a
clock on me now. If I didn’t do something, the question wasn’t whether I’d get
myself into trouble, but when.
“I’m proud of
you, Charles. You’re ready to be a Gamma now. It’s going to happen for you, I
have no doubt. You’ve evolved; you’ve reached the next stage. Congratulations.”
If there was anything
I was sure of, it was that I was never going to be a Gamma.
Chapter 8
I had found Kate, but I still
didn’t know what had become of Sarah Aisling. I’d need money, but that was very
hard to come by in large quantities. The economy ran better if colleagues spent
money instead of saving it, so savings accounts were prohibitively expensive.
Only the wealthiest could afford them. I had an escrow account, but buying out
Beatrice’s share of the apartment put that in the red.
About all I could do was secure a
large loan (at a high rate of interest). It didn’t matter; I had no intention
of paying it back.
I called a cab and went to the
library. Though they didn’t advertise the fact, the truth was that the Galt
Intercorporate Library was one of the most profitable corps in history. They
offered two things no other library did. First, in addition to carrying
practically every legitimate text ever written, they also had an extensive
catalogue of pornographic, perverse, and subversive literature.
Second, they didn’t monitor their
clients or report their activity to any other corp… anywhere. That level of
anonymity was worth almost any price, and the library knew it.
At any given time there were about
a half dozen corps trying to shut them down, get them to restrict usage, or to
monitor their customers. Negotiations on these issues almost always ended in
violence, so the Galt maintained a small but effective military force.
Perimeter bollards and Jersey
Barriers surrounded the entire building. Behind those was a twelve-foot chain
fence, with razor wire and machine gun nests. The only gate had more security
than the Atlas train station. It was UltraSec, if such a word existed.
Scanners, chemical detectors, and bomb-sniffing dogs all stood between the
outside world and the library. The building itself was a huge concrete
structure with a three-foot-thick steel blast door.
Despite all of this security, they
prided themselves on expediency. From the line it took only ten minutes to get
inside.
I soon found myself standing in
front of real books, ancient tomes from corporations and governments alike,
computers with faster access to data than I had ever dreamed. The heretical
works of John Stewart Mill, John Locke, and Thomas Hobbes could all be found in
their own, original words.
An open terminal gave me access to
Sarah Aisling’s records, more material than I could possibly go through. Her
market value was pennies, and her status was listed as “detained.” The case had
been escalated less than a day after my report, and they transferred her to the
Citadel. I’d never be able to scrape together enough to learn her fate there.
But Kate was Sarah’s friend, and
might know what happened, maybe even know of a way to help. I looked up
Katherine Wolfe in every personnel directory I could, but I couldn’t find her.
She had been filling in, and since she didn’t work for Ackerman—or the rental
agency for that matter—I had no idea where to even begin looking for her.
That left me with the Arab woman.
I found a list of the rental
company’s employees. One by one I pulled their work licenses and found an Arab
woman with dark skin and curly black hair named Jazelle. I hadn’t gotten a good
look at her, but she looked like the right one. Her contact information was the
same as the agency’s, so I just printed her license.
I rushed home and, rummaging
through my old boxes, managed to find my very first Ackerman ledger, an old
Epsilon piece of junk. I was supposed to have turned it in when I got a Delta
contract, but kept it for sentimental reasons. It was deactivated, and even if
it
clock on me now. If I didn’t do something, the question wasn’t whether I’d get
myself into trouble, but when.
“I’m proud of
you, Charles. You’re ready to be a Gamma now. It’s going to happen for you, I
have no doubt. You’ve evolved; you’ve reached the next stage. Congratulations.”
If there was anything
I was sure of, it was that I was never going to be a Gamma.
Chapter 8
I had found Kate, but I still
didn’t know what had become of Sarah Aisling. I’d need money, but that was very
hard to come by in large quantities. The economy ran better if colleagues spent
money instead of saving it, so savings accounts were prohibitively expensive.
Only the wealthiest could afford them. I had an escrow account, but buying out
Beatrice’s share of the apartment put that in the red.
About all I could do was secure a
large loan (at a high rate of interest). It didn’t matter; I had no intention
of paying it back.
I called a cab and went to the
library. Though they didn’t advertise the fact, the truth was that the Galt
Intercorporate Library was one of the most profitable corps in history. They
offered two things no other library did. First, in addition to carrying
practically every legitimate text ever written, they also had an extensive
catalogue of pornographic, perverse, and subversive literature.
Second, they didn’t monitor their
clients or report their activity to any other corp… anywhere. That level of
anonymity was worth almost any price, and the library knew it.
At any given time there were about
a half dozen corps trying to shut them down, get them to restrict usage, or to
monitor their customers. Negotiations on these issues almost always ended in
violence, so the Galt maintained a small but effective military force.
Perimeter bollards and Jersey
Barriers surrounded the entire building. Behind those was a twelve-foot chain
fence, with razor wire and machine gun nests. The only gate had more security
than the Atlas train station. It was UltraSec, if such a word existed.
Scanners, chemical detectors, and bomb-sniffing dogs all stood between the
outside world and the library. The building itself was a huge concrete
structure with a three-foot-thick steel blast door.
Despite all of this security, they
prided themselves on expediency. From the line it took only ten minutes to get
inside.
I soon found myself standing in
front of real books, ancient tomes from corporations and governments alike,
computers with faster access to data than I had ever dreamed. The heretical
works of John Stewart Mill, John Locke, and Thomas Hobbes could all be found in
their own, original words.
An open terminal gave me access to
Sarah Aisling’s records, more material than I could possibly go through. Her
market value was pennies, and her status was listed as “detained.” The case had
been escalated less than a day after my report, and they transferred her to the
Citadel. I’d never be able to scrape together enough to learn her fate there.
But Kate was Sarah’s friend, and
might know what happened, maybe even know of a way to help. I looked up
Katherine Wolfe in every personnel directory I could, but I couldn’t find her.
She had been filling in, and since she didn’t work for Ackerman—or the rental
agency for that matter—I had no idea where to even begin looking for her.
That left me with the Arab woman.
I found a list of the rental
company’s employees. One by one I pulled their work licenses and found an Arab
woman with dark skin and curly black hair named Jazelle. I hadn’t gotten a good
look at her, but she looked like the right one. Her contact information was the
same as the agency’s, so I just printed her license.
I rushed home and, rummaging
through my old boxes, managed to find my very first Ackerman ledger, an old
Epsilon piece of junk. I was supposed to have turned it in when I got a Delta
contract, but kept it for sentimental reasons. It was deactivated, and even if
it
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