Chains of Freedom (6 page)

"I . . . I made a mistake. I was careless. I should have known he'd be linked. I . . . was . . . careless. I . . . made . . . a . . . .
mistake
." She repeated herself in a tone of total amazement. It was as if she had made an impossible discovery.

"You sound surprised," David laughed. "You aren't infallible. No one is."

"I
have
to be." RJ took her hands from her face. Her expression was grim. "I just don't make that kind of stupid mistake."

David could have understood it if she was mad at herself. She wasn't. She seemed confused, as if she just really couldn't accept that she could have made a mistake at all, much less a stupid one.

"Oh, come on, RJ," David laughed in disbelief. "I don't know what this mistake was, but I'm sure you've made mistakes before, and I'm sure you'll make them again."

This enraged RJ. "What makes you so damned sure of that?" She demanded hotly. "People like you make mistakes, not me!"

"You know, I haven't said this before, RJ, but you are, without a doubt, the most pompous, egotistical jackass I have ever known." David stood up from the bed.

"I love you, too," RJ said, and blew him a kiss.

David ignored her and started to pace. "You made a mistake anyone could have made . . ."

"Well, I don't think just
anyone
could have made it," RJ said with a grin.

"That's exactly the kind of shit I'm talking about!" David steamed. "God, don't you ever listen to yourself? Have you always been this arrogant, or did you have to work at it? That . . . thing . . . almost killed you tonight." He stopped pacing suddenly, obviously struck by inspiration. After a moment, he continued, "I saved your life tonight!"

"You saved yourself," RJ said flatly.

"Yes, all right. But, by saving myself, I also saved you," he repeated smugly.

"OK," RJ conceded. "I admit that things looked pretty bad." She shrugged and rolled on her side, trying unsuccessfully to get comfortable.

"Bad!" David repeated in disbelief.

"I still had a trick or two up my sleeve," RJ stated calmly.

"I can't believe you! The thing was strangling you with your own chain. You were bleeding out of every opening in your skull. How were you going to get out of that? This I want to hear!"

She didn't answer. She was asleep, or at least pretending to be. "Bitch," David swore. He dug through the rubble till he found the sack of food RJ had brought him. In spite of the way it looked and smelled, it tasted pretty good. After eating, he threw the sack across the room, shut off the light, and slid into the bed beside RJ.

"Thanks for maybe saving my life," RJ mumbled.

"Bitch," David swore again.

She just laughed and went back to sleep.

He wondered just how badly she was hurt. RJ tossed and turned and moaned in her sleep, and David felt helpless. He didn't know what to do for her, and wasn't sure she would let him do it if he did. She was such an insufferable hardhead.

In her tossing, RJ rolled against David, reminding him again that she was female. Still, David felt nothing even close to desire. It wasn't that he was a gentleman, or at least no more than any other red-blooded man of his age and health. If she were any other woman, he would have done everything in his power to seduce her. But she was RJ, and he had no urge to possess her. To him, RJ was just a guy with an extremely attractive body and a great set of tits. For David, sleeping with RJ was like sleeping with your dog. It was warmer than sleeping by yourself, and gave you someone to turn to if you had a nightmare.

What they had was far more important to David than sex, even more important than love. He made a silent vow to whatever powers might be listening that he would never let anything come between them. That he would not let friend or foe, man or woman, or even their cause, separate them.

When David woke up he heard the shower going. He was freezing cold, and that damned woman was taking a shower! He knew from experience that there was no hot water.

"You're insane!" David screamed at her.

The man in the apartment next to theirs apparently didn't appreciate the noise.

"Keep it down, you assholes!" he yelled, throwing something solid against the wall.

"Bite me!" RJ screamed back. She walked out of the bathroom drying herself. Modesty was not one of RJ's strong suits. But then, having been in the military all of her life, she was used to showering in communal, coed showers.

David took a good look at RJ. She looked to be in the peak of health, not a scratch, not a bruise, not so much as a skinned elbow. Even the sparkle in her eyes seemed genuine. She wasn't hurt, not even a little. That just wasn't possible. Was it?

"You'd think you'd never seen a woman before," RJ mumbled.

"I've never seen anyone heal so quickly," David said defensively.

"Oh. Well, now don't you feel like an ass?" she mumbled to herself.

David smiled. It wasn't very often that he got the better of RJ. He enjoyed it when he did.

"Part of my training included learning how to take a hit, to roll with a blow, how to pull out of a punch so that it does the least damage." She watched David from the corner of her eye. Was he going to buy that?

At first he frowned. Clearly, he was finding that hard to swallow.

"There was a lot of blood coming from my nose and inside my mouth where he loosened a couple of teeth. But besides being a little sore"—which was a lie; her only symptom this morning was a dryness in her eyes which was caused by the drug—"I feel fine. I have taken worse beatings." That was a lie, too.

This time David smiled; he believed her.

RJ sighed with relief. She dressed quickly, topping her ensemble off—as usual—with the chain, oblivious to the dried blood which now covered it, and was coming off in flakes as she wrapped it in her usual fashion. She took the bag off the back of the bike and went through it, checking the armaments inside. Satisfied, she added the pistol gleaned from the dead secondary to the assortment of weapons and explosives.

David helped her, and they dug through the wreckage till they found both blasters. RJ put hers in her holster, then helped David to customize the shoulder harness he'd used for the gun he'd lost in the bar, making it fit the blaster. They grabbed their jackets and bag and left. They were halfway down the stairs when David realized they had forgotten something.

"What about the bike?" David said, stopping in his tracks.

"What about it?"

"You don't plan to walk, do you?"

"I've got a truck." RJ started walking again, and David followed.

"Where did you get that?" David asked.

"We'll find one," RJ said with a shrug.

"You mean STEAL one!" David shrieked.

"Shush," RJ hissed. "Only Reliance bigshots get to own cars. The rest are used by the military or in farm work. Not even an Elite can buy a car or truck. They're too rare, and too expensive. There are several vehicles in Alsterase. Now, use your head, where did they come from in the first place?"

"They must be stolen," David answered.

RJ clapped.

"Well, it's different stealing from the Reliance," David said in a harsh whisper. "You're going to steal from someone who stole from the Reliance, and that is altogether different."

"Then consider it borrowing," RJ said in disbelief.

"It's only borrowing if you ask," David pronounced self-righteously.

RJ decided to ignore him.

But David didn't want to be ignored."It's wrong. That's all. Anyone who steals from the Reliance is on our side, and we shouldn't take from them . . ."

"If this is too big a moral dilemma for you, perhaps you would prefer to walk!" RJ screamed, fed up.

"Shush, shh!" David slapped a hand over her mouth. He nodded his head. "All right, we'll do it your way, but I don't like it."

"No one says you have to," she said with a shrug.

They walked up and down the streets for what seemed like hours to David. By the time RJ found what she was looking for, the streets were already filled with people. She walked around the red Reliance farm-issue truck, kicking the tires and checking out the paint job, then she popped the hood and checked the engine.

"Damn it, RJ! You're stealing the damned thing, not buying it," David whispered nervously.

RJ slammed the hood. She gave David a wicked grin. "I like to know what I'm stealing." She took hold of the driver's door handle and gave it a heave. The door opened. She jumped in and opened the passenger door, setting the bag and rocket launcher on the seat as David crawled in. He closed the door and looked around in awe. He had never seen such a machine from the inside.

RJ was under the dash, taking her time hotwiring the vehicle.

"Could you please hurry up and do whatever it is you're doing?" David said anxiously. "We're going to get caught."

"So?" RJ sneered. She had never hotwired a vehicle before, and while she understood the principle, she was having a little trouble putting it into practice. It was made more difficult by the fact that the new "owner" had attached several safeguards to stop people from doing just what she was trying to do. "If someone comes, I'll just kill them." She might have been ordering lunch by the tone of her voice.

"I'd rather not have to kill someone over a car, if you don't mind, RJ. Did anyone ever tell you that you can't just kill every one that pisses you off?"

"Yes." She had finally succeeded. She touched the two wires together and the engine roared. "I killed them." She laughed at her own joke.

"Very funny, RJ. Now, could we just go?"

"OK, OK, don't get your shorts in a knot." She got into the seat, closed the door, and they were on their way. As they pulled out, RJ saw the owner come running out of one of the buildings. She waved wildly at him and roared off.

Whitey Baldor chased after them, screaming till he ran out of breath. He finally gave up. Hands on knees, he watched till they were out of sight. He recognized that pair. Two nights ago that woman had kneed him in the balls so hard that he still hurt. Then she'd knocked him cold. He'd been out for something close to three hours. Whitey laughed, shaking his head he turned back toward his apartment. He laughed again and looked back in the direction she had gone. "God-damned gutsy bitch."

"I've always wondered how they could see out of these things," David ran his hand over the glass. "I still don't have any idea."

"Keep your hands off it; you're smearing it up. It's one-way glass. Because of the way it's made, the driver can see out, but from outside you can't see in."

"When I was a kid I used to think they drove through some form of magic. Later, when I stopped believing in magic, I thought they used something like a view screen," David said. "It's kind of a letdown to see it's something so simple."

RJ nodded. It was funny what people would make up to explain things they didn't understand. The Reliance didn't tell them anything, so they had to make up their own answers. In a way it was ingenious, even if they were mostly wrong.

"I still don't understand why they do it this way," David said. "I mean . . . what's the purpose?"

"Ah, my friend, that is because you have yet to understand the Reliance. The glass in Reliance vehicles is one-way for the same reason that Reliance police wear masks over their faces. Intimidation. People fear the unknown, the unseen. From outside how do you know whether there is one man in this vehicle or five? You don't. When a man covers his face with a mask, how do you know whether he is in a good mood or a murderous one? You don't. How do you even know he's human? You don't. The point is that people expect the worst. Therefore, there are always five men in the truck, the men is always in a murderous mood, and you're never sure that they're quite human. They scare us, so we imprison ourselves."

"Slaves to our fear." David's voice sounded far away. He himself was scared. He crossed his arms and put his fists in his armpits to hide his nervousness. He didn't know exactly what RJ had planned, and as she said, you tended to fear the unknown.
Slaves to our fear
, he reminded himself.
I won't be afraid.
It wasn't as easy as it sounded.

He imagined a whole patrol could swarm down on them at any moment. His palms were sweaty, and his mouth was dry. RJ sat there as they traveled along through the maze of David's imaginary policemen and hummed a tone-deaf tune which seemed to be in time with the jerking of her right arm. Humming and jerking, jerking and humming. After an hour, David could stand it no more.

"Would you please stop it!" he screamed.

"What?" she asked, obviously not understanding what he meant.

"All that humming and arm-jerking," he said.