Freedom Incorporated (46 page)

“
We have to
leave. Now,” Dan said, as much for his benefit as for theirs. “Get
your stuff.”

They obeyed
without discourse, leaving Dan to strip naked and shower to cleanse
the filth from his body. Afterward he brushed a hand across the
steam-fogged mirror and gazed upon his reflection, wondering how
such a vile creature could exist. But instead of landing a punch on
the mirror as he had after Katherine’s murder, he slapped himself
hard across the cheek.
Damn
you.

Something
whispered in his mind, a distant memory of a time he had wished to
forget. It lured him closer, enticing him to enter a realm that
he’d hoped he had escaped forever. That part of him lay
impoverished by famine and decay, rusted from over a decade of
neglect. With no further regard for what may become of his
humanity, Dan reached into his past and donned the mantle of the
shrewd exterminator he had once been. He wore it with as much ease
as he had all those years ago. It surprised him that nothing
visibly changed, despite his inner transformation. His reflection
was just as it had been. He’d half expected a putrid aura of
death
to rise from his
shoulders and his eyes to burn red like hot coals.

He snuck into
his bedroom and sorted the darkest clothes from his collection. The
garb he chose was black enough to put the Raven to shame.
Weapons.
He needed more
than his pathetic Colt, which lay somewhere in the dust above. Long
ago he’d carved a secret enclave from the master bedroom that
opened into an armoury of forbidden weapons. They comprised some
the most innovative slaughtering devices ever conceived. He
replaced his Colt with a modified 8mm pistol that used a
series
of
baffles
to silence the shots.
More.
He couldn’t hunt men armed with
automatic rifles carrying only a pistol.

The Cobra-KT
was next. He stripped the barrel from the stock and slung them
separately under his thick winter coat.
Ammunition.
He slotted five 8mm clips
into his belt and filled four magazines for the Cobra-KT. His
Ka-Bar
Marine combat
knife
was next. The
blade
gleam
ed
in the ambient light of his secret
armoury and Dan inspected its
razor-like
edge
before slotting it into a hidden sheath
in his right boot.

And a pulse
emitter.
It was the strangest weapon he
owned. Designed only 21 years earlier, it was the closest anybody
had come to a laser weapon. Except it didn’t use light, it used a
focussed beam of sound to decimate the target. Engineers had tuned
the low frequency soundwave to the harmonic of human bones. Any
human standing in its effective range – ten metres – would
literally shatter when he pulled the trigger. The vibrations were
beneath the audible range so the weapon was silent.
Except for the crackle of exploding
bone.
Dan remembered the nightmarish sounds
from the last time he’d used it. The muzzle was wide, four
centimetres across, and the weapon had sleek lines, making it look
docile next to the Cobra-KT. Best of all, it couldn’t run out of
ammunition. A tiny hydrogen cell provided the pulse emitter with
constant electricity, guaranteed for 4,000 uses. Dan checked the
counter.
Good. It still has 3,932 charges
remaining.
Charge time was sometimes an
issue; it took five seconds to recharge between shots so it wasn’t
a suitable primary weapon. But it fired a compact cone of
devastating sound; the lethal spread was five degrees. And it was
powerful enough to pulverise Esteban’s spine if he shoved the
muzzle against his back and pulled the trigger.

Cuffs.
Two sets of handcuffs slipped
into the deep pockets of his coat.

I’m
ready.
He swept his room with one final
glance before closing the armoury and striding into the lounge room
where Samantha and Cookie were waiting.

“
Where to
now?” Cookie asked anxiously.

“
I’m chipped,”
Dan said. “And that’ll be a problem where we’re going.”

Cookie nodded
thoughtfully. “I know a guy…”

*

Jen closed her
eyes, unable to look into the face of the man who was planning to
murder her. It was a strange thing, knowing that you were going to
die. It put
many
things in perspective. So many things that she had considered
important suddenly didn’t matter. She almost wanted to laugh, and
would have if the pain radiating from her wrists wasn’t bringing
tears unbidden to her eyes.

One thing was
certain: she wasn’t going to beg. Jen had listened to Esteban
recount the horror of Katherine’s death and refused to give them
the satisfaction of hearing her beg for her life.
Dogs beg, not people.
It
steadied her resolve and she lifted her chin, opening her eyes
again. She wondered whether he was sensitive enough to notice the
difference in her gaze, to see that she was stronger than the worst
pain he could inflict.

Should I talk
to him?
She wondered whether she could
control her impulses to spit and scream if she tried. Even
breathing was painful. It sent shockwaves spiralling out from the
wire that was rubbing into raw nerves.
Or
stay silent? Which would he prefer?
She
would do the opposite.
Hmm…
Jen knew he liked watching her cower in fear and
didn’t want to give him the satisfaction.

When she finally mustered
the energy to speak, the calm of her voice surprised her. “Do you
care to tell me why you’re doing this?”

Esteban smiled slickly.
“Let’s just say some people were pissed that you hacked into our
network and ordered the Raven to do something he
oughtn’t.”

She stifled a gasp. “He
did it?”

“
And about
time too,” Esteban said callously. “That old fart was a pain in the
backside. You actually did us a favour, you know? It’s just a pity
we can’t let you live now.”

Jen tried to leverage
herself to a more comfortable position but couldn’t. “Then would
you mind loosening my wrists? You tied them too tight.”

“
Uh, no.
Sorry.” Esteban twisted to reach into the trunk and hefted a black
case onto his lap. “They’re tight for a reason. But they wouldn’t
cause you so much pain if you’d sit still.”

She noticed
something feral in Esteban’s gaze and it frightened her.
He’s crazy… he’s totally fucking
insane.
That was perhaps the scariest thing
of all, not that she was in a car with a man that intended to rape
and kill her, but that
Esteban
was several sandwiches short of
a picnic. Jen did
her
best to mask her fear by studying the other two men. The
driver was diagonally opposite and therefore easier to see. He had
a thick jaw, but looked too neatly presented to be a thug. He wore
a suit and a tie, and probably shoes polished to a high gloss. His
strawberry hair curled around his ears and a thick pelt covered his
giant paws, which gripped the steering wheel. He chose that moment
to shift gears and their land cruiser bunny-hopped before he found
the friction point between clutch and accelerator. A cry of pain
escaped from her lungs at the sudden jolt and the driver turned to
see what the fuss was. She saw compassion in his brackish eyes and
he coughed an apology for his clumsy driving.
How odd,
she thought. It forged the
basis for hope and Jen wondered whether she could escape by
befriending the driver.

“
Watch it
Junior.” Esteban leered, slapping him on the shoulder again.
“You’ll hurt our grace.”

Junior?
Jen jotted a mental
note.

Next, she
tried to see the man in front. She couldn’t see much: shortly
cropped black hair, ears that stuck out like barn doors, and a
neatly shaved neck.
Another suit. Hmm…
figures.
It fit her stereotype
of
ruthless corporate managers. He still
cradled his automatic rifle and was nervously checking the side
mirror every few seconds. They didn’t know whether Dan had stowed a
car in an underground garage and was tearing down the
road
in hot pursuit
.

What if
he’s
waiting for us in
town?
Adrian swallowed and said, “We’re not
going back to Andamooka are we?”

“
How should I
know?” Junior retorted. “You’re the nav.”

“
No, don’t,”
Esteban piped in. “Sutherland might have laid a trap.” He snatched
the map and stabbed it with a finger, looking for a new
destination. He felt bitterly disappointed to see how far Andamooka
was from the rest of civilization; there were no nearby towns.
“We’ll have to knock politely on someone’s door.” He flipped the
lid on the leather case he’d been stroking and Jen saw needles,
lots of them, and fluid-filled tubes.

“
Now,
unfortunately, we can’t have you messing up our plans.” He
extracted a hypodermic needle and plunged it into a reservoir of
clear fluid.

“
What is
that?” Jen could no longer control the fear in her
voice.

“
Party juice.”
Esteban grinned, squirting the air bubble from the top of the
needle after flicking it a few times first. “Now, hold
still.”

Jen wriggled as far back
as she could, trying desperately to reach the doorhandle. She
thought she’d rather take her chances tumbling headlong to the road
than trust her body to whatever Esteban had sucked into the needle.
It was tantalisingly close; the tips of her fingers brushed the
latch. But she paid a hefty price, the restraints cut deeper into
her wrists and she sobbed in agony.

“
Shh… hush
child.” Esteban stabbed her in the shoulder, shoving the needle
deep enough for the tip to scrape her
humerus
. He plunged the liquid into
her body and yanked the needle free, leaving Jen to wince at the
new pain that distracted her from the throbbing in her
wrists.

Her feeling
was the first to go. At least
it numbed the
pain. Next was her sight – the world faded to black. In that
instant, she clung to consciousness with sound alone, and she heard
Esteban slobber something in her ear. She used her last thoughts
before the silent void of oblivion swamped her to wonder whether
she’d ever wake up.

Chapter
7

States have
fallen back and corporations have become the new
institutions.

Jaggi Singh

Saturday, September 18,
2066

15:12 Brisbane,
Queensland

Dan surveyed the
cityscape with a seething suspicion that bordered on paranoia. “Are
you sure about this?”

Cookie nodded, holding
Samantha’s hand with his left and clutching his computer to his
chest with his right. “Yeah man, he’s helped us before.”

“
You were
chipped?”

“
I was,”
Samantha answered. “Jen and Cookie escaped but a squad rounded me
up while I was staying with my parents.”

“
He’s the guy
that sells us the chip selectors,” Cookie explained. “He’s cool, I
can vouch for him.”

Well, it’s
not as if I have time to shop around.
Dan
pressed his lips together, squeezing them into a thin line of
determination. “Okay.”

Cookie
couldn’t remember the correct portal number, so they hadn’t stepped
directly into the backwater surgery. Dan found it unnerving that
the surgery was unlisted, but upon further reflection thought that
it was just as well – he wasn’t seeking a legal procedure. They’d
landed five blocks away at one of the prolific portal stations in
central Brisbane. The streets looked deserted, as they usually did
in the metropolises. It was eerie to walk down what had once been a
thriving business district only to see stray street hoodlums and
bums begging for scraps of food on the pavement. Gone were the days
when they could beg for cash, nobody carried it anymore. The
homeless had died from starvation in droves and a wave of needy had
inundated support agencies when the cities began to decay. All
thanks to the portals. Dan understood why the cities had died – he
was even part of the problem. He didn’t want to live in a city and
didn’t care what happened there. The cities existed on another
plane, shrouded by myths and spooky stories that parents used to
frighten children into being good. Nobody
wanted
to live there. People wanted
to live in the country, or on the coast where they could take
evening beach walks. Hardly surprising when portal technology
afforded them the luxury of metropolitan convenience with the space
and clean air of the country. After the exodus, venturous
businesses had swooped on the cheap real estate and demolished much
of the old city blocks, making way for their headquarters and
factories. Realty King had forged a successful giga-corporation by
buying many of the vacated premises, turning them into something
attractive, and selling them for a tidy profit. Then they’d
swallowed their competition and ballooned into a massive
international conglomerate, just like the others. As far as Dan
knew, they were the only surviving realtor operating in Australia
and the United States. They used aggressive land reclamation
practices to entice businesses back to cheap city land. But some of
the old-world charm still stood, and a slab of it punctuated the
five blocks between the portal station and the surgery. It was a
grotty maze of twisting streets and cracked pavement, the perfect
setting for what Dan had in mind.