Electronic Gags (21 page)

“It’s not what it looks like.”

“What does it look like?”

“Please come inside and I will explain.”

“Your explanation must be good,” Melissa
said, following Jennifer into the house.

“Where is Kyle?”

“Asleep. He was up all night.”

“You must have kept him very busy.”

“Yes, we kept him busy.”

“There are two of you?” Melissa said
with horror.

Jennifer nodded.

“Lord of mercy!”

“I’m the second one,” Freddie said,
entering the living room.

Melissa ran into Freddie’s arms. “My
son!” She held him tightly, unwilling to let him go, as if she knew she would
lose him again if she released him.

Freddie freed himself from her arms.
“This is Jennifer, my girlfriend.”

“Please forgive me, Jennifer,” Melissa
said with an apologetic smile. “I thought you and Kyle were―”

“No need to apologize, ma’am.”

“You can call me Melissa.” She turned to
Freddie and looked at her as if she was seeing him for the first time. “I still
can’t believe my eyes. Tell me I’m not dreaming, Freddie. How did you get out?”

“Let me write it down for you. Who knows?
Maybe they will start recording us with your…” He pointed at her electronic
gag. He took a piece of paper and wrote a summary of how he and Jennifer got
out of prison and escaped from the police.

Melissa read the note and pointed at his
bare neck. “When I saw you, I knew there was something odd about you but I
couldn’t pinpoint it.”

I can remove yours if you want,
Freddie said in
another note.

Melissa shook her head and wrote a note
asking why he didn’t skip out of the country.

I wanted to see you again, mom,
was his reply.

You were in the refuge, less than 50 km
from Canada & you dragged this lovely girl back here just to see me? Is
there something you aren’t telling me?

It’s true, mom. I just wanted to see you
again.

Melissa’s next note was to Jennifer.
Why
did you come here instead of escaping to Canada?

Melissa’s face had such an imploring
look that Jennifer couldn’t lie to her.
He wants to help Michael
, she wrote
back.

“I knew it!” Melissa spluttered and
angrily wrote:
Freddie, when will you get tired of risking your life for Michael?
Did he bewitch you?

I’ve to help him. This time I’ll be
careful.

Do you know that Mike’s mom died because
of him?
Melissa wrote with guilt. She knew Danielle Wright would be alive if she hadn’t
told her that the government was about to execute her son.

“What?” Freddie asked.

Daniele died trying to avenge Mike.
Melissa’s hand
shook as she wrote.
She tried to use her NAST as a suicide bomb to kill Brandon
Ward. She died in vain. Don’t do the same.

I will be careful, mom. We are using
computers.

“Computers!”Melissa exclaimed. “You have
dragged Kyle into this, haven’t you?”

“We―”

“Haven’t you?” Melissa rasped.

He scribbled a reply under her fierce glare.
Mom we are playing it safe.

You will get us all killed with your
foolishness,
Melissa
wrote back.
Do you ever think about our safety? Go out of TDA now!
She
passed him the note and held his hand as he read it.

Mom, I have learnt my lesson and I’ll be
very careful,
Freddie assured.
If we fail to hack the government’s computers, we’ll skip
out of the TDA next week.

Melissa read the note twice before she
replied.
But you’ve to escape now, whilst they still think you’re in the refuge.

Mom, I need only a week to try this
computer thing. Jennifer & I won’t go outdoors during the week.

Melissa sighed. “Promise me you will go within
seven days,” she said, looking into his eyes. Then she wrote:
By hiding
here, you’re putting Kyle’s life in danger. If the CIB finds out, Kyle will
face the firing squad.

Freddie read the note, blaming himself
for causing his mother so much pain and anxiety.
I promise, mom. Don’t come
here whilst we’re here.
When the government finds out we escaped, they’ll
record everything you say. Please don’t say anything about me.
Freddie
paused, resting his hand. It was a long time since he wrote so much.
Kyle
will come and update you. When you and Kyle talk about me, do so by writing
notes and don’t forget to burn the notes.

You must like my son very much,
Melissa wrote to
Jennifer.
If I were you I would be out of the TDA.

I love him
, she replied.

Then you must get out of the country and
live happily ever after.

We will,
Jennifer promised.

The two women smiled at each other.

Melissa wrote to her son.
Do you have
money?

No. If I withdraw money from my account,
the CIB will know I’m in District 1.

She took her wallet out of her bra and
gave him two hundred lucres.

He mouthed a thanks.

Thank me by staying out of danger,
she wrote.

He mouthed an ok.

Melissa put her hand on Jennifer’s
shoulder. “I’m going to the shops to buy some groceries. Write a list of what
you want, honey.”

Michael
sat on his bed, regretting his decision to enter politics. His mother was dead,
Freddie was dead and he would soon be dead, all because of politics. It was
folly to think that he could fight the Ward regime and live. Now his folly had
resulted in the deaths of those he loved. He had learnt of his mother’s death
that morning from four high-ranking CIB agents who grilled him, trying to
establish whether his mother was working alone.

“Your mother blew herself up with her NAST.”
One of the CIB agents laughed. “She thought she could use her NAST as a suicide
bomb to kill the supreme leader. We designed the NAST well. When it explodes,
it only kills its bearer.”

After forcing him to speak without
airtime and beating him for more than thirty minutes, the CIB agents
established that he knew nothing about his mother’s assassination attempt.

Michael wished he was dead. He hoped he
would be among the next four prisoners to enter the death games. It wasn’t fair
for him to be alive after causing the deaths of his mother and Freddie. He
spotted four big fleas crawling down the cell’s walls but he didn’t kill them.
He had given up fighting the fleas. He had given up hope.

*
* * * *

When Kyle woke up, he went straight to
the basement and found Freddie pacing round the laptop, waiting for him.

“Morning computer genius,” Freddie said.

“Morning escape genius.”

“Mom was here,” Freddie said.

“She comes here every morning to check
on me. I guess she almost fainted with joy when she saw you.”

“Yes, she was thrilled at first.”

“Where is Jennifer?”

“She was in the kitchen the last time I
checked.”

“Let’s work.” Kyle took his laptop and
opened a window with lots of figures.

“What’s this?” Freddie asked.

“It looks like the NASP accounts of the
citizens of the Ten Districts of America. On the left are National ID numbers
and on the right are the balances of the accounts of citizens.”

“Can we cause the system to crush by
giving people lots of airtime?” Freddie asked.

“I’m not sure. We need to do something
decisive because we will have limited time before the CIB discover us and shut
us out. I think we must observe the system without doing anything that might
lead to our discovery.”

Freddie nodded.

Kyle scrolled down the NASP accounts.
“All accounts marked
X
have zero credit,” he remarked. “Can you figure
this out?”

Freddie shook his head. He had forgotten
that he no longer had an electronic gag to limit his speech.

Kyle opened another window. “Holy God!”
he muttered. “Can you believe this, Freddie? There is a detonation button.”

“What’s a detonation button?”

“Let me see if it is what I think it
is.” He clicked the button and a dialogue box opened. “Yes, it’s exactly what I
suspected.  It’s asking for the administrator’s password plus the ID of the
target. The government can kill anyone with a NAST by simply entering his ID
number here and clicking the detonate button to detonate his NASP.”

“This is wicked,” Freddie said. “Can we
put this to our advantage?”

“I don’t think so,” Kyle said. “What
will we gain by killing people? All high-ranking government and military
officials do not have NASTs on their necks, so we can’t touch them.”

“Do you have the administrator’s
password needed for detonating NASTs?” Freddie asked.

“I don’t know. I decoded some passwords
yesterday… one of them could be for detonation of NASPs.”

Jennifer entered, carrying a tray with
toast and tea. She normally didn’t enjoy cooking but now that she was in love
with Freddie, she enjoyed cooking for him. She placed the tray on the desk.

“Thanks baby, I was starving,” Freddie
said, pouring tea into a cup.

“Any progress?”

“We found out that the CIB can kill
people by remote control,” Freddie said.

“How?”

“They simply select a person’s name or
ID number, press detonate on their computer and someone’s NAST explodes.”

“That’s good news!” Jennifer said. “We
can use it to kill Brandon Ward’s soldiers, cops and CIB agents.”

“It’s impossible to tell civilians from
servicemen.”

“All cops, soldiers and CIB agents don’t
pay for speaking and their NASP accounts always have zero balance. My NASP
balance was always zero when I was a cop.”

“That’s it!” Kyle said. “The accounts
marked
X
belong to security agents. That’s why they have zero credit. We
can detonate these buggers and free our country. If it’s possible to select all
Brandon Ward’s servicemen at once, we can wipe them at the click of a button.”

“We can’t do that!” Fred said.

“Why?” Jennifer protested. “That’s the
only way to defeat Ward.”

“If we kill all soldiers, policemen and
CIB agents we will be no better than Ward,” Freddie said firmly. “Some of them
deserve a chance. You were a cop yourself, baby. You must have friends in the
police whom you want to save.”

“If those friends you are talking about
catch me right now, they won’t spare me,” Jennifer said. “Let’s kill them. It’s
the only chance we have. This is war.”

“No, we can’t murder millions of people.
We are not like Brandon Ward, Jennifer. Ward has more than three million men and
women in his security forces. How will we live with ourselves if we kill them?
Let’s look for another way.”

“You are right,” Jennifer said, looking
at Freddie with loving eyes. She had learnt a lot from him in the three days
she had known him. He was tough, he was intelligent and he was kind. Freddie
had suffered so much at the hands of Ward’s security agents, yet he wanted to
spare their lives. Now she knew that kindness wasn’t weakness, it was strength.
No weak man could spare his enemies like that when he had the power to wipe
them in one instant. A weaker man would have taken the easy option. She put her
arms round his neck and kissed him.

“What was that for?”

“For being such a wonderful man.”

“I hacked CIB computers,” Kyle bantered.
“I’m also a wonderful man. I also deserve a kiss.”

“You will get one in bed.”

“Wonderful! You will go to bed with me?”

“You will get a kiss in bed… in your
dreams.”

* * * * *

“TD Communications finished installing
cell towers in the wildlife refuge but we still can’t locate the fugitives with
NASP,” Brandon Ward told his brother.

“That means you didn’t win the game,” Christopher
Ward said rapturously. “Maybe your team died the moment it disappeared from the
tracking system. Maybe their electronic gags exploded and killed them.”

“You are right, I didn’t win. Maybe bears
or wolves killed my team.”

“Perhaps the wild animals tampered with
the NASTs as devoured your players, triggering the explosion of the devices.”

“But if that was the case, the cops
would have found the remains of the electronic gags at the point where my team
disappeared,” Brandon Ward mused. “Besides, the cops also disappeared from the
tracking system when they reached the same point, meaning that my team’s
disappearance was a result of network loss.”