Remote Control Read Free Page A

empty corridors until he reached his office. He disarmed the door, entered, armed it behind him, and sat down in front of the laptop on his desk. He hit the power switch.
    His office was tidy, clean, and minimal. Besides the computer and desk, the only objects were his spare coat, hanging on a hook behind the door, and a painting on the wall. The painting had been a gift from the Queen of Hearts. He suspected she’d given it to him as an experiment, just to see if he would discard it. He hadn’t.
    The mission report template opened automatically on the screen. He began to type:
    MISSION REPORT: 8066-7145-9899
    AGENT NUMBER: 06-4 (Six of Hearts)
    LOCATION: Warehouse for storage and transfer of human cargo on Highway 03649
    BRIEF: Enter facility, arrest suspects, recover hostages for adoption
    AGENT IN CHARGE: 06-4 (Six of Hearts)
    MISSION DESCRIPTION: Entered through roof (0542 hours). Established validity of suspicions by confirming presence of hostages (0600 hours). Led suspects to holding vehicle (0608 hours). Left scene (0614 hours).
    Looks pretty simple on paper , Six thought. Lucky there was so much equipment to be sold and so many arrests, or this would practically be a blemish on his record.
    GENERAL CASUALTIES/INJURIES: None
    DAMAGE TO AREA: Warehouse door damaged. Corridor and stairwell at rear demolished
    ESTIMATED COST: 18,000 standard credits
    DAMAGE TO PERSONAL PROPERTY: N/A
    ESTIMATED COST: N/A
    NUMBER OF KNOWN SIGHTINGS: 104. All offenders in custody.
    ESTIMATED POTENTIAL FUNDS INTAKE: 760,000 standard credits
    Save. Proofread. Print. Shut down.
    Disarm. Exit. Arm.
    “Not bad, Six,” the King of Hearts said, green eyes twinkling. “Not too bad at all.”
    Lucky I do this for the money as opposed to praise from my boss , thought Six. No matter how successful the mission, he always says much the same thing.
    King saw the look in Six’s eyes. “Sorry,” he said, scratching his clean-shaven scalp. “I try to be enthusiastic, but you’ve desensitized me with three years of amazing work.”
    “I could use a raise,” Six said.
    “You barely spend any of the millions of credits you have,” King said. “You could use a raise, but you wouldn’t.”
    Six raised an eyebrow. He hadn’t known that his minimal lifestyle had been watched so carefully.
    “So,” King began. He stared at Six, waiting for an answer to the unasked question. Six held his gaze.
    “She wasn’t there?” King asked finally.
    Six shook his head.
    There was a pause.
    “There’s still hope,” King said.
    “For an eight-month-old child? In the City?”
    “You were younger than that when I found you crawling the streets,” King pointed out.
    “Exactly.” Six stared at King’s desk. “By now someone must have her. And I doubt they’ll be as upstanding as you.”
    King conceded the point with a grim nod. “But to mount an assault like the one on Kyntak’s house, you’d need resources. Lots of money, manpower, and information. There aren’t many people in the City with the capabilities. And those who have them can’t stay hidden.”
    “I think there’s a new part of ChaoSonic,” Six said. “Someone filling the hole the Lab left in biological research. Adults react more slowly to drugs and viruses than children do, unless you’ve got some of Tridya’s product to accelerate growth. And using animals doesn’t reliably predict a result in humans.”
    Chelsea Tridya was a freelance scientist who had been kidnapped by the Lab. She’d invented a drug that was able to control the rate of aging by manipulating the gene known as P53—something which no one had previously been able to do without causing tumors in the subjects. She had intended to use it to help people lead longer lives, postponing the early death that came from breathing the City’s polluted air. But the Lab had had other plans. They wanted a drug to make people age faster so they could grow clones of Six to maturity in days instead of years. They had planned