Freedom Incorporated

by Peter Tylee

  Rena nodded, hoping her colleagues had also heard. “Yes ma’am. It’s our little secret.”

  The Raven snatched his prize and returned it to his pocket before striding to the portals. He wasn’t about to hand over his trophy free, it still represented a million Credits. He permitted Michele to enter the code for the conference room and he popped from the booth.

  Jackie was last to portal from the room, leaving Rena and the other clerks to gossip about what had happened to their CEO. Jackie knew rumours would spread, they already had. And the thirst for more information was only imaginable by someone stranded without water in the desert.

  *

  “Mr Ellerman,” Jackie said, turning on as much fake-charm as she could summon. “Why don’t you shed some light on this little quandary for us?”

  He was cradling his head between his hands, his elbows resting firmly on the conference table. Even mumbling sent shockwaves of pain reverberating through his head. A whisper was the best he could muster. “We had a network breach.”

  That explained a lot.

  “How bad?” Jackie asked, fear tingling her innards. Echelon?

  “Pretty bad,” James admitted. “They breached all seven layers of our defence.”

  “Didn’t we recently spend billions of Credits to make that impossible?” Jackie’s irritation dripped thick on her words.

  “We did,” James said, already ashamed of his failure. He didn’t need anybody rubbing salt into his wounds. “But there are some people who have the capability to bypass anything.” He shrugged. “The people who designed the UG7 for instance.”

  “Are you suggesting Global Integrated Systems did this?” It was incredulous and Jackie’s tone mirrored her disbelief.

  James shook his head. “No. Just that, no matter how much money you spend, there are always people with the expertise to break in.” Reality sucks doesn’t it?“I plugged the inner layer to address the immediate danger and I have my team isolating the other breaches now.” His rasping whisper betrayed how much it had cost. “There wasn’t any damage to vital systems, Echelon’s fine. The only real mischief was an e-mail from Michele’s account to the Raven, telling him to apprehend Paul Savage.”

  “Mischief?” Jackie scalded him. “I’d say this is mischief enough.” She tapped a finger to the table, drilling into their nerves before continuing. “In future I want the message system locked down. Put alarms on it. Make it secure. Do whatever you have to do to make sure this kind of foul up can never happen again. Understood?”

  James nodded. “Yes.”

  “Good.” She turned to the Raven. “And I’m to understand you want a million Credits for apprehending a cripple who works in the same building as our security forces?”

  Put that way it sounded ludicrous. But asking why UniForce selected targets wasn’t part of the package. “Affirmative. One million.”

  “And it didn’t seem at all strange to you?” Jackie was getting flustered; her icy demeanour was having no effect on the bounty hunter. He looked like a gorilla, sitting with a metal rod where his spine should have been.

  He turned to look her in the eye, a feat of which James and Michele were incapable. Silently he wondered why his vision had led him astray by permitting him to kill an innocent man. “Many things UniForce requests appear strange and inefficient.”

  She bridled at the unmasked insult but wisely decided not to pursue it. “Does anyone have the faintest idea who launched the attack?” She motioned to the Raven. “I don’t mean the weapon itself, I want the hand that’s pulling the puppet’s strings.”

  It was the Raven’s turn to be offended, though his rigid cyborg mind stopped his human desire to flay the bitch.

  The deafening roar of silence overwhelmed her.

  “Figures.”

  “I have a suspect,” the Raven offered. He stepped out of character for long enough to assist his trading partners. “I was close to securing an apprehension in Australia when Dan Sutherland interfered. He returned my target to her apartment where two of her friends were waiting. I monitored their activity and detected a great deal of network traffic. In hindsight, the timing matches the pattern of a network hammer. They could have been hacking something.”

  “Dan Sutherland?”

  The Raven nodded, slowly, precisely.

  “You’re assuming the name Dan Sutherland means something to me.” She’d never heard of him, Jackie didn’t get thatinvolved in the clockwork of her company.

  “He’s another bounty-hunter,” Michele replied before the Raven could spoil her private game. She hoped Jackie would assume the Raven and Dan Sutherland weren’t top-level hunters and were therefore sharing a list legitimately.

  “I see,” Jackie said, not fooled. “Then why were two top-level hunters competing for the same target?”

  Nobody answered.

  “It’s not the first time,” the Raven said, shattering the conversation void. He was just as annoyed as Dan at having to share his lists and he was pleased he now had the opportunity to speak his mind.

  “But it will be the last,” Jackie assured him. “We’ll sort that out later.” She looked piercingly at Michele, wondering whether she really was a brainless bimbo. She knew it was possible that Michele had duped her with a clever façade. “Who were the others?”

  It was so fresh in the Raven’s mind that he didn’t need to retrieve the data from crystal-core. “Jennifer Margaret Cameron was the target. Her two companions are unchipped and go by multiple aliases. I believe their real names are Samantha Lee and David Coucke.”

  James raised his head from its protective cradle, immediately regretting it. “David Coucke?”

  The Raven nodded.

  “You recognise the name?” Jackie asked.

  James groaned through his pain. “Yeah, he’s a bit of a legend on the hacker circuit.”

  Jackie raised an eyebrow.

  “I hang out there because I need to know the latest tricks used on corporate networks,” James said defensively. “Echelon doesn’t pick them up because they’re not doing anything illegal. They play intellectual games to evolve security sophistication.” He wasn’t the only system administrator that hovered on the hacker circuit. According to a recent poll, giga-corporations employed 90 percent of the participants while the remainder were mostly trying to better their employment opportunities. Still, it was difficult to build an accurate picture when truthfully filling in the questionnaire could lead to incarceration.

  “Are you saying he could hack our network?” Jackie’s temper was quickly boiling to crisis point.

  James shook his head, looking doubtful. “I wouldn’t have thought so, definitely not alone. But he might’ve sourced help from others.”

  “Hmm…” Jackie murmured, lost in thought. She needed a way out of the debacle. There always was a way out, and she prided herself on finding solutions that suited everyone… or at the very least, solutions that suited her. She called it her ‘personal regression line’ and today it would suit most parties. “Mr Raven, you shan’t see a single Credit for the death of our beloved CEO.” She swallowed the bile rising to the back of her throat. “But,” – she severed his protest by holding up a warning finger – “I will personally double the kit to two million Credits if you apprehend all four.” She ticked them off on her fingers, “Sutherland, your original target, and her two accomplices.”

  Five-hundred thousand apiece. Or, technically, four-hundred thousand apiece – I apprehended Savage without pay.The temptation was too great for his cyborg brain. “I shall bring you their spines on a platter.” He pushed his chair from the conference table and stretched to his full height, towering over them. With one cautionary sweep of his black eyes, he strode away, bursting through the conference room doors with a flutter of his cloak.

  “What delightful charm,” Jackie drawled when they were alone. “Michele,” she said, stabbing her underling with a killing look. “Get Esteban in here. Now.”

  She sat with James
in uncomfortable silence while Michele flapped about, looking for her counterpart from the assassination branch.

  Images of Paul Savage’s grisly death were already haunting James. He’d tried phoning immediately after regaining consciousness but UniForce’s public figurehead had diverted all calls to voicemail – he didn’t like interruptions while practicing a speech. So James had shambled to the nearest portal as fast as his migraine would allow, but by then the Raven was already washing flecks of blood from his skin in the bathroom. James, hoping to avert a disaster, had burst into Paul’s office unannounced. There, horrified by the gore splattered across the room, he’d wondered whether things would have turned out differently if he’d sent an e-mail instead of standing up and damaging his implant. More terrifying was the prospect of arriving a minute sooner and catching the Raven in the act. Would he have killed me too? Would my head now be resting on the floor next to Paul’s?He’d never appreciated his neck more than he did right then and his thoughts turned to his beloved wife Susan and his bundle of joy, Lillian. They’re more important than this UniForce shit.James Patrick Ellerman was therefore moping in homesickness and considering his mortality when Michele returned with Esteban in tow.

  They sealed the doors behind them.

  “You’ve heard?” Jackie asked.

  Esteban nodded and occupied the seat the Raven had used. “Michele filled me in.”

  “I’m declaring a state of company emergency.” Jackie tapped a fingernail to the glass-coated table. “Do you understand what that means, ladies and gentlemen?”

  She saw three subdued nodding heads.

  “Esteban, I want you to contact your top assassin. Make five contracts. Find out who these people are and eliminate them. Get rid of them all: Dan Sutherland, Jennifer Cameron…” She snapped her fingers trying to recall the others.

  James helped, “David Coucke.”

  “Yes, thank you James. David Coucke and Samantha Lee.”

  “Who’s the fifth?” Esteban was using the computer built into the conference table to draft notes.

  “The Raven,” Jackie answered coldly. “Who did you think? Elvis? He’s too fucking dangerous to be running around with UniForce credentials. Sooner or later he’s going to do something we can’t cover up and that’s going to soil our good name with pig shit.”

  Esteban nodded, still typing.

  “Two million each,” Jackie authorised. “And five million for the cyborg.”

  If Esteban found the generosity of the contracts shocking, he made no show.

  “James!” His quiet moaning was irritating her. “What’s wrong with you today?”

  “I have a headache,” he explained as casually as he could. “I’ve been working on the breach since yesterday morning.”

  He shouldn’t have told her that, it just pissed her off even more. “Yesterday morning?And you didn’t think to inform me sooner?” Her thundering voice was punishment enough; she could see the pain echoing in his expression. “Lock it down! I don’t care if you have to do another all-nighter. You have my permission to authorise staff overtime if you must. Just get us secure!”

  He nodded mutely.

  “And find out more about this hacker, David Coucke. I humbly doubt he spent all that energy hacking our network just to flee after sending one e-mail. Pin him down, do you understand? I want to know where he is. I want to know what else he’s hacked. I want to know everything about him.”

  James nodded again, already mentally tendering his resignation. I’m not putting up with this shit.Plenty of other corporations wouldbe thrilled to accept a job application from him. Except ice-bitch here would make that impossible. He held no illusions about that. Jackie would ensure he never found work anywhere in the world if he ducked responsibility during a company emergency.

  “Now, Michele,” Jackie said in a softer tone. “Tell me about Dan Sutherland.”

  Michele visibly cringed. “I noticed a clerical error two days ago. We’ve been selling exclusive lists to both him and the Raven.”

  Very smooth.Esteban approved of her explanation and hoped Jackie would believe it. He thought there was a good chance, especially since it came from the beguiling Michele.

  “That’s not what I meant.” Jackie refined her question, “What information do we have on him? He’s a top-level hunter so he must be somewhat dangerous. He’s harbouring a target, is it possible he’s turned against us?” How pissed is he that you’ve been selling his liststo a cyborg?

  Michele ostentatiously displayed her mediocre keyboard skills while accessing the database for Sutherland’s file. Her fingernails scratched against the glass tabletop and made James wince, Jackie grimace, and Esteban scowl. “He broke the previous record reaching exclusive level – it only took him 68 days.” She read aloud the brief account of Dan’s sad life, the prose dry and unemotional.

  Jackie tilted her head and peered down her nose when Michele had finished. “Esteban, contract five million for him too.”

  Esteban nodded, hiding the fiendish glimmer in his eyes.

  “I’m disappointed in all of you,” Jackie said matter-of-factly.

  What an inspiring leader.James felt sick.

  “I don’t want any more network breaches. And I don’t want any more cyborgs working for us. Is that understood?”

  They nodded.

  “Scan the files and isolate the cyborgs. If they’re on active duty, retire them. If they protest, execute them. I’m charging you three to handle this situation. Quickly. Quietly. But I expect frequent updates.” Jackie stood, indicating that their impromptu meeting was over. She waited while the others scuttled from the room before also marching out.

  Now, for the shareholder meeting.She wondered how best to break the news. At least they won’t expect me to smile, she thought. A sombre backdrop suited her fine.

  Jackie did not intend to do Paul’s job for long. She just needed to find someone malleable enough to match her needs. But until then, I’ll have to do this public relations crap. She sighed. If you want it done right, do it your god-damned self.

  *

  Friday, September 17, 2066

  11:02 Andamooka, South Australia

  The sun was biting.

  Jen’s skin already stung from the abuse. She just knew it was going to start bubbling and peeling at any moment. They’d been trekking through the harsh South Australian desert since eight o’clock, when Dan had collected them from the Dusty Andamooka Inn. She squinted at him, cursing herself for forgetting her sunglasses. Boy, he must be tired.But Dan showed no outward signs of fatigue despite walking since six. How he’d covered so much ground so quickly was a mystery to Jen,whose overnight bag felt like a thousand tonnes of useless junk.

  Samantha and Cookie had barely spoken since Jen roused them from their lumpy, broken-spring bed. Energy conservation was high on their agenda. It was a high priority for Jen too, but she’d engaged Dan in conversation for the first quarter hour of their ordeal. In the end he’d orderedher to stop talking and save strength. He’d also chivalrously offered to carry her bag, though she’d refused. Now she was beginning to wonder why.

  “Here we are.” The strain in Dan’s voice betrayed the fatigue that the rest of his body didn’t show.

  “Where?” Cookie swept the horizon but saw nothing that reminded him of civilisation.

  “Home, sweet home.” Dan showed them to a flight of marble steps that descended into the ground.

  “Down there?” Samantha’s eyebrows shot up.

  “Uh-huh.” Dan nodded. “Didn’t you guys know? Half of Andamooka is built underground. It protects us from this intolerable heat and the chill of night. Earth is a wonderful insulator.”

  “How much of this is yours?” Samantha asked. There weren’t any fences. She distantly wonderedwhether they’d been walking past invisible houses for the past three hours.

  He shrugged. “Over to the main road, a few hundred metres that way,” – he waved to the east – “about a kilometre that way�
� – to the west – “and about two kilometres back from the road. Some orange poles designate the boundaries of local properties. We’ve never bothered with fences. The soil can’t hold crops anyway so it’d just be an expensive waste of time. Besides, this way the wildlife can come and go as it pleases, which is especially important for the great reds.”

  He did it again,Jen thought, wondering why she wasn’t used to it yet. He surprised me again. Who would’ve thought wildlife conservation would concern a bounty hunter? I thought only activists harped about stuff like that.

  Sweat was pouring off Cookie’s forehead and dripping onto the arid ground. He was ready to drop his computer and he was glad Dan had carried his duffel bag or he’d never have made the distance. “Can we go inside?”

  “Sure.” Dan skipped down the steps. “Careful, watch yourselves.”

  His front door was thick wood impregnated with the Vacuum Rubber, the best insulating material industrial scientists had manufactured since the health-hazard asbestos days. He ushered them in and invited them to dump their bags wherever they found space on the floor.

  It was cool inside, especially when stepping from the oven-like desert. The colours Dan had chosen were tranquil and the ambiance from his lighting soft. The lightsilluminated automatically when he unlocked the door. Thirty square metres of thermo-cell generators powered all his electrical appliances. He’d erected them at a place where the shape of his land radiated the heat to a perfect focal point, half a kilometre away. Thermo-cells were similar to solar cells except more efficient – they could generate 1,000 times the power under the right conditions. Dan had buried a batteryreservoir to store the excess electricity. It was big enough to meet his energy needs if the sun spontaneously switched off for three days.

  Jen noticed how spacious it was, not the cramped quarters she’d expected. Not a bad idea,she admitted reluctantly. Living underground saved space and minimised the human impact on the environment. She approved.