Freedom Club

by Saul Garnell

  “No, Shinzou, Shiro assures me that this is important. You need to do what he asks. Arrest Weebles. Do it now!”

  Before Shinzou could answer, sirens went off inside the atrium. Flip stood back as the elevator doors finally slid open, exposing another crawler that quickly stepped out. But unlike the first, it displayed gleaming dark blue bumpers, Keishicho insignia of the Japanese MPD, and a heavy mixed array of both lethal and nonlethal weapons bolted to its wide payload mounting frame.

  Panicking in disarray, Flip turned to run but was blocked by Shiro’s crawler. He froze in place, terrified, but soon realized it was interested in the Keishicho flathead, which already had its arms up in a defensive posture. Flip leaped away.

  A pitched battle ensued as both machines attempted to disable the other with lighting thrusts and computer-controlled lunges far beyond the speed of human eyes. The attacks were brutal. Blurring combinations of parry and riposte met simultaneously in midair, reverberating with ear-splitting cracks of titanium on steel.

  Such tactics soon gave away to interlocking vise grips and close-range firearms. Each crawler aimed at vital organs to incapacitate as they spun each other about, furiously tearing up carpet and lamination in their wake.

  “Stay out of their way!” Shinzou screamed.

  Without waiting, Sumeet wedged himself into a far corner, where the outer glass panels met the building’s frame. A miserable hiding spot. But, given the mayhem, Shinzou realized there was little choice, and moved himself between Sumeet and the fighting crawlers. Weaponless, he prepared for the worst.

  Flip too lay in hiding until his visceral fear erupted. Both crawlers crashed into a table-like floor panel, creating a brief pause for him to act. Lunging toward the elevator, he jabbed frantically at the call buttons once again. But the door remained locked, precluding any chance of escape. Desperate, he smashed both fists against the door’s aluminum frame. Echoes rang out against the clashing of robotic gladiators.

  “Shinzou!” Henry called out from within his filter. “Arrest Flip before he gets away. Shiro tells me that it’s imperative!”

  “Are you crazy?” Shinzou yelled back, while keeping sharp eyes on the battling robots. “Staying alive is the higher priority!”

  “No, you can’t put this off.”

  “Like hell I can’t!”

  “Shinzou!”

  “Not now, Henry!”

  Grabbing Sumeet’s arm, Shinzou yanked hard and pulled them away as the crawlers scraped dangerously close. The momentum sent them sprawling over a large rectangular block of flooring. Both cursed as they recovered and headed toward the stairwell.

  Their actions didn’t go unnoticed. Even in the heated pitch of battle, the Keishicho crawler realized its targets were about to escape. With one loud burst, a combination of chili balls and rubber bullets hit Shinzou square in the upper back. He went down hard on the floor and reached toward Sumeet, who stopped to help. Realizing he would soon be next, Sumeet instinctively dove to the ground.

  The MPD crawler took aim, when suddenly its firing arm was severed with a high-strength garroting wire. Sparks erupted in all directions as the police crawler reeled backward, leaving its severed limb behind. Shiro’s crawler hauled the damaged flathead away from Shinzou and Sumeet, toward the room’s center. But the fight wasn’t over. With machine-like tenacity, both crawlers deployed energy weapons and fired opposing lasers in a deadly game of lethal disablement.

  Flip watched the ongoing battle and realized his only chance of escape was through the stairwell. He made a final mad dash, and began tugging vainly at the door with one foot up on the doorjamb. Flip looked back toward Sumeet and Shinzou, his teeth chattering out of control.

  With Sumeet’s assistance, Shinzou staggered up to help. He barely noticed that his scorched sports jacket had been cut wide open. It fell loosely down around his arms and exposed his underlying filter suit. Shinzou then tried smashing the door down with his shoulder, but it was useless. He bounced off hard and reeled back while Flip and Sumeet desperately shook the door’s handle.

  “It’s no use,” Shinzou blurted. “It’s magnetically locked. We need to find another way!”

  The two crawlers furiously battled their way toward the stairwell as Shinzou scanned around for any options that remained. Seeing the severed firing arm, he scooped it up and held it out like a truncheon. But he soon realized the severed arm made little difference, and threw it aside as the two crawlers feverishly exchanged blows.

  Looking at Sumeet, Shinzou yelled, “Jump out of the way as they come by!”

  The police crawler was losing the fight. Two arms had now been severed, and one leg was badly damaged. Defensively, it backed up toward the stairwell door, desperately trying to fend off the ceaseless blows of Shiro’s machine.

  “Now!” Shinzou screamed while pushing hard on Sumeet’s shoulder.

  Both dove frantically aside, but Flip didn’t heed the warning. He blindly jostled the door’s handle, and only turned back at the last moment to witness both crawlers looming up. They fell down upon him with a tremendous crunch as the door was battered off its jamb. Sumeet screamed sympathetically and reached toward Flip, who now lay trapped under a tangle of scorched metal components.

  Shiro’s crawler now administered a lethal barrage of death blows. Still on top and mostly intact, its heavy guns and lasers fired down relentlessly into its enemy’s primary systems.

  Depleting all batteries and ammunition, the fight came to a dismal end as the room filled with the stench of burning electronics, followed by silence.

  Sumeet and Shinzou stood back. Looking at the wreckage, they realized Flip was hopelessly trapped. But what could be done? Sumeet carefully stepped forward and pulled on one protruding metal leg. The entire mass didn’t budge, and Sumeet soon relented.

  Peering into the stairwell, Shinzou witnessed more dark figures. Taking careful footsteps into the light, several heavily armed police officers entered the smoke-filled atrium along with another battle crawler.

  “Shinzou, can you hear me?” said Henry in desperation. “You need to arrest Flip! Do you understand?”

  Shinzou shook his head, still woozy from the bullets. “What?”

  “Just repeat after me,” Henry urged. “Say that you’re making an Extraordinary Provisional Arrest, under title seventy two of the ASPAU-Japan extradition treaty.”

  Shinzou looked around as more officers and bots emptied from the elevator on the opposite end of the room. “I’m making a Provisional Arrest here!”

  “An Extraordinary Provisional Arrest,” Henry reminded.

  “Yes! Extraordinary Provisional Arrest under the Japan-ASPAU extradition treaty, under title seventy...”

  “Seventy two!” Henry added angrily.

  “That’s right.” Shinzou smiled in agony. “Title seventy two, yes, that’s it, I believe. I need to extradite this man to ASPAU for charges of...”

  Henry huffed impatiently. “Lebensstörung and acts of criminal vandalism.”

  “Lebensstörung!” Shinzou added loudly. “This guy is a terrorist, and I need to extradite him. Sorry, boys. The paperwork is a bit late on this one.”

  Heavily shielded officers stepped cautiously toward Shinzou and Sumeet. They aimed an array of oversized barrels containing sticky foam, flechettes, and chili balls. Breaking through the line, a tall police officer forced his way to the front. Coming up too close, he ripped off his face protection and helmet, revealing a man Shinzou was relieved to see.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” Hugo demanded.

  Shinzou sighed happily. “Uhm....I’m making an Extraordinary Provisional Arrest. What did you think I was doing?”

  “No, you’re not, because that’s what I’m doing here!” Hugo said, ready to explode.

  A second high-ranked Japanese officer casually walked up next to Hugo. “Are these men with you, Detective Kosterlitzky?”

  Hugo looked toward the Japanese officer and considered his thoughts before ans
wering. “Well, these two are part of my team. This is my deputy Shinzou Friemann and his assistant.”

  Sumeet sheepishly waved his hand at the officers. No one responded, and he slowly put his hand down while shrinking a few inches in the process.

  The senior officer’s face remained perpetually dejected, and he turned toward Hugo in disbelief. “You didn’t tell me you had men already in pursuit of the suspect.”

  Hugo cleared his throat and attempted to contain his anger. “Well, that’s because...”

  Metal parts jostled around, and Hugo paused to watch a group of officers lift the entangled crawlers away from the doorjamb. Everyone gazed apprehensively at Flip’s lifeless body. A large amoeba-shaped pool of blood soaked bright red into the carpet and delineated a gruesome death caused by impalement. A severed metal frame rod, most likely belonging to the police bot, protruded from the center of Flip’s chest. Though dead beyond any hope, two paramedics examined the body in some feeble attempt to provide medical assistance.

  Hugo looked on silently, searching for words other than the litany of derogatory statements running helter-skelter through his mind. “Can you explain what you’re doing here?” he hissed.

  Henry whispered softly into Shinzou’s ear. “Title seventy two, clause three point five eight allows hot pursuit without formal notification.”

  Shinzou looked around the room and sighed calmly. “This is a provisional arrest, while in hot pursuit.”

  Hugo gawked back. “Hot pursuit? We’re in the penthouse atrium. I suppose you chased him up fifty flights of stairs? Or did you politely take turns using the lift?”

  “Something like that.”

  Hugo contorted angrily. “And why didn’t you contact me?”

  “I didn’t know you were after him too.”

  “You would if you called in more.”

  Shinzou shrugged childishly, and smirked at the Japanese commander. “Obviously, I was preoccupied.”

  “In hot pursuit,” Hugo said through clenched teeth.

  “Right.”

  The commander withheld his reply. He just scowled, and patiently waited for a more sincere response.

  “Anyway,” Shinzou said unscathed, “can we extradite him soon?”

  Shaking his head languidly, the police commander turned toward Hugo to confirm how serious the request was. “Extradite him? The suspect is dead!”

  With egotistical bemusement, Shinzou looked at Hugo, and then over at the paramedics. With unnecessary perfection they gently placed Flip’s stiffening corpse on a transport gurney, the jagged bar still soiled and bloody.

  “Extradite a dead man?” Shinzou teased. “That makes it easier, I reckon.”

  “Nicely put,” Henry quietly sniggered. “Don’t worry, just keep up appearances. Everything is working out just fine.”

  With little choice, Shinzou grinned at the increasing group of heavily armored officers. Their faces slowly emerged through gleaming black headgear, glowering in absurd disbelief.

  Shinzou gaped at the converging swarm. “Something wrong?”

  “For god’s sakes, Henry! Stop saying everything’s fine!”

  Paying little heed to the ire being inflicted, Henry raised his chin and forgivingly looked down at Shinzou from the safehouse’s flexi covered wall.

  “Well, you must admit,” Henry placidly remarked, “everything worked out for the best.”

  Sumeet sat well back in his web chair and laughed while picking lethargically at his fingernails. “Oh, yeah? That depends on how you define best.”

  Gesticulating a large semicircle with his chin, Henry said, “Oh, come now, you two! Hugo was satisfied with our data on Flip’s work. Our discoveries about the Low-Carb Buddhism Spammune explained your sudden appearance.”

  “You don’t mind that Shiro provided that information?” Shinzou balked.

  “A cover story that protects all of us. Consider too that every Union on the planet is more than satisfied knowing that Francis Weebles was responsible for recent Lebensstörung activity, and the destruction of the Martin Luther spaceplane. He was, by everyone’s accounting, the most evil man alive. And don’t forget Hugo. He’s downright ecstatic about the bonus commissions that he’ll receive!”

  Shinzou scoffed defiantly. “But aren’t you troubled by all this? Flip wasn’t responsible for all the LS worldwide. We are!”

  “Shiro is trying to help the Freedom Club. By making Flip responsible, we carry less risk going forward.”

  Sumeet got to his feet and shook his head negatively. “Why on earth is he doing that? I mean, we went down there to meet his contact and improve our relationship. But this man Francis ended up getting killed! Isn’t Shiro upset about that?”

  Henry slid along the wall and got closer to Sumeet. “No one expected the police to show up. And even though Shiro’s crawler was only a safeguard, it all backfired sadly. But remember what’s important here. We’re not responsible for his death! It was an accident.”

  Sumeet stood back inquisitively. “Shiro’s armed flathead was concealed from us, while we on the other hand went in unarmed. Isn’t there a trust issue?”

  “No. In retrospect, he wasn’t confident about our intentions at that point in time. But please, we shouldn’t blow this out of proportion. It’s understandable, really. As a Sentient, Shiro is able to think strategically.”

  “Yes, I noticed that logic when he screamed at me,” Shinzou snorted cynically.

  “He was in bad form that day. Even he would admit that.”

  “Bad form?”

  Henry brushed aside the condescending remark. “Look, don’t you understand? It turned out favorably. Our initial reaction to the police crawler was actually critical, telltale of our true loyalties and proof that we’re a clandestine group. Something hard to demonstrate with words, when you think about it. Shiro appreciates knowing that fact.”

  Shinzou and Sumeet gaped at Henry with incredulity. Then silence emanated several moments as the hum of air-conditioning-circulated air throughout the small room.

  Ignoring all hyperbolic facial gestures, Henry relented a bit. “Okay, perhaps Shiro does have psychological issues. He’s unlike other Sentients, and can be at times a bit...moody.”

  Shinzou tapped his feet and looked suspiciously at Sumeet. “No offense, Henry, but you seem quite forgiving about all this. I’d almost say you’re defensive. Even you must admit, it all sounds rather strange.”

  Henry mulled over Shinzou’s doubts. Clearly, both men were honing in on truths that required harsh discretion. But now was not the time, Henry thought. He surmised to share only what he had to, and wait until the Freedom Club, in its new made-over form, was ready to move forward again.

  “You are quite right to be distrustful,” Henry said thoughtfully. “But I must say, Shiro is quite captivating from my perspective. If anything, a unique member of my race, gifted with unplanned spirituality. But even with his eccentric behavior and unorthodox upbringing, I believe we can help each other to better understand how technology affects us all, both Sentient and human. Shinzou, it may sound unusual but I would only ask your kind indulgence. Give me time to forge a better relation, one from which I am sure we will all benefit.”

  Shinzou and Sumeet looked at each other briefly, unsure what to make of this request.

  “You’ve always been free to make your own decisions,” Shinzou said, not quite sure what role he was being asked to play. “I’m sure you’re doing the right thing. But we should all meet as a group and reacquaint ourselves, don’t you think? After all, my first meeting with Shiro didn’t get off on the right foot.”

  Henry smiled. “Yes, yes! I have a meeting with him soon to discuss our next steps together. A regrouping for all of us is certainly in order.” Henry looked toward Sumeet and raised his eyebrows. “But perhaps it would be best to have it after we’re back home. After all, Sumeet here needs to get his life straightened out. And we should get back to ASPAU and make sure Hugo remains satisfied with the curren
t situation. In the meantime, I will liaison with Shiro. When the time is right, we can all meet as one.”

  Sumeet eagerly nodded. “That’s fine with me. I’d really like to get some type of life back, if that’s even possible.”

  Henry harrumphed with joy. “It’s agreed, then. We can wait for Sumeet’s timetable to drive things. As soon as he’s ready, we can meet with Shiro.”

  It wasn’t perfect, but all three agreed to this simple plan. They then commenced closing down the safehouse that had been their temporary workspace for the last two days. It didn’t take very long. And Henry stayed online, offering last minute assurances until the final systems were neatly shut down and nano scrubbers went to work eradicating forensic traces.

  Then Henry was alone, having ample time to consider the Freedom Club and its future. It truly was cast anew. With Sumeet and Shiro taking part, things were sure to change. But first he had much work to do with Shiro, work that could upset the Club’s equilibrium if handled inconsiderately. It troubled him. For he was now keeping secrets. Not because he wanted to, but because such activities required conscientious discretion.

  Henry wasn’t ashamed in any case. Confident that his actions were justified, he reminded himself of the Ineurhace and its alignment at the most primitive levels of shared conscious. For better or worse, it ensured a form of true communion. If only Shinzou and Sumeet could experience it. Yes, then they too would understand. But alas, Henry concluded sadly, humans weren’t wired like Sentients. There would be no way for humans to experience a true shared conscious experience. Or could they?

  Stepping away from his gleaming virtual monitor, Henry gently waved his hand and opened the portal near Walden Pond. Stepping upon its well-worn path, he walked toward the small cabin near the pond’s muddy shore. Opening the rusty old door, twilight revealed sparkles of dusty air while he lit a small oil lamp hung from a nail. Waving the match out, smoke billowed slowly upwards in the dim light.