Freedom Incorporated (19 page)

Global
Integrated Systems advertised heavily and over five years lured
50,000 rich parents-to-be into the expensive pilot program.
Meanwhile, biologists and cybernetics experts were busy perfecting
grafting procedures by practicing
on
electronic bridges to assist spinal injury
patients to walk again. The operations were successful – so
successful that they quickly tackled something more difficult. They
moulded realistic synthetic eyes and mended optic nerves to give
the gift of sight to the sightless. Next, they perfected the
process of grafting human nerve tissue directly onto electronic
circuits. It wasn’t as hard as everybody had assumed. They were,
amazingly, on track to meet their obligations for Project
Smart-Stream. They had to wait 18 years between altering the
genetic code of their first human guinea pig and completing the
process. The subjects had to achieve maximum cranium growth before
they could undergo the operation.

So, on July
7
^th
2056,
a team of surgeons and engineers entered the operating theatre with
their first teenage subject. They bled the spinal fluid from their
subject’s cranium and integrated that generation’s most powerful
computer directly with his brain. A coma ensued and they postponed
all scheduled surgeries until they could ascertain the success of
the first operation.

Two days later
the test subject awoke, screaming in pain – not caused by the
surgeons’ scalpels but because of the overload on his brain. He
lived a week in agony until he learned how to control the impulses
generated by the Global Integrated System grafted inside his head.
The project leaders promptly deemed the operation a success and
proudly announced that the
ir patient was
recovering and that the
y’d learned a
lot.

So the butchering of
innocent teenagers continued, and the surgeons’ technique improved.
After a month they’d slashed the recovery time to three days. And
the cyborgs, manufactured in the fluorescent white of laboratory
conditions, blitzed their creators’ highest expectations and their
parents’ greatest hopes. While the combined mental muscle of Global
Integrated Systems’ top engineers had been unsuccessful in creating
true artificial intelligence, their genetics division had created
something even more horrifyingly impressive – enhanced human
intelligence.

The very public success
of the project led more timid teenagers with holes in their heads
to undergo the operation. And natural, unaltered teenagers looked
at their parents with hurt in their eyes. Occasionally the surgeons
and engineers had a failure and a young adult would die on the
operating table, but the media’s onslaught of positive feedback
easily drowned those cases. Besides, it was easy for Global
Integrated Systems to sweep the botched cases under the carpet.
Their official – law required – records showed no trace of
failure.

Before Project
Smart-Stream, genetic engineering had been relatively placid,
concentrating on curing previously incurable diseases. Geneticists
had discovered that manipulating human DNA too much in favour of
intelligence, looks, stamina or health created other, worse,
problems. The scattered test subjects were psychologically unstable
and their longevity was appalling – an average lifespan of 16 years
was not an achievement of which they could be proud. Mother Nature,
it appeared, took offence at humans tampering with forces they knew
nothing about.

But the genetic
modifications Global Integrated Systems had patented to prepare a
human head for one of their computers had hit the jackpot. All the
modified humans were stable – a miracle that entitled the
scientists and engineers to more than one rowdy cocktail
party.

New classes of
social segregation were in the throes of forming. By the year 2057,
employees were falling over themselves to seize a cyborg. And
cyborgs, despite their tender age, were infiltrating the most
prestigious areas of society. Some companies begged cyborgs to be
their CEO; others shunned them and resisted any penetration of
their ranks by what they termed ‘an abomination of God’s will’.
Still, the
cyborgs
flourished. Soon they held important positions across a broad
spectrum of society from police officers, managers and lawyers, to
doctors and engineers – themselves contributing to the evolution of
human technology and the cyborg forging process.

Yet in 2058, roughly two
years after the first successful implant, something went
wrong.

Very wrong.

Nobody could
identify exactly what happened, or why it happened. But the cyborgs
became unstable. Hundreds of them went
,
what the courts
termed
,
‘criminally
insane’. All operations ceased and squads in riot gear sealed the
cyborg factory
amid
the mantra of an angry mob ranting in front of the
hospital.

But by then,
14,389 successful cyborgs were walking amongst the population.
People were scared, and understandably so. By the end of that year,
40 percent of the cyborgs had gone insane and died by their own
hands
,
either in
clear-cut cases of suicide or in front-page incidents of horror. A
handful of rebellious cyborgs held the United States of America to
ransom by masterminding the takeover of the government. However,
their equations hadn’t factored that the true rulers of the country
weren’t in the government. Cold-hearted CEOs, the true masters of
the world, convened and decided to storm the
Whitehouse
,
which
had disastrous consequences. The cyborgs may have miscalculated but
they weren’t stupid, they’d prepared for that
contingency
.
I
t took three months to clean up the
havoc they wrecked just by pressing
mental-buttons
in the
microseconds
before nine-millimetre bullets
shredded their flesh and
punched
holes
through
the
ir
evil-spawning computers.

Fear
overwhelmed any benefits that society may have
deriv
ed
from the
justifiably eschewed cyborgs. Several religious organisations
established hotlines repeating, “We told you so!” to anyone brave
enough to phone. Some even tacked a graceless
, “
Welcome back,” on the end. But the
remaining cyborgs scattered,
keeping a low
profile and
blending with
society – a society that wanted
them dead.

The WEF held Global
Integrated Systems liable and forced them to pay restitution. So,
the giga-corporation set aside 0.04 percent of their net worth to
appease the population. Amazingly it was enough. But they didn’t
slow their research. Even as the Raven went about indiscriminately
slaughtering targets, the geneticists were trialling variations on
their original cyborg theme and the engineers were designing better
ways to shield the human brain from a computer’s electrical
impulses.

Now that Jen
knew what he was, thinking about the Raven sent
g
oose bumps crawling across her skin.
She diverted the conversation with a shiver, asking, “So how do you
know all this?”

Dan’s face looked
chiselled from stone.

“
How come you
were in the right place at the right time? And how do you know who
I
am
?” Jen’s
suspicion elevated to a new kind of dread.
What if he’s dragging me off to something worse than
death?
“Were you tracking him?” She gulped
and closed her eyes in revulsion, already knowing the answer. “Or
me?”

Dan opened his
mouth, but it was a long time before any words escaped. “I…” His
mind worked furiously, wondering how best to appease her,
especially since the truth was hurtful and ugly. He hadn’t
technically arrested her yet; she’d freely chosen to accompany
him.
But if she tries to escape, I’ll have
to arrest her formally.
It was the right
thing to do, he was sure of that.
The WEF
wants her. She must
have
done something wrong.
He tensed, his
attention shifting from the road to the girl sitting next to him.
“I work for UniForce.”

“
You’re a
bounty-hunter,” Jen sneered.

A tense silence settled
in the car.

“
So how much
am I worth?”

“
One hundred
thousand,” Dan said, deciding honesty was his most useful
tool.

“
Is that all?”
The Pacific Dollar had devaluated recently and it was far
from
flattering
.

“
Credits.”
North American Credits were worth nearly twice as much as Pacific
Dollars. It still wasn’t a fortune – it never was – but it was
better.

Great,
Jen’s mind leaked
sarcastically. Then it needled her with,
I
told you so.

“
Shut up,” she
whispered to her inner voices.

“
What?” Dan
asked, not quite catching whatever she’d muttered.

“
Nothing,” she
said, and then sulked in silence with arms folded and a pout on her
lips.

*

Samantha left
the store with a weight lifted from her shoulders after returning
the garment. Sure, she wanted it.
And
bigger breasts to go with it,
she thought.
But resisting those impulses was her first line of defence against
the capitalist fever that was sweeping the globe.
Jen’s right.
It steadied
her resolve.
But it still
sucks.
Because, no matter which way she
looked at it, she
wanted
those things, she
desired
them. She tried to
tell herself that unfulfilled desire built
character
,
but it
didn’t help much.

She strode back to their
rendezvous, feeling pleased with her self-control and wondering
whether Jen would want to celebrate with an ice cream. She doubted
it, but it was worth asking.

The
mess
in
front of
the clinic made her freeze.
Jen?

There was no
sign of her friend. Someone had torn the cushions from the bench
and strewn them on the floor. She peered closer and the glimmer of
glass caught her eye.
What
happened?

A squad of
security officers chose that moment to burst from the clinic and
scatter in predetermined directions. Samantha kept walking, trying
to look natural. Fear gripped her lungs and forced them full with a
hiss. She ordered herself to breathe
normally
and strolled as casually as
she could back into the crowd, but she had more than butterflies
fluttering in her stomach – they felt like small birds.

She reached
into her jeans and pressed the ‘next’ button to switch identity. A
disk swivelled in her little black box, shrouding the previous
microchip with titanium and exposing the following one. Now, if
anyone scanned her, she’d be someone else. She shivered when she
thought,
What if a chipping squad has
her?
Then she swallowed hard, abrading
herself for leaving Jen alone.

Samantha
wandered around the mall searching for Jen
,
but still hadn’t found her after two
hours. It was just too big. There were thousands of people, none of
who seemed the least bit interested in listening to her
quandary.
And she didn’t
dare ask whether anyone had seen what
had
happened.
That’d be too dangerous. There could be a chipping squad
around.
She tried to see whether anyone was
furtively using a handheld scanner but there was too much activity
to be sure.

Nothing looks
out of place.
She knew it was false
sanctuary – chipping squads fostered tranquillity, they needed it.
They scanned in silence, reading personal information without
consent and without
anybody
being aware of their presence.

So, feeling
disquieted but with nothing left to do, Samantha decided to return
home.
She’ll meet up with us there… if she
can.

*

The Raven
watched Jennifer’s friend, trailing her from a discreet distance.
His philosophy was simple – never abandon a target. He would keep
tracking her until he received notification that the contract was
no longer available.
What if Cameron
escapes? What if Sutherland doesn’t turn her in?
He knew they were farfetched, but his philosophy had paid off
in the past and it seemed like a decent rule to follow.

So, maybe it
meant wasting half a day, maybe it didn’t. It was impossible to
tell. As long as the contract was still valid, the Raven intended
to pursue the target
.
And the target was Jennifer Cameron. Her friend, Samantha, was
just the most likely way of finding her again. He’d watched them
for long enough to understand their friendship. Jennifer would make
contact with Samantha as soon as she
could,
if she were
able to
.