Freedom Incorporated (74 page)

Michele got silently to
her feet, too scared to voice her fears.

“
Get out of
here, both of you. Sutherland could be here any moment.”
I know he’s coming…
In
truth, Adrian’s demise amused him. It proved Dan was a worthy
adversary.
But I’m
better.
And he was looking forward to
proving that.

Michele nursed
her stinging cheek and scuttled from the room. Junior followed a
few paces later, finally leaving Esteban in peace. He sat in his
chair and resumed playing with his handgun.
Come on Sutherland, show your face… be the next person to
knock on my door.
He’d already carefully
considered the potential access points to his office. There were
two and he had them both covered. No matter where Dan showed up,
Esteban would have the perfect opportunity to riddle his skull with
bullets.
And then his colourful,
Craig-Murphy-novel past won’t matter a damn.

*

Michele
examined her cheek in the mirror and splashed soothing water over
her developing bruise.
Fuck you Esteban.
Nobody slaps me.
She stared at her
reflection, watching as the red patch turned darker.
Damn
. It was going to
require a thick layer of makeup to conceal properly.

I’ve had it
with you.
Michele may have possessed below
average intelligence, but she had cunning to make up for deficient
schooling and lack of mental aptitude. And cunning was all she
needed to concoct her plan. She leant closer to the mirror, stared
directly into her pupils, and wondered what mysteries lay in the
dark pools. She stood mesmerised for several minutes before
abruptly tearing her gaze away, her plan fully baked. She strode
through the hauntingly empty corridors and slammed her office door,
shutting herself off from the rest of the world. Then she logged
onto her computer and launched her accounting software.

He
underestimates me.

Esteban didn’t
think Michele knew how to transfer money from one account to
another, but she did.
He’ll
see.
She’d already set an account up to
receive the money. It was simple. She just clicked the transfer
button, selected the from-account, selected the to-account, and
confirmed that – yes – she did want to proceed. She double-checked
the numbers before clicking initiate and then carefully read the
generated report. The transfer was successful.

That’s my
half.
She wasn’t going to fall into the
greed trap, proving she had some basic intelligence that several
intellectuals lacked. Besides, the other half was bait to trap
Esteban. What was the point of sinking with the ship?
Dan’s going to kill him
anyway.
She had no doubt about that, she
just wanted to land on the winning side of the scuffle.
And that means…

She picked up the phone
and dialled.

“
Yes?”

“
Hi Jackie,
it’s Michele.”

That’s what
the display told me.
“What can I do for you
Michele?” She appreciated Michele’s body but would have to find
someone else if she wanted a platonic relationship.

“
I’ve got a
problem.”

Yeah, I know…
it’s called stupidity.
“What’s
that?”

“
It’s Esteban.
And Dan Sutherland. In fact, it’s the whole situation. I think we
need to talk.”

“
But you told
me-”

“
Yes I… uh,
wasn’t entirely forthcoming.”
I
lied.
Michele regretted that now. “I’m
sorry about that. Esteban wanted me to cover for him, but I think
he’s out of control.”

Jackie sighed into the
phone. “Okay, then we’d better schedule a meeting.”

“
How about
now?” Michele didn’t want to waste time, especially not with Dan
lurking somewhere, ready to snatch her from the shadows and send
her into the afterlife.

“
No, I’m in
the middle of something; it’ll have to wait for an hour.” Her day
was shaping into a nightmare of mammoth proportions. She had to
remind herself hourly that it
would
come to and end. Eventually
she’d be snug under her bedcovers and could put it all in the past,
but even that offered only trivial comfort.

Michele didn’t argue. If
Jackie said she was busy, then she was busy. At least she’d done
her reporting duty – Jackie now knew the situation was turning
sour.

“
Stay in your
office, I’ll call when I’m ready.” Jackie hung up.

Okay.
Michele’s kidneys were tingling
and her heart was fluttering at 180 beats per minute. It made her
feel faint and she willed herself to relax, taking several deep
breaths.
Now I wait.

*

Sunday
, September 1
9
, 2066

International Portal
Terminals

7:56
Sydney
,
Australia

“
Four minutes
till I’m off, man.” Chuck was just itching to bolt. He was tired,
hungry and in desperate need of a shower. Worst of all, he’d been
suppressing a bowel movement for the past 20 minutes and would soil
his underwear if he waited much longer. He couldn’t go early
though, not even to the men’s room. The supervisor would grumble
about dereliction of duties and dock him pay. If it’d been
possible, Chuck would’ve bogged earlier in the night. The
supervisor didn’t mind that, but leaving his post toward the end of
his shift would be a serious mistake.

No emotion
seeped from Dan’s stony mask. “That’s good.” It was the most
subdued statement he’d uttered all night and Chuck wondered what
weighed so heavily on his friend’s mind. But he knew better than to
ask, Dan had the
soldier-returning-from-a-particularly-bloody-battle look about him.
He felt dirty and tired, but 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.”