Freedom Incorporated (20 page)

He trailed her
to the portals and blinked
when she stepped
through. The blink was
his only outward
indication of surprise. His uplink to PortaNet’s servers fed him
all the data
he needed. He’d learned
to
dissect the stream and identify the
single portal of interest. Samantha had returned to Tweed Heads,
but the name PortaNet had filed in its database didn’t match. It
had changed, again. He frowned and thought,
She has a chip selector.
People called
them many different things: multi-chip, identity selector,
microchip switcher, and even freedom finder. Nobody had ever
released a formal name for the
illicit
device.
Merely c
arrying one was
illegal
and
the
sentence was swift and just – implantation with a fresh
microchip.

The Raven selected a
portal near his target’s apartment, stepped inside the white
circle, and pressed the button that would shift him to Tweed Heads.
After the usual disorientating puff, a muggy blanket of humid air
smothered him.

Damn
you.
The Raven hated the tropics. Tropical
New South Wales was no exception. It made him sticky and he never
showered while he was on a job, though it was tempting to
break
that self-imposed
rule.
What if they
smell me coming?
But that,
he knew, was a desperate plea from his weak human mind. The
disciplined computer would never beg. He snuffed the thought and
found a bench to sit while electronically searching for a map of
the area. He needed to find the best vantage to observe the
apartment.

*

Outwardly, Dan
was a mask of serenity, staring at the dotted white line on the
highway that appeared to jump like a string of frogs as he sped
past. He’d eased off the accelerator until they were travelling
only ten percent above the legal limit
.

The
highway
, Dan was amused to note,
was in a
n
appalling
state of disrepair. But upon
further
reflection,
he wasn’t at all surprised.
With fewer cars, there wasn’t enough money for the expensive
maintenance
.
The
Roads and Traffic Authority hadn’t laid
any
new roads
since ’37, hardly surprising
since it cost a million Pacific Dollars per kilometre. He had to
swerve for an occasional pothole and use his imagination to picture
the lane-markings in many places.
It
hasn’t been that long since I drove this way. Has it?
He could remember a time when the Roads and
Traffic Authority had at least kept the highway well
maintained.

Part of his mind – the
part that kept repeating everything was fine – was enjoying the
ride. That part was delighted he’d found an excuse to drive again.
He’d been dreaming of it for years. As many other motoring
enthusiasts had claimed, ‘drive once and you’re hooked for
life’.

But the other
half of Dan’s inner thoughts were in turmoil, and they were the
cause of the deepening scowl that crept across his brow.
There’s something about her…
He couldn’t put his finger on i
t.
He wanted to turn and stare.
No, don’t do that, bounty hunters don’t stare at
their targets.
So he battled the
overpowering urge and his neck muscles locked with the
clash.

Occasionally
something profound gnawed at the edge of Dan’s consciousness. It
didn’t happen often, and he could never fathom or explain it. It
irked him because he prided himself on logic and his ability to
rationalise all feelings and decisions.
Intuition?
He clamped mercilessly down
on the word.
That was Katherine’s
arena.

That’s it!
S
he reminds you of Katherine,
Danny-boy.
He mentally slapped the offending
voice before yielding to his need to look at her. In doing so, he
hoped to silence
such conjectures
forever. But, contrary to his desire, looking at
her just amplified the unwanted feeling. He turned back to face the
road and gripped the wheel with his vice-like hands.

Why do they
want her?
He wished he knew. He’d never
asked any of his targets before. That, he considered, was
particularly unprofessional.
Never get
involved.
It was a rule written in the blood
of less careful hunters. But now his desire to know clashed with
the good sense of remaining impersonal. Their titanic conflict
warred on his face, narrowing his eyes to icy slits and rippling
his jaw muscles under his skin.

Desire won. “What are you
wanted for?”

It shook Jen from her
silence but magnified the venom lacing her words. “Don’t you
know?”

Dan never
allowed his targets’ emotions to provoke a reaction, and he never
got angry. He prided himself
on
it. This time was no exception; he
wouldn’t let her draw him into an argument. His reply was calm and
honest. “No. We’re never told.”

Jen coughed a laugh and
pierced him with a furious look. It reminded him of Katherine on
the occasions when he came home late after forgetting to
call.

“
Don’t you
ever wonder
why
you’re ruining peoples’ lives? Or taking life from
them?”

He didn’t
think that was an appropriate moment to tell her he’d never killed
anyone.
At least, not
recently.
He shivered at the dark memory
that was boiling up from his past, and slammed the door of
recollection shut. He already had plenty of nightmares to contend
with. “Yes, sometimes. But it goes with the job. Sometimes it’s
frustrating, other times I think it’s better I don’t
know.”

“
So what makes
you interested now?”

Dan shrugged.
“I was just curious. You know… what a young girl like you would’ve
done to get into so much trouble. Not everyone has an elimination
order attached to their sanction.”
And not
many survive long enough to reach an exclusive list.

“
So are you
going to kill me?”

“
Why would I
do that?”

“
Because of
the elimination order.”

Dan shook his head. “The
WEF have only authorised your termination if you fail to
co-operate.” He waved an absent hand. “The Raven fibs on his
reports and uses the elimination order as an excuse. He just likes
chaos and death.”

“
Have you ever
heard of Mike Cameron?”

Dan froze and
mentally slapped a hand to his forehead.
Of course! That’s why she looks familiar.
“Yeah, the anti-globalisation protestor that was assassinated
a few years back.”

He
wasn’t
just an
anti-globalisation protestor!
Jen thought.
But she said, “Then you understand why they want me.”

Mike Cameron first drew
attention to himself in 1998 when he wore a Pepsi t-shirt to a
Coca-Cola day organised by his high school. Dan remembered – he’d
studied the enigmatic man while working for the New South Wales
Police Department. The school had suspended Mike for his act of
defiance and, at the age of 19, he embarked upon a career of
activism. His tireless efforts unified the resistance against
globalisation, corporatism and the present form of capitalism. Dan
recalled that Mike’s real activist ambitions had only materialised
during the great depression of 2012, which had left him with little
choice. In 2039 he became the central voice for what people knew
simply as ‘the opposition’, and he used his influence to try to
force a conscience upon the corporations that ruled the failing
democracies of the world. But in 2059, the same year that
microchipping became mandatory, Mike Cameron and most of his
immediate followers were assassinated in a wave of violence and
terror that left the opposition fragmented and leaderless. Then the
corporate behemoths drove the final nail into the opposition’s
coffin when they privatised project Echelon and used it to enforce
the law with rigid oppression. Since the WEF classified activism as
a form of terrorism, activists could expect severe penalties if
caught. So activism went underground. But with no meaningful way of
communicating, and therefore no possible way of co-ordinating
large-scale protests or demonstrations, the splintered groups
gradually faded from corporate radar. And the world quietened with
the opposition’s demise. A few recalcitrant groups who thought they
were clever for vandalising corporate property in the dead of night
were all that was left of the once mighty resistance. But those
groups were small, pathetic. Nobody considered them a serious
threat to corporate control, and nobody bothered dismantling them.
It was more economical to let Echelon pluck them off one by
one.

And now it was Jen’s
turn.

Dan recalled
Mike Cameron’s assassination with a clarity that came from being
personally involved. He distantly wondered whether Jen recognised
him the way his unconscious had flirted with his memory of
her.
Probably not.
He’d changed since 2059.
I look
different. And besides, why should she have taken note of me? She’d
probably remember the prosecutor, the judge and the defendant… but
not the cop who caught the assassin.
He’d
broken the unwritten rules on that case and thinking about it made
the corners of his lips curl. The case had been a designation-52, a
UniForce case, which meant cops weren’t supposed to touch it. Dan
hated the way that worked. Most cops did. UniForce acknowledged
they were breaking the law, but nobody lifted a finger to stop them
because of their political influence.
Well…
Dan clucked his tongue in his
mouth. He remembered his
Superintendent
, his partner, and even
his wife had warned him away. Katherine had begged him to forget
about the case after she’d watched him pace their bedroom like a
caged beast. But Dan knew there were some things he simply couldn’t
ignore if he ever hoped to appease his ravenous conscience. So,
despite the hellish 3am phone calls targeted to break his resolve,
he pored over the case for seven weeks and tracked, then
apprehended the assailant.

The bastard
had
turned out to be
a UniForce operative.
And boy was he
pissed when I caught him.
Dan
didn’t enjoy thinking about it. The assassin
was
still a free man after UniForce bought a
gaggle of lawyers and intimidated a handful of judges to protect
the sensitive information in his head.

“
You’re
following in your grandfather’s footsteps?” Dan thought it was a
particularly stupid thing to ask but nothing else came to mind and
he wanted to smooth over the uneasy tension that’d settled in the
car.

She mumbled something
softly. Or perhaps it wasn’t a mumble. Perhaps it was her words
fighting against the inward rush of highway air whistling past
Dan’s shattered window. “Sorry, what was that?”

“
I said I
can’t.” Jen raised her voice above the din of turbulent air.
“Nobody can. Don’t you get it yet? They’ve fixed it so that nobody
can take his place.”

Dan had never
given it much consideration. He’d always been laid-back and gone
with the flow.
Like most Australians I
suppose
. He’d never wanted to demonstrate
against the corporations whose presence dominated all aspects of
human life.
H
e’d
certainly
never wanted to incite others to join a foolhardy crusade that
was doomed to failure.

But now
he
was
starting to
think.

And he didn’t
particularly enjoy the picture his mind was painting.

I’ve joined
the oppressors.
Part of him, the part that
was still capable of feeling compassion, felt disgusted and gritty.
He knew he was a cog in the massive engine that maintained the
status quo, a tiny part of a machine that was so enormous he wasn’t
sure whether he could fully comprehend its power. And, blissfully,
he was unaware of the sacrifice it would take to halt the machine’s
advance.
Oh God…
A
stricken expression entered his otherwise composed
demeanour.
What would Katherine
think?
Even though she was gone, Dan was
still mindful of her opinions and reactions. In that way, she was a
powerful force in his life.

“
I’m not a
terrorist you know,” Jen said. She looked as if she was starting to
relax, or perhaps she was just becoming resigned to her fate –
whatever that might be.

“
I never
assumed you were.”

“
But that’s
the charge I’m probably facing,” she retorted. She wasn’t directing
her anger at him, but she didn’t have a definite object to target.
She was simply angry at ‘the system’. “I mean, technically
speaking, I am a terrorist. That’s how scared they were of
activists, they bundled the opposition in with the people who blew
up planes and bombed embassies. Don’t you think that’s a little
extreme?”