Freedom Incorporated by Peter Tylee (me reader .txt) đ
- Author: Peter Tylee
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Dan sighed and ran a hand over his face before pushing back from the table and striding confidently towards Christopherâs counter. âGâday Chuck, howâre things?â
He smiled warmly. âHey Dan-the-man-from-Afghanistan, not too bad. You?â
âIâve seen better days,â Dan admitted sombrely. âSay, what kind of freakazoid hours are you working here?â
âYeah, I know, itâs my turn for night shift.â He sighed and blinked sleep from his eyes. âA ten day rotation every three months. It sucks, but it comes with the job.â
âWhen do you get off?â Dan asked.
He checked his watch in the hope that time was passing quickly. âNot until the morning guys get here, around eight. But after my rotation I get a five day break so itâs not too bad.â
Dan grunted. âCouldâve fooled me.â
âSo whereâre you off to this time?â Christopher asked, indicating he should step closer for the mandatory scan.
âActually, I was wondering if you could do me a favour,â Dan replied vaguely.
âSure, name it.â Christopher didnât even flinch. Theyâd developed a friendship over the past few months. Or, at the very least, heâd call Dan a close acquaintance. He passed through the terminal every few days and always had time for a chat. Recently Chuck had joked that he would have a âmost-frequent travellerâ award printed and framed especially for Dan. And a month ago theyâd gone for beers and watched the rugby final at the local watering hole.
âItâs not entirely legal,â Dan said, testing the waters. He nervously wondered whether their friendship was strong enough to support the tremendous weight he was about to place upon it.
âWhoa there big boy.â Christopher held up his hands. âDonât ask me to do something thatâll get me fired. I thought you were going to ask me to water your plants or something.â He paused, gauging Danâs reaction. There was none. His stoic mask only betrayed his discipline. Curiosity eventually got the better of him. âWhat is it?â
It was Danâs turn to study Chuck. Trust was a luxury he didnât have, so he had to be very careful divulging information. âSomebody I know is in a lot of trouble.â Dan started slowly, cautiously choosing every word. âFor now, just tell me what has to happen to let someone pass on a fake chip.â
Chuck huffed. âIt canât be done.â
âYouâve never looked the other way?â Dan asked, angered beneath his calm surface. Since when did you become so sanctimonious?
âShh!â he hushed. âNot so bloody loud mate.â
âYou wonât help?â Dan asked flatly.
âI didnât say that,â Christopher replied slyly. âWhatâve you gone and gotten yourself mixed up in?â
âIf Iâm alive in a week Iâll tell you over a beer.â
âItâs that bad, huh?â
Dan nodded solemnly. âYeah, itâs that bad.â
âMust be time you considered a new profession then.â He smiled. âWeâve got an opening if youâre interested. I could talk to the boss?â
âPass.â
Christopher sighed. âYou donât know what youâre missing.â He wouldâve liked to have someone interesting to share the monotonous night shifts with. The others were okay, but they were into computer games and were always talking about sorceresses, paladins, swords and armour. It drove him crazy. âJust so Iâm clear, weâre talking about you, arenât we?â
Dan nodded slowly, wondering whether Chuck would blow his plans asunder. He had one hand in his pocket, ready to press ânextâ and revert to his legitimate identity if things turned sour.
âAnd I assume youâve got a good reason for wanting your name off the records?â
Dan nodded again, more warily than ever.
âCome on then, letâs get this over with.â He offered his scanner and Dan stepped forward, brushing past the compact handheld device, which looked similar to a barcode-reader. It communicated briefly with the chip in his pocket and fed the relevant details to Christopherâs monitor. Meanwhile, Dan lined up his weaponry for tagging. Christopher watched as each piece of Danâs arsenal emerged from the folds of his clothing. He uttered an oath under his breath, something that Dan couldnât quite catch.
âVery well Mr Kennedy,â Chuck intoned formally. âHave a pleasant trip abroad.â
âThanks Chucky, I owe you one.â Dan holstered his weapons.
âNo, you owe me two. Kegs. No, make it two bottles of scotch. The good stuff.â Christopher smiled. âJust make sure you bring your ass back alive so I can collect, you hear?â
âLoud and clear.â Dan walked away before a queue banked up behind him. It was a busy time of night, the last minute rush before most Australians wanted to be home in front of their televisions or making love to their partners.
He looked over his shoulder on his way to the portals, reassured to see Christopher wasnât making an emergency call to his supervisor and requesting police involvement. So Dan joined the short queue at the nearest international portal. Several large signs requested that travellers check their destination codes before joining a queue. It was annoying when somebody in front reached the portal and realised they didnât know their destination code. Fifty dedicated code-terminals indexed the codes for all international destinations, but Dan didnât need them. When he reached the front of queue, he stepped inside the white circle and he entered the code heâd thoroughly memorised.
The portals were impeccably hygienic, cleaned at regular intervals to PortaNet specifications. They looked like large tubes. Users stepped inside, made sure they were within the white safety circle, and dialled the destination code on the provided panel. There was an identical panel on the outside of the tube so that a second person could operate the portal on behalf of the traveller. The elderly and âspecialâ members of the community had been so dumbfounded by PortaNetâs invention that engineers had added the extra panel to circumvent the problem of training the untrainable. The company was already spending billions on public education; theyâd simply considered some people too slow-witted to comprehend the new technology.
Dan had only a vague idea how portals worked, but heâd always thought the process lacked flare. There was no white flash, no sparks, and no melodramatic countdown, just a pop of changing air pressure.
A gust of cold North American air slammed his face when his vision shifted and the customary tickle in his lungs made him cough. He stepped out of the tube, thumped a fist to his chest to ease the discomfort, and headed toward United States Immigration. I hope this goes smoothly. American immigration was a lot larger than Australian Immigration so he didnât know anybody well enough to cause a problem. I hope. But since America used a two-tier system, he had two counters to pass: immigration and customs. He gulped in anticipation.
But twenty minutes later heâd navigated the chaos of travellers and was standing in the chill of the North American autumn, gazing at UniForce headquarters. A dire hatred consumed his inner thoughts and he was prepared to tear the jugular from Estebanâs throat if he had half a chance. One year ago he wouldnât have believed himself capable of transforming into a bloodlusting killer. Yet there he stood, comfortable with the thought of bereaving Estebanâs family.
He watched for security and coldly calculated his best opportunity to enter the building. He wasnât sure what heâd achieve at 2:30 on Saturday morning, but he wasnât content to do nothing. Jenâs time was running out and if there were even the slimmest possibility that he could save her, heâd keep trying.
Something in there will help me find Esteban⊠and Jen. He had to believe it or heâd lose what remained of his fragile sanity. A digital scope, no bigger than a pen, helped him peer through the night. He was squatting in a nature strip that ran the length of the grime-smattered street. Massive buildings loomed on all sides and he couldnât help thinking it was unwise to tempt gravity so excessively. Human engineering was good, but nature could swat once and splatter the buildings like pimples. It would only take one decent earthquake. He didnât believe the rhetoric fed to the public about earthquake predictability, nor could he swallow the commercials heâd seen for the anti-vibration systems installed in modern skyscrapers. It simply wasnât clever to build them so enormous, especially when portal technology made the logistics of transportation so easy.
The concrete monstrosities spewed fluorescent light as if electricity was free and the light pollution was so bad that, despite zero cloud cover, Dan couldnât see a single star. Using a portal was out of the question; security locked them down at night. Only a small subset of authorised microchips could portal in, and security monitored that activity closely. But Dan had never navigated through UniForce headquarters on foot and he screwed his eyes tight trying to remember on which floor heâd find the management offices.
He shivered from cold and praised his thick coat.
Standard patrols guarded the buildingâs perimeter, a few men at most. Inside there would be more, perhaps 50 - far more than Dan could handle alone. He wouldnât want to assault the building even if he had a platoon as backup. UniForce guards were well armed and portal technology ensured they could react quickly to trouble. That leaves stealth. He chewed his lower lip, picking his moment. When a host of factors had aligned in his mind, he stood, ignoring the discomfort when his knees cracked in protest. Then streaked across the road and darted into UniForce territory.
It was easier than heâd thought. Deep down heâd suspected he would need to eliminate three or four innocent security guards, and heâd been psyching himself up for that probability. But he reached the opaque glass wall without opposition and pressed his shoulder blades against it, wincing when pain jolted from his wound. The bump stretched his skin and tugged his sutures.
Dan gritted his teeth. Itâd been a long time since heâd broken into a high-security building. But, although he was nervous, the necessary skills came back to him. At one time well developed, his unique skills would probably stay with him for life. They hibernated until he reactivated them in times of need - like now.
Tonight he was thankful for his past.
He extracted a knife-like instrument and began cutting a manhole-sized block from the wall. The glass was only four centimetres thick, but the manufacturer had cured it with chemicals that had modified the quartzâs molecular structure, making it a thousand times stronger than a normal pane of glass. Nanoscopic wires wove through the fabric, supplying the digital information the glass needed to switch between transparent and opaque states. Danâs laser-class instrument cut through it all, slicing it as neatly as a katana would slice silk. It fired an intense beam of radiation, focused by a series of nano-lenses into a shaft that was five nanometres thick. He was finished in less than twenty seconds and pushed the panel clear, cringing when it clanked noisily to the tile floor. He then dove through the hole and replaced the disk, lining it flush with the remainder of the wall. His laser cutter was so fine that its incision was invisible to the naked eye.
Dan berated himself for holding his breath. Stupid⊠Now, where am I? It was hard to see in the dark and he stumbled forward with arms outstretched, blindly hoping he wouldnât trip over anything. What would they put on the ground floor? Mailroom? Storage space? The answer came a few moments later when he kicked over a mop and bucket, spewing a brackish brew of hair-infested water over the floor with an almighty clamour. The janitorâs closet, of course.
By chance, his hand blundered into the light switch, but he refused to cave in to his desire for illumination. He didnât want to do anything that would attract attention and he was already disappointed
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