Third Transmission (36 page)

His heart thundered in his chest, and he could feel the drop of acid from his collarbone tunnelling down towards it. He had only seconds before the voracious drip hit something important, like a lung or a vertebra.

He kept running.

Snap! A sudden stab of agony on his head. He realised a drop of acid had hit him there, and would soon burrow down through his skull.

It didn't matter.
STOP VANISH!

Six looked up just in time to see the bafflement and alarm in Vanish's stolen eyes before Six dived into him in a wild flying tackle. Vanish was knocked backwards off his feet, dropping the umbrella, and they both crashed to the deck, sliding sideways across the slippery metal. Vanish screamed as the first millilitres of acid burned his skin, and Six roared as he felt the raindrop on his head scrape the bone, and then they were falling, tumbling off the edge of the CNS
Gomorrah
, down towards the ocean far below.

DEATH

Splash.

The icy water swirled around Six's body, bonding with the acid and washing it away. The salt stung his open wounds, and bubbles of muffled agony escaped his lips.

His lungs ached. He was dizzy. He needed air. But if he surfaced, more acid would land on his head and face and inside his mouth.

The scuba mask! Six grabbed it and held it to his face. He fumbled for the oxygen bottle.

Air! Need air!

He fought to stay conscious. If he blacked out, his body would start breathing automatically and he would drown.

He plugged the cord from the mask into the oxygen bottle. Unscrewed the valve to get air flow. Used his last breath to clear the water out of the mask, shouting, ‘Tooh!'

And then he closed his eyes and breathed in. Rich, cold air was sucked into his lungs. The mask hissed pleasantly. Six didn't exhale, just kept breathing in and
in and in until it felt like he might burst. When he was full, he held the oxygen in for as long as he could before the first few bubbles dribbled up out of his mouth.

And then a hand closed around his throat.

Six's eyes popped open and he saw Vanish in the murky water, teeth clenched and neck tendons bulging, hair drifting and curling around his face like black flames.

Vanish ripped the mask off Six's face. He fumbled with the straps, trying to get them out of the way so he could breathe through it.

The bag with the SARS canisters tumbled away, spinning down into the gloom.

Six made a grab for the cord, missed – – and then a titanic rumbling shuddered through the water. Six felt a rush of heat behind him as the SOL-bomb inside the CNS
Gomorrah
exploded, melting a colossal hole in the side of the ship. Water rushed in to fill the gap, and the ship lurched downwards. The massive, barnacle-scarred hull grumbled slowly past them as the ship began its final journey into the blackness far below.

Six and Vanish were sucked towards the sinking ship by all the displaced water. Six tried to grab the cord again, and succeeded, but Vanish wasn't letting go of the mask.

The survival instinct was the core of Vanish's personality, Six knew. Almost all his actions were motivated by fear of death. He would know he couldn't
go to the surface. And he would know the oxygen bottle couldn't sustain both of them until the storm passed.

So there was absolutely no way he was going to let go of the scuba mask.

Six could feel the drag of the ship getting stronger, and he could see the rain-shredded surface of the water getting further away. It was getting darker. They were going down. And Vanish was using up the last of the oxygen.

He kicked at Vanish's legs. Vanish ignored him. Six tugged sharply at the cord, pulling it away from Vanish's face. Vanish choked as water filled his mouth.

The pressure was starting to build in Six's brainpan. They were getting deeper.

Him or me, Six thought. One of us is going to die.

So he punched Vanish in the gut.

Vanish's eyes bugged as the air exploded from his lungs. Six caught the mask, stuck it to his own face, and breathed in as he started to swim away.

He felt a hand grip his foot. He kicked it off. Tried to keep swimming. The hand came back. Crushing his ankle like a bear-trap. Six kicked and flailed. Vanish wouldn't let go.

Six was facing the distant surface now, trying to swim up while Vanish tried to grab the oxygen bottle with his free hand and the ship tried to drag them both down to the ocean floor. It was Six's superhuman strength against Vanish's all-encompassing desperation.

Six struggled upwards. The grip on his ankle was loosening. He kept kicking – looser still. Then there
was a last panicked squeeze before the hand slipped away altogether.

He swam up, free, out of reach, and then turned to look. He knew he should keep swimming until he was close to the surface, so he could come up as soon as the storm stopped. But he needed to see this. He needed to know that he and Kyntak and Ace were finally safe.

Vanish was behind him, eyes wide, mouth open, hands outstretched like tree branches. He was dead, sinking backwards towards the dull, shrinking silhouette of the CNS
Gomorrah
.

And then there was a white-hot flash as the nuke went off.

Six squeezed his eyes shut against the lethal glare. He scrabbled desperately at the water, trying to swim up, get as far away from the blast as he could. He could feel a volcano of boiling water rushing up behind him.

The sound reached him first. A sharp, loud
thud
. Then a moment of silence, broken up by distant echoes as the thud rebounded off the various cliffs and mountains of the ocean floor. And then there was a roaring, growing louder and louder and louder still, until Six wanted to cover his ears to shut out the sound – but he needed both arms to swim.

The water around him went from murky and still and cold to bright and churning and scorched in a fragment of a second. It was like the acid, but all over his body. Six clamped his teeth down on the mouthpiece and kept swimming, thrusting each of his
limbs against the ocean with all the force that he could muster.

The explosion had instantly evaporated several cubic kilometres of water, leaving a vacuum that the entire ocean was trying to fill. Six could feel the dragging again, so much worse than that of the ship, this time like he was chained by his feet to a sinking bus. His arms and legs whirled through the boiling water.

His brain was on fire. His skin felt like it was being scraped off with a cheese grater. Don't give up, Six. Keep swimming!

The light was so bright he couldn't tell whether his eyes were closed. The wounds from the acid weren't just neutralised anymore – they were cauterised. His jackhammering heart and heavy breathing mixed with the bellowing of the explosion to become a horrible white noise that felt like spikes were being driven through his ears.

And then he reached the surface.

Sudden silence and gentle daylight. The storm had passed. The ringing in his ears was already fading to uncover the popping and gurgling of bubbles floating to the surface all around him.

Six spat out the mouthpiece and sucked in a lungful of the air, polluted and grey but it wasn't out of a can and so he was relieved to have it.

He turned around, splashing gently. The
Gomorrah
was gone. Kyntak's helicopter was gone. The ocean was bare all the way to the horizon.

The SARS canisters were gone.

The warhead was gone.

Sammers was gone.

Vanish was gone.

It was all over.

Six couldn't see the Seawall, but he knew which direction it was in. The sky was stained darkest to his left – that would be the City, about 9 kliks away.

Six paused a moment longer, breathing slowly and deeply and waiting for his heart to wind down. And then he started swimming towards home.

OBSOLETE

It took Six four hours to swim back to the Seawall, and paddle parallel to it until he found a rusted old ladder. In that time, the other Six was rushed back to the Deck, unconscious, examined by Ace, woken up, treated for burns, and given his next mission.
Find the last nuclear warhead in existence
.

By the time Old Six had climbed the ladder to the top of the Seawall and walked along it until he came across a viewing platform, Young Six would have gone to the cocktail party with Ace, been chased away from it, and arrived back at the Deck. Old Six wished there was something he could do to make the whole process easier, but he couldn't interfere. Could he?

Six plodded slowly towards the viewing platform. His legs were rubbery after the 15-kilometre swim. He was still visibly wet, and a trail of water stretched from his feet back along the Seawall all the way to the horizon. His acid burns throbbed, glistening in the daylight.

The tourists on the viewing platform stared at him. Some parents covered the eyes of their children. Six ignored them. He climbed over the safety rail,
resting one hand on a mounted pair of coin-operated binoculars.

‘Does anyone have two credits?' he asked.

Most people just kept staring, but a couple went through their pockets, and someone tossed him a coin. Six caught it. Turned to the stairs, and started walking slowly down them.

When he got to the bottom of the Seawall, he followed the signs to the nearest train station. It wasn't far. He threaded his way through the masses of the lost and confused until he found a payphone.

He inserted the coin. Dialled.

‘Yes?'

‘I know she's watching,' Six said. ‘So it's very important that you keep a straight face when I tell you this.'

‘Uh-huh.'

‘The Queen of Spades is Vanish,' Six said. He hung up, and collected his change.

Six stopped at a café on the way to King's house. He drank water out of a tap in the bathroom and used the rest of his money to buy an apple. It was the first thing he'd eaten other than soup in years, and at first the taste was overpowering, electric. He munched on it slowly, ignoring the uncomfortable glances from the other patrons. He knew he smelled as bad as he looked.

When he'd finished the apple he left the core oxidising on the table and stared out the window. He sat and waited. Right now, the time-soldiers would be killing Grysat and the other agents. Now, King would be beating up the prisoner. And now, Six would be planting explosives on the ceiling of the cell block.

It was over, but it didn't feel over. Six was not reassured, only numbed, by the fact that there was nothing more he could do.

Choice is an illusion. And Tiresias takes the illusion away.

Six glanced at his watch. The Deck would explode in five, four, three, two . . .

The moment passed in silence. No distant boom, no difference in the atmosphere, nothing to indicate that the City was now the closest to lawlessness that it had ever been. No sign that the world had changed.

A waitress approached. ‘Would you like to order something else?'

The meaning was clear.
If you want to stink up the place and horrify the other patrons, you'd better buy more than just an apple.

‘No,' Six said. He stood, and left.

TRANSMISSION ENDS

He's sitting at a bus stop, looking at his watch. It's been hours. He's tired, and still hungry.

Two more minutes, Six thinks. That's all.

The Square is deserted. Silent. Scrunched-up balls of newspaper scuttle past on the breeze.

He's not far from King's house. Right now, Young Six and Ace are there, sharing their first kiss. Old Six smiles at the memory.

The sun rises over the wall of skyscrapers, slowly bleaching the fog above. It's a sunrise he's seen once before, but he doesn't mind.

Despite the insulation from the
Gomorrah
's hull and the seawater, he was probably exposed to some radiation when the bomb went off. He's not feeling sick yet, but he knows he's likely to need medication, and recovery time. No missions for a while – just bed rest while his doctor looks after him.

The seconds flick away. Young Six would be walking away from King's house, Ace watching him go.

He wants a phone. He knows he'll see her in a minute, but he wants to hear her voice
now
, for real, not just in a daydream.

I'm back.

You only just left.

He skips to the good bit, the simple bit.

I can't wait to see you.

You too.

Something snaps Six out of his fantasy. A quiet sniffle from behind him.

He turns. His sister stands in the shadows of a nearby building. She's crying, arms crossed over her stomach.

Six gets up, walks towards her. Makes his footsteps louder than they have to be, so she'll hear him approaching – although she must already know he's there. He watches the tears flow, saying nothing.

She's finally come to see him. He remembers his promise.

Anytime you're ready, I'm here for you.

Nai says, ‘You were right.'

He's not sure how to respond. Right about what?