'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.
Chapter Ten: Showdown
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!
The world was still spinning around him. The best he could manage was a crawl, toward the noise at a painful pace. Bile rose in his throat. He choked it back down.
There was probably another way into these lower floors. The Taur could arrive at any minute. But if he could shut off the machine, it didn't matter what the beast did to him.
By the time he reached the door to Byre's room, he was less dizzy. He stood. Pushed the door open.
It was like travelling back in time for real. Byre stood exactly where she had before, her knuckles white around the two metal cylinders, her eyes wild with excitement and fury.
'Six,' she said. 'I'm not going to lie – I'm surprised to see you.'
Six ignored her and staggered over to the console. A timer was counting down from 48 seconds. A readout told him that she had set the machine to blast her 81 years into the past. He reached for the shutdown lever
.
It wasn't there.
'Given what happened last time,' Byre said, 'I thought it was safest to remove the emergency shut down switch. Now I'm glad I did.'
Six couldn't believe it. He had failed. The machine couldn't be stopped. And now he was going to die.
He hoped Kyntak had made it outside the blast radius.
'For what it's worth,' Byre said, 'I'm sorry. I know you'll cease to exist when I kill the founding members of ChaoSonic. But they've done much, much more harm than good.'
Six was barely listening. Kyntak had told him that the blast would be proportional to the spacetime distance – the further Byre tried to go back, the bigger the explosion would be. If he could change her destination to something more recent, perhaps only this building would be destroyed. He and Byre would die, but probably no-one else. The Taur might survive the blast, thanks to its thick, leathery hide.
However, if he touched the controls, Byre would overpower him. He was in no condition to fight her off. He would have to wait until the last second, when she would be afraid to let go of the cylinders.
The timer read 24 seconds.
'I have a rule,' Six said. He had to shout over the roaring of the magnet. 'I don't kill people.'
Byre's eyes narrowed. 'Conveniently, killing me wouldn't stop the explosion.'
'But if you die because of your machine, and I didn't warn you, then that counts.'
Byre said nothing.
'So this is me,' Six said, 'warning you. You're not going back in time. Kyntak says it's impossible. We're both about to be blown to pieces.'
'The machine will work.' There was no doubt in Byre's voice.
11 seconds.
Something snarled. Six whirled around. The Taur had appeared in the doorway.
'Kill him,' Byre said.
The Taur's molten eyes fixed on Six's. It squeezed through the door and reached out for him–
Six ducked under its grabbing arms and twisted one of the dials on the console. The readout changed from 81 years to 22 years to ten months to two months.
'What did you just do?' Byre shrieked.
Six couldn't reply. The Taur had grabbed him by the throat and was lifting him up. He heard the cartelage in his Adam's apple creak. Everything was getting dark.
The Taur had turned away from Byre. Away from the machine. With his last shred of strength, Six hugged the monster, using it a a giant inhuman shield, burying his face in its tough flesh–
And then – KABOOM – the air was painted white.
* * *
Soren Byre landed in a heap. She was somewhere dark and loud. The floor was metallic. It shook under her fingers.
She stood, swaying unsteadily. She had felt the first fraction of a second of the explosion, but then it had disappeared – or rather, she had. The explosion hadn't happened yet. She was in the past.
Things fell from the ceiling around her. Objects skittered across the floor. She had transported herself into the midst of an earthquake. Somewhere, somewhen.
She turned, looking for a way out, and saw a figure running toward her. Fleeing, perhaps. Did that mean the way out was behind her?
The boy's face came into view. It was Agent Six of Hearts. His clothes were different, and the holes in his head were gone, but it was definitely him. Somehow, he had travelled through time with her.
'It works,' she hissed, delighted to have proven him wrong. 'It works!'
And then something plunged into the back of her head, and she knew nothing more.
Acknowledgements
I'd like to thank fellow writer Sam McGregor, whose enthusiasm for Crossover was a huge driving force without which it might still be unfinished.
I'd also like to thank Dean C Moore, MJ Levitt, Charlene Mei Abad, Holden Marceaux, Jezieboo, Rheann33, Zuzuthezombie and all the other Wattpad users who provided encouragement and feedback.
I asked Jeremy Gallant a bunch of dumb physics questions, and he was kind enough to give me some smart answers. Mistakes and implausibilities are mine alone.
As always, thanks are due to Venetia Major, Barbara Davidson, Ian Heath and Tom Heath. Your support keeps me going.
About The Author
Jack Heath is the award-winning author of six novels for young adults. He lives in Canberra with his wife, their dog and several chickens.
His Agent Six books include The Lab, Remote Control and Third Transmission. For more adventures starring Ashley Arthur, check out Money Run and Hit List.
These books are available from Pan Macmillan in Australasia, Scholastic in North America and Usborne in the United Kingdom.
Keep reading for a sneak peak of Hit List!
Hit List
Practice. It would take practice, but it could be done.
He moved around the empty room in circles, aerosol can in his hand, dodging invisible bystanders. Occasionally he paused, and stepped back with his head bowed, as if to allow someone to walk past.
The motions were easy. The more difficult part was maintaining an expression of faint surprise and curiosity – eyebrows up, head slightly tilted, lips curled into a lopsided grin. Like he'd spotted an old friend on the opposite side of a crowded room, and was going over to say hi. His intention was to look non-threatening, yet unapproachable to anyone in his path.
He walked, he paused, he sidestepped, he kept walking. The only sound was the wind, keening at the broken window in the attic.
There were rumours that this house was haunted – rumours he reinforced at every opportunity. It would be inconvenient if someone purchased it and moved in. So he spent many of his nights turning battery-powered lights on and off in various rooms, throwing things at the walls to produce sudden thumps, and playing a battered violin in the attic. Whenever the real estate agent brought prospective buyers around, they found fresh bloodstains on the floorboards, made from a foul-smelling syrup of red wine and barbecue sauce.
He didn't like to be disturbed. And he would disturb as many other people as it took to avoid it.
The walls of the room he was in were covered in mirrors. Every step of his complicated waltz was mimicked by the dozens of doppelgangers that surrounded him. He stared at them, trying to see himself as others would. They stared back, each with an equally suspicious gaze.
A twitch of his fingers, and the aerosol can vanished up his sleeve. A flick of the wrist, and it was back in his hand. He rehearsed this over and over, watching the can disappear and reappear as he walked. It's there. It's gone. Now you see it, now you don't.
With his other hand, he loosened his collar, scratched his neck, ran his fingers through his hair. These motions would draw eyes away from the can, allowing it to come and go unobserved.
After a few more circuits, he came to a sudden halt in front of one of the mirrors. There was a picture taped to it – a teenage girl, on the footpath outside her school, unaware that she was being photographed.
He stared at her for a long time, memorising every detail of her features. Then he closed his eyes and visualised them. Oak-brown hair, green irises, teeth not quite crooked enough to require braces. Narrow shoulders. Unpierced ears.
He opened his eyes again. Her hair was darker than he'd pictured, but otherwise, everything was very close.
The girl was a chameleon, often hidden behind clever costumes and prosthetic make-up. If his plan was to work, if he was to have his revenge, he would need to recognise her instantly. He'd need to know her face as well as he knew his own.
He reached out and touched the photo, tracing the curve of her cheekbones.
'Ashley,' he whispered. Then he walked back to the other side of the room, and starting weaving through the imaginary throng once again. Practice makes perfect.
~
The guard stared down at the grubby pass card. 'The thing is,' he said, 'you're not on the personnel list.'
The girl blinked. Wiped the grime off her palms. 'Sorry?'
'Your pass is valid,' the guard said, uncomfortably. 'But I've got
a list of people to let through, and you're not on it.' Plus, he thought, I'm not sure I've ever seen you before.
The girl offered him a wry grin. 'Does that mean I can go home?'
The guard sighed. 'Well . . . '
'I know, right?' the girl said. 'You're not supposed to let me in – it's against regulations. But if I leave, they're one worker short for the day and the foreman will say it's your fault. You could call him up here to sort it out, but then he'll blame you for wasting everyone's time.' She scratched her hair under her cap. 'Course, if he'd done a proper headcount in the first place, there'd be no problem.'
The guard wondered how long the girl had been working down in the mines. Couldn't have been more than a couple years – she looked younger than his niece, although the tattoos on her neck made her at least eighteen. He looked at the pass card again. It was definitely legit.
'How about I call him?' the girl said, fumbling through the pockets of her overalls. 'That way –'
'No,' the guard said. He jerked a thumb towards the mouth of the tunnel. 'Go on.'
The girl shrugged. 'Sure. Have a good day.'
The guard watched her walk away into the blackness. Then he stepped back into his station, sat down in the swivel chair and picked up one of the wedding magazines his fiancé had left out for him. The interesting part of his day was over.
~
'Benjamin,' Ash whispered, stripping off the overalls to expose a patchy grey suit, made from the same fabric as her cap. 'I'm in the outer tunnel.'
'What took you so long?' His voice was crisp and loud in Ash's ear, thanks to the new earphones they had bought. No more obvious wires on her neck – the plugs contained batteries with 48 hours between recharges, and were coated with rubber that matched Ash's skin colour exactly. Benjamin was on a boat half a kilometre off the shore, but she could hear him as clearly as a chiming bell.