Electronic Gags (20 page)

With everyone’s eyes on the dancers, Danielle
Wright pulled out the keypad and display panel of her electronic gag, took out
a pair of pliers from her pockets and before anyone could stop her, cut the
coiled cable that connected the keypad and display panel to the main section of
the electronic gag. There was a small explosion and Danielle Wright fell in
front of the president, blood gushing out of her neck. The singing died and the
dancers became screamers.

CIB agents and Brandon Ward’s bodyguard
quickly led the president back to his bulletproof limousine.

“What is happening?” the president
asked, thinking a sniper had missed him and shot one of the dancers.

“She is a suicide bomber, Your
Excellence,” Professor Reed said.

“I don’t understand,” he said with
calmness that belied his fear.

“She tampered with her NAST to make it
explode,” Professor Reed explained. “She thought the explosion would kill you.
She didn’t know that NASTs don’t explode like bombs. The explosion releases a
slug with only enough force to penetrate the culprit’s neck.”

“That was very clever of you to design the
NAST like that,” the president said with relief. “I’m lucky to have you in my government.”

“Don’t mention it, Your Excellence,”
Professor Reed said, hoping Brandon Ward would reward him with the Golden Order
of Merit.

* * * * *

“So how long will it take to get the
passwords?” Freddie asked as they sat in the kitchen, eating Jennifer’s rice
and chicken.

“It might take the whole night or days.
Let’s capture packets for a while before working on the encryption.”

“What do you plan to do when you hack
into CIB computers?” Jennifer said, looking at the first hacker she had ever
seen, noting how different he looked from the typical bespectacled Hollywood
hacker.

“We are not sure,” Kyle said. “We plan
to look for loopholes in the system.”

“Wish you the best of luck,” said Jennifer,
who thought they were wasting time with their hacking attempt.

“Jennifer, thanks for cleaning the
kitchen,” Kyle said.

“Now I have to clean myself,” she said,
rising from the table. “It’s a long time since I last had a shower.”

“We had a shower,” Freddie reminded.

“Rain doesn’t count.”

“Follow that corridor,” Kyle said. “The
first door you see on your left is the bathroom.”

Jennifer walked to the bathroom, hoping Kyle
took better care of it than he did the rest of the house.

“You got yourself a gem of a girl,” Kyle
remarked. “She is beautiful, she can cook and she can clean. I hope she is also
good with the laundry.”

“If you want a maid hire one.”

“I will have plenty of servants when I
start selling Super Death Race.”

Ten minutes later, Jennifer came out of
the bathroom feeling fresh. Now that she had showered, she couldn’t stand the
smell of sweat on her dirty clothes. She was relieved when Freddie offered her
fresh clothes from Grandma Nicole’s wardrobe.

“Be warned,” Kyle told her. “Fashion
wasn’t one of Grandma Nicole’s strongest attributes.”

“Anything clean will be better than
this,” Jennifer said.

“Kyle, take Jennifer to grandma’s room
while I take a shower.”

Freddie went to the bathroom, took off
his clothes and stood in front the mirror, enjoying the sight of his bare neck.
He had managed to take off his electronic gag and that proved that the Ward
regime was not as invincible as people thought. Singing an impromptu song about
freedom, he took a shower. When he came out of the bathroom, Jennifer and Kyle
had gone to the basement. He went to Kyle’s room and borrowed a T-shirt and a
pair of slacks. The T-shirt was okay but the slacks were a size too small.

“Grandma Nicole!” Freddie teased when he
entered the basement. “Oh sorry, it’s you my dear. The dress fooled me.”

She smiled. “How do I look?”

“Not bad. The dress must be enjoying the
feel of youthful curves.”

She had chosen Grandma Nicole’s Sunday
dress. She had the same built as Grandma Nicole and the dress fitted her. She
looked like a girl from thirty years ago, like she was dressed for a theatrical
performance.

Kyle was busy tapping the keys of his laptop.

“What can I do to help you, man?” Freddie
asked.

“Move my tracker to increase traffic
between it and the server.”

Freddie and Jennifer took turns moving
the gag round the room for more than half an hour before Freddie said he was
tired and wanted to sleep.

“Go and sleep, guys,” Kyle said. “If
sleeping in Grandma Nicole’s room makes you feel uncomfortable, you can use the
spare room.”

Freddie led Jennifer out of the
basement.

“This is the door to the spare room,” he
said. “You can sleep in there. I will sleep in Grandma Nicole’s room.”

“We are sleeping together,” she said
firmly. “Why do you think I spurned the opportunity to escape to Canada and
followed you here?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I guess you
didn’t want me to be lonely.”

“Yes, you won’t be lonely tonight.”

They entered the spare room. Freddie
quickly undressed her. It felt weird to hold her or caress her in his
grandmother’s favorite dress. He tossed the dress as far away from the bed as
he could and took off his clothes. She believed that overweight man had small
cocks and his size surprised her. He was bigger than all the men she had slept
with.
Never judge a man before he takes off his pants,
she told herself.
When he made love to her, he took his time and was mindful of her needs. Most
of her former lovers were only concerned about pleasing themselves. Freddie
became only the third man to take her to the Promised Land. Most men were
sprinters and he was a marathon guy.
Never judge a man before he bones you,
she
thought.

“Sorry I didn’t do my best,” he said.

“You mean that wasn’t your best?”

“Way below my best,” he said with
disappointment. “I was tired and Brandon Ward malnourished me in his jail. When
I recover my strength, I will give you my best.”

“Then I shall make sure you rest and eat
well,” she said, toying with his hair, trying to imagine him at his best. “I
can’t wait for your best.”

* * * * *

“My team survived for two days,” Brandon
Ward said. “I won the bet. I say they will survive for two more days. Wanna
bet?”

“Betting for your team isn’t fun
anymore,” Christopher Ward grumbled. “Let’s release four more prisoners.”

“We can’t release more prisoners before
we catch my team.”

“But it’s not fun anymore,” Christopher Ward
said, hanging his head. “Both the fugitives and the cops are out of cell
network. We can’t monitor their positions with NASP or watch live streams of
the cops on Skype.”

“As we speak, TD Communications is
putting cell towers in the wildlife refuge.”

“What’s taking them so long?”

“I talked to the Minister of Information,”
Brandon Ward said. “He said the TD Communications guys have to wait for the
concrete foundation to dry before they can erect the cell towers. He assured me
that the job will be complete in four days. Meanwhile, we can only bet on my
team.”

“But without communication, it’s boring,
Brandon,” Christopher complained. “Who knows? Maybe your team was killed by bears.
Maybe you didn’t win the game. Maybe your team died first.”

“You could be right,” Brandon Ward said
solemnly. “Maybe I didn’t win. We can only tell when TD Communications finishes
installing cell towers in the wildlife refuge.”

* * * * *

Freddie and Jennifer woke up to the
banging of the door. They froze, thinking it was the police or the CIB.

“Hey wake up guys,” Kyle said. “Can I
come in?”

“Come in,” Freddie said with relief.

“I have good news,” Kyle announced. His
eyes were red from lack of sleep. “I got into the CIB’s computers! The Ward
regime believes security is walking around with guns. The security of their
computers isn’t the best I have seen. The TD Communications network still uses
A5/3 encryption which is relatively weaker than the A5/4 encryption used in
Europe. I cracked the encryption and got the ―”

“Wow!” Freddie interjected, uninterested
in the IT jargon. “Kyle, you are the best.”

“I installed a rootkit onto their system
to give us administrator privileges. With luck, the rootkit will overhear more
passwords that are travelling over it. I also created a backdoor to give us
more control.”

“This is great, man.” Freddie hugged Jennifer
as if she was the bearer of the good news. “I hope a look into the CIB
computers will give us something to use in our fight against the regime.”

“First we have to observe the CIB’s
tracking program without making any moves that might lead to our detection. The
government should have hired someone like me to improve the security of their
computers.”

“Kyle, go and sleep. You have been up
all night. You deserve rest.”

“You are right, man. I’m going to bed.
How is the lady?”

“I’m fine,” Jennifer said.

“I don’t trust you, IT technicians,” Freddie
said, looking round the room with mock anxiety. “I hope you didn’t put a camera
in this room to spy on us in bed.”

“I will do that and turn you two into
porn stars,” Kyle said before he closed the door behind him.

“I didn’t understand what he was
saying,” Jennifer said, caressing his chest. “Can you explain it all to me?”

Freddie noted how cute she looked when
she sought his advice. Now she wasn’t the proud tough girl, she was a cute,
vulnerable girl whom he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.  He put an
arm round her neck. “Kyle managed to hack into the CIB computers and he is now
looking for ways to manipulate the network.”

“And if he succeeds?”

“We don’t know exactly what we are
looking for in the CIB computers. We will observe the system and look for ways
to manipulate it.”

Jennifer and Freddie went to the kitchen
and ate leftovers of the previous meal before watching TV in the living room.
They were relieved when the six o’clock news bulletin finished without any
mention of them. The police thought they were still in the wildlife refuge.

Without warning, Freddie kissed Jennifer
and carried her back to their room. Having recovered from the rigors of their
escape from the police and buoyed by the good news, he managed to give her his
best, leaving her in tears.

“I hope these are tears of joy,” he
said.

“Yes. They are tears of joy… and sorrow
too. This is so perfect. I want this to go on forever, but I know that outside
these walls are predators after our lives.”

He put a hand on her cheek. Now he knew
that he was not only fighting to save Michael, or to bring down the Ward
regime. He was also fighting for this wonderful new relationship he had with Jennifer.
The Ward regime was the only thing that stood between them and their happiness
and he had to bring it down. “I have a feeling that things will be fine,” he
assured her.

Jennifer felt ashamed of herself when
she thought that only two days ago she had considered killing this wonderful
man. She felt ashamed when she remembered how rude she was to him when he first
spoke to her.  Now she knew he was the man she wanted to spend the rest of her
life with. She wanted her children to have his genes. She had many faults and
she wanted all his genes to be dominant in her children. All his genes, except
the genes that control weight―assuming his obesity was genetic.

They tensed when they heard a knock on
the front door of the house.

“Kyle, are you in there!” a voice
shouted.

“It’s my mom,” Freddie said. “Kyle must
be fast asleep. If he doesn’t wake up she will go away.”

Melissa knocked again.

“Aren’t you going to let her in?” Jennifer
asked.

“I don’t want to see her at the moment,”
Freddie said.

“I want to see her,” Jennifer said,
putting on her dress.

Melissa knocked the door again.

“Why do you want to see her?”

“I want to thank her.”

“For what?”

“For raising such a wonderful son,” she
said, putting on Grandma Nicole’s dress.

“Jennifer, wait. I don’t want to see her
right now.”

“I want to see her,” she said, going out
of the room.

She opened the front door and came face
to face with Melissa. Now she knew where Freddie got his height, oval face and
full lips.

Melissa glared at her. “Who are you and
why are you wearing my mother’s dress?”

“I can expla―”

“Do you know how old my nephew is? Kyle
is only eighteen years old. Go and find someone of your own age.”