Dead Man Running (5 page)

Someone was just in here asking about you.

Describe him.

Shortish, young, male. Dark hair. He left a phone number.

What did you tell him?

Nothing. Said I didn't know you but I'd call him if you came in.

Good. Give me the number.

Six had no idea where Nai lived. He had found her in the Lab as an infant, but soon afterwards she'd been abducted by Retuni Lerke, the ChaoSonic scientist who had genetically engineered Six and his siblings.

Lerke didn't work for ChaoSonic any more. Six knew that ChaoSonic had tried to have him killed, and that Lerke had stolen a lot of money from the company before fleeing, but he wasn't sure what order those events had happened in.

After kidnapping Nai, Lerke had poisoned her with a drug that caused accelerated ageing. Now she was physically Six's age, but as emotionally well rounded as a toddler, and she didn't think of Lerke as her abductor any more. He was her rescuer.

If someone had killed Six and sent a living dead assassin after Kyntak, then there was a good chance Nai was in danger too. At least now Six had her attention. In sixty seconds she'd have tracked the phone number to a set of GPS coordinates. In fifteen minutes, she'd have garotting wire on her belt, plastic explosive in her ammunition pouch and a crossbow slung over her shoulder – quieter than a rifle. And she'd be on her way to the abandoned factory where Six's spare phone was.

Six glanced at his watch. If he left now, he would arrive before her. That would make his decoy redundant – he could only trap her if he arrived just afterwards. Better move slowly, he thought. Just the same, his stride was brisk as he walked towards the train station.

The security was tighter than it had been four years ago. Coils of razor wire ran parallel to the tracks. Automated gun-turrets swivelled on either side of the turnstile, ready to pulverise anyone whose ChaoSonic Citizen Card was deemed invalid by the scanner.

Six held his breath as he approached. If his Triple C had been registered as a fake since his taxi ride, the first sign would be a bullet through his skull.

He dropped it into the slot. There was a split-second pause.

‘Welcome to ChaoTravel,' a soothing voice said, and the turnstile locks clicked loose. Six took the Triple C and pushed through, trying to look as though he did this every day. The other passengers, who presumably
did
do this every day, looked tired, bored, distracted. They showed no fear of the guns, nor relief that they hadn't been shot. This was the populace, Six remembered, that had bought new cars after ChaoSonic crushed their old ones.

The best and the worst thing about humans, he thought, is that they can get used to anything.

More than Kyntak's absence, more than Ace's marriage, perhaps even more than the deaths of his friends,
this
sent a wash of sadness through Six's gut. The citizens of the City seemed to have completely given up hope. Before, Six had always told himself that he and the Deck represented the will of the people. But now, the people had stopped fighting. So where did that leave him?

A distant shrieking of brakes, a rush of stale air, and the train erupted from the tunnel. The doors slid open as it ground to a stop beside the platform, and Six walked in. There were a few free seats, but Six remained standing. Sitting down was good if you wanted to be inconspicuous, but left you at a disadvantage if you were suddenly attacked. Six wasn't sure why, but today he felt like protection was more important than invisibility.

It was twenty minutes before the train arrived at the station nearest the factory. Six got off, and though the exit was manned by the same scanners and guns as the entrance had been, again he made it through without getting shot.

The factory was a hulking brick structure, blackened by time, twin chimneys stabbing the sky like the tines of a carving fork. As Six watched, a ChaoCorde swept over the top of it, leaving murky ripples in the fog behind.

The ChaoCordes were the reason the factory had been closed. The gases that billowed from the chimneys were eroding the engines, and this air corridor was used every thirty seconds or so. ChaoSonic had weighed the expense of building a new factory elsewhere against the costs of changing the flight paths, and had decided to relocate the factory. But it would have been expensive to demolish this one, so it remained, still and empty, in an area where no-one could stand to live because of the roaring of jet engines twice per minute.

Six couldn't see any sign that anyone was here – which was practically proof that Nai was. When she broke into buildings, she didn't just remove the traces of forced entry, but also made the place look more secure to deter passers-by. She'd been known to close ajar windows, put new padlocks on gates and slap ChaoSonic Security stickers on doors.

There was a small digicam attached to the factory wall. Six didn't think it had been there earlier, and he was pretty sure the building had been cut off from the electricity grid, so there was nothing to recharge the batteries. It was fake.

She's here, he thought.

Six was wearing body armour, but had no weapons. They would do him no good, since he didn't want to hurt his sister, and Nai might shoot him if she saw that he was armed. He just wanted to talk to her, see that she was okay, and warn her about the threat.

Six waited for another ChaoCorde to fly over – camouflage noise. Then he broke into a sprint towards the chain-link fence. He jumped, flipped, landed in a crouch on the other side. Ran over to the factory wall and pressed his back against it. The ChaoCorde faded into the gloomy horizon, and Six listened. No sound from inside the factory. No indication that anyone had heard him.

He crept around the side of the building. Most of the ground-floor windows had been smashed in, perhaps by vandals, maybe by the ChaoSonic assault teams who'd been sent to clear out the squatters. Six kept his head low so he couldn't be seen through any of the empty frames.

When he was on the opposite side of the factory to the road, he stood up slowly and peeped inside. The massive space was filled with conveyor belts and tools coated in thick layers of dust. Iron oxide was growing across the various machines like mould on a pile of dirty dishes. A Frisbee-like robotic vacuum cleaner was trundling past in the distance. Six had put it there earlier, with his spare phone inside where the suction engine was supposed to be. He'd hoped the roving signal would convince Nai that the phone was being carried by a person.

Nothing else was moving. No sign of Nai.

Six climbed through the window and dropped to the floor, wincing as some broken glass crunched under his shoes. He tiptoed into the darkness, starting to doubt himself. Maybe the phoney video camera had been put there by ChaoSonic. Maybe the gun shop owner hadn't seen Nai, and had been calling someone else about something completely different. Maybe –

Click.

Six threw himself sideways as a crossbow bolt flashed out of the darkness behind him. It embedded itself in the side of one of the machines with a
clang
. Six hit the floor, rolled, then dashed towards the far side of the factory, his heart hammering in his ears.

‘Don't shoot!' he roared. ‘I'm unarmed!'

There was a snapping sound from somewhere in the gloom above, and another bolt rocketed towards him. Six snatched up the vacuum cleaner and held it over his face. The bolt punched through it, the cruel point stopping only centimetres from his eyeball. The motor in the cleaner rattled to a stop.

She's in the rafters, he thought. He took aim at the dark shape above, whirled around and flung the cleaner like a giant discus, hoping she would take cover.

He heard a sharp intake of breath from above, a scuffle, a muttered curse – and then there she was, plummeting towards the floor, her face twisted into a snarl.

Six dashed towards her, hoping to catch her before she hit the ground. But even as she fell, she was aiming the crossbow at him.

Are you crazy? Six thought. I'm trying to save you!

Snap!
Six dove aside and the bolt sheared through his shirt collar as Nai landed in a sprinter's crouch and took aim again.

Six slammed into the ground. ‘Stop it!' he wheezed. ‘Nai, it's me!'

Nai peered over the scope of her crossbow – and she screamed.

Six flinched. That wasn't the reaction he'd expected. ‘It's okay,' he said, clambering to his feet. ‘I just want to talk.'

Nai didn't seem reassured. She was backing away from him, her face drained of colour. She looks, Six thought, like she's seen a ghost.

‘You're dead!' Nai hissed.

Six held up his hands, showing that they were empty. ‘I was. Now I'm alive again.' Then he said, ‘Wait. You were shooting at me when you didn't even know who I was? What kind of attitude is that?'

‘How?' Nai's gaze roamed over every inch of Six's body, perhaps looking for some kind of trick. ‘How can you be alive?'

‘I'll explain, if you put the crossbow down.'

Nai looked at the weapon as though she'd forgotten she was holding it.

‘No,' she said, and pulled the trigger.

Six heard the rush of displaced air and threw up his arms to protect his face.

He sensed the warm blood dribbling down his wrist before he felt the sting puncturing his palm. He staggered backwards, staring down at the bolt wedged through his hand between the tendons that led to his little and ring fingers.

The urge to pull it out was overpowering, but he resisted. Bullets were hot, cauterising the wounds they created. A crossbow bolt was far worse – as soon as Six removed it, the blood flow would get out of control. This wouldn't be a problem if he had time to tear his clothes into bandages, but right now, he still needed to defend himself from his crazy sister.

‘Stop shooting me!' he yelled. ‘Damn it, I'm here to help you!'

‘I don't want your help,' Nai said.

She fired again and Six tried to duck, but the pain from his hand was making it hard to balance. He tripped and the bolt whooshed through his hair as he landed on his uninjured hand.

Why is she trying to kill me? Six thought. And then a voice spoke from the corner of his mind: Maybe because she already did.

They hadn't been on good terms four years ago, but she'd never been this aggressive with him before. She looked more surprised to see him alive than anyone else he'd met so far – as if she'd
known
he was dead, instead of just guessing from his disappearance.

Nai was taking aim again. She was too close to miss, and from the ground, he'd have no time to dodge. If he was going to die, he had to know the truth.

‘Did you kill me?' he asked.

‘You had it coming,' she said, and fired.

Six watched the bolt as it rocketed towards his face – and then time seemed to freeze. The bolt hovered in the air as though someone had hit a pause button. It took him a moment to notice the fist clenched around the bolt. Someone had caught it in mid-flight.

Six's gaze followed the hand up a dark-sleeved arm to a face that was smeared with grey-blue camouflage paint. The man had been almost invisible until he'd moved. Six stared at his grimy features. ‘Kyntak?' he said.

His brother ignored him. He pirouetted suddenly, jamming the bolt straight through the firing mechanism of the crossbow. Nai lashed out at him with her free hand, but he turned towards the blow and her fist struck his forehead, where the skull was thickest. He lunged forwards, grabbing Nai by both arms and wrestling her to the ground.

‘Found you,' he growled.

Kyntak didn't seem any older. When Six had last seen him he'd been sixteen, but could pass for eighteen. Now he was twenty-one, but could pass for sixteen. Six had once been told that he and Kyntak had been genetically engineered to stop ageing shortly after puberty. Now he could see the proof.

‘Get off me!' Nai yelled.

Kyntak pulled an aerosol can off his belt and sprayed a sour-smelling foam on each of Nai's hands. Then he grabbed her wrists and forced them together. Six heard a crackling sound as the foam hardened, fixing Nai's palms to one another. Kyntak started spraying her ankles.

‘You are
so
dead,' she hissed.

Kyntak held up the can. ‘Shut up,' he said, ‘or it's going in your mouth.'

Nai shut up, but she didn't stop struggling. Six winced as Kyntak put his forearm over her throat to hold her down.

‘Don't hurt her,' Six said.

Without looking at him, Kyntak said, ‘She killed you. And she was about to do it again.'

‘That doesn't make it okay.'

Kyntak didn't reply. He hooked Nai's crossbow onto his belt and hauled her to her feet. ‘Normally I just leave people for the Deck to find,' he told her. ‘But something tells me you need to be escorted.'

Nai said, ‘You think their cells will hold me?'

‘You'd better make me believe they will,' Kyntak said. ‘Or I might decide you belong in a body bag.'

The unease Six felt was like spiders crawling across his scalp. Retuni Lerke had given him his powers and King had taught him to use them, but it was Kyntak who'd taught him to be a human being. Kyntak had shown Six that there was no situation so hopeless that there wasn't a joke to be made.

There was no trace of that view now. The Kyntak Six remembered was part comedian, part superhero, but this Kyntak was a grim vigilante threatening to kill his own sister. Six said, ‘I have to tell you something.'

‘It can wait,' Kyntak replied, dragging Nai towards the door.

‘It can't,' Six said. ‘ChaoSonic is trying to kill you.'

‘They're always trying to kill me. I can handle it.'

‘Listen to me. One of the dead bodies in the Deck morgue woke up, and came looking for you.'

Kyntak looked sceptical. ‘Uh-huh,' he said. ‘Well, if I see him, I'll let you know.'

Nai's eyes were wide with dread.