Jennifer Government: A Novel by Max Barry Read Free Book Online Page B

of brake lights. Billy stopped and stared. Then he ran toward it.
    It was an NRA vehicle, he could tell even in the gloom, with a few NRA uniforms sitting in it. One of the men was looking in his direction. “Hoy!” Billy yelled, waving his arms. “Hello, hello!”
    The man raised a rifle. Billy stopped running. A spotlight snapped on, blinding him. He raised an arm to shield his eyes.
    “Identify yourself.”
    “I’m Billy! Billy NRA!”
    Silence. His legs started to tremble. He had a terrible feeling he was somewhere he shouldn’t be. He heard someone jump down from the Jeep and walk toward him, boots crunching through the undergrowth. A man entered the light. He was short and maybe fifty and wearing a uniform with a lot of shiny bits and pieces. None of this made Billy feel any better.
    “You’re Bill NRA?”
    “Yes.”
    The man exhaled. “Jesus. We thought you weren’t going to show. I’m Yallam.”
    “I’m—pleased to meet you, sir.” His legs wouldn’t quit shaking.
    “You all right?”
    “I’m fine, sir.”
    “We heard about the trouble in Sydney. Sorry about Damon.”
    “I—” Billy said, then realized there was only one correct response here. “Yes, sir.”
    Yallam turned around. “Frank! Turn off that light.”
    The light died. Billy blinked in the sudden darkness.
    “We’d better get moving. You disposed of your vehicle?”
    “My—yes, sir.”
    “Good man.” Yallam clapped him on the back and began steering him toward the Jeep. Billy very much didn’t want to get into that Jeep. “You’re a credit to the NRA, son. Don’t think your work this last week won’t go unrewarded.”
    “Thank you, sir,” Billy said. A soldier opened the door for him and he climbed in. He had never been so scared in his life.

14 Jennifer
    The shrink said, “Now you’re going to tell me you don’t need to be here.”
    “Wow, you’re good,” Jennifer said. The plastic chair was uncomfortable. The office was small, dark, and had no view. She had been discharged, or so she’d thought. The Government was insisting on an outgoing psych evaluation. Jennifer just wanted to go home.
    “Danger is part of your job, right? You’re wasting time here when you could be out pursuing the perpetrators.”
    “Amazing,” she said. “It’s like I don’t even have to be here.”
    The shrink rested his elbows on his desk. She could see an open file, which she guessed was hers. “Jennifer, I’m not going to ask you about your childhood, or your sex life, or what an ink blot looks like. I’m only here to help you deal with the trauma. Prevent it from dominating your life.”
    “The only trauma was my stupidity. I was there to do a job; I screwed up. I practically deserved to get shot.”
    “Do you really think that?”
    “No,” she said. “I deserved to save that girl, and those twogun-toting assholes deserved to die instead of her. But you can’t win them all.”
    The shrink paused. It was a meaningful pause, Jennifer suspected: it was to give her time to consider her response and revise it. She kept her mouth shut.
    “You know,” the shrink said, “some people, as they recover from trauma, obsess on the perpetrators. Their lives come to revolve around the enemy. They constantly think about obtaining justice.”
    “These people sound sensible.”
    “They withdraw from loved ones. Only the trauma is important to them. They can feel desensitized to violence; they can become aggressive. Does any of this sound familiar?”
    “Well, we could discuss these people all day,” she said, standing. “But since I have work to do—”
    “Sit.”
    She sat. “You know, this isn’t even about me. This is about some asshole at Nike thinking he can build a career out of dead teenagers. You don’t know what these people are like. They don’t stop until you make them stop.”
    “Yes, I’m aware of your corporate past,” the shrink said. His eyes slid to her barcode tattoo. “You have scores to settle,