Dead Man Running by Jack Heath Read Free Book Online Page A

strange and unfamiliar world. Jack was dead, along with Queen and Sammy. Kyntak had gone rogue. King had lost his idealism. Ace was married. But there was one person from Six’s old life left unaccounted for.
    King’s voice echoed through his head. We need you to be looking for the guy who killed you.
    That can wait, Six thought. I want to see my sister.

    â€˜Doesn’t look familiar,’ the owner said.
    The shop smelled of grease and gunmetal. Six held the phone closer to her, making sure she had a clear view of the image.
    â€˜You sure?’ he said.
    â€˜Sorry.’ The woman picked up a sniper rifle from the counter and started polishing the barrel. ‘Never seen her.’
    Six touched the screen and the picture of Nai disappeared. It wasn’t real – he’d found a photo of a similar-looking woman and warped her cheekbones and nose until her face was almost indistinguishable from his sister’s. But the forgery was based on his outdated memories – how much would Nai have changed during these last four years?
    He let his gaze roam along the racks of machine guns, the columns of ammunition boxes, the retinal scanner which was used to register the weapons. Much of his sister’s life was a mystery to him, but he knew that she liked guns. This was the ninth firearms retailer he’d visited this morning.
    â€˜Okay,’ he said finally. ‘If you do see her, can you let me know?’
    â€˜Sure, I guess.’
    There was a bouquet of pens in a coffee mug beside the register. Six plucked one of them out, pulled a receipt from his pocket and scribbled a phone number on the back. ‘Just in case,’ he said. ‘It’s really important that I find her.’
    The woman took the receipt and put it in the breast pocket of her suit jacket. ‘Good luck,’ she said.
    â€˜Thanks,’ Six replied, and headed for the exit. The doors beeped as they slid aside for him.
    As soon as he was out of sight, he sprinted around the corner and pressed his back against the outer wall of the shop. The owner’s office, he calculated, would be right behind this section of concrete. He pressed his phone against the wall and hit a button marked Flood . The phone hijacked the shop’s wi-fi network and started transmitting a meaningless stream of data to a server that didn’t exist. Six kept his eye on the speed: 6.8 gigahertz.
    She lied, he thought. That rifle was already clean before she started polishing it – she was fiddling to conceal anxiety. She didn’t look at the photo for long enough to be sure she didn’t know Nai, and she looked at it too long to be just pretending to care. She saw Nai, she recognised her, and she lied. And now –
    The speed dipped to 6.4 gigahertz as someone else accessed the wi-fi.
    And now, Six thought, she’s making a phone call. The call was encrypted, but he didn’t need to hear it. He could imagine what was being said:
    Someone was just in here asking about you.
    Describe him.
    Shortish, young, male. Dark hair. He left a phone number.
    What did you tell him?
    Nothing. Said I didn’t know you but I’d call him if you came in.
    Good. Give me the number.
    Six had no idea where Nai lived. He had found her in the Lab as an infant, but soon afterwards she’d been abducted by Retuni Lerke, the ChaoSonic scientist who had genetically engineered Six and his siblings.
    Lerke didn’t work for ChaoSonic any more. Six knew that ChaoSonic had tried to have him killed, and that Lerke had stolen a lot of money from the company before fleeing, but he wasn’t sure what order those events had happened in.
    After kidnapping Nai, Lerke had poisoned her with a drug that caused accelerated ageing. Now she was physically Six’s age, but as emotionally well rounded as a toddler, and she didn’t think of Lerke as her abductor any more. He was her rescuer.
    If someone had killed Six and sent a living