Chains of Freedom Read online

  "He's pretty bad. May die tonight," the manager speculated.

  "If he does, I'll take the body out myself." RJ shoved some credits at the man, poured David back on the bike, climbed aboard herself, started the engine and headed for the stairs.

  "Hey, you crazy bitch . . . !" The rest of the man's obscenities were lost in the roar of the bike.

  They reached the sixth floor in a few minutes. The top two floors of the old eight-story building were in such bad repair that even a "classy joint" like this had them closed off. A few people stepped out into the hall to see what all the noise was, but quickly lost interest. Just another crazy asshole riding a bike in the hall. Nothing very unusual about that. Not in Alsterase.

  Outside the room, RJ stopped and shut the bike off. When she got off, David hit the floor again. He had this falling bit down pat. This time, however, he gurgled and stirred and seemed to want to get up. That he didn't do quite so well—not at all, in fact.

  RJ opened the door and pushed the bike into the room. After she was sure it was OK, she went back for David. After all, first things first: men were a dime a dozen, but a good bike was hard to come by. She kicked the door shut and tossed David over onto the bed.

  RJ bent over David, looking at the cut in his scalp. It was deep, and about four inches long, but the skull seemed intact."You stupid jackass. Anyone with half a brain knows better than to pull a gun in Alsterase unless you have a death wish, or full body armor."

  She cleaned and stitched the wound, berating David the entire time. "And another thing, never start anything unless you know what's behind you, you stupid prick." She covered him up after stripping him down to his shorts. "You'll live. You won't enjoy it for a while. Not with the headache you're going to have come morning, but you'll live."

  Finished, she sat down on the edge of the bed and unwound the chain. Taking a coin from her pocket, she bent it double around a link, adding it to the small collection of change already bent into its folds. She smiled and let the chain fall to the floor.

  He felt as if the sun were trying to drill its way through his eyelids. His head was pounding, but the soft, warm, and undeniably female contents of his arms temporarily distracted him from his pain. He smiled. It had been a dream. Prison, RJ, the brawl, all a dream. He was home after all, safe in his own bed with some delectable hometown girl. Jane? Or maybe Susan. He wanted to go back to sleep, but the pounding in his head became more insistent. Why did his head hurt? He put his hand to his head, and found the stitches.

  OK, so it wasn't a dream. He couldn't decide if he was relieved or sorry. Without thinking, he pulled himself closer to the woman, and felt himself drifting off into unconsciousness again. Then it hit him. He was in bed with a woman! But who? He opened his eyes slowly. RJ sat in bed, wearing only her pants. She was cleaning her blaster as if it were the normal thing for a half-dressed woman to do while sitting in bed with a man wrapped around her waist.

  David couldn't help realizing just how really built RJ was. Not that he hadn't noticed before now, but clothes did tend to screw up the view.

  She blew some debris out of her gun, and it hit him in the face.

  "Hey!" He wiped at his face.

  "Well, I'm glad to see you're still alive. They charge extra for stiffs around here. Real classy place," she said with a smile.

  David let go of her and rolled onto his back. It was the wrong thing to do. The room wouldn't quit moving, and he felt instant nausea.

  "You're all heart, RJ." He held his head in an effort to keep it from splitting open. "God, I feel like I've been hit by a tractor."

  "Actually, I believe it was a beer bottle," RJ offered. She stood up and grabbed her shirt off the chair where she had put it. She pulled it on and started wrapping the chain around her.

  "Do you always have to wear that thing?" David asked making a face.

  "Yes," RJ said simply, as she continued wrapping. She strapped the blaster, now in its holster, around her waist, and tied it down to her leg.

  "Why? I mean, it must be heavy. And it looks kind of stupid."

  "Because I like it," RJ replied dismissively.

  David didn't take the hint. "There has to be a good reason for it. I mean, you don't do anything without a good reason." It was obvious that she had no intention of answering his question."You know I was damned near killed, and the why of it completely eludes me. You'd think you could answer one simple question."

  "Well, you should be just thrilled because there really isn't a good reason for me to wear it," RJ drew in a long impatient breath and then blew it out."This chain helped me to escape from the Reliance. We were sent on a mission to cleanse this village . . . Do you have any idea what that means?"

  David shook his head no. He was so ignorant that it was a real pain in the ass to have to tell him anything.

  "It is Reliance policy that when an area becomes over-populated, when there are more people than necessary—you know, when they're using more than they're producing—then the Reliance sends in troops to 'cleanse' a village or two. They say they are just weeding out spies. At least, that's the official story that goes out over the viewscreen. But they kill everyone, David. Every man, woman, and child. I was a major in the Elite Guard. I was trained to fight armed soldiers: men, women, or aliens who were trying to kill me. I had crossed galaxies to battle aliens on distant planets, and now they wanted me to slaughter children. To cut down unarmed civilians and leave them to rot in the streets. To make a long story short, I refused. And I wasn't going to stand there and let them do it, either."

  Her smile wasn't quite human as she continued."So, I put a blaster bolt right through my CO's head. The troops stopped shooting at the civilians and started after me. I evaded them easily at first, but then I lost my blaster and took a plasma hit, and things started going downhill fast. Just when it looked as if my chances of survival were nil, I saw this chain. I picked it up, and with it I made a hole in the wall of soldiers that surrounded me. And so, I escaped."

  She fingered the chain absently. "I have always looked at everything with a very analytical eye, but this chain . . . It's part of me. You see, I have this feeling that as long as I hold this chain, I will win against the Reliance. It's a stupid, romantic idea, and how it got into my purely logical and unromantic brain is a mystery to me. Still, it's what I believe."

  David nodded. Now it made sense. Maybe not to her, but it did to him. "So, as long as I'm on a roll, what does RJ stand for?"

  RJ shook her head and half grinned.

  "Ruby Jean," David suggested.

  RJ laughed, then sobered and looked right at David. "Why do you feel compelled to have all your questions answered? Some questions have no answers. Others are best left unanswered. Ignorance is not always a bad thing."

  "Aw, geesh! It's just a name. How bad . . ."

  "I'm going to check things out. I'll bring you something to eat." She walked to the door and was gone.

  David held his hands to his head. The throbbing seemed even worse now. He tried to stay awake because he had heard somewhere that it was bad to sleep if you had a concussion. What he hadn't been told was that it was all but impossible to stay awake.

  RJ kicked a rock down the street as she walked in her Elite boots, carrying her Reliance-issue blaster—so blatantly Reliance that everyone knew instinctively that she wasn't. She kept her hands in her pants pockets and had the air of one who was totally unafraid.

  News traveled fast in Alsterase. After all, it didn't have the Reliance to slow it down. Most had heard of the platinum blonde goddess who had whipped Whitey Baldor and half the clientele of the Golden Arches. People stood clear as she walked by. She smiled and nodded her head in a friendly way that served only to further terrify them.

  Derelicts, merchants, Reliance spies, rebels, prison escapees and hookers. Alsterase had its share of all of these, and none of them passed RJ's eyes unnoticed.

  The roads were narrow and steep and in a state of total disrepair. The rails that onc
e flowed down the center of the street had been removed long ago for the metal. This had once been a great and beautiful city. The city by the bay was now the city of the discontented and outcast. Its golden gates were long fallen into the sea. It was Alsterase now. Alsterase, where you went when you had nowhere else to go.

  It would take a great deal to make this lot into an army. The very things that had driven them to Alsterase and made them the sworn enemies of the Reliance would make them hard to train and harder still to lead. They were a rebellious, undisciplined lot, who had grown out of the habit of taking orders. Still, they had the fighting spirit that RJ was looking for.

  She walked down to the wharf area. It was full of cheap thrills like whorehouses, dirty movie parlors and bars, but RJ's attention was immediately drawn to a small island in the bay. It seemed to be almost entirely covered by structures. Structures obviously dating from antiquity and yet, from what she could see of them, they seemed to be in good repair.

  She walked over to the edge of the pier, totally ignoring the rotting timbers, to see if she could get a better look. The architecture was at least as old as some of the buildings now laying in heaps around town, yet she could see no signs of wear. She pulled a small telescope from her pocket to help her get a better look, and still she could see no sign of decay. "Curioser and curiouser," she mumbled.

  "They say is haunted," a voice said behind her.

  RJ spun around, but she saw no one. Then there was a jerking on her pants leg.

  "Down here!"

  It was a little man, about three-foot-three. RJ smiled broadly at him. "Ah, but I don't believe in ghosts."

  "Don't, either. Said they say, not I say." He craned his head back so he could look at her. His glance took in both chain and laser, but he didn't seem bothered. In fact, he looked relieved. "What interest in island?"

  "So, who says I'm interested in the island?" RJ asked.

  "I do," he replied with an impudent grin.

  RJ laughed."Well, I am a little interested. Do you know anything about it?"

  "Only what hear." He walked away, and RJ followed.

  "And what do you hear?" she asked, somewhat impatiently.

  "Man said been there once. Said evil things chased away. Lightning struck brother down before could get to building." The little man looked sideways at RJ and said, "Of course, know for what is—fishermen's stories. Have seen lights though, sometimes at night. Reason, don't know."

  He had a strange habit of omitting words from sentences that RJ found mildly annoying.

  "Sometime on very foggy nights lighthouse will come on. Fisher folk say is kindly spirit on some day, and on other say it demon."

  "So, to whom am I speaking?" she asked.

  "Name's Willie, but they call Mickey," he announced.

  RJ nodded seriously, as if there were perceptible logic in his statement. She'd noticed for some time that the little man's eyes kept darting around. He seemed unusually worried, even for Alsterase. Had he sought her out as protection? Even in Alsterase there was safety in numbers. Especially when one of the numbers carried a blaster.

  "OK, shorty. What kind of trouble are you in?" she asked.

  "Bad," he said with a smile. "See, am bit light-fingered. Lifted man's wallet today. Reliance. Badge in wallet. Now know spy. Soon all Alsterase will know. Unless kill first. This man and another have been chasing all over. Am tired, running out of hiding places," he explained. "Won't dare attack while in such company." The words had no sooner left his mouth, than blaster fire tore up the pier beside her."Of course, could be wrong."

  RJ glanced back quickly. There were two men, one holding the blaster, another with a more primitive projectile weapon. The man with the blaster would be an Elite, the other a secondary. Both were of course Reliance spies. It wasn't incredible intuition that told her this—although she possessed incredible intuition. It was common knowledge. Elites got lasers, secondaries got projectile weapons, and first-class soldiers made do with swords. At least, that was the way it was here on Earth.

  RJ didn't wait around to give them time to aim. She picked up the little man, stuck him under her arm, ran for the nearest pile of rubble, and jumped behind it.

  "Oh, come on, little man, we don't want any trouble. I just want my wallet back. Why involve your friend?" The Elite's attempt at persuasion was ruined by the obvious threatening tone in his voice. He was enjoying this. If he had to shoot her, too—even in front of the half-dozen witnesses that were scattered around, it didn't bother him. "You might as well come out. We're going to find you, anyway."

  Mickey looked at RJ. "Better go. No sense getting hurt."

  "Honey, the day I let some dick with a hand blaster intimidate me, that's the day I hang up my chain." RJ pulled her own hand blaster, and handed it to the midget. "Here, hold this for me." She stood up in full view of the Reliance men.

  Mickey pulled at her pants leg urgently. "What doing, trying get killed?"

  "Just shut up and stay down." RJ moved away from the pile of rubble unwinding the chain as she walked.

  "I don't have any quarrel with you, lady, just tell me where the midget is," the Elite said.

  The Elite, he was the real threat. She finished unwinding the chain with a jerk and a flip of her wrist. It snaked out hitting the Elite in the head. Fawapp! Thunk! He hit the ground—dead. His blaster skidded across the ground to rest against a dead fish.

  The secondary was in deep shit, and he knew it. He could think of only one possible explanation for what had just happened, and he didn't like it one bit.

  RJ slowly and deliberately rolled up the chain.

  Seeing her take no defensive action, the soldier aimed.

  Mickey fired, missing the soldier completely. But the force from the plasma blaster sent him flying into a wall which he skidded down to land with his butt in a bucket.

  "Freak!" The secondary hoped he was wrong about that. The midget had distracted him, but he was ready now. Unfortunately for him, the moment of hesitation was more than she'd really needed. He fired, but he lost all interest in the result of his shot. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the chain coming at him—almost in slow motion, like a nightmare. He even seemed to scream in slow motion, "B-i-i-t-c-h-h-h-f-f-f-r-r-r-e-a-k!"

  The chain caught the soldier in the left side with such force that he was pitched sideways and slammed face-first into the pavement, his nose shoved into his brain. His death was, if not painless, at least mercifully swift.

  "Men really just don't know how to talk to a lady anymore," RJ mumbled to herself. "It's a crying shame what this world is coming to." She picked up the weapons of the two dead men, and then retrieved her own blaster from where Mickey had dropped it. She took a few moments to wrap the still bloody chain around her waist, then went to pull the little man out of the bucket. This proved more difficult than eliminating the Reliance spies.

  "Thank you. Thank you very much," Mickey said.

  "Tell me something. When you kill people around here, are you expected to clean up your own mess?" asked RJ, ruefully surveying the destruction she had wreaked.

  "Killing Reliance spies considered community service work. Someone else will clean mess. You saved life." Clearly, this meant a great deal to the little man.

  "Well, I do expect something in return," RJ admitted.

  "Anything," Mickey promised earnestly.

  "First, I think it might be a good idea if we put a little distance between ourselves and these corpses," she said.

  Mickey nodded his agreement, and they went on their way.

  Strapped to the wrist of the former Elite, and hidden by his cooling corpse, his comlink glowed and pulsed.

  Chapter Three

  RJ walked in and threw a bag of food on David's chest. He started awake and was instantly in a bad mood. He looked in the sack and made a face.

  "You were expecting maybe veal?" RJ asked sarcastically.

  "What's that?" David looked around him. It was almost dark. He'd been aslee
p for hours, and apparently RJ had been gone all this time. "Where were you? What were you doing?" He was a little angry. He could have been lying here dead for all she cared.

  She sat on the end of the bed and smiled at him. "Always with you it's questions." She shrugged. "I believe I have found a good ally, among other things."

  David stiffened. "You can't just go about the streets stopping people and asking them if they'd like to help us destroy the greatest power in the universe!" he said hotly. "Some people might not like that. Not to name names, but the Reliance, for one."

  RJ shrugged, as if the Reliance bothered her only a little. "If they were the strongest power in the universe—and please try to remember that the universe is a very big place—they wouldn't still be fighting with the Aliens, now, would they?"