Freedom Incorporated

by Peter Tylee

  Dan remained silent, surprised by her emotional outburst.

  “My parents are ‘amicably separated’; though they may as well call it divorce since that’s what it really is.” Jen shrugged. “One day my Mum just said she was tired of the international security sweeps and wanted to move to America to be closer to her work. Well! Who would’ve thought people would need to move closer to their job at the dawn of the transportation age?”

  “I’m sorry, Jen.”

  She didn’t hear him. “I was twelve when she left and I didn’t see her again until I was fifteen. Can you imagine what that feels like? To an adolescent? She didn’t even visit on weekends. Jesus,itwould’veonly takenfifteen minutes, if that.” Jen chewed another spoonful before continuing, “I heard she found herself a boyfriend.” She shrugged. “I haven’t seen her in, uh, maybe two years now. She came to see me on my birthday with Mr Perfect in tow.” A tinge of sadness had crept into her voice but she banished it and went on, “My grandfather was always there for me though. I miss him.”

  What could he say?Nothing.Nothing that came to mind would fit the circumstances. Dan was amazed she hadn’t turned out bitter. Like me.Here was a woman who’d suffered just as much as anyone, but had surmounted her problems with guts and determination. Dan had no idea whether he’d have coped as well as her if their situations had been reversed.

  She was finished her muesli and was silently playing with her spoon until curiosity itched her tongue. “Okay, now it’s your turn.”

  “For what?” Dan deliberately misunderstood, delaying the inevitable. “You’ve metmy parents.”

  “Who do the pretty photographs on your mantle belong to?”

  “Why, to me of course.” Dan’s acerbicmood was getting progressively worse. He inhaled sharply and lowered his gaze. “She was my wife.”

  “Was?” She knew she couldn’t stop, not once she’d begun.

  Dan fiddled with the ring on his finger, twirling it around and around. It was rose gold, the traditional yellow had never suited the tone of his skin. Engraved on the inner rim was the symbol for infinity – the sign he and Katherine had shared to encompass their feelings. She had worn a matching ring, now buried in the Andamookan cemetery. “She died last year.”

  Jen bit her lip. “Oh, Dan I’m so sorry.”

  “Yeah, me too.” He smiled wanly. “Look at us, sitting here sharing sob stories. Shouldn’t we be thinking about the future instead of the past?”

  Jen bravely worked a smile onto her face. “I suppose we should.”

  “So what do you want now?”

  She shrugged and looked into his eyes. “I could ask you the same. Are you going to return to bounty hunting after you’ve finished with us?”

  That was the essence of his dilemma, the very question he’d been trying to answer for much of the night. “I don’t honestly know.”

  She looked dreamily hopeful. “I guess my plans depend onwhether we can still be activists wherever we land.”

  “I wouldn’t think so,” Dan shook his head. “Too dangerous.”

  “Then I’d like a quiet patch of the world where I can be myself, not have to worry about the grind of capitalism, and spend my time collecting shells on the beach.” She smiled brightly, eliciting a half-laugh from Dan. “Of course I’d prefer to sail around the world in a catamaran, but that’ll have to wait for the day I win the lottery.”

  “Ah yes, the lotteries: a tax levied against those poor at mathematics.” Dan took their dirty bowls to the sink and splashed some pink water in them.

  “Why don’t you come?” Jen was suddenly serious.

  “What?” It stopped Dan in his tracks.

  “Well, you don’t seem particularly happy where you are. Why don’t you come with us? We could always use another friend, no matter where we end up.”

  The thought hadn’t occurred to him. So much of his miserable life was in Andamooka. Is it, really?He looked around. Is there anything here that would stop me from walking away?He had to admit no, there wasn’t.

  Jen blinked, a thrilling buzz sizzling in her mind. She liked him and hoped he’d accept, yet at the same time she was terrified by the prospect. She waited impatiently for his response and cursed the ambiguity of his expression.

  “I don’t know.” Dan scratched at the stubble on his chin. “I’ll think about it.”

  “No pressure,” Jen said, concealing her relief. “Just wanted you to know you’re welcome. To come. If you want, I mean, that is, uh… you know?”

  “Thanks.” Dan offered her a calloused hand over the counter. She graciously accepted and he gently embraced her slender palm with both of his. “I’ll think it over, okay?”

  She nodded, mesmerised by his touch. “When do we leave?”

  Dan checked his watch, then the calendar on his fridge. “That depends on Cookie. How long will it take him to undermine Echelon?”

  “Youdon’t mind that we’re doing that?” Jen looked surprised.

  “Sure, why not? I figure you deserve a chance.” He tilted his head to an unusual angle. “It’s not as if I’m an advocate for all that monitoring crap. It has some advantages but not enough to warrant the consequences.”

  Jen couldn’t have agreed more. “Its biggest achievement is in lining UniForce’s pockets.”

  “How about two days?” Dan wondered how long the Raven would take to find them. He was sure the cyborg was tracking them,but two days felt like a safe margin.

  “If Cookie can’t do it in two days then it can’t be done.” She smiled and squeezed his hand in reply. “Where are you taking us anyway?”

  “You’ll see,” Dan said vaguely. “You’ll like it, I’m sure.”

  “It’s on the coast then?” Jen asked, hopeful.

  “You’ll see,” he said again, the only answer he was willing to give. In truth, he had no idea. But he had two days to come up with something.

  He yawned and slumped back onto his stool.

  “You must be exhausted,” Jen said and began soothingly massaging the knots from his back.

  “I’m okay,” Dan lied uncomfortably. “I’m used to it.”

  Cookie shuffled languidly into the room, holding Samantha’s impish hand. “Yo, mornin’ guys.” He patted his stomach, which growled on queue. “I’m starving, what’ve you got to eat?”

  *

  Friday, September 17, 2066

  UniForce Headquarters

  15:07 San Francisco, USA

  James was close to collapse. Seven hours sleep in three days… madness!

  “Not there!” Esteban was ready to take his frustration out on Michele with his fists. “You stupid fucking bitch.” He shoved a knuckle into his mouth and bit hard before he slapped her across the cheek. “You’re doing this on purpose, aren’t you?”

  She looked at him with big, innocent eyes. “No I’m not.”

  “Then why don’t you fucking understand?” Esteban pointed at the screen one last time. “Look, that’s where you click to sort the fields. If you want to sort by date, click on the date. If you want to sort by surname, click on surname. It’s not that fucking hard to understand is it?”

  She played with the mouse and clicked seemingly at random. “But when I click on this one I lose the rest of the records.”

  A nerve started twitching in the corner of Esteban’s eye and he turned away. Inhale, exhale… inhale, exhale.It was times like these that he had to remember to breathe.

  “It’s filtering somehow, isn’t it?” Michele asked innocently.

  “For the last time, no! It’s not filtering, it’s sorting.That’s all.”

  “Then why does it get rid of some of the records?”

  Esteban couldn’t believe she could be so clueless. He felt like punching her in the back of her neck just to hear the sound of snapping bones. Anyone else and he wouldn’t have hesitated. You’re lucky you’re so good at sucking cock.“Forget it.” He couldn’t take it anymore. “Okay! You’re right! It’s filtering.” Believe what yo
u want, bitch.

  Michele played some more. She had a record highlighted and each time she clicked a sorting field it shot to the top of her screen. The records she kept ‘losing’ were merely pushed above and she didn’t have the savvy to scroll with her mouse to find them. As far as she could ascertain, the buttons Esteban had indicated were filtering the records with a confusing set of rules.

  “Come now children,” James said, interrupting with a poorly chosen set of words that nearly earned him a torn ear.

  “What?” Esteban spun to face him. “You’d better have good news, Poindexter.”

  “And I do.” James smiled deliriously. “I’ve decoded the Raven’s thoughts.”

  “And?” Esteban still wasn’t impressed,though some news was better than no news.

  “He’s in Australia,” James continued translating, hoping the Raven wouldn’t detect his parasitic leech-like program. “And he’s following Dan Sutherland’s trail north from Tweed Heads.”

  “So?” Esteban shook James by the shoulders. “Where the fuck are they?”

  “He doesn’t know.”

  Esteban’s lungs exploded with a sigh, which he emphasised by throwing his arms into the air. “All that work and you still know squat.” He smiled sarcastically. “Fuck you. And fuck you too Michele. Fuck you both! You can sit here and rot for all I care.”

  “Where’re you going?” James frowned, irritated that someone was leaving. He wanted to leave too. But you don’t see me leaving, do you?

  “I’m tired of waiting for you to pull your head out of your arse.” He stabbed them with a look of pure repulsion. “I’m going to find him myself.” He slammed the door on his way out and it vibrated the walls, causing one of James’s carefully hung paintings to fall to the floor.

  James snorted. “It’s all fun and games until someone loses an e-mail.”

  “What?” Michele didn’t understand.

  “Nothing.” He sighed and returned his attention to the Raven’s thoughts. It was fascinating to see the world through another man’s eyes.

  *

  “Miller speaking.” He failed to keep the boredom from his voice.

  “It’s me, Esteban.” He was using an internal phone that hooked directly into one of the few exchanges that bypassed Echelon. It was safe to talk. At least, that’s what James had told him. “I need to access your database.”

  The boredom changed to nervousness. “Uh, you already have it.”

  “Not that one,” Esteban snapped. “The other one. The one nobody knows about.”

  “Is this line safe?”

  “Do you think I’d be dumb enough to say this if it wasn’t?”

  Silence.

  “Did Junior call you?” Esteban asked.

  Adrian nodded into his receiver but it wasn’t a videophone so the gesture didn’t transmit. “Yeah, he called. I heard you have a problem.”

  “I’ll need your help.”

  Adrian sighed. “He said that too. When?”

  “Soon.” Esteban shrugged, another useless gesture. “I don’t know where they are yet, that’s why I need your database.”

  “Okay, okay. I’ll rout a session to your terminal in the Guild.” Adrian sounded annoyed; he didn’t like sticking his neck out so far, not even for his protector.

  A wicked smile swelled through Esteban’s lips and edged into his tone. “Thanks man, I owe you.” But he didn’t really believe that.

  “Just don’t do anything stupid in there, okay?”

  Esteban grunted. “Me?”

  The line clicked dead.

  *

  He tapped an annoyed finger to the screen, fatigue and boredom wearing on his patience. It took two hours before he saw the pattern that should have leapt out immediately. That’s unusual.He did a sweep of past records to confirm his suspicion before smelling victory. Esteban jotted down the portal number and licked his lips, selectingJunior from the speed-dial on his mobile.

  “Yeah?”

  “I found him.” Esteban’s voice was husky with greed. “Tell Adrian. We’re taking a trip to South Australia.”

  *

  Saturday, September 18, 2066

  13:18 Andamooka, South Australia

  A chill tingled in Dan’s spine, though didn’t understand why. It caught him unprepared and he lost his train of thought mid-sentence. He coughed to cover his discomfort. “Uh, what was I saying?” He had the vague impression it was important.

  Jen caught the undertones and frowned. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing, just… felt a little chill, that’s all.” Dan brushed it aside even though his instincts were warning him… Of what? We’re safe here.He couldn’t think of a rational reason for his sudden uneasiness and chalked it up to lack of sleep.

  Jen felt the onset of a headache and wondered whether fresh air would clear her mind. “You wanna go for a walk?”

  “You mean outside?”

  Jen nodded. “Uh, yeah, that’s what I had in mind.”

  “Okay,” he agreed. “You two wanna come?”

  Samantha looked tempted but refused to leave Cookie’s side. “Only if he comes too.”

  Cookie clucked his tongue, perplexed by the defensive array UniForce administrators were erecting around Echelon. It was starting to fry his brain, he was sure. The sensible part of his mind begged him to take a break but the stubborn part ordered him to think about the problem from a different angle. “No, I’m too close. I’ll take a walk after I’ve cracked the nut.”

  They all doubted it.

  “Just us then,” Jen said, secretly glad they’d be alone. She surprised herself and marvelled, Wasn’t it just this morning I felt uncomfortable around him?The walk would be their first opportunity to talk privately since breakfast. She hadn’t told the others that she’d invited Dan to vanish with them. But there’s no sense telling them if he doesn’t want to come,she rationalised. I’ll break the news if he accepts. “You can show me your property.”

  “All right, not that there’s much to see.” First he went to his bedroom, retrieved a pair of Katherine’s sunglasses from the bedside table, and tossed them to Jen. “Here, you’ll need these.”

  She gratefully accepted and followed his lead into the oven-like conditions above.

  The heat was blistering. She saw waves of it shimmering from the red earth, baking everything to a crisp. The scanty nearby gumtrees were scorched and brittle, their leaves incapable of withstanding the extreme temperatures despite nature’s fine engineering. In the distance she saw a fleshy plant that looked like a cactus, its thorny spines the only barrier between the heat-exhausted animals and its succulent juices.

  “It’s a desert.” Jen felt the heat sear her lungs with every breath, choking her bronchiales dry.

  “Welcome to the driest state in Australia.” Dan smiled and swept his arms around the horizon. “This is opal country, you know.”

  “Really?” Jen couldn’t say anything else; the heat was sapping her strength.

  “My house was originally an opal mine. I widened the shaft and excavated the broader passages to accommodate a house.” He shielded his eyes from the overhead sun despite the protection afforded by his sunglasses. “I boarded up some tunnels. I had an engineer assess their stability and he said he wouldn’t want his children sleeping in them. No sense tempting fate, right? Being trapped in an old mine when the roof caves in isn’t my idea of a nice way to go.”

  Jen shivered despite the heat. “No.”

  They strolled toward the array of thermo-cells, the only real point of interest on Dan’s otherwise barren land.

  “I like the desert,” he admitted. “People think it’s dead,but it’s not.”

  She was sure the soles of her shoes were melting and snuck a quick look back at the entrance to Dan’s burrow, half expecting to see black footprints of molten rubber marking her passage.

  “It’s especially beautiful at dusk and dawn.” He was squinting behind his plastic frames, sensing her discomfort in th
e heat. The sweat was evaporating from his skin faster than it could cool him and, five minutes after setting foot outside, he felt a brutal sunburn beginning. And Dan’s skin was several shades darker than Jen’s so she’d fry like a chip if she stayed out longer than fifteen minutes. “Do you want to come back when it’s cooler?”

  She was tempted; her head reeled from the overheated blood pounding at her temples. Jen had never experienced heatstroke and didn’t recognise the preliminary signs. But she firmly shook her head. “No, I want to see the rest of your property.”

  Dan laughed. “This is it, there’s nothing more to see.” They were halfway to the thermo-cells. “There’re some rocks over there, a cluster of trees in that direction, and some saltpans that came to the surface a decade ago when the watertable rose.They’re near the thermo-cells.”

  “Saltpans? Are they still there?”

  Dan nodded. “Sure.”

  “Can I see?”

  He motioned with his hand, indicating that she was welcome to keep walking. “You see that shimmer?” He was pointing.

  Jen frowned. “I see heatwaves everywhere.”

  “Well the densest patch is where it’s radiating off the salt. It’s a couple of centimetres thick in the worst areas.”

  They reached the crusted salt and she knelt, running a finger across the rough surface. Dan walked onto it, cracking it as he went. “It was a lot worse a few years ago. It’s slowly seeping back into the ground.”

  Jen muttered under her breath, “So much for responsible irrigation.” They were problems that had devastated much of rural Australia: water salinity and the rising watertable. Due to deforestation, irresponsible land management, and utter lack of conservation, the epidemic had taken decades of innovative engineering to overcome.

  Dan looked at her and thought about the feelings stirring in his chest. Are they fatal?They made him feel guilty and he wished they’d stop. The sad truth was that life had been easier before he’d apprehended Jen. Or, failed to apprehend her,he reminded himself sullenly. Maybe that was a mistake?He tried to imagine the consequences of his choice but the future was blurry, murky, and in places black. Jen couldn’t be right. According to a poll he’d found on the ‘net,less than 0.1 percent of respondents were dissatisfied with the world and the WEF. So maybe the worldreally is on track.He doubted it, but the world’s problems weren’t something activism could fix. Besides, what was best for the majority was best for the species wasn’t it? Does that mean Jen doesn’t deserve a social slot? How do you balance individual freedom with majority rule? Is she an outcast?A gaggle of questions bounced inside his mind, none of which he could answer.