Freedom Incorporated, Peter Tylee [literature books to read TXT] 📗

plastic plug. He had to keep dabbing it with ointment to stop infections and skin irritation, but since he’d had his operation, the implant geniuses had invented replaceable plugs that automatically seeped ointment into the surrounding tissue. With a special adaptor, the new plugs could recharge while the user was connecting to his or her computer. And that’s what James wanted - a replaceable, automatically recharging plug. A tiny, plastic, skin-coloured circle was the only visible sign that he had the implant. It had a miniature plastic cover that stopped dust and grit from getting into the hole. Whenever he inserted the leads, the cover retracted and the finely engineered wires made contact with their reciprocal pairs inside his skull, completing his connection to the computer. The doctors had refined the procedure to eliminate most of the training time, though James recalled that he’d been clumsy at the beginning. He’d accidentally ordered the computer to type ‘shit’ into more than one business e-mail. It was like any brain function, he needed to practice if he wanted to be perfect.

Two types of implants were available: input for replacing the keyboard, and input/output for replacing the keyboard and monitor. Since UniForce was paying and therefore money was no object, James had opted for the latter. Ever since, he’d enjoyed boundless computer freedom, piping images and ideas directly into his mind, ordered there by mental commands.

He snorted.

The blip itched his mind again. Damn. He had to admit the hacker was good. Pity he’s not working for us. Maybe then I could get some sleep. He couldn’t follow his thoughts through the wires like a cyborg; he hadn’t completely integrated his mind with a machine. He could only send commands and wait for responses. But it was an infinite improvement over a time-wasting keyboard and monitor combination. Tonight he was using both. His fingers tapped away at his favourite DataHand Qwerty. It was the tactile model, which pissed off his colleagues even more than his incessant snorting because of the constant clackety-clack when he typed. It was little wonder management pushed for implants and silent keyboards. But nobody else was around at three in the morning so he was indulging himself, enjoying the feel of his keyboard for old times’ sake.

Everything appeared normal. But he knew better than to trust appearances, which was why UniForce had handed him the sought-after position of information technology co-ordinator. James didn’t take chances. Somebody was there, inside UniForce’s electronic defences, and he was gong to find out whom.

*

Thursday, September 16, 2066

23:21 Tweed Heads, Australia

“Oh fuck!” It started Cookie on a string of curses that ended in a climactic half-scream.

“What is it?” Jen’s asked, concerned and fretful.

Cookie’s fingers were a flurry of action. “Somebody knows I’m here.”

They flocked to his side despite being unable to fathom what was happening on his screen. A red cursor was flashing on an application that had ‘detection bot’ written at the top. It was a custom application, Cookie had written it himself.

A bead of sweat rolled off his forehead and trickled down his chin, at which point Samantha noticed it and dabbed it away with a tissue. “I’ve triggered some kind of alarm.” A scowl imprinted itself on the previously blank mould of his face. “I wouldn’t have the foggiest fuck of a clue where, or even when.” He scrolled through his activity log for the past few hours, shaking his head at each entry. “I haven’t done anything recently that would’ve tipped them off.” That was a particularly unnerving thought. “They could’ve been observing us for a while.”

“Can they track us?” Jen asked, tearing her eyes from the screen to look at Cookie.

He shook his head. “They haven’t tried, or if they have they didn’t get far because they didn’t trip the alarm on my tracking app.”

Jen hoped he knew what he was talking about. “What can we do?”

“Nothing.” Cookie shook his head irritably, trying to give 100 percent of his brain’s processing power to the problem. “Just leave me in peace for a while.”

They backed off respectfully, leaving the genius to work amid a muttering of curses.

Samantha and Jen retreated to the kitchen where they whispered in low voices, mostly about Dan. Samantha thought he was cute and was trying to prise any juicy details Jen might’ve left out of her official tale - such as why she hadn’t come home wearing her own clothes and why she wasn’t wearing a bra under her stretched white top. Dan knew they were talking about him but refused to leave the living room. He scoured the neighbourhood from the balcony windows, glad the moon had risen. It shone like a floodlight.

“Can’t you just drop it?” Jen whispered irritably, not in the mood to blather about the man who’d saved her life.

“You don’t think he’s cute?”

Jen answered with silence.

“That means yes,” Samantha said, chuckled softly. “So what’s the problem? It sounds like you’ve already cleared your first date.”

Yeah, and it was a real killer. Jen caught herself staring across the kitchen bench at Dan, her bounty hunter, who was prowling like a caged tiger and steadily wearing a track into the carpet. He is kind of cute. It was the first time she’d permitted herself to admire him in that way, in any way for that matter. She couldn’t explain the animosity she had for him. It must be what he represents, she mused. But hasn’t he now proven that he doesn’t stand for UniForce? I’d be dead or in chains if he did. Her dreamy expression betrayed her distant thoughts, but Dan snapped her from her daze when he swivelled in her direction and their eyes met. Jen hastily broke contact and looked at the linoleum floor.

Samantha saw it happen and was greatly amused. “Why don’t you just go and talk to him? You haven’t spoken more than three words to each other since you got back.”

Jen shrugged, not understanding it herself. It didn’t seem appropriate to gripe ‘he started it’.

“Go on. You know you want to.” Samantha knew she could cajole Jen into action; she knew her vulnerabilities. “What’ve you got to lose?”

How about our freedom? She wasn’t willing to risk such high stakes. But then, she thought, he’s had the chance to take that from us already. “Okay.”

“You want the usual outlet?”

“What do you think?” she replied rhetorically. They were referring to a predetermined signal Jen would give if she wanted Samantha to save her from the conversation. When - if - it came, Samantha would rescue her by offering something benign such as coffee or biscuits and steer the conversation back into safe waters. Their signal was a sneeze since they could both fake authentic-sounding sneezes at will.

She took a deep breath, steadied herself, and preparing for what she thought may turn into a battle. With a precisely timed stroll, she cornered Dan as far as possible away from Cookie. Not that Cookie would bother eavesdropping. He was engrossed in his hack, trying to remain undetected behind UniForce lines.

“I wanted to thank you,” Jen started uneasily.

“You’ve already done that, remember?” Dan replied, holding her gaze until she looked away again.

It surprised him when she rallied her nerve and looked back into his eyes, and she surprised him more by holding his gaze for the remainder of the conversation. “I meant, thank you for helping us.”

Dan smiled cynically. “You should save that until I’ve actually done something.”

“Okay, can I thank you for trying to help us then?”

“You’re welcome.” Dan’s ensuing smile eased the tension and Jen started to relax, just a fraction.

“I noticed your enthusiasm for accessing the UniForce network.” It sounded like an accusation, though that was not how she intended it. “What do you expect to find?”

Dan carefully guarded his reply, saying, “You asked me whether a company has ever fucked me over.”

“Yes, I remember.”

“Well the biggest fuck-over of all was from UniForce, and if he” - he pointed at Cookie - “can get me inside their network, I think I can find the proof I would need to correct it.”

Jen nodded, pensively.

“Crippling Echelon won’t do you any good you know.”

It was the most unexpected thing she could have heard. “What? Why do you say that?”

“Don’t you see?” Dan sighed heavily. He felt more exhausted than ever in the presence of such youthful innocence. “Okay, so imagine you breach UniForce’s network. Then assume Cookie finds a way to pull the plug on Echelon. Both are tall orders, but for the sake of argument, we’ll presume he can achieve the impossible. Then-”

“I’d prefer improbable,” Jen snapped. “Nothing’s impossible. Impossible is a word people use until someone else does what they can’t imagine.”

Dan blinked at her. “Cute. Okay, improbable, better?”

She nodded.

“So Echelon’s down and you can send messages without UniForce listening. The problem is - nobody else will be listening either. Look outside, Jen. Look around you… people are happy. People haven’t been this happy for decades. I don’t think they want to return to the chaos of times past.”

His logic was an affront to everything she believed and brought the bile to the back of her throat. “That’s crap. You’re the one who should open your eyes and take a look around. People aren’t happy, they’re asleep. They’re hypnotised into following exactly what the companies want. We’re like a race of robots marching in step. And do you know what happens when someone misses a beat? UniForce drags them away from this army-of-the-damned and flogs them to death as an example to keep the others firmly under control.”

He laughed. “Do you really believe this is all part of some diabolical scheme to beat humanity into submission?”

She held his gaze despite her mounting need to look away. “Yes.”

“Do you honestly believe things would be better with the return of activism? Do you really think it would be good to ‘wake’ these people as you put it?”

“You missed the point. That’s not what we’re about. We want a world where people are free to choose. At the moment we’re not.”

And that struck a chord inside Dan unlike any of her other arguments. It planted a seed that had the potential to germinate and flourish into a tree that might one day bear fruit of its own. He wasn’t sure how to balance the conflicting points of view and he envied Jen’s resoluteness. She knew exactly what she stood for and had the courage to do something about it. Am I free? The silence stretched heavily on while he thought about it. No, not free. I’m free to do whatever I want within the system, but the system itself is restrictive. Then a voice came to battle for the doctrine of society. But rules are the platform of civilization. Without them, we have chaos. This set of rules permits peace, which is especially important with the planet so overcrowded. Dan couldn’t draw a conclusion to the debate raging in his mind. Not tonight. Possibly never. And that made him unpredictable. Capable of digesting both sides of the argument, he could act on behalf of either the ruling corporations or the downtrodden protestors.

But the quandary left one very important question begging: Am I really doing society a favour as a bounty hunter? His inner flame of hatred burned and he resented whatever spiteful force kept placing him in these situations. Or am I just a prop for corrupt companies? Jen and her band of wishful warriors, classified as activists - as terrorists! - were fighting oppression. They aspired to free the world of… Of what? Dan didn’t know anymore. He was too confused to arrange his thoughts into a coherent stream. But then, he didn’t have to. His