Chains of Freedom (44 page)

"Don't you think you're being a little melodramatic, RJ?" David asked sarcastically.

RJ looked at him then, and saw the monster she had created. What had happened to David? What had become of the boy who had crashed into her in the woods, whose only desire was to free the people from the fist of the Reliance? Now he wanted more. Now he wanted the power. How had he changed so quickly? What was this thing that stood before her? Could it be exorcised, and David Grant found among the ashes? She was close to tears, but fought for control. She started to scream at him, then tossed up her hands and turned to walk away.

"I didn't do things your way, so I'm automatically wrong. That's it, isn't it, RJ? Who died and made you God?!" David yelled after her.

"Funny, that's what I wanted to ask you." She didn't even turn around; she just kept walking.

"Hey, pissweed," Whitey approached with fire in his eyes. "She isn't the cast-iron bitch you've got her made out to be. You are way the fuck out of line."

"While you were just second in line," David said flippantly.

David didn't see it coming, but he felt it, and even as he lay sprawled on the floor, the world spinning all around him, he knew that Whitey had hit him. His vision was blurred, but he saw Whitey leaving—no doubt to find RJ.

Maybe RJ was right. Maybe he did only see a little piece of the picture. After all, it should have been obvious to anyone that Whitey was going to hit him, when he said the second-in-line thing.

Sandra forgot her anger and rushed to David's aid. She helped him up and brushed him off before his head could clear, and before anyone else had a chance to hit him. She laid him down on a bed, and he felt a wet rag touch his jaw. She had her finger in his mouth.

"I don't think you'll need stitches," Sandra said, conversationally. "He knocked a couple of your molars loose, but I don't think your jaw is broken."

David's vision began to clear. She took the towel away, and he saw her washing it out in the sink. There was a lot of blood. Whitey Baldor had hit him; he was lucky he only had a couple of loose teeth. Sandra looked a little worried, but definitely not hysterical. She remained calm and did what needed to be done.

Sandra could take care of herself.

Sandra didn't need any man's protection.

She was definitely
not
the girl for him.

In the weeks that followed they lost two troops and part of a third. David was duly chastised. He knew these deaths were his fault and could only keep the guilt from pounding on his door by rationalizing that he had done it for good reasons. That he hadn't realized what the impact of his speech would be because he hadn't been fully informed.

In short he blamed RJ.

David stared at the ceiling and rubbed his swollen lip. No, it wasn't still swollen from Whitey's blow.

He had been meaning to dump Sandra ever since his revelation, but he hadn't wanted to hurt her, and he hadn't had the nerve. It could have been a cleaner split, no doubt about that. To put it bluntly, she had come home and found him in bed with another woman. She'd hit him in the mouth and beaten the woman half to death before RJ could get there to break them up.

He felt like the biggest jerk in the world. He really liked Sandra. She was a great gal, but he could never have any real feelings for her. She was just . . . well . . . too open. There was no mystery with Sandra. You knew what she wanted because she told you, and as long as you listened, she was easy to please.

David got up off the bed and moved to look out the window. On the street below he could just make out two familiar shapes. RJ and Sandra. RJ would make sure she was OK. RJ always made sure everyone was OK. She always ended up cleaning up his messes. He shook his head. Maybe he should have tried harder with Sandra. But he knew in his heart that he had been right to end it with her no matter how badly he had botched it. There was no future with Sandra; she was no better than RJ.

RJ stood with her back to a wall and mostly just listened.

"Thanks for not saying 'I told you so'," Sandra sniffled and dried a tear from her cheek. "I can't believe the bastard." She shook her head and the tears she was trying not to shed ran down her face. "Damn it!" she said in frustration. She didn't want to be crying, but she couldn't help it. She was so angry and so hurt. "You . . . you can't imagine how bad I feel . . ." Sandra laughed at her own stupidity. "Well, I guess you can."

"For several reasons," RJ said with a grin. "You will live, Sandra."

"Right now, I don't feel like I want to." This time, the crying was uncontrollable. RJ moved to give her a shoulder to cry on, and Sandra didn't hesitate. "I hate him!" she cried.

"Well, that should make getting over him a lot easier," RJ said with a chuckle.

"I'd rather be shot," Sandra cried.

"I'll admit that it doesn't hurt as badly, but it messes up your clothes."

Sandra laughed and sniffled. "You're crazy, RJ, but I'm glad you're here."

"There'll be other men, Sandra. Knowing you, there will probably be lots of them."

Sandra started playing the field again immediately. She had a motto: If it was breathing and humanoid, it was fair game. Levits found her favor often, but she wouldn't let him get too close. He wanted a permanent relationship; she wanted nothing remotely resembling that ever again.

RJ watched Levits watching Sandra. Sandra was with some guy at the bar. She'd take him home. She knew it, he knew it, everyone in the bar knew it. Including Levits.

"She'll come 'round," RJ said gently.

"Yeah, I'm part of her rotation now," Levits grated out.

"Give her some time," RJ reassured him.

"I'm not sure any of us have a hell of a lot of time," Levits said. He looked at Sandra and then down at his drink. The drink was attainable, so he drank it.

Spring brought warmer weather, and with it trouble for the Reliance. Weekly messages from the Rebels brought the work units into a frenzy. It took all of Zone 2-A's manpower just to quiet the civilian uprisings. In the commotion, RJ's prisoner army had no problem at all completing its tasks. They blew up alcohol plants, raided caravans, destroyed Reliance bases and strongholds. They used stolen goods to supply their army. They used the surplus to feed half-starved work units. A kind—and very politically sound—practice.

As the Reliance military force in zone 2-A dwindled, the Rebel army grew by leaps and bounds. It was only a matter of time till the armies of the New Alliance would march across their borders, spilling into the zones of their continental neighbors. The disruption would spread like a cancer over the face of Earth, and then there would be only one place left to take it.

That was the reason for this meeting.

As the World Commissioner cleared his throat, the sweat rolled down Jago's fat cheeks, and he shot an angry look at Governor General Right and Senator Kirk. Right pulled on his collar as if it were shrinking, but Jessica just smiled with confidence and acknowledged Jago's attention with a casual nod of her head.

Then the World Commissioner began to speak. He spent the next hour running down every crime the New Alliance had committed. He ended his speech with, "Jago, things have gone from bad to worse. Things have been allowed to get so out of control that we have drawn the attention of the Council of Twelve. It would appear to me, and indeed the majority of the other leaders assembled here, that you have ignored—indeed, turned your back upon—what has quickly become a very serious problem."

For the most part, Jago's older brother was a cool customer. The only visible sign that he was upset at all was a slight trembling of the left side of his lower lip. It was so slight that no one in the room noticed it. No one but Jago, because he had been looking for it, expecting it, and he knew what it meant. "Have you anything to say, Sector Leader Jago?"

"With all due respect, World Commissioner. The problem is contained in Senator Kirk's Zone. I have left it in her hands, and given her the assistance of Governor General Right . . ."

"Enough, Jago. Before me, I see not one, but several requests for more arms, more supplies, and more manpower. Now, the blame is no more yours than theirs or anyone else's. We are dealing with something the Reliance has not had to deal with in centuries, namely an uprising of the civilian work units. We are dealing with something we are entirely unprepared to deal with, something our soldiers have never been trained to fight—an enemy from within.

"Our enemies are very cunning. This RJ hides herself and her face, and gives their cause an air of mystery, makes herself almost godlike to the people. Meanwhile, David Grant speaks directly to the rebel in each and every work unit, and it is beyond our capabilities to shut him up without closing down the entire viewscreen system. If we do that, we'll have riots on our hands for sure. The viewscreen are the work units' only sanctioned form of entertainment. We've been using them to feed the people a steady line of propaganda and subliminal messages for generations. Without them, things will get worse, not better.

"David Grant is the real threat. I have watched him, and . . . Well, I personally don't believe his story about being a work unit. His speeches are those of a well-trained politician. He knows exactly what to say, and when and how to say it . . ."

Jessica shut him out after that. The smile left her face. She had actually believed she would get some help from this council, but if they were stupid enough to think that David Grant was any more than a minor annoyance . . . She was going to have to take care of RJ herself.

They had only put two of them at the rear gate, and these days that alone was enough to make them jumpy.

"You hear that?" the man asked his partner.

"Yeah," the woman answered and readied her gun. "Sound the alarm."

"Isn't that just a little premature?" he asked with a nervous laugh.

Just then, the tiny group broke through the brush and charged. The woman fired, and one of the men went down. The man sounded the alarm, and the other Rebels fled into the brush. After sounding the alarm, the male guard ran over to where his partner was kneeling by the man's body. He looked down at the man's face in disbelief. He removed his own helmet and visor to make sure he was seeing what he thought he was seeing.

"Hurry, go tell the captain I've killed David Grant," she said excitedly.

Before he had time to react, Reliance personnel stormed out of the base and Rebels ran from the woods to meet them. When the smoke of battle cleared an hour later, he found his companion dead and the Rebel's body gone.

"You're sure the body you saw was that of David Grant?" the Captain asked for the tenth time.

"Yes," he said through gritted teeth. Then added, "Janice died a hero." He wiped the tear from his eye, and hoped it was unseen. "She put two bullets in his chest. He was quite dead."

The Rebels retreated to their camp. David lay still on the ground, his shirt covered in blood.

A figure clad in a Reliance uniform made its way through the crowd.

"Enough is enough." RJ took off the helmet and visor and shook out her platinum-blonde hair.

David opened one eye then the other. "It hurt, RJ," he whined, "you promised it wouldn't hurt." He sat up, rubbing his ribs. "The vest almost didn't stop the bullets. I still don't see why you couldn't have used blanks."

"Bitch, bitch, bitch!" RJ tossed the helmet on the ground and took an apple from the bowl that Sandra offered her. "Blanks wouldn't have knocked you down."

"Blanks wouldn't have cracked all my ribs," David said in an injured voice. "And why did you have to use real blood?" He threw off the shirt, trying not to think too hard about where she had acquired the blood.

"When they investigate, they have to find real blood so they can be sure you're dead. I don't like to leave anything to chance, David." She smiled smugly, "that's why I always win . . . even when I'm losing."

The army sucked rocks.

She had been getting nowhere fast. Same stupid job with no chance of promotion. No special privileges. One day was not a hell of a lot different from the one before. She might as well have been a filthy work unit.

To make matters worse, you now had to worry about some fanatic Rebel bounding over the wall and blowing your brains out just because you were doing your job.

Kirsty didn't plan to die that way or
any
way if she could help it. She wanted the easy life and money. Lots of money. Fine wine and silk robes. There had been a time, not too long ago, when she had believed that the military would give her all that and more. A time when she had believed every word of propaganda the Reliance fed her. But six years in puke-green cotton uniforms and too many glasses of weak beer had dampened her spirit and opened her eyes.