Third Transmission (8 page)

‘Well, maybe I'm not as much of a troublemaker as you,' Kyntak said. He leaned back in his chair. ‘So what's the new mission?'

‘The last nuclear warhead in the world has gone missing. I'm supposed to find it.'

‘In a tux?'

‘In a tux.'

Kyntak raised an eyebrow. ‘Something tells me you oversimplified that.'

‘A little,' Six admitted. ‘But I've got a favour to ask.'

‘If it's paying for the dry-cleaning after you've covered that suit in blood, brick dust and plutonium, you can forget it.'

‘This is serious,' Six said. He fell into the chair opposite Kyntak's desk. ‘This is an unpredictable mission – and I might not survive it.'

‘You say that every time,' Kyntak pointed out.

Six nodded. ‘Because every mission I do is dangerous. That's my point – one day, I won't make it.'

Kyntak wasn't smiling now. ‘What's this about?'

‘I need your word that when I die, you'll take over,' Six said. ‘You'll get the mission done, and keep protecting the City when I'm gone.'

Kyntak's wall clock ticked through the quiet.

‘Six,' Kyntak said finally, ‘that's not a favour. That's exactly what I'd do, and you know it.' He stood up. ‘But
you also know that I could never do your job as well as you do. I've got your DNA, but not your willpower.' He paused. ‘So don't die, okay? We still need you.'

Six hesitated, and then hugged him awkwardly. ‘See you when I get back,' he said.

‘Careful!' Kyntak smoothed down his T-shirt where it had touched the tux. ‘You'll mess up my outfit.'

King had arranged a car for Six and Ace to drive to the party; an old six-cylinder ChaoSonic Peak. Six took the lift down to the parking garage to get it.

Ace was leaning against a pillar, looking at her watch. She wore a shimmering red gown and matching stilettos. Around her neck there was a silver filigree choker with a sparkling diamond pendant. Her curled blonde hair looked the way Six imagined sunshine must have looked in the days before the fog smothered it.

She glanced over, and saw Six staring. ‘Buzz off,' she said. ‘I'm meeting someone.'

‘Yes,' Six said. ‘Me.'

Ace stared for a moment. Then she laughed. ‘Oh, sorry, Six! Jack did a heck of a job on you.' She moved closer, examining his face. ‘You still look kind of like you, I guess, but in your late twenties,' she said. ‘Except physically, you're never going to get that old. So it's like a window into the future you'll never have.'

‘I like your dress,' Six said. ‘Where'd you get the diamonds?'

Ace winked. ‘They're cubic zirconia. But no-one will get close enough to tell.'

‘Can you run in those shoes?'

‘Will I need to?'

‘Call it professional curiosity,' Six said.

Ace slipped off one of the shoes and held it up. Six saw the sole was actually patterned rubber, and there was a fine seam where the heel met the body. ‘Pull this catch, and the heel folds back like this,' Ace said, demonstrating. ‘And once you take this shield off the toe-end of the sole, it's as flexible as any running shoe.'

Six nodded, impressed. ‘Jack's work?'

‘My own design,' Ace said. ‘But yeah, Jack made them for me a few months ago. I like your tux.'

‘I hate it,' Six said. ‘It took forever to put on. All my other outfits have a hidden zip up the side so I can change quickly.'

‘Seriously?'

Six nodded.

Ace grimaced. ‘Every time I've had to do emergency surgery on you, I've cut your clothes off with scissors. If I'd known there was a zip …'

‘Don't worry about it,' Six said. ‘I usually just sew another zip into the cut.'

‘You don't sew it back together? You sew a second zip?' Ace shook her head, smiling. ‘You're a really weird guy.'

‘I'm practical. Everyone else is weird.' Six pushed a button on his keys, and the Peak chirped from a nearby bay.

‘Shall we?' he asked.

The motor purred as the car rolled up the ramp and out onto the street. The blurry skyscrapers of the City swept by, painted with the dusty haze.

The drive to the South Coast was going to take at least two and a half hours. Six wished he'd brought an mp3 player to plug into the car stereo. He didn't listen to music himself, but he'd often enjoyed its conversation-discouraging properties.

Not that he'd mind talking with Ace. He just didn't want a hundred and fifty minutes of awkward silence.

‘You have family around here?' he asked. It sounded exactly like what it was – a clumsy ice-breaker.

Ace looked uncomfortable. ‘I'm not sure,' she said.

Six glanced at her. Had he chosen a really bad topic?

‘I used to live in this area with my dad and my stepmother,' Ace explained. ‘But he left two weeks ago, and she's been acting pretty weird since. I think it really shook her up.'

‘Why did he leave?'

‘I don't know,' she said. ‘He didn't even say goodbye to me. And she won't talk about it.'

The City, Six thought, is a dark and senseless place. And the people who live here are stained by their surroundings. A cruel City creates cruel people, and over time they gradually become a part of it, the way children become their parents.

He searched for a way to change the subject tactfully. She did it for him.

‘So I spoke to King, and he filled me in on the mission.'

‘Good,' Six said, relieved.

‘He said it was strictly recon.'

Six nodded.

‘But he also reminded me that your “strictly recon” missions often wind up with me treating you for broken bones and bullet wounds.'

‘This isn't going to be like that,' Six said.

‘No?'

‘No. For one thing, the guests will be unsuspicious, elderly and unarmed.'

‘That's great, but I was more concerned about the security guards,' Ace said. ‘Won't they be suspicious, muscly and armed to the teeth?'

‘Yes,' Six conceded.

‘You don't seem worried.'

‘They won't be looking for us. There will be plenty of high-profile ChaoSonic officials at the event. The security guards will be looking for assassins with piano wire or rebels with explosive vests, not gatecrashers with hidden Geiger counters.'

‘In that case, why aren't
you
worried about assassins with piano wire or rebels with explosive vests?'

‘Because of the security guards.'

Ace grinned. ‘You're not fazed at all, are you? You're really brave, or really dumb.'

Six shrugged. ‘I've done tougher jobs than this.'

‘That's not good logic,' Ace said. ‘You're more likely to die in a car crash than a shark attack, but people still get eaten by sharks. Just because this mission is safer than some doesn't mean it's safe.'

‘I've been in car crashes
and
attacked by sharks, and I'm still standing,' Six pointed out.

‘I get that you've done scarier things than this. But how does that make this not scary? That's like saying it doesn't hurt to stub your toe, because you once broke your leg.'

‘People have been hunting me my whole life,' Six said. ‘You can get used to just about anything.'

‘So you're saying you don't feel fear anymore? You've built up a tolerance?'

‘I still get an adrenaline rush when someone is shooting at me, or when I'm jumping out of a plane or something,' Six said. ‘There are still people and things that scare me. I just find it hard to maintain that shivers-up-the-spine type of terror all day every day.'

Ace smiled. ‘If we're still alive tomorrow, I'm going to do a psych evaluation on you, write an article about it, sell it to a medical journal and make a fortune.'

‘What's my cut?'

‘Hey, I'm the one with the psychology training. I'll give you 5 per cent.'

‘I'm the one who can't feel fear,' Six said. ‘I'll give
you
5 per cent.'

They sat in silence for a while. Six could hear the links in her earrings jingling softly.

‘Can I ask you something?' Ace said.

‘Sure.'

‘The not-dying-of-old-age thing,' she said. ‘How does it feel?'

Six wasn't sure how to answer that. ‘It's better than the alternative, I guess.'

‘Is it?'

Six raised an eyebrow. ‘You think I have a death wish?'

‘No, nothing like that,' Ace said. ‘I just meant … She paused. ‘Most people believe they'll get old, and then die of an age-related illness in a hospital somewhere. Some of them are wrong, and they fall off their motorbikes or they drink some polluted water or they get stabbed by muggers. But it's what they believe. But because of your job, you probably figured there was a 90 per cent chance you'd die on a mission, and a 10 per cent chance you'd die of old age. Am I about right?'

‘Actually, 92.3 per cent and 6.8 per cent,' Six said. ‘With a .9 per cent chance of something else, like a freak accident or a serious infectious disease.'

Ace gulped back a laugh. ‘You actually calculated the exact percentages?'

Six shifted uncomfortably in his seat. ‘I was on a stakeout. I wanted to keep my mind active.'

Ace shook her head. ‘Okay. Anyway, now that you know about the telomeres in your DNA, there is zero chance of you dying of old age, right?'

‘Right.'

‘But it's also infinitely improbable that you'll live forever. You're not immortal, you just don't get old. So now, you can be pretty certain that you'll die on a mission – it's just a matter of guessing which one.' She paused. ‘Unless there's a freak accident or a serious infectious disease.'

Six glanced at her. ‘You're very blunt.'

‘
I'm
blunt? “I need you to be my date for a party because you're pretty”,' Ace said, with quite a credible impression of Six's voice.

Six shrugged.

‘I don't bother lying to people who already like me,' Ace said. ‘It's a personality flaw, but I think I pull it off. So anyway, you know that you're going to get shot to death or blown up someday. How does that feel?'

‘How you die isn't as important as how you live,' Six said.

‘No offence, but that's incredibly cheesy,' Ace replied.

‘It's still true.'

‘Do you find yourself contemplating your mortality before every mission, wondering if it's going to be your last?'

‘No,' Six said, ‘but I will now. Thanks a lot.' Behind the joke, he was a little alarmed. He hadn't realised Ace could read him so well.

She chuckled. ‘So you don't sort out your affairs or anything?'

Six shrugged. ‘My affairs
are
sorted out. In the event of my death, all my money goes to the Deck, and all my possessions are divided evenly between Kyntak and King.'

‘Aren't there things you've never done?' Ace asked. ‘Things you'd like to do before you die?'

Of course there are, Six thought. I've never played on a sporting team. I've never had a normal job. I've never had a birthday party. I've never been to a cinema. I've never kissed anyone. I've never eaten at a posh restaurant. I've never written a poem. Or read one.

‘I don't think about the things I can never have,' Six said. ‘I just don't see the point.'