Freedom Incorporated Page 9

  Openings at an Elustra mall occasionally appeared in the online papers and Jen wondered what sort of people would actually apply for them. Nevertheless, there was a wide variety of positions available: office juniors, highly paid and overstressed executives, cleaners, security guards, building maintenance orderlies, doctors, dentists, medical specialists, engineers to keep the sophisticated equipment in proper working order… Elustra needed them all to keep their workforce healthy, to keep it free of decay. But the advertisements never mentioned the burnt-out employees Elustra discarded, thereby creating the vacancies.

  With such a large structure, transportation could prove a problem. Or it would prove a problem if Elustra hadn’t put portals everywhere. They were free for all residents – one of the perquisites of having a microchip branded by an oppressive corporation. The portals positively riddled the structure, though somebody could only access the areas for which he or she had the appropriate clearance.

  And one of Elustra’s manufacturing plants had fabricated every product in the mall –including the ‘antiques’. But the factories didn’t have a shiny enough public image, so they’d never been a candidate for integration with the perfectly balanced triangle. Elustra brushed them to the fringes where they occupied deserts and swamps, operated in sweatshop conditions wherever the local laws were lax enough to permit it.

  The business model had proved successful; Elustra’s pilot program in Los Angeles demonstrated that. It was so successful thatthey began stamping out malls as fast as their construction crews could find the materials. They scattered the first ten across the United States where the newly enlisted Elustra employees welcomed them wholeheartedly and everyone else eyed them with suspicion. The fact that Elustra only built malls on cheap, unwanted land was probably what helped them survive their youth. Who needed to be close to the cities when your patrons could portal from anywhere? So their enormous triangles,whichlooked more like huge turds from a distance, multiplied without resistance. Their introduction into Canada and Australia went smoothly, but the Europeans complained bitterly about the decimation of their old-world skyline and protests rocked the streets until Elustra relocated to Russia, where they weren’t so finicky about outward appearances. In order to compensate for the added cost of long distance portaling, Elustra subsidised all portal activity from Western Europe into their Russian malls. It worked. Europeans flocked to Elustra’s malls and brought their money with them.

  A flood of money.

  It was hardly surprising that other multinationals sought to copy Elustra’s successand soon the gargantuan developments speckled the globe. Every multinational attempted to diversify, preying upon vaguely dissimilar segments of society. But Elustra was the original model and it would always hold a special place in the hearts and minds of the people.

  For Jen, that special place was a stinging clot that choked her of oxygen.

  Samantha looked longingly at a plasma screen that was spewingcommercial propaganda at the passers-by. “What I wouldn’t give to hack that and get some realexposure.”

  Jen was in a good mood and her enthusiasm nearly rivalled Samantha’s effervescent exuberance. “We’re on the verge of getting a much bigger canvass than a plasma screen.”

  Samantha beamed and said, “I know. Exciting, isn’t it?”

  Jen nodded and turned sideways to squeeze past a porky man whose buttoned shirt had popped beneath his considerable gut, revealing a tangle of belly-hair. She suppressed a shudder and asked, “So what exactly are we looking for anyway?”

  “I need a new top.” Samantha despaired to think of her wardrobe, it was just so, camp.

  “Yeah, me too.” Jen wanted to toss all her worn clothing in the bin and start afresh, but then remembered her grandfather’s warning and stubbed her desire before it got out of control. Her clothes were functional and that was good enough. She hated the part of herself that desired more. It wasn’t necessary. It wasn’t natural. It was the advertisements weaselling their way into her subconscious and influencing her actions like the jerk of a puppet’s strings.

  “…I think.” Samantha was saying something that Jen didn’t quite catch. “Or maybe beige.”

  Excited children were tugging on the arms of exhausted parents, clustering around the window of Luke’s Lucky Pet Store. Jen doubted that anybody by the name of Luke had ever worked there.There was a Luke’s Lucky Pet Store in all Elustra giga-malls. Hmm… those kittens are cute though. She knew why Elustra wanted to sell them. Owning a pet raised the rent in a person’s apartment by 20 Credits a week and it meant the inhabitants needed to purchase cat food, flea collars, and small balls that tinkled when they rolled. And that wasn’t mentioning visits to the veterinarian. But one kitten was particularly cute. It was unsteady on its long back legs and it wobbled when it ran about the pen, playing with its siblings in the sawdust.

  Jen made a longing face, similar to the pestering children. “Oh, can we get one?”

  “Yeah sure, it’ll love living on your yacht,” Samantha said facetiously.

  Jen poked her in the ribs. “Well, thatone loves water. You can tell by the way it walks – it’s not wobbly, it’s got sea legs!”

  Samantha doubled with laughter. “Sure girl.”

  They were halfway back to the food court, or the junk-food court as the locals called it, when Jen reflected on the serious side of their combined excitement. “We should think about how to use our window of opportunity.” She talked in codes, all the better to hide their intentions from the ever-watchful corporate eyes and ever-listening corporate ears.

  Samantha knew what she meant. “I’ve been thinking about that too.” She opened the throttle on her imagination. “We could send a message to other-”

  “Except that they’ll track it back to us if it contains any contact details,” Jen said abruptly. It was the crux of their problem. If Cookie managed to hack into the UniForce network and pull the plug on Echelon, they’d have the opportunity to send the world a message that could help reunite the resistance. But by delivering enough information to reconnect the fractured branches, they’d be telling the enemy where to find them. And that meant their downfall before they could even taste their newfound freedom.

  “The best we can hope for,” – it infuriated her to accept this – “is to let them know we’re still here and that we’re still fighting.” She wished she had some way of knowing how many pockets there were. What if they’ve given up? What if we’re the last?

  Samantha noticed her friend’s deliberation and alleviated her unease by distracting her with something mundane. “Come on, I want to look for my top here.”

  They passed the scanners, which logged the activities of every patron: which store they entered, how long they spent there, which products they bought, and which products they paused to inspect. With this information, Elustra determined whom to ban from their malls. If someone consistently browsed but never bought, he or she would eventually be unwelcome. Elustra didn’t tolerate browsers; they were only interested in people who spent money. So, somewhere in the bowels of the mall, a server wrote Jen and Samantha’s unique identifiers into three logs: a primary, an onsite backup, and an offsite backup. The fact that the identifiers recordeddidn’t correspond with the two girls wasn’t something the storekeepers bothered to check. That was why Elustra paid security guards.

  Samantha spent 20 minutes browsing the racks of garish clothes, kneadingthe material between her fingers to feel the quality of the fabric. She selected three to try on and a store assistant ushered her toward the change rooms, enthusiastically sprouting phoney compliments when Samantha paraded the potential purchases in front of the mirrors.

  She wished her breasts were bigger. She’d been thinking about investing in a set of breast enlargers that used electrical fields to stimulate cell division. Everyone who’d tried them sung their praises and Samantha was saving up for the purchase. She was needlessly worried that Cookie wanted them fuller and she pouted at her reflection in the mirro
r. She hadn’t yet worked up the courage to ask Jen whether she wanted to go halves in a set.

  “What do you think?” The tank top revealed her slender shoulders and much of her elegant back, though it would’ve hung better if she had the breasts she wanted. But maybe I should buy clothes with larger breasts in mind?

  Jen said, “I like it better than the other two. It hugs your waist… but maybe it’s for people with… it’s a bit loose at the front.” It was Jen’s way of gently reminding her that the design was for people of more ample bosom.

  Samantha memorised her figure then closed her eyes and conjured her image with breasts pumped up like balloons. It fit perfectly in her mind. All she needed were the bigger breasts and she’d be able to afford them in a month. Just in time for summer. The enlargers were supposed to show results after a fortnight and the ads said a month of persistent use meant she’d need bras two cup-sizes larger.

  She smiled. “I’ll take it.”

  The assistant graciously scanned the top’s barcode and then waved her scanner toward Samantha. It beeped approval and she neatly folded the purchase before incongruously stuffing it into a paper carry-bag that sported the store’s logo no less than five times. She read the name from the receipt before scrunching it into the bag and saying, “Thank you Mrs Peterson.” That was the identity Samantha was using.

  Samantha just smiled and accepted the bag before shuffling from the store, Jen close behind. “You know, I was wondering…” Now’s a good a time as any I guess,she thought. But Samantha wasn’t sure how to broach the subject. “What do you think of my breasts?”

  “Excuse me?”

  Samantha cringed and wished she could melt into a puddle on the floor. “I mean, do you think they’re small?”

  Jen didn’t often feel uncomfortable talking with her friend, but some subjects required supreme diplomacy and made her nervous. “Well they’re not… they’re a bit… they suit you.”

  So Samantha spent the next five minutes explaining her intentions and the reasons behind them.

  *

  The Raven perched one level up.

  He had the perfect vantage point, peering over the shiny metal rail to the lower level. Elustra had tried to recreate the peaceful feeling of sunlight thathadoften flooded malls in the twentieth centaury by using extremely intense sun-globes. To improve the effect, they’d carvedholesthrough the middle of every first, second and third floor to give the light somewhere to go. It made people think they were in a four-storey building instead of a 125-storey building. Every fourth level had a plastic-looking garden with rocks, trickling water and other soothing things.

  The Raven ignored them all.

  But the rail glimmered in his eyesand a distorted image of his facegazed back. He ran a finger over the scar just behind his hairline. And he noticed it was time to shave; three days’ stubble was two days’ too many. Even ravens had to preen.

  He detested waiting. He always grew impatient waiting for a favourable omen. It irked him that he couldn’t swoop two days ago when he’d first started tracking the girl. But he knew how important it was. Without the omen he was no better than the others, and he couldn’t have that.

  He longed to loose his Redback-PX7. He wanted to lob off a few rounds and cut her down. Just thinking about it filled him with malicious glee bordering on psychosis. But that wasn’t how he saw it. He was a surgeon, after all, an instrument of the new order. He carved the dead and decaying flesh from society to reveal the delicious fruit underneath. Never had he preyed on an innocent, only those deserving death. And he was good at dolling it out, but the meticulously economical part of his mind refused to allow him more than a glimpse of pride before snuffing it with an electronic command. Sometimes it was difficult to tell where the machine ended and he began, but perhaps that was irrelevant. He was one organism, and a fine specimen of what humanity was capable of if they’d just overcome their inhibitions for cybernetic implants.

  He signed and watched Jennifer Cameron from above, ready to swoop at a moments notice. It had been that way for days. It’s a pity I can’t control the omens too. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for, but he’d recognise it when it arrived. And itwould spell the death of the girl – none too soon as far as the Raven was concerned. He wanted to return to America and get some decent sleepbecause not even his cybernetic implants could eradicate a human body’s need to roost.

  *

  Samantha looked downcast.

  They sat on a bench, away from the bustle of the crowd, outside one of Elustra’s many medical centres.

  “It’s hard not to be a consumer.”

  Jen nodded, intimately understanding. “Yeah, I know. I’ve been fighting the impulses for a long time. Even today I had to remind myself what it’s all about. It has to start somewhere and I don’t think the people living here can control their sprees.”

  “What have I done?” Samantha looked horrified and guilty at the same time,and the combination made her look depressed. But she wasn’t depressed, just distressed. She’dcertainly neverneededa Xantex prescription; she’d never been depressed in her life.

  Jen had never taken Xantex’s advice either. She shied away from their products as thought they were poison, which they may very well have been.

  “You haven’t done anything wrong. Yet. I think spending money on breast enlargers would be a mistake, but it’s always-”

  “No,” Samantha said, cutting her off. “You’re right. So what’re we doing here?”

  Jen paused to consider that. Was I really intending to buy something?She couldn’t be sure. She didn’t want to buy anything now, but perhaps she was a consumerist at heart and had a deep-seated desire to buy a heap of junk she couldjust as easilydo without. “I don’t know.” She scoured her surroundings distrustfully. They were far enough from the jostling crowd not to be overheard and it seemed an unlikely place for a microphone. If they kept their voices low, Jen thought their nook was a safe enough place to talk. “But now that we’re here I’menjoyingthinking about a jam – as an intellectual exercise only, I’d be too dangerous to try.”

  Samantha looked at the nearest plasma screen. An advertisement for jewellery was vying for the attention of the passing bustle. The sparkling diamonds and gorgeous gold chains held a lustre that artisanship alone couldn’t explain; the marketers had created some lustre of their own and woven it into the fabric of the message. It revolted them both to see it for what it was – money in the pockets of Elustra.

  Hatred poured through Samantha’s next words. “I’d love to jam that screen.”

  “How?” Jen loved to think about it.

  “Well…” Samantha thought for a long time before answering. “The control devices are probably in a restricted area. We’d need high security clearance to get there.”

  “So it’s impossible?”

  “No.” She looked serious. “We’d need Cookie to build a handheld scanner that we could use to record someone’s details.” The trade in stolen microchip data was big business for those with the technology to retrieve it.The trick was to retrieve it all; partial data was worse than useless, it was dangerous.“We’d have to pick someone that definitely had appropriate access.” She thought some more. “I don’t how yet.”

  “Work experience?” Jen offered.

  Samantha shook her head. “We’re too old to pass off as year ten students.”

  “That doesn’t matter, does it? We could just turn up and say we’re considering a career change and that we’d like to spend a day in the life of a screen operator.”

  Samantha’s eyes lit up. “Yeah, they’d be crazy to turn away free coffee-fetchers. And then we’d know where to go and what equipment they had.”

  “We could scan one of their chips on the day. Afterwards, Cookie’d have to forge a chip with the appropriate clearance – if he can do that at all – and, hey-presto, we’d have access to the control room.” The beginnings of a frown crept across Jen’s forehead. “It’s probably somewhere i
n the office block.”

  “Then it’d depend on Cookie. I don’t think he’s jammed this model of screen before.” Samantha was perking up and returning to normal.

  “And then we’d run like hell.” Jen reminded her.

  Samantha laughed. “Yeah, we’d run like hell.” She looked at the paper bag she was clutching and a pang of guilt shuddered through her body. “I want to take this back.”

  “Really?” Jen wasn’t convinced that was a particularly smart idea. “Are you sure? You’ve got it now, why not just enjoy it?”

  Samantha shook her head. “No, I don’t need it and it doesn’t look good on me without the breasts to go with it. Besides,it’ll just make me feel badevery time I wear it. I don’t want that.”

  Jen bit her lip, regretting her anti-consumerist tirade. “I’m sorry, I didn’t-”

  “Don’t be sorry, you’re right,” she said, cutting her friend off with a wave of her hand. “I have plenty of functional clothes and if we can’t control our own spending, how dare we expect others to?”

  “Do you mind if I stay here?” Jen dreaded returning things to their place of purchase, even if it was just an Elustra store. “I don’t feel comfortable-”

  “I know,” Samantha said, cutting her off again. She smiled and added, “It’s okay. I understand, remember?”

  Jen breathed easier. “Thanks.” Everybody had something he or she couldn’t do. For Jen it was returning clothes, pulling the bits of soapy hair from the shower drain, and visiting her mother. Samantha understood; she had quirks of her own.

  “I’ll be back in a moment.”

  “Okay, I’ll be here,” Jen said as she watched Samantha reintegrate with the crowd on the main arterial walkway.

  An elderly man shuffled past on his way to the medical centre and she heard theautomatic doorswhirr before a hospital smell engulfed her. There she waited, patiently observing the passers-by and absently wondering how the consumerist-cycle had so thoroughly sucked everybody in.