The Free Citizen

by T. J. Sedgwick

  Another shot rang out. Then another, and another. Then one more, each shot a human life extinguished. Each one a stab of pain to Rae’s heart. Somebody’s son or daughter, brother or sister… He raised his eyes. Five of the eleven non-operatives were lying dead—four men and the older of the Hispanic women. The younger one beside her was crying profusely.

  “Shut up,” shouted Intel Prick. “Count yourself lucky—you get to be a Servile for the rest of your useful life. Any more from her...”

  “Yessir,” said the soldier as the woman stifled her sobs.

  This asshole would have fit right in with the SS, thought Rae.

  “Now for our four enemy operatives. A very valuable commodity in our great nation’s struggle. Whereas those six sniffling Illegals will be off to a Servile processing camp, you fine people get to keep doing what you love. Only difference is you’ll be switching sides. Captured operatives make excellent infiltrators.”

  The raven-haired British operative was shouting a muffled something through her gag.

  “Ungag the lady,” said Intel Prick. “She has something to say.”

  “I’d rather die than work for you bastards,” she said with vitriol.

  Rae admired her resolve.

  Intel Prick forced a mirthless grin.

  “Easily arranged, but not going to happen. You’ll be off to one of our facilities—patch you up, enjoy some R&R, oh and some minor brain surgery to install the implant… Augmentation. Control. Something you’re sorely lacking. Captain Rae over there enjoys our latest generation of neural implant, as will you. He just needs a little check-up to fix his. One of your DASIS friends tampered with it on his last mission, causing a world of trouble for poor Captain Rae. Gag her.”

  The soldier replaced the gag and withdrew quickly. Enraged, the British agent charged at Intel Prick, her hands still cuffed behind her.

  “Stop her,” he ordered the nearby sergeant, who raised his weapon as the other three captives belatedly joined her. Rae knew they had no chance against twenty-five combat-ready soldiers.

  A shot rang out and the woman fell, tumbling to the floor. She held her wounded foot, gritting her teeth. The three male operatives slowed to a reluctant stop in the face of overwhelming odds.

  “Right, get these four plus Captain Rae secured for transport to their assigned destinations—Lakeshore Chicago for Rae, Phoenix for the other four. The six Serviles-to-be can bury their dead friends. Any trouble from the slaves and you have permission to bury them too.”

  Rae still felt groggy from the stun gun as they pulled him to his feet and marched him straight to a landing pad. He sat beside the pad under armed guard. A military transport jet, arriving from the north, grew large in the cloudless desert sky. The engine noise and downwash enveloped his senses but couldn’t wash away the dread. And what of Cora? Intel Prick had said if he cooperated, he’d get her back—otherwise she’d be forcibly divorced and sent to that ruddy-face Security Secretary. That—just like everything else—now seemed out of his hands. They wouldn’t make the same mistake again by giving him a chance at freedom. He had no doubt that the VTOL jet would fly directly to the landing pad on the hospital roof and he’d be back under the dark spell of the mindchip. But he would not give up. Never.

  The muscular, stubby-wing jet descended vertically. Its engines died and the ramp to the cargo hold eased down from the rear.

  “Get up,” said the soldier—one of four escorting Rae.

  He stood and followed, bare-footed in his ragged orange jumpsuit.

  Footsteps from behind. He turned: it was Intel Prick, looking smug and sadistic.

  “Thought I’d let you know: the powers-that-be decided you’re not sufficiently cooperative without a functioning implant, therefore…”

  He paused for effect. Rae’s heart sunk.

  “Therefore, Cora has been persuaded to divorce her abusive husband and find someone more—”

  Rae charged with a ferocious battle cry, but the strong arms of two men restrained him.

  “You’re a dead man!” said Rae through clenched teeth, his eyes boring into the smaller man who seemed taken aback.

  “Not yet I’m not,” he said. “Off you go, soldier boy. Oh, and by the way, Secretary Young is very excited about his new mistress.”

  He chuckled.

  Bastard! I’ll rip his fucking head off!

  The soldiers frog-marched Rae into the transporter, his mind a toxic cocktail of emotions. He would never lose hope, but in that moment, hope was in short supply.

  16

  Now I've been free, I know what a dreadful condition slavery is. I have seen hundreds of escaped slaves, but I never saw one who was willing to go back and be a slave.

  Harriet Tubman

  R ae could only hear the flight back to Chicago. After he’d attacked Intel Prick at White Sands, they were taking no chances, hooding and restraining him with sturdy hand and leg irons. Restrained like some wild animal in the cargo bay, only the faintest hints of the dim red light penetrated the hood. Exhaustion overcame him quickly, and ten minutes into the military transport flight, he fell asleep. Rest when you get the opportunity, was one of the first things the military had taught him.

  The heavy landing jolted him from his nightmare in which Cora stood at the altar with that fat, red-faced old crook, Oliver Young—the Security Secretary who’d claimed her like some competition prize. His amazing, hard-working, talented Cora reduced to a plaything.

  The bastard will probably try to take over her business too and make her subjugation complete.

  A burning anger rose inside him. An uncontrollably growl came from within, climaxing in an almighty roar of frustration as he bucked hard against the restraints, inducing physical pain in the vain hope it might lessen his anguish.

  “Stop that, now!” came the soldier’s voice.

  Rae ignore him and continued his futile fight with the restraints. Two seconds later, the blow to the gut came from nowhere, winding him. He gasped to catch his breath then laughed insanely.

  “That all you got, you dumb shit?” he snarled.

  The next one was harder. This time he thought he heard the clunk again the endo-armor protecting his abdominals. It was there to stop bullets, but it was still embedded in flesh and wouldn’t stop a rifle butt from winding him as the grunt had just proved.

  “Pussy…” he growled.

  The grunt let it slide, as no further violence came before the engines died. The hood came off.

  “Get up,” said the combat soldier, who led him down the ramp into the freezing night on the landing pad. He shuffled across the wet concrete and onto fresh snow surrounding the pad, escorted by two soldiers down to the elevator bank. A short elevator ride later and he was taken to a windowless private room and cuffed to the hospital bed. The two soldiers removed the hand and leg irons and left the room. He watched them in the corridor outside, handing over to two police officers in full SWAT gear. Only moments passed and in strode a tall fifty-something doctor, balding with close-cropped gray hair, a Roman nose and restless eyes. Two female nurses in blue uniforms flanked him.

  He pulled out a tablet, scrolled down. “Captain Calvin Rae,” he said, looking up from the tablet, his accent European, maybe Dutch. “I’m Dr Pieter Vos, Neural Cybernetics Specialist. Do you have any questions?”

  Another day at the office for this guy, thought Rae.

  Rae said nothing.

  The doctor gave a perfunctory smile before clearing his throat.

  “Ok, well, the nurses here will prep you for surgery.”

  There came no pretense of consent or further niceties as the nurses cut off his orange jumpsuit, shaved his head and cleaned and disinfected his scalp.

  “No gown?” said Rae.

  Dr Vos ignored him, continued tapping on his tablet while one of the nurses inserted the cannula needle into his arm. The doctor took out a pen and marked up his scalp while the nurse attached the vial of anesthetic.

  “Close your eye
s and count to ten,” said Dr Vos.

  He thought of his wife and how his brief interlude with the old Cora in the sewers gave him hope. Hope because it showed that away from the surveillance, and with her mindchip off the network, she was the same woman he’d fallen in love with all those years ago. If there was hope for her, then once they reactivated his mindchip, maybe one day his mind could be free again too. Maybe one day. Or maybe these would be the final free thoughts of his entire life.

  One, two, three…

  Drowsiness came. Darkness quickly followed.

  ***

  What seemed like only seconds later, he awoke, drowsy, back in the private room, bright lights straining his eyes. Still cuffed to the bed, he now wore a blue hospital gown. As his senses came fully online, he felt an aching on the top of his now-bald scalp. Then came the face of Cora. He wondered where she was, what she was doing at that moment. His anger and despair accompanied those thoughts. Thoughts about how he would conspire to find Cora and escape with her, connect with the Alliance, emigrate, then fight the Regime. Time passed with only the hum of electricity and muffled sounds of footsteps traversing the corridor outside. Occasionally, the SWAT cops would look in through the door’s viewing pane. After a while, he noticed something. Something odd. Nothing seemed to be suppressing his thoughts and feelings as used to happen before the Erasmus. He’d just undergone an operation to fix his mindchip, yet he felt no different.

  Footsteps came from the corridor and he looked up as the door open. One of the same nurses as before holding a tray of food. She fed him, trickling bottled water into his mouth. Bland food, but restorative. He finished up and the nurse inspected his head.

  “How do you feel, Captain?” said the no-doubt Servile nurse.

  He said nothing.

  “Well, we’ll find out now the doctor’s here,” she said as Dr Vos entered.

  Behind him, two auxiliaries were rolling in a device, which looked like a stainless-steel cantilever floor lamp. Its base was on casters and a short vertical tube hung suspended at the end of its articulated arm.

  “Good morning, Captain,” said Dr Vos.

  “What time is it?”

  “Around 5am,” said the doctor. “Everything went surprisingly smoothly in surgery. Now we just need to—”

  “Surprising in what way?” said Rae.

  “Well, surprising because they told me your neural implant probably needed replacing—but it turned out that it did not.”

  “Over here, please men,” said the doctor to the auxiliaries, directing the device on casters into position.

  The tube hung a meter above Rae’s face.

  “This is a diagnostics scanner—it will verify that the neural implant is still functioning. Direct connection diagnostics in the operating room showed all hardware, firmware and algorithms performing within tolerance. This is the last check before discharge.”

  The bed’s backrest angled to near-vertical before the diagnostic tube descended over Rae’s head, gently bottoming out on his shoulders. Only a repetitive hum and the quiet self-addressed remarks of Dr Vos gave him any hint that his brain was being scanned. The tube withdrew, and the auxiliaries trundled away with the scanner.

  “Well, that confirms it—you’re good to go, Captain Rae,” said Dr Vos. “Guards—you can uncuff him.”

  The SWAT guys entered. The smaller one said, “Is he now loyal?”

  “Yes, officer—he’s back in the fold,” replied Dr Vos.

  The SWAT guy tapped a pad on his lower left sleeve and a cover slid open revealing a small touchscreen.

  “Read the declaration, doctor,” he said. “You are certifying that this man is no longer a prisoner and is free to go about his business as a Citizen of the American Union.”

  The doctor scanned the text briefly, looked up and nodded.

  “Place your thumb print here, confirming you agree.”

  He pressed his thumb on the pad, the cop checked, then cover slid shut.

  “Good bye and good luck, Calvin Rae,” said the doctor, leaving the room.

  The SWAT guys unshackled Rae and walked off without a word. Lying there in his gown, no clothes to his name, he went looking for a nurse in the corridor. It was snowing outside and even the elevated walkways would be chilly—no way was he going home in this gown…

  Home. Cora. That bastard had threatened some trumped-up charge of abuse and divorce, conspired to take his wife like a chattel. What had they done with her? Where was she? Every time he thought of her now, there came a stab of pain to his heart, accompanied by a seething anger at the injustice of it.

  Nothing is sacred to the Regime. Even marriage. Even love.

  His hope against hope held out the slim chance she’d be there at home, waiting for him like nothing had changed. Even the on-stage Cora in the surveillance bubble, under the mindchip’s spell would be better than losing her. But one thing he knew for sure: he would stop at nothing to find her and exfiltrate. He was under no illusion though—they would be more closely watched than ever by the State Intelligence Service.

  The nurse at the nurses’ station agreed to get him some clothes but told him it’d take a while and to go wait in the room. He returned to the room and put on the TV, slouching languidly on the bed. As usual, propaganda masquerading as news filled the schedule. He knew he’d lapped up the regime’s propaganda prior to Dr Muller’s red-light device. Somehow, his post-Erasmus skepticism hadn’t waned, even now, even after they’d fixed his chip. A story about the alien parasite came on screen. According to the anchor, Screamers were now spreading across the Military Operations Zone. They cut to an MOZ correspondent, an overly animated twentysomething woman, too small for her blue combat gear.

  “That’s right, David,” she said to the anchorman. “I’m in an undisclosed location in the MOZ, at an Army-run facility.”

  The camera panned to a dirty concrete pit in what looked like some sort of dimly-lit warehouse. In the pit, Rae counted five bedraggled figures—two men, three women—chained to the floor in leg irons. They looked up into the camera light, their faces pitiful and desperate.

  The reporter continued, “As you can see behind me, these poor souls are infected, transformed into hideous Screamers by the alien parasite that has spread from Europe.”

  Rae got up and stood closer to the screen, examining the five captives, looking for the Screamers he knew the augmented reality algorithm would show. Nothing. They were as human as the next person. That could only mean one thing—his neural implant was still not working.

  He stared in disbelief and sat down. Somewhere in his thoughts, a faint hope had been rekindled.

  “As we heard earlier, David,” continued the TV, “the cure is going to be rolled before the end of this year.”

  How could it be that he felt no different, no longer saw Screamers on cue, even though diagnostics showed the mindchip was working? Dr Vos had signed him off. The diagnostics would have been verified by other experts—in theatre and remotely by the implant-makers. Could Dr Vos be an Alliance agent? Could he somehow sign off Rae’s mindchip and get it past the verifiers? Maybe. Unlikely though. The verifiers would be remote, independent, overseen by the State Intelligence Agency. Rae was free—both physically and mentally, but how? The outside world faded as he dived deep into thought, mulling all the possible explanations he could think of. One made more sense than any other: White Sands, imprisonment, the Alliance raid and Stone. The Alliance operative had used a red-light device just like Dr Muller had on the SS Erasmus. Had he somehow re-programmed the mindchip? Done it in such a way that it passed diagnostics yet left him free? If true, Rae would need to play along, use it to his advantage, work against the Regime.

  The nurse arrived with clothes.

  “Sorry, no coat…”

  He got dressed in the basic outfit—undergarments, jeans and sweatshirt. The shoes were unbranded sports shoes and didn’t fit properly. After discharging himself at the front desk, he took the Skywalk. The part-heat
ed walkways were frigid in the winter chill. The shaved head didn’t help. He passed a window; the bluish early morning light of the overcast sky revealed a frozen Lake Michigan. The few people around that early on Saturday were almost exclusively Serviles. He headed to what was, until three days ago, his home. Was it still or had they taken that away too? He quickened his pace, dread growing with every step towards the realization of something bad. None of the possible outcomes were good—only less bad. Best case: Cora would be there, and he’d have a chance to speak with her, find some way to keep her. Worst case: she was gone, and he was locked out and the police were waiting to arrest him on trumped-up charges of spousal abuse. His heart pounded, anxiety rising from his gut, his pace accelerating to a near jog.

  Minutes later he took the elevator up to the grand entrance of One Renaissance, arriving at the private elevator in the lobby at exactly 7am. The same ageing bellhop who Cora said would be ‘retired’, offered to assist, but Rae declined and ascended to the one-hundred-eighty-fifth floor alone. The door slid open. His stomach dropped. Silence greeted him. The apartment seemed different, empty, lifeless. He stepped in and felt the chill. The lights were all off, the only source of illumination the cold light through the wall of plate-glass windows. Some of the furniture and many other items were missing.

  “Welcome home, Cal,” said Ruby the AI home assistant.

  Spy.

  “Hello, Ruby,” he said. “Where’s Cora?”

  “Cora no longer resides here, Cal.”

  His legs felt weak, his body went numb as he absorbed the reality of it. He fell to his knees, heart racing, lightheaded. He wanted to speak between panted breaths, but no words came. Still wordless, his lips like jelly, his forehead sank to the carpet. Only now did losing Cora feel real. He stayed on his knees, head bowed as if in prayer, his breathing frantic, his mind a disorganized mess of fragmentary thoughts.