Freedom Incorporated by Peter Tylee Read Free Book Online

it done Friday
and be back at work Monday kind of thing. More chill-be-quick?” Jen
offered the bottle.
    “ Yeah,
thanks.”
    Jen squirted another
blast around the edge of the box, making sure the sensor would stay
frozen while Samantha finished soldering the new
circuit.
    Samantha
dabbed the iron to the circuit and the smell of burning resin
tickling her nose. She loved that smell, it reminded her of Cookie
in his workshop and the time they ’d made love on the bench, surrounded
by the seductive haze of solder resin.
    “ Suction.”
    Jen handed her a tube
that vacuumed the molten solder from the board. It had a mechanical
plunger, which squeaked when Samantha used it. Then she lifted the
small board clear of the circuit and the plasma screen went dark
mid-commercial.
    “ Now
we’ve gotta hurry.”
Jen blasted a final jet of chill-be-quick across the circuit and
Samantha commenced work on the final piece of the
puzzle.
    With the
billboard off, security was sure to notice. Jen figured they had 20
minutes as the best-case scenario, less than five as the worst. She
got the screwdrivers ready while a wallop of adrenaline tingled her kidneys.
    Samantha made a sloppy
connection on the final node and the jammed ads appeared on the
plasma screen, or so she imagined. “Go for it.” Jen stuffed some
protruding wires back into place and eased the case on as fast as
she dared. They worked with a screwdriver each, turning the screws
so fast their forearms and wrists began to seize up.
    “ Hold it you
two!” The gruff voice sounded like the crunch of footsteps on
gravel.
    Jen snapped her head
around, fear dilating her pupils and making the whites of her eyes
large. He was coming from their planned escape route, a great brute
of a man. He was close enough for her to see his moustache and the
thick stubble on his chin. The guard was barrel-chested, more
gorilla than man. His enormous hands hefted a nightstick in an
offensive position as he lumbered toward them.
    Samantha and Jen
abandoned the final two screws and sprinted for the far end of the
hall, Jen’s rucksack flailing at her back.
    Her heart
pounded in her ears as she darted down two flights of stairs,
taking them three at a time. They’d reached the basement. It was
dank and airless and an eerie quiet perforated the dark. Samantha’s
breathing was heavy with fear and Jen pulled on her elbow to make her follow into the
gloom. They shuffled forward as fast as they dared with arms
outstretched, probing the darkness ahead.
    “ Where are
we?” Samantha’s whispered, unable to keep the hint of terror from
her tone.
    Jen shrugged,
a useless gesture in the dark. “Dunno, I’ve never been down here
before.” She scraped her fingers along the wall. Rough concrete. They were
in the janitor’s realm, an intricate network of dead-ends and
loop-backs where more than a handful of wayward students had become
lost and disorientated in the past. She quietened her heaving
breath and strained her hearing to the limit.
    Nothing.
    Did we lose
him already? Jen doubted it; the guard would
have difficulty explaining to a
supervisor how they’d escaped. He therefore
had ample interest in finding them and would probably search until
dawn.
    “ This way.”
Jen trailed her fingers along the wall and penetrated deeper into
the dark.
    Their
footfalls echoed down the corridor, deafening them with chills of
panic. They both understood the consequences if the guard caught
them. He may be big but that doesn’t mean
he’s fast, Jen thought. Maybe we can stay ahead of him… as long as we know where he
is. Another shiver stung her spine. He’s calling backup. And
that changed the game. They couldn’t hide in the maze beneath the
University and wait for the resumption of normal activity the next day. Within the
hour, the campus would be swarming with guards. All looking for us. Jen had difficulty
swallowing.
    She groped in
the dark until she felt Samantha and drew her
clos e enough to
whisper in