by Greg Krojac
“Cheeky young bastard!”
The young lad nodded to his colleagues and the three stepped back ten paces, all the while training their pulse guns on the shivering huddle inside the circle. John was thankful that he and Susan were at the back of the group. The youth reached into a pocket and took out a small round disc-shaped object. He calibrated the timer for two seconds and the kill-zone as five metres radius. Holding the dead-man’s switch down he grinned at the frightened prisoners who now realised what was to become of them.
“Miss you already.”
He tossed the disruptor grenade into the circle and watched as the occupants dissolved before his very eyes. He and the other two militia men ran quickly back to the truck, without even a backward glance. He patted one of his colleagues on the back.
“Thirsty work, waste disposal. Fancy a cuppa?”
Susan was running as best she could, considering that three of the toes of her left foot were missing. As the grenade had hit the ground she’d felt a violent jerk on her arm as John started to sprint away from the kill zone, his vice-like grip on her forearm taking her with him. The breeze had sprinkled a fine, warm, recently-human rain over the two escapees but they had ignored it and just kept running. They were both alive, but Susan’s left foot hadn’t quite made it clear of the kill-zone. Considering that she should be dead, three toes was a small price to pay for her life.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
07:23 WEDNESDAY 1 NOVEMBER 2090
The disappearance of Adam, Philippa, and Max had been noticed. Garcia had expected Philippa and Max, being Recarns, to attempt to evade being processed, but Adam’s betrayal really pained him. He was sorely disappointed at Adam’s treachery. Adam was a great loss. He had a well-deserved reputation as a technical genius who could hack into and manipulate any software that had been created and probably most of those that had not yet seen the light of day. Some weapons are primitive in nature, exploding, cutting, slicing, or crushing, but Adam was a stealth weapon wrapped in a human body. He could enter the dark depths of computer networks, make a change or an addition to the software within and leave without anyone being any the wiser. He had a gift, a talent, that many had tried to emulate but all had failed. Adam had been marked for great things, a bright future in Garcia’s regime, but now he was an enemy of the state.
Drones had been criss-crossing the nation ever since his disappearance, on-board cameras ever vigilant for their prey, but to no avail. Indeed, two drones had passed directly over the cottage but Adam had adapted the VACS technology to not only render the cottage invisible but show a ruined building with no roof or windows, just a broken shell of a building. The drones had returned with images that merited no further attention, whilst inside the cottage, it was business as usual.
Adam’s task now was to find out what had happened to Zafar. Michelle was unconvinced that Zafar was dead although, as yet, there was no evidence to suggest otherwise. There was no logical reason to think he was still alive but she had a gut feeling about it. She couldn’t explain why, she just felt that he was out there somewhere, incapacitated but alive.
Adam created a group of bots with which he seeded the internet and which then went on to burrow deep into any intranet that they happened upon. They would then replicate themselves and check out every bit of code that they encountered for clues of Zafar’s whereabouts. But, for all his best efforts, the search had proved fruitless.
***
Garcia became more and more frustrated at the lack of success of the search drones. Adam had to be somewhere; he couldn’t have disappeared off the face of the Earth. Garcia had assumed that Adam would use VACS technology to hide his whereabouts, and had sent out a new wave of drones equipped with counter-measures to see through any VACS protective domes but Adam’s sharp mind kept him one step ahead. The drones hadn’t even picked up any energy variations that might have given away the presence of the fugitives; Adam had seen to that by reflecting the drones’ own energy signatures back to themselves.
Adam’s brother Iain was sleeping soundly in his Salisbury house when he was awoken by a loud noise downstairs. He launched himself out of bed, waking his wife, Sienna, and rushed to the window. What he saw almost made him freeze but he kept his wits about him and motioned to Sienna that she should hide under the bed. She rolled off the bed, the thick carpet breaking her fall, and scrambled underneath, trying not to breathe too loudly. It was a longshot that the One Life militiamen wouldn’t find her, but it was a chance they had to take.
Two masked men burst into the bedroom and were met by a wildly gesticulating Iain.
“What are you doing in my house? Get out! You have no right to be here.”
A militiaman grabbed Iain and secured his wrists behind his back with a zip-tie. He forced his prisoner against the wall. Iain’s feet were forced apart, as the militiaman grabbed his hair and pulled his head back.
“Where’s your brother?”
Iain was so well restrained that he could only breathe, blink, and talk.
“What brother?”
“Don’t fuck around with me laddie. You’re Iain Sharpe. I want to know where your brother is. Adam Sharpe. I’m sure he’s been in touch. Tell me now and life will be a lot easier for all of us.”
“Oh, that brother. I don’t know. I haven’t seen him for ages.”
“I said, don’t screw around with me, laddie. You will tell me, whether you want to or not. You know where he is and we’re going to find out.”
“I can’t tell you anything. I know my rights, my human rights.”
“Ah…but that’s where you’re wrong, laddie. You have no human rights. You’re a Recarn, see. And you Recarns don’t have no human rights.”
Iain was a stickler for grammar and the double negative that the militiaman had inflicted on his ears was almost as painful as the plastic strip that bound his wrists, but he said nothing. Sienna was still hiding under the bed and neither of the intruders seemed to have noticed her yet. The militiaman kept his grip on his captive.
“Iain Aloysius - seriously, what the fuck were your parents thinking of when they gave you that middle name - Iain Aloysius Sharpe, you are under arrest for being a Recarn, for failing to voluntarily register yourself as a Recarn as required by the Recarn Population International Act of 2085.”
“But I’m not a Recarn. I’m human.”
“You look like a Recarn to me.”
“Of course I look like a Recarn. Humans, Recarns, we all look the same. You know that.”
“Maybe. But not for long.”
The militiaman pulled Iain away from the wall.
“We’re going for a little trip now, Aloysius. And pretty soon you’ll be telling us everything you know about your little brother.”
He placed his free hand on his colleague’s shoulder, before descending the staircase.
“Don’t forget to get his missus out from under the bed. She’s coming too.”
The second man reached under the bed and pulled Sienna roughly from her hiding place.
“Stand up woman.”
She did as she was told, looking down at her feet, embarrassed to be standing vulnerable in her bra and panties. She lifted her gaze to look at the masked man before her.
“Can I at least put some clothes on? Just a t-shirt and a pair of jeans.”
The man thought for a second and then agreed; he was a married man himself and didn’t want to embarrass Sienna any more than necessary. He wasn’t a sadist like his partner.
Sienna went over to the wardrobe and took out a pair of jeans and a plain white t-shirt, turning to face the intruder. She was banking on the man, married or not, not being able to concentrate fully on what he was supposed to be doing. She watched as his gaze dropped to focus on her pert bottom. In a flash, the jeans that she was holding in her right hand were wrapped around the man’s neck, the legs being twisted into a tighter and tighter denim garrotte that cut of the air supply to his lungs until he completely stopped breathing.
Once satisfied that he was dead, she sat on the bed and finished dressing, foregoing fashion for practicality and pulling on her favourite pair of trainers. She stood up, checked her appearance in the full length mirror next to the wardrobe. She gave her reflection a knowing wink and said.
“Big sis would be proud of me.”
She trotted downstairs with no real sense of urgency, which was odd considering that her husband was being held captive in a One Life SUV parked at the front of the house. She walked up to the vehicle, bold as brass, opened the passenger door and slid onto the unoccupied seat alongside the driver, whom she kissed on the cheek.
“Any problems honey?”
Iain turned to his wife and squeezed her knee.
“Once upon a time the answer would have been ‘yes’, but since I met you and your sister, Danielle, I’m surprisingly able to take care of myself.”
“So where is he?”
“The gobby driver? Under the tarp, in a body bag. They must have been boy scouts these two. Prepared for anything.”
“Except us.”
“Except us.”
***
Forty minutes later the SUV was parked at the edge of a deep-water quarry, its doors locked and its handbrake off. Sienna watched as her husband braced his back against the vehicle’s bonnet.
“You sure you don’t want a hand?”
“No, I’ll be fine Sen. No point in both of us risking going off the edge.”
“Well, if you’re sure.”
Iain dug his heels into the ground and gave a heave, setting the SUV in motion. He gave a little wince as his coccyx took the sudden impact as he dropped backwards onto the ground, but the pain was fleeting. He stood up, brushed himself off, and joined Sienna as they watched the van make a perfect dive into the water, floating for a couple of seconds before submerging and disappearing without a trace. Sienna hugged her husband.
“Pity we couldn’t have got rid of both bodies but the neighbours might have thought it a bit odd if I’d come out to the car with a corpse slung over my shoulder.”
“I wouldn’t worry about it Sen.”
Ten minutes later the waters of the quarry felt a downward force of wind as an invisible helicopter landed in a neighbouring field. The two figures walked over to the apparent source of the air disturbance and vanished.
Inside the helicopter, Sienna gave her sister a hug. Danielle reproached her playfully.
“Not so tight, Sen. Not much point in me picking you too up if you make me crash the damned thing.”
Sienna laughed.
“So where are we going?”
“Bonnie Scotland. Got your passports?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
10:28 MONDAY 15 JANUARY 2091
Garcia had started a giant snowball rolling but even he couldn’t have anticipated the fervour with which so many ‘normals’ would denounce their families and friends. A series of impromptu and informal league tables were created online where neighbourhoods would compete as to how many Recarns they could hand over to the authorities. There was even talk of an official national ‘Rat on a Recarn’ league being created, complete with cash prizes.
In her apartment, Michelle was feeling peckish and was in the middle of preparing a snack when she heard a commotion coming from the street. She looked out of the window to see a large crowd gathered around one of her neighbours, a middle-aged balding man who was suspected to have worked at an STC. Her father hadn’t gone into all the gory details of what he had happened, but he had told his family that it had been extremely humiliating and denigrating.
Michelle watched, helpless, as he was tied to a lamppost and blows rained down upon him, as his former friends rained blow after blow upon the helpless man. Finally, she could stand it no more and her sense of what’s right kicked in. She fetched a pulse rifle from its locked cupboard and called Dani and Caitlin on her communicator. They would arrive in a couple of minutes so she opened the window and aimed the rifle at one of the vigilantes, first ensuring that the rifle was set to stun. A bolt of orange light shot out of the gun’s nozzle, and knocked the attacker to the ground, just as he was about to take another well-aimed kick at the semi-conscious man. She set her communicator to broadcast and the whole street could suddenly hear her voice.
“This is Colonel Michelle Boone, Senior Field Agent for One Life. You all know who I am, and what I do. Step back from Mr Trinder or I shall be forced to shoot more of you.”
The crowd looked at one another but did as they were told. They did indeed know Michelle and knew that her threat wasn’t an idle one. Caitlin and Dani arrived after a few seconds and released Mr Tinder’s bloody but still breathing body from its restraints. They hoisted him into the back of their pickup and set off to take the wounded man away from danger, Dani driving and Caitlin administering first aid to the injured man. Michelle had kept her rifle trained on the lynch mob during the extraction, not so much to protect Mr Trinder from further attack but more to protect her girlfriend and her sister. She waited until the pickup was out of sight before allowing the crowd to disperse.
The victim wasn’t as badly injured as they had feared and was soon able to talk, albeit rather painfully.
“Thank you both so much for rescuing me. I thought I was going to die.”
Caitlin shook her head.
“It’s my sister, Michelle, you should be thanking. She’s the one who stopped them from killing you.”
“How can I thank you enough? All of you.”
“Don’t worry about it. Where can we take you? You won’t necessarily be safe from a Recarn check but at least you’ll be safe from your neighbours.”
“My sister lives in Windsor. Is that too far?”
“No. We can do that.”
Mr Trinder’s face suddenly lit up.
“Maybe I can help you, somehow. Doing the job I do – the job I did – I don’t think I’ll be going back there now, I hear things. You know, rumours.”
“Go on. I’ll buy it. What’ve you heard?”
“Well, people who come in to us at the STC, they don’t go out again, you know? So they tell us things sometimes. Just to get things off their chests. Want to die with a clear conscience.”
“And?”
“And last week a bloke came in who works – worked – at a prison, you know, one of those Stasis Containment Centres. He said he recognised one of the inmates. Had met him years ago at a seminar. Anyway, this bloke said that he recognised him. He’d got older – don’t we all – but it was definitely the same bloke.”
“Why should that interest us?”
“He said that the prisoner was a high-up in One Life. Very high-up. That’s why he was so surprised to see him in Stasis.”
“What was his name?”
“The bloke from the prison?”
“No, the man in stasis.”
“He was in there under the name of Brooks, but this bloke reckoned he was someone else.”
“Who?”
“He said that when he met him at the seminar his name was Zafar.”
This was a real bombshell. Everybody had assumed that Zafar had been killed – all except Michelle, that is. She wouldn’t accept that he was dead until a body was produced and identified. It seems that Mitch’s gut instinct was right. Caitlin grabbed Mr Trinder by the arm.
“Are you sure he said the name, Zafar?”
“Dead sure. No pun intended.”
“Did he say which prison he was in?”
“Sorry, no. Just that he was in stasis in a prison.”
Caitlin touched her communicator and dialled in Michelle and Max. This was the biggest and the best news they could have hoped for.
“Mitch. Max. Can you hear me?”
Her sister and her boyfriend both acknowledged that they could.
“Got some important news. Zafar’s not dead.”
Michelle was stunned, although it was the news that she’d been hoping for.
“Are you sure?”
“This could be the breakthrough we’re waiting for. I knew that there’s no way Zafar would have agreed to this purge against all Recarns.”
Max cut in.
“Probably what got him put in stasis in the first place. So now all we have to do is find where he is. I’ll tell the others. Adam found Caitlin, so I’m sure he can find Zafar.”
The call was disconnected and Caitlin grinned at Mr Trinder.
“You have no idea what you’ve done. You may well have saved the world from the greatest act of genocide ever seen.”
Mr Trinder looked genuinely surprised.
“Really? Saved the world? You serious?”
“Yes. Well, sort of.”
“Will I get a medal?”
“If it were up to me, yes. But probably not.”
“Pity. Still, lucky I was beaten up then.”
“Yes, Mr Trinder. Those cuts and bruises –”
“And a couple of broken ribs, I reckon.”
“And broken ribs. That’s a small price to pay for having Zafar back in the equation.”
“Glad to have been of service. I don’t like that Garcia bloke. Anything that helps get rid of him.”
The pickup rolled onto the M4 motorway and headed towards Windsor, whose castle was soon visible. Mr Trinder had more than earned his rescue and a ride to his sister’s house.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
13:57 MONDAY 15 JANUARY 2091
Max ran into the room where Adam was sifting through and cataloguing electronic components whilst eating a large bar of chocolate. He looked up from what he was doing.
“Hello mate.”
He pointed to the chocolate bar.
“Listen. Don’t tell Pip you caught me eating a whole 150 gram chocolate bar to myself. She’d kill me if she found out.”
Max shook his head.
“Don’t worry about the chocolate bar or Pip. I’ve got some mega-news. Do you still have that computer program you used to find Caitlin when she had been hidden in stasis in that prison?”