Freedom Incorporated (85 page)

“
Jen, it’s
okay.” Dan was tired. He was fighting to draw breath and the burden
of keeping his eyes open was enormous.

What?
“How is this okay?” she
demanded.

“
It’s my time,
that’s all.” Dan would’ve said something else if he’d been brave
enough. He’d grown fond of Jen against his wishes. If life had
spared him enough time, he might’ve eventually admitted that he’d
fallen in love with her. Though he’d never tell her that now, it
seemed too cruel. “Slime?”

“
I’m here
man.” Simon drew closer so Dan wouldn’t have to waste energy
raising his voice.

“
Take care of
Hans… you know what to do.” He could feel the transformation
starting. His body was rotting on the inside.

“
I’ll take
care of it.” Simon slapped a boisterous hand to Dan’s shoulder. He
wanted to say so much and he opened his mouth to articulate it but
the words froze in his throat.

“
Thanks.”
Dan’s eyes told the story – Simon didn’t have to say anything, his
friend already knew.

“
Jen… I need
you to do something for me.”

“
Name it.” She
was inwardly pleading for a miracle to whatever God happened to be
listening, ready to devote her life to the glorification of His or
Her great name if He or She would just spare Dan. She needed a God
now even more than she’d needed one in the dank pit of hell beneath
Baltimore when she’d been living at the mercy of perverted
monsters.

“
It’s only
going to grow worse… I want you to shoot me.”

She recoiled
at the request.
No.
“What?” She shook her head in shock. “I can’t do
that.”

“
I’m dead
already.” He pointed out. “Nothing can save me.”

But…
She desperately wanted that to be
a lie.
It’s not fair!
She opened her mouth to protest but Dan coughed on a lungful
of blood before she could speak.

The toxin, although fast
acting, maximised the victim’s torture. Some casualties had snapped
their own spines during the violent pre-death contortions,
documented back when nanotoxins were more prevalent, before the
international ban.

She picked up his
discarded Colt, the cold metal laughing fiendishly at the injustice
of the situation.

“
I suppose I
should say thank you.” Dan smiled at her through his
agony.

Jen’s eyes glistened with
a fresh wave of tears. “Why do you suppose that?”

“
Because you
saved my life.” He found it somewhat ironic that their roles had
reversed.

She didn’t understand the
depth of his allusion and asked through a torrent of tears, “What?
How?” Under the circumstances his words seemed tastelessly
incongruous.

“
You reminded
me who Dan Sutherland was… after I’d done a good job of
forgetting.” He spoke the truth. Jen’s passion to change the world
had saved Dan from his zombie-like trance. She reminded him what it
felt like to have a soul. She reminded him what it meant to care.
She’d made the past week of his life more significant than the
preceding eleven months.

Jen remembered
the conversation they’d had in the car and played her part through
tear-blurred vision.
“Well if you feel
grateful then by all means, thank away.”

Dan smiled at her for the
last time. “Thank you.”

She fired twice,
mercifully ending his pain and sending herself into a spinning
vortex of grief. It consumed her, tearing at the fabric of her
sanity. She couldn’t fathom how life could be so bitterly cruel.
She’d given her heart to a bounty hunter and the wrenching pain in
her chest told her that her heart had died with him.

Perversely, the
shareholder meeting didn’t miss a beat. The hiss of metal and zing
of bullets from silenced firearms wasn’t loud enough to carry to
the enthralled attendees.

They voted overwhelmingly
in favour of their new CEO.

*

Tuesday
, September
28
, 2066

World Economic
Forum

14:
30
Washington DC, USA

John Cameron entered the
forum for the first time, believing himself prepared for his
initiation into a world of power and corruption. It wasn’t hard to
find his seat; an aide had briefed him thoroughly prior to arrival.
The information kit he’d received had included a neat holographic
representation of the forum chamber.

Spiffy.
He used a word from his
generation to describe the décor. It was certainly impressive;
they’d done a good job of ensuring their own comfort.
I just wonder about everyone else’s
comfort.
A twinge in the back of his mind
pointed out he was starting to think like Jen.
But maybe that’s natural.
It was an
intriguing thought. Where was humanity heading? Straight to the
depths of hell, and they were in an awful hurry to get there. It
felt right that he should object to practices that were
accelerating the downward spiral.
Maybe we
really are ready for a change.
But the
calibre of the human spirit in the chamber begged to
differ.

A chairman of
considerable girth waddled onto the platform to launch the day’s
proceedings. There was a good turnout, though John had no previous
experience with which to compare it. Everybody was interested in
summing up a new member, to decide whether he was worthy of
potential deals. So they all wanted to judge him. Although they
looked conspicuously absorbed in their own affairs, in truth they
were concentrating firmly on John.

“
I call the
session to order.” The chairman had the rattle of thick catarrh in
his throat. “First order of the day, we have a new member. John
Cameron, would you care to take the podium?”

John stood,
acknowledging the chairman’s request. It was a well-known fact that
John was the son of Mike Cameron, the infamous revolutionary –
or
attempted
revolutionary. Yet he was also the CEO of UniForce and had the
right to attend WEF meetings.

He felt all eyes upon him when he
trekked across the platform and assumed a comfortable stance behind
the podium. “Good afternoon.” He smiled into the silence. “I wanted
to take this opportunity get two things out of the way. Firstly, I
want to say how honoured” –
uh-huh
– “I feel to be here today.” He adjusted his
stance. “And secondly, I want to raise an urgent matter to your
attention.” He held up his hands to stave off potential objections
even though there was none. “I realise it goes against protocol but
it won’t put us behind schedule. We have 15 minutes for my
introduction to be used, I believe, however I wish.”

The silence was
palpable.

Nobody even feigned
reaching for his or her objection button.

John motioned to someone
at the rear of the chamber and a tall, wafery man clambered down
the steps to the podium. “Ladies and gentlemen…” John had their
attention dancing in the palm of his hand. “Hans van de Berg shall
be giving a short presentation about SuperFlex.”

*

Fifteen words
into the presentation, Nathan Bradford drew his own conclusions and
much of the tension drained from his body.
So, now it happens.
It was out of his
control and for that, he was thankful.

The assembly would
finally hear the truth about the miracle material SuperFlex, the
kernel of portal travel.

Epilogue

At the heart
of this convergence of anticorporate activism and research is the
recognition that corporations are much more than the purveyors of
the products we all want; they are also the most powerful political
forces of our time.

Naomi Klein – “No Logo”,
1999

Monday
,
October
4
,
2066

SuperFlex Manufacturing
Plant

09
:
00
Detroit
,
USA

“
Hey man,
what’s happening?”

“
Haven’t you
heard?”

“
No,
what?”

Jake disbelievingly shook
his head. “I dunno man, word is we’re shutting down.”

It was unfathomable. How
could the biggest corporate giant in the history of the human race
cease manufacturing their prime product? “What’re you talkin’
about?”

“
Apparently
this shit’s toxic or something.”

“
So?” Angus
didn’t care if it was toxic; he was willing to take his chances. He
had a family to think about. He
needed
this job; it was his lifeline.
“Everything’s toxic, why do
we
have to shut down?”

Jake shrugged and lit a
cigarette, spitting in the face of company policy. “Don’t shoot the
messenger, it’s just what I heard, that’s all.”

Angus doubted
it was true.
It’s probably just some
suck-arse rumour started by the boys on vat one.
The worst case he could comprehend was the company shutting
down the local plants and moving offshore where labour was cheaper.
But even that would spell doom for his loan repayments.

For the first time in
over three decades, every PortaNet manufacturing plant stood still
and the corporation’s army-like workforce hung lazily about with
nothing to do. Based on the weight of the evidence presented before
the World Economic Forum, members had voted unanimously to force
PortaNet’s plants offline – it was, after all, in the world’s
economic interest. No further portal manufacturing was permissible
until PortaNet discovered a responsible method of folding space.
The WEF had also charged PortaNet with the task of finding a
long-term solution for cleaning up the mess they’d already
scattered over the galaxy – if a solution existed.

*

Friday
,
November 5
, 2066

1
8
:
44
Carnarvon,
Western Australia

Jen loved being able to
talk without having to guard her words. “So you found another
one?”

Samantha’s
voice came loud, clear and confident over the mobile. “Yep, his
name’s Shane Roberts.” She giggled. “I think you’re going to
like
him Jen.”

Jen caught the inference
but chose to ignore it. “Okay, so that’s, what… seven
now?”

“
Yep,”
Samantha said triumphantly. “We’re really growing.”

They were
referring to the increasing number of people willing to join their
voice for a fairer, more responsible, and more
accountable
corporate world. Once
UniForce had ceased tracking activist-related conversations,
Samantha and Jen had reached out electronically – without fear of
reprisals – and made positive contact with a number of other
resistance cells. They hadn’t truly been alone. They’d just felt
alone.

“
When’re you
coming back?”

“
An hour or
two,” Jen replied. “There’s something I have to do here
first.”

“
Okay, see you
soon.”

“
Bye.” Jen
hung up and flipped her mobile back into her pocket. She was
wearing her favourite pair of jeans, her most comfortable boots,
and a new flannelette shirt that would’ve looked at home on a
construction site.

She was sitting under the
big tree on her land. It was the first thing she’d done with the
Raven’s money: purchased her dream plot from Realty King and torn
down the hideous billboard. The second thing she’d done was decide
on the plans for her house and contact a local builder. She was
using a small, locally based contractor that worked out of
Carnarvon instead of a major corporate player. Sure, it would
probably take longer to build and be a fraction more expensive, but
it was the principle that counted. Jen knew she’d feel more
comfortable with the finished product if a local crew built
it.

And then there was her
yacht. She’d commissioned the local construction yard to begin
building a 17-metre cruising catamaran. They wouldn’t finish it for
over a year, but that was okay with Jen who was going to be busy in
the interim anyway. She had demonstrations to organise and messages
to help the public understand.

The sun was setting and
the warmth was slowly draining from the late spring air. Jen gazed
out over the ocean and watched the war of colours, each hue
battling for supremacy over the ripples on the surface. It was
spectacular.

I wish you
could’ve been here to see this Dan.
It still
stung when she thought about him. It knotted her heart with a pang
of regret. She wrapped her arms around herself to shelter from the
renewed onset of grief.

She’d already
decided on the name of her yacht:
Sutherland Hope
.

*