Anarchate Vigilante (Vigilante Series 4) by T. Jackson King Page B
Authors: T. Jackson King
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any information about her brother, saying the Anarchate had demanded this action. The holo image of the stocky governor showed him grimacing.
“We have had a hard week. But it is harvest time. I leave to bring in the potatoes and soybeans on my farm, like many of you. However, anyone can reach me over my tachnet comlink Charles2731AlphaZed. Thank you my citizens.”
Charlotte did not tell the wallscreen to transmit the governor’s comlink code. That would be too obvious. Anyway, she had memorized it. One of many things in her life that she had memorized rather than put into digital storage that could be viewed by her Master and any other lifeform with the proper snoop tools. What was in her head, well, that was private to her.
“Wallscreen, continue news broadcasts from other stars in Orion Arm. I wish to better understand Anarchate social issues,” she lied to the machine. Which, being just an expert system, had no means of monitoring her heart rate, brain waves or other indicators of lie-telling.
Charlotte turned and walked back to her bedroom, finished dressing in worn brown pants and a faded blue pullover blouse, pulled on her rough terrain shoes, then she went to her closet and pulled out her dark blue shoulder bag. Stuffing her datapad in the bag, she turned and headed out into the living room area of the habitat. She did not look inside her shoulder bag as she already knew what lay inside. A sewing kit with thread, needles and small snipers. A change of underwear. A neck scarf for the wind that was common on this dry, desert-like planet. A one liter bottle of sugared water. Her written paper notes on human physiology. A small broach with the only picture of her mother that she’d been able to keep during the auction of herself on the labor slave block in the Flesh Markets. And some dry sausage and yellow cheese. Each piece was something she could explain if ever asked about it by Nak ho-mesk. Yet each item was calculated to allow her to spend time on her own without making use of her monitored datapad. Every purchase she made was recorded by her datapad, as was every inquiry to the galactic tachnet by her datapad. Anything and everything she did was subject to monitoring and to eventual questioning by her Master. Despite that day and night tracking of her and her actions, today Charlotte was ready to gamble on an escape attempt. Her brother Matthew was alive! And causing big problems for the Anarchate, otherwise the officials would not have approved the sharing of the Memory Pillar destruction over the galactic tachnet.
Passing through the living room, she walked over to the records desk, pulled out the top drawer, laid her shoulder bag on the drawer, then bent over in a way that blocked the view of the ceiling monitor. Ignoring the holo images and talk-talk of the holosphere, she reached down to the silvery pile of platinum Standards. There were sixty-three present she saw in a glance, giving thanks for her near photographic memory. Passage on an interstellar transport ship usually cost thirty-seven Standards. She shoved forty Standards into her shoulder bag, stood back, pushed the drawer closed, slung her bag on her left shoulder and headed for the exit slidedoor. Tapping the exit patch, she walked out into the hallway and headed for the Academy’s library.
There were public access tachlinks there. Those she would ignore until it came time to buy passage on a shuttle up to the Commerce Station. But the Academy’s flat screen monitors, normally used to study IT datafiles, could also access the Academy’s datanet. Her memory held the code for a dataworm that could infiltrate the enrollment records of every IT student at the Academy. She would search for the name sigil and ID of a human female student. With a class enrollment of 43,000 students from three dozen species, she felt certain there would be at least one human female in the student body. And once she had that ID info encoded into her datapad, in a
“We have had a hard week. But it is harvest time. I leave to bring in the potatoes and soybeans on my farm, like many of you. However, anyone can reach me over my tachnet comlink Charles2731AlphaZed. Thank you my citizens.”
Charlotte did not tell the wallscreen to transmit the governor’s comlink code. That would be too obvious. Anyway, she had memorized it. One of many things in her life that she had memorized rather than put into digital storage that could be viewed by her Master and any other lifeform with the proper snoop tools. What was in her head, well, that was private to her.
“Wallscreen, continue news broadcasts from other stars in Orion Arm. I wish to better understand Anarchate social issues,” she lied to the machine. Which, being just an expert system, had no means of monitoring her heart rate, brain waves or other indicators of lie-telling.
Charlotte turned and walked back to her bedroom, finished dressing in worn brown pants and a faded blue pullover blouse, pulled on her rough terrain shoes, then she went to her closet and pulled out her dark blue shoulder bag. Stuffing her datapad in the bag, she turned and headed out into the living room area of the habitat. She did not look inside her shoulder bag as she already knew what lay inside. A sewing kit with thread, needles and small snipers. A change of underwear. A neck scarf for the wind that was common on this dry, desert-like planet. A one liter bottle of sugared water. Her written paper notes on human physiology. A small broach with the only picture of her mother that she’d been able to keep during the auction of herself on the labor slave block in the Flesh Markets. And some dry sausage and yellow cheese. Each piece was something she could explain if ever asked about it by Nak ho-mesk. Yet each item was calculated to allow her to spend time on her own without making use of her monitored datapad. Every purchase she made was recorded by her datapad, as was every inquiry to the galactic tachnet by her datapad. Anything and everything she did was subject to monitoring and to eventual questioning by her Master. Despite that day and night tracking of her and her actions, today Charlotte was ready to gamble on an escape attempt. Her brother Matthew was alive! And causing big problems for the Anarchate, otherwise the officials would not have approved the sharing of the Memory Pillar destruction over the galactic tachnet.
Passing through the living room, she walked over to the records desk, pulled out the top drawer, laid her shoulder bag on the drawer, then bent over in a way that blocked the view of the ceiling monitor. Ignoring the holo images and talk-talk of the holosphere, she reached down to the silvery pile of platinum Standards. There were sixty-three present she saw in a glance, giving thanks for her near photographic memory. Passage on an interstellar transport ship usually cost thirty-seven Standards. She shoved forty Standards into her shoulder bag, stood back, pushed the drawer closed, slung her bag on her left shoulder and headed for the exit slidedoor. Tapping the exit patch, she walked out into the hallway and headed for the Academy’s library.
There were public access tachlinks there. Those she would ignore until it came time to buy passage on a shuttle up to the Commerce Station. But the Academy’s flat screen monitors, normally used to study IT datafiles, could also access the Academy’s datanet. Her memory held the code for a dataworm that could infiltrate the enrollment records of every IT student at the Academy. She would search for the name sigil and ID of a human female student. With a class enrollment of 43,000 students from three dozen species, she felt certain there would be at least one human female in the student body. And once she had that ID info encoded into her datapad, in a
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