Third Transmission (13 page)

He swung his arm and hurled the pistol like a baseball, and a split second later he heard a yelp and the sound of a breaking nose. The guard hadn't ducked fast enough.

Six turned and ran. He smacked his palms against the fire door, pushed it open, and kept running.

Six had guessed right – the fire door led to a stairwell, freshly painted in industrial white. Ace was waiting for him on the first landing.

‘Keep moving,' Six said as he approached. ‘They'll be right behind me.'

Ace started running up the next flight of stairs. ‘The only exit is on the ground floor,' she said. ‘How are we going to get out?'

‘There's always a way,' Six said as he caught up to her.

There was another fire door on the second-floor landing. Six shoved it open and they ran through, just as they heard the one on the ground floor burst open.

The guards from downstairs had recovered, and were in hot pursuit.

The second floor was shadowy and deserted. The walls were grey, bare. The concrete floor was littered with giant cardboard boxes, benches adorned with power tools, and neatly bound blocks of piping. Allich was clearly planning to build something here, but Six wasn't sure
what. It was hard to believe that the luxurious, sparkling ballroom was just below his feet.

Six and Ace ran into the darkness and ducked behind a pile of cardboard boxes. They started weaving through the maze of benches and building parts, staying low.

Six heard the fire door bang against the wall as the guards pushed it open. There was a short pause, and then he heard soft footfalls, the kind made by soldiers as they sweep their surroundings.

He and Ace crawled through the gloom, making as little noise as possible. With their shotguns, the guards wouldn't need a clear shot. If they heard a noise, they could just open fire in their general direction, and Six and Ace would probably be pulverised.

Six still had the Vulture he'd stolen downstairs, but there was no shell in the breech. He'd have to pump the action before firing, and that would make a noisy
crunch-crunch
, alerting the guards.

He imagined chambering a shell, standing up, finding a target, taking aim, firing, pumping the action, firing again, and hoping he got all the guards before one of them got him.

Six didn't like killing people, even bad guys. He especially didn't like getting blown apart while he was doing it.

Click
. A finger snap echoed around the room. Six pictured one of the guards clicking his fingers to get the attention of the others. Then pointing at something, maybe.

There were no more footsteps. No sound at all except Ace's soft breaths.

Six debated whether or not it was worth risking a peek over the boxes to see what the guards were looking at. He glanced at Ace, and she nodded.

He raised his head silently. One of the guards was pointing at his own eyes with two fingers:
Look at this
. Then he pointed at the ground, where Six and Ace had ran past before.

At first Six couldn't see what the guard was pointing at. It looked like an ordinary patch of gritty concrete. Then he saw it, and fear squeezed the air out of his lungs. He ducked down again, and looked back the way they had come.

He was leaving a trail of broken glass. Tiny fragments of the chandelier had followed him all this way.

The guards started moving again, this time with a purpose. The footsteps became steadily closer. Six gestured to Ace that they should keep going, and she started crawling again. Before following, Six carefully lifted one of the giant cardboard boxes and placed it gently across the sparkling trail, creating a dead end. That might confuse the guards for a few precious seconds.

Ace and Six crept as fast as they dared, soon reaching the edge of the floor. Plexiglass windows framed the City skyscrapers above their heads. Six could still hear the guards shuffling around somewhere behind them.

Six stood slowly in front of the windows. None of the guards appeared to notice him yet. He looked outside.
Streetlight, parked cars, a couple of pedestrians. No-one who looked like Allich's security.

He crouched down again. ‘When I say,' he whispered, ‘fill your lungs about halfway and hold it. Relax all your joints, and close your eyes if that helps.'

Ace's eyes widened. ‘What are you doing?'

‘Trust me,' Six said. He slowly slid a chunk of piping out of one of the nearby stacks, and hefted it with the hand that wasn't holding the shotgun.

Then he threw it across the room at the guards.

After all the silence, the noise of the pipe clanging against the floor was deafening. So loud that the sound of Six pumping a shell into the chamber of his Vulture was completely inaudible.

He pulled Ace to her feet, and wrapped his free arm around her waist. He pointed the Vulture at the window.

‘Now,' he said.

He pulled the trigger.

The recoil pushed the shotgun out of his hand as the window was blown to pieces. Six put his other arm around Ace so as she was in a bear hug and then he jumped backwards out the window, just as the guards opened fire, blasting chucks of concrete into the air outside.

Ace screamed in Six's ear as he plummeted backwards into the void. Her dress billowed above him. He forced
her hands against his chest, so her arms would absorb some of the shock and protect her torso.

He resisted the temptation to turn his head and watch where they were falling. The human skull can take much more force to the front or the back than to the side, and a high-speed impact with a turned head could lead to a broken neck.

The streetlight buzzed past. They'd fallen about four metres, with another four to go. Impact would come in a fraction of a second.

Smash!
The roof of the parked car crumpled underneath them like a saucepan lid underneath a speeding truck. The Kevlar vest protected Six's spine, but the impact still hurt like hell – the air burst out of his lungs, the back of his head smacked against the car roof, and Ace's weight was quintupled by her momentum as she crashed down on top of him.

‘You okay?' he gasped.

Ace coughed. ‘I'll live. You?'

‘Always do.' Six rolled off the car, and landed on the asphalt. He staggered sideways for a second, legs weak and bruised, but regained control within a few moments.

‘We've got to go,' he said, as he helped Ace down from the roof. ‘They won't be finished with us yet. Can you run?'

Ace winced as she stood. ‘Yeah. How far?'

Six held up the keys to Ciull Yu's limousine. ‘Not far.'

They started running. Every step sent a shock of pain up Six's legs.

‘They'll be back on the ground floor in ten seconds,' Six said. ‘Out the door and looking for us in twenty. They were probably radioing for land vehicles as we hit the ground, and those will reach the surface in about thirty seconds. But that's not our real problem.'

‘What's our real problem?'

‘They will have called for air support as well. The nearest air base is 13 kliks away – that means choppers will be here four minutes from now. If we haven't lost them by then, we're toast.'

Ace nodded. ‘I'll drive.'

‘No,' Six said.

‘I came first in my squad at vehicular training as a Club,' Ace said, as they reached the limo. ‘But I was only fourth in firearms. I'll drive, you shoot.'

There was no time to argue. Six tossed her the keys. She hit the disarm button, jumped in, and jammed the keys into the ignition. Six climbed in the passenger side, and started rummaging through the glove compartment. The car launched up the road, pressing Six back into his seat.

Yu's Raven X59 was still on the floor in the back, but Six was hoping for something better. As Ace pulled out from the kerb and stamped on the accelerator, Six found Yu's bodyguard's pistol – a Woodpecker 45LW automatic pistol with two spare mags. The Woodpecker would fire 45 mm slugs at a rate of 1200 per minute when the
trigger was depressed – 20 bullets per second. It was fitted with a laser sight, which suited Six. He wouldn't need it, but the extra weight would stop the gun from kicking upwards as he fired.

If he had to fire it. The way Ace was driving, they might just escape without –

‘Here they come,' Ace said, glancing in the rear-view mirror.

Six turned. Two black 4WDs screeched around the corner behind them. The ChaoSonic logo on the grille of each didn't mean much, since every car was manufactured by ChaoSonic, but the licence plates both began with CSV. ChaoSonic Vehicle. Any doubts Six might have had that the cars weren't chasing them were dispelled as one of the cars reared forwards and swung across sideways, smashing a green sedan out of its way.

Ace swung out across two lanes, throwing Six against the door. The limo powered up an exit ramp towards a bridge that stretched up over the highway.

No luck. Both 4WDs turned in time, and soon they were all speeding across the bridge.

The clock was ticking in Six's head: 3 minutes and 10 seconds until the ChaoSonic air support arrived. He opened the passenger-side door, leaned out, and took aim with the Woodpecker.

The road whizzed by underneath his head. He pulled the trigger.

The pistol shivered in his hand and a neat row of holes drilled into the grille of one of the ChaoSonic
cars. The shots were good – they should have busted the radiator and dragged the 4WD to a screeching, steamy halt.

The car kept coming.

Six pulled himself back into the passenger seat as the gunner of one of the ChaoSonic cars returned fire, shredding the upholstery on the inside of Six's door.

‘Why are they still on the road?' Ace yelled.

‘Armoured engine,' Six replied. ‘I'm going for the tyres.'

He leaned out again, and fired two short bursts. The Woodpecker sounded like an electric saw. Bullets sprayed into the tyres of the other 4WD, the one Six hadn't hit yet. The car swerved, but the tyres didn't blow.

Six pulled back into the driver's cabin. A flurry of bullets hit the back of the limousine, each with a sound like a hammer against a stone. The glass at the back cracked, but didn't shatter.

Six felt some satisfaction in that. It seemed Ciull Yu had splurged on a bulletproof limo – not that it had done him much good. But now it was saving Six and Ace's lives. Stalemate, Six thought. They can't hurt us, we can't hurt them.

Ace spun the wheel, and the limo swerved off the highway onto another exit. The mouth of a tunnel reared up before them.

Ace glanced at Six.

Smart, Six thought. The air support can't get us if we're underground. ‘Do it,' he said.

The limo zoomed down into the tunnel, with the two 4WDs right behind it.

Either Allich's soldiers hadn't realised that their bullets couldn't penetrate the limo's armoured skin, or they didn't care. Round after round slammed into the back of the limo, filling the cabin with white noise.

Cars drove sideways into the tunnel walls as the limo passed to avoid the chase. As a result, the road ahead of them was filled with civilian vehicles, but the road behind was more or less clear.