Steven Kent - The Clone Alliance

With catlike speed, the man jumped to his feet and sprinted from the room. He knew that he did not have to worry about me, I was military. I would be here when he got back. I had no place to go.

I sat at the table and waited. About three minutes later the driver returned, an angry look on his face. He pulled off his shades and placed them on the table, then walked over to me. He stood over me like an interrogation officer. The man was Intelligence, and he wanted me to know it. Gone was the pretense that he was just a chauffeur. “Okay, smart guy, so where did your pal go?”

“How should I know that?” I asked. “You’ve seen him. You think he asked me for permission?”

The driver thought about this for a moment, then said, “No, I guess not.”

“You’ve had us under surveillance,” I said. “Where do you think he went?”

“Who says we had you under surveillance?” the driver asked, holding the door for me to leave.

“Don’t be an ass,” I said. “You’re from Intelligence, right?”

“Let’s just say that I’ll have some buddies looking for your friend,” the driver said, sounding downright cocky. We headed down the hall. The armed guards were gone, replaced by men in business suits. A man in a black suit—probably another agent—held the elevator for us.

“You better call them off,” I said.

“You think we’re scared of Freeman?” the driver asked. He sounded a bit too confident, like a dog with its hackles up even though it is not sure of itself.

“If you’re smart, Freeman scares you. What happened to the guy who walked him to the bathroom?” I asked.

“We found him on the stairs.” The elevator doors closed behind us.

“Dead?” I asked.

“Unconscious,” the driver said. “He’s got a concussion and a broken wrist.”

“So Ray took it easy on the guy,” I said. “Let’s see, he was unarmed, and he took out an armed agent. Now you have an agent with a concussion, and Freeman has a gun.

“Yes, I’d be scared of Freeman if I were you.”

“We’ll find him.” The driver stretched out the word “we’ll” so that it sounded like “Weeee’ll find him.” It sounded too comfortable. “He’s a seven-foot black man, how hard can he be to locate?”

I could not help but laugh. The man did not have Freeman’s measure. The military police would not have taken Freeman so lightly; but these cocky Intelligence types, they thought they had the world under control.

“So are you with Central Intelligence?” I asked.

“Naval Intelligence,” the driver said.

The elevator doors opened to the cool cement of the parking garage. Freeman might have been down here, or at least passed by. The dim lighting would have appealed to him. He would have had no trouble taking out guards and hot-wiring a car.

“You should have a file on Freeman,” I said.

“We do.”

“I suggest you read it,” I said.

“You think so?”

At that point I realized this guy was an idiot and saw no reason to keep talking. “Take me back to the base,” I said in a voice that did not hide my boredom. I took a seat in the back of the car and we drove out to the street.

“What makes you think I haven’t read his file?” the driver asked.

A pewter sky hung over the city. The air outside was humid and cool, but the clouds did not break.

I looked out my window, speaking almost as if talking to myself. “If you’d read the file, you wouldn’t go after him. He’s a freelance contractor, but he works exclusively for the Unified Authority. He’s not going to the Mogats. He doesn’t like them. The only thing you are going to accomplish by sending agents after Freeman is losing men.”

“Yeah? You think he’s a pretty tough guy?”

“You have the files,” I said.

“Okay, hotshot, fifty bucks says that we’ll have Freeman back in his room by supper.”

“Fifty dollars?” I thought about the bets that Yamashiro made with his son-in-law. “That’s a scared man’s bet.”

“You want to bet a hundred? Let’s bet a hundred,” the driver said.

I did not actually have any money, and I said so.

“Now who sounds nervous,” the driver said. “Tell you what…I think you’re good for it. I’ll spot you the money. If I win, you can owe me the fifty.”

“So spot me a hundred,” I said.

“Fine. We’ll make it a hundred. You can owe me the hundred on credit. I may not have checked your friend’s file, but I’ve checked yours, pal. You got a lot of back pay coming.”

“Done,” I said.

We did not talk after that. He drove me to the base without saying another word. I felt no compulsion to break the silence.

As we pulled up to the barracks, the driver finally spoke. “Call me if you need to go somewhere. Go out on your own, and you’ll be in just as deep shit as your friend.” Then he pursed his lips into a sneer, and said, “On second thought, go out on your own, if you like. Believe me, rounding you boys up is not much of a problem.”

As I entered the barracks, it occurred to me that I was just about back in uniform. Maybe I should have run with Freeman. That said, there was something strangely comfortable about returning to the service. Maybe I was still euphoric about escaping farming, Neo-Baptists, and Little Man; but maybe it was because the Unified Authority Marine Corps was the only place where I fit in.

Entering my room, I spotted a package that someone had left on my bed. The note on the outside of the package said it was from Admiral Alden Brocius. Inside the package I found general-issue essentials—a leather toiletry kit with the emblem of the Unified Authority Marines embossed on it, and a pair of shades—glasses designed for viewing the mediaLink.

Before the Mogats iced the Broadcast Network, the mediaLink had been the communications system that kept the galaxy connected. You used it to send messages, talk with people, hold conferences, etc. The mediaLink also carried news and programming. Each of the six arms of the galaxy had its own news networks and shows, but you could access them all through the mediaLink. You could use shades to access libraries of books, listen to music, and watch movies. The best part was that almost anywhere man traveled in the galaxy, mediaLink service was available for instantaneous access—all through the miracle of the Broadcast Network.

When the Separatists destroyed the Mars broadcast discs, I assumed the mediaLink system went with it. Trapped on Little Man, I never stopped to realize that most planets had their own media and their own local-area mediaLink networks. They might not be able to access the galaxywide network, but that did not mean they would abandon communications and programming on a local basis.

I did not miss the movies or the music. You could keep the mail, I didn’t have anyone to write to. What I missed was keeping up with current events. I missed the news.

I sat on the edge of my bed staring at those shades, amazed at my excitement over such a simple thing. Finally, I slipped on the glasses. Little lasers projected interactive images onto the retinal tissue in my eyes. Using ocular commands, I sorted through menus until I found an all-news channel, then I lay back against my headboard and watched.

The events of the day could not have been more mundane. With galactic communications shut down, I would only find local news. From what I could tell, life on Earth had not changed much since the Broadcast Network went down. The news analysts I saw never mentioned the war. They talked the economy to death. There was a lot of talk about sports and weather. No one so much as hinted that a top secret alliance between the Unified Authority and its former enemies might be in the making. No one mentioned Shin Nippon or even the Confederate Arms.