by Shawn Davis
Rayne had heard about the air-cars’ primary security system from gossip in the warehouse. Once the system was activated, if anyone tried to force the doors open without a key, a high voltage shockwave flowed through the car’s metal hull and electrified the entire surface. Of course, any object touching the car would also be electrified.
For some would-be thieves, especially those with previous heart conditions, the attempt to break into an air-car was fatal. More fortunate criminals ended up in hospitals with electrical burns. They even got a new hairstyle thrown in with the deal, which resembled porcupine quills.
My car will be safe. Even in this neighborhood. By this time in the history of air-car usage, word has gotten around.
Chapter 15
Absolute Power
The next morning, Rayne left his apartment ready to start his first day of work as an Executive. His excitement was abated slightly when he saw the damage done to his gorgeous new vehicle. It had not been broken into, but the flag engraved on the door had been roughly painted over by vandals. A large splotch of bright red paint was splattered over the American flag. It looked like dried blood. Rayne cursed the scum who did this to his new car.
They should figure out a way to improve the security system to deal with vandals.
Rayne glanced nervously around the neighborhood. He reached behind him to make sure his antique revolver was stuffed securely into the back of his pants.
I don’t want to get mugged before I get in. Then, all the security systems would be for nothing.
Turning the key, Rayne stepped back as the gull wing door opened smoothly with a hissing of air. He sank into the plush leather upholstery. Inserting the key in the ignition, he fired up the powerful rocket engines. He flipped the switch activating the car’s anti-gravitational force. A rush of excitement shivered through his body as the car rumbled to life.
Then, he thought about the red spray paint on his door.
They’re just jealous because they can’t have what I have.
Pulling up hard on the anti-grav lever, Rayne felt another rush as the vehicle shot into the air. His stomach dropped as he ascended to the height of his five-story apartment building. Stomping down on the gas pedal, he heard the strain of the powerful engine as the rear rocket tubes ignited. G forces pressed into his body as the car shot forward like a catapult.
Peter had his fun with the air-car yesterday, so he decided to drive conservatively today. He didn’t want to bring any unwanted attention to himself, especially since he was still a novice to the rules of the sky. He soon became accustomed to good old air-car 424. He hardly paid attention to the fact he was traveling a hundred feet above the ground, except when checking the anti-grav flight levels from time to time.
A short time later, he reached the immense parking garage located next to the Breechlere Corporate Tower. Looking beyond the tower, he saw the broad black roof of the Breechlere warehouse next to the transparent Plexiglas roof of the Mile Mall. The immeasurable mall roof glittered in the early morning sun like a crystalline lake.
Descending fast, his free hand shielded his eyes from the bright gleam reflecting from the parking dome. He watched other Executives lowering their vehicles into the top of the glass structure like bees entering a giant honeycomb beehive. He maneuvered his air-car directly above the octagon-shaped opening in the dome roof and pushed the electromagnetic lever carefully downward. He began a slow, cautious descent into the greenhouse-like dome while the other anti-grav cars dropped rapidly around him. He was starting to feel self-conscious.
What am I doing wrong? How am I going to find my parking space? Maybe I have to use the computer to make a complex landing.
Peter clicked on the AUTOPILOT option on the computer screen and typed into the DESTINATION column; Breechlere Corporate Parking Garage, space four hundred twenty four. After he typed the information and hit “enter,” the Artificial Intelligence program in the car’s onboard computer took a few seconds to process the information. In the meantime, he watched as the other anti-grav vehicles descended fast all around him as he hovered stationary in the air.
Suddenly, his car was lowering itself through the parking garage under its own volition. Computerized sensors in the car’s hull ensured the progress was perfect. The car never traveled closer than twenty feet to any of the air-cars landing in the structure. He felt a sense of awe as the vehicle parked itself in the proper space.
Rayne pressed a button on the dash and the driver’s side door rushed open with a familiar hiss of air. He left the car and used the remote on his key ring to close and lock the door.
Rayne smiled with satisfaction as he looked down at his new attire. He hadn’t worn a double-breasted suit since he worked as a computer programmer in 2051. He was overjoyed to have the opportunity to wear anything other than a bland gray warehouse jumpsuit.
Rayne strode confidently down the hallway with a spring in his step and bounded onto the elevator. He pressed the button for the twenty-fourth floor to go to his office to begin the first assignment of his managerial career.
As he ascended the elevator, Rayne thought back to his confrontation with his so-called “friends” yesterday. Sinbad and Ryder had betrayed him. They had treated him like a pariah for no apparent reason.
Maybe it’s time to give my old friends a little payback.
As Peter reached the twenty-fourth floor, he pushed the “close door” button and hit the button for the ground floor. He grinned as he imagined the facial expressions of Sinbad and Ryder when they saw him walk into section 1, level 6 of the Breechlere Warehouse wearing a suit designating him as an Executive.
Won’t they be surprised. Maybe they’ll think twice about the way they treated me yesterday.
Peter felt a rush as he descended. The transition from powerlessness to power was intoxicating. He knew that few people were lucky enough to experience the payback he was going to enjoy.
Rayne repeatedly pressed the button for the ground level as he waited impatiently for the elevator to descend. It seemed to take forever to journey down the twenty flights. He paced the elevator to alleviate some of his nervous energy.
When the doors opened, Rayne cut across the elevator lobby and took a left down the long, narrow corridor leading to the warehouse. He strode into the warehouse with the bearing of a victorious general returning to his country at the head of an immense army.
As he entered the warehouse, a young man wearing a drab gray warehouse jumpsuit approached him.
“Sir, how may I help you?” the young man, who couldn’t have been any older than twenty-five, asked him.
Rayne thought the young man was looking at him as if he were a visitor from another planet. He knew why. During his eight years as an employee, Peter had never seen an Executive set foot in the warehouse. This employee was probably wondering what he was doing “slumming it” with the working people.
“Get out of my way, grunt! Don’t bother me!” Rayne shouted, sneering at the fawning young sycophant.
The young man darted out of the way as if he had been struck by the fangs of a serpent.
I’ve always wanted to say that, Peter thought, grinning.
Wherever he walked, employees scrambled to get out of his way. Employees who normally wouldn’t have given him a second look in his warehouse uniform stared at him with wide eyes as they scrambled to get out of his path. Forklifts screeched to a halt as drivers’ spotted his suited form stepping in their way. He eventually reached section 1 and walked past the freight elevator toward the Supervisor’s elevator.
I think I’ve earned the right to take this now.
Rayne smiled as he stepped into the clean modern elevator. He pressed the button for level six and had the first smooth ride up in eight years. Stepping off the elevator, he strode toward a small group of employees walking toward the freight elevator.
“Hey, grunts! Where’s your Floor Supervisor?” he shouted.
The group of four employees turned casually towa
rd him. When they realized he was wearing a suit, their bodies stiffened.
“I asked you a question,” Rayne said, confronting the group.
“He’s back there,” a young employee said, pointing toward the far end of the warehouse platform.
Rayne turned away from the workers and made long, confident strides across the platform. He had to find his old friends and show off his new position. The expressions on their faces would be worth all the irritation of the past eight years.
Rayne felt his pulse quicken as he spotted Sinbad behind his wooden podium. Sinbad was talking with none other than his traitorous friend, Billy Ryder.
To heighten his amusement, Rayne decided to sneak up on them. He approached stealthily in Sinbad’s blind spot and came up behind him. He clapped him hard on the back with the flat of his hand.
All conversation ceased as Sinbad turned like an enraged tiger to face his unknown aggressor. Sinbad glared at the suited apparition, his face slack, as he tried to process what was happening. Billy Ryder stood next to Sinbad, dumbfounded, staring at Peter with wide eyes. Peter thought it was as if the two of them were looking at a ghost.
There was a long pause lasting several seconds as the single brown eye of the grunt supervisor scanned Rayne’s suited form with unabashed incredulity. Ryder appeared equally mesmerized as the cigarette dangling from his lower lip fell to the cement floor.
“You’re supposed to be in a Work Prison, Rayne,” Sinbad said.
“Well, I’m not, guys. I’m free and living in luxury,” Rayne said, smiling. “It’s great. They gave me my own air-car. Starting today, I’ll have my own corporate apartment. I’m making big money now. Best of all, I have in my possession a green pass to Virtual-world!”
It was exhilarating bragging to his friends about his sudden brush with good fortune. Rayne stared at the sweating features of Sinbad and at the pale, drawn complexion of Ryder, but their expressions were gradually changing. Sinbad gritted his teeth and squinted his single furious eye while Billy Ryder lit up another cigarette, took a long drag, and blew smoke into Peter’s face.
Now it was Peter’s turn to look surprised. He coughed out acrid smoke as his previous euphoria broke apart like a skyscraper obliterated by a tornado.
“How did you get where you are, Rayne?” Sinbad snarled. “You don’t show up for work and they promote you to Executive? If it was that easy, any clumsy son of a bitch could be president of the company!”
“Hey, guys, I would appreciate it if you didn’t act like that in front of the others,” Rayne said as he noticed a small group of employees starting to form around them.
Peter scowled as he realized any form of controversy always seemed to draw attention in the warehouse. His face flushed with embarrassment rather than excitement as he thought about his new position being challenged in front of the other workers.
“Why, scumbag?” Ryder asked, blowing another stream of smoke into his former friend’s face. “If you got a problem, let’s take it outside. Or did your new promotion turn you into a pussy?”
“Ryder, if you don’t shut up, I’ll issue you a DP charge,” Rayne said, grasping onto the first thing he could think of.
“Yeh know what?” Billy Ryder said with a caustic smirk stretched across his boyish face. “I don’t believe you’re an Executive at all. You’re some kind of spy or something! Get outta my face!” Billy forced his open palm into the middle of Rayne’s chest, causing him to lose his balance and reel backwards.
“That’s it!” Rayne shouted.
His vast cloud of euphoric energy blew apart and coalesced into rage. No one talked to him like that! Maybe before when he was a nobody, but not now! After many years of servitude, he was finally in complete control. No one was going to interfere with his new vision of himself.
“Trooper! Trooper! Get over here at once!” Rayne shouted to a patrol officer riding his air-cycle by the sixth level.
Within seconds, the armored Shock Trooper turned his bike in mid-air and rocketed above the floor toward them. Workers had to dive out of his way like people abandoning a sinking ship.
“Trooper! I want you to issue three Decreased Productivity charges to Mr. Ryder, and I want two DP charges issued to Sinbad,” Rayne shouted to the approaching officer. “If there are any further outbreaks by either party, I want them recommended for immediate termination.”
“Yes, sir,” the Trooper said as he parked his hovering cycle and dismounted.
Peter’s eyes widened and he began to back away when he saw the Shock Trooper reach down to his belt to draw his electrified police baton. He vividly remembered seeing the baton used on his friend, Henry Johnson, shortly before he was executed on national television.
The only other time he had seen it used was during his first year of work at the Breechlere Corporation. One of his co-workers had gone berserk and assaulted a Floor Supervisor in a different section. After a few strikes from the baton, the enraged psychopath had become as docile as a kitten as he lay on the floor trembling.
Rayne watched with awful fascination as the Shock Trooper activated the baton’s electric field. It glowed with a blue light as the officer closed in on Ryder. Billy’s eyes widened and he took a nervous drag from his cigarette as he watched the Trooper approaching him. Peter turned when he heard the painful wails of his former friend fill the air. He covered his ears and walked briskly away from the savage spectacle, as other workers began to converge on the scene like scavengers attracted to a corpse.
Rayne pushed roughly through the converging crowd like an enraged maniac, knocking people out of his way as he went. He knew he could have stopped the spectacle at any moment, but he didn’t.
Ryder betrayed me. He deserves everything he’s getting,
Rayne headed for the supervisors’ elevator. He halted when he heard the noise of an air-cycle engine approaching from the side and a second Shock Trooper pulled up next to him.
“Sir, I have an important message for you,” the officer said in an emotionless metallic voice.
“What is it?” Peter snapped, annoyed.
“Mr. Rayne, it’s a message from Mr. Broderick. He wants to see you in his office immediately.”
“What the hell does he want?” Rayne asked.
The officer took off his helmet and stared at him with a puzzled expression on his young, clean-shaven face. Rayne realized he couldn’t have been any older than nineteen years old. He was probably fresh out of the police academy. The young man’s hair was plastered to his head with sweat. Peter had never thought of the guards getting hot under their stifling helmets before. The guard reached over and placed the message cautiously into his hand, as if he was interacting with a wild animal that might go berserk at the slightest wrong movement.
“What is it? What’s the news?” Rayne repeated, scowling at the nervous officer.
“I don’t know,” the officer said. “I don’t read the messages. I just deliver them.”
“Fine,” Rayne said as he snatched the note from the officer’s hand and opened it:
MR. RAYNE, PLEASE MEET ME IN MY OFFICE IMMEDIATELY
BRODERICK
Could he get any more cryptic?
Rayne scowled as he handed the message back to the young Shock Trooper and resumed his journey to the supervisors’ elevator. He returned to the first level and made his way across the warehouse until he reached the corridor leading to the Breechlere Tower elevator lobby.
The elevator ascended to the fiftieth floor and he stormed out. He barged into Broderick’s office suite, strode through the small waiting lobby, and took the path through the virtual jungle until he reached the main portion of Broderick’s office. He recognized the signature line of smoke drifting over the top of the leather high-backed chair behind the wide mahogany desk in the center of the room.
“Broderick, what do you want now?” Rayne asked.
The swivel chair spun around and a pair of polished black leather shoes slammed down hard on the desk. For the
first time since he barged in, Rayne realized all the lights in the office had been turned down low. He didn’t recognize the silhouette leaning back in the high-backed chair. The shoulders were too muscular to be Broderick’s. Peter’s mouth dropped open when he realized who it was.
“Campion! Where’s Broderick? What are you doing here!” Peter shouted. “You’re not supposed to be here!”
Jane Campion calmly lifted her muscular frame to its full height of 5’10”. She glared at Peter with steel gray eyes.
Rayne realized Campion was wearing a black pin-striped suit jacket, red tie, and pressed black suit pants. He thought her muscular shoulders looked out of place in the expensive jacket. He was surprised to see her dressed so formally after viewing her in the metal body armor she wore at her headquarters when they last met. Campion held Broderick’s pipe in her right hand as if it were a gun.
“Broderick has the rest of the day off,” Campion growled as she circled the desk without breaking eye contact. “Don’t worry about him. It’s you I’m worried about, Rayne.”
Campion took a large puff off Broderick’s pipe and threw it unceremoniously into the gold ashtray. The sudden clanging made Peter wince.
“Why are you worried about me, Campion? I’m doing great. I just got promoted. I’m an Executive level 4 now. I finally have control of my life.”
“Yeah, sure,” Campion said, derisively, as she moved forward with surprising agility for a person who appeared muscle-bound.
She stopped and stood facing him less than a foot away. Campion knew sociologists would consider this a violation of personal space, but that was her intention.
“I don’t know if you realize this, Rayne, but you’re being handled!”
“Handled? Handled by whom?” Peter asked, as his body shook with adrenaline.
“You have a short memory, Peter. You’re an Executive because that was the easiest way for you to gain access to New Washington. Every move you make is being carefully watched by those working for us. I know it’s your first day on the job and it may be difficult taking on new responsibilities, but I think you’re taking your Executive powers too far. Calm down a bit.”
