Revolution (18 page)

Rayne pushed roughly through the converging crowd like an enraged maniac, knocking people out of his way as he went. He knew he could have stopped the spectacle at any moment, but he didn’t.

   
Ryder betrayed me. He deserves everything he’s getting
,

    Rayne headed for the supervisors’ elevator. He halted when he heard the noise of an air-cycle engine approaching from the side and a second Shock Trooper pulled up next to him.

    “Sir, I have an important message for you,” the officer said in an emotionless metallic voice.

    “What is it?” Peter snapped, annoyed.

    “Mr. Rayne, it’s a message from Mr. Broderick. He wants to see you in his office immediately.”

    “What the hell does he want?” Rayne asked.

    The officer took off his helmet and stared at him with a puzzled expression on his young, clean-shaven face. Rayne realized he couldn’t have been any older than nineteen years old. He was probably fresh out of the police academy. The young man’s hair was plastered to his head with sweat. Peter had never thought of the guards getting hot under their stifling helmets before. The guard reached over and placed the message cautiously into his hand, as if he was interacting with a wild animal that might go berserk at the slightest wrong movement.

    “What is it? What’s the news?” Rayne repeated, scowling at the nervous officer.

    “I don’t know,” the officer said. “I don’t read the messages. I just deliver them.”

    “Fine,” Rayne said as he snatched the note from the officer’s hand and opened it:      

          MR. RAYNE, PLEASE MEET ME IN MY OFFICE IMMEDIATELY

                                                      BRODERICK

   
Could he get any more cryptic?

    Rayne scowled as he handed the message back to the young Shock Trooper and resumed his journey to the supervisors’ elevator. He returned to the first level and made his way across the warehouse until he reached the corridor leading to the Breechlere Tower elevator lobby.

    The elevator ascended to the fiftieth floor and he stormed out. He barged into Broderick’s office suite, strode through the small waiting lobby, and took the path through the virtual jungle until he reached the main portion of Broderick’s office. He recognized the signature line of smoke drifting over the top of the leather high-backed chair behind the wide mahogany desk in the center of the room.

    “Broderick, what do you want now?” Rayne asked.

    The swivel chair spun around and a pair of polished black leather shoes slammed down hard on the desk. For the first time since he barged in, Rayne realized all the lights in the office had been turned down low. He didn’t recognize the silhouette leaning back in the high-backed chair. The shoulders were too muscular to be Broderick’s. Peter’s mouth dropped open when he realized who it was.

    “Campion! Where’s Broderick? What are you doing here!” Peter shouted. “You’re not supposed to be here!”

    Jane Campion calmly lifted her muscular frame to its full height of 5’10”. She glared at Peter with steel gray eyes.

    Rayne realized Campion was wearing a black pin-striped suit jacket, red tie, and pressed black suit pants. He thought her muscular shoulders looked out of place in the expensive jacket. He was surprised to see her dressed so formally after viewing her in the metal body armor she wore at her headquarters when they last met. Campion held Broderick’s pipe in her right hand as if it were a gun.

    “Broderick has the rest of the day off,” Campion growled as she circled the desk without breaking eye contact. “Don’t worry about him. It’s you I’m worried about, Rayne.” 

    Campion took a large puff off Broderick’s pipe and threw it unceremoniously into the gold ashtray. The sudden clanging made Peter wince.

    “Why are you worried about me, Campion? I’m doing great. I just got promoted. I’m an Executive level 4 now. I finally have control of my life.”

    “Yeah, sure,” Campion said, derisively, as she moved forward with surprising agility for a person who appeared muscle-bound.

    She stopped and stood facing him less than a foot away. Campion knew sociologists would consider this a violation of personal space, but that was her intention.    

    “I don’t know if you realize this, Rayne, but you’re being handled!”

    “Handled? Handled by whom?” Peter asked, as his body shook with adrenaline.

    “You have a short memory, Peter. You’re an Executive because that was the easiest way for you to gain access to New Washington. Every move you make is being carefully watched by those working for us. I know it’s your first day on the job and it may be difficult taking on new responsibilities, but I think you’re taking your Executive powers too far. Calm down a bit.”

    “What do you know, Campion? You’re just a trouble-maker trying to buck the system,” Rayne replied. “My life is beginning to mean something to me again. I’m not a grunt anymore. I’m an Exec. When is everyone going to realize that fact?”

    A dark shadow seemed to pass over Campion’s chiseled feminine features as she gritted her teeth and moved within inches of Peter’s face.

    “Rayne, you’re nothing but a grunt in a double-breasted suit. It’s all part of the assignment. You’ve taken your position too far, too soon!”

    “Go to hell, Campion!” Rayne shouted, backing away.

    Campion continued to stalk forward, pacing Rayne as he moved backwards. Her gray eyes gleamed as she grabbed hold of his shirt collar and pinned him to the wall. Her mouth contorted into a snarl as she growled at him through gritted teeth.

    “Then what about Ryder? Remember him? Your old friend, Billy Ryder? You just issued him three DP’s and allowed him to be burnt to a crisp at the whim of some masked robot. Two weeks ago you would have defended him with your life. Now you just abandon him like he was trash.”

    A subtle change passed over Rayne’s face as he stared into Campion’s eyes, letting the words sink in. In moments, his angry expression was wiped away and replaced with horror.

    “Is Ryder all right?” he asked.

    “Just barely,” the commander replied, letting him go and backing away.

    Peter leaned against the wall for support as he felt the room spinning around him. The combination of adrenaline and the horrifying thought of what he had done to his old friend made him lose all sense of equilibrium. He began to hyperventilate, gasping for air as he sank slowly down the wall to the floor. He sat down and stared, dejectedly, at Campion with a new realization in his eyes. He was losing touch with everything. He was out of control.

    “Rayne, this can happen to anyone. Someone who is at the lowest, most subservient tier of society suddenly has seemingly limitless power and wealth,” Campion explained as if she had seen this behavior many times before. “Then, that someone has the power to do anything he or she pleases. If someone gets you angry, you kill ‘em. If someone begs for mercy, you laugh in their face. It’s very difficult to handle power, Rayne. That is why we have sociologists, economists, historians, psychologists, and other experts working in our organization. We don’t want to form a government, which will only end up like our present system. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

    Campion paused dramatically and then continued in a lower tone, “Now I’m going to give you a computer micro-disc. I want you to take it home, study it, and then destroy it. You are going to gain legitimate access to New Washington on May 6, 2058; the day after you arrive on the Virtual-world section of the island. The reasons are all stated on that disc.” Campion ended her speech as if the school bell had just rung.

    Returning to Broderick’s desk, she sat down in the high-backed office chair and waited for Rayne to recover his wits, assuming that was possible after the roller coaster trip his mind had taken.

    Rayne stood and paced the floor. His mind flashed back to feelings and images from the past, which he thought he could put to rest now that he had been made an Executive. He saw the image of Martin Prince’s march in Inner City. He winced as he remembered Prince being gunned down in the street. He shuddered when he recalled his friend, Henry, being dragged toward the electric chair. Since becoming an Executive, he had completely suppressed these painful memories as if they had happened to someone else.

     Now, he had an anti-grav vehicle, a corporate apartment, and money for the taking. It was all thanks to the current administration. It was easy not to care about the welfare of those in the lowest levels of society. As long as he had what he needed, why should he care about them? He recognized his flawed logic. That was not the way he was brought up.    

    Now that his mind began to settle back down to earth, he couldn’t believe he was the one who did those things to his friends in the warehouse. He couldn’t believe the attitude he displayed earlier was actually his.

    “Rayne, are you going to be all right?” a compassionate female voice emanated from the dark silhouette seated behind Broderick’s desk.

    “Sure, I just can’t believe everything that has happened to me. I can’t believe what I did.”

    “As I explained before, Rayne, the human mind can sometimes be a frail thing,” Campion continued in her pedantic tone as she toyed with Broderick’s gold pipe. “People can lose all sense of equilibrium when they undergo an abrupt change from poverty and helplessness to absolute wealth and power. The bottom line is, can you see what happened to you? Are you going to let it happen to you again? Because if you do, you’re no good to us.”

    Rayne stopped pacing and approached the desk.

    “I don’t know how I could have lost all sense of perspective like that.”

    “It happens, Rayne. I’ve seen it before,” Campion said as she leaned forward across the desk. Peter saw her eyes flashing in the dim light of the desk lamp. “The bottom line is can you get beyond it? Can you pull yourself together to help us? Are you going to allow Martin Prince and Henry Johnson to go un-avenged?”

    Peter didn’t hesitate as he replied, “No, I will not.”

    “That’s all I needed to know,” Campion said, standing from the high-backed chair. “Now, go home, Rayne. Your new apartment should be ready. Go back there and relax. Stay out of trouble. We’ll be in touch.”

    “I just have one more question before I go, Campion,” Rayne said.

    “Spit it out.”

    “How did you get rid of Broderick?”

    “Rayne, you should know by now how far-reaching our rebel arm is. Mr. Leland sent for Broderick. They are in a meeting right now and I’ll bet Mr. Leland is enjoying busting his balls. He’s probably giving him a hard time about the way he treated you yesterday; remember, you’re Mr. Leland’s very good friend from the past. When the meeting is done, Broderick will need years of therapy to recover.”

    “It couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy,” Rayne said, grinning.

    “You said it.”

    “I’ll talk to you later, Campion,” Peter said.

    “Sure, take it easy,” she replied, rolling her eyes.

    Rayne turned and left the office.

    For the next two months, Campion kept in contact with him. He received a phone call nearly every day at his new apartment after returning home from work. Usually, not much was said. Sometimes short sentences such as “Keep on track. You don’t want to become like them,” were said and then he got a dial tone. Sometimes he heard Campion give brief lectures, such as “Do not forget the real reason you are an Executive. Vengeance is the reason. Vengeance for your friend, Henry Johnson. We’re counting on you. We know you can do it. Stay calm and focused. More detailed instructions will follow in several days. Goodbye, Mr. Rayne.”

    It wasn’t much, but those short messages helped him keep his composure during his two months as an Executive. He no longer ventured into the warehouse.

    Sometimes, Rayne walked along the transparent wall of the Executive corridor across from the warehouse’s sixth level carrying his clipboard. He watched with sympathy as the warehouse employees struggled to make the day’s quotas. He also worked for several hours a day at the computer terminal in his modest fourth floor office, calculating input-output ratios in order to discover inefficiencies within the company. E-mailing his findings to Leland, he received several confirmation receipts. He also sent his findings to Broderick’s office, but he hadn’t seen or heard from him since his second day on the job as an Executive.

    Rayne was relieved to see that Billy Ryder remained at work after his harsh punishment. Both of his arms were bound in white gauze bandages, but he was still able to pull the levers on his favorite forklift,
Porky
. Strangely, he never saw Sinbad’s massive form striding around section 1, level 6, of the warehouse. It was as if he had disappeared completely. Peter guessed they must have transferred him to another section after they had issued him the DPs.

    On April 15th, Rayne received a call from Campion instructing him to visit the Hovercrafts International warehouse building. He visited the front sales floor like any other Executive shopping for a new air-car.

    They brought him down to the basement and gave him more training. Campion was still amazed at how well he could shoot. Like he told her before, it was because of video games. He played a lot of first-person shooters as a kid. He also received more hand-to-hand combat training. This was tougher than the shooting, but he still made it through all right. His boxing experience in college didn’t hurt, but the rebels taught him a few new moves that might help him out of some tight spots in the future.