Electronic Gags

by Kudakwashe Muzira

  District One was quiet. Reed only saw six vehicles in the road on his way to the CIB headquarters. He showed his pass to the armed guards at the gate and drove into the parking area. He got out of the car and briskly walked to the entrance. The door automatically opened for him when he swiped his pass. An elevator carried him to the sixth floor.

  There were only five agents in the NASP computer hall and two of them were dozing.

  “Good morning patriots,” he said.

  “Good morning professor,” replied the three agents who were awake.

  The other two woke up and nervously greeted the professor, worried he had seen them sleeping on duty.

  Reed went to a computer, entered the administrator’s password and opened the NASP wanted persons facility. He opened Jennifer and Freddie’s folders and uploaded their voiceprints to all active electronic gags. Waiting for NASP to complete his command, he browsed the net for news about Freddie and Jennifer.

  If Kyle was at his laptop right now, he would have noticed the file upload. He was fast asleep, dreaming about a new America, free of the Ward regime.

  It took less than twenty minutes to complete the upload. The professor didn’t know how long it would have taken if he had uploaded the files when the network was busy. He was sure he would catch Freddie and Jennifer in the next forty-eight hours. When he finished with the fugitives, he was going to concentrate on improving the security of the NASP network.

  After bidding the agents farewell, Professor Reed went home.

  Chapter 10

  Freddie looked at his watch. “It’s time for us to go.”

  Throughout the morning, Freddie, Jennifer and Kyle had played Super Death Race on Kyle’s desktop to help themselves relax before the dangerous operation. Freddie was impressed with the game and knew his cousin was destined for success in the video game industry. Now it was time to go and face President Brandon Ward and his henchmen.

  Although they had not appeared on television or in newspapers as wanted fugitives, Freddie and Jennifer took precautions to disguise themselves. Freddie wore glasses and a cap and Jennifer wore glasses and Grandma Nicole’s wide-brimmed hat. The streets were full of surveillance cameras and they had to be careful.

  “We are on our way,” Freddie said.

  “Wait,” Kyle said. “Let me check if we are still connected. You never know, the guys can shut us out any moment.”

  Freddie and Jennifer anxiously looked at Kyle as he opened his laptop.

  “We are still in,” he said. “The bastards didn’t discover us. Wish you good luck, guys.”

  “See you later,” Jennifer said.

  “Later,” Kyle echoed.

  They walked out of the house. Freddie opened the garage and drove out Kyle’s Ford Fiesta. Jennifer got into the car and he drove away at an average speed of sixty kilometers per hour. The last thing he wanted was attracting the attention of traffic cops. The car’s tinted windows concealed Freddie and Jennifer from surveillance cameras.They had driven for seventeen minutes when a boy on a skirting board veered into the road. Freddie braked the car, missing the boy by a meter.

  “Kid, are you crazy?” Freddie shouted at the terrified teenager.

  The kid’s electronic gag and four other nearby electronic gags picked up Freddie’s voice and sent alerts to the CIB headquarters.

  “We have got ourselves an alert,” a chubby, gum-chewing CIB agent said with excitement. “Guess who has decided to show up? It’s one of the fugitives from maximum security prison.”

  “What’s his location?” asked the agent sitting next.

  “He is in Subdistrict Four.”

  “Tell the boss.”

  His bubble gum forgotten in his mouth, he rushed to the office of the agent in charge of the NASP computer hall and knocked, happy to be the bearer of good news.

  “Come in,” said Agent Roberts.

  “Sir, we have an interesting alert. We picked up one of the fugitives from maximum prison. He is in Subdistrict Four.”

  Roberts sprang to his feet and rushed to the computer hall.

  “Is his NAST back on the network?”

  “No, he was detected by five NASTs through the wanted persons facility.”

  “It must be Professor Reed who activated the wanted persons facility,” Roberts said. “That was very clever of the professor. What did the fugitive say?”

  The chubby agent played the recording from the electronic gag of the kid whom Freddie had almost run over. “…are you crazy?”

  “Tell the field guys of your discovery,” Roberts ordered. “Check all surveillance cameras in the area.”

  “Okay sir.”

  Seven minutes after getting into Freddie’s way, the kid was tracked down by CIB agents.

  “In the name of President Brandon Ward, I order you to stop,” the agent in charge of the operation said.

  “Please, I’m sorry,” the kid said with horror. “I didn’t mean to do it?”

  “Do what?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t sing the national anthem well.” The boy tilted his head sideways. “I have a cold and my voice is hoarse. Please forgive me.”

  “We are not here about the national anthem.”

  “Oh God, you have come to arrest me for the president’s picture?” the kid said, trembling.

  “What did you do to the president’s picture?”

  “Well, I didn’t have toilet paper so I wiped with the front page of an old newspaper, which had the supreme leader’s picture.” The kid went on his knees. “Please forgive me. I was suffering from diarrhea.”

  “We are not here about that, you fool. A few minutes ago someone near you shouted, ‘Are you Crazy?’ Do you know him?”

  “Please forgive me,” the kid begged, urine trickling down his legs. “I didn’t see his car coming. I didn’t know he was an official of the National Party.”

  “Shut up, you fool. In which direction was the car going?”

  The kid pointed southwards. “That way?”

  “Was the man alone?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Describe the car.”

  “It was white or off-white, I think.”

  “Don’t tell me what you think,” the agent snapped. “Tell me what you saw.”

  “It was white.”

  “And what make was it?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “You are useless,” the agent in charge rasped. “Go.”

  “I can go?” the young man said with surprised relief. “I promise I won’t wipe with the picture of―”

  “Go before I change my mind!”

  The kid sped away.

  “He could have been going anywhere,” the agent in charge said. “Let’s seal off the area between Brandon Ward Avenue, Revolution Avenue, Unity Road and Loyalty Way.”

  The other agents took their phones and relayed the agent in charge’s order to all agents assigned to the operation.

  Freddie and Jennifer arrived at the conference centre at eighteen minutes past one, parked their car and walked through the cordon of armed policemen. Freddie showed their tickets to a guard, who waved them into the first class section. Jennifer sat behind Freddie. They knew that if they sat next to each other, it would be easier for their hunters to identify them. Their hearts pounded their ribcages as they looked at CIB agents and policemen guarding the VIP section less than fifteen meters away. Professor Reed and his deputy in the Ministry of Education and Culture were already sitting in the VIP section. The awards fell under their ministry and it was their duty to see that everything went on smoothly.

  By ten minutes to two, the first class section was half full and the rest of the conference centre was almost full.

  “Please be quiet and still,” the master of ceremony announced. “I have just been told that the president will arrive in the next five minutes.”

  The announcement sent more adrenaline into the bloodstreams of Freddie and Jennifer. Their target was on the way.

&n
bsp; President Brandon Ward and his wife arrived four minutes later, mobbed by security men. The supreme leader took his seat after shaking hands with some VIPs. Sweat poured out of Freddie and Jennifer as they looked at the President of the Ten Districts of America. Brandon Ward the predator had become the prey. Freddie took out his mother’s cell phone and dialed Kyle. Kyle cut the call to acknowledge he had received the signal. Freddie looked back at Jennifer and nodded.

  They waited, looking at the nearest policemen, willing them to go into fits of electric shock. A minute passed.

  “What is taking him so long,” Jennifer said to herself.

  Her voice was picked by electronic gags of six people sitting near her.

  “Alert!” an agent shouted in the NASP computer hall. “Fugitive, Jennifer Rodriguez is in the conference centre right now. She is a sharpshooter and the president is also in the conference centre at the moment.”

  “Contact the agents with the president at the conference centre.”

  There was commotion as agents contacted their colleagues and called for reinforcements.

  “We may now rise and sing the national anthem,” the master of ceremony said.

  Everyone stood up and the master of ceremony led them in the national anthem. As they sang, Freddie and Jennifer anxiously looked at the nearest policemen, wondering what was taking Kyle so long. Jennifer looked at the VIP and saw two agents phoning anxiously, their eyes scanning the crowd. Something was wrong.

  Freddie and Jennifer had almost given up when the nearest policemen went into fits. Jennifer looked at the VIP section and saw that CIB agents were also shaking, except the two agents on the phone. She stepped on people’s toes as she rushed towards the nearest policeman who had dropped to the floor. She wanted his Brandon Ward SA56. The Ward SA56, an American-made replica of the MP5SFA3 semi-automatic carbine, was one of Jennifer’s favorite guns.

  President Ward was shocked to see commotion among the CIB agents and policemen protecting him. “What the fuck are they doing?” he bellowed, thinking they were mutinying. “We are singing the nationa―”

  Assistant Police Commissioner Evans, Brandon Ward’s bodyguard, pushed the president to the floor. He had seen Jennifer pointing a gun at the supreme leader. Jennifer fired, hitting the president’s bodyguard’s shoulder. She fired again and hit one of the senior CIB agents who had been on the phone. The other senior CIB agent scrambled for cover and returned fire. People in the crowd started screaming.

  Something is wrong with NASP, Professor Reed thought with horror, looking at the shaking cops and CIB agents. I have to go to the CIB headquarters.

  “Cover me!” Jennifer ordered Freddie. “Fire into the VIP section. Keep low.”

  Thanking the Ward regime’s six-month compulsory military service, Freddie held his newly acquired semi-automatic carbine, put the selector to the continuous fire option and fired into the VIP section. One of his bullets hit Professor Reed, killing him. Under Freddie’s cover, Jennifer crawled towards the VIP section. She had to kill Brandon Ward. She knew she would never get another chance to kill the supreme leader. There would be lots of reprisals if the dictator survived.

  A CIB agent, who had recovered from electric shock, spotted Jennifer and pointed his Brandon Ward P100 pistol at her. The third electric shock returned just before he could pull the trigger and he dropped the gun, moaning with pain.

  “Patriot President, can you run?” Assistant Commissioner Evans asked.

  “Yes.”

  “When I say go, we run to your limousine, okay?”

  “Yes,” said Brandon Ward, feeling as if he was back in the First Gulf War.

  Assistant Police Commissioner Evans saw this assassination attempt as an opportunity for him to gain promotion. He was tired of shadowing Brandon Ward and he believed he would gain promotion if he rescued the supreme leader. “Go,” he shouted, ignoring the pain in his bleeding shoulder.

  President and bodyguard ran towards the exit. Ten more steps, Evans thought as he ran behind the president. Seven more steps, four more steps. Jennifer spotted them and fired. From less than twenty meters, the supreme leader had no chance against a professional sharpshooter. The bullet entered the back of his head. One more step, Evans thought. Now that the supreme leader was dead, Evans wasn’t running for promotion, he was running for his life. He didn’t win the race. A bullet also found the back of his head.

  Jennifer crawled back to where he had left Freddie. “Freddie, are you okay?” she enquired.

  “I’m fine.”

  “Let’s get out,” she said. “Stay low. There is at least one senior CIB agent somewhere in the VIP section without a NAST.”

  “Brandon Ward?”

  “I got him.”

  They took pistols from shuddering policemen, crawled out of the conference centre and mingled with the crowd of terrified people. The policemen cordoning the conference centre where in an involuntary dance.

  Freddie phoned Kyle. “Stage one is over. Go to stage two.”

  “Did you whack the man?” Kyle asked with disbelief.

  “Yes. Stage two please.”

  “Okay man.”

  Kyle immediately began stage two. Using his newly acquired administrator’s privileges, he selected the NASP accounts of all civilians and pressed the “deactivate bomb” button. When his command was processed, he took his electronic gag and looked at its display screen. He smiled when he saw the words BOMB DEACTIVATED flashing on the device’s screen.

  To make sure that NASP had deactivated his electronic gag’s bomb, Kyle took the gag outside and tied it to a tree with a string. He tied a rope to the wires that Freddie extended. Then he carried the rope round the corner of the house and covered by the house, he yanked the rope and broke the four wires on the electronic gag. There was no explosion.

  He quickly returned to his computer and sent the following message to all active electronic gags:

  Citizens of the United States of America, the dictator Brandon Ward is dead. Go to the streets and celebrate your freedom. The Freedom Front of the United States of America killed Brandon Ward at the National Conference Centre today. This is your day. We have deactivated the bombs on the NASTs of all civilians. This is your day, people of the United States of America. Go into the streets, march to the First Building and to the CIB headquarters. You can remove your NAST by cutting it just beside the charging socket. We urge the public not to take the law into their hands. We have experienced more than two decades of bloodbath and our struggle will be in vain if we resort to bloodbath now. We will deactivate the bombs on the NASTs of members of the security forces in due course. The Freedom Front is ordering all soldiers to go to their barracks and wait for further instructions. All policemen must go to their respective police stations and wait for instructions. Prison guards, release all political prisoners. We extend our amnesty to all members of the country’s security forces but we shall withdraw the amnesty from those who spurn it.

  The message was instantly displayed on his electronic gag.

  He returned to the computer to shock Ward’s security forces for the last time, just for fun.

  When Christopher Ward received the news of his brother’s death, he drove to the CIB headquarters to enquire. The guards at the gate of the CIB headquarters didn’t even look at him as they concentrated on the periodic electric shocks they were getting from their electronic gags. The same thing was happening to the policeman guarding Christopher Ward’s house. Some CIB agents were even lying on the floor. When he entered the director-general’s office, Christopher was relieved to see the vice president, the Defense Minister, the Interior Minister, the Minister of State Security and all the security chiefs present, except the police commissioner and the air marshal. All of them were wearing civilian clothes.

  “Sullivan, what happened?”

  “It’s those two fugitives you released from prison,” Sullivan rasped. “They somehow hacked into our computers and administered electric shocks into all our secu
rity forces.”

  “Can you stop them?”

  “No. The hacker changed the administrator’s password. As we speak, he is now NASP’s administrator.”

  “Let’s shut down the system,” Christopher Ward said.

  “The hacker warned us that if we try to shut down the system, he will detonate all the electronic gags of our security forces,” the director-general said gravely.

  “Do you think that’s possible?” Christopher Ward asked. Now that his brother was dead, he assumed he was in charge.

  “Our computer man here says it’s possible,” General Robinson, the commander of the armed forces said.

  “Is that so?” Christopher asked the agent in charge of the NASP computer hall.

  “Yes,” Roberts said. “After what happened today, I think it’s possible.”

  “Where is Reed?” Christopher Ward asked.

  “One of my men, who was at the conference centre, said the assassins first short Reed before they killed the president,” the director-general said.

  “Where are the police commissioner and the air marshal?” Christopher Ward asked.

  “Hunt and Gardner phoned me,” Lieutenant-General Palmer, the army commander said. “They said they are on their way out of the country.”

  “Wise decision,” General Robinson said, rising from his seat. “Let’s get out while we still can. We all have money in foreign banks and we will have a good life in exile.”

  “Good idea, Robinson,” Retired General Sanders, the Minister of Defense said. “I’m jumping of ship while I still can.”

  “Me too,” chorused Director-General Sullivan and Admiral Cox.

  “Me too,” echoed Palmer, Collins and Campbell.

  “Patriots, we can’t give up so easily,” Christopher Ward said with fervor. “Let’s defend our revolution.”

  “Revolution?” General Robinson laughed. “Christopher, your brother was killed and you will also be killed if you don’t get out of the country.”

  “What are we waiting for?” Collins said, walking out of the office.