘And a torch.'

Six surveyed the junk-heap that was Jack's office. Half-filled boxes, partially assembled guns and makeup instruments were scattered everywhere. How am I supposed to find a weight-belt among all this? he wondered.

Some clothes were visible in one of the open boxes. That seemed like a good place to start. Six sighed, dropped to his knees and started digging through the costumes.

‘Six.'

Six whirled around. Kyntak was leaning against the door. He'd scrubbed off the camouflage paint and was wearing contact lenses that turned his eyes a rich brown. He was carrying a sports bag under his arm.

‘How did you get in?' Six demanded.

‘I used to run this place. They can't keep me out.'

Kyntak pulled a chair out from under Jack's desk and sat down. Six stared at him. Once again, there was no hint of a smile on his face.

Six said, ‘Why did you swim off?'

‘I went after Nai,' Kyntak replied. ‘I didn't want her getting away again.'

Then why did you stop to push me back into the water? Six thought. ‘If you'd waited, I could have helped.'

Kyntak said nothing.

‘Did you catch her?' Six asked.

‘If I had, she'd be here with me.'

‘Why'd you come, if not to bring her?'

‘To warn you,' Kyntak said.

Six waited for him to finish. He didn't. His mouth opened and then shut again.

‘What are you warning me about?' Six demanded, getting frustrated.

‘Double Tap. You need to stop looking for him.'

‘
What?
Why?'

‘Because he'll kill you. And I still care about you, in spite of everything.'

In spite of what? Six thought. Perhaps Kyntak is just like King – he thinks I'm a fake. Just a worthless copy of myself.

‘He already tried to kill me,' Six said.

‘He'll try again, and he'll succeed.'

‘You don't know that.'

‘He came after me,' Kyntak said. He lifted up his shirt, revealing a starburst of scar tissue on his chest. A bullet wound. ‘A year ago. I nearly died. If I'd been a second slower . . .'

Six could see how close Kyntak had come to death. The bullet must have just missed his heart.

‘I've got four more years of experience than you do,' Kyntak continued. ‘When he comes back, you won't stand a chance.'

Six said, ‘So what am I supposed to do? Just let him keep killing people?'

‘There are worse things.' Kyntak stared at the wall.

‘Like what?'

‘Just . . . stop looking, Six,' Kyntak said. ‘You won't like what you find.'

Six stared at him. ‘Wait, did you see him? Do you know who he is?'

Kyntak opened his bag and pulled out a strap studded with lead blocks. ‘Here's your weight-belt,' he said, and threw it on the floor beside Six.

‘If you know something, you have to tell me,' Six said as he bent down to grab it. ‘I –'

But when he looked back up, his brother was gone.

Ten wasn't in the car park when Six arrived. Probably still getting his gear, Six thought. He glanced at Ten's ute. Maybe there was still a chance he could do this mission on his own.

He quickly loaded all the dive gear into the back of the ute. Then he jumped into the driver's seat. Damn. Ten had taken the keys with him. But Six figured he could start it anyway.

He grabbed one of the harpoons, jammed the tip against the rim of the ignition and prised it loose. There were three wires underneath – red, yellow and blue. Six scraped the point of the harpoon against the neoprene coating until the copper underneath was exposed, and then he tapped the blue and yellow wires together.

No spark.

He tried again – nothing. One of the fuses must have been blown. Six fumbled around under the steering wheel for the fuse box and pulled it loose.

The fuse wasn't blown. It was missing.

‘Here,' Ten said, and tossed him the plastic tab. Six was so surprised he barely caught it. ‘Put that back in, will you?'

Six sullenly picked up the fuse box and inserted the missing component.

‘I always take it with me,' Ten said. He eyed the exposed wires. ‘Can't be too careful, these days.'

He sounded disappointed, almost as though he wished Six had succeeded in stealing the ute. For the first time, Six wondered if Ten resented having to follow Six around just as much as Six did.

He slid over to the passenger seat as Ten dumped his dive gear in the back. It was nearly identical to what Six had brought – harpoon gun, torch, weight-belt, heliox, flares, a helmet and an explosives pouch.

‘We seem to have similar tastes,' Ten said as he climbed in.

‘We're going on the same mission,' Six said. ‘It makes sense to have the same gear.'

Ten didn't reply to that. He slid the ignition back into place and turned the key.

‘We need to go to the safe house apartments in Stillbank,' Six said. ‘There's one more thing I need to pick up.'

‘If we go there, it'll be morning by the time we get to the boats,' Ten said.

‘If you have other plans, I'm happy to go by myself,' Six said.

Ten pulled out of the car park, drove onto the street and joined the freeway to Stillbank.

Six pulled out his e-reader.
Need to investigate Revived
, he wrote,
but can't while following DT's trail. Need to find Nai also.
There were too many things to do and not enough time to do them. But now Six had a solution to the problem.

When they pulled up outside the apartments, there were no free parking spaces. This was typical of the area – in fact, Six had been counting on it.

‘Go around the block a few times,' he said. ‘I'll be right back.'

He jumped out before Ten had the chance to argue, and ran inside. Caught the lift up to the forty-eighth floor. Knocked on the door and delivered the password – different agent, same bathrobe.

He stepped into the room he'd slept in the previous night and went over to the time machine.

Here goes nothing, he thought.

ZAP
!

Six fell to the floor of the transmission chamber, hissing in pain. Every nerve screamed as the atoms in his body rebound to one another. The air smelled like hot tar. His head was pounding and his heart felt like there was a bone lodged through it.

He should have arrived one day before he left. As the pain faded, he looked at the clock. His stomach lurched. What the hell? He'd arrived more than
four years
later than he'd intended.

‘Six.'

Agent Six whirled around. The chamber door was open, but instead of Allich's laboratory, there was a mirror there. He stared at himself with uneasy eyes.

But then his reflection moved. Not a mirror – someone who looked exactly like him.

‘Who are you?' Six demanded.

‘Listen carefully, because I don't have a lot of time,' the doppelgänger said. ‘Four years ago, you came out of that machine. Nai killed you. King rebuilt the machine and used it to recreate you. That was two days ago – that's where I came from. Now I've used it to make you again. Oh, and by the way, the warhead in your backpack is a dud.'

A hundred questions all tried to come through Six's mouth at once. What he actually said was, ‘Uh . . . what?'

‘The Queen of Hearts is dead. So is Sammy. Jack has faked his own death and is hiding at his secret second house with his family. Kyntak has gone rogue. I have to –'

‘Jack has a family?'

‘Shut up,' the original Six said. ‘Someone is executing my – our
friends, and I have to work out who. I'm going to the bottom of the ocean to follow up a lead. Your job is to take over the investigation if I don't come back.'

He really is me, the new Six thought. I was always terrible at giving bad news.

Original Six pressed an e-reader into New Six's hand. ‘This is an up-to-date case file on the killings. Once you've read it, you'll know everything I do.'

‘Wait,' New Six said. ‘There are two of us.'

‘Yes. I just told you that.'

‘So . . . what happens with Ace?'

Original Six looked away. ‘I've explained that in the file too.'

A cyst of panic grew on New Six's heart. ‘Is she okay? What's happened?'

‘She's fine. I can't say the same for us.'

‘Where are we?' New Six asked, peering out the chamber door.

‘The Deck apartments in Stillbank,' Original Six said. ‘Our house is owned by someone else now – you can't go back there.'

New Six felt his throat close up. You can handle this, he told himself. ‘Is that everything?'

Original Six hesitated. Whatever he's about to say, New Six thought, it's the worst part.

‘I'm really sorry,' Original Six began, ‘but there's one more thing I need you to do while I'm gone.'