Crossover (9 page)

He rolled off the
table, and hissed as a set of needles was yanked out of his scalp,
and presumably his brain. Depending on the size of the holes they
had left behind, blood and airborne parasites could be leaking into
his cranium. Without prompt medical attention, he might die.

But if Soren Byre
activated her time machine, the resulting explosion could kill
thousands of people. There was no time to see a doctor.

Six staggered to his
feet, alarmed by the shaking of his limbs. How long had he been in
the index, without food or water?

'Kyntak,' he
rasped.

There was no
response.

Six clamped his mouth
shut. What if Soren Byre was still here? What if she had come back?
She had learned all she needed to from Six. She had nothing to lose
by killing him.

He staggered across the
dusty concrete toward the door. Opened it. The only sound was the
whirring of the servers, as the duplicate Ashley Arthur and her
friend and her father and billions of others ran around inside.

Did they cease to exist
when I left? he wondered. Or is she still in there, knowing that
she's fake?

Six had known for most
of his life that he was artificial. It wasn't so bad. But knowing
that everyone else was, too – it would be enough to drive someone
insane.

He stepped into the
corridor, turned right–

And then heard a noise
to his left.

He whirled around,
fists raised.

The corridor was empty,
but there was a door. A room adjacent to the one from which he had
emerged.

He crept closer. Tried
the handle. Unlocked.

He pushed the door open
and jumped back, in case Soren Byre was inside, waiting to
attack.

She wasn't. Instead,
Kyntak lay face down on the floor in a puddle of blood.

'Kyntak!' Six ran over
and crouched beside his brother. 'Can you hear me?'

Kyntak groaned.

Six turned him over,
gently. Kyntak's face was streaked with blood, but the only wounds
seemed to be a pair of tiny holes on the top of his head.

'No-one to put me in,'
Kyntak mumbled. 'Had to do it myself.' He smiled, revealing pink
teeth. 'Think I did it wrong?'

'Damn it,' Six
muttered. He tore some of the rubbery fabric out of Kyntak's outfit
and used it to plug the holes. 'You need a doctor.'

Kyntak
let out a gurgling chuckle. 'We
both
need doctors. But, no time.
Right?'

Six nodded
reluctantly.

'Always no time,'
Kyntak groaned. 'Let's go.'

* * *

Neither of them could
run, but they could jog through the debris-strewn plains. Six's
head pounded with every shuffling footstep. He could only imagine
how Kyntak felt.

'Once Byre has the
ununoctium,' Six panted, 'is there any chance she could get her
machine working?'

'I don't think so,'
Kyntak replied. 'It'll just explode. And the further in time she
tries to go back, the bigger the blast radius will be.'

'But if it worked–'

'Even if it worked, it
would still explode. Anyone within eight kilometres would still be
fried.'

Six jumped over a laser
tripwire, his forehead throbbing. The inside of his throat was
coated with dust. Irradiated wind blasted his skin.

'How long will it take
us to get to Vepa tower?'

'Eight minutes to get
to the car,' Kyntak said. 'Another ninety-five to drive there.'

'Too long. She probably
left the moment I found out where the ununoctium was. She's got a
head-start of five hours.'

Kyntak dug his phone
out of his pouch. 'I can summon a chopper,' he said. 'But it would
get to the tower only fifteen minutes before we did.'

Six shook his head.
'Going to the tower is a waste of time. We need to get to her time
machine.'

'But it could be
anywhere.'

'Wrong,' Six said.
'It's only been two months since her last attempt. She didn't have
time to start building it from scratch.'

Kyntak gaped at him.
'You think it's in the same place as last time?'

'I think it's our only
chance.'

Kyntak hesitated, and
then tossed him the phone. Six dialled.

'This is Agent Six of
Hearts, requesting immediate backup. Authorisation code zero, zero,
Delta, Juliet. I need all available agents to assist with the
evacuation of an eight-kilometre radius, centred around the
following co-ordinates.' He recited the location of Byre's facility
from memory. 'This is a Luther-class emergency.'

He hung up.

'Call them back,'
Kyntak rasped. 'We need to send someone into Byre's facility to try
to prevent the explosion.'

'No, we don't.'

Kyntak raised his
voice. 'We'll never get everyone out in time. We have to send
someone in. Call them back. That's an order.'

'I'm going in. We don't
need to risk anyone else's lives.'

'You? You need medical
attention. You have no weapons. You–'

'It's my fault,' Six
said. 'I told Byre she needed ununoctium, and I told her where to
find it. I have to be the one who stops her.'

'I'm not letting you
kill yourself out of misplaced guilt.'

'We're closer to her
facility than anybody else. And you can hardly walk.'

A silhouette appeared
in the toxic fog. The car.

'It has to be me,' Six
said. 'Get in the car.'

* * *

'How does she keep
finding soldiers?' Six demanded.

'She pays well,' Kyntak
said. 'And she probably doesn't tell them they're going to get
blown up.'

Six stared at the
thirty troops standing around the crumpled facility. Half of them
were inside the chain-link fence, the other half were outside. All
had carbines cradled under their arms. If he and Kyntak drove any
closer, they would be spotted and showered with 9mm rounds. The car
might withstand the barrage, but it wouldn't break through the
fence.

At least we know she's
here, he thought.

The fence itself was
about a metre too tall for him to jump over – on a good day, which
today wasn't. Every muscle in his body ached. He would have to
climb it, presumably while people shot at him from both sides.

'Do you have flash
grenades?' he asked Kyntak. 'Anything I can use for a
distraction?'

'No,' Kyntak said. 'And
in any case, I don't think they'll fall for that twice.'

'Different
soldiers.'

'Same leader. That's
why she's put them on both sides of the fence. You'll never
distract them long enough to climb over it.'

No time, Six thought.
No time to wait for backup, no time to figure out a better plan.
It's do or die – probably both.

He handed the
binoculars to Kyntak. 'You see that window?'

'"Window" implies
glass,' Kyntak said, after a pause. 'I think that's just a hole in
the wall.'

'Whatever. I want you
to drive toward it.'

'You did see the fence
we were just discussing?' Kyntak said.

'Yeah. Brake before you
hit it.' Six stepped out of the car and clambered onto it, putting
one foot on the windscreen and another on the roof.

Kyntak leaned out the
window. 'Did I ever tell you you're a total lunatic?'

'Just drive,' Six
said.

It didn't sound like an
engine at first. It was like a giant swarm of bees, getting closer
and closer. The soldier stared into the darkness beyond the fence,
looking for the source of the noise. She saw nothing.

'Heads up, guys,' she
said.

Other soldiers could
hear it too. Heads turned. Gun barrels raised.

She settled into a
half-crouch, finger within the trigger guard of her carbine, head
weaving from side as if she could see around the darkness. Her
heart went into overdrive, filling her system with adrenaline as
the roaring got louder.

She saw it. A car,
headlights off, rocketing toward the fence with a boy poised on top
like a ludicrously oversized hood ornament.

The sight was so
bizarre that it took her a moment to react. She had been trained
not to aim at anything she didn't definitely want to kill. But she
had been ordered to shoot anyone or anything who approached the
fence.

'Open fire!' she
roared, and pulled the trigger. The carbine kicked in her hand. But
the first three shots hit too low, punching into the dirt below the
license plate of the car, and she didn't have time to adjust her
aim. The car was about to slam into the fence–

And the boy jumped.

He cleared the fence,
legs straight, arms locked to his sides. The momentum from the car
left him hurtling through the fog above the soldier's head, as
streamlined as a nuclear missile.

But the soldier was
more worried about the car. She fired again, and this time struck
the windshield. The glass became an opaque web of cracks. The sedan
smashed into the chain-link fence with the force of a truck filled
with sledgehammers, showering the soldier with torn up shards of
wire – and then it stopped, tangled in the fence.

She started jogging
toward it, hoping to confirm that she'd hit the driver. But when
she was less than a metre away, the vehicle lurched into motion
again – backwards. The car careened through the dust, the hood
scarred by bullets and wire, before swerving, skidding through a
180 degree turn, and shooting off into the darkness.

The soldier spun back
toward the building, looking for the boy who had jumped off the
bonnet. She expected to see his broken body on the ground, or
splattered against the wall of Byre's facility.

She didn't. He had
vanished.

She peered into the
yawning window. Was it possible that he had flown through that gap
into the building? Surely not. But where else could he be?

'Fan out,' she yelled.
'Sweep the perimetre.'

If he was inside, it
didn't matter, she told herself. The monster would finish him
off.

* * *

Six slammed into the
floor inside Byre's facility, sending a shock of pain through each
of his limbs. His head throbbed, as though his brain was swelling
up. His stomach was a tight knot in his abdomen. He couldn't stand.
He could hardly breathe.

Shut
off the machine, he told himself.
Then
you can die.

He clambered shakily to
his feet.

The facility hadn't
changed much since he last saw it. The metal floor was still warped
by the supermagnetic event. The pipes which lined the walls had
been dented and torn by the flying debris. Only the broken chunks
of concrete had been swept away, clearing a path to the
machine.

Six staggered forward.
One step. Two. His pulse thundered in his ears–

Then he heard something
else. A slow thumping, getting louder. Part of Byre's machine?

No. Footsteps. Too
heavy to be Byre. Too heavy to be human.

Six threw himself into
the shadowy gap between two fat pipes as a Taur rounded the corner
up ahead. It was bigger than the last one he'd seen. Its arms,
roped with bulging muscles, hung almost as low as its massive feet.
Its head hung down, the back of its leathery neck dragging across
the ceiling.

Six held his breath,
hoping that the creature hadn't seen him.

Thump. Thump.
The pipes rattled
around Six as the monster got closer.

Can't fight it, he
thought. Can't run from it.

He thought of his
escape from the Taur at the checkpoint. The creatures were
intelligent – perhaps he could negotiate with it?

But if he tried and
failed, the beast would tear off his arms and leave him to die of
shock. So he stayed, shivering in the darkness, listening to the
approaching monster.

Soon it was visible
through the gap. Its skin glistened with grey sweat. Its gigantic
three-fingered fists clenched and unclenched by its sides.

It walked past him.

Six kept holding his
breath. He could slip out now, and try to get to the machine while
the creature's back was turned. But once it reached the end of the
corridor, it would turn around and see him.

The safer option was to
stay where he was until the Taur had gone back to wherever it came
from. But he could already hear the whining of Byre's machine. She
had switched it on. In minutes, this building and everything around
it would be shattered into microscopic pieces. He didn't have time
to play hide and seek.

Six eased out of his
hiding place and crept down the corridor, away from the Taur,
toward Byre's machine. He moved as quickly as he dared, ignoring
the pain from his head and his legs.

Something hissed behind
him. No – sniffed. The Taur could smell him.

Six broke into a
desperate run. The beast bellowed behind him, shaking the walls
with its furious cry, and dashed after him. Six could hear each
footfall denting the floor as the monster came closer and
closer.

The hatch in the floor
was just ahead. Open.

An enormous arm swiped
at the back of Six's head – but he heard it whooshing through the
air and dropped to his knees. The beast's clutching paw swept over
him as he slid along the floor for the last few metres and tumbled
down into the hatch, where the Taur was too big to follow.

He plummeted through
the blackness as the Taur shrieked with rage, slamming its fists
into the metal floor above. The echoes bounced and faded and
bounced some more and then Six hit the ground and blacked out.

* * *

It was the whining
which awoke him. So much louder than before. Six felt like a fly,
trapped inside a screaming jet engine.

He pushed at the dirty
floor with his palms. Get up! he told himself. Get up!