Third Transmission (20 page)

‘Because these soldiers can see the future,' Six said. ‘And what's more, they can't die.'

Six knew he should be trying to figure out how to defend the Deck, how to protect the surviving agents from the monstrous force pitted against them. But he couldn't stop thinking about the girl, the one Allich had used in her demonstration.

He and Ace must have watched her entire life, beginning to end. She didn't exist until she appeared in Allich's machine, and she was gone forever once it sent her back. There had only been perhaps seven minutes in between.

But it wouldn't have felt like that to her. It would have felt like an eternity – in fact, it
was
an eternity. She would remember Allich's speech, and before that, she'd remember coming out of the machine, and before that, she'd remember going into the machine, and before that, she'd remember Allich's speech, and before that, she'd remember coming out of the machine, and before that ...

No wonder she and the soldier had both repeated everything everyone said, as they were saying it – it had been burned into their brains with endless repetition.

And there was no point, Six thought. No reason. She had been created and destroyed as nothing more than a
demonstration
, proof that a human being could be sent back in time. Even the card she'd carried bore no message – just a group of signatures, so Allich's guests
could watch their own handwriting break the laws of physics.

Six had promised to save the girl. But now it was way too late. She had died young, and yet lived forever, and Six didn't know which was worse.

‘What do you mean, they can't die?' Kyntak was saying. ‘How? Why?'

‘Because they're here,' Six said. ‘If they die, they can't get back to the machine, and then they can't appear in the first place. The fact that these time-travelling soldiers exist at all is proof that they will survive. They can't even be severely injured, because otherwise they would already bear those injuries. And they can see the future, because it's in their past.'

‘I'm not sure I understand,' King said.

‘They've done all this before,' Six said, ‘an infinite number of times. That's why they're only wearing body armour in certain places – they know where they're going to get shot. And that's how their reflexes appear to be so good; they already know what's going to happen.' He paused. ‘I think there was one on the CNS
Gomorrah
this morning – he attacked me, and seemed to know what I was going to do before I did it.'

‘Why are they all so big?' Kyntak asked.

Six shook his head. ‘I don't know.'

‘Where did they come from in the first place?'

‘They appeared in the time machine.'

‘No, I mean before that. Where do they originate?'

‘I don't know. Maybe they have no origin.'

‘Then why does Allich's time machine make soldiers instead of violinists, or ducks, or turnips?'

Six said, ‘I don't know, Kyntak.'

‘We have to let him go,' Sammy murmured.

Six was silent.

‘What?' Kyntak asked. ‘Who?'

‘The soldier we captured,' Sammy said. ‘We have to release him.'

‘Why?'

‘Because otherwise he'll escape,' Sammy said, ‘or the others will break in here and take him.'

‘You don't know that for sure,' Kyntak said.

‘Yes we do,' Sammy replied. ‘We know that he'll make it back to the time machine in one piece, because otherwise he wouldn't be here. So if we try to keep him imprisoned, he will be taken from us by force.'

‘We have to destroy the machine,' Six said.

Everyone turned to look at him.

‘We can't let ChaoSonic have access to a time machine,' he continued. ‘Imagine what they could do with it. They could go back and kill you when you were just a child,' he pointed at King, ‘and then the Deck would never be created. They could stop Project Falcon, and then you and I' – he looked at Kyntak – ‘would never exist. They would have absolute power.'

A chill crawled up his spine. What if they already did? What if ChaoSonic's massive empire had been constructed by hurling operatives back across the decades, armed with knowledge of future stock market
fluctuations and influential politicians and weapons that hadn't been invented yet?

‘Actually, no,' Sammy said. He drummed his fingers on his thigh. ‘There's some good news there. First, you said Allich only got the teleport working three years ago, right?'

‘Two years, eight months,' Six said. ‘At most.'

‘Then she can't send anything further back than that,' Sammy said. ‘Because there would be nothing to recreate it at the other end. Her field of influence is limited.'

King nodded. ‘Okay. So we don't need to worry about her having our parents killed, or anything like that.'

‘No. And the other thing is, they can't change the past.'

‘Why not?' King asked.

Sammy smiled wearily. ‘Because it's already happened.'

‘But if you can go back,' Six said, ‘aren't you changing things just by being there?'

‘There's a famous concept called the grandfather paradox,' Sammy said. ‘The basic idea is that if you went back in time and killed your grandfather before he met your grandmother, you would never be born. But if you were never born, you could never go back in time to kill him. So he would live, he'd meet your grandmother, and you
would
be born. And then you
do
get to go back and kill him. Paradox. See?'

‘People used it as an argument against the possibility of time travel,' Kyntak said.

‘That's right. But in reality, it doesn't rule out time travel at all. It just rules out killing your grandfather.' Sammy shrugged. ‘The truth is, if you had a time machine, you could go back in time and
attempt
to kill your grandfather, but the fact that you exist proves that you will fail. Maybe you'll kill the wrong guy, maybe you'll have a sudden change of heart, or maybe somebody will kill you before you get the chance. But the one thing that you can be sure will not happen is the death of your grandfather before he meets your grandmother.'

‘But say you did murder the wrong man,' Six said. ‘Doesn't that change the past?'

‘This is the tricky part,' Sammy said. ‘In that scenario, by the time you're building your time machine and deciding to go back, it's already happened. Somewhere in the past, you already appeared, tried to kill your grandfather, and killed the wrong guy. So, there's no way to change the past, but it's possible that you already did.'

‘So what's the point of even having a time machine?' King said. ‘Besides making super-soldiers out of thin air?'

‘Let's look at this from ChaoSonic's point of view,' Sammy said. ‘They can't go back and stop Six's makers, because they can only go back two years and eight months. And they can't go back a few months and shoot him in the head, because he's still alive now, so they'd fail. But say they decided to go back two years, find him while he slept, and surgically implant a tracking beacon into his brain. That would be very useful to them, and
the chip would already be there, even though they haven't even decided to do it yet.'

Everyone stared at Six. His scalp felt suddenly hot, and he imagined he could hear a faint beeping.

‘So,' Sammy said, ‘their power is not unlimited. But Six's right – we have to destroy the machine. We don't know how many ways they've already meddled with the past, but we'd better stop them before they can do any more damage.'

‘But first, we have to get everybody out of here,' Six said.

King frowned. ‘What? We're safer here than anywhere else.'

‘No, we're not. These soldiers can't be killed. They will never fire a shot that misses, because they know it'll hit before they pull the trigger. And if they try to get in here, no matter how well we defend it, they will succeed. They can never, ever fail at anything they attempt to do. See?' He clenched and unclenched his fists, trying to block off the rising dread. ‘Our only option is to run.'

‘We belong here,' King said. ‘The City needs us.'

‘We can't save the City if we're dead,' Six replied.

There was a tense silence.

‘The guy we have locked up,' Kyntak said. ‘He already knows what we're going to do with him, doesn't he? Even though we haven't decided yet.'

Sammy nodded. ‘Yes, I imagine he does.' He sighed. ‘Makes you feel kind of helpless, doesn't it?'

‘Welcome to my world,' Six said.

MISSION
THREE

Day 2

EVACUATION

Aware that he was holding enough nitroglycerine to vaporise his arm and liquefy the rest of him, Six slowly and carefully placed the charge against the ceiling. The vacuum cells on the underside immediately sucked away 80 per cent of the air molecules, creating enough negative pressure that the charge stuck fast to the concrete.

Nitro was a relatively stable explosive. Just the same, Six took great care as he flicked the switch on the side marked
arm/disarm
.

The light on the front clicked from green to red, matching the other seven charges arranged in a square on the ceiling of the cell.

Holding onto the top rung of the ladder with one hand, Six leaned back and turned his head to look at the ring of people below. ‘Final charge planted,' he called. ‘Coming down.'

This cell had once housed a woman named Gen Soreth. She had been arrested and shuf?ed by the Deck for stealing a truck ?lled with Nitron B, a drug used to treat cystic fibrosis. She was nearing the end of her
four-year sentence when Vanish's soldiers drilled through the ceiling of her cell and shot her in the head. They didn't know or care who Gen Soreth was – they just needed her cell so they could blast through the floor into the one below, which held Methryn Crexe, former director of the Lab.

They didn't care much about who Crexe was either. They abducted him, and then executed him, only to get Six's attention. For the same purpose, they also killed every single occupant of a downtown apartment building and, shortly afterwards, a Deck agent who Six dearly missed. Agent Two.

Fourteen dead in a single day. Just as bait for him. Six had once been told that the other agents at the Deck admired him because of his vow to never again take a human life. But with such a long trail of bodies behind him – some friends like Agent Two, some strangers like Gen Soreth – it never felt like he deserved that admiration. He hadn't killed anyone in a long time – but many had died because of him.

He didn't know why these time-soldiers had been sent, but Six hoped that, for once, it had nothing to do with him.

The floor of Soreth's cell had not yet been rebuilt, so it was still joined to Crexe's. Six climbed past the broken concrete edge, and stepped down the last few rungs to the ground. He laid the ladder flat against the floor so it wouldn't be twisted in the blast, before he jogged over to where the others were waiting.

‘Get everyone back to a safe distance,' King said. He didn't meet Six's eye.

Six knew that the idea of abandoning the Deck went against every instinct King had. He worked thirteen-hour days, seven days a week. He had no wife, siblings, parents or children other than Six. All his friends were here. He ate his meals here. He often slept on the couch in his of?ce. The Deck was his home, much more than the small house in which Six had been raised. To King, that house was now just an address to put on forms, and a bed for when his neck got sore from too many nights on the couch.

‘We'll be back,' Six said. ‘They won't take it away from us.'

King just nodded.

It had been Sammy's idea to blow out the roof of Soreth's cell again to get everyone out. He said that the ceiling of Soreth's cell had only recently been repaired, so it would not be suspicious if the soldiers saw a hole in it. And the fact that there was another hole between Soreth's cell and Crexe's would make it look like existing damage rather than an escape attempt.

The evacuation would have to be undetectable not only while they were doing it, but also after they had gone. Otherwise, the soldiers would already know about it.

Until Allich's time machine was destroyed, Six would have to get used to this kind of thinking. Past future tense. Paradoxes. People knowing about things that hadn't happened yet.

Behind the chalk safety line, the injured personnel had been prepped for transport. The six who could still use their arms and legs had been mummified with compresses and splints. Eight gurneys, once used to relocate violent prisoners, now held the comatose agents inside their nets of straps and buckles. Each gurney was fastened to one of the agents who was still fit for duty, like a giant backpack.

The eight carriers were bookended by two teams of three agents, bulked up with full body armour, although Six wasn't sure the special bullets the soldiers were using wouldn't penetrate it. They each carried ri?es loaded with tranquilliser rounds. Sammy had reasoned that although the time-soldiers couldn't be killed, there was no rule that said they couldn't be knocked out. Ace had proved it.