Freedom Incorporated (81 page)

“
Ahem.”
Someone cleared his throat, interrupting Jackie’s sojourn into the
wild side of same-sex lovemaking before it could truly
begin.

Michele turned with a
start and Jackie’s eyes widened when she saw Dan waltzing into her
office, aiming a firearm. But the grievance in Dan’s eyes incited
more fear than his weapon. His pupils were black fires of pure
hatred.

Slipping past UniForce
security had almost become mundane. It wasn’t at all difficult to
sneak in unnoticed.

“
What are you
doing here?” Jackie demanded.

The fear contorting
Michele’s expression signalled that she at least had a rough
idea.

Next entered Simon, also
with a pistol, and behind him came Jen.

Dan waved at each in turn
and emotionlessly intoned, “Meet Simon West and Jennifer
Cameron.”

Jackie pushed Michele to
her feet, straightened her blouse and adjusted her collar. She was
too embarrassed to be worried about the intruders. She was
confident in her supreme ability to negotiate her way out of
intense situations – without bloodshed.

“
Sorry to
interrupt you like this.” But Simon’s tone betrayed that he wasn’t
sorry at all. “Jackie Donald, I presume?”

“
That’s what
the nameplate on the door says, doesn’t it?” she snapped, returning
to her usual demeanour.

“
Who’re you?”
Simon asked, looking at the Penguin.

“
It’s Michele
Roche,” Dan said before Michele’s tardy brain could process the
question. “She’s the head of the bounty hunter branch.”

“
How
convenient,” Simon said. “You’re both under arrest.”

Jackie scowled. “By whose
authority?”

“
The Republic
of Australia,” Simon replied, proudly puffing out his
chest.

“
That’s
ludicrous,” Jackie retorted, dismissing the notion with a curt
wave. “I’m an American and I have rights. You can’t come here
and-”

“
You can shove
your rights up your arse,” Dan said, taking a menacing pace
forward.

Jackie stood,
her scowl deepening with fury. “This is preposterous. You dare come
here and place
me
under arrest? Do you understand who I am?” She glared at them.
“What am I supposedly under arrest for?”

Simon had
rehearsed his answer to that question, but now, presented with his
chance, his speech evaporated from his mind. Instead, he blundered
on, tripping frequently over the jagged words. “We have evidence
implicating you, directly, in more that, what, more than 30
assassinations. That is,
non-sanctioned
assassinations,” Simon
stressed. “We have evidence that proves you not only had knowledge
of, but proves you actively promoted UniForce’s illegal
assassination branch.” Ineloquent, but it did the trick. “You’ll be
going to prison for the rest of your life – may it be particularly
short.”

“
You wouldn’t
dare,” Jackie sneered, looking down her nose.

“
Care to bet
on that?” Dan took another pace forward, lining his pistol’s sights
up with the centre of Jackie’s forehead. “Fuck the rest of that
shit.” He waved at the chair. “Sit down.”

“
No,” Jackie
barked. She dared not obey his orders. She’d learned that on a
management camp.
Never yield. Get them
used to accepting your orders instead of the other way
around.

“
Sit your
baggy arse in the bloody chair or I’ll blow off your fucking
kneecaps.” Dan was shouting and a fleck of saliva escaped from his
mouth. He meant it. Here stood a person that was responsible for
selling Katherine’s death to PortaNet. And as far as Dan was
concerned, she was just as guilty as everyone else involved in the
sordid deed.

She could see that he
meant it. His resolve was scrawled all over his face. So she
reluctantly sat.

“
You too,” Dan
said, pointing the gun at Michele.

“
Where?”

“
On the
floor,” Dan ordered. “Over here where I can see you. And no sudden
moves. Don’t even sneeze or I’ll put a bullet in your brain. Got
it?”

They both
nodded.

Dan wasn’t yet
certain what he planned to do. But he wasn’t going to take them
back to Australia under arrest. That wouldn’t achieve anything.
Nothing good anyway. Their power extended further than the law
could reach. A few pulled strings and they’d be right back where
they were, while the arresting officers wallowed in a truckload of
shit. Dan flared his nostrils.
No, there
has to be a better solution.
And if it ended
with Jackie’s blood, then so be it.

*

The Raven
nearly drooled in anticipation when he felt the tingle in his
temples and was ecstatic when the vibration spread to his back
teeth. He knew it was coming. It was imminent. And the timing
couldn’t have been better: Dan Sutherland and Jennifer Cameron were
out of the house.
So is that police
officer they’re working with.

He stood and stretched
his legs, trying to work feeling back into his buttocks. He’d been
sitting on the hard ground with only a thin cushion to protect him
from numbness. By the time he could feel his posterior, the omen
was in full swing. Again, it took the form of a gelatinous eye.
That was fine with the Raven. He didn’t care if it was an eye, a
beetle, or a spiny toadfish as long as he got the sign. He wanted
four words, four short words that would enable him to complete the
contract.

“
I give thee
sanction.” The words boomed larger than life and resonated in every
bone, muscle and cell in his body. It spoke to the fibre of his
soul and recharged him with vigour.

Then, as suddenly as the
eye had appeared, it vanished, leaving the Raven to time his swoop
to the second. He hungrily looked at the house. Only a faint tinge
of light escaped from the heavy curtains, barely enough to plot a
course. The moonlight helped, but not much filtered through the
soupy clouds. But it didn’t matter. The Raven wasn’t shy of the
dark. It was his cloak. It protected him from the prying eyes of
whatever lurked in such a devastated suburb.

“
David
Coucke,” he whispered the name. “Samantha Lee…” The Raven relished
saying the names of his victims. “Prepare to meet the
Raven.”

*

“
That’s
strange.” Cookie frowned at the digital television they were using
as a monitor.

“
What’s that,
baby?” Samantha entwined her arms around him, feeling a bit like a
discarded toy when he brushed her aside. They’d been waiting
nervously for news since the others had left. Sleep was out of the
question. They couldn’t possibly rest when so much was riding on
the success of the operation. Cookie had been hunching over his
computer since they’d left, leaving Samantha to fret alone. She’d
hovered from room to room, trying to find something with which to
occupy her mind for the infuriating wait.

“
He stopped,”
Cookie said, making perfect sense in his own mind but doing nothing
to enlighten Samantha.

“
Huh?” She
stared blankly at him. “You’re being cryptic again.”

“
The tech-head
who’s been chasing me.” Cookie’s was glowering at the screen,
trying to determine what his nemesis was doing. He didn’t like it
when something unexpected happened. He’d been dodging the
administrator’s blows for days and he still had to be careful not
to trigger the multitude of traps. But the flurry of activity was
gone. On its own, that wasn’t unusual, but the
way
it had happened was far from
normal.

“
One second he
was here, and the next” – he made a hand movement that was
reminiscent of an explosion – “he’s gone.”

“
Maybe he
needed to sleep,” Samantha reckoned. “He’s been busy if I’m not
mistaken. Everyone needs to rest.”

Cookie drummed his
overworked but itchy fingers on the table. “No. That’s not it. He
didn’t disengage. He just… vanished.” It made him even more nervous
about what was happening in San Francisco. “What if something bad
happened?”

“
What do you
mean?” Samantha knew exactly what he meant but didn’t dare breathe
the thought.

“
Maybe Dan
screwed up or something.” Cookie’s imagination readily concocted a
multitude of scenarios that would spell doom for their
friends.

But Samantha refused to
believe it. She needed to maintain her optimism as much as she
needed oxygen. “No way. There must be a thousand reasons to explain
why he stopped whatever he was doing.”

Cookie looked dubiously
at her. “You don’t understand. It was… it was like a forced
removal. There isn’t a system administrator on the planet that
would’ve done that voluntarily.”

“
Yeah,
but-”

“
And what are
the chances of that happening at the very moment Dan, Simon and Jen
were entering UniForce headquarters? Surely that’s not a
coincidence.” Cookie kept digging around the vicinity of the
disappearance, wearily probing the data stream for possible traps.
For all he knew, it was the most sophisticated trap yet. But his
curiosity was too intense; he simply couldn’t pass the opportunity
to glean information about what the UniForce administrator had been
working on.
Maybe I’ll find
passwords,
he thought with a feverish lick
of his lips. He
had
to know.

He quickly coded a
program for a slingshot that would fling him off the ‘net if he
trod in a digital snare and tested it twice before committing
himself to the potentially baited cheese.

“
What is it?”
Samantha sensed his excitement.

“
When he
vanished he left his notes on the table, metaphorically speaking,”
Cookie explained. “It could be a trap, but-”

“
I know.”
Samantha understood him well. “You have to find out.” She trusted
him to take proper precautions and refrained from interrogating
him; he hated it when people questioned his logic and procedures.
Still, Samantha had to bite her lips to keep silent.

He knew what she was
thinking anyway and said impatiently, “Yes, I’ve taken precautions.
If I trigger a trap, I’ll be booted off the ‘net.”

“
I
wasn’t…”

Cookie smiled knowingly
at her. “Yes you were.” He downloaded unobtrusive snippets of data
until he was confident nothing would ensnare him. Gradually it
formed a picture.

He gaped, his jaw slack
with shock.

“
What?”
Samantha held her breath in sympathy.

“
Oh my G-god,”
Cookie stammered. “Q-quick grab a coat.”

Samantha obeyed
immediately out of trust, scared by his unusual behaviour. “What’s
going on?”

Cookie was
disconnecting from the UniForce network and launching his
maintenance programs as fast as he could. He wanted to be out of
the house within 30 seconds and if that meant ditching the
computer, then that’s what he’d do.
But
all the evidence…
It pained him to imagine
losing it – there was no guarantee he’d be able to get it again. He
ran out of time before launching the slowest two programs and,
desperate, yanked the power cord from the computer and tore the
other jumbled cables from their sockets. Deliberately doing that
sort of damage felt like a crime, there was no excuse for failing
to shut the operating system down gracefully.
But dire times…
He clutched the
computer to his chest and called, “You ready?”

She emerged from the
bedroom, two coats under her arm. “For what?”

“
We’ve gotta
get out of here
now
,” Cookie replied, trying to recall a safe portal
destination.
The
number…
“Hang on.” He half-galloped to the
lounge room and retrieved Simon’s mobile number from beside the
phone. “It’s the Raven.”

Samantha paled. “What
about him?”

“
He’s here.
Now.” Cookie dialled the only number he could remember on the
portal. “He’s watching us.”

“
How do you
know that?” Samantha demanded.

“
They hacked
into his head.” Cookie pushed Samantha inside the white circle.
“He’s a cyborg, remember? It’s just a computer. You can hack them.”
He pressed the engage button and Samantha flashed away. Then Cookie
performed a similar service for himself and the house lay
empty.

*

There he
goes.
It had turned out to be Natasha
Glinski’s toughest assignment. How did one seduce a cyborg? Someone
so mechanical he’d lost all sex drive? She’d done her research. The
Raven hadn’t had an impulsive sexual encounter since doctors had
integrated a computer with his brain. She distastefully curled her
lips at the thought. Natasha dreaded any kind of surgical
procedure, let alone one that would merge her with a machine. The
Raven simply didn’t give in to his human urges; he had the capacity
to switch them off.
Amazing.
She had to admire his
self-control.
A bit robotic
though.
She shrunk from the thought of
losing her spontaneity.
That’s what makes
me human.