Freelancer (11 page)

A notification went off in her mind chip, alerting her that the food she had started printing in the kitchen had been completed.
Nothing like a custom-printed hamburger for breakfast on a cold day when you’re under house arrest.
Kari left her room and walked into the kitchen. She picked the hamburger up with two hands and savagely bit into it with no regard for the mess it would make on her hands or face.
You know this why you are out of shape, right?

Kari jumped as the front door of her house opened unexpectedly.
I’ve been jumping at way too many door openings lately
. Kari’s mom entered the house looking entirely exhausted. It was the first time Kari had been awake to see her since her mom had come home to check on her last Thursday.

“Oh Mom! You look so-o-o tired.”

“I am,” her mother said with a weak laugh.

“Are you going to be home long enough to get some sleep?”

“Yeah, we’ve started pulling double shifts to cover for each other so we can all take a turn sleeping. I get a whole eight hours off.” Obviously, that wasn’t enough.

“Well, you should get right to sleep then,” Kari said. Her mom worked too hard. Kari had always admired that about her. Kari liked to think she had inherited that from her mom, but she wasn’t sure she had the same focus.

“I will, don’t worry,” her mom said. “But how are you doing? I feel terrible that I haven’t been able to talk to my girl all week.” That was typical of her mom, work herself to death and think only about others.

“I’m doing fine, Mom,” Kari said, not wanting to burden her with any more problems than she already had.

“I’d like to believe you, but something tells me you want to talk about something.”

Maybe she does know me after all.
She noticed her mom eyeing her hamburger, so she ordered another one to be printed. Kari set hers down, deciding to wait until her mom’s was ready.

“How do you decide what to do between two choices when they both have terrible consequences?” Kari asked. It was as direct as she dared to go. Her mom gave her one of those smiles that was full of empathy and regret, as if she had tried to shield her daughter from such choices, but, despite her best efforts, Kari had grown up.

“Those are tough. What I’ve always said is, ‘I choose the path that I can live with.’”

Kari had expected that answer.
I’m not sure that’s meant to be applied as literally as it is here. If I help David, I really might end up dead.
Her mom must have seen that her answer didn’t satisfy Kari.

“What that means to me now is, can I explain the choice I made to my daughter without feeling ashamed? If I take the easy way out of a situation, would I want my daughter to do the same thing?” Kari’s mom was getting emotional, which was odd for Kari to see.
She must be pretty worn out from work or something
.

“I want more than anything for my daughter to be better than I am, and that means making the choices I would want her to make.” Her mom was in tears now. Kari suddenly was, too. They had always had a strong relationship, but they weren’t really open with emotions in this family.

Kari tried to say thanks but couldn’t get it out. Instead, she pulled her mom in for a hug, even though her hands were covered with hamburger residue. Kari wasn’t a touchy person, but she would make an exception in certain cases.

Once Kari recovered, she whispered, “Thank you” and let go. She reached over and grabbed the freshly printed hamburger and handed it to her mom.

“Here. Eat this. It’ll make you forget all that stress at work. It’s a proven naturally occurring antidote to sucky times in life.” Kari picked up her own hamburger and took another comforting bite. She and her mom sat in silence together, eating their breakfast hamburgers. Kari quickly tried to send David another anonymous message. She needed to warn him that enforcement would be no help for his family and that she was now more determined than ever to help him.

I don’t have a daughter, but I have a mom, and I’m going to do what would make her proud. How could I tell her that I had the opportunity to help someone and chose not to because it was easier for me?

After Kari and her mom finished their breakfast, Kari went back to her room and resumed the waiting game. Occasionally, she tried to work on her drones or other ideas, but she had difficulty focusing.

Instead, she browsed the news sites, reading about the developments and projections of what could happen. The prognosis did not look good, but no major fighting had happened, so things seemed to be in a holding pattern.
It’s only a matter of time, though. Something will happen, and when it does, they will come for David’s family again.

Kari knew that the five nearly unpowered drones surrounding David’s house would not be enough for the next time she needed to protect him. They had been out there for days, watching in the trees, slowly using their battery power. She had rotated through them, turning on one at a time to watch while the others remained powered down, but their batteries were still almost exhausted. Would the mob be twice the size? Would they actually invest in decent drones and weaponry? It would be worse the next time, and now Kari knew that enforcement would not be coming to help them.

In fact, after another mob attack on David’s family, enforcement’s only response would be to come directly to arrest Kari.
I’ll get to know my new friend Henderson a little better.
If she were going to defend David and be arrested for it, she needed to be prepared. She would need more drones, and she would need to destroy any evidence that could be used against her, although she wasn’t convinced that evidence mattered to Henderson.

Kari needed to get to her factory, not only for her mental sanity but to get ready for what might happen. She would need to get the drones out of the factory and prepare it for the eventual enforcement raid. The problem was that she wasn’t sure enforcement knew about the factory, and she would risk alerting them to its presence. Also, they could be waiting for her to show up at the factory so they could arrest her among all the evidence they would ever need to prove she had created the drones. But five drones would not be enough to defend David’s house from a mob prepared to fight her drones.

It’s amazing how I keep finding myself in these lose-lose situations. But if I’m going to prison, it’s not going to be because I lost a fight with a lousy mob.

Now that her mother had awakened and gone back to work, Kari only needed to wait until dark. Government spying agencies typically would have no problem seeing her heat signature at night, but Kari had long since invented several devices that would make her trip to the factory a little less risky.

She hadn’t asked too many questions when a client had asked her to develop the heat-signature-masking technology a year ago. Once it was equipped, the device would mask her heat signature and her Internet connection and would make her invisible to most traditional radar and detection systems. It had come in handy several times since then, including when she evaded a gunship in her last simulation in the desert. The only problem was that once she equipped the device, the government would realize her heat signature had gone missing.

Kari had taken it upon herself to solve that exact problem instead of waiting to get paid to do it. It hadn’t taken her too long to figure it out, or so she hoped; it had never been tested in the real world. Using either of her inventions now would be risky, but she didn’t see any other options available to her.
These are the exact type things I don’t want the government knowing about, especially if my client happens to be from the Middle States. But what other options do I have? It’s only a matter of time until I need those drones or until the government finds my factory. This whole thing would be a whole lot easier if David would just leave the coastal states until everything cools down.
That was on the top of her list of things to talk about with David as soon as he answered one of her untraceable requests.

Kari needed to get started on her journey to the factory. She wouldn’t be able to order an auto-auto, and she didn’t have any other form of transportation available.
I’ve done more walking in the past few weeks than I did all last year.
It was a trend that she did not like.
She summoned the fortitude to get started. That was usually the hardest part of doing things. With two simultaneous orders, she activated her decoy device and her cloaking device.

The decoy device was a little loud; it was essentially a heater blowing body-temperature air in the shape of her body. Attached at the top was a computer that she programmed to browse through the Internet according to her traditional patterns. It wasn’t perfect, but she was confident it would be good enough to fool Henderson. Lucky for her, no one was home for the decoy to bother with its noise. It really wasn’t that scientific of a device, but a certain amount of beauty was to be found in an eloquent, low-tech solution. Kari was proud of it—that was, if it worked.

The cloaking device consisted of headgear that connected to bracelets and two more devices around the ankles. She had spent a few months working on this project for a high-paying, anonymous client. He or she didn’t know Kari, and she didn’t know him or her; it was Kari’s favorite type of arrangement. It was the largest single contract she’d ever had, and it had been worth enough money to scare her. When she’d finally got the seven-digit payment upon completion, she’d cried because it was more money than her parents had made in years, but she wouldn’t be able to use it to help her family.

Now the only problem is actually getting there. The factory is five miles away. In my current condition, I might be able to make it there by tomorrow night.

Kari moved to the rear of her house and slipped out the back door as quietly as she could. She was confident the front door was being watched. The problem with the back door was that she would have to jump a few fences to make it to the street.
I’ve always hated these fences.
Kari reached up and grabbed the top of the fence with two hands and pulled up as she jumped. She hardly moved.
OK. No more breakfast hamburgers.

Kari begrudgingly moved a chair from the patio and used it to help herself over the fence.
Only 4.99 miles to go.

Kari hurt all over. She’d never been so exhausted, and she laughed at all the times she’d thought she’d been tired. Yet she had made it to her factory alive without being caught by Henderson.
Unless they’re waiting inside my factory for me. I wouldn’t even be mad; I could sleep in jail.
The sky had started to lighten already, although the sun was still at least half an hour away from making an appearance. Kari had walked all night to reach her factory, covering a distance that an auto-auto could cover in a handful of minutes.

Overnight news stories detailed major riots and protests with millions of participants. Both the US Congress and Middle States Congress were meeting to determine the next steps in the budding conflict. At this point, Kari found it hard to care about what they decided. She just wanted to get a hold of David and tell him to leave for the Middle States, where he would be safe. It would also allow her to stay well out of the way of whatever trouble was going to happen.

Getting in touch with David had continued to prove difficult. She couldn’t call him or contact him directly; Henderson would know the second she did. She couldn’t visit David’s, even while wearing her cloaking device, because Henderson and his crew probably had the place under heavy surveillance. She knew her only chance was to get David to respond to an anonymous message and talk through a secured channel on the Internet.

Kari turned the lights on inside the factory and settled down into the cot to rest her feet. She took the chance to write David another anonymous message before discarding it.
I have to try a different way to get him to respond. This obviously isn’t working.
As soon as she decided to try something different, the message she needed to write became clear. She logged into Sarah’s account on one of the more popular networks, quickly changed the access information, and started typing.

David,

Now that Middle States have broken away, you might finally be able to find someone who can stand you. I don’t find that likely, though, because you write drone software like a fool. If you’re man enough to hear how it really is, meet me online here.

Kari didn’t leave any details about whom the message was from, but she left a link to a secure channel they could talk on. She figured it would be several hours before David would receive the message and understand it. She hoped he woke up earlier than Sarah. It was as direct of a message as she dared to leave.
He has to know that it’s me. He remembered my words well enough. He’ll make the connection.

She sent the message. David probably wouldn’t answer it if he thought it had actually come from Sarah, but it was worth a shot. Besides, Kari doubted Henderson would be checking for communications from Sarah, and he wouldn’t be able to prove the message had come from Kari.

Kari would need a way to get home quickly, and ordering an auto-auto or even hacking one would leave a trail Henderson could find. She found an auto-cycle design she liked online instead of writing her own and ordered it to print from several of her printers.

None of her printers were big enough to print the entire self-driving bike alone; it had to be printed in six pieces, which she would have to assemble. She imagined she would need only a few minutes to snap the pieces together, which was good news, because she needed to leave as soon as possible. She wasn’t sure how long her decoy would effectively keep Henderson off her trail. It had been risky coming here, but Kari had needed to print herself a form of transportation in case she needed to go to David’s house personally. She also needed to print a small army of drones to use if needed. She hadn’t dared connect to her factory from her house because of the level of monitoring the government might have her under.

She didn’t want to admit it, but she also felt a need to say good-bye to the factory she had worked so hard to build. Years of hard work had gone into the place, and now it was single command away from self-annihilation. Kari prayed she didn’t have to destroy the factory, but if she had to save David’s life and family, she would torch it. She didn’t want to leave any evidence, and she wanted to prevent the government from getting her latest designs. She hoped she would be strong enough to give the command to destroy the factory if she had to.