Freedom Incorporated (42 page)

“
Come now
children,” James said, interrupting with a poorly chosen set of
words that nearly earned him a torn ear.

“
What?”
Esteban spun to face him. “You’d better have good news,
Poindexter.”

“
And I do.”
James smiled deliriously. “I’ve decoded the Raven’s
thoughts.”

“
And?” Esteban
still wasn’t impressed
,
though some news was better than no news.

“
He’s in
Australia,” James continued translating, hoping the Raven wouldn’t
detect his parasitic leech-like program. “And he’s following Dan
Sutherland’s trail north from Tweed Heads.”

“
So?” Esteban
shook James by the shoulders. “Where the fuck are they?”

“
He doesn’t
know.”

Esteban’s lungs exploded
with a sigh, which he emphasised by throwing his arms into the air.
“All that work and you still know squat.” He smiled sarcastically.
“Fuck you. And fuck you too Michele. Fuck you both! You can sit
here and rot for all I care.”

“
Where’re you
going?” James frowned, irritated that someone was leaving. He
wanted to leave too.
But you don’t see me
leaving, do you?

“
I’m tired of
waiting for you to pull your head out of your arse.” He stabbed
them with a look of pure repulsion. “I’m going to find him myself.”
He slammed the door on his way out and it vibrated the walls,
causing one of James’s carefully hung paintings to fall to the
floor.

James snorted. “It’s all
fun and games until someone loses an e-mail.”

“
What?”
Michele didn’t understand.

“
Nothing.” He
sighed and returned his attention to the Raven’s thoughts. It was
fascinating to see the world through another man’s eyes.

*

“
Miller
speaking.” He failed to keep the boredom from his voice.

“
It’s me,
Esteban.” He was using an internal phone that hooked directly into
one of the few exchanges that bypassed Echelon. It was safe to
talk.
At least,
that’s what James had told him. “I need to access your
database.”

The boredom changed to
nervousness. “Uh, you already have it.”

“
Not that
one,” Esteban snapped. “The other one. The one nobody knows
about.”

“
Is this line
safe?”

“
Do you think
I’d be dumb enough to say this if it wasn’t?”

Silence.

“
Did Junior
call you?” Esteban asked.

Adrian nodded
into his receiver
but
it wasn’t a videophone
so
the gesture didn’t transmit. “Yeah, he called. I
heard you have a problem.”

“
I’ll need
your help.”

Adrian sighed. “He said
that too. When?”

“
Soon.”
Esteban shrugged, another useless gesture. “I don’t know where they
are yet, that’s why I need your database.”

“
Okay, okay.
I’ll rout a session to your terminal in
the
Guild
.” Adrian sounded annoyed; he didn’t
like sticking his neck out so far, not even for his
protector.

A wicked smile swelled
through Esteban’s lips and edged into his tone. “Thanks man, I owe
you.” But he didn’t really believe that.

“
Just don’t do
anything stupid in there, okay?”

Esteban grunted.
“Me?”

The line clicked
dead.

*

He tapped an
annoyed finger to the screen, fatigue and boredom
w
e
aring on his
patience. It took two hours before he saw the pattern that should
have leapt out immediately.
That’s
unusual.
He did a sweep of past records to
confirm his suspicion before smelling victory. Esteban jotted down
the portal number and licked his lips,
selecting
Junior
from the speed-dial
on his
mobile.

“
Yeah?”

“
I found him.”
Esteban’s voice was husky with greed. “Tell Adrian. We’re taking a
trip to South Australia.”

*

Saturday, September 18,
2066

13:18 Andamooka, South
Australia

A chill tingled in Dan’s
spine, though didn’t understand why. It caught him unprepared and
he lost his train of thought mid-sentence. He coughed to cover his
discomfort. “Uh, what was I saying?” He had the vague impression it
was important.

Jen caught the undertones
and frowned. “What’s wrong?”

“
Nothing,
just… felt a little chill, that’s all.” Dan brushed it aside even
though his instincts were warning him…
Of
what? We’re safe here.
He couldn’t think of
a rational reason for his sudden uneasiness and chalked it up to
lack of sleep.

Jen felt the onset of a
headache and wondered whether fresh air would clear her mind. “You
wanna go for a walk?”

“
You mean
outside?”

Jen nodded. “Uh, yeah,
that’s what I had in mind.”

“
Okay,” he
agreed. “You two
wanna
come?”

Samantha looked tempted
but refused to leave Cookie’s side. “Only if he comes
too.”

Cookie clucked his
tongue, perplexed by the defensive array UniForce administrators
were erecting around Echelon. It was starting to fry his brain, he
was sure. The sensible part of his mind begged him to take a break
but the stubborn part ordered him to think about the problem from a
different angle. “No, I’m too close. I’ll take a walk after I’ve
cracked the nut.”

They all doubted
it.

“
Just us
then,” Jen said, secretly glad they’d be alone. She surprised
herself and marvelled,
Wasn’t it just this
morning I felt uncomfortable around him?
The
walk would be their first opportunity to talk privately since
breakfast. She hadn’t told the others that she’d invited Dan to
vanish with them.
But there’s no sense
telling them if he doesn’t want to come,
she
rationalised.
I’ll break the news if he
accepts.
“You can show me your
property.”

“
All right,
not that there’s much to see.” First he went to his bedroom,
retrieved a pair of Katherine’s sunglasses from the bedside table,
and tossed them to Jen. “Here, you’ll need these.”

She gratefully accepted
and followed his lead into the oven-like conditions
above.

The heat was
blistering. She saw waves of it shimmering from the red earth,
baking everything to a crisp. The scanty nearby gumtrees were
scorched and brittle, their leaves incapable of withstanding the
extreme temperatures despite nature’s
fine
engineering. In the distance she
saw a fleshy plant that looked like a cactus, its thorny spines the
only
barrier
between the heat-exhausted animals and its succulent
juices.

“
It’s a
desert.” Jen felt the heat sear her lungs with every breath,
choking her bronchiales dry.

“
Welcome to
the driest state in Australia.” Dan smiled and swept his arms
around the horizon. “This is opal country, you know.”

“
Really?” Jen
couldn’t say anything else; the heat was sapping her
strength.

“
My house was
originally an opal mine. I widened the shaft and excavated the
broader passages to accommodate a house.” He shielded his eyes from
the overhead sun despite the protection afforded by his sunglasses.
“I boarded up some tunnels. I had an engineer assess their
stability and he said he wouldn’t want his children sleeping
in them
. No sense tempting
fate, right? Being trapped in an old mine when the roof caves in
isn’t my idea of a nice way to go.”

Jen shivered despite the
heat. “No.”

They strolled toward the
array of thermo-cells, the only real point of interest on Dan’s
otherwise barren land.

“
I like the
desert,” he admitted. “People think it
’
s dead
,
but it
’
s not.”

She was sure the soles of
her shoes were melting and snuck a quick look back at the entrance
to Dan’s burrow, half expecting to see black footprints of molten
rubber marking her passage.

“
It’s
especially beautiful at dusk and dawn.” He was squinting behind his
plastic frames, sensing her discomfort in the heat. The sweat was
evaporating from his skin faster than it could cool him and, five
minutes after setting foot outside, he felt a brutal sunburn
beginning. And Dan’s skin was several shades darker than Jen’s so
she’d fry like a chip if she stayed out longer than
fifteen
minutes. “Do you
want to come back when it’s cooler?”

She was
tempted; her head reeled from the overheated blood pounding
at
her temples. Jen had
never experienced heatstroke and didn’t recognise the preliminary
signs. But she firmly shook her head. “No, I want to see the rest
of your property.”

Dan laughed.
“This is it, there’s nothing more to see.” They were halfway to the
thermo-cells. “There’re some rocks over there, a cluster of trees
in that direction, and some saltpans that came to the surface a
decade ago when the watertable rose.
They’re
near the
thermo-cells
.”

“
Saltpans? Are
they still there?”

Dan nodded.
“Sure.”

“
Can I
see?”

He motioned with his
hand, indicating that she was welcome to keep walking. “You see
that shimmer?” He was pointing.

Jen frowned. “I see
heatwaves everywhere.”

“
Well
the
densest
patch
is where it’s radiating off the salt. It’s a couple of centimetres
thick
in
the
worst areas
.”

They reached the crusted
salt and she knelt, running a finger across the rough surface. Dan
walked onto it, cracking it as he went. “It was a lot worse a few
years ago. It’s slowly seeping back into the ground.”

Jen muttered under her
breath, “So much for responsible irrigation.” They were problems
that had devastated much of rural Australia: water salinity and the
rising watertable. Due to deforestation, irresponsible land
management, and utter lack of conservation, the epidemic had taken
decades of innovative engineering to overcome.

Dan looked at
her and thought about the feelings stirring in his chest.
Are they fatal?
They made
him feel guilty and he wished they’d stop. The sad truth was that
life had been easier before he’d apprehended Jen.
Or, failed to apprehend her,
he reminded himself sullenly.
Maybe
that was a mistake?
He tried to imagine the
consequences of his choice but the future was blurry, murky, and in
places black. Jen couldn’t be right
.
According to a poll he’d found on the ‘net,
less than 0.1 percent of respondents were dissatisfied with
the world and the WEF.
So maybe
the world
really is on
track
.
He doubted
it, but the world’s problems weren’t something activism could fix.
Besides, what was best for the majority was best for the species
wasn’t it?
Does that mean Jen doesn’t
deserve a social slot? How do you balance individual freedom with
majority rule? Is she an outcast?
A gaggle
of questions bounced inside his mind, none of which he could
answer.

Jen snapped a
corner off
the white slab
and touched it to her tongue
,
as though she couldn’t quite believe
it was salt. “There’s so much.”

He nodded, absorbed by
his inner thoughts. Rising above the mob of discomforting questions
was one thing he knew for certain, and he had to let her know.
“Jen…”

She stood to look at
him.

Dan brushed his fingers
tenderly across her chin. “I can’t come with you.”

“
Why?” Jen
felt confused and ashamed. But her feelings quickly turned to
anger, which she directed at herself.
How
could I be so stupid?
She was furious that
she’d made herself vulnerable.
A bounty
hunter of all people! Oh my God, how
di
d that happen?
Still, she needed an answer.

“
It’s too
soon.” He braved a smile that he didn’t quite feel capable of
giving. “After Katherine I mean.”

It stung. Jen
felt a pang in her stomach, which quickly moved toward her chest.
Most of all she felt lost, like an autumn leaf at the mercy of a
chaotic and cruel wind. She would have sooner melted than admit it,
but she’d been using Dan as her anchor. And now he’d cast her
adrift.
It’s too soon.
An empty chasm settled where hope had once been. But she
defied her feelings, forced a smile, and reached up to touch him on
the shoulder. “It’s okay, I understand.”