Freedom Incorporated

by Peter Tylee

  “You want the tour?”

  “Yeah, thanks,” Jen said, speaking for herself. The others had crashed onto the first couch they’d found and were politely declining the offer with exhausted waves.

  He steered her from room to room, playing at tour guide in a way that made her smile and occasionally even laugh. Jen could clearly see that no woman had lived in the house for a long time. The arrangements were neatand efficiently, but simply not the way a woman would put things. It made her wonder who the beautiful woman in the photographs on Dan’s mantle was. She stood transfixed by them while Dan uncomfortably mumbled something about the fireplace beneath and hurried her toward the next room. She was excruciatingly curious, but too polite to ask. He’d been smiling in those photographs, a warm smile that radiated happiness – nothing like the twisted smirks and joyless curling of his lips that she’d seen from him. She looked happy too. Whoever ‘she’ is. His wife perhaps?Jen noticedDan’s wedding band for the first time. Hmm… it must be. Another marriage that turned sour and ended in divorce.

  “And this shall be your chamber.” Dan waved her into the final room with a flourish of his hands.

  It wasn’t a large room, but neither was it small. A comfortable bed occupied the middle and a recessed wardrobe fit snugly into one corner. He’d obviously spent quite a bit of money on the digital window that covered much of the far wall. With bevelled edges, just like a real window, it displayed a magical scene of lush fronds and ferns. The foliage swayed with a simulated breeze and the sun filtered through a canopy of tall gumtrees.

  “It’s from the Daintree,” Dan explained. “Before it was destroyed.”

  “It’s real?” Jen staggered forward, wishing she could open the glass and step through to smell the aroma of damp forest. She couldn’t believe such a landscape had ever existed. It was too perfect. Surely it had come from an overpaid animator’s imagination.

  “It was real. The picture anyway. The processor’s creating the breeze and using an algorithm to calculate the movement of the sun. It depicts true light angles and absorption rates on the various textures. I believe you can watch the sun set through this window.” Dan pressed a button on a wall-mounted control panel and the sun arced gracefully across the sky, lowering over a digitally created horizon with an orgy of pinks, oranges and reds.

  Jen was mesmerised. She’d seen digital windows before but she’d never experienced one so intimately. It felt as though she was gazing at a rainforest rather than a few coloured pixels on a screen.

  Dan reset the sun and it leapt back to its 11 o’clock position. “If you watch for long enough you’ll see a flock of lorikeets and maybe a kangaroo. I think one of them has a joey.” He pressed another button and the scene shifted. “Or, if you get bored, you can try an underwater landscape.” A myriad of colourful coral sprung to life in a vibrant aquarium that teemed with fish. “But they’re the only two I have.”

  “I preferred the rainforest.”

  He reversed the selection and the rainforest came back.

  “Is this my bedroom next door?” Samantha asked, popping her head into the room.

  “Yeah, that’s it,” Dan replied. “The one with the double bed.”

  “Your digital windows are cool,” Samantha said offhandedly. But she was too exhausted to do anything but sleep. “I’m gonna catch some z’s.”

  “Cookie too?” Jen asked.

  “Nope.” Samantha shook her head. “He found Dan’s study and he’s hooking up from there. I think he wants to check his hack.” Samantha had spent the previous night restlessly tossing and turning on a lumpy mattress. Cookie, however, had been blissfully unaware of her torment and recharged his batteries for a glorious seven hours. He was tired from the walk but was ready to leap back into his attack on the UniForce network.

  “Uh, I think I should supervise.” Dan cringed at the thought of someone poking around his computers. He couldn’t remember whether he’d shut them down and there was a mound of sensitive information there.

  He heard lurid swearing before entering the study. Cookie was hunching over his keyboard, uncomfortable in the chair moulded for Dan’s heftier frame. His eyes flicked left and right across the monitor, absorbing everything that had happened in the intermission. Inwardly he was kicking himself for being so carelessly stupid.

  “What’s wrong?” Jen entered behind Dan.

  Cookie slammed the enter-key five, ten, twelve times before answering. “The fuckers have… they’ve… Oh fuck. Hang on a second.”

  They waited with baited breath, wondering what had happened. It was torture. Jen and Dan were both imagining horrors in the unbearable silence.

  Shall I tell them?The fragment of Cookie’s mind that he hadn’t dedicated to the hack was wrestling with that question. One of hismaintenance applications had failed to cycle fast enough and his tunnel had partially collapsed as a result. It was impossible for him to say with any degree of certainty whether UniForce had discovered their location. But one thing was for sure – someone had plugged his hole. It could have been a UG7 protection bot or it could have been the system administrator. He sniggered. You didn’t think I’d only make one entrance, did you?He’d had three. Now one had been sealed. Two were still serviceable. But UniForce definitely now knew of the security infraction, and that made him uncomfortable. Now he was pitting himself against all of UniForce’s information technology staff. It left him light headed.

  “They’ve sealed one of my entrances.” Cookie tried to sound calm but the tremor in his voice gave him away.

  “So they know we’re here?”

  “Yes,” Cookie confirmed. “Before, I was unsure. Now I know that they definitely know.”

  “So they’ll throw everything against us,” Jen concluded.

  “That would be the logical conclusion, yes.” Cookie admitted forlornly. It was at times like these that he really appreciated Samantha stroking his body. It calmed him down, making it easier to think rationally. But he’d never begrudge her sleep. He knew she’d spent a restless night in their stuffy little room at the Dusty Andamooka Inn.

  “Can they track us?” Dan asked the critical question, perfectly prepared to rip the cables from the wall if they could.

  Cookie checked his other applications, trying to ascertain the answer himself. His tracking application had failed to respond so he’d restarted it, which was why he had no way of knowing whether UniForce had pinneddown their location. It meant little for the time they’d spent in Tweed Heads since they’d abandoned that post. But we’ve been exposed for– he checked his watch – five minutes here.

  The application restarted with a green light, which meant there were no feelers hunting them through the wires. At least, notnow. And nobody could complete a trace in five minutes… right?“We’re safe. And if they try a trace we’ll hear about it.” He turned the volume on Dan’s speakers to maximum, just to be sure. It was a reasonable assumption, Cookie thought. The risk to their safety was so miniscule that it wasn’t worth worrying the others over.

  No. Nobody could complete a trace in less than five minutes.

  Dan would have seen things differently, had he known. But he made decisions based upon the information available and he didn’t know Cookie was keeping him in the dark. “I hope you’re right.” He shivered at the potential consequences if something went wrong.

  “Hey, I wasn’t the one who said ‘sick em’ to a cyborg and pointed at the UniForce CEO. I’d say that was a big risk to take!”

  Dan’s overconfidence flowed through his words and posture. “He won’t do it.”

  “I hope you’re right,” Cookie said, echoing Dan’s earlier remark.

  “Okay, so we’re back in business,” Jen said, easing the tension before their testosterone could boil over. A big U-shaped desk filled most of Dan’s study. Cookie had set his computer up on the downward stroke of the U, so Jen perched on the other side to watch over his shoulder. “On to Echelon then?”

  Cookie lingered in
silence while he finished the maintenance on his tunnel.His applications weren’t clever enough to do it without assistance. He’d been thinking of upgrading them with a genetic evolution algorithm but he’d read countless reports of thatbackfiring.Someapplications wound up dumber than they startedand now wasn’t a good moment to run the gauntlet of cutting edge programming.He needed stability and reliability more than brainy applications.

  Something interesting caught his attention while he was rummaging around the UniForce network. “Hey, look at this.”

  The others leant closer.

  “It’s a repository of business decisions UniForce have made since their conception.” Cookie’s eyebrows twitched. “Restricted with heavy encryption though, could take me a couple of days to crack.”

  Jen wasn’t convinced they’d have a couple of days, not now that UniForce knew they were there. “Save it for any spare time we have afterward.”

  Dan was peering over Cookie’s shoulder with just as much enthusiasm as Jen, though with differently aligned priorities. He was fascinated to know what his surrogate company had been doing. He wanted to know what drove them, what made them tick. He wanted to know whether they were worthy of his service.Are they law enforcement? Or just powerful thugs?

  “Can you find their financial records?” Dan asked, drawing a curious look from Jen.

  Cookie huffed. “Hell, man, I can find anything. I’ve got God’s access to this baby now. But why d’you wanna see that?”

  “I need to see something,” he replied guardedly.

  But the answer was good enough for Cookie because he started rooting through network spaghetti until he found the accounting servers.

  “Okay, here are UniForce’s monetary transactions for the past three years. Anything prior to that is archived and might take longer to access,” Cookie said, sounding smug.

  “I’m interested in the bounty hunting branch.”

  Cookie isolated the applicable records.

  “Exclusive lists.”

  Again Cookie worked his magic. There were 53 top-level hunters active in the world, but only 28 in English speaking countries. Sophisticated translation programs assisted communication between the predominately English-speaking management team and the non-English-speaking workforce. Occasionally it led to misunderstandings, but more often humans used the program as a scapegoat for their own errors. Its creator, TranSys, had called it the Universal Translator – the UT. TranSys had promoted it as a boon for globalisation back in the early ‘30s. But, ironically, in 2037 Global Integrated Systems gobbled TranSys whole, absorbing it into their conglomerate. The Universal Translator facilitated vast reductions in management requirements for the tumorous multinationals, slashing their operating costs. This, in turn, thrilled shareholders and overburdened the remaining employees. Burnout ran rife through corporate ladders, though that never fazed the people at the top. There were always plenty of willing servants to take their fallen comrades’ places. Eventually the market found equilibrium and efficiency soared. The new business model favoured by the UT generation comprised of small, central management teams that maintained rigid control over their global operation. Language was no longer a barrier. Corporate leaders deemed irrelevant the fact that the shift coincided with a dramatic dip in bilingualism worldwide.

  “Can you isolate just the Raven’s subset of purchases?”

  “Of course.” An itemised list of purchases appeared on the screen.

  “Now do the same for me.”

  Jen stiffened in the background, shying away from the now imminent conflict.

  “Huh?” Cookie didn’t understand.

  “Find the subset of records for my name, Dan Sutherland.”

  Cookie jerked away instinctively. “You’re a hunter?”

  “What of it?” Dan hadn’t realised Jen was shielding her friends from that knowledge. “It doesn’t change the fact that I’m helping you, does it?”

  He slowly shook his head, though his eyes were still wide. “No, I guess not.”

  “Would I have brought you here if I was going to turn you in?”

  “No.” Cookie forced himself to relax but the effort made him look constipated. He did as Dan requested and a similar list appeared on the screen.

  Identical.Dan’s eyes flicked between the two, comparing item after item. Even more interesting was the amounts entered into the accounting system. They were wrong. Someone’s siphoning off the top. But who?“Can you save that?”

  “Already done,” Cookie confirmed. He eyed Jen with a why-didn’t-you-tell-me look of betrayal.

  Jen looked away, unwilling and unable to defend herself from his unspoken accusations.So, now Cookie knows. Which means Samantha will know soon too.She mentally shrugged. Dan was right – it made no real difference. He was helping them and right now they needed all the help they could get.

  *

  Thursday, September 16, 2066

  UniForce Headquarters

  17:03 San Francisco, USA

  “What a fucking mess we have on our hands now.” Esteban disgustedly threw his arms into the air before letting them flop by his sides. To say he was displeased would be an understatement. It was hometimeand he’d been eager to return to Baltimore. It was poker night at the club. He loved poker night.

  They were crowding James’s office. Esteban had decreed that was to be their base of operations. Not because he liked James’s décor, it was the only office with three available terminals. And he’d locked the door, a significant statement. Nobody was going anywhere until they’d sorted out the mess.

  There were three separate desks arranged in a loose triangle, though only room for one chair in the middle. On rare occasions, James needed all three terminals. When he utilised the full processing capacity of one, he would plug into another and continue working. Esteban pulled the desks further apart, making a horrible grinding sound. The desks, made from chipboard with a plastic coating, wobbled unsteadily and James fretted they’d come apart with Esteban’s rough treatment and his precious equipment would tumble to the floor. But they held together – barely – and Esteban squeezed another two chairs in the middle.

  “How does this work?” Michele asked, having never encountered that model of computer before.It was a GenSet.

  God you’re dumb.“Here.” Esteban stabbed a finger at the little white circle that turned it on. He hoped she wasn’t going to be that annoying once she was up and running. At least she’ll be familiar with the operating system.

  Esteban sniffed the air, much like a prowling wolf. “Jezus, man, it’s stuffy in here. Are you off the environmental grid or something?”

  James paid him little heed; his head still hurt too much for Esteban to drawn him into an energy wasting argument. He loosely wonderedhowEsteban’s office would smell if hespent 36 hours there sweating over a difficult problem.

  He’d requested his best three administrators to stay back and he’d delegated to them the tiresome task of sorting out the mess on the network. Only two had agreed. One said she had a prior engagement she couldn’t break. Fine.James mentally chalked an ugly mark next to her name, one that meant she’d get no interesting projects or promotional opportunities. You have to make sacrifices if you expect to get anywhere.James’s mood was several shades darker even than Esteban’s. He’d already been slogging away for a full night and the prospect of another was painful to consider.

  He switched on the videophone and adjusted the camera before dialling home. Susan answered, “You’re not calling to say you’re stuck at work again are you?”

  James nodded, irritable and profoundly sad. “Yes.” He lowered his voice to a whisper and added, “Our CEO was assassinated today and they’ve declared a state of company emergency.” He lowered his voice even further. “It all happened because someonehackedthe network.”

  Susan sighed. “You spend too much time-”

  “I know, I’m sorry,” James said, cutting her off before she could finish. “It’s not like I wantto stay
here, especially two nights in a row.”

  Susan studied him on her display. “You have company.”

  James shifted so she could see Esteban and Michele in the background. “Yeah, they’re using my office as a command centre.” He smiled bravely for her. “Look, I have some good news, but I’ll save it for when I get home, okay?”

  She smiled broadly, showing her dimples. “A surprise?”

  “Yep. A good one. You’ll love it, I promise.”

  He heard Lillian crying in the background and Susan turned away from the camera. “Lillian’s hungry, I’d better go.”

  “Okay, I love you.” James kissed two fingers and held them up to the camera.

  “Love you too. Just do whatever you have to and hurry home, okay?” She waited to see his confirmation nod, said, “Bye,” then hung up and the display went black.

  “Bye.” James replied into the dead receiver.

  “That your woman?” Esteban’s gruff voice asked from over his shoulder.

  “Yes.”

  “Good looking.” Esteban always measured females that way. He had two lists, the first filled with people he’d gleefully fuck, the second with people that shrivelled his manhood. He added James’s wife to the first.

  “Thanks.” James wasn’t sure how to accept the compliment coming from a barbarian such as Esteban. In truth, it frightened him. He didn’t want monster Esteban thinking of his wife that way. He soothed himself with the thought that he’d soon be home. I just have to sort this out first.It was a powerful motivator and he gingerly plugged the leads into his tender implant before throwing himself at the problem with renewed gusto that bordered on insanity.

  So much ground to cover.He changed tack. Instead of examining the network’s inner barrier, he skirted along the outer ring. There was always a chance that David Coucke – if Coucke was the hacker – had meticulously covered his tracks inside the network but had been careless on his initial approach. It was worth a try. Besides, blundering into a perforation in the outer ring would bring him one step closer to isolating the attack origin.