Freedom Incorporated (4 page)

She read the
sign as she approached –
1.74 acres of
paradise
– but averted her eyes before the
price could sink her mood. She strolled onto the lot and sat under
the gnarled gumtree that dominated the upper corner of the block.
Leaning against the trunk, she closed her eyes and inhaled the
eucalypt scent, allowing the energy rolling in from the sea to
energise her body and mind. After a time she reopened her eyes and
basked in the gorgeous sunset. It was something she missed on
the
e
ast
coast. The Great Dividing Range
blotted out the sun before she ever realised it was getting
dark.
But not here.
She loved to watch the dazzling pinks and vivid oranges as the
sun slipped below the knife-edge of the world.

She closed her
eyes and
allowed the memory to bubble to
the surface. She was just a little girl back then, maybe eight or
nine years old. A smile pulled at the corner of her mouth. Her
grandfather had seemed to tower over her.
So strongly principled.
She’d always
had a special affinity for him. Jen recalled the first time he’d
explained to her what he did, and how he had thoughtful answers for
all her childish questions about
why
.

He’d graced her with one
of the charismatic smiles that came so naturally to him. “I’m
nothing like your father Jen,” he’d said gently. “When I see
something wrong I have to do something about it.” He could tell she
didn’t understand so he elaborated. “At school, have you ever had
the feeling that one of the rules was wrong?”

She’d thought about that
for a moment before answering. “Yes, we have to stay inside during
lunch, but I want to sit under the trees.” She pouted.

“
Do your
friends feel the same?” he asked, gently guiding her to
understanding.

“
Yes.” She
nodded.

“
But no one
does anything about it, right?”

“
No.” And
understanding slowly began to dawn.

“
So, it’s up
to you little Jenny.”

At the time she’d felt
dwarfed by the immensity of the task. “But how?”

“
If you want
to eat under the trees you have to think of a plan that’ll make the
teachers listen. Sometimes just telling them what you want is
enough. Other times you have to stage a protest, or get the other
students to sign a petition. What do you think?”

“
I’ll get my
friends and we’ll ask together.” She squealed in delight. “Maybe
then we can sit outside!” She understood now, her grandfather had a
passion for life but he had to live it his way.

“
So you see
kiddo?” he’d said. “If we don’t do anything we can’t expect anyone
else to do it either. Activists are people with principles and
enough moral conviction to stand up for what they believe is
right.”

Jen had soaked up his
wealth of advice.

“
And the way
things are going…”

“
Mike!” Jen’s
mother had berated him. “Stop filling her head with all
that.”

But it was too late. His
passion for doing what he thought was right had rubbed off on her
already. She’d assimilated his critical commentary on society and
bottled it inside for nearly two decades until she found a way to
challenge society’s problems on her own.

Jen opened her
eyes to the darkness and whispered,
“And
that’s why I’m following Mike, Dad.”

Then, too abruptly, the
memory was gone and she began to wonder whether David and Samantha
had made any progress.

*

Tuesday, September 14,
2066

0
8
:
26
Baltimore,
USA

Cigar smoke hung stale in
the air and plastered the expensive furniture with a film of grime
that needed constant attention lest it get out of control. Esteban
slouched lazily on the sofa in the back room, naked from the waist
up and puffing of his fine Cuban. He enjoyed the taste, he’d always
associated it with success and not even the end with the sticky
drool could detract from the experience.

A moan
accompanied the persistent squeak of rusted springs, wafting
from
somewhere else in
the compound. It had a
persistent
urgency to it, something
animalistic and ferocious. Esteban took another deep drag and
practiced blowing a halo of smoke. He’d always wanted to master
that trick.

“
Fuck Junior
makes a lot of noise.” Adrian tossed the Fortune magazine he was
reading onto the coffee table in disgust, his concentration
ruined.

Esteban nodded
mutely, pursing his lips to better form a ring of smoke. The slimy
end finally began to nauseate him and he snapped out of his reverie
and snuffed the cigar out on the plate he was using as an ashtray.
He clapped his hands together hard enough to tingle the nerves
beneath his skin and ran his fingers through his slightly knotted
black hair. “Now
this
is what I’m talkin’ about.” A smile split his face and his
neat row of white teeth beamed at Adrian.

“
What?” Adrian
grunted, still suffering from a hangover. He didn’t appreciate
Esteban’s clapping and loud talk.

“
This!”
Esteban swept his arms around the room. “Haven’t you ever dreamt of
this moment?”

The squeaking finally
stopped after a climactic groan.

“
You’re still
drunk.” Adrian gingerly massaged his temples.

“
No I’m not!”
Esteban frowned and strapped his arms to his sides. The haze in his
eyes lifted just long enough for a decent glare.

Junior shuffled into the
room, shading his eyes from the muted light with a sweaty arm. His
real name was Frank Albert Hansen, but so was his father’s, so
everyone called him Junior – something he loathed with a passion.
He held an upper-middle management position at the colossal
computer manufacturer Global Integrated Systems and pined for
admittance to the senior-staff boardroom. Some said he was nearly
there; after all, the sales portfolio for his branch of the company
had outperformed all the others. A favour here, a slight boost in
performance there, and he’d be in. Nobody ever noticed the super
discounts and promotional freebies offered to NeroTek from his
office. Even if they did, and even if somebody bothered to
investigate, they’d find a valid company profile, a legitimate
company number and employees on the payroll. The fact that NeroTek
didn’t actually exist was buried beneath enough bureaucratic red
tape to deter even the staunchest investigator.

They shared
the burden of keeping their secret buried. Adrian knew how to fool
the system from seven years at law school, Junior had access to the
required databases via his security clearance at Global Integrated
Systems, and Esteban was their secret weapon. They would only
unleash him if the unthinkable happened. He alone had the power to
remove anyone silly enough to stand in their way, and he
reminded
Adrian and Junior of that
at every opportunity. It would be difficult to
argue he was their leader, but he carried more sway in group
decisions because he was the only one who’d survive if somebody
shook the bag.

Esteban waved good
morning to Junior and swaggered behind the bar. The fridge was
elegant, blending perfectly with the other fittings. Not even cigar
smoke could dim its highly polished stainless-steel front. “Want a
bud?”

Adrian
scoffed. “You’ve gotta be kidding? I’m due at work in a
half-an-hour. Some of us work in the
Eastern
states.”

Junior shook his head and
flopped onto the third couch, sinking deep into the comfortable
cushions. “I’m out. I’ve got a meeting with Deakins in the morning
and if he smells piss on my breath I can kiss my promotion on the
arse.”

Esteban
selected a beer according to criteria
only
he understood
and held it up to the light,
watching the beads of condensation trickle down the slender neck of
the bottle. It made his mouth water. He used the bottle opener
under the bar and flicked the cap across the room by balancing it
between his middle finger and thumb and snapping his fingers beside
his ear. The bottle cap whistled as it arced across the room, then
struck the far wall and flopped into some moss that blanketed the
base of a pot plant.

“
Do you have
to do that?” Adrian peered around the thin rims of his glasses. “I
don’t think the others like finding your beer caps
everywhere.”

“
Fuck the
others.” Esteban was wise enough to keep his voice low in case the
‘others’ were nearby.

“
What if they
say something?” Adrian was busy adjusting his tie and collar;
something was off kilter, he just wasn’t sure what.

“
Let me tell
you a story about the last person that objected to my bottle caps.”
Esteban flopped onto the couch and kicked his feet onto the coffee
table with a grace that belied his sobriety. “Once upon a time I
was contracted to do some uptight arse.”

Adrian and Junior shared
a look.

“
He was
blowin’ the whistle on some governmental toxic shit scam. This is
going back a few years, back when the government still held some
sway. So he’s a real do-gooder little fuck and he has to be
whacked. So I started trailing him, you know, to get to know his
patterns. I was at that for what felt like a months and I tell you,
this guy was
so
boring. He was the sort of
mouse
who’d finish work at six and be
home by five-past, even on a Friday. He didn’t have any friends, or
if he did that scarecrow bitch he called a wife frightened them
away. So I was getting ready for the job and decided to show this
prick some excitement before I sent him on his way.
He got a message from his ‘wife’,” – Esteban made
the quotation marks with his fingers – “and she told him
to meet him in this bar in Chicago. Junior, you
know the one I mean.” Esteban clicked his fingers, trying to
remember. After a moment the frustration got to him and he scowled.
“You know… well shit it doesn’t matter a flying-fuck anyway. So
we’re at this bar and I buy him a beer but he says no thanks. So
anyway, I flick my bottle cap at the bartender when he’s turned
away and got him smack in the back of the head.”

He stopped to take a swig
on the beer, swilling the liquid around in his mouth to remove the
fur from his teeth before swallowing.

“
And you know
what this guy did?”

Adrian
looked
impatient
and
tried to hurry the story along. “What?”

“
He says I
should apologise to the barkeep.” Esteban paused, as if he expected
the gravity of his words needed time to sink in.
“
Me.
Apologise!
Well I slapped a 20 on the bar and left. So this guy’s waiting for
his ‘wife’ for near on three hours before giving up and heading
home. But he never makes it, he just – poof – vanishes, nobody ever
found his carcass.” He left the insinuations hanging, the way he
usually did. Even when he was drunk, his survival instincts saved
him from confessing to
anything he
shouldn’t
.

Adrian stood.
“Fascinating, truly.” He drew a neatly folded handkerchief from his
back pocket and dabbed at the memory of perspiration on his brow.
“Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go. I need some aspirin before
work.” He picked up his briefcase and headed toward the
portals.

“
And I need a
shower.” Junior stood too.

“
But we’ve got
hours before work.” Esteban drained the last of his beer. He
already knew he wouldn’t take another; he didn’t particularly enjoy
drinking alone.

“
Yeah but I
feel disgusting and sticky.” Junior couldn’t stifle a smile. “You
know how it is.”

So Esteban was alone. He
shrugged and swaggered to the toilets, letting out a content sigh
when he emptied his bladder. His urine was dark and pungent, his
kidneys overworked from the beer he’d consumed the previous
night.

His birth
parents were Hispanic, though that meant nothing to him. He was a
capitalist child, a pure product of market forces. His true parents
were Supply and Demand, and his only siblings were Price and
Contract. Esteban scratched the hair on his chest; it ran the
length of his abdomen and merged with the forest on his
groin.
T
aut muscles
rippled under his skin. A gruelling daily routine of push-ups,
weights and sit-ups kept him the fine physical specimen
that
he was. His physique
was his last link to the past – to the part of his life that
he
’d
enjoyed the
most, the only part capable of thrilling him.
And now it’s gone.
His eyes narrowed
and hatred made him punch the flush sensor hard enough to rattle
the reservoir nestled in the wall.

I’ll get you
back.
Revenge flirted with his
mind.

He washed his
hands and admired his biceps, triceps, lats and abs in the
mirror.
I’ll get you, you little fuck,
worse than you ever thought was possible.
Then he dried his hands with the blow dryer.