Read Dead Man Running for Free Online Page B

broken; there had been City-wide coverage for decades now. Unfortunate. But the phone was moving in relation to the wireless router, so someone must be carrying it around.
    I’m not alone, Harry thought.
    Other electronic devices were connected to the system, but Harry couldn’t tell much about them other than how much power they were draining. Sixteen of them were running at a steady rate of forty watts each – light bulbs, Harry guessed. Another twelve were consuming power at rates ranging from fifty watts to three hundred and ninety. These devices included temperature gauges, all hovering at around eighteen degrees Celsius. A heating system, Harry concluded. With a separate heating element for each room, rather than interconnected vents – which probably means this facility is airtight.
    Comparing the power consumption of each room gave Harry a sense of their sizes – the whole complex was probably only sixteen hundred cubic metres in volume, but there was no way to tell how tall, wide or deep it might be.
    There were two thousand other electrical devices. Each was using exactly 142 watts of power, and had a temperature gauge reading two degrees Celsius.
    It didn’t take Harry long to work out what these might be. Refrigerators. But who would need so many? And this led him back to the original question: Where am I? He summarised what he had learned so far. He was on a computer in a small, airtight facility, with twelve rooms, two thousand refrigerators and only one occupant, somewhere outside the City’s mobile coverage.
    Harry began assembling a cipher to crack the antivirus software on the other computers. There is no time to waste, he thought. At any moment, I might be switched off.

    â€˜Hi, it’s me,’ Jack said. ‘Well, that’s redundant, isn’t it? I mean to say, it’s Jack. But that’s redundant too, because you can see me. And now I’m wasting space in your inbox. So, why I was calling is this . . .’
    Six chuckled. Jack had always talked too much, interrupting himself, rambling, forgetting his own point. This had infuriated Six for years before eventually delighting him. Many people could lose the thread of a conversation, but only Jack could lose the thread of his own monologue. The chortle died in Six’s throat as he watched the screen. This might be the last time Jack made him laugh.
    Six was still in the apartment. He was using a laptop he’d borrowed earlier that morning from the agent, who was sitting silently in the adjoining room. After connecting to the local wi-fi, he’d found his email address still active, with more than a hundred unread messages. They were mostly from the first few weeks after his disappearance – the oldest was from Ace, sent on the day he’d vanished: Where are you?
    The newest, written last night, was identical except that it was from King. It had a video attached.
    â€˜I’ve been thinking about the seismic sensors,’ Jack continued, his voice thin in the speakers. ‘They don’t seem to be as sensitive as they should be – the batteries aren’t producing enough power. We can’t put solar panels at the bottom of the sea to recharge them, obviously – well, we could, but they wouldn’t do anything, because – anyway. I was thinking maybe we could use geothermal energy. If we attach conductive needles to the sensors so they could pierce the ocean floor down to the mantle, they should be able to draw power from the heat. Maybe I’m crazy, but I think it might work. So, if you think it might work too, we should try it! Unless we’re both crazy, in which case we should get a third person’s input. Assuming we can prove they’re sane, somehow. Anyway. Call me.’
    Jack broke eye contact with the webcam, clicked the mouse a few times, and typed for a little while.
    â€˜And . . . send,’ he muttered, clicking the mouse