Third Transmission (7 page)

‘Back again?' Ace said. ‘You'd better not have hurt yourself.' She pointed at the table. ‘Your slab is occupied.'

Six stared at the white sheet draped over whatever was on the table. It was an irregular, fragmented shape – if it was a body, it was in pieces. He grimaced.

Ace swept off the sheet with a flourish, revealing a mass of jars and boxes. ‘Occupied by my stuff,' she said. She grinned at Six's discomfort. ‘What? I work with the dead, so I'm not allowed a sense of humour?'

‘I need you to come on a mission with me,' Six said. ‘It's a cocktail party, and I need a date.'

Ace stared at him for a long moment. Then she said, ‘Why me?'

‘Because you're pretty,' Six said.

‘That could be the bluntest, most demeaning compliment I've ever been paid,' Ace said.

‘Not a compliment,' Six replied. ‘Statement of fact. The other guests are going to be ChaoSonic high rollers
who can afford expensive clothes and plastic surgery and Botox, and I need someone who –'

‘Okay, you can stop now,' Ace said. ‘But I'm a Diamond, not a Heart. I don't do field work. Isn't there someone else who'd be better suited to this?' She chuckled.

Six didn't get the joke.

‘Of the thirteen Hearts, only ten do field work,' he said. ‘Only four of those are female. Two are out on missions, one is in the OR with a compound ankle fracture, and the last one …' Six paused. ‘She does kickboxing with Kyntak, and wins. She does great work, but she won't fit in at this kind of party. She looks too much like an agent. Or a wrestler.'

Ace raised an eyebrow.

‘I mean, I could still ask her,' Six said, becoming uncomfortable. ‘Jack could probably make her look the part. But you were trained in combat as a Club like everyone else, and this should be an easy and straightforward mission, and I know you better. I trust you, and you trust me. That's important for field work.'

‘Is that why you usually do solo missions?' Ace said. ‘Because you have no confidence in anyone else?'

Six said nothing. There didn't seem to be a right answer to that question.

‘Relax, Six,' Ace said. She grinned. ‘I'll go. I just like needling you.'

Six sighed. ‘Great. Jack's expecting us.'

‘Thanks, but I can do my own makeup,' she said. ‘Get out of here.'

‘Six!' Jack said, beaming. ‘Boy, do I have a treat for you!'

‘Great,' Six mumbled. He sat down in the makeup chair.

‘Nuh-uh,' Jack said, waggling a finger. ‘Got to dress you up first.'

‘Dress me up?' Six got to his feet. ‘Can't you just make me look older?'

Jack rolled his eyes. ‘Yeah, like you're going to a cocktail party in
that
.'

Six looked down at his cargo pants. By the time he looked back up, Jack was holding up a hanger with a single-breasted tuxedo jacket, pants and a freshly starched shirt.

‘Put this on,' Jack said, tossing the clothes to Six and turning to his workbench. ‘I've got some gizmos for you.'

Six pulled on the trousers of the tux. The woollen fabric was so light it barely felt like wearing pants at all. At least it wouldn't weigh him down. He pulled his T-shirt over his head, exposing his Kevlar vest, and took the shirt from the hanger. The sleeves were cold as he slipped his arms through.

‘First things first,' Jack said. ‘Allow me to present … your Geiger counter!' He cupped a hand to his ear. ‘What's that you say? It looks like an ordinary phone?' He grinned. ‘You're damn right it does. That's because, frankly, I'm brilliant.'

‘I thought we didn't need the Geiger counter until we found Port B,' Six said.

‘I figure if there's no radioactive trail at Port A, the warhead never went through – so there'd be no need to go looking for Port B.'

Six took the phone. It looked entirely unremarkable. He switched it on. The screen lit up. He scrolled through the menu – text message, picture message, video message, web browser, live video uplink.

‘Functions exactly like an ordinary phone,' Jack said. ‘But with the added bonus that it can detect radiation levels as low as .002 millisieverts, which is .2 rem. I figured audible clicking would be too suspicious, so I prog rammed the radiation level to show up as bars of reception. One full bar for every .05 mSv, 25 pixels per bar.'

Six peered at the screen. ‘It says we have almost .3 mSv of radiation in here!'

Jack pointed at a large, leaden safe sitting in the corner of the room. ‘Yeah. There's a box of nuclear batteries in there, so that makes some background radiation. But if a nuclear warhead had been here two years ago, it'd be more like .9 mSv. You see, not only does radioactive energy take a long time to dissipate, but the more time that passes, the slower it dies away. So it's never really gone, even after hundreds of years.'

Six suddenly felt itchy all over. He imagined he could feel the radiation seeping into his pores.

‘Pansy,' Jack said. ‘I heard you were out in a rainstorm earlier. Yet a little radiation bugs you? It'd take, like, seven times this much to make you really sick.'

‘Aren't you in here seven days a week?' Six asked.

‘I don't keep the nuclear batteries here all the time.' Jack sighed. ‘You're missing the point. I've used my brilliance to design and make a Geiger counter that's not only way more sensitive than the industry standard, but also –'

‘Can it tell what direction the radiation's coming from, and the electrical charge of the particles as well?' Six said. ‘Or is it just a GM tube inside to measure the levels?'

‘Oh, shut up,' Jack said. ‘By the way, you're supposed to button from the top downwards – and in future you should put on the shirt before the trousers, so it's not so hard to tuck in.'

‘Smart-arse,' Six said.

‘Hypocrite.'

‘Where's the beacon?' Six asked.

‘Here.' Jack held out a zip-lock bag. There were five tiny silver spheres inside it. ‘They're easy to lose, so I thought I'd better give you a few.'

Six took the bag gingerly. ‘Are they fragile?'

Jack shrugged. ‘You probably couldn't crush one with your bare hands, but it'd break if you stood on it. So try to place it on one of the walls of the port rather than the floor so that it doesn't get crushed.'

‘How do I plant it?' Six asked, staring at the beacons through the plastic.

‘You might not be able to get close enough to touch the port with your bare hands,' Jack said, ‘but I've come up with a solution.'

He held out what appeared to be a packet of ChaoSonic-brand cigarettes. The side of the carton read
Guaranteed nicotine-free
, which Six happened to know was a lie. ChaoSonic would never intentionally make one of its products
less
addictive.

Six took the pack and opened it. ‘Blowpipes,' he said. ‘Nice.'

‘The beacons are coated with ethylene-vinyl acetate, which means they're not sticky until you heat them up. When you put the beacon inside the cigarette and light it, the EVA will start to melt. The inside of each cigarette is coated with perfluoroalkoxy, also known as Teflon-PFA, so it won't stick. Wait at least five seconds before launching the beacon, but no more than fifteen. There are a couple of real cigarettes in the pack, in case someone asks for one.' He pointed to the ones with the filters. ‘And I shouldn't have to tell you this, but don't inhale while the cigarette is lit.'

Six examined the cigarette doubtfully. ‘What would happen?'

‘Assuming you don't choke on the beacon?' Jack said. ‘The melting EVA, the heated Teflon and the burning end of the tube all release toxic gases. If you inhale them, you'll get tumours in your mouth, your throat and your lungs, and probably cardiomyopathy and hypoxemia or hypercapnoea as well.' He shrugged. ‘Basically your heart and respiratory systems will become purely decorative. Just like what happens with normal cigarettes, except instantly. You'd be dead in maybe thirty minutes.'

‘Won't this look weird?' Six asked. ‘Hardly anyone smokes anymore.'

Jack raised an eyebrow. ‘If you've got a better way to disguise a blowpipe, I'd like to hear it. I've also put a pin in your right trouser pocket for picking locks, and a flashbang in the left pocket. That's a stun grenade, which –'

‘I know what a flashbang does,' Six interrupted. ‘And even if I didn't, the name would make it pretty obvious. Flash, bang. Stop wasting my time.'

‘It's only small,' Jack said, ignoring him, ‘but it should disorient an enemy combatant for ten or twelve seconds. Just don't look at it after you throw. It has a two-second fuse.'

Six pocketed the cigarettes, the phone and the bag of beacons. There was a strap of black cloth in the jacket pocket. He stared at it.

‘That's a bow tie,' Jack said, rolling his eyes. ‘Let me do it.'

Six lifted his head and stared at the ceiling while Jack fiddled with his collar.

‘All done,' Jack said. He held up a multicoloured bunch of handkerchiefs. ‘Do you know what colour dress Ace will be wearing?'

‘Why?'

Jack stared, like it was obvious. ‘So you can pick a matching kerchief!'

Enough was enough. ‘Jack, it's a mission, not a high-school dance,' Six snapped. ‘Just give me the white one.'

‘Fine. But when you're at the party and you're looking great, just remember that you could have looked
spectacular
.'

Six sat down in the makeup chair. ‘Get on with it,' he said.

Since learning about the telomeres in his DNA that could keep him alive forever, Six had been thinking about luck.

He didn't normally think of himself as a lucky person. He'd been created in a world with toxic air and no sun. His parents were a mad scientist and a murderous corporation. Every single day for as long as he could remember, people had been trying to hurt or kill him.

But he was aware of the fact that many times in his life, nothing more than random chance had stood between himself and oblivion. And every time so far, chance had been on his side. There had been thousands of opportunities for his life to be snuffed out, and he'd walked away from each and every one.

His problem was that once you start to believe in luck, you start to worry about it running out.

Kyntak's office door was up ahead. Six pushed it open. ‘Hi,' he said.

Kyntak was sitting in his chair in an old pair of jeans and a crinkled T-shirt. The slogan on the front read:
Who are you calling self-obsessed? (It's me, right?).
He appeared to be typing on his computer, but Six suspected he was playing videogames.

‘Most people knock,' Kyntak said. He didn't seem surprised that Six looked ten years older and was wearing a tuxedo.

‘Your door's never locked,' Six replied. ‘And whenever I knock, you tell me to go away because you're busy, then I come in anyway. I'm just saving time.'

Kyntak grinned. ‘You're taking efficiency to a whole new level.'

‘Right.'

Kyntak tapped a couple more keys and switched off his monitor. ‘You on your way somewhere?' He gestured at the tux and the makeup. ‘Who are you pretending to be?'

‘Ciull Yu,' Six said.

‘Who's that?'

He shrugged. ‘Some guy.'

‘Yu looks a bit like you,' Kyntak said, deadpan.

Six didn't laugh. ‘Actually, I don't look much like Yu at all.'

‘We're identical twins. You
do
look like me.'

‘I look like me, but older,' Six said. ‘Doesn't matter what Yu looks like.'

Kyntak grinned. ‘What can I do for you, Six?'

‘I just wanted to thank you for saving my life,' Six said. ‘Again.'

‘Don't sweat it,' Kyntak said. ‘It was nothing personal.
With you alive, ChaoSonic only spends half its resources hunting me.'

‘Half?' Six snorted. ‘More like 30 per cent, maximum.'