Armageddon, page 12
part #5 of Liars Series
The buckles and straps looked straightforward enough. But Viper was standing right next to the rocket, her eyes on the grey sky. She had a phone in one hand and a gun in the other. Could he undo the straps without her seeing him?
Maybe he could push the rocket off the cliff. That might save the minister. But it might also poison Kelton’s water supply with botulism. And when the water evaporated, who knew where the TOXIC CLOUD would end up?
Jarli edged sideways so he could approach the rocket without entering Viper’s line of sight. Then he started creeping up the slope towards the rocket. He tried not to get too close to the cliff edge. If he fell into that whirlpool, he would get sucked into the tunnels and drown, or be smashed against the deadly rock walls.
He was out of the trees now. About ten metres away from Viper. Completely exposed. He kept his eyes on her. She hadn’t moved.
Five metres to go.
Four.
Then Viper turned around and levelled her gun at him. ‘That’s close enough.’
Jarli looked at the phone in her other hand, and remembered the tracker chip in his brain. His heart sank. He had been doomed from the start.
‘Put those down,’ Viper said.
Jarli dropped the toxic waste bags.
‘Kick them away.’
Jarli nudged them with his foot. The wind picked them up, blowing them over the edge of the cliff. They floated down to the lake and disappeared into the whirlpool.
Now he had nothing to wrap the canister in. The plan wouldn’t work. Kelton was doomed.
‘I’m glad you’re OK,’ Viper said. ‘I was worried that I hadn’t killed Cobra in time.’
Jarli said nothing, his mind racing.
‘I told him not to kill you,’ Viper continued, ‘but I didn’t trust him. He was a brute. I always knew I’d have to get rid of him eventually.’ She gestured to the air filter dangling around Jarli’s neck. ‘You’d better put that on.’
‘Where’s your mask?’ Jarli asked.
‘I told you I was leaving Kelton.’ Viper glanced up at the sky, looking for the plane. ‘This is me, leaving.’
Jarli glanced at the rocket. From here he could see the numbers on the control panel, counting down to the launch. The canister had its own control panel and screen, counting down to the release of the toxin. The time was 11:54. The rocket would launch in five minutes. The canister would open a minute after that.
Maybe Jarli could hack the control panel on the rocket, or the canister. But Viper would shoot him if he got any closer. His only chance was to talk her out of it.
He couldn’t lie, though. She had his app on her phone.
‘I understand why you’re doing this,’ he said. True.
Viper didn’t lower the gun. ‘You do, huh?’
‘Your whole unit was wiped out overseas. They died because the defence minister knew a source was unreliable, and didn’t tell anyone.’
‘Not just my unit,’ Viper said. ‘His career is a long list of selfish mistakes. Every time he screws up, good people die. I assume the only reason he didn’t kill both of us with that thermobaric warhead is that Reynolds shamed him out of it.’
‘Poisoning him won’t bring your friends back.’
‘Imagine someone murdered your family.’ Viper turned her face to the sky, looking for the plane. ‘And Bess, and Anya, and Doug, and anyone else you care about. Would you be willing to let that go? Just because you couldn’t bring them back?’
The thought left a chill in Jarli’s chest. ‘Of course not. I’d want the killer arrested. But I wouldn’t—’
‘Arrested.’ Viper snorted. ‘You don’t think I tried that? I told my story to the police, and then the media. But Fisher has powerful friends. No-one did anything. Eventually he sent some goons to my house to threaten me. They said if I kept talking, I’d find myself in a lead-lined bag at the bottom of the ocean. So I moved to this little town in the middle of nowhere. I let Fisher think I had given up. Then I started playing by his rules.’
‘If you do this, innocent people will die,’ Jarli said. ‘Everyone else on the plane, everyone left in Kelton . . .’
Viper looked unmoved. ‘Like I said. Playing by his rules.’
‘You could have told your story to Dana Reynolds,’ Jarli said, clutching at straws. ‘She confronted Fisher about Malburse when he visited Kelton.’
‘Too little, too late. And when she accused him of running a secret government prison, Fisher blamed his deputy and managed to keep his job—again. He always avoids punishment. But not today.’ Viper checked the countdown. Jarli followed her gaze. Two minutes until the rocket launch. Three minutes until the botulism was released.
‘The next defence minister will find out what happened to the last one, and why,’ Viper said. ‘Maybe he or she will treat their soldiers with more respect.’
‘Or maybe all veterans will be worse off,’ Jarli challenged. ‘Did you think of that? They’ll get blamed for what you’re doing right now—’ He broke off. Suddenly this all felt familiar.
‘Have we already had this conversation?’ he asked. ‘I found out who you were, tried to convince you not to do this—and then you erased my memory.’
‘No,’ Viper said. ‘I didn’t remove your memories. I gave you new ones. The procedure isn’t so different.’
Jarli’s eyes widened. ‘What do you mean?’
‘You know how I funded all this.’ Viper waved the gun at the rocket and the canister. ‘Criminals pay me a fortune to give them new faces and new identities. I chip them as well, so they’re forced to do whatever I want. Recommend me to their associates. Spy on my enemies. Hack into police databases. Even steal weapons, cash, rockets. But thanks to your lie-detector app, having a new face isn’t enough to disappear. You need to believe that you’re a new person, otherwise the app will catch you out.’
Jarli was starting to feel sick, but he didn’t know why. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘You were on the run from the police,’ Viper said. ‘You came to me. You wanted a new face, a new identity, and some new memories to make them work. You were about the same size and build as a kid I knew. A kid named Jarli Durras.’
The ground seemed to be shuddering beneath Jarli’s feet. ‘This is another one of your tricks.’
‘So I modified your face to make you look like Jarli,’ Viper continued. ‘I kidnapped him. I used an fMRI to find the relevant memories in his head. Then I used a neurosurgical robot to duplicate them in yours—just a matter of threading the right cells together. I sent you home to his family, who didn’t suspect a thing. Neither did you. Cobra was supposed to watch you, make sure that the new memories stuck.’
‘You’re lying!’ Jarli shouted, his heart pounding.
‘The real Jarli Durras is dead,’ Viper said. ‘I left him on my surgical table. Check your app.’
Jarli instinctively reached into his pocket. But his phone was still somewhere down the hill, in the mud.
Viper held up her phone. The app was open on her screen. The screen said:
‘You are a convicted arsonist named Jackson Leach,’ she said, ‘who came to me for a new identity. Jarli Durras is dead.’
The phone thought about that for a second.
TRUE
A WORLD-ENDING EXPLOSION
The countdown on the rocket ticked away the seconds.
01:05.
01:04.
‘Put that mask on,’ Viper said again. ‘You may not be the real Jarli, but that doesn’t mean you have to die.’
She must be lying, Jarli thought. But it was still right there on the screen: True. He tasted blood at the back of his throat, like he’d tried to swallow something sharp.
Viper’s story fit all the facts. The scar on his head. The body in her surgical room. It explained why she’d given Jarli brain surgery instead of killing him, and why she’d planted Cobra in his house.
‘Why are you telling me this?’ Jarli’s voice came out as a hoarse whisper.
‘There’s no point lying to each other now, is there?’ Viper said. ‘This will all be over in a minute.’
Less than that. The rocket launch was fifty-five seconds away. But that barely seemed to matter now.
Noises in the trees, somewhere behind him. Someone was coming. Maybe Anya. Jarli was suddenly ashamed. He didn’t want to see her. She was good, and he was bad.
Jarli wasn’t himself. He was dead. He’d been dead for weeks.
The thought snagged in his brain. Weeks.
‘How did you preserve the body?’ he asked.
Viper raised an eyebrow. ‘That’s your question?’
‘I’ve had the scar on my head for two weeks,’ Jarli said. ‘That body looked no more than a few days old.’
‘And you’re an expert?’
‘According to you, yes. I’m a criminal.’
Viper sighed. ‘Fine. I froze Jarli’s body. I took it out this morning to make room in the freezer for the botulism. Happy now?’
She held up her phone. The app said TRUE
Except . . .
‘That’s Truth Premium,’ Jarli said. ‘You made it. It’s programmed to trust your voice print, no matter what you say.’
Viper’s eyes narrowed. ‘That doesn’t mean I’m lying.’
‘No. But you’re a master manipulator.’ It was all coming together in Jarli’s head. ‘You tried to replace me with a criminal doppelganger, but the surgery killed him.’
‘Wrong.’ But Viper looked uneasy now.
‘This is what you do,’ Jarli continued. ‘You trick people. Earlier today you convinced Plowman he was Viper, and now you’re trying to convince me that I’m not me.’
‘You’re not,’ Viper said, teeth clenched. She was nervous.
‘So I get distracted. So I don’t . . .’ Jarli trailed off. So I don’t what?
He looked at the launch countdown.
00:26.
00:25.
He took a step towards the rocket.
Viper levelled the gun at him. ‘Back off.’
‘You don’t want to shoot me,’ Jarli said. ‘Because I’m just a kid, and your only target is Aaron Fisher. You’ll say anything to stop me from interfering with that rocket.’
Viper gritted her teeth. ‘You’re right. I don’t want to shoot you. But I will, if you make me.’
00:19.
00:18.
‘I don’t think so.’ Jarli took another step towards the rocket.
Bang!
The gunshot echoed across the clifftop.
Viper’s head snapped backwards. Her body went instantly limp. She toppled off the edge of the cliff. Her body hit the water seconds later with a distant splash, and was sucked down into the whirlpool.
Jarli whirled around. He saw former Constable Blanco running up the hill towards him with a gun in her hand. Anya was right behind her. Dana Reynolds followed them, holding up a camera.
‘Jarli,’ Blanco yelled. ‘Are you all right?’
There was no time to answer her question. No time to wonder if Viper really would have shot him. No time to hack the rocket controls before the launch.
00:03.
00:02.
Jarli grabbed the nylon straps which held the canister and the rocket together. He held on tight.
There was a world-ending explosion beneath his feet, and suddenly Jarli was shooting into the sky.
INCORRECT PASSWORD
Jarli’s shoes were burning. They were right next to the rocket’s thrusters, which made a deafening roar. The clifftop was getting smaller and smaller down below as the rocket zoomed up towards the dark, wet clouds. The vibrations made Jarli’s teeth rattle.
The screen on the rocket was blinking furiously as it clocked the altitude. 100 METRES. 150 METRES. 200 METRES. 250 METRES.
Jarli had no parachute. No safe spot to land. There was no way he could survive this. But he could save Kelton.
The wind blasted him as he leaned sideways, trying to get a look at the control panel for the botulism canister. Fifty-six seconds left on the clock. That was how long he had to figure out how to stop it from opening.
900 METRES. 950 METRES. 1000 METRES.
As the rocket shot higher and higher into the sky, Jarli let go of the straps with one hand so he could operate the control panel with the other. But shifting his weight made the rocket tilt back towards him, changing its trajectory. If he wasn’t careful, he could accidentally steer the rocket back down into the ground, where it would probably explode, showering the town with deadly particles.
Jarli wrapped his legs around the rocket, like it was a horse. Keeping his chest pressed against it, he reached for the control panel again with one hand.
The screen said:
TIME UNTIL RELEASE: 00:44.
Under that, there was a button which said, CANCEL.
Relieved, Jarli stabbed the button. A message flashed up on the screen:
PASSWORD REQUIRED: ____________________
Jarli felt the blood drain from his face. Oh, no. He was strapped to a rocket which was hurtling into the sky with a payload of the most dangerous substance in the world. And the only person who knew the password to stop it was DEAD.
00:32.
00:31.
The air was getting thinner as the rocket approached the stratosphere. Jarli was getting dizzy. His muscles were weakening. The altitude clock said: 4900 METRES. 4950 METRES. 5000 METRES.
There was no ‘forgot password’ option. The rocket was shaking, making it impossible to keep his hand steady. It took Jarli several seconds to type ADMIN.
The screen flashed red. INCORRECT PASSWORD.
He tried PASSWORD.
INCORRECT PASSWORD.
00:24.
00:23.
The rocket was above the clouds now. Jarli could see the sun, sudden and blinding. The wind was freezing against his wet skin. He was struggling to breathe up here. If he blacked out, he would fall to his death—and then the toxin would kill everybody else.
Teeth chattering, Jarli racked his brain for everything he knew about Viper.
VIPER. INCORRECT PASSWORD.
EATON. INCORRECT PASSWORD.
MARIA. INCORRECT PASSWORD.
MARIAEATON. INCORRECT PASSWORD.
FISHER. INCORRECT PASSWORD.
AARONFISHER. INCORRECT PASSWORD.
Jarli screamed with frustration. The blasting wind stole his voice.
00:11.
00:10.
Darkness crawled in from the edges of his vision. He needed air.
The rocket was slowing down. As it slowly spun, Jarli saw a speck on the horizon—Fisher’s plane.
00:08.
00:07.
The plane was about the same altitude as the rocket—8400 metres, according to the screen. The rocket was probably supposed to fly higher, but Jarli was weighing it down. Not enough to save the plane, though. The canister was going to dump the botulism right in front of it.
00:06.
00:05.
Fisher would die. Finally Viper would get her revenge for all those dead—
Wait!
Suddenly inspired, Jarli started typing again. The nickname of a dead soldier Viper had told him about a year ago.
00:04.
00:03.
Jarli typed: NURSINGHOME.
A message flashed up: ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO CANCEL?
Jarli frantically stabbed the YES button.
RELEASE CANCELLED.
Jarli stared at the screen. He couldn’t believe it. He’d done it. He’d saved everybody.
Except himself.
The boosters sputtered and died. The rocket hung in the air for a moment, and then began to fall. From nine kilometres up.
TERMINAL VELOCITY
It was like the first drop on a rollercoaster. Jarli kept thinking the rocket had reached maximum speed, only to have it plummet even faster. He fought to hang onto the nylon straps with his freezing hands as it hurtled towards oblivion at almost 300 kilometres per hour. The terror was sickening.
The defence minister’s private jet swept overhead, sending shockwaves through the air and filling it with the roar of jet engines.
Still hugging the dead rocket, Jarli watched the plane shrink away into the mist. He had sacrificed his own life to save the people on that plane. He wondered if they would ever know.
Suddenly the air blasting his face didn’t seem so thin. He was getting close to the ground. Not good.
5100 METRES. 5000 METRES. 4900 METRES.
He rested his feet on the stabiliser fins. By shifting his weight, he could steer the rocket, sort of. But not enough to keep it in the air. No matter what he did, it was going to hit the ground. Hard.
The clifftop was 3000 metres below. The rocket was going to crash almost exactly where it had taken off. Maybe Jarli could steer the rocket towards the lake. The impact might still kill him. Even if it didn’t, he could drown when he was sucked into the whirlpool. But a slim chance was better than none.
Jarli leaned sideways, holding onto the straps. The rocket’s nose tilted towards the lake, slightly changing the angle of descent, still accelerating downwards. 2000 METRES. 1800 METRES.
And then Jarli saw something moving down below. Just a speck, but getting bigger. One of Plowman’s giant drones. It was hovering about 300 metres above the clifftop. Still watching over the town.
Jarli threw his weight to the left, trying to steer the rocket towards the drone. The nose of the rocket started to turn. But not far enough. It wasn’t going to hit the drone.
1500 METRES. 1300 METRES. 1100 METRES.
Jarli bunched the nylon straps in one hand and tore at the buckles with the other. He couldn’t let the botulism canister shatter against the ground, or this would all be for nothing.
Finally he found the correct buckle. The straps loosened, and the canister fell out. It started to drift away, like it was in zero gravity. Jarli stretched out his free hand and caught the canister just before it floated out of reach. He hugged the can of death to his chest like a football.
Still holding the straps with his other hand, he stood up, surfing on the rocket for a moment. 900 METRES. 600 METRES.
