Esteban was the
assassination co-ordinator for UniForce, the company that
specialised in the detection and apprehension of convicted felons
for warrants that the criminal division of the WEF sanctioned. At
least, that’s what the company’s glossy brochure said. There was no
mention of the assassination branch because, technically, it didn’t
exist. No fame, no glory, no pat on the back for a job well done –
Esteban could expect nothing like that for his clandestine role in
securing peace on Earth. But the lack of recognition didn’t bother
him, much. Appreciation from the CEO was enough to quench his
thirst for praise. But it did bother him that he could never again
work in the field as an active assassin.
“
I’ll squeeze
your balls so hard you’ll wish your daddy never raped your mommy.”
He knew it was possible to ruin someone’s life without taking it;
he’d succeeded with that already. But he wanted more; he needed to
inflict more pain than he could physically beat out of someone.
Torture is, after all, most effective when performed inside the
victim’s mind. Thoughts could cut more painfully than blades or
lasers. Esteban knew that a body was a poor vessel for the delivery
of pain
,
but he was
only just learning how much fun it could be to ruin someone’s
life.
He went back to his
bedchamber and watched Claire from the doorway. He didn’t cast a
shadow but his mere presence was enough to stir her. He couldn’t be
sure whether she’d been asleep. Just watching her there, naked and
sprawled on the bed caused the sweet rush of blood to his
groin.
She raised her head from
the pillow, her sunken eyes void of emotion. She knew what he was
there for, just as the other women knew when their masters entered
their chambers. It’d been so long since she’d last seen the sky
that her skin was pale and thin, almost waxy. Claire rolled onto
her back when Esteban unzipped his fly and kneeled on the bed. Her
ribs stuck out alarmingly and her skin stretched over them as if
whoever had assembled her forgot the padding and added the outer
layer prematurely. But her breasts were unnaturally large and
looked odd juxtaposed with her gaunt frame.
She spread her legs. The
thought of resistance never registered with her anymore, it hadn’t
registered for a long time. Months? Years? She couldn’t remember.
Time had blurred into one endless thread of misery. A wince crossed
her face when he thrust too deep and it hurt when he pulled her
limp hair. His breath reeked of stale beer and cigars and she
turned her head aside when he tried to kiss her on the mouth,
regretting it when he thrust deeply as punishment.
When he was finished he
stood over her, stroking her forehead without emotion. She rolled
away, feeling nauseated by the stickiness between her legs. Then he
fingered her scar, the tip of his finger tracing the inch-long
incision where the surgeon had extracted her microchip.
How
appropriate.
The voice in Claire’s head
scoffed in contempt.
I should be
dead.
Such was the power he held over her.
With a simple twitch of his finger and a light brush across her
skin, he’d reminded her that she was forever the property of
the Guild
. There was only
one way out of a building that had no doors, and she couldn’t
operate the portals without a microchip. So they’d trapped her
there, in a living death with a handful of equally mistreated
sufferers.
“
You stink.”
Esteban snarled at her.
Look who’s
talking.
She didn’t dare breathe the
words.
“
Take a shower
before I get home tonight, okay?” He waited in vain. “Okay? Answer
me!”
She mustered the strength
to nod though he would never understand the effort it required. “I
will.”
Satisfied,
Esteban wrapped a towel around his legs and headed for the showers,
light-headed from beer and the exertion of sex. With his desires
slaked, he turned his thoughts to what was waiting for him at
head-office in San Francisco.
Yeah, you’re
gonna wish you never heard the name Esteban Garcia Valdez you
motherfucker.
Chapter
2
I picture the
reality in which we live in terms of military occupation. We are
occupied the way the French and Norwegians were occupied by the
Nazis during World War II,
but this time by
an army of marketeers. We have to reclaim our country from those
who occupy it on behalf of their global masters.
Ursula Franklin,
Professor Emeritus, University of Toronto, 1998.
Tuesday, September 14,
2066
Sydney University,
Camperdown Campus
23:55 Sydney,
Australia
Samantha was giggling
uncontrollably.
Jen
looked
fearfully
around and tried to hush her. “Quiet would you? You’ll attract
security.”
One hand gripped her
midriff while the other wiped tears of mirth from the corner of her
eye. “Are you serious?”
Jen nodded forlornly and
it started Samantha on a fresh bout of giggling. Jen doubted she’d
be ready to see the humour for some time yet, but merely watching
her friend was enough to draw a smile, despite her usually serious
demeanour.
She waited for Samantha
to compose herself before asking, “What about you? You’ve never had
one go wrong?”
Samantha shook her head.
“Not that badly. What’d you do then?”
“
What else
could I do? I told him I’d think about it and portaled out of there
as fast as I could.”
“
So has he
called yet?”
Jen nodded again. “But
I’m screening them. I’d rather not speak to him again if I can help
it.”
They crouched near a
vending machine at the front of the Faculty of Education. The
massive sandstone buildings were impressive at night, lit up the
way they were. Streamers of light licked the aging sandstone
blocks, attracting moths and other flying insects. The low pH in
the rain from the past few days was slowly eating away at the very
fabric of the building and granules of sand stuck to Jen’s skin
when she placed a palm against the structure. She dusted her hands
together to remove the grit. After portaling back to their
apartment in Tweed Heads she’d traded her oversized shirt for a
tight-fitting tank top. She expected the night to be warm,
especially if they had some exercise. She’d bleached the white
fabric to the point of fluorescence in the last wash, and she
thought it’d be wise to do something about it if they went ahead
with the plan.
A rucksack of equipment
hung loosely from one shoulder. “Are you sure you know how to do
this?”
Samantha rolled her eyes.
“Quit worrying would you? I know what I’m doing.”
Jen wasn’t
convinced. She knew Cookie wouldn’t have a problem, but they’d
never tripped this model of circuit alone before. Electronic
schematics flashed across her mind whenever she closed her eyes. A
bridge here, power supply there, this board boosts the power, that
board formats the image, this one does the scaling, and
that
board scans the
transmission. There came a point where all the images blurred into
one and she wasn’t sure what she was looking at. She just hoped
she’d make sense of it when they were standing in front of
it.
Still have to
get there first
,
Jen reminded herself
.
T
hey’d be
lucky
just
to get a
shot at the jam; security around the University had tightened in
recent months due to petitioning from Global Integrated Systems.
They didn’t appreciate vandals destroying their equipment and they
were growing tired of dispatching technicians to fix it. The
Australian president, Mark Strathfield, was a Global Integrated
Systems lapdog. Everyone knew it. Nobody complained – they’d voted
for him. They’d voted for the policies that Global Integrated
Systems had proposed anyway, Mark Strathfield was just a puppet.
But along with his three-year term – only nine-months complete –
came changes beneficial to the goliath computer manufacturer.
Besides the lucrative advertising contract, they’d stitched a deal
granting the corporation first recruiting rights from University
graduates. Then there were the big bucks they tossed at curriculum
development
, which
had the effect of whitewashing history texts and strategically
placing commercials inside lecture theatres. It riled Jen to think
of the Suits sitting around a boardroom, hammering out deals that
affected the quality of her education.
“
Well,” Jen
said, shattering the tense silence that had settled between them.
“This is our last opportunity to pull out.”
Samantha vehemently shook
her head. “Not a chance.”
“
That’s what I
thought.” Jen nodded once and flipped the lid on her rucksack. She
pulled a black jacket over her conspicuous tank top and buttoned it
up at the front. “Ready?”
“
Let’s
go.”
They skirted the vending
machines on light feet, heading for the only door they knew they
could bypass. It was made entirely of glass, straight from the
‘40s.
Jen plopped
the rucksack onto the ground and took Cookie’s GT-field-jammer in
both hands, not yet convinced it would work. Samantha nodded
encouragement and she held it to each of the four alarm plates
until the red LED flashed green. Then she pulled the handle,
expecting an alarm to shriek. The glass was heavy, but the door
open
ed
quietly with
a gust of outbound air that smelled like stale chewing
gum.
They ducked inside, the
anxiety of the moment wiring their mouths shut. Jen cast one
furtive glance across the quadrangle, her eyes lingering on their
target. The massive plasma screen showed a proud father smiling at
his son who stood receiving his degree from the Chancellor of the
University. It oozed majesty, and delight, and profound happiness,
and made Jen’s stomach churn in disgust. The graduate held a
portable computer in his other hand and the words underneath read,
“Would you trust an education not earned on a Global Integrated
System?” It was one from a series of ads designed to strengthen
their stranglehold on society.
“
Are you
coming?” Samantha didn’t want to stay in dangerous territory any
longer than necessary.
“
Yeah.” It
sounded dreamy until she snapped fully out of her trance. “Yeah,
I’m coming.”
They weaved through the
maze of corridors until they’d crossed to the far side of the
quadrangle, immediately behind the electronic billboard on the
second floor.
“
That must be
it.” Jen stabbed a finger at the small panel mounted chest-height
on the wall. A plethora of green lights indicated the system was
functioning optimally.
Overkill if you ask
me,
Jen thought.
The
previous model was a synch – remove the old image-board and insert
the new one. Global Integrated Systems had spent millions
developing this system
,
which they
’d
boldly announced was hack-proof. Jen remembered the leer on
Cookie’s face
when he’d heard
the announcement.
Foolish. They must’ve known they were throwing down a
gauntlet.
It was like a red rag to a bull
for everyone in the ad-jamming business. Jen couldn’t be sure how
many other jammers had found a way to circumvent the security on
the new billboards, she hadn’t heard any reports. But then she
rarely did, Global Integrated Systems didn’t appreciate word of
that nature spreading. It
ha
d taken Cookie two weeks of circuit
analysis and testing to come up with an idea and another two weeks
to build devices capable of breaching the system.
“
It’s a shame
Cookie couldn’t be here.” Jen felt another wave of doubt crushing
her breath.
“
We’ll be
fine,” Samantha replied, the spot of her flashlight dancing across
the room. “He tested it thoroughly.”
Jen reached into the
rucksack and plucked a screwdriver set from the jostling equipment.
She handed it to Samantha who immediately began unscrewing the
outer case. Jen did her part by periodically squirting a blast of
chill-be-quick around the edges. Cookie had warned them about that
– a sensor would trigger an alarm if they removed the case, but
they could render it inoperable by freezing it.
There was a protesting
groan of cold, hard plastic as Samantha peeled the case from the
wall and Jen immediately sprayed more chill-be-quick across the
circuits, something else Cookie had recommended.
They goggled
at the jungle of wires and circuits, dumbstruck for a short time by
the apparent complexity. “Right, to work then.” Jen mustered her
courage and testing the voltage across the key segments of the
circuit. It was necessary groundwork in case Global Integrated
Systems had hidden an individual code
inside
every unit. Cookie had doubted
it, but hadn’t wanted to take the chance. Jen pressed the sensors
gingerly to the metal tracks
while Samantha
read the voltage and checked it against the printed sheet Cookie
had given them.