Freedom Incorporated by Peter Tylee (me reader .txt) 📖

gold chains held a lustre that artisanship alone couldn’t explain; the marketers had created some lustre of their own and woven it into the fabric of the message. It revolted them both to see it for what it was - money in the pockets of Elustra.

Hatred poured through Samantha’s next words. “I’d love to jam that screen.”

“How?” Jen loved to think about it.

“Well…” Samantha thought for a long time before answering. “The control devices are probably in a restricted area. We’d need high security clearance to get there.”

“So it’s impossible?”

“No.” She looked serious. “We’d need Cookie to build a handheld scanner that we could use to record someone’s details.” The trade in stolen microchip data was big business for those with the technology to retrieve it. The trick was to retrieve it all; partial data was worse than useless, it was dangerous. “We’d have to pick someone that definitely had appropriate access.” She thought some more. “I don’t how yet.”

“Work experience?” Jen offered.

Samantha shook her head. “We’re too old to pass off as year ten students.”

“That doesn’t matter, does it? We could just turn up and say we’re considering a career change and that we’d like to spend a day in the life of a screen operator.”

Samantha’s eyes lit up. “Yeah, they’d be crazy to turn away free coffee-fetchers. And then we’d know where to go and what equipment they had.”

“We could scan one of their chips on the day. Afterwards, Cookie’d have to forge a chip with the appropriate clearance - if he can do that at all - and, hey-presto, we’d have access to the control room.” The beginnings of a frown crept across Jen’s forehead. “It’s probably somewhere in the office block.”

“Then it’d depend on Cookie. I don’t think he’s jammed this model of screen before.” Samantha was perking up and returning to normal.

“And then we’d run like hell.” Jen reminded her.

Samantha laughed. “Yeah, we’d run like hell.” She looked at the paper bag she was clutching and a pang of guilt shuddered through her body. “I want to take this back.”

“Really?” Jen wasn’t convinced that was a particularly smart idea. “Are you sure? You’ve got it now, why not just enjoy it?”

Samantha shook her head. “No, I don’t need it and it doesn’t look good on me without the breasts to go with it. Besides, it’ll just make me feel bad every time I wear it. I don’t want that.”

Jen bit her lip, regretting her anti-consumerist tirade. “I’m sorry, I didn’t-”

“Don’t be sorry, you’re right,” she said, cutting her friend off with a wave of her hand. “I have plenty of functional clothes and if we can’t control our own spending, how dare we expect others to?”

“Do you mind if I stay here?” Jen dreaded returning things to their place of purchase, even if it was just an Elustra store. “I don’t feel comfortable-”

“I know,” Samantha said, cutting her off again. She smiled and added, “It’s okay. I understand, remember?”

Jen breathed easier. “Thanks.” Everybody had something he or she couldn’t do. For Jen it was returning clothes, pulling the bits of soapy hair from the shower drain, and visiting her mother. Samantha understood; she had quirks of her own.

“I’ll be back in a moment.”

“Okay, I’ll be here,” Jen said as she watched Samantha reintegrate with the crowd on the main arterial walkway.

An elderly man shuffled past on his way to the medical centre and she heard the automatic doors whirr before a hospital smell engulfed her. There she waited, patiently observing the passers-by and absently wondering how the consumerist-cycle had so thoroughly sucked everybody in.

*

The Raven irritably paced, incapable of ordering himself to stand still. The swish of his cloak and the squeak of hard leather boots complemented the sound of rubber squealing on an overly waxed floor whenever he pivoted on his heels.

He froze.

Was this it? He listened with his mind, feeling a slight vibration in his temples that meant something important was about to happen. The vibration rapidly spread to his back teeth and he knew he was about to receive the omen he so desperately desired. It shivered in front of his vision, a gelatinous eye, staring back at him with cold hatred in its piercing gaze. The Raven waited, obediently. He dared not ask questions, all he could do was wait for the signal. He risked flicking his gaze to the girls below. The innocent one was walking away, leaving the Cameron girl alone. Perfect timing. He wired his mouth shut lest he start begging for his omen.

The other patrons in the mall ignored him. To them, he was just another drunk lunatic staring into space, drooling at something his eyes alone could see. The Raven was fine with that; he cared nothing for the cattle around him. He was the hunter and they were the prey - things for him to use and toss aside as need dictated. They were certainly not worthy of human compassion, if he were still capable of such a feat.

He quivered slightly, feeling a sudden chill as the eye puffed up larger than he remembered it ever swelling before. It was football sized now and still growing. Finally, it spoke into his mind with a volume that made his knees tremble.

“I give thee sanction.”

The Raven bowed in respect and started backing away, irritating the cattle nearby and eliciting more than one oath.

He said merely, “It shall be done in your honour.”

*

Jen was absently tapping a rhythm on the seat cushions, lost in thought when the commotion began. It all happened so quickly her mind couldn’t untangle the blur of activity. She first noticed something was wrong, very wrong, when a brute of a man slammed into her at chest height and she thumped her head on the unyielding tile floor. She reeled from the shock and her vision faded briefly to white before recovering to a dull semblance of its former clarity. A distant, disengaged part of her mind warned that she was concussed. What was that? She heard something that sounded like shattering glass. An earthquake? Her mind hesitantly offered the answer but she quickly rejected it. Elustra giga-malls were earthquake proof.

What then? She brought her head off the chilly floor to find the man pressing her down. “What?”

“Shut up.” He snapped roughly and thrust her down more forcefully. His voice rasped like a chainsaw badly in need of oil. But what else? Jen wondered. There was an important piece of information she knew she couldn’t grasp in her stunned state.

I’m being robbed. It was the next most logical conclusion, though at that moment she didn’t realise he’d demanded nothing of her except silence. She tried reaching for her wallet but couldn’t move her arms, he’d pinned them to the ground behind the bench.

She turned her head and saw the bench: a solid block of old-growth wood, carved with seats and padded with cushions. It was a corpse. It had been alive for centuries until someone had attacked it with a chainsaw. Such details were lost on most mall patrons. But if someone hadn’t forced Jen into such a supine position, she wouldn’t have noticed either.

Is that it? She wondered with dread whether he was going to use the solid frame of the bench as cover for rape. Her head was starting to clear. No, it’s too visible from the medical centre. It frustrated her not to know what was going on. What then?

As suddenly as he’d knocked her to the ground, he yanked her up, nearly wrenching her arm from its socket. He certainly wasn’t a weakling; he could toss her around like a rag doll.

Like a leopard carrying its prey, the man thrust her into the corner and shoved her against a mock-stone pillar. She got her first look at him. He was 30-something and quite good looking with a cleft in his chin that she’d always admired in her father. He looked neatly groomed, though his choice in clothing spoke volumes about his disdain for modern fashion. He reminded her of a thug, except he couldn’t possibly be one. Thuggery was dead, forgotten to everyone except Hollywood producers. But his bulky clothing couldn’t conceal the vitality of his frame and it alarmed her to think about his willingness to handle her so roughly. What else might he be capable of?

His eyes were feral. She recognised something viciously animalistic burning deep within him and fretted that he might aim it at her. He appeared to be searching for something in the crowd. Nobody’s noticed. The truth shocked her. How could he do this without anyone lifting a finger? Her stunned silence gave way to anger and she squirmed under his vicelike grip only to have his fingers bite harder on her flesh.

“What the fuck do you think-” Jen’s voice was shrill with fury but she didn’t get any further.

“I told you to shut up.” He spoke with such calm authority that disobedience didn’t occur to her. His voice was different now, cold, detached. It retained none of the raw energy that’d perforated his words before. Businesslike? She couldn’t be sure, but neither could she fathom how he remained calm after doing something so anti-social.

Jen’s head was pounding with a latent headache from the knock. She tried to move an arm to feel where her scalp was stinging, but couldn’t budge under his control. “Ouch.” Her whisper was barely more than a wince but it instantly transformed her captor. He lessened his grip and permitted her to trance a finger along the bruise at the back of her head. It was already swelling into a lump but there wasn’t any blood.

“Where the fuck do you get off pushing me around like this?” Jen kept her voice low and it was nearly cracking on every word. She didn’t really feel in danger, not with so many people and cameras around. Elustra security would be there soon. Won’t they? But that brought perils too. They’d be sure to discover she was unchipped and hand her to the resident chipping squad for surgery. That though brought primal fear to her eyes and she froze. What if he is a chipping officer? The idea revolted her. How could I have been so careless? She cursed herself for coming to Elustra and fervently hoped Samantha would escape a similar fate.

“Let me go.” She wriggled with all the strength she could muster but it was useless in his grasp. He squeezed harder on her wrist until she was sure the ligaments were about to separate. His other hand was pinning her right shoulder to the column and she may as well have been struggling against a thousand tonnes.

He thrust her harder against the pillar and the jolt freshened the bruise on the back of her head, ending her struggle.

“What part of ‘shut-up’ don’t you understand?” His frustration felt rushed and he only took his eyes off the crowd for long enough to scowl quickly at her. “Do you want to die?”

The question caught her by surprise and she stammered, “N-no, of course not.”

“Then relax and listen very carefully.” He let go of her shoulder and pulled an oversized handgun from a holster concealed by his jacket. Jen stared at the black carbon-steel barrel, fascinated by the fact that he felt the need to draw a weapon on her. It didn’t register in her dazed mind that he wasn’t aiming it at her. “There’s a bounty-hunter over there, and he’s coming this way.” Dan waited a few seconds, allowing time for his words to sink in. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”

Jen nodded, mute. She thought she did.

“He’s coming over here to kill you.” Dan emphasised it with