The Phoenix Variant: The Fifth Column 3 (16 page)

Jay had barely made it to Track C with Damien when he noticed movement ahead, in infrared. It was just a sliver of color, obscured by something in the tunnel wall. He held his hand out behind him and a moment later Damien’s chest touched it. Damien stopped, clicked off Sophia’s torch—which was only shooting a tiny shaft of red light through his fingers—and waited.

Jay turned to Damien and spoke very softly. Softer than he himself could hear, but he knew Damien would.

‘One person ahead, two hundred feet,’ Jay said.

Damien nodded in response. In infrared, his head was a swirl of red and orange inside a circle of green.

Jay watched the tunnel. Another figure appeared even farther ahead, around a slight bend in the track. There was a subway station a little way along.

Jay could barely see the figure but it was running with purpose and seemed to have a pistol in one hand. The walls ranged from light blue to dark blue and purple—the occasional splotch of green where warmth emerged from a power conduit. Then the closer figure emerged: a colorful mix of green, orange and red.

‘Two incoming,’ Jay said again, softly.

Damien nodded again, reaching for a pistol he didn’t have. Jay remembered they were unarmed.

Jay led the way, heading back through Track C, the way they’d come. With Damien in tow, he ran the tunnel with lights off. Damien was struggling to keep his footing and stay silent at the same time, but didn’t complain and just followed in Jay’s footsteps.

They have to be operatives, Jay thought. Just two of them, coming up the tunnel like that with only pistols.

Jay passed their previous tunnel on the left, Ladder M. There would be another, he hoped. With more options. They just needed to put some distance between them and confuse the operatives about their position. He didn’t know how accurate the tracking was for the rock on Damien’s back but even if it was quite accurate, he still hoped their unpredictable route would buy them enough time to get to the surface and find some wheels.

They approached another junction, this one more complex. A light splashed across one wall. It was just one of the subway tunnel lights, he realized, when he shifted back to seeing visible light. The junction opened up before them and he started to move more carefully. Additional tunnels sprouted off, three ahead and a fourth on their right.

Damien pulled at the back of Jay’s tuxedo. Jay stopped and looked to see Damien holding up a hand, signaling to stop. Damien gestured to his ear and pointed ahead. Jay listened but he couldn’t hear what his partner was hearing. It frustrated him that he had the enhanced vision while Damien had the enhanced hearing. Couldn’t they each have both?

Then he saw it.

Two operatives moving through the junction. Right toward them.

Jay sprang from his position, retreating, Damien just a few steps behind. He cursed himself for not having made it to the junction in time. Now they were trapped between two pairs of operatives. He ran for the junction with Ladder M, the way they’d come through, but he knew they wouldn’t get there in time. The operatives they’d first encountered would cut them off.

‘Wait!’ Damien hissed.

Jay turned and noticed Damien pointing up. He followed Damien’s finger. High above, a long line of ventilation grates lined the ceiling. Jay could see the night’s sky through them. It was almost black except for the winking lights of skyscrapers.

Jay started for the elevated footpath on the side of the tunnel. It was narrow but just enough to stand on with both feet. He helped Damien up beside him. It didn’t boost them enough to reach the grates.

A thin pipe was fixed to the wall at chest height. Just enough to stand on with the heels of his stupid dress shoes. At the very top of the wall, another pipe he could use. It was possible.

He threw himself up against the wall, finding the tiny pipe with his feet to get high enough to grab the handhold. It was no larger than a thick piece of rope but it kept him against the wall. His hands found the higher pipe before he lost his balance and he clung to the wall, shoulder burning in protest. Damien was grappling for the same position beside him. Jay could see tiny human-shaped blobs of orange and red in the distance. The operatives were closing.

‘Hurry up!’ Jay said under his breath.

Above the higher pipe Jay could see a small ledge—somewhere he could haul himself into. He lifted one knee to his chest and laid his foot flat on the wall. He used his dangling leg to haul himself up. The pendulum effect gave him enough momentum. He threw his elbows over the pipe, onto the ledge. With his other foot on the wall, he pulled his body to the ledge.

There was nothing between him and the grates, but there were rows of arches across and supporting the ceiling. Jay edged over to one and wrapped his arms around it. Using it as leverage, he pushed off the alcove and away from the wall. Now he was dangling freely from the ceiling. The arch ended where the grate began. He had no way of getting there.

Damien had followed his steps and was also dangling from an arch. He wrapped a leg around it and pushed himself closer to the grate. Then he gripped the grate itself, fingers through the square holes. Jay watched as Damien hung from the grate using only his fingers. The meteorite was still inside the ruck strapped to his back.

The operatives were getting closer.

‘What are you doing?’ Jay hissed.

Damien was breathless, but focused. He swung on the grate, curved his body. He kicked up, striking a nearby grate above him. The impact made a resounding clang that carried through the tunnel. They were beyond the point of hiding now.

Jay felt his heart double its contractions. He didn’t fancy fighting two operatives, let alone four.

Damien swung and kicked again. This time he hit the grate hard enough to dislodge it.

Shit, Jay thought. That could actually work.

Damien kicked a third time. The grate bounced upward, moved halfway. Damien stopped swinging and moved for the gap. With one hand he struggled to slide it open. Jay watched from where he hung as Damien shifted it. The grate moved a fraction. Damien now hung with one hand on the dislodged grate and one on the grate he was swinging under. Above him, a narrow gap. He lifted himself through it.

Jay moved quickly, clawed his way along the grates until he reached Damien. He hung from one hand and used the other to push Damien up. Damien was out of the tunnel. Jay moved closer, reached out and grabbed his partner’s offered hand.

From the corner of Jay’s vision he could see movement in the tunnel. The operatives could see him now.

‘Quick!’ Jay breathed.

He straightened his arms out, held his breath and climbed up through the gap. He was half out, Damien pulling on his arm. Pain arced through his shoulder, through the wound from the arrow. His grip slipped and he fell back through.

Damien reached down, snatched him. Jay dangled inside the tunnel. He looked up, found Damien braced over the grates. Jay reached up and clamped his other hand over Damien’s arm. He wasn’t going to let go. He couldn’t.

Damien reinforced with his other arm, legs spread between the grates. Damien pulled hard and Jay slowly rose. Just a fraction more and he could reach the grates and help haul himself out.

His fingers reached out, brushed the grate, found a hold. Damien shifted one hand to the back of Jay’s collar. Jay didn’t care if it strangled him, he just wanted out. His head made it above the surface. He switched his grip from under to over the grate and wriggled upward.

A cracking sound from below.

It bounced along the tunnel, filling Jay’s ears. Something hard, heavy struck the side of his midsection, almost crushed his ribs. He pulled himself out, pressed his chest over the grate. Damien almost fell backward onto the sidewalk, but he didn’t stop pulling. Jay’s knees were up and out. He was clear. He rolled over. Away from the grates. Pain took the breath from him.

While Damien hurriedly lowered the grate back into position, Jay noticed the city lights before them start to blink out, block by block. The darkness crept closer to them and then halted two blocks away. Just before Grand Central terminal. Everything south of Forty-Second Street was pitch black.

Jay tried to stand but a fierce wind tore through the street, knocking him onto his back. The howl chilled him. When he could open his eyes again he noticed the sky in the distance. It was no longer black but a brooding purple. It ruptured with the occasional flash.

Hurricane Isaias.

Jay tried to breathe but his ribs sent fire through him with every inhalation. He looked down and realized what that cracking sound in the tunnel had been.

He’d been shot.

‘Did Freeman ever give you his code?’ DC said.

The question caught Sophia by surprise. ‘Code?’

‘The one Cecilia was trying to get out of you in Denver,’ he said.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she said.

DC rolled his eyes. ‘It’s just us here. I already know.’

‘He never actually kept the whole code,’ she said. ‘Just the chromosomal location. Unless he was stupid enough to trust you with the number.’

‘He wasn’t,’ DC said.

‘It was the code for a Phoenix virus, wasn’t it?’ Sophia said.

DC nodded.

‘Which one?’ she asked.

He didn’t look at her, and instead seemed to focus on a stray newspaper.

‘Your one,’ he said. ‘Freeman told me it was an inherited endogenous retrovirus. Integrated into your DNA. Denton believed it was passed down from your grandfather, Yiri, and that originally it was an exogenous retrovirus of extraterrestrial nature.’ He finally looked at her. ‘Your grandfather was infected with a Phoenix virus.’

Sophia swallowed. ‘So my special power came from an alien rock.’

‘The technology wasn’t up to scratch back then but Denton spent the best part of the Cold War crunching your grandfather’s DNA. Owen Freeman defected and stole the code before he could solve the puzzle. Denton had to start again. The Phoenix virus lay dormant in your mother. Again, with the technology of the time it was useless to Denton. But for some reason it sparked inside you.’

She felt anger well inside her. ‘You kept all of this from me,’ she said.

DC shook his head slowly. ‘Half of it I only learned in the last twenty-four hours,’ he said. ‘Need to know.’

‘I need to know,’ she said softly, more to herself.

‘That’s why I’m telling you everything they’ve told me.’

‘Somehow I doubt that,’ she said.

DC shot her a piercing stare. ‘You were part of Project Phoenix long before you were part of Project GATE,’ he said. ‘Denton had been sending for blood samples when you’d never even met him. He had four candidates, including you. After Project Phoenix collapsed, all four of you were inducted into Project GATE.’

‘But only I survived.’

She remembered. The glass cubicles next to each other; Denton watching. The shivering, moaning. The girl collapsing, vomiting on the floor. The hot lumps across the boy’s skin. They turned black, oozed pus, blood. She remembered screaming, her hands clawing the cubicle door. The bodies of the children crumpled, soaked wine red.

‘
You’re the lucky one
,’ she whispered, reciting his words.

‘The Phoenix virus has a few perks too. The host is resistant to plagues, flu, other sickness, those brought on by other comet-borne viruses,’ DC said. ‘The other three test subjects died as part of the test to determine who was a real carrier. Which ones just had a special ability like every other Project GATE test subject, and who actually harbored the Phoenix virus.’

‘And then the real testing began,’ Sophia said.

‘With Dr Cecilia McLoughlin,’ he said. ‘But she only ever knew of one Phoenix. Denton never told her there were three. None of this matters now, of course. The Fifth Column has reached a consensus. Denton will need to die.’ He stood upright and pushed off the rail car. ‘That’s everything I know.’

‘Not quite.’ She turned to face him. ‘Why did you betray me?’

He looked at her for a moment, a long moment. She wasn’t even sure if he would respond.

‘It wasn’t about you,’ he said.

‘Seems everything else is.’ She stepped from the rail car and stood in the center of the tracks. ‘I can’t tell you how stupid I feel, trusting you like I did.’

DC seemed almost suspended in the darkness. He stood in silence, partly facing her yet partly not. ‘Whatever you feel, I feel worse,’ he said.

She almost laughed, but his words carried pain. She breathed it in and it felt like her own. For an instant she felt sorry for him, but warmth washed over her. It burned her ears and fingertips. She took two long strides toward him and had to suppress the urge to hit him.

‘Cecilia was
this
close to giving me a hit of the anti-Chimera vector and you did nothing,’ she said. ‘I was seconds away from becoming a robot soldier, a psychopath just like Denton.’ The words came from her mouth in a low growl. ‘Do you know who saved me?’

DC stared at her. He probably didn’t even know the answer.

‘Denton saved me!’ she yelled. ‘Fucking Denton!’ She pushed past him and paced the tracks. ‘Of all the people to stop me becoming … like that, it was
him
.’ She felt her cheeks burn. ‘There was a moment there where the thing I hated most in the world was you.’

She watched the quiver on his face. She hoped it hurt. She wanted it to hurt. She wanted him to feel guilty. But he just stood there, a shadow in the tunnel.

‘Say something,’ she said.

‘I don’t need to,’ he said, softly.

She swallowed. He looked tired, sad. And she could feel it. It made her sick inside.

He extended his hand. ‘You can feel it, can’t you?’

She reached out to touch the tips of his fingers.

‘You’re the Detector.’

Her phone buzzed. She dug into her pocket to fish it out.

Got it doing back now

The message was from
N
, which she figured Aviary had labeled as Nasira’s iPhone. And she guessed
coming
had autocorrected to
doing,
what with Nasira’s lack of smartphone experience.

‘Wait, how do I have reception?’ Sophia wondered aloud.

DC shrugged. ‘That’s good, right?’

Sophia attempted to reply.
Copy tgat
autocorrected to
Copy that
. She hit the send button and her message bubble appeared. She noticed the label underneath:
Read 10:37pm
. Good, at least she knew Nasira—or at least someone holding Nasira’s phone—had read her message.

In response, an image popped up of the Grand Central terminal blueprints. Aviary had sent it. Sophia made it fullscreen and showed DC. The phone’s backlight almost blinded him, but he took the phone and inspected it closely.

‘That’s good,’ he said, pinching and swiping to get his bearings. ‘Aha. I think I know where to go.’

He handed the phone back to her.

Another message.

Standby movement on dining concourse

Sophia wanted to just speak with Nasira, but it didn’t sound like she was in a position to talk. That Phoenix or DARPA mind-reading stuff would’ve been great right now. They could’ve just sent thoughts to each other. Then again, that would still be limited by range.

She checked the operative map overlay. A dot appeared. Very close to her current location. She froze.

DC was watching her intently. ‘What?’

She put a finger on her lips and showed him the phone again.

‘One operative,’ she said in the quietest voice she could manage.

‘Not moving,’ he said, dropping his voice to match.

‘There for a reason,’ she said. ‘But what?’

DC snatched the phone from her. ‘I think I know.’

She watched him take the blueprint and use it as an overlay. He adjusted the size until it matched the satellite image of Grand Central, then toggled back to street view so he could see things more clearly. He zoomed in, adjusted the blueprint a fraction more and then double-tapped the operative. The phone zoomed all the way in.

He handed her the phone. ‘That’s where Denton is,’ he said. ‘If they were hunting for us there’d be more than one. That operative is with him.’

‘We need to check it out,’ she said. ‘But we have to wait for Nasira and Aviary.’

DC’s jaws set hard. ‘We really don’t have time,’ he said.

‘They just need to wait until it’s clear.’

‘There’s an entire squadron of Blue Berets between us and them,’ DC said quietly. ‘That squadron could be patrolling, it could be static, it could break into fire-teams. If we wait—’

‘We improve our odds,’ Sophia said.

DC raised an eyebrow. ‘Nasira is just one more operative. And your hacker explosives friend too.’

‘Recon it,’ Sophia said. ‘Then we pull back and decide.’

He nodded. ‘Assuming we have the luxury of a decision.’