Dead Man Running (9 page)

THE UNSAFE HOUSE

Something soft beneath his head. Something warm draped across his skin.

I'm in bed, Six realised. It was just a dream. There isn't a serial killer hunting my friends. There's no new Agent Six. Ace still loves me.

‘Six?'

Six turned his head on the pillow and the first thing he saw was Ace's hand, with the wedding ring still on it. His sense of relief was vaporised.

‘Welcome back,' Ace said. ‘How do you feel?'

The morgue wobbled into focus. Six eyed the closed drawers apprehensively – how many of them might contain bodies who were waiting to be Revived?

He cleared his throat and said, ‘Did you catch him?'

‘Sorry,' Ace replied. ‘King overrode the scanners so none of the doors would open, but when we searched the building, there was no sign of Double Tap. He must have got out before the lockdown.'

‘Or,' Six said, ‘he's still here, disguised as one of you.'

Ace looked troubled. ‘These are good people you're talking about,' she said. ‘To you they're strangers, but I know them all really well. None of them would do this.'

‘Whoever Double Tap is,' Six said, ‘he's a really good liar. Otherwise we'd have caught him by now.'

He tried to sit up. A dull ache flared in his chest. I wonder how many ribs I fractured, he thought.

‘Take it easy, Six,' Ace said. ‘You've had several blood transfusions.'

Several? Transfusions took time, Six knew. How long had he been unconscious?

Seeming to read his mind, Ace said, ‘You've been out for almost thirty hours.'

Six boggled at her. Thirty
hours
? He had work to do.

‘Get samples of the blood left on the floor,' he said. ‘You shot Double Tap twice, and I think I broke his nose – there should be enough to get a strong DNA print.'

‘Already on it,' Ace said. ‘But most of the blood seems to be yours. You left a lot behind.'

‘Don't worry about me.'

Ace sighed. ‘Speaking of blood samples, I tested the hat you gave me. The guy on the train, his blood was filled with a mixture of cyclobenzaprine, which is a muscle relaxant, and ketamine, which is a dissociative anaesthetic. It would have made the subject weak, confused, impaired his memory, made him psychologically suggestible – but it shouldn't have made him hallucinate. It definitely shouldn't have made him start eating himself. Wait, where are you going?'

Six was clambering off the bed. He was naked except for some pyjama pants and the surgical tape that mummified his torso.

‘Where are my clothes?'

‘You need to rest. I can't fix you up again. If you tear your stitches –'

Six spotted his cargo pants and shirt draped over a chair behind her. He stepped past her and started pulling them on.

‘Damn it, Six.
Listen
to me.'

Six turned to face her. ‘For all we know, Double Tap is killing someone right now. I can't afford to rest.'

There was a dark red freckle on the inside of Ace's elbow, like she'd been injected with something. Six frowned.

You've had several blood transfusions. I can't fix you up again.

Ace saw him looking. She crossed her arms quickly.

Knowing that she still cared about him, enough to forfeit the blood in her veins, should have made Six happy. But somehow it made him feel even worse – a seasoning of guilt on top of all the misery he already had.

‘Thanks for saving my life,' he said. ‘But I have to go and see King.'

The lift doors slid shut, sealing him in. Six buttoned his shirt as the car cruised upwards.

Okay, he thought. Double Tap can clearly get in and out of the Deck at will. So why did he only kill those three Deck agents? What was special about them? Six had known them all pretty well. That was one link. He wouldn't normally have thought it was significant, but now he knew he'd met every single victim. Perhaps they had been killed just for associating with him. But Six was even more familiar with King, Ace and Kyntak, none of whom had been murdered. Clearly, that wasn't the connection.

The lift passed the ground floor and kept rising. Six drummed his fingers against the handrail. What if the three of them had all known something? A key piece of intelligence that might have led the Deck to the killer? It was a tempting thought, but impossible to prove. According to Ten's files, there was no case that all three had worked on. And a search of each of their homes had come up with nothing. If they'd known a clue, they hadn't recorded it – or Double Tap had taken it with him.

Six was missing something. He could feel it.

A search of their homes came up with nothing, he thought. A search of their homes . . .

Six slapped the emergency stop button. The lift lurched and a bell rang. He hit a button and it changed direction, heading back down towards the ground floor.

Jack's house was searched, Six thought. But Jack had
two
houses. One near the Deck, the other in the inner north-west. The case files hadn't said anything about a search of Jack's second home – perhaps because only Six had known about it.

Jack might have left some notes at his other house. And if he had, there might be something in them that would lead Six to Double Tap. It was a long shot, but it was worth checking out.

The doors opened, and Six ran out into the car park.

‘Going somewhere?'

Six didn't need to turn around. By now, he knew Ten's voice well enough to recognise it instantly.

‘No,' he said. ‘I just thought I might have left something in my car.'

‘You “might have”? I thought you had a photographic memory.'

‘It's a figure of speech,' Six said.

‘Well, my memory's pretty good too. And I seem to remember that you arrived here on foot. You don't
have
a car.'

Six turned around. ‘What do you want?'

Ten shrugged. ‘Nothing. I just thought you might be leaving, in violation of our agreement. But I'm sure you're about to come back inside and prove me wrong.'

‘You said the agreement was for keeping me safe,' Six said. ‘Given what's just happened, it seems I'm in no more danger out there than in here.'

Ten nodded. ‘Agreed. So I think I'll follow you everywhere from now on, outside and in.'

‘Leave me alone!' Six shouted.

‘And disobey my orders?' Ten said. ‘That could get me in a lot of trouble.'

He held up his keys and pressed a button. A nearby ute chirped.

‘Come on,' he said. ‘I'll give you a ride to wherever it is you're going.'

He strolled over to his car, opened the driver's-side door and sat down. Turned the key in the ignition.

‘Or,' he said as the engine growled, ‘you could walk, and I'll follow you. But when the driver behind me gets mad because I'm going so slow, I'll expect you to explain to him what's happening.'

Six sighed and jogged over to the passenger's side.

‘Why didn't I know Jack had a second house?' Ten asked.

Six shrugged. ‘You didn't know Jack.'

Ten looked over at him, perhaps to see if he was being made fun of. After a pause, he said, ‘Sure I did. I joined the Deck months before he was killed. We worked together on plenty of things.'

‘Then you'd know that while Jack may have been the friendliest guy in the City, he was also incredibly paranoid. And he was
really
good at keeping secrets. He was concerned that someday the Deck might be infiltrated and any data in his personnel file could be used against him.' He looked out the window. ‘Maybe he was right.'

They were cruising over one of the thousands of bridges that spanned the City from coast to coast. When ChaoSonic had replaced the government, all roads had become toll roads. As the less profitable public transport system crumbled and more people started driving, ChaoSonic started building overpasses across the existing streets – it was expensive to close a toll road long enough to add another lane or an exit, compared to building a whole new road. When demand increased even more, they built overpasses over the overpasses.

Staring out the window, Six couldn't even see any buildings. Just bridge after bridge after bridge, all the way to the horizon. There were some suburbs in which it was always night, thanks to all the roads above blocking out the daylight.

Ten said, ‘So why did he tell you, then?'

‘Maybe because he knew I worried about the same things.'

‘So if he was incredibly paranoid, what does that make you?'

‘It's not paranoia in my case,' Six said. ‘People really are trying to kill me.'

‘What was the context? How do you bring something like that up?'

‘I was in the makeup chair,' Six said. ‘A lot of our conversations happened there. He was showing me a signal jammer he'd designed for one of my missions.

‘He said, “You just flick the switch, like this . . . and now, no-one can hear us. I could use this opportunity, for example, to tell you that I have a place you can hide if you ever think the Deck might have been compromised. A safe house – I bought it years ago, just in case. The GPS coordinates are –35.3023, 149.1262. Remember that.” Then he flicked the switch back, held up the jammer, and said, “So. You understand all that?”'

‘Wow,' Ten said. ‘He
was
paranoid.'

‘Not enough,' Six said. ‘He's dead.'

It took another forty-five minutes of driving to get to Jack's house. Neither of them spoke for the rest of the journey.

The house itself was slightly smaller and slightly darker than all the others on the street. Six could imagine people driving right past without really seeing it. The front door was recessed so far into the wall that it was mostly concealed by shadows.

But the lights were on. Someone had beat them here.

‘Keep driving,' Six said. ‘Park a little further up. There's somebody in there.'

Ten kept his eyes on the road. ‘Looking for the same thing we are?'

‘Maybe.' Six was already loading clips into his gun.

Ten looked uneasy. ‘It might be the new owners. Jack might have left it to somebody in his will.'

Six shook his head. ‘The Deck had access to his will. There was no mention of this place.'

‘Could be squatters, then.'

‘Yeah,' Six said. ‘Or it could be Double Tap, here to cover his tracks.'

Ten's knuckles were white around the steering wheel.

‘Pull over,' Six said. Ten did, and Six opened the door. ‘Wait here.'

‘Whoa, hang on. You're not going in there.'

‘Yes, I am.'

‘We have to call for backup.'

‘Double Tap has infiltrated the Deck. Either he's an agent, or he's using someone who is. If we call for backup, he'll find out, and he'll be gone by the time they get here. I have to get to him
now
.'

Six got out of the car. So did Ten.

‘I told you to wait here,' Six hissed.

‘And I told you,' Ten whispered, ‘that I'm not letting you out of my sight.'

Six gritted his teeth. There was no time to argue about this.

‘Don't slow me down,' he said, and crept back down the street towards Jack's house. He heard Ten follow him.

Normally, Six would spend hours scoping out a house before attempting to break in. He liked to know about every window, every door, every cat-flap. But there was a chance Double Tap had seen them drive past and was already planning his escape. Every second counted.

Six wove through the shadows towards the front door, silent as a spirit. It was easy enough to stay concealed behind the weeds and overgrown bushes that cluttered the garden. He took care to step only on soft soil, avoiding the leaves and twigs which might crunch underfoot. When he was a little closer, he peeked out from behind a ragged hedge, trying to get another glimpse through the window.

The curtains shifted. Someone was looking out at them.