Freedom Incorporated - Peter Tylee (best biographies to read TXT) 📗

But resisting those impulses was her first line of defence against the capitalist fever that was sweeping the globe. Jen’s right. It steadied her resolve. But it still sucks. Because, no matter which way she looked at it, she wanted those things, she desired them. She tried to tell herself that unfulfilled desire built character, but it didn’t help much.

She strode back to their rendezvous, feeling pleased with her self-control and wondering whether Jen would want to celebrate with an ice cream. She doubted it, but it was worth asking.

The mess in front of the clinic made her freeze. Jen?

There was no sign of her friend. Someone had torn the cushions from the bench and strewn them on the floor. She peered closer and the glimmer of glass caught her eye. What happened?

A squad of security officers chose that moment to burst from the clinic and scatter in predetermined directions. Samantha kept walking, trying to look natural. Fear gripped her lungs and forced them full with a hiss. She ordered herself to breathe normally and strolled as casually as she could back into the crowd, but she had more than butterflies fluttering in her stomach - they felt like small birds.

She reached into her jeans and pressed the ‘next’ button to switch identity. A disk swivelled in her little black box, shrouding the previous microchip with titanium and exposing the following one. Now, if anyone scanned her, she’d be someone else. She shivered when she thought, What if a chipping squad has her? Then she swallowed hard, abrading herself for leaving Jen alone.

Samantha wandered around the mall searching for Jen, but still hadn’t found her after two hours. It was just too big. There were thousands of people, none of who seemed the least bit interested in listening to her quandary. And she didn’t dare ask whether anyone had seen what had happened. That’d be too dangerous. There could be a chipping squad around. She tried to see whether anyone was furtively using a handheld scanner but there was too much activity to be sure.

Nothing looks out of place. She knew it was false sanctuary - chipping squads fostered tranquillity, they needed it. They scanned in silence, reading personal information without consent and without anybody being aware of their presence.

So, feeling disquieted but with nothing left to do, Samantha decided to return home. She’ll meet up with us there… if she can.

*

The Raven watched Jennifer’s friend, trailing her from a discreet distance. His philosophy was simple - never abandon a target. He would keep tracking her until he received notification that the contract was no longer available. What if Cameron escapes? What if Sutherland doesn’t turn her in? He knew they were farfetched, but his philosophy had paid off in the past and it seemed like a decent rule to follow.

So, maybe it meant wasting half a day, maybe it didn’t. It was impossible to tell. As long as the contract was still valid, the Raven intended to pursue the target. And the target was Jennifer Cameron. Her friend, Samantha, was just the most likely way of finding her again. He’d watched them for long enough to understand their friendship. Jennifer would make contact with Samantha as soon as she could, if she were able to.

He trailed her to the portals and blinked when she stepped through. The blink was his only outward indication of surprise. His uplink to PortaNet’s servers fed him all the data he needed. He’d learned to dissect the stream and identify the single portal of interest. Samantha had returned to Tweed Heads, but the name PortaNet had filed in its database didn’t match. It had changed, again. He frowned and thought, She has a chip selector. People called them many different things: multi-chip, identity selector, microchip switcher, and even freedom finder. Nobody had ever released a formal name for the illicit device. Merely carrying one was illegal and the sentence was swift and just - implantation with a fresh microchip.

The Raven selected a portal near his target’s apartment, stepped inside the white circle, and pressed the button that would shift him to Tweed Heads. After the usual disorientating puff, a muggy blanket of humid air smothered him.

Damn you. The Raven hated the tropics. Tropical New South Wales was no exception. It made him sticky and he never showered while he was on a job, though it was tempting to break that self-imposed rule. What if they smell me coming? But that, he knew, was a desperate plea from his weak human mind. The disciplined computer would never beg. He snuffed the thought and found a bench to sit while electronically searching for a map of the area. He needed to find the best vantage to observe the apartment.

*

Outwardly, Dan was a mask of serenity, staring at the dotted white line on the highway that appeared to jump like a string of frogs as he sped past. He’d eased off the accelerator until they were travelling only ten percent above the legal limit.

The highway, Dan was amused to note, was in an appalling state of disrepair. But upon further reflection, he wasn’t at all surprised. With fewer cars, there wasn’t enough money for the expensive maintenance. The Roads and Traffic Authority hadn’t laid any new roads since ‘37, hardly surprising since it cost a million Pacific Dollars per kilometre. He had to swerve for an occasional pothole and use his imagination to picture the lane-markings in many places. It hasn’t been that long since I drove this way. Has it? He could remember a time when the Roads and Traffic Authority had at least kept the highway well maintained.

Part of his mind - the part that kept repeating everything was fine - was enjoying the ride. That part was delighted he’d found an excuse to drive again. He’d been dreaming of it for years. As many other motoring enthusiasts had claimed, ‘drive once and you’re hooked for life’.

But the other half of Dan’s inner thoughts were in turmoil, and they were the cause of the deepening scowl that crept across his brow. There’s something about her… He couldn’t put his finger on it. He wanted to turn and stare. No, don’t do that, bounty hunters don’t stare at their targets. So he battled the overpowering urge and his neck muscles locked with the clash.

Occasionally something profound gnawed at the edge of Dan’s consciousness. It didn’t happen often, and he could never fathom or explain it. It irked him because he prided himself on logic and his ability to rationalise all feelings and decisions. Intuition? He clamped mercilessly down on the word. That was Katherine’s arena.

That’s it! She reminds you of Katherine, Danny-boy. He mentally slapped the offending voice before yielding to his need to look at her. In doing so, he hoped to silence such conjectures forever. But, contrary to his desire, looking at her just amplified the unwanted feeling. He turned back to face the road and gripped the wheel with his vicelike hands.

Why do they want her? He wished he knew. He’d never asked any of his targets before. That, he considered, was particularly unprofessional. Never get involved. It was a rule written in the blood of less careful hunters. But now his desire to know clashed with the good sense of remaining impersonal. Their titanic conflict warred on his face, narrowing his eyes to icy slits and rippling his jaw muscles under his skin.

Desire won. “What are you wanted for?”

It shook Jen from her silence but magnified the venom lacing her words. “Don’t you know?”

Dan never allowed his targets’ emotions to provoke a reaction, and he never got angry. He prided himself on it. This time was no exception; he wouldn’t let her draw him into an argument. His reply was calm and honest. “No. We’re never told.”

Jen coughed a laugh and pierced him with a furious look. It reminded him of Katherine on the occasions when he came home late after forgetting to call.

“Don’t you ever wonder why you’re ruining peoples’ lives? Or taking life from them?”

He didn’t think that was an appropriate moment to tell her he’d never killed anyone. At least, not recently. He shivered at the dark memory that was boiling up from his past, and slammed the door of recollection shut. He already had plenty of nightmares to contend with. “Yes, sometimes. But it goes with the job. Sometimes it’s frustrating, other times I think it’s better I don’t know.”

“So what makes you interested now?”

Dan shrugged. “I was just curious. You know… what a young girl like you would’ve done to get into so much trouble. Not everyone has an elimination order attached to their sanction.” And not many survive long enough to reach an exclusive list.

“So are you going to kill me?”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because of the elimination order.”

Dan shook his head. “The WEF have only authorised your termination if you fail to cooperate.” He waved an absent hand. “The Raven fibs on his reports and uses the elimination order as an excuse. He just likes chaos and death.”

“Have you ever heard of Mike Cameron?”

Dan froze and mentally slapped a hand to his forehead. Of course! That’s why she looks familiar. “Yeah, the anti-globalisation protestor that was assassinated a few years back.”

He wasn’t just an anti-globalisation protestor! Jen thought. But she said, “Then you understand why they want me.”

Mike Cameron first drew attention to himself in 1998 when he wore a Pepsi t-shirt to a Coca-Cola day organised by his high school. Dan remembered - he’d studied the enigmatic man while working for the New South Wales Police Department. The school had suspended Mike for his act of defiance and, at the age of 19, he embarked upon a career of activism. His tireless efforts unified the resistance against globalisation, corporatism and the present form of capitalism. Dan recalled that Mike’s real activist ambitions had only materialised during the great depression of 2012, which had left him with little choice. In 2039 he became the central voice for what people knew simply as ‘the opposition’, and he used his influence to try to force a conscience upon the corporations that ruled the failing democracies of the world. But in 2059, the same year that microchipping became mandatory, Mike Cameron and most of his immediate followers were assassinated in a wave of violence and terror that left the opposition fragmented and leaderless. Then the corporate behemoths drove the final nail into the opposition’s coffin when they privatised project Echelon and used it to enforce the law with rigid oppression. Since the WEF classified activism as a form of terrorism, activists could expect severe penalties if caught. So activism went underground. But with no meaningful way of communicating, and therefore no possible way of co-ordinating large-scale protests or demonstrations, the splintered groups gradually faded from corporate radar. And the world quietened with the opposition’s demise. A few recalcitrant groups who thought they were clever for vandalising corporate property in the dead of night were all that was left of the once mighty resistance. But those groups were small, pathetic. Nobody considered them a serious threat to corporate control, and nobody bothered dismantling them. It was more economical to let Echelon pluck them off one by one.

And now it was Jen’s turn.

Dan recalled Mike Cameron’s assassination with a clarity that came from being personally involved. He distantly wondered whether Jen recognised him the way his unconscious had flirted with his memory of her. Probably not. He’d changed since 2059. I look different. And besides, why should she have taken note of me? She’d probably remember the prosecutor, the judge and the defendant… but not the cop who caught the assassin. He’d broken the unwritten rules on that case and