Third Transmission

Jack Heath was born in Sydney in 1986. Now he lives in Canberra with his partner, Venetia, their friend Sam, and their cat, Onyx.

His second novel,
Remote Control
, was shortlisted for science fiction book of the year in the 2007 Aurealis Awards, and he was named the 2009 ACT Young Australian of the Year.

His hobbies include music, magic tricks, and making horrible things happen to fictional people.

Third Transmission
is his fourth novel.

jackheath.com.au

Also by Jack Heath

The Lab
Remote Control
Money Run

THIRD
TRANSMISSION

Jack Heath

First published 2009 in Pan by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Limited
1 Market Street, Sydney

Copyright © Jack Heath 2009

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any person or entity (including Google, Amazon or similar organisations), in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, scanning or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

National Library of Australia
Cataloguing-in-Publication Data:

Heath, Jack, 1986-
Third transmission/Jack Heath.

9780330425100 (pbk.)

For juveniles.

A823.4

Typeset in 12/16 pt Minion by Midland Typesetters, Maryborough
Printed in Australia by McPherson's Printing Group
Author photo by Tom Heath

Papers used by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd are natural, recyclable products made from wood grown in sustainable forests. The manufacturing processes conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.

These electronic editions published in 2009 by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd
1 Market Street, Sydney 2000

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

All rights reserved. This publication (or any part of it) may not be reproduced or transmitted, copied, stored, distributed or otherwise made available by any person or entity (including Google, Amazon or similar organisations), in any form (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical) or by any means (photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise) without prior written permission from the publisher.

Third Transmission

Jack Heath

 

 

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For my brother, Tom – the original Agent Six

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This book required more research than anything else I've written (including essays at university). I'd like to acknowledge and congratulate Charles Siefe, Paul Davies, Richard Dawkins and Brian Greene, who all wrote helpful works. Mistakes are mine, not theirs. I thank Kevin Townson, Reuben Ingall, Ashley Arthur, Kate Griffiths and Ian Heath for introducing me to the writings of these authors. While I'm at it, I should also acknowledge my subscription to
New Scientist
.

Thank you to my amazing partner, Venetia Major, who supported me, challenged me, and inspired me. I literally couldn't do this without her. Thanks to Mum and Dad – it's incredible that they're still willing to read first drafts and pretend they make sense – and Tom Heath, to whom this book is dedicated. He saw every plot twist coming, but said he loved it just the same.

A big thank you to Paddy Quiggin, who took the picture of Tom that's on the cover, and Mel Feddersen, who did the design and Justin Bush, who made up the title.

Thanks are due again to Alex Shinzinger, who inspired a minor character who's since become a major one, and
to John Haynes, who compiled an extensive list of all the impossible things in this book and helped me fix most of them. I should acknowledge Sam McGregor, who offered numerous synonyms for ‘grimly', and my long-suffering medical advisor, Jessi Thomson, who I once called in the middle of the night to ask: ‘If you fell out a second-story window, would you be more likely to survive the impact if your lungs were full, or empty?'

A big thank you to everyone at Pan Macmillan Australia – they've all worked too hard for me to steal the credit. Special mentions go to Cate Paterson, Sue Bobbermein, Mary Verney, Ali Lavau, and the wonderful Claire Craig, who told me I'd written ‘a cracker of a book' – but, like any good publisher, still had a suggestion or two, or fifty. This novel, like my others, is better for her guidance.

Thanks to Elyse Miriam, a fan who inadvertently encouraged me to go a little further.

Last, but not least, thanks to all the readers – and the librarians, teachers and parents who ensure that I have readers to thank. Any author would be lucky to have such an enthusiastic and encouraging fan base. Those of you who demanded to know when the next Agent Six book was coming: this is it. Stop emailing me.

 

 

I don't believe in free will. It's indefinable in any sensible way – that is, you have to assume the rules of cause and effect are optional for your brain chemistry.

Scott Adams

PROLOGUE

With a wet smack, her face hit the asphalt. Her cheek split open, her teeth clattered against one another, and pain crashed through her skull like a wrecking ball. She didn't cry out or try to get up. After everything that had been done to her, she still felt the hurt, but she no longer cared.

The alleyway reeked of old oil. The skeletal fire-escapes concealed walls wearing decades' worth of scrapes and scratches. Surveillance cameras stared down from the corners of the buildings, telling her that whoever was watching was either a part of this or didn't care enough to stop it.

The one who'd pushed her down, the brunette with the Kevlar vest, was saying something into a phone. Her voice was a muffled, warbling groan. The woman on the ground couldn't make out any words. She had no ears to listen with – only naked eardrums in tiny holes on the sides of her head.

A van appeared at the other end of the alley. Waxed black walls reflected her ruined face back at her. One eye. One arm. Burnt skin. A respirator mask. She was barely
recognisable as human. She felt like weeping, but she'd long since discovered that her tear ducts didn't work.

Men in masks and goggles climbed out of the van. Combat boots, machine-guns slung over shoulders. The kind of gear that would attract attention, if they weren't wearing it on the South Coast – the darkest, scummiest corner of the City.

She tried to rise, pushing her remaining arm against the ground. The brunette with the phone kicked it out from under her, and her head hit the ground again. She twisted her brows into a frown to stop her lidless glass eye from popping out.

The leader of the masked troops called out to the brunette. She yelled something back. Warble, moan. The one-eyed woman shivered. She didn't need to hear the words to know what was happening. The woman in the Kevlar had got all the information she needed out of her, and so she was being sold to someone else. Someone who'd probably ask all the same questions, and ask them just as hard.

The leader lifted a briefcase as he approached. The brunette grabbed the earless woman, lifted her to her feet. As she rose, she avoided looking at the brunette. That face still horrified her. Seeing those eyes stare into her own always made bile rise in her throat. It was as disturbing as looking in a mirror and suddenly realising your reflection had stopped copying you.

The leader handed over the briefcase. The woman in the Kevlar pushed her forwards.

She had just enough time to see the brunette fade into the shadows before the leader pulled a black bag over her head. She went from half-blind to blind in an instant, from smelling oil to smelling nothing, from hearing gibberish to silence.

And as the soldiers bundled her into the van, she decided it was an improvement. She hoped they'd keep her bagged forever. She'd given up hope of feeling better than this, and after what she'd been through, she just didn't care. Not anymore.

MISSION
ONE

Day 1

FORECAST

Agent Six of Hearts braced his hands against the hot walls of his steel coffin. The rubber pillow under his head barely lessened the shuddering against his skull as his tiny vessel blasted through the ocean. The web of safety straps around his torso hummed like high-voltage power cables.

He checked the flickering screen above his head. Altitude: 28 metres below sea level. Speed: 150 kilometres per hour. Distance from target: 5.9 kilometres. A little over two minutes to go, he calculated.

Only hours before, agents from the Deck had drilled a hole in the Seawall, several storeys underground. They'd plugged the hole with a pressure lock, put Six inside a modified PL-220 torpedo, and put it inside the lock. Then they'd opened the other side, and Six had blasted through into the open ocean.

His target was a battleship. The CNS
Gomorrah
was 90 metres wide and almost a kilometre long. It towered 42 metres above the sea and plunged to almost 50 metres below. It had a catapult runway on its deck for launching and landing light aircraft, and a twin
missile silo concealed inside its bow. Its top speed was 65 kilometres per hour, so it was fortunate that Six's torpedo was in front of it rather than behind. Every second counted.

The ship had been dispatched from a mining rig 16 kliks off the coast on the other side of the City; the side where ChaoSonic had absolute control. Where there were cameras on every street corner and listening devices in every home. Where the soldiers didn't need to beat anyone into submission, because the population was already on its knees. Quiet and obedient, those were the people of the North-Central side.

The ship's destination was a very different place – the South Coast. Two years ago, ChaoSonic had wiped out much of the local population by dropping bombs on the area. They had claimed they were suppressing an outbreak of avian influenza – bird flu. The survivors had responded by destroying the ChaoSonic Bureau of Statistics building. The war had begun.

The harder ChaoSonic squeezed, the more the South Coast people struggled. When ChaoSonic started sending tanks rolling through the streets, the population laced their territory with landmines. People died. When ChaoSonic called in air support, dropping bombs on roads and buildings, the rebels turned the last hospital into a giant surface-to-air missile turret. And more people died.