Freedom Incorporated (64 page)

“
How long has
it been?” Simon asked.

“
Fourteen
hours,” Dan replied, not wanting to taste the defeat that was
looming on all sides.

“
They’re doing
the same to Jen as they did to Katherine?”

“
Yes.”

“
So how many
hours does she have left?” Simon asked, as gently as he
could.

“
If they
started right away?”

Simon nodded.

Four, plus
four, plus…
“Minus two if she tore her lips
to breathe. Minus six if she didn’t.”

Simon didn’t say
anything. He didn’t have to – Dan was thinking it
anyway.

“
But I know
she’s alive, Slime. Don’t ask me how. I just do.” He turned back to
the stack of records.
That’s it, believe
the intuition you want to hear and ignore the intuition you
don’t,
a scornful corner of his mind jabbed
facetiously.

They were in a stuffy
vault, sifting through mountains of paper records. Simon couldn’t
help wondering how moths had found their way there, and how they’d
survived with nothing to eat but bleached paper. Earlier Dan had
stumbled across a nest of worms chewing on paper pulp and pooping
it out in little black balls. The wriggling mass of reddish-orange
bodies had disgusted them both.

It was troglodyte heaven
and time-pressured-bounty-hunter hell.

But profiles were
emerging – names, addresses, physical descriptions and resumes of
the three people Dan suspected of abducting Jen. Esteban’s profile
had been easy to complete, he was a living legend in recent crime
fighting history, albeit a sinister one. But somebody had erased
valuable data on Dan’s other two suspects, and done it so long ago
it was too tiresome to find on crystal-cube. So they were down with
the paper records instead.

“
He has a real
syndicate going, doesn’t he?” Simon commented, finding another
reference to Esteban’s illicit activities.

“
Yeah,” Dan
muttered, miffed by the missing segments in the police knowledge
bank.
How could nobody
notice?
“And then they vanished.” He
suspected Esteban had cleansed his record too, just not deleted
it.

Simon grunted. “It’s not
infallible.”

“
No,
especially for people with influence.”

“
Influence –
meaning money.”

“
And
connections,” Dan clarified.

Simon yawned for the
third time that minute.

“
Why don’t you
go and get some sleep?” Dan offered.

“
That’s the
best idea I’ve heard all day,” Simon replied. “It’s been a long
shift.” He stood, sending a precariously perched stack of paper
cascading to the floor in a whirlwind of fragmented statistics.
“Oh, shit.”

“
Don’t worry,
I’ve got it.” Dan scooped the pile roughly into his arms and tossed
it brusquely into an empty box. “There. Filed.” He winked at his
partner. “Now go and get some sleep.”

“
You’re not
coming?” Simon asked disapprovingly, secretly wishing he had the
stamina to keep up.

“
No, I want to
stay here. We nearly have enough to hammer out a plan.” He ran a
hand roughly through his hair. The exhaustion was getting to him
but he wasn’t yet ready to give in. “Maybe I’ll do some preliminary
recon too.”

Simon shook his head,
thoroughly mystified. “You’re nuts mate.” He headed for the door.
“You know how to let yourself out. Call me before you do anything
stupid. Okay?”

“
Done,” Dan
agreed.

He felt lonely
when the vault door closed, truly alone for the first time since
meeting Jen in Elustra’s Melbourne giga-mall.
Growing accustomed to human company again?
He laughed bitterly and it echoed around the titanium
walls.

His mood was
slipping. He hadn’t taken his Zyclone at the regular intervals
Xantex had prescribed. He’d thought about it, and even considered
going back for his pills or getting another prescription filled,
but he didn’t want it to impair his judgement. When he tallied his
recent mistakes he felt old and tired.
I
wouldn’t have been this careless ten years ago… is this what it
means to age?
He took the time to examine
his hands. They were calloused and strong, not frail like an old
man’s hands. So he blamed the Zyclone. It enfeebled his mind,
weakened his body, and devastated his libido.
No more.
He didn’t feel depressed, he
felt angry. And while he had anger to feed from, he wouldn’t need
drugs. He needed clarity of thought and accurate judgement – he
needed to become the man he’d once been.

He
yawned.
But I do need
stimulants.
He’d taken them in the past and
knew his body could cope with at least 70 hours of continual use.
So Dan collated the useful records, folded them twice, tucking them
inside his coat, and left the vault.
Now,
he thought.
Where can I get stimulants at this time of night?

*

S
unday
,
September 1
9
,
2066

Parramatta Business
District

03
:
22
Sydney
,
Australia

His eyes were
inefficient in the dark so he was feeding from visual cues
delivered by the multitude of pole-mounted cameras, which the local
council had scattered liberally around the business hub.
It’s here somewhere.
He
wasn’t sure exactly what ‘it’ was, but he would recognise it when
he found it. ‘It’ was the next clue, the special something that
would help him find the trail again. He sensed he was close, though
he had no facts with which to back up his assumption. But he’d
certainly found interesting results when he ran Tedman Kennedy
through PortaNet’s database.
You’ve been a
busy little bee, Sutherland.

He wasn’t using his eyes,
and therefore had no need of a panoramic vantage, but he savoured
the bird-of-opportunity analogy so much that he scaled the
Hydro-Tech office building just to survey the cityscape. They were
wasting energy. That was his first conclusion. Most of the
buildings were lit like Christmas trees and even with the advances
in fluorescent light design, they were still burning electricity as
if there were no tomorrow. The Raven found it offensive, though he
couldn’t compute why. Half a centaury ago there would’ve been
pickets of protestors shouting energy-saving slogans throughout the
night. But back then, atmospheric quality had to pay for every
photon of light. Fusion power was cheap – for the environment as
well as for EnFusion, the global electricity supplier. Still, it
was a magnificent view, even if he was primarily using cameras and
their night-piercing circuitry to peer into dark
corners.

They’re
hiding around here somewhere.
He felt
certain they were in Sydney, but it was a big city and he found it
frustrating that he couldn’t narrow his search. The Raven was
tracing a finger across the scar above his hairline while chewing
on the data trail. His other hand was fondling the grip of his
Redback, itching to squeeze the trigger at Sutherland’s face. He
wondered which body parts he should return for verification.
His cerebral cortex?
He
thought he’d enjoy peeling it away from the remainder of
Sutherland’s brain.
Or maybe his prostate,
an eye, and his pituitary gland?
It was a
wonderful game to play. Sometimes he wondered whether surgery was
his true calling. He did enjoy browsing the endless volumes of
surgical procedures he could access.

He was still
entertaining himself with thoughts of Dan’s anatomy when something
interesting flashed in front of a camera, immediately snaring his
attention.
That’s
curious.
He raised his face to the clouded
Sydney sky and whispered his request for a favourable omen. Tonight
the hunt would end and the kill would begin.

*

Dan asked the officers –
who were still playing cards at the counter – if they had any
stimulants they could spare, but they patted themselves down and
said, “No mate, sorry.”

He smiled his departure
and slid into the night, unaware that a camera had captured him on
digital security feed. There was always one Xantex prescription
house open 24 hours and if memory served him correctly, Dan knew
where it was. Nothing in the business district had changed much in
the past 11 months. The same giga-corporations controlled the same
turf and did an excellent job driving the sole traders out of
business. Dan had never given it much consideration before, but
he’d been trying to view the world from Jen’s perspective and found
that once he’d started, he couldn’t stop.

Why am I
always working at night?
It was a disturbing
question to ask, he thought. While in Holland, he’d thoroughly
enjoyed the scant rays of sun that’d caressed his skin. It was too
easy to forget the sun came up every morning when you spent so much
time portaling around the world. He couldn’t remember the last time
he’d appreciated a real sunrise; the digital interpretations just
couldn’t capture the magic of an Australian dawn.

A blue neon sign proudly,
but gaudily, flashed a capitalised Xantex logo, whisking Dan’s
wandering mind back to his task. He couldn’t believe they did much
business at this time of night, but the law was quite strict on
that point. If Xantex intended to keep their medication monopoly,
they had to serve the community’s best interests. That meant they
needed to operate 24-hour pharmacies and have prescription doctors
available for emergency consultations. Of course, there weren’t
many, portals made that unnecessary. Xantex operated only a few
all-night pharmacies in each state.

Stimulants didn’t require
a prescription. Xantex had argued with various governments for
nearly a decade about it, their prime argument being that people
had regulated their stimulant intake for centauries. Was caffeine a
restricted substance? No. Don’t be daft, they’d said. And it had
worked, in Australia anyway.

He selected the strongest
stimulant on the shelves and took it to the counter.

“
Planning on a
busy night?” She had puffy eyes herself.

Dan nodded solemnly.
“Something like that.”

“
Well you’ve
chosen well.” Xantex trained all their staff to make customers feel
good about their choice of drugs. “This’ll make you feel better in
no time.”

I doubt
it.
Dan allowed her to scan him and
swallowed two tabsules as soon as he was back on the street. The
effects began almost immediately, too fast for the drugs to have
reached his system – it was his mind anticipating the rush to
come.

Now…
He examined the police records
he’d stolen from the vault.
What’s your
story Adrian Miller?
He’d attended the same
college as Esteban.
So did Frank Albert
Hansen
, he noted. He intently analysed the
data, sitting on a bench where the light flooding from Xantex
illuminated his paper enough to read the words. One reference was
particularly interesting. In the past, Adrian and Frank had mixed
with the suspected mastermind behind a people-smuggling operation.
But there’d only been circumstantial evidence to indicate they were
involved, so nobody had charged them with anything.
I bet this is gone from every database on the
planet
, Dan mused sourly. Another name
appeared twice in the haphazard jottings, one that Dan was
unfamiliar with and wished he’d noticed before leaving the vault.
The emerging picture was all too familiar. They belonged to a breed
of remorseless men who gleefully trampled innocent people to reach
their goals. And too often their primary goal was to satisfy their
avaricious greed with yet more money.

I bet
Esteban’s the protector.
Every successful
operation needed one – someone to ward off the law. Dan’s grip
tightened with rage until the paper crinkled in his fingers. Then
he felt the real effects of the stimulant and leapt to his feet
with enough spare energy to jog to the nearest portal.

*

Saturday, September 18,
2066

13
:
51
Baltimore, USA

She gulped for air,
fighting to keep the water from trickling into her lungs. She’d
been battling for nearly an hour and it had become her world. Life
consisted of struggling to reach the surface to drink air through
her straw before suction dragged her back under and the whole
process began again. Her arms were tied behind her back and her
wrists burned with pain; she could only use her legs to kick up for
that next gulp of precious oxygen.

But her strength was
dwindling and she knew she couldn’t keep going indefinitely. In the
back of her mind she was relieved the nightmare would soon end. But
mainly she was sad that life would end with such misery. She held
onto her breath as she slipped beneath the surface for the last
time. Too tired to kick, she sunk lower than ever and watched as
the light above faded to dark blue. She risked a downward glance
and saw the mystery of blackness below, sending a cold shiver to
her bones. The panic it induced made her kick again and she
struggled for the surface, fighting with every fibre for the next
breath.