Freelancer (7 page)

Kari squealed.
That was too cool!
The wall was old brick, filled with cement and rebar, but the drone had still burned a hole in it an inch deep. A small cloud of smoke drifted around the newly formed crater.
Just one of these drones would have destroyed every drone at school today in less than a minute, including David’s stupid drones!

David.

Kari felt the excitement drain out of her.
Why was I so hostile?

I’m going to apologize, just not right now.
She studied the drone calmly flying in front of her. It was the best miniature drone she had ever seen.
I could make a lot of money selling this design.
She wasn’t going to sell her drones, though; she had built them because she could and because they fascinated her, not because she wanted to help someone win a war. Besides, she didn’t need the money. Money only represented the ability to do things in a more timely fashion, and she was already doing things as quickly as she dared. She had millions of dollars that she couldn’t spend, so what was the point in earning more money?

Kari was already worried she had spent too much and that the money she had spent could be traced back to her. The industrial printers, recyclers, and raw materials had cost more than her parents had made in their lifetimes. It had been quite the task to accumulate it all. She had spent years of hard work and countless hours trying to hide money trails to build this factory, and she didn’t want to risk it all by spending more money.

She couldn’t imagine that the government would be happy if they found out about her projects. Even if they knew about only the legal ones, those would attract attention. People attracted attention for being successful in certain sectors, and Kari’s parents hated attention. She had sworn to herself she would never force her parents into the limelight. It was one of the reasons she had never told them about her talents. The other reason was that her parents didn’t like the idea of one person having too much money.

It was easier not to be public about her success or talents.
Besides, I have a hard-enough time fitting in already. Would everyone treat me like David if they knew I played a key role in the design of the Inter-Defense-Net?
Gah! David again!

Fine. I’ll apologize tomorrow.
Kari was frustrated with herself for being frustrated about not apologizing. She packed a half dozen of the freshly printed drones into her schoolbag, checked the stale news once again and started the trek back to the coffee shop.

Kari rolled over, refusing to open her eyes and trying desperately to keep her mind from waking up. She was too late; she was already subconsciously trying to figure out the time and day.

She opened her eyes just enough to get a reading on how much light was in her room. It was between noon and one in the afternoon. Determining the day was more difficult.

I just dozed off. How could it be one in the afternoon already?

Thoughts slowly came back to her as she continued to wake up. She was on the floor; she vaguely remembered wanting to lie down for a minute but had been scared that if she were to lie in her bed, she wouldn’t be able to get back up. That hadn’t appeared to make much of a difference.
That had been at . . . 4:00 a.m.?
Of course I was going to fall asleep.

Kari had spent most of the night in her development environment running simulations and trying to write some basic software for a client. But she had grown frustrated and had decided to try to think creatively outside her environment with some pen and paper. Sometimes, it helped clear her mind and provided a different way to think about problems. In her environment, she could do what seemed like dozens of things at once; on paper, she was forced to think about one thing at a time.

No matter what she did it, she found it hard to think when she went too long without sleep. It was a problem that she was well acquainted with. When an idea took hold of her, she couldn’t escape it. When a good idea came, she didn’t have a choice in the matter. She had spent the better part of the past few days monitoring the news and refining her drones.

But it has been my choice not to go apologize.

Inventing was easier than apologizing.
It least it was easier to invent excuses.

Kari heard footsteps but was too lazy to expand the energy to give the appearance that she hadn’t slept on the floor. She rolled over just in time to see her mom open the door quietly. Her mom frowned when she saw her lying on the floor, but her face eased a little when she saw that Kari was awake.

“Good morning, Mom,” Kari said, trying to make her voice sound as if she had been awake for a few hours.

“I’m glad you’re awake,” her mom said. “I came in to check on you before I headed back to work this morning, but you were so asleep I couldn’t even wake you up to talk.”

Why did you want to talk?
The look of concern was gone, but Kari could tell that her mom was under even more stress than she had been in the past few months.

“What’s wrong?” Kari asked. She had rarely seen her mom get flustered about anything. She instantly thought of her dad, who had been away this week on business.
No, she wouldn’t have gone to work if there were something wrong with Dad.

“You haven’t seen the news?”

“What news?” Kari asked, holding back the reflex to go online and find the answer. She was sure it had something to do with the Middle States issue. Her mom breathed in deeply, as if she were thinking of a nice way to say something.
I’m not a little girl anymore, Mom.

“The United States has rejected the Middle States’ Declaration of Independence.” Her mom looked as if the words were hard to speak.

Kari let the words sink in for a minute.
This is big
. The initial declaration had been delivered to the US Congress on Saturday, but that was mostly a symbolic move. Everyone knew it had been coming, even if Thomas wanted to deny it. What was important was how the United States responded. If they accepted the declaration, there would be two peaceful, separate nations. If they contested it, which was expected, they would likely spend months in negotiations and voting before anything happened. If they rejected it, then most people expected war.
This is the biggest thing that has ever happened while I’ve been alive.

“Yeah . . .” Her mom seemed not to know what else to say. “It’s going to be busy at work for the next bit while we sort this thing out.”

Kari nodded while still absorbing the full gravity of the situation. She could only imagine the number of calls her mom was getting right now from people wondering how this would affect their Social Security checks—the checks they relied on to survive. Kari understood the stress.

“Sorry you had to come home to check on me, Mom. I’m fine. I just couldn’t fall asleep easily last night.” She attempted to sound as lighthearted as she could. Her mom needed that.

“Thanks, honey. I’ll probably be home late. I don’t think we’ll be able to do dinner or anything tonight.” She frowned at that. “I’m sorry.”

“Oh, don’t worry about it, Mom. The Middle States going crazy is kind of a much bigger deal.” Kari realized that it must be Thursday already if her mom were canceling their plans for the night.

It’s been almost a week?

Kari listened to her mom leave, and then she lay on the floor for a moment.
The Middle States will secede. Will this be one of those moments I’ll tell kids about in the future?
Most people had doubted there would be war, believing the world was too civilized for that now. There weren’t wars anymore; they were too expensive. At least, that had been the popular opinion before today. Kari didn’t see this conflict ending without a little bit of combat.

It hadn’t felt real until now. The Middle State Declaration of Independence had felt more like a proposal, followed by a flurry of follow up plans. A number of states were breaking apart to be on either side of the proposed border, or breaking into smaller states. Northwest Florida wanted to join the Middle States while South Dakota broke into two separate states, East Dakota and West Dakota, with both of them siding with the Middle States. San Diego was a major point of contention, while Nevada was still trying to figure out which country it would be a part of.

It had been a fascinating few days of political proposals but now that Congress had flat-out rejected the Middle States Declaration; the secession wasn’t just a concept anymore. People were going to die because of this argument. Maybe even lots of people. The new civil war had been brewing for such a long time that Kari was surprised she felt a reaction to the news at all. Decades of political defeats and the feeling of being targeted by the coasts had finally become too much for the Middle States to deal with.
Like the kid who takes his ball and goes home from the park because he’s not winning the game. Pathetic.

She had learned about the original Civil War in school a few times. That war had nearly destroyed the country, but that had been hundreds of years ago. From what she had read online, most people expected some sort of economic warfare instead of armed soldiers fighting it out on a battlefield. The coastal states would try to boycott the Middle States’ trade and charge them extra for raw materials. Almost everyone thought the Middle States would come crawling back if the secession ever happened.
But then, a few months ago, most people didn’t think the Middle States would actually take it this far.

What about me? I’ve done a lot of work for clients from the Middle States . . . but the government doesn’t know about that. But what if it did?
She hadn’t taken any questionable client projects recently, nothing that could be used against the coastal states.
But they might come calling anyway . . .

Kari didn’t like this. Too many things could go wrong, and too many moving parts could crush her if they moved off path.
This is between the states. I’m not big enough to even be on their radar. I need to stop thinking I’m more important than I am. Mom wouldn’t like that. There’s potential for a war, and I’m thinking about myself. How narcissistic of me. This war would have a heavier impact on others.

Like David.

Oh, now I’m worried about David? Once I apologize, he’ll be nothing but a pretty pair of eyes with a bad personality and disappointing political views. That’s it; I can’t waste any more time thinking about him.

But it’s been a week, and I still haven’t found the guts to apologize to him.
Kari tried to tell herself she had been too busy working on her project.
So busy that I didn’t even pay close-enough attention to the news to know Congress wanted to start a war.

It was time to take care of real-life business after spending an entire week in her mind chip. The first thing on her to-do list was to apologize. She put a jacket on and almost ordered an auto-auto to the house before looking in the mirror. She then decided to take a shower and get presentable before leaving. It would also give her a chance to check the news first and catch up on what was happening.
The world changed this morning, and I’m going to need to figure out how I fit in it.

Kari pulled on her freshly printed clothes. They were nearly identical to the clothes she had recycled a few minutes ago in order to print these. She had changed some of the quotes on the clothes as well as the colors, but they mostly remained the same.

For one who prides herself in her innovation, I sure don’t do much with my clothes.

By the time Kari had finished getting ready and had eaten some food, she’d managed to read most of the news sources she cared about. The Middle States had officially closed the borders between the coasts and their own territory with military roadblocks on all major roads and highways. Flights were cancelled, and the high-speed trains were closed. The news was ablaze with stories of protests and stranded citizens on both sides of the new borders. Thankfully, no bombings or official fighting had started—yet.

The networks gave nonofficial reports of small riots erupting in newly designated border towns. Kari was concerned because a new border with Tennessee, a freshly minted Middle State, was only about fifty miles from her home. For the first time, she realized that she essentially lived in a border town now. The expected protests and demonstrations had been popping up locally, but nothing had gotten out of hand.

Nothing’s happening too close to home.

Kari had also checked her client messages, which turned out to be a mistake. Her clients were really concerned about future projects, which she hadn’t agreed to build for them because of the current political situation. There were also a large number of new requests looking for advanced solutions to common war problems. She’d spent several minutes letting all her clients know she wouldn’t be starting any new projects until she had a better understanding of how the secession of the Middle States would affect her. She had spent most of the week working on adjustments to her swarm of drones and had fallen behind her projected schedule for client work again, something she had promised herself she wouldn’t let happen. But she didn’t regret it; one of the perks of being a freelancer was that she could work at her own pace, and she had needed a break after having to deal with her last client.

Kari packed a few of the drones she had printed last week in her bag to take with her, despite the fact that they were now grossly outdated after a week of work on their design.
Just in case
. She had made a large number of enhancements to the drones since last week, but she hadn’t had the opportunity to go to her factory to print any new ones since then. She felt silly putting the drones in her bag, but she felt a little anxious about being so close to the border.
I guess I’ve always been a little paranoid.

Today, that paranoia was slightly more justified.
Kari ordered an auto-auto and was pleasantly surprised when she was notified that one was only a minute away. She breathed in deeply and recommitted herself to taking care of this apology despite an urge to forget about it. She could be doing a thousand other things that would be a better investment of her time, but she was tired of feeling guilty.