Electronic Gags (25 page)

“Darling, dinner is ready,” Mrs Reed
said, standing at the door. She never entered the study. It was forbidden
territory.

“I will come when I’m finished.”

Mrs Reed, knowing he would not tolerate
any further words, slowly walked back to the dining room.

“Freddie Young, where are you?” Reed
reflected. What could he do to catch Freddie and Jennifer? He had only one
option left. He had to use NASP’s ‘wanted persons facility.’ “I will get you, Freddie
and Jennifer,” Reed said, thanking his wisdom in installing the wanted persons
facility in NASP. The facility involved uploading the voiceprints of a wanted
person to all active electronic gags in the country. If a fugitive said a word
within the range of any electronic gag, the gag would recognize the fugitive’s
voice and alert the CIB. Professor Reed had been reluctant to use this facility
because he knew that uploading voiceprints into all active electronic gags
would overload the network. He was going to the CIB headquarters first thing in
the morning to upload Freddie and Jennifer’s voiceprints into every active
electronic gag in the Ten Districts of America. If the two fugitives said
anything within range of an active electronic gag, the CIB would know their
location.

“Checkmate,”
he said before he sprang to his feet and followed his wife to the kitchen.

Professor Reed drove out of his house
just after four in the morning. He wanted to arrive at the CIB headquarters
early so that he could upload Freddie and Jennifer’s voiceprints when the NASP
network and the TD Communications cell network had low traffic. An electronic
gag only transmitted a signal to the network when its bearer said something or
when he moved three meters. With most people in bed at this hour only a small
percentage of electronic gags was transmitting and the network wasn’t busy.

District One was quiet. Reed only saw
six vehicles in the road on his way to the CIB headquarters. He showed his pass
to the armed guards at the gate and drove into the parking area. He got out of
the car and briskly walked to the entrance. The door automatically opened for
him when he swiped his pass. An elevator carried him to the sixth floor.

There were only five agents in the NASP
computer hall and two of them were dozing.

“Good morning patriots,” he said.

“Good morning professor,” replied the
three agents who were awake.

The other two woke up and nervously
greeted the professor, worried he had seen them sleeping on duty.

Reed went to a computer, entered the
administrator’s password and opened the NASP wanted persons facility. He opened
Jennifer and Freddie’s folders and uploaded their voiceprints to all active
electronic gags. Waiting for NASP to complete his command, he browsed the net
for news about Freddie and Jennifer.

If Kyle was at his laptop right now, he would
have noticed the file upload. He was fast asleep, dreaming about a new America,
free of the Ward regime.

It took less than twenty minutes to
complete the upload. The professor didn’t know how long it would have taken if
he had uploaded the files when the network was busy. He was sure he would catch
Freddie and Jennifer in the next forty-eight hours. When he finished with the
fugitives, he was going to concentrate on improving the security of the NASP
network.

After bidding the agents farewell,
Professor Reed went home.

Freddie
looked at his watch. “It’s time for us to go.”

Throughout the morning, Freddie, Jennifer
and Kyle had played Super Death Race on Kyle’s desktop to help themselves relax
before the dangerous operation. Freddie was impressed with the game and knew
his cousin was destined for success in the video game industry. Now it was time
to go and face President Brandon Ward and his henchmen.

Although they had not appeared on
television or in newspapers as wanted fugitives, Freddie and Jennifer took
precautions to disguise themselves. Freddie wore glasses and a cap and Jennifer
wore glasses and Grandma Nicole’s wide-brimmed hat. The streets were full of
surveillance cameras and they had to be careful.

“We are on our way,” Freddie said.

“Wait,” Kyle said. “Let me check if we
are still connected. You never know, the guys can shut us out any moment.”

Freddie and Jennifer anxiously looked at
Kyle as he opened his laptop.

“We are still in,” he said. “The
bastards didn’t discover us. Wish you good luck, guys.”

“See you later,” Jennifer said.

“Later,” Kyle echoed.

They walked out of the house. Freddie
opened the garage and drove out Kyle’s Ford Fiesta. Jennifer got into the car
and he drove away at an average speed of sixty kilometers per hour. The last
thing he wanted was attracting the attention of traffic cops. The car’s tinted
windows concealed Freddie and Jennifer from surveillance cameras.They had
driven for seventeen minutes when a boy on a skirting board veered into the
road. Freddie braked the car, missing the boy by a meter.

“Kid, are you crazy?” Freddie shouted at
the terrified teenager.

The
kid’s electronic gag and four other nearby electronic gags picked up Freddie’s
voice and sent alerts to the CIB headquarters.

 “We have got ourselves an alert,” a
chubby, gum-chewing CIB agent said with excitement. “Guess who has decided to
show up? It’s one of the fugitives from maximum security prison.”

“What’s his location?” asked the agent
sitting next.

“He is in Subdistrict Four.”

“Tell the boss.”

His bubble gum forgotten in his mouth,
he rushed to the office of the agent in charge of the NASP computer hall and
knocked, happy to be the bearer of good news.

“Come in,” said Agent Roberts.

“Sir, we have an interesting alert. We
picked up one of the fugitives from maximum prison. He is in Subdistrict Four.”

Roberts sprang to his feet and rushed to
the computer hall.

“Is his NAST back on the network?”

“No, he was detected by five NASTs
through the wanted persons facility.”

“It must be Professor Reed who activated
the wanted persons facility,” Roberts said. “That was very clever of the
professor. What did the fugitive say?”

The chubby agent played the recording
from the electronic gag of the kid whom Freddie had almost run over. “…are you
crazy?”

“Tell the field guys of your discovery,”
Roberts ordered. “Check all surveillance cameras in the area.”

“Okay sir.”

Seven minutes after getting into Freddie’s
way, the kid was tracked down by CIB agents.

“In the name of President Brandon Ward,
I order you to stop,” the agent in charge of the operation said.

“Please, I’m sorry,” the kid said with
horror. “I didn’t mean to do it?”

“Do what?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t sing the
national anthem well.” The boy tilted his head sideways. “I have a cold and my
voice is hoarse. Please forgive me.”

“We are not here about the national
anthem.”

“Oh God, you have come to arrest me for
the president’s picture?” the kid said, trembling.

“What did you do to the president’s
picture?”

“Well, I didn’t have toilet paper so I wiped
with the front page of an old newspaper, which had the supreme leader’s
picture.” The kid went on his knees. “Please forgive me. I was suffering from
diarrhea.”

“We are not here about that, you fool. A
few minutes ago someone near you shouted, ‘Are you Crazy?’ Do you know him?”

“Please forgive me,” the kid begged,
urine trickling down his legs. “I didn’t see his car coming. I didn’t know he
was an official of the National Party.”

“Shut up, you fool. In which direction
was the car going?”

The kid pointed southwards. “That way?”

“Was the man alone?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Describe the car.”

“It was white or off-white, I think.”

“Don’t tell me what you think,” the
agent snapped. “Tell me what you saw.”

“It was white.”

“And what make was it?”

“I’m not sure.”

“You are useless,” the agent in charge rasped.
“Go.”

“I can go?” the young man said with
surprised relief. “I promise I won’t wipe with the picture of―”

“Go before I change my mind!”

The kid sped away.

“He could have been going anywhere,” the
agent in charge said. “Let’s seal off the area between Brandon Ward Avenue,
Revolution Avenue, Unity Road and Loyalty Way.”

 The
other agents took their phones and relayed the agent in charge’s order to all
agents assigned to the operation.

Freddie and Jennifer arrived at the
conference centre at eighteen minutes past one, parked their car and walked
through the cordon of armed policemen. Freddie showed their tickets to a guard,
who waved them into the first class section. Jennifer sat behind Freddie. They
knew that if they sat next to each other, it would be easier for their hunters
to identify them. Their hearts pounded their ribcages as they looked at CIB
agents and policemen guarding the VIP section less than fifteen meters away.
Professor Reed and his deputy in the Ministry of Education and Culture were
already sitting in the VIP section. The awards fell under their ministry and it
was their duty to see that everything went on smoothly.

By ten minutes to two, the first class
section was half full and the rest of the conference centre was almost full.

“Please be quiet and still,” the master
of ceremony announced. “I have just been told that the president will arrive in
the next five minutes.”

The announcement sent more adrenaline
into the bloodstreams of Freddie and Jennifer. Their target was on the way.

President Brandon Ward and his wife
arrived four minutes later, mobbed by security men. The supreme leader took his
seat after shaking hands with some VIPs. Sweat poured out of Freddie and Jennifer
as they looked at the President of the Ten Districts of America. Brandon Ward
the predator had become the prey.  Freddie took out his mother’s cell phone and
dialed Kyle. Kyle cut the call to acknowledge he had received the signal. Freddie
looked back at Jennifer and nodded.

They waited, looking at the nearest
policemen, willing them to go into fits of electric shock. A minute passed.

“What is taking him so long,” Jennifer
said to herself.

Her
voice was picked by electronic gags of six people sitting near her.

“Alert!” an agent shouted in the NASP
computer hall. “Fugitive, Jennifer Rodriguez is in the conference centre right
now. She is a sharpshooter and the president is also in the conference centre
at the moment.”

“Contact the agents with the president
at the conference centre.”

There
was commotion as agents contacted their colleagues and called for
reinforcements.

“We may now rise and sing the national
anthem,” the master of ceremony said.

Everyone stood up and the master of
ceremony led them in the national anthem. As they sang, Freddie and Jennifer
anxiously looked at the nearest policemen, wondering what was taking Kyle so
long.  Jennifer looked at the VIP and saw two agents phoning anxiously, their
eyes scanning the crowd. Something was wrong.

Freddie and Jennifer had almost given up
when the nearest policemen went into fits. Jennifer looked at the VIP section
and saw that CIB agents were also shaking, except the two agents on the phone.
She stepped on people’s toes as she rushed towards the nearest policeman who
had dropped to the floor. She wanted his Brandon Ward SA56. The Ward SA56, an
American-made replica of the MP5SFA3 semi-automatic carbine, was one of Jennifer’s
favorite guns.

President Ward was shocked to see
commotion among the CIB agents and policemen protecting him. “What the fuck are
they doing?” he bellowed, thinking they were mutinying. “We are singing the
nationa―”

Assistant Police Commissioner Evans, Brandon
Ward’s bodyguard, pushed the president to the floor. He had seen Jennifer
pointing a gun at the supreme leader.  Jennifer fired, hitting the president’s
bodyguard’s shoulder. She fired again and hit one of the senior CIB agents who
had been on the phone. The other senior CIB agent scrambled for cover and
returned fire. People in the crowd started screaming.

Something is wrong with NASP,
Professor Reed
thought with horror, looking at the shaking cops and CIB agents.
I have to
go to the CIB headquarters.

“Cover me!” Jennifer ordered Freddie.
“Fire into the VIP section. Keep low.”

Thanking the Ward regime’s six-month compulsory
military service, Freddie held his newly acquired semi-automatic carbine, put
the selector to the continuous fire option and fired into the VIP section. One
of his bullets hit Professor Reed, killing him. Under Freddie’s cover, Jennifer
crawled towards the VIP section. She had to kill Brandon Ward. She knew she
would never get another chance to kill the supreme leader. There would be lots
of reprisals if the dictator survived.