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

refused to take the next dose of ‘power-pills’ until he was ready to storm Esteban’s fort. And for that, I need help.

Chuck tagged Dan’s weapons and noticed one missing. “Where’s your ray-gun?”

He shrugged. “What does it matter?”

“The program’s gonna ask, that’s all.” Chuck jerked a thumb at his monitor. “It doesn’t like unaccounted weapons, especially on frequent travellers. If you’d been gone a month it wouldn’t care, but it’s only been a couple of hours.”

“Somebody stole it,” Dan replied, remembering how the PortaNet guards had drooled over his pulse-emitter. He hoped they’d enjoyed it; they’d probably all lose their jobs when someone walked into Adrian Miller’s office and found bloodstains and bullet holes, evidence of murder. They’ll identify the blood belongs to Adrian and quickly start asking questions. But Dan had been meticulously careful to ensure there was no forensic evidence linking him to the killing. He’d left no fingerprints or DNA and the guards would only be able to give a rough description. But physical descriptions meant little. The police would seek the owner of the microchip, Tedman Kennedy. And they won’t get far. He wondered whether anyone in the Guild would be human enough to deliver Adrian’s body to his family for a proper funeral.

“All right.” Chuck sighed, looked furtively over his shoulder, and squared the records in the system. “All taken care of.”

“Thanks Chuck.” He took his remaining weapons and stowed them in their usual places. “Get some rest for me too, okay?”

“You mean you’re still not finished?” Christopher asked, astonished. He wondered how much abuse Dan’s body could take; everyone had limits and Dan was no exception.

“Not yet.” Dan’s eyes hardened. “There’s just one more thing I have to do.”

“Okay.” Then Chuck lowered his voice and added, “When you come back, use gate eight. He’s a rookie so he won’t know your real name.”

“Rookie? Won’t that mean he’ll be paying more attention?” Dan’s eyebrows fused over the bridge of his nose.

“You’d think so, but between you, me, and the rest of the guys here, he’s not the sharpest tool in the shed.”

Dan nodded. “Got it.” His next stop was the portal station in the Parramatta business district, just one block from the police station. He found a public phone and dug Simon’s number from his wallet, as usual refraining from paying extra for the video component. Only lovers used video. Who wanted to see their colleagues at eight o’clock on a Sunday morning? It was unlikely to be pretty. Overall, videophone was more trouble than it was worth.

“Yeah?” He sounded groggy. Few people used their names when answering the telephone. It invited too much trouble from unleashed telemarketers. That was the problem with having a person’s every purchase itemised against his or her microchip: it was a statistician’s dream and a marketing department’s orgasm, but it made profiling too easy and shat on civil liberties.

“Simon? It’s Dan.”

“Oh hi mate.” He was obviously trying to clear his head. He’d only had four and a half hours sleep.

Guilt crowded Dan’s thoughts and he wished he didn’t need Simon’s help, but knew he’d fail without backup. “You busy today?”

“I told you to call me, didn’t I? What’s happened? Where are you?”

“I’m in Parramatta,” Dan replied cautiously, wondering whether even that was too much information to give over the telephone. “I’ll tell you what’s happened when you get here.”

“Okay, where’ll you be?”

“In the portal station,” Dan replied. “Out the front.”

“Give me 20 minutes.” He hung up, presumably to take a shower and shovel breakfast into his mouth.

Food was also high on Dan’s agenda and he paid for a small bag of biscuits from a nearby stall. The biscuits were the only quasi-breakfast product that the vendor hadn’t deep-fried and Dan unenthusiastically crunched the time away until Simon turned up.

“Hmm… they look wholesome.” Simon had chosen to wear jeans and a loose cotton shirt, less conspicuous than the suits he usually wore and more practical in combat. He’d also tied a warm grey training top around his waist in preparation for the frigid northern hemisphere if that’s where they were going.

“You want some?” Dan offered the bag.

“Hell no.” Simon held up his hands. “I’m trying to trim down, remember? That stuff wouldn’t do me any favours.”

Dan shrugged and tossed the remaining biscuits in the bin. “I killed Adrian Miller.” He’d practiced that statement so often in his head that it came out with callous indifference rather than the gravity he’d wanted. He’d been examining his feelings about it since pulling the trigger. It wasn’t the first time he’d shot someone, but in the past it’d always been in the heat of battle, never in cold blood. But this wasn’t cold blood; it was… warm blood. There’d been plenty of provocation; billions of men would’ve done the same under the circumstances. He’d expected to feel guilt, remorse, or… something. But he didn’t. He didn’t feel relief or liberation either, nor did he feel as if he’d served justice. Adrian’s death had affected him no more than if he’d squashed a bug under his boot. Dan had hoped for relief. Perhaps I need to kill the others first - Esteban Garcia Valdez and Frank Albert Hansen. Maybe then I’ll find relief. But then he remembered PortaNet. And if he somehow survived that, he still had to keep his promise to Hans. Peace, it seemed, was nowhere in sight.

“What happened?” Simon asked in a low voice, urging Dan to walk. It was safer that way; there was less chance somebody could eavesdrop.

“I got the portal information,” Dan said, trying to feel proud of something.

“Oh, the… uh… MAC address was it?” Simon had as much difficulty remembering the details as Dan.

“Yeah, but Adrian called it a SAT.” The emptiness in Dan’s stomach was slowly expanding to consume him. “Then I killed him.”

Simon approached the subject as tactfully as curiosity would allow. “He struggled?”

“No.” Dan frowned. “That’s the bizarre part, he was being helpful.”

“But he killed Katherine,” Simon prompted.

“Yeah.” The numbness was exacting an emotional toll. It left sadness in its wake and Dan knew it would affect his performance. “So I couldn’t let him live.”

Simon could see the damage it was causing Dan and shrank from the prospect of facing such a decision himself. “So now what?”

“Well…” Dan swept his dishevelled thoughts aside. If he were alive later, he’d sort through them then. “I expect there’ll be up to 20 men. They’re holding her in a place called the Guild, along with a number of other women.”

Simon whistled softly. That many? “Damn.”

“Yeah, damn,” Dan echoed. “And let’s not forget the portal ride is dicey.” He stopped, turned, and looked at Simon. “What are you going to do?”

“What do you mean?” he asked, suspicious that Dan was giving him the chance to pull out.

“Slime, you have a lot to live for. I don’t. It’s okay that I’m risking my life to save Jen - it’s my fault she’s there in the first place. But you don’t have to. In fact, I don’t think you should.” Then he mumbled, more to himself than anybody else, “It’s bloody suicide.”

“Are you trying to insult me?”

“No, I’m serious. It’s something you have to think about.”

“Well I have, damn it. And I told you to call me, didn’t I?” He waited for Dan to nod before saying, “So stop this nonsense. I’m in. Okay? All the way.” Simon remembered the times Dan had risked his life in order to save him. Back then, Dan had had plenty to live for, but it hadn’t stopped him from sticking his neck out - twice. Simon had been waiting five years to return the favour, and here was his chance. He certainly didn’t intend to shirk the opportunity to repay the debt.

“Okay.” Dan gulped a deep breath. “Then we’re going back to Holland.”

“Hang on.” Simon reeled him back with a hand on his shoulder. “Adrian had access to this place, right?”

Oh fuck… how am I going to explain this? Dan nodded, delaying the inevitable.

“Then you got his chip, right?” It curdled Simon’s blood to think about it, but the most sensible thing would’ve been for Dan to rip Adrian’s spine from his body.

“Actually, no. I sent him through the portal.”

“Where to?”

“To the Guild.” It sounded stupid now. Saving Adrian’s chip would’ve spared Simon the five percent risk of a collision when travelling through Hans’s portal.

“What?” Simon asked incredulously.

“Well, I was angry,” Dan said hesitantly, trying to explain something he didn’t understand himself. “So I stripped off his shirt and wrote ‘you’re next’ on his chest before sending him through.”

“Have I ever said you’re insane?”

“A couple of times, yes.”

“Well I’ll do it again - you’re fucking crazy Dan. Now they know we’re coming!”

“No, they know I’m coming. They think I’m alone. Besides, they knew I was coming already and now they can account for Adrian’s chip. If they thought he was dead but couldn’t find it they’d be even more alert.”

Simon snorted. “That doesn’t change the fact that you’re nuts.”

“Good,” Dan said, marching for the portals. “Because we’ve gotta be nuts to do this.”

*

Saturday, September 18, 2066

UniForce Headquarters

14:25 San Francisco, USA

Esteban slapped a hand on his desk. Of course! He pounced on his keyboard. If Dan was in the building then I should be able to… He accessed PortaNet’s database, lamenting the fact that Adrian’s back door would soon collapse. PortaNet would seal it as soon as they examined Adrian’s computer and discovered what he’d done. And that means things’ll get harder. He sighed in frustration. Back to the old fashioned way. Tracking somebody was so much easier when you could see where he or she was zapping through the portals.

His search didn’t take long. There! Only one Tedman Kennedy had portaled into UniForce headquarters that day. Now I know which one you are… you’re fucked. He reworked the grip on his pistol and fed the identity back through PortaNet’s database, intent on turning the hunt around. He was tired of waiting for Sutherland to turn up, plucking off his team one by one. Esteban wanted to hunt too. According to PortaNet, he was in Sydney. Parramatta to be exact. But while Esteban watched, Tedman Kennedy portaled to the Sydney International terminal. Where’re you going now, Sutherland?

He slouched into his chair, getting comfortable for the wait. He wasn’t going to budge until he was sure where Sutherland was heading. At least I have a clear advantage again. The tension slowly drained from his body and he relaxed for the first time since discovering Sutherland had switched identities.