Chains of Freedom

by Selina Rosen

  The confrontation took place a week later. It had been building up for some time, but came about—as most confrontations do—because of an act of stupidity.

  The Golden Arches was packed to capacity. The inner circle, including Topaz but minus David, sat at "their" table. They weren't discussing anything more important than who should buy the next round of drinks, but, when David walked up with Kirsty, all talk ceased. RJ didn't look up from her drink.

  "What did I tell you about that girl, David?" RJ kept her voice calm only with great effort.

  "Aw, come on, RJ. You aren't working on anything. What could it hurt . . ."

  RJ didn't let David finish. "Do I have to spell it out for you, David?" RJ turned to face him. "I don't want her around us. She poses a threat . . ."

  "What a bunch of shit! Any one of you . . ."

  This time, it was Sandra who interrupted him. "You may choose to let love blind you, David. But don't expect the rest of us to." She gave Kirsty a look of hatred, although her motive for distrust was slightly different than RJ's.

  "I'd rather be blinded by love than by jealousy," David spat back.

  "What's that supposed to mean?" Sandra demanded.

  "You say you don't trust Kirsty. But we all know that the truth is that you just can't stand the fact that I love someone who isn't you," David accused.

  "You bastard!" Levits shocked everyone by jumping to his feet, ready for a fight.

  RJ put a hand on his chest and he stayed where he was.

  "You're way out of line, David," RJ warned.

  "I think you're the one who's out of line, RJ," David stated. "Where do you get off making all the rules? I'm supposed to be an equal partner in this thing. I say Kirsty stays."

  RJ rose to her feet. She looked straight at David. "If I ordered her dead, how long do you think she would last?" RJ could no longer hide her anger. Not when she could feel the depth and extent of his.

  David had never been so mad in his life. He didn't know what to say. So he did the first thing that jumped into his mind. He doubled up his fist, and he hit her.

  She had expected anything but that. It actually knocked her off balance, and she had to catch herself. Physically, he hadn't hurt her at all. Emotionally, she was devastated by all the hate she felt coming from him. Hate that was all for her. She stared at David for a long, silent moment, wondering if he had really hit her. He was rubbing his fist, and there was a pained expression on his face, so it had to be true. She saw Whitey stand up.

  "I can handle this," she whispered.

  Whitey nodded and sat down.

  RJ looked at David, and he cringed from her gaze in horror. Not because she looked like she wanted to kill him. That he expected. He watched as the hurt in her eyes changed to contempt, and knew that the bond that had tied them together and somehow made them different from everyone else had been utterly and completely severed. Before he had time to think any more about what he had done, RJ picked him up by the collar and threw him halfway across the bar. She covered the floor in a matter of moments. She stood at his feet and looked down at him.

  "One of us has changed, David. One of us has forgotten the dream. I don't think it's me. You have made your choice." She started to walk away.

  "What do you mean?" David asked struggling to his feet. Now his back hurt almost as much as his hand.

  She didn't even turn around. "You are no longer part of the inner circle," she said it as easily as she breathed, and walked out of the bar before he could answer her.

  David stood up. He looked at the remaining members, where they sat at their table. "She can't do that," he informed them, as if he had the power to make them believe just by his will.

  "No. She can't," Levits said with a snarl.

  "But we can," Topaz said, shaking his head in disbelief. "I taught you so much about power, but you didn't learn any of the important parts. Like when to stop. I vote to approve RJ's decision."

  "I vote we kill the bastard!" Whitey got up and stomped out of the bar.

  "I'm going to count that as a yes," Topaz said with a smile.

  "I second Whitey's suggestion." Levits looked at Sandra, who seemed to be off in her own little world.

  "You gave too many speeches, David. Now you think you're bigshot. But we all know you be dead without RJ," Mickey said. He looked down at his drink. "When you hit RJ you hit us all. You chose your whore over us."

  David looked hopefully at Sandra. Surely Sandra would come to his defense.

  Sandra hadn't dreamed it would ever get this far. She still loved David. She believed that he was an asset to their cause. But he had just embarrassed her in front of all her friends, and there was only one way to save face. She smiled broadly and lifted her chin proudly to face him.

  "Now, you finally know how it feels, you bastard," she hissed. "I find your behavior to be disloyal in the extreme. My vote is to expel him."

  "It doesn't mean anything!" David said hotly. "You can't get rid of me!"

  "David," Topaz said, trying to be a calming influence. "Can't you see what has happened? This girl may pose no threat to us at all. Probably she doesn't. But she's not human. Surely, by now you know that. She's lying about what she is, and that puts her under suspicion. Ask yourself why she's lying when everyone knows that RJ herself is a hybrid."

  David didn't believe for a minute that Kirsty was a hybrid. She was nothing at all like RJ. Besides, she had sworn to him that she wasn't. She wouldn't lie to him. She couldn't. If she was a hybrid, she didn't know it. They were just RJ's puppets, and whatever she said they believed.

  "You're all crazy!" David screamed. "You've let RJ's paranoia get to you." He took Kirsty's hand and pulled her out of the bar.

  Whitey had no trouble finding RJ. He made straight for the dock. He found her standing on the edge, looking out over the bay.

  "You OK?" he asked, long before he reached her. He knew it wasn't a good idea to sneak up on RJ when she was mad.

  "He can't hurt me," RJ said simply.

  "You know what I mean." Whitey moved forward and took her hand. "Are you OK?"

  "Not really . . ." She cleared her throat. "I guess I didn't want to see how bad it really was. Didn't want to admit that he had turned into such an asshole." She took a coin from her pocket, looked at it for a moment, and then tossed it as far as she could into the bay.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Word of the conflict in GA had reached Alsterase in a matter of hours. Being unable to think of anything constructive, and at the same time not detrimental to their cause, RJ chose to ignore it. But as usual, David did not.

  It had been three weeks since they had spoken. When they met in the halls, neither of them so much as waved. Neither RJ nor David was ready for a truce. But now he was going to talk to her whether she liked it or not.

  He found RJ and the others in RJ and Whitey's room. They completely ignored him.

  "Fine. A city full of innocent people is being leveled, and you sit here playing bottle caps and swilling beer," David said sarcastically. He took another step closer, and the bottle cap hit him in the face.

  "God damn it, David!" Sandra screamed, "you screwed up my shot!"

  "That shot must have been way off to begin with for it to have landed in his face," Whitey laughed.

  "I get to shoot again," Sandra declared.

  "Sandy, you were nowhere close to the cup," Levits said with a laugh. "There is no way that you could have hit it."

  "She not have another turn," Mickey said, crossing his arms.

  "You little fuck, you wouldn't care if she went again if you weren't winning," Levits pointed out.

  "You wouldn't be so ready to let her go again if you were winning," Mickey accused.

  "I didn't say I wanted her to go again," Levits said, "all I said was you wouldn't care if you weren't winning."

  "It's all immaterial anyway, because Poley didn't go yet," Whitey said, "and we all know Poley will win."

  David walked out of the line o
f fire and decided to ignore them. RJ lay on the bed going over some sort of map. "Can we talk?"

  "I've just gone over this map for the twelfth time. Not to mention graphs and charts, etc., etc. We can't go into GA. They are too well implanted, and we don't have the manpower." RJ was quick and to the point.

  "Surely we could . . ."

  "To put it in simple terms, David. It looks like a trap. I make traps; I don't fall into them."

  There was no emotion in her voice. The matter was closed. RJ's attention was once again focused on the map.

  David turned on his heel and stomped out. He went back to his own room, where Kirsty greeted him with a hug.

  "How did it go?" she asked.

  "It didn't." He flopped down on the bed and put his hands behind his head. "RJ never changes. Everything has to add up, or she wants no part of it. She never sees it as human lives . . . Ah, hell, I don't know any more. Maybe she's right."

  "No, she's not right," Kirsty declared with fire in her voice. "Can't you see it, David? They're just work units. Work units like you and me. We're expendable. Notice that, except for you and Mickey, the entire inner circle is made up of ex-military personnel. Mickey would do anything RJ told him to, and you . . . Well, they got rid of you, didn't they?"

  David looked at her as if she had just shown him something new and ugly.

  "RJ doesn't worry about the lives of untrained civilians. Every time she has made a decision like this, it has been based on how many trained lives would be lost in return for how many untrained lives, and she weighs it ten to one."

  David thought about it, and decided Kirsty was right. "But what can I do? I don't have any real power." David shrugged helplessly."The only power I had was what power RJ let me have. Without RJ I have nothing."

  Kirsty suppressed a grin.

  "If only you had your own army." Kirsty placed her next words carefully. "An army of work units. People like us who would listen to you instead of RJ . . ."

  "Kirsty, you're a genius!" He got up and ran over to hug her. He lifted her off the ground and spun her around. Kirsty smiled smugly. It was all over now but the crying.

  RJ heard the ruckus coming from outside before anyone else. She rose from the bed and went to the window. She saw David standing atop the old vehicle and saw the group assembling.

  "What's he up to?" Sandra asked looking over RJ's shoulder.

  "Starting a rebellion against the rebellion. Come on, we've got to stop him if we can."

  "RJ means well, and it's true that she has led us to many victories. But now she wants us to lay low and be quiet while the Reliance systematically lays waste to an entire city. To GA, a town that is only a few hours' drive away. RJ says the risk is too great. She says that too many trained men will die to save the untrained. In other words, too many soldiers will die to save a bunch of work units. Well, like a lot of you, I was once a work unit. I think the lives of all men are equally important—that no man is more worthy of being saved than another.

  "RJ's thoughts are clear and logical. She is right. If we go, a lot of us will die. But if we don't go, if we stand idly by and do nothing to help our brothers, then we are morally wrong! RJ has made up her mind, and that of the inner circle. But we are free men with free choice. If only half of you will go with me, we can run the Reliance out of GA. It's time that we had another real victory!"

  "What the hell are you doing?" RJ asked as she made her way through the crowd.

  "I'm going to save GA, whether you like it or not," David said as she reached him.

  "At whose expense, David?" she quipped. "Will you save it with the lives of men who would foolishly follow you into a trap? Because that's what it is . . . a trap! If only half of you go, then only half of you will die, accomplishing nothing."

  "Are you God, RJ, that you can see the future? She knows no more than you or I. Who will come with me to save the work units of GA? Or is it only ex-military personnel that are worth saving? Is this our brave new world?"

  The split was predictable. The ex-military wouldn't follow David to the toilet, but the former work units—nearly half the population of Alsterase—couldn't follow him fast enough. David herded his people into troop carriers and freight haulers.

  Kirsty insisted on going.

  "You know nothing about fighting, Kirsty. You'll be safer in Alsterase."

  "I don't think so, David. You know how RJ feels about me. How they all do. They'll just look for a reason to kill me." She took his hand and started to cry. "Please, David. I'm afraid."

  "OK, Kirsty, but we'll leave you up the road. Well away from the fighting."

  Kirsty smiled broadly as he walked away to go check on supplies.

  RJ approached David. "You won't listen to reason?"

  "Will you?"

  RJ's cool snapped, but her voice never rose. "I never thought this day would come. I never thought, in my wildest dreams, that you could betray me like this. Betray the New Alliance like this. How could I see that you would use the power that I helped you obtain to turn so many against me. No one could have convinced me that it would come to this. That you would jeopardize everything that we have worked for in an attempt to prove to the world that you are more righteous than I. I should have left you in the woods. You will bring defeat upon us all."

  Her words stung. He didn't feel like he was betraying anyone, he was only doing what he thought was right. "If you really believe that, then why don't you try to stop me?" David asked.

  "Toward what end? Open warfare in the streets of Alsterase? Don't you realize what you've done? We were a people united by a common cause. You have purposely divided us. You have taken one people and made us two. You have made us enemies of each other." She shook her head sadly. "Topaz is right. Power does corrupt." She walked away, shoulders slumped, head held low. She pulled a coin from her chain, and chucked it into the air to let it fall where it would.

  David saw it fall and picked it up. "I'll bring this back to you when I've won, RJ," he called after her. When she didn't respond he put it in his pocket and continued to himself, "Then all will be right again. You'll see."

  RJ couldn't sleep. Of course, she didn't really need to sleep every day, so it was no real problem. She stood at the window and looked out at the city. Her heart was broken, and she was worried. She hadn't counted on this. She hated not knowing. She hated it when things didn't go as calculated. It left her at a loss. How do you deal with something that you weren't prepared for?

  How bad was it going to be? Should they leave Alsterase? Were they in danger here? If they were, leaving could be the worst thing to do. After all, at least they had cover here, and a plan for defense. On the open road they would be sitting ducks.

  "Want me to help you worry?" Whitey asked from the bed.

  RJ joined him on the bed, laying her head on his chest and wrapping her arms around him.

  He held her tightly. "It's bad, isn't it?"

  "I don't know. Could be. I'm thinking of evacuating to the Island, at least till things cool off."

  "I still can't believe he did that," Whitey shook his head.

  "I can't believe that I didn't see it coming. The way he's been acting . . ."

  Whitey laughed. "Honey, no one, not even you, can figure out every angle. Not when human beings are involved."

  "I'm scared, Whitey," she whispered.

  Whitey was shocked. He couldn't imagine RJ being afraid of anything.

  "Of what?"

  "Everything. Life was so simple when no one was counting on me. When I didn't care about anyone and no one cared about me. Now . . . well . . . if I fail . . ." She swallowed hard. "I love you, Whitey."

  "I love you, too. Everything will be fine; you'll see." He held her tightly.

  The primary attack was silent, and consisted of one person, if you could call Zark a person. He kept to the shadows as he walked down the street, and no one saw him. He made straight for the hotel and entered it without a hitch.

  Dex looked up from wher
e he'd been almost asleep behind the desk. "What ya . . ."

  The laser was silent, but no less effective. The fat man slumped in his chair, breaking his favorite rule.

  The GSH made his way up the stairs heading purposefully towards the fourth floor. When he reached it, he moved along silently towards RJ's room. But even a GSH can't be held accountable for a squeaky floorboard or a human's over-sensitive hearing.