The Road to Hell (20 page)
Authors: Peter Cawdron
Tags: #science fiction dark, #detective, #cyber punk, #thriller action, #detective crime, #sci fi drama, #political adventure fiction book, #science fiction adventure, #cyberpunk books, #science fiction action adventure, #sci fi thriller, #science fiction time travel, #cyberpunk, #sci fi action, #sci fi, #science fiction action, #futuristic action thriller, #sci fi action adventure, #political authority, #political conspiracy
“
Here, here,” chanted the senators.
Senator Johannes went to reply but Dianora cut him off.
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The Founding Fathers refused to be bound by the limits of their European tradition and their own heritage as they forged a new country on this side of the Atlantic. And we too must have the courage to break the chains that bind us to the past.”
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Our enemies across the oceans grow stronger and you would weaken us with a call to the old ways? You presume too much responsibility. You open old wounds, wounds that should be cauterised and sealed.”
Dianora was in full flight, bellowing out his words across the chamber.
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Society must progress, it must advance, but you would take us back to the nostalgia of our first days, you would take us back to live in the past. What? Should we also return to using a horse and cart?”
Bursts of pretentious laughter resounded from the senate floor.
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But the Founding Fathers never-”
Dianora cut him off.
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You speak of the Founding Fathers as though their ideals were carved in stone by the Almighty Himself, but Jefferson held over a hundred slaves. Surely you are not suggesting we should return to slavery as well?”
The senator stood his ground physically as well as intellectually. With his shoulders back, his head held high and his chest raised, he spoke clearly and precisely.
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We were called to represent the people. We were not commissioned to replace one dictatorship with another. Without the return to free elections there can be no reconciliation, no healing for the nation. Democracy is nothing to fear.”
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Democracy” Dianora countered. “Democracy is what took us to war in the first place.”
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Here, here,” came the call from the senate floor.
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Our country cannot stand another civil war,” Dianora continued. “Too much blood has been shed for us to be reckless with the stability of our nation. We have had peace and prosperity these past fifteen years. The Special Powers Act has stood the test of time and has proven its worth as an effective instrument of government. Why should we risk all this for an academic ideal?”
This time, it was the senator’s turn to interrupt. He cut Dianora off, speaking rapidly, determined to make his point.
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The anniversary of the moratorium is upon us. I implore you, now is the time to restore democracy. Now is the time to prove the rebellion wrong. Now is the time to show our people that we trust their judgement, that we represent their interests and not our own.”
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It is my view,” Dianora continued, “that democracy is a danger to society. Some may think we are bound to the past, obliged to live out the dreams of our forefathers, but governments are dynamic, not static, ruled by the present and not by the past, ruled by reason and not by tradition. There is no reason for us ever to return to democracy.”
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No,” yelled the senator, finally relenting and allowing his passion to rule. “Senators, please,” he implored.
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Your efforts are flawed,” said Dianora. “Your reasoning tainted. Your methods outdated.”
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You doubt my intentions,” the senator yelled above the growing unrest in the chamber.
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You’re intentions are noble,” Dianora countered, “but the road to hell is paved with good intentions. To mean well is meaningless. It is not your motives or your intentions that are being called into question; it is your basic philosophy.”
He paused for effect, directing his argument out to the senate at large, his voice booming throughout the chambers.
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Satan's only ally is the sincere; those that mean to do well. Good intentions are not enough. We cannot again allow society to collapse around us. We cannot allow our nation to fragment and slip again into the rule of violence.”
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But how can we be free?” asked the senator, imploring the senate to think. “How can we be free when we have no freedom to choose? Isn’t that philosophy at the heart of all our reason? What right do we have to impose our will on others without their consent? We should be a government of the people, for the people, by the people.”
Cries of nay and chants of here, here, resounded in contradiction of each other throughout the vast chamber.
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The revolutionaries continue to harass us,” replied Dianora. “And we are powerless to stop them. They grow bolder by the hour. If the Justice Complex is not safe, how much longer before they mount an attack on these very chambers? And you want us to relinquish power? You want us to empower those that would tear our world apart?”
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Terrorists attacked just yesterday and yet the might of the entire police force was unable to bring them to justice. And you would set us a drift in these seas again? No, I put it to you that time has shown us the need for the council. It is our role to protect society from herself.”
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But don’t you see it,” replied the senator. “It’s about trust. It is about trusting mankind to make the right decisions. It’s about allowing man to determine his own destiny, his own future.”
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And what,” replied one of the other Justices, slamming his fist on the bench, the sound bursting like thunder. “Are we to stand idly by as our country burns in flames? You have neglected your duty of care. Were it not for your senate privilege, your speech would be an act of criminal incitement against the state. If we were to follow you, the blood of millions of innocent Americans would forever stain our hands.”
It was a lost cause. There was no resolution possible. With hardened hearts, there was no room for reason, no room for change. Change, it seemed, would have to come from the next generation. Like Moses in the wilderness, the senator knew he would die with his generation before ever reaching the Land of Promise.
Without saying a word, he turned and stepped down from the podium. Again, the senate chambers erupted with passion. Slowly, the senator walked toward the door barely aware of the commotion around him.
Perhaps Artemis is right, he reasoned. That they will only listen if they are forced to, but that thought betrayed his sense of belief in humanity.
There must be a way, he thought, there must be another way.
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Hold still,” said the doctor, digging into the back of Harrison’s neck. For his part, Harrison was lying face down on the operating table, his face sitting snugly into an opening that allowed him to see a cockroach scurrying across the floor.
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Do you ever clean this place?” asked Harrison, gritting his teeth, yet wanting to talk to get his mind off the pain.
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Why? You don’t like the ambience? I think it gives it a little bit of… character.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Harrison could see Susan’s legs. Nice legs, he thought. Any distraction was welcome at this point. Susan had gone first, which surprised him, but she’d said she’d rather get it over with than prolong the agony of waiting for the inevitable. Besides, if she’d had to sit there watching him go first, she might have got cold feet.
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Just a few more minutes,” said the doctor. “Almost done.”
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Argh!” cried Harrison as he felt the scalpel cutting deep into the soft flesh around his spine. His hands were tearing at the legs of the table, gripping them fiercely. Every ounce of strength in his arms was devoted to flexing, trying to rip the legs of the table out from beneath him as he fought off the pain.
He’d never understood why you only ever got a local anaesthetic when getting a new set of RFID tags, and a lousy local at that. Why not put him out of his misery for a couple of hours, he wondered, because right now, time was crawling along at a snail's pace.
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Hang in there, Harry,” said Susan. “It’s not all that bad.”
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It’s goddamn torture,” yelled Harrison.
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Sissy,” added the doctor.
Once the doctor removed the original RFID tag, it was simply a case of replacing it with a new tag and fusing that back onto the spinal column. The new tags had come from some not so willing donors dug out of a cemetery on the north side. They were barely cold before grave robbers had done their deed. Apparently, or so the doctor said, it was a young couple killed in an air crash. That might work for Susan, Harrison realised, but he was well into his forties. There’s no way he could pass for a twenty five year old. If the cops were smart and dug a little deeper, all this would be for nothing.
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Now, I’ve updated the central archive with your ID pictures and prints, but I can’t change the dates of birth,” said the doctor.
Harrison just listened. He was gritting his teeth too hard to reply. That was the thing he hated about surgery like this. He was blind to what was happening, so each prod and poke came as a unexpected surge of pain at just the moment he thought he could relax.
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There,” said the doctor. “That wasn’t so bad now was it?”
Harrison felt like grabbing the good doctor and blowing the back of his head off with his shotgun before asking him if it was really that bad. He gritted his teeth and didn’t reply. Getting up off the operating table, his arms ached. Not that anything had been done to them. It was just the stress they’d been placed under.
Harrison rubbed the back of his neck. The artificial nano-skin had already taken, blending in with his own skin right down to the extended nerve endings. Deep inside, his neck ached. Harrison rolled his head around, trying to shake off the pain.
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It will be a little tender for a few days,” said the doctor. “Try to refrain from too much strenuous activity. If you’re in pain, you can have some neuro-astha.”
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Thanks, Doc... I think...”
Harrison grabbed his coat from the rack, handed over the agreed four thousand credits and headed for the door. There was no receipt necessary in a black economy. Better neither of them knew each other more than as a passing acquaintance. More than likely, the good doctor would only be in this crummy apartment for a few days before moving on somewhere else to set up shop again, always staying ahead of the law and all those unnecessary edicts about hygiene and ethics.
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I hope this works,” said Susan, walking out the door behind Harrison.
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Let’s find out. Would you like to go shopping?”
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What girl wouldn’t,” Susan replied with a twinkle in her eye, although somehow she doubted Harry’s intentions.
The turbo-shaft lift took them up to the block mall, a twelve story shopping complex in the heart of the tower. Malls were a curious place, Harrison thought. People live in shit and filth, in rundown housing tracts, packed in like sardines, but so long as there’s a nice shopping mall, it’s all bearable. So long as they can be stripped of their wealth in a pleasant environment, no one’s complaining.
The doors to the turbo shaft opened. The graffiti parted to allow the clean, sterile, white marble floor to stretch out before them.
Cops hovered by on air-cycles. This really would be a good test and Harrison knew it. If the tags were duds, they could make a break for it, blend in with the crowd and melt back into the apartment blocks without getting caught, hopefully.
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How much have we got to spend?” asked Susan.
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Now hold on, cowgirl. Don’t you go crazy on me. We’re up here to prove the tags, not to go bankrupt.”
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Come on, Harry. Show a girl a good time.”
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Why is the show always at my expense?”
Bright lights lit up the storefront windows as lifelike mannequins modelled the latest fashions. Some things never change, thought Harrison, in the past no woman could live up to the anorexic extremes of the modelling industry and now, with the advent of animatrons, robotic mannequins became the visions of what a woman should be. And it was all the more extreme and ridiculous, even for a womaniser like Harry.
Modelling the latest sarong, a mannequin spotted them looking at the display and automatically began targeting its potential audience. With a thin waist, hour-glass hips and voluptuous breasts, the mannequin played to the two of them, enticing them to step inside the store.
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You don’t need it,” said Harrison.
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Who said anything about need,” replied Susan.
Harrison grabbed her by the arm and walked on down through the mall.
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Hey,” cried Susan. “That would look great on me.”
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I’m sure it would.”
Further on down the mall, several electronic stores displayed the latest holovision sets.
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Oh no you don’t,” said Susan, almost reading his mind.
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Hey, relax,” replied Harrison.
For his part, Harrison really wasn’t interested in the latest gadgets; he had his eyes fixed firmly on a police officer scanning the crowd from his hover-cycle. Most people were oblivious to the scan. They’d become so routine most of the mall customers simply ignored the officer hovering some forty feet above them. If you hadn’t done anything wrong there was nothing to fear, right? Harrison mused, yeah, right.
Without making it obvious, he walked into the area being screened. The officer glanced at him, tapped the keyboard on his hover-cycle and went on to look at someone else as he checked mugshots against traffic violations, court injunctions and outstanding civil claims. For the most part, Harrison thought, the modern policeman was more of a glorified debt collector than anything else.
Further on down the mall, Susan wandered up to a news stall and started rummaging through the latest electronic gossip magazines. Holographic images flashed before her in full colour as she held the thin sheet of disposable semi-translucent plastic in her hands.
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Turn it down, will yah,” said Harrison, picking up a news sheet.
Susan barely heard him, she was so intent on listening to the latest entertainment brief. Blocking out the sounds of the mall around her, she watched miniature images of the latest celebrities. As usual, the women were wearing what amounted to torn rags strategically draped across their slick bodies while the men were adorned in retro-twenties business suits with pinstripes and flowers.
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Hey, this ain’t a library,” cried the proprietor from behind the counter. Even though he was busy with another customer, the grumpy owner was sure to reinforce that these items were for sale, not for sightseeing.
Harrison looked intently at the latest news story, watching video footage of the assault on the Justice complex.
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Check this out,” he added, nudging Susan.
Susan was in two minds. As much as she wanted to look at the news sheet the flashy glamour magazine with its quickly changing camera angles and splashes of light dragged her back like a moth to the flame. It was as though her old world had been restored. The events of the past day, being shot at, dragged through a sleazy factory, chased by the police, the stench of the underworld and that crummy hotel, all seemed like a bad dream that had melted away with the dawn. In the pages of a magazine she’d awoken and found her old world exactly as she’d left it. But as much as she wanted to get back to her old life, deep down she knew it was over. Nothing would ever be the same.
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That's her. That's Olivia,” said Susan, snapping out of her dream world and back to reality, catching a glimpse of her sister in the images streaming in on the newsfeed.
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You're sure?” asked Harrison, staring intently at the drop-dead brunette in the fire-engine red dress.
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Absolutely. She's dyed her hair, but that's her.”
Images flashed before Harrison, shots from security cameras showing Artemis arriving at the Justice complex with Olivia on a transit craft. Several shots showed Olivia capturing all the attention, before the screen shifted to the stark images of the aftermath on the four hundredth and thirty-fifth floor brought the gravity of the attack home. Computer reconstructions based on the devastation showed Artemis as some faceless, ghostly figure weaving his way across the floor, overturning tables and chairs, slashing at officers fighting desperately to save themselves and their comrades.
The commentary was the usual dribble, Harrison thought, the same old stuff about the glory of the council, the sacrifice of great men and their dedication and loyalty to the state.
Susan closed her magazine and watched intently as more footage of the daring escape unfolded before them.
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Hey,” the gruff proprietor barked. “I ain’t running a charitable institution here. You want a read about it you gotta pay for it.”
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Yeah, OK,” Harrison replied, shelling out three credits.
As they walked on down the mall, Harrison handed Susan the e-magazine and had a quick look around, checking to see if any of the aerial officers had hung around. He also scanned the crowd for anyone else that might be showing them some interest. Susan walked along, weaving through the crowd behind him, trying to read more about the attack without bumping into anyone.
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What was the name of that guy that tried to kill us at the factory?” she asked, coming up close behind him.
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Kane.”
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He may not have caught Artemis at the hotel, but it seems Artemis caught him,” she added.
Susan was surprised by Harrison. She thought he'd be more interested in this. Instead, he was looking in shop windows, picking up movie discs from the side stalls and chatting casually with the sellers.
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Is he-”
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Dead? No. He escaped,” she replied, flipping virtual pages and skim reading the articles and commentary.
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Figures,” replied Harrison, looking at souvenirs for sale from a street peddler. “He's like a cat with nine lives”
And he thinks I'm a shopaholic, she thought, as he looked at a faux-bronze Statue of Liberty. Harrison chatted briefly with the old man selling souvenirs of a bygone era before moving on.
They walked up a wide, open staircase to the food court, bustling with people and smells. The noise of hundreds of people chatting, eating, sitting in vid-booths and lining up for the theatre on this level was overwhelming.
