Electronic Gags (18 page)

“The night is so dark,” Jennifer said.
“It’s like we are still in the cave.”

“Technically it’s no longer night. It’s
astronomical twilight. For most people it’s night but for astronomers this is
the time they can easily make some of their observations. Nautical and civil
twilight will follow and then day.”

“Are you trying to impress me with your
wisdom again?” Jennifer smiled. “You want to know something? It’s working.”

Day found them when they had covered a
distance of fifteen kilometers.

“If we maintain this pace, we will be in
the road in four hours,” Freddie said. “Here there is cell network. If the
police are relying on NASP, they won’t look for us here. Let’s mai―”

“Get down,” Jennifer whispered.

“What!” Michael said, dropping to the
wet ground.

She pointed at four men who were
surrounding a dead moose.

“Are they poachers?” Jennifer asked.

“I wouldn’t call them that,” Freddie
said. “They are the natives of District Ten and they have been living in
harmony with nature for thousands of years. They rely on moose and caribou for
food and sometimes for clothing.” The men were speaking in their mother tongue.
Freddie listened to the conversation. “They are Gwich’ins.”

“You speak their language?”

“A little. I also speak a bit of Inuit.”

“I’m impressed.”

“These men must not see us,” Freddie
said. “The police may question them.”

Freddie and Jennifer crawled under the
cover of grass and bushes, past the four men who were busy skinning the carcass.

Minutes later they came across a big
black bear. The bear slapped the ground with its paws and advanced towards them,
blowing its nose.

“I don’t think it will attack,” Freddie
said calmly. “It’s making a mock attack to scare us away. Black bears rarely
attack people.”

Jennifer raised the tranquillizer gun. “What
if this is the exception?” she said, squinting as she took aim.

As if it knew about guns, the bear
turned and went away. Perhaps he had once been shot or had seen people shooting
one of his own.

Suddenly,
rain began to pour down.

 “This is not good,” said the young cop
from the police IT department. “I have lost connection with the server.”

“What?” Sergeant Miller shouted.

“There is no internet connection. I
suspect there is no network coverage here.”

“That explains why we lost the
fugitives,” Sergeant Miller said.

“Let’s call for reinforcements,” suggested
Sergeant Hughes, Miller’s second-in-command, who was eager to go home.

“No,” Miller said firmly. Calling for
reinforcements was surrender. He was leading a squad of fifteen armed cops and
he wasn’t going to surrender to two unarmed fugitives. “Let’s look for their
tracks. “Akiak, you are the best tracker among us, take the lead.”

“Yes sir,” Akiak said with zeal. He was
an Inuit, a native of District Ten, and had hunted and tracked animals when he
was a boy. He scanned the ground for minutes before he said, “They went this
way.”

Akiak slowly led the cops, the cameramen
and the reporter to the cave.

“A cave!” Miller celebrated, cocking his
Brandon Ward P100, the American-made version of the Walther P99 semi-automatic
pistol. “They must be in there.”

Guns cocked, the cops entered the cave,
followed by the cameramen and the reporter.

“They sat here,” Akiak said, pointing at
ants that were carrying grains of cornflakes.

When the cave forked into two, the squad
split into two groups and walked down the cave till they reached dead ends.

“Let’s get out,” Sergeant Miller said.

Miller and his group walked back and
found the other group waiting for them at the point where the cave forked into
two.

“They only stayed here for the night,” Miller
said. “Let’s follow them.”

The cops sped out of the cave, the
cameramen and reporter in pursuit.

“Jesus!” Miller said, standing at the
mouth of the cave. “It’s raining.”

“The rain is washing away the fugitives’
tracks,” Akiak lamented.

“What do we do now?” Miller’s
second-in-command asked.

“Let’s
go back to the last point where we had cell network and call for
reinforcements.”

The vegetation thinned as Freddie and Jennifer
walked out of the wildlife refuge. The rain kept pounding them, cooling them.

“Give me the tranquillizer gun,” Freddie
said. “I don’t think we will need it anymore.” He shoved the dart gun into the
satchel. “It looks like a real gun and it will raise eyebrows when we meet
people.”

Jennifer pointed at cabins that looked
like boxes of matches from the distance. “Is that a village?”

“Yes. It’s a native village. Sometimes
wild animals come from the refuge and destroy the villagers’ crops and
livestock.”

 “I’m thirsty,” Jennifer said.

“Me too,” Freddie said, taking water out
of the satchel. “I feared I would look sissy if I said it first.”

“You don’t have to dehydrate yourself to
show me how tough you are,” she said, imagining how handsome he would be if he
shed fifteen kilos. “You are the toughest guy I have ever met, Freddie.”

He took a swig from his bottle. “Don’t
flatter me.”

“It’s true. Since we entered the wilderness,
you proved to be tougher than all self-styled tough guys I know.”

“I’m not tough,” Freddie said. “I only
have a strong will to live.”

“If that was true, you would have
skipped out of the Ten Districts. Instead, you are going back to District One
to face the Ward regime.” She squinted. “Hey did you put salt in this water?”

“Yes, I put just a little to help maintain
the salt balance in our bodies and prevent muscle cramps and other effects of
salt deficiency.”

Jennifer eyed him with unconcealed
admiration. Not only was he tough but he was also intelligent. She cursed fate
for giving her this man when she was in the shadow of death. If the two of them
survived, she wanted to continue seeing him.

“If you keep on looking at me like that,
I will start thinking I’m handsome,” he joked.

“Maybe you are.”

 “Enough talking,” he said. “Let’s get
going.”

They walked with renewed strength and
soon came to a railway line. 

Freddie knelt and put his ears on the
railway track. “There is a train coming,” he said. “But I can’t tell where it
is going. If it is going in the direction of the border it’s your train. If
it’s going in the opposite direction it’s mine.”

They sat down and waited for the train. About
twenty minutes later, a goods train appeared, going towards District One.

Freddie hugged her. “It makes me feel
bad to leave such a beautiful girl alone in a place like this.” He gave her the
satchel. “There is food and water in the bag.” He handed her the map. “The road
is less than three kilometers away. Good luck to you.”

“Goodbye.”

He hugged her again. “If they catch me,
I will tell them you were eaten by bears.”

“I will say the same if they catch me.”

When half of the goods train had passed,
Freddie gritted his teeth and sighed before jumped onto an empty coach and
pulled his bulky frame in. He didn’t look back because he didn’t want to worsen
his pain. He liked Jennifer but he had to go to District One to save Michael.

* * * * *

The security chiefs and security
ministers rose from their seats when President Brandon Ward, Vice President Butler
and Senior Minister Christopher Ward entered the boardroom.

“Good morning, members of the National
Security Committee of the Ten Districts of America,” the supreme leader said as
soon as his butt touched his chair.

“Good morning, Patriot President,”
chorused everyone in the room except the supreme leader’s bodyguard.

“Please sit down, patriots.”

They all lowered their backsides to their
chairs.

“Director-General Sullivan, can you tell
us how NASP is doing?” President Ward asked.

“Thank you, Patriot President,” the CIB
chief said, clasping his hands together. “The program is going on well and we
are yet to experience major problems. The only thing of note is that two people
simply went off the radar yesterday in the Brandon Ward Wildlife Refuge.” He was
glad the president hadn’t invited Professor Reed to the National Security
Committee. Today he would respond to questions about NASP and show the
president that he could run the program without Reed’s help.  “Our
investigations revealed that there is no cell network in about fifty square
kilometers of the wildlife refuge. If possible, Your Excellence, Ten Districts
Communications must install cell towers in that part of the bush. There is also
low cell tower concentration in some rural areas, which you will find in my
report.”

“Does this area without cellular
coverage stretch all the way to the border?” Brandon Ward asked.

“No, Your Excellence. There is at least fifteen
kilometers of cell network between the unconnected area and the border.”

President Brandon Ward sighed with
relief. “It means the fugitives didn’t skip out of the country. I will tell the
Minister of Information to tell TD Communications to put cell towers in that
part of the refuge.” He yawned. “I will read your report about cell tower coverage
in rural areas before I forward it to the Minister of Information.”

“Thank you, Patriot President,” the
director-general said.

“Anyone who has something to say can now
speak.”

“Thank you, Patriot President,” entered
the police commissioner. “The cops chasing the two fugitives have requested for
reinforcements.”

“If they fail to catch the fugitives
tomorrow, you can bring in reinforcements, commissioner,” the president said,
looking at his young brother. Christopher Ward had betted against the fugitives
surviving the next day and the supreme leader didn’t want to give him the upper
hand in their latest bet.

Jennifer threw
the satchel onto the goods train and jumped onto the train four carriages
behind Freddie. She climbed from one carriage to the next till she reached
Freddie’s carriage. He jumped when she touched him. His fear turned to joy when
he saw her. He had been thinking about her, regretting his decision to leave
her behind.

 “Welcome aboard, baby.” He put an arm
round her. “Truly speaking, I didn’t like the idea of leaving you behind.”

 “I won’t let you dump me so easily
after all we went through together,” she said, leaning against him.

 The rain intensified and they huddled
together for warmth.

“Next time we travel by train, we go
first class,” Freddie said, caressing her neck.

“This train is slow,” she complained.
“How long will it take us to reach District One?”

“By road it’s less than six hours. This
train will take us at least ten hours.”

“Where do we go when we arrive in District
One? To the maximum security prison?”

“I am not planning to go back to the
maximum security prison. We will go and hide in my cousin’s house in
Subdistrict Four and plan our next move.”

Jennifer sighed with relief.

After twenty-five minutes it stopped
raining, or the train came out of the rainy area. It took the goods train
almost eleven hours to get to District One. It was getting dark when they
jumped out of the train.

“We have no money for a taxi,” Freddie
said. “We will walk to my cousin’s house.”

“How far is it?”

“Not very far.”

In just over thirty minutes, they were
at Grandma Nicole’s house. Freddie took Jennifer to the basement.

Kyle jumped when he saw Freddie. “You
are alive!” he hugged him. “Aunt Melissa will be thrilled to see you.”

“I don’t want mom to see me right now,” Freddie
said, pushing Kyle away. “This is my friend, Jennifer.”

“Nice to know you, Jennifer.” Kyle
smiled. “You are way too beautiful to be my cousin’s friend. I’m Kyle.”

“Glad to meet you, Kyle.”

“Did they release you from jail?”

Freddie walked past his cousin. “Let’s
sit down and I will tell you everything.”

Freddie told Kyle everything that happened
from the day the CIB arrested him.

“So you removed your NASTs,” Kyle said
with wonder “Take off the casings of the NASTs so that I can believe you.”

Freddie and Jennifer pulled the casings
from their necks.

“Freddie, you have brains after all. I
used to think that you were only good at studying the dung of animals in your wildlife
refuge.” Kyle looked at Jennifer. “He isn’t the only one who has brains in the
family. I finished Super Death Race. Do you guys want to check it out?”