Dead Man Running (22 page)

TO THE DEATH

There was nowhere to run. Six was still sitting down – it would take him a full second to get up, giving Double Tap more than enough time to shoot him.

Panic was sizzling through his brain. Double Tap is my double, he thought. He's as strong as I am, with six more years of experience. I can't fight him. I'll have to talk him out of it.

‘Don't do this,' he said.

‘I have to,' Double Tap said, a twisted agony in his voice. ‘You deserve it.'

‘
Why?
What have I done?'

‘The right thing. And where has it got you? Hunted, tortured, eventually murdered by your own sister – I saw it all, and couldn't change a thing. And now they've recreated you, to go through it all again. This is a terrible world. I have to put you out of your misery.'

Six remembered what Ace had said about Double Tap's victims:
The only link we could find between them was that they were all generally well liked.

The horror of what he'd done felt like a chasm opening beneath him. ‘You were mercy-killing them,' he said. ‘All my friends.'

‘They would have died someday. I spared them a lot of pain.'

The worst part was, he could imagine it. He'd already caught himself wishing King had never recreated him – was that so different from wanting to die? And after concluding that life was suffering and he'd be better off dead, it would only be a small step to decide that his friends should die too. That he should kill them for their own good.

He was sickened as he remembered thinking that Sammy and Queen were lucky, not having to live in this ruined City.

‘You don't have to do this,' Six said, his voice shaky. ‘I don't
want
to die.'

‘I'm sorry. But people don't always know what's best for them.'

‘The City will get better! We can fix it! There's thousands of us now!'

‘I know,' Double Tap said. ‘I'm going to have to save them too.'

His finger tightened on the trigger.

I can't convince him, Six realised. He's going to kill me.

So he pushed himself off the roof.

He heard Double Tap fire the pistol, twice –
crack! crack!
– and felt the muzzle-flash burn his scalp, but no bullet hit him, and now he was plummeting towards the street. He twisted his body in the air, trying to land on his arms rather than his feet. It went against all his instincts to fall head first, but he was going to break whatever he landed on, and he was going to need his legs to run.

Another gunshot sounded from above, and suddenly Six's neck was stinging where a bullet had grazed it. He dismissed the pain. That injury wouldn't kill him. The fall might, if he lost his concentration.

He wrapped his arms around his head, protecting it from the impact. He kept his knees bent and his legs curled up, falling like a cannonball. At the last second he remembered to pull his tongue into the back of his mouth, away from his teeth.

Thud.
Six cried out as the asphalt slammed into his forearms, blasting every blood vessel apart. Tendons crunched inside his elbows. It was like being pelted with a giant meat-tenderising hammer – but his bones remained intact.

No time to feel pain. He scrambled to his feet and ran, weaving from side to side to dodge more bullets. There were no more audible gunshots. Why had Double Tap stopped shooting?

Six heard the rustle of a parachute being detached, and something thumped to the ground behind him. That's why, he realised. He jumped down after me. I should have known that was coming. He thinks like I think. We're the same.

Six sprinted towards the corner of the nearest alleyway, bloodied arms pumping by his sides. A chip of the wall's brickwork burst a split second before Six heard the shot.

When being pursued, his usual strategy was to round a corner, pause, and wait for his assailant to follow. Then he would attack and disarm them. But Double Tap would know that strategy. He'd anticipate it. He'd also be aware that Six would know he knew it. So what would he be expecting?

Six turned the corner and kept running. It seemed like the safest option.

A voice from somewhere behind him called: ‘Stop! It's for your own good!'

Six blocked it out. Don't talk to me, he thought. Don't think you know what's best for me. You're not me, not any more.

The alleyway was strewn with broken glass and ruined car parts. There was a tyre iron on the ground up ahead – Six snatched it up as he ran. No match for a pistol, but better than nothing.

He was headed for a cramped intersection at the end of the alleyway. Six didn't know this part of the City. He had no idea whether he would be better off turning left or right. He prepared to go left. Then he changed his mind – if his instinct was to turn left, then Double Tap would do the same.

He went right. And then, five steps later, he realised that he'd trapped himself. This alley ended in a cul-de-sac. There were no doorways, no hiding places. There was a fire escape with a pull-down ladder, but he wouldn't have time to climb it before Double Tap appeared and shot him.

Six pressed himself against the wall. Maybe the killer would go left instead of right. Maybe if Six stayed still and quiet, then –

Double Tap rounded the corner, spotted Six, and took aim.

With the last of his strength, Six hurled the tyre iron at him. Double Tap ducked, but the metal hit his arm with a meaty
thunk
and he dropped the gun.

Six charged at him. He saw Double Tap glance at the gun, realise it was too far away, and curl his fingers into fists. He was going to put Six out of his misery, even if that meant beating him to death with his bare hands.

They both started with the same attack, Six hurling a punch that was a mirror image of the one Double Tap was throwing. Their fists collided, and Six's knuckles burned. It was like punching a rock.

Double Tap recovered first and drove a stomping kick towards Six's knee. Six stepped aside, but the distraction had worked – Double Tap slammed his elbow into Six's gut and Six staggered back, wheezing.

Double Tap threw another punch. Six blocked it, just in time to see another coming. He blocked that too, knowing he couldn't do this forever, but also knowing he had no choice but to try.

He dodged three more blows before he slipped up – Double Tap kicked him in the leg and managed to hook his foot behind Six's ankle. Then he shoved Six's shoulder and Six fell over backwards, landing on the grimy concrete.

He tried to stand, but already Double Tap had picked up the gun and pressed the sole of his shoe against Six's sternum, pinning him to the ground.

I killed all my friends, he thought. Maybe I deserve this. But if Six died today, Double Tap would keep hunting down good people and murdering them. He'd kill all the other copies of Six. As bad as the City was, it would be worse before he was finished with it.

Double Tap aimed the pistol at Six's face. ‘Agent Six must die,' he said.

‘As you wish,' another voice said from somewhere, and a crossbow bolt erupted from Double Tap's forehead.

TOMORROW

Six flinched as he was spattered with blood and brain matter, and rolled out of the way as Double Tap pitched over like a falling building. He hit the ground face first, the rear half of the bolt sticking out of his skull, as Six wiped the blood out of his eyes and looked around for his rescuer.

‘You're lucky,' Nai said as she approached. ‘With so many copies of you running around, I'd almost decided that following you was a waste of time.'

Six held his hands up in a gesture of surrender. Last time he'd seen his sister, she'd shot him.

Nai looked at the dead body for a long time. ‘I suppose,' she said finally, ‘this makes us even.'

‘I'm sorry?'

‘I killed you,' Nai said, ‘but now I've saved your life. We're even.'

Six looked across at Double Tap, who was as still and silent as a shipwreck. ‘You've made up for killing me – by killing me?'

‘You're welcome,' Nai said. Before she turned away, Six thought he saw hurt in her eyes.

Six hadn't killed Sammy, or Queen, or Pic, or any of Double Tap's other victims. But Double Tap was proof that he was capable of terrible things, under the wrong circumstances. Perhaps everyone is, he thought.

‘Nai,' he said. ‘I forgive you.'

But she was already gone.

Six didn't remember finding the old carpet in one of the abandoned apartments at the top of the fire escape. He didn't remember peeling it off the floor, coiling it into a tube and tossing it out the window. He didn't remember climbing back down to the alleyway, spreading the carpet out, and rolling up Double Tap's body like a wine bottle in a sheet of wrapping paper. He awoke to find himself staggering out of the alleyway, the carpet hefted over his shoulder, without a clue where he was going.

He was exhausted. Wherever his legs were taking him, he hoped it wasn't far.

The streets were nearly deserted. He passed a few pedestrians, who looked at him cautiously but not suspiciously. The road was still speckled with blood and body parts from the battle between ChaoSonic's troops and Lerke's. Who would bother concealing a corpse under such circumstances? A rolled-up carpet was likely to be just that.

He passed two copies of himself. They avoided his gaze, and he avoided theirs. They were probably able to tell that the carpet held a body, but assumed his motives to be pure. Just as he would have, before he discovered Double Tap's identity.

I'm doing this for them, he told himself. They must never know.

Eventually he reached the Stillbank apartments, and wasn't surprised. He had nowhere else to go. He climbed the steps, entered the foyer, and pushed the call button for the lift.

Where will I live now? he wondered. There are hundreds of me, and after Double Tap's killing spree, almost no-one I know is left alive. Just Kyntak, Jack, Nai, Ace and King. That's not many couches to sleep on.

A new thought tunnelled through his brain like a caterpillar. Double Tap had tried to kill both Kyntak and Jack. Nai had presumably been spared because, having murdered Six, she didn't deserve to be rewarded with death. Double Tap hadn't killed Ace either, and Six hoped this was because no matter how much sanity he lost, he could never find it in himself to hurt the woman he loved.

Ace shot him, he remembered. After he tried to kill me in the closet. And he was about to shoot her back, but then he saw who she was, and couldn't pull the trigger.

But why not King?

Six thought of the journal he'd written as a fifteen-year-old, which he'd left in a drawer and forgotten about.
I wish I was normal. I wish I had parents. I wish I'd been born in another time, with forests and voting and police.

In Surabaya, that was exactly the fantasy Lerke had tried to give him.

Six thought of the new family, living in his old house. The new Deck, so hi-tech and expensive. Anger grew in his throat. He pulled out his phone and dialled. King answered immediately.

‘Six!' he said. ‘It's a madhouse here – you could have warned me about your plan.'

‘Did you sell my house and all my stuff?'

‘What?'

‘After I died. Did you sell my stuff?'

There was no sound from the other end of the line.

Six's voice was hard. ‘Did you know the buyer was Retuni Lerke?'

King said, ‘We needed money to rebuild the Deck.'

He knew, Six thought. He knew, and he did it anyway.

‘I couldn't let ChaoSonic take over,' King was saying.

‘So you took money from the only person in the whole City who was even worse.'

‘He was the only one offering a high enough price.'

If King hadn't done what he did, the Deck would probably still be a pile of rubble. ChaoSonic would finally have had complete control. But as Six had said, Lerke was worse. King should have known that dealing with him would have terrible consequences. What was the point of rebuilding the Deck, Six wondered, if you had to compromise everything it stood for?

Who are you to criticise? a voice sneered in his head. At least King didn't kill all his friends.

In betraying Six, King had probably saved his own life. Double Tap must have decided he deserved to live and suffer. It was hard for Six to say that King had made the wrong decision when the right one would have got him killed.

‘I'm sorry, Six.'

‘Me too,' Six said. Sorry that King had let him down, but also sorry about the situation that had forced him to. Sorry that he'd left his father alone for so long.

Silence. Six couldn't think of anything to say, so he hung up.

The lift had arrived. Six hauled the carpet in and pushed the button for the forty-eighth floor. There had been no-one in the lobby, and there was no-one in the lift. If anyone remained in this building, they were hiding in their rooms.

The lift stopped, the doors opened, and Six carried the carpet to the safe house, counting down the remaining steps. The door was unlocked. The agents were gone. Six had seen them in the armoury, held hostage by the Revived – it wasn't surprising that they were in no hurry to return to their posts.

He opened the door to the transmission chamber and stepped inside. He left Double Tap's body on the spot that he himself had woken up in, five days that felt like years ago.

He set the transmitter to a random date. It couldn't actually transmit, so it didn't matter – the machine would only dissolve the body into its individual atoms, and store them in its element tanks. No-one but Six, Kyntak and Nai would ever know Double Tap's true identity.

If the duplicates ever found out, they would lose all trust for each other, and themselves. Six couldn't let that happen.

He flicked the switch, stepped out of the chamber, and shut the door. The timer ticked away the seconds.

‘It's not your fault,' someone said.

Six didn't turn around. He knew his brother's voice immediately – vocal cords identical to his own, choice of words and emphasis just slightly different.

‘If not mine, then whose?' he said.

Kyntak approached the glass and looked down at the body in the chamber. ‘His.'

‘He's me.'

‘He
was
you. He became someone else the moment he climbed out of that trapdoor. All those other copies out there, they're not really you either. Already they know things you don't, they've done things you haven't.'

And I know something they don't, Six thought as he stared at the body.

There was a flash inside the chamber. When it died away, Double Tap was gone.

‘What are we going to do?' Six asked. He looked down at his hands, one with a hole in it, the other which could no longer make a fist. ‘The City doesn't need us any more.'

‘We'll think of something,' Kyntak said.

Six walked over to the apartment window. The sun was rising hazily behind the buildings, carving away the night one shadow at a time. From here he could see eight duplicates of himself exploring the streets. One was chasing somebody, another was disassembling one of the railway turrets.

I'm everywhere, he thought. ChaoSonic is gone. The Deck has more than a thousand agents, and almost all of them are me. I'm in charge.

Six had imposed his will over the remains of civilisation – but on the same day, he'd discovered that he was flawed. Had he saved humanity, or condemned it?

He looked out over the City,
his
City now, and asked himself the same question which has haunted every good person since the beginning of time.

Did I do the right thing?