Free Radical (55 page)

He spoke calmly and evenly, "At least one of us must make it out of here alive."

"What? How about I come find you and we both get out of here alive?"

"No. I'm busy here for the time being. I have the entire security network of this station working to protect me. I should be safe for quite a while, but I need you to get away just in case."

She was silent for several moments. Her eyes swept over the crowd around her. She looked like any one of them, carrying some awkward luggage with a phone pressed to her ear having an unpleasant conversation. "So what happens now?," she said at last.

"I need you to get out. I need you to tell your side of the story. Tell people the truth about what happened, the truth about Shodan, TriOp, and Coffman."

"You found out about Coffman?"

"Yeah I'm just catching up on the news now. That is the worst part. I can't believe they killed Coffman. You probably won't understand, but they meant a lot to each other."

"Who?"

"Coffman and Shodan."

"You're right, I don't understand."

"It's too late to fix it, but I want everyone to know what happened. What Diego did, what TriOp did, and what I did."

The crowd was hitting a bottleneck at the doors. She dropped the suitcase and began elbowing her way through.

"Hacker, I don't think you realize how big this is. The TriOp PR machine is a titan. Coffman tried to fight it and look at what happened to him. One voice is just no match for them."

"You won't be a lone voice. Right now I'm uploading a bulk of data to Global Net for the world to see. I have hours and hours of video logs, reports, orders, everything you need to corroborate your story and then some. The world will see this. They will know what happened up there. You need to tell them what happened down here."

The reason for the bottleneck was clear. People were rushing out of the airport and then coming to a dead stop out in front. None of them had anywhere to go. A line of reserved cars waited for a lucky few, but for everyone else there were a dozen or so taxis to serve hundreds of people.

She was carried through the doors by the crowd. Outside, it was a different world. The sun shone brightly and a cool breeze washed over her.

Hacker sighed, "Well, you are beyond my cameras. I can't protect you anymore from here. My upload is about to finish and then I'm going to disconnect."

"How can I find you?"

There was another laugh, "You can't. But don't worry, I'll be watching."

She made a face, "It might surprise you to hear this, but that's not very comforting. So what happens to you now? You've got your implant. I guess you're going to go and pursue a life of hacking with impunity?"

Rebecca saw a reserved car waiting in line with LANSING projected onto the rear window. She headed for it.

"I admit, I wanted that for a long time, but I have new priorities now."

"Oh?"

"I want to find someplace safe, get an efficient, high speed connection to Global Net, and go exploring."

"Exploring?"

"Global Net is big. There is a world of knowledge out there. I want to discover new things."

She stopped, "What happened to you up there?"

"Good luck," he said before disconnecting.

She stood there, looking down at the phone for a minute or so. She didn't want to carry around the Director's phone, but she didn't want to cut off her only means of contact with Hacker, either. After some deliberation she decided he could probably contact her anytime he wanted to, phone or not. She dropped it and crushed it under her heel.

She stood at the door of her car for a moment and took one last look at the madness around her. People were fighting over taxis, fighting with security, and fighting with each other. Those that didn't have anyone to fight with nearby were on the phone, fighting with someone far away.

Beside the entrance was a small area allotted to a few trees. It wasn't much, but it was good to see the color green again outside the context of a computer screen. She drew in a deep breath and smiled. It was good to be outside, to taste some fresh air. It was good to be alive, and safe.

As she took one last look at the scene she noticed a lone man walking away from the airport. He was dressed in an ill-fitting business suit, but heading away from the concrete stairs that led to the underground service entrance. He was thin and pale, and walked with a pronounced limp. The top of his head was covered in short stubble. He carried a suitcase in his left hand, while his right arm hung limp at his side.

She opened her mouth to call out to him, but decided not to. He entered one of the reserved cars and pulled away into traffic.

Rebecca entered the waiting car and told the driver to head out. She didn't know where she was going yet, but she wanted to get away from the airport.

She rolled down her window as they eased out into traffic and smiled into the sunshine.

"Drop me off in front of the TriOptimum building," she said at last, "I have a story to tell."

Shamus Young is a programmer specializing in old-school graphics techniques. He's the author of the blog Twenty Sided. He's the creator of the webcomics DM of the Rings and Stolen Pixels. He's one of the hosts of the videogame commentary series Spoiler Warning. He's tired of writing about himself in the third person.

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