Jen was wondering the
same thing. The shadowy figure she’d glimpsed from fifteen stories
away sent shivers down her spine. She wanted a better look at him;
something deep within demanded a face for her nightmare.
The LED on Dan’s
kick-start was still flashing red.
“
You are an
unauthorised driver,” a non-threatening voice said over the car’s
speakers. “I cannot start for you. I have alerted the nearest
police department.”
“
Oh shit.” Dan
opened his door. “Get out.”
“
What is
it?”
“
A disabler.
It’s looking for its owner’s microchip,” Dan said, gingerly rubbing
his jarred elbow. He’d hurt it breaking into the Celica and a
numbness was radiating up to his shoulder, steadily making his
right arm useless.
“
Come on.” Dan
was running full speed down the row of shiny cars. Jen was pale,
panting uncontrollably in her attempt to keep up. The adrenaline
helped, but it was gone now and she had only determination to keep
her going.
“
This one.”
Dan kicked the window in.
It was a ’31
model, built one year after portals had been invented. A spacious
family car, it had probably been the top of its line. With sleek
curves and fuzzy-logic controlling every system, it was difficult
to
find something to complain about.
I just hope we can start the damn
thing,
Dan thought
desperately.
Mandatory microchipping hadn’t
come into effect until 2059, so Dan hop
ed
the owners of such an old car
wouldn’t have bothered fitting a disabler.
He turned on his
kick-start and watched the matchstick-like numbers on the display
flicker through the range of possible frequency, wavelength and
power combinations.
“
Look out!”
Jen rasped, pointing at the Raven.
“
I see
it.”
Hurry up you piece of
shit.
He gripped the kick-start harder and
shook it a little, as though trying to convey to its electronic
circuits that they were in a hurry.
The Raven
fired and one of his pellets burst through their windscreen before
detonating, showering them with toxic slivers of glass. Dan
reflexively closed his eyes and hoped Jen had the sense to do the
same. “Careful,” he warned her, “whatever you do,
don’t
cut yourself on that
stuff.”
Shards had
sprinkled everywhere and Jen shook them off her shirt
the best
she could before
reaching into the glove compartment for a tissue
. She used it to
wipe her
jeans
clean then
mirrored the service for Dan
,
who
grunted his thanks
despite the desperate flutter in his
stomach
.
The Raven was relentless;
he halved the distance to their car and steadied his aim a second
time.
“
Are you going
to use that?” Dan pointed with his spare hand at the 1911 stuffed
under Jen’s belt.
“
Here, take
it!”
He felt better as soon as
he’d gripped the pistol and he leaned out the window to lay
covering fire. It was difficult to aim without looking down the
sights but he compensated for the awkward angle and squeezed the
trigger. His shots scattered far away from his intended target, but
it did make the Raven cautious, he crouched behind a vehicle for
cover.
The ’31 Ford
Fairmont Future Dan had chosen, or the
‘Triple-F’
as everybody knew it, hummed
when the kick-start blundered onto the ignition frequency. The dash
came alive, displaying all manner of useless
information.
“
Finally,” Dan
muttered, tossing the kick-start onto the floor. He selected
reverse on the t-bar, floored the accelerator, and was thrust
against his seatbelt restraint.
Jen stifled
one shout of surprise when the car lurched back and another when
Dan swung the wheel,
spinning
the car to face the exit.
The Raven clutched his
opportunity to attack and sprinted after them, emptying his clip of
toxic ammunition at the Ford. He wanted to shoot the tyres, or the
passengers, or… something, anything. But glass was no match for the
full-metal-jacket car. It was fine for puncturing flesh but it had
little penetration power. He swore luridly and cursed his omen,
which had forbidden him to use metal bullets.
Dan shifted
the t-bar and stomped on the accelerator. There was a whirring
sound
when
the
engine
fired
before
the transmission engaged the gears, and for one incongruous moment
he thought they’d just sit there, red-lining the engine until it
exploded in a puff of smoke.
A glass pellet
shattered his right side mirror just as the linkage collected the
correct gear, forcing them into their seats amidst the sound of
screeching tyres.
It’s
certainly
got
grunt,
Dan thought as he flicked on
the high beam to compensate for the dim lights in the car park. He
was swivelling the wheel without slowing down, avoiding the many
concrete pylons as he followed the twists and turns to the
exit.
The
speedometer crept up to 190, then 210
, and
Dan kept the accelerator to the floor until the car was travelling
at 260 kph
. Then he eased off. The Triple-F
was fast, perhaps not fast enough to out-sprint the more
recreational vehicles in Elustra’s car park,
but it felt exhilarating none the less.
T
he Ford’s tachometer was reading
6,000 and it red-lined at 6,500. He didn’t want to push it
any
hard
er
; he
wasn’t feeling that lucky.
He turned onto
a main traffic artery and quickly overtook three slower vehicles
that were at least making pretence of obeying the posted speed
limit. It took him a while to
recognise
he was on the highway
heading north, toward his boyhood home of Albury where his parents
still lived.
Jen watched
him from the corner of her eye, gripping the seat to steady her
racing heart. She’d never driven a car; she’d only travelled in one
twice, and never at such a terrifying speed.
Dan
was tense, nervously scanning the
mirror for any signs of pursuit. Five minutes and 20 kilometres
later, he relaxed a little and slowed their car to a more
respectable pace.
So, with the
thrill of their escape
subsiding
, Jen began to wonder just
who her mysterious saviour thought he was.
*
The Raven spat in
disgust.
A stray dog chose that
most unfortunate moment to trot through the car park, playfully
waging its tail. It stared at the black-clad warrior with its big
brown eyes, panting. The Raven felt nothing that even bordered on
affection for the canine. It repulsed him. He raised his Redback
and aimed it at the spot between the puppy’s eyes.
Unaware of the danger,
the stray continued wagging and panting, and its tongue slid
happily from the side of its mouth.
He didn’t do
it.
There was a
skerrick of humanity left in his brain after all
.
And t
hat
repulsed him more than anything – repulsed what he was
becoming.
*
Jen considered her
situation.
It didn’t look
good no matter which way she looked at it. A bounty hunter was
tracking her.
Only me?
She worried about Samantha, who was probably still in the mall
with the monster.
Okay, a new
identity.
She had difficulty grasping what
that meant. She gave herself a new identity every month – a
different microchip in the little box she always carried in her
pocket.
No, not enough.
Her mouth took on a sour expression as it dawned on her what
she’d have to do.
A new city, a new life,
probably no more activism.
The realisation
hit hard and sunk her good mood. The sudden shift was even more
painful because it followed so soon after her recent
elation.
And what of
him?
She turned to examine his
profile.
What’s his story?
“
Who are you?”
Her voice was barely above a whisper, shock and depression sapping
her strength.
“
My name’s Dan
Sutherland,” was all he offered.
A bit
robot-like isn’t he?
“Yeah?” She snorted
indelicately. “Well that’s good to know.”
What’ve you been smoking Dan?
Then she
mentally disciplined herself and promised to keep all future
sarcasm to herself.
He did just save my
life.
“
I suppose I
should say thank you.”
Dan took his
eyes off the road for long enough to cast
Jen
a quick look. “Why do you suppose
that?”
“
Because you
saved my life.” But Jen was still trying to unravel the mysteries
she knew were lurking
beneath
the surface
of
life’s
latest twist, so she added, “At
least, I think you did.”
That elicited a smile. He
even laughed, briefly. “Well if you feel grateful then by all
means, thank away.”
“
Thank
you.”
And that
surprised him;
Dan never thought she’d
actually say the words
. It didn’t fit with
the profile he’d memorised.
“
So who was
that?” Jen jerked a thumb over her shoulder and made another
attempt to brush the glass from her jeans. She was alarmed to note
that several fragments had slipped down her blouse, ending up in
her bodice-like undershirt. More were glistening
in
Dan’s
hair
.
I must have
some in mine too
, she thought.
Wisely
heeding Dan’s warning, she abstained
from brush
ing
them
out. It was sure to end with splinters embedded in her
skin.
“
That,” Dan
said, “was the Raven.”
He said it with such
dramatic aplomb that she smiled.
Dan felt the
need to defend himself. “You may think it’s amusing but I assure
you he’s no laughing matter. That’s what he calls himself; it’s his
call-sign
.
H
e never
uses
anything else; I don’t think he even
has
a real name
. He
is
the
Raven. Twenty-four by seven.”
“
And he’s
trying to kill me.”
“
Yes,” Dan
confirmed. “As I said, the WEF has sanctioned your apprehension and
UniForce put a contract on you. The Raven intends to collect.” He
paused, wondering how much he should tell her. “Have you ever been
scared of something, Jennifer?”
“
Don’t call me
that,” she snapped. “I hate that name.”
If her rebuke had
offended him, Dan made no show. “What would you like me to call
you?”
“
Jen.”
Dan added the appropriate
notes to the dossier in his mind. “Well, Jen, imagine your greatest
fears all bundled together, then amplify them by ten, and you still
wouldn’t come close to the nightmare you’ve just seen.”
She frowned at him. “What
do you mean?”
“
He’s not
human.” Dan veered into the overtaking lane and passed a black
sporty-looking Spyder. “Not entirely anyway. He used to be, a few
years ago. Have you ever heard of Project Smart-Stream?”
“
Yes. Back in
the ‘30s a conglomerate of computer companies genetically enginee-”
She stopped short, understanding what he meant. “No.”
Dan nodded, something
alien glimmering in his eyes. Jen stared at it, wondering what
secrets it betrayed and wishing she could peal away the layers off
Dan’s carefully constructed shield to gaze at the man underneath.
“Yes. He’s a Smart-Stream failure.”
She grunted bitterly.
“They all were.”
In 2037, an
acquisitions team for Global Integrated Systems scoured the planet
and pooled the world’s genetic engineering resources into one
integrated team. They then applied their super-team to the
intellectual problem of creating human children with a fluid-filled
space where normal people had frontal lobes. Although they’d
abandoned the barbaric notion of carving the frontal lobes from
people 75 years earlier, they hadn’t yet given up on the idea that
they could compact the human brain toward the rear of the cranium.
By that time, scientists had thoroughly established that a brain’s
mass was unimportant for human intelligence. The density of the
interconnecting
neurons,
nodes and synapses were the critical factors.
There’d been countless documented cases of people with normal
intelligence but only a shell for a brain – fluid filled the core
of their most delicate organ, which restricted synapse activity to
a thin rim of grey matter, perhaps half a centimetre thick. Yet the
connections between neurons had grown sufficiently dense to allow
them to lead normal lives. Scientists had therefore popularly
believed that they could genetically engineer humans with brains
squashed at the back of the head, thereby leaving a fluid-filled
gap at the front, with no impact on intelligence. Indeed, by
tinkering appropriately with DNA, they could engineer mice with
dendrite densities 170 percent above normal, effectively creating
super-mice. So, why not take advantage of this technology in
humans?