Third Transmission Read Online Free PDF Page A

the acid. But sometimes it didn’t, and cars dissolved. Boats sank. People died.
    The CNS
Gomorrah
was less than 10 kilometres from the Seawall. It was well and truly smothered in the carbon veil that stained the City. And while the hull was thick and strong enough to withstand a brief rainstorm, anyone who stayed out on the deck would be burned alive. Transformed into a bubbling pile of slop.
    Shouts of alarm rang out through the air, coming from all directions, meshing together into a single panicked roar. Some of the soldiers made it to the cover of the bridge. Others clambered down into the many hatches gridded across the deck – before the soldiers on the other side sealed them shut, desperate to keep the acid out. A few grabbed life rafts, turning them upside down and cowering underneath.
    Dozens didn’t make it.
    What can I do? Six thought, eyes wide. How can I help them? But it was way too late. He gritted his teethas his ears were filled with the wretched screams of those still stranded in the open. The faint stench of sizzling fat and muscle made him gag.
    â€˜Kyntak,’ he gasped, holding up his phone. ‘We’ve got rain.’
    Kyntak swore. ‘Are you under cover?’
    â€˜Yes. But lots aren’t. I count …’ Six winced as he scanned the deck. ‘I count at least twenty casualties.’
    â€˜We’re coming to get you, Six. ETA, two minutes.’
    Too late for these guys, Six thought, staring at the charred remains on the deck. I killed them. It’s my fault they’re up here. If I hadn’t showed up, raised the alarm and planted the bomb, no-one would have been evacuating. I tried to save them from drowning, and instead I burned them to death. Some hero I turned out to be.
    Six scanned the hangar for something to cover himself with. He didn’t know how close to the door the helicopter would be able to land, but there was a chance he’d have to run a few metres through the rain, and he couldn’t do that without some protection.
    Instinct turned him back to the doorway. He’d seen something in his peripheral vision; something that required his attention.
    Bodies. Lifeboats. Acid-scarred metal. No immediate threats.
    Then he looked at the bridge. Behind the windows, there was a soldier staring at him through a pair of binoculars.
    Six inhaled sharply and ducked out of sight behind the doorway. Had the soldier been looking at him? And if so, had he noticed that the clothes under Six’s stolen coat were clearly not ChaoSonic issue?
    Six waited ten more seconds, then peeped around the doorway. He snapped back instantly. The soldier was shouting into his radio, two more were looking through binoculars, and several others were picking up guns. They had seen him – and they were doing something about it.
    Goddamn it, Six thought. Kyntak better be here soon.
    He heard a growing roar from the hole he’d come up through. Gruff shouts, stomping boots. The soldiers were coming for him.
    Six ran over and slammed the hatch shut. There was no way to lock it, so he wrenched a pipe off the wall and jammed it between the valve and the wall. That should hold them for a while – the hatch was barely a metre wide, so only one soldier could push at a time, and gravity was against them. With a bit of luck, Six would be gone by the time they broke through the pipe.
    Six popped his head out the door again. The rain was still thundering down, but he could see the helicopter on the horizon, racing towards the ship. Acid sprayed outwards from the whirling rotors, flung away before it had time to eat the blades.
    It was ninety seconds away, maybe eighty.
    A crackling sound erupted behind him. Thinking the acid had breached the ceiling of the hangar, he dived for the wall. But as he looked back, he saw that it was worse.Light blazed around the hinges of the hatch. Someone was cutting through from the other side.
    Six’s heart thudded in his ears. It