Freedom TM

“We can’t let them reach this school.”
    Ross looked up at the choppers crisscrossing the sky in the distance and realized that this was just the beginning.
    ______________
    In the darkness Sebeck and Price peered at an abandoned, crumbling farmhouse from the shelter of a creek bank. The new Thread led directly toward a weathered barn behind it. The entire place was choked with weeds and bushes.
    The sound of frogs and crickets filled the night, but miles behind them they heard loud explosions and the zipping sound of helicopter miniguns.
    Price gazed back over his shoulder as the horizon flashed and flickered. “They’re really getting pounded back there, Sergeant. Whatever we’re supposed to find better be worth it.”
    Sebeck nodded. He’d been surprised they made it past the blockade, but then, whatever powered the Thread might have been able to create a path … somehow. He’d seen the Daemon do stranger things.
    “Stay here.”
    “No problem.”
    Sebeck climbed up from the creek, and started moving through the tall grass, electronic pistol at the ready. He kept scanning the darkness for trouble but made it the couple hundred feet to the barn door without incident.
    The glowing Thread proceeded right through the twin doors. Sebeck looked down and noticed fairly fresh tire tracks in the mud. He nodded to himself. Whatever the next segment was leading him to was apparently inside, and recently arrived.
    Sebeck pulled open the right barn door partway. Stealth was not an option because it sagged on its hinges. He peeked in and noticed a dark late-model panel van with dealer plates. The Thread continued straight through the closed back doors of the van itself.
    Sebeck scanned the interior of the barn and saw nothing except old stalls, a workbench, and piles of rusting equipment on either side of the van. Above he could see stars through the gaping holes in the barn roof.
    He moved inside and came up to the shiny van doors. Nosounds came from inside. He held the pistol in one hand, stepped aside, and tried the handle. It clicked open. He slowly pulled it open, peering in with the pistol aimed and ready.
    “It’s you.”
    “Me?” Sebeck stared at an oddly dressed man sitting on a folding chair in the cargo bay of the van. Mirrored sunglasses and a balaclava obscured the man’s face, and he wore a camouflage outfit with knee pads and body armor. Before him he held what looked to be a transparent video panel or glass screen through which he was viewing Sebeck. It gave the effect of carrying a huge set of spectacles in front of him. The Thread led right to the tip of a wand he was clutching in his gloved right hand. A nearby call-out identified him as
PangSoi
, a first-level Weaver with a two-point-five rep score on a base of three.
    Sebeck was puzzled. “What the hell are you supposed to be?”
    “I’m PangSoi.”
    “I can see that.” Sebeck clicked his pistol into its holster and opened his visor. “But why the hell did the Thread lead me to you? And cause me to leave all those people to get attacked?”
    “It’s hard to say.”
    “You’re not a high-level, high-rep operative—you’re a weaver-trainee for chrissake. And what’s with the panel?”
    PangSoi gazed at him, following Sebeck as he shifted on his feet.
    “Why are you doing that?” Sebeck noticed wires running down from the panel to a large box draped in black fabric. It sat next to PangSoi’s chair like an end table and gurgled from some tiny motor.
    “We must hurry.”
    “What the hell …?” Sebeck flipped up the fabric covering the box and came face-to-face with the severed head of a young Asian woman wearing HUD glasses—bolted into a metal frame. Her dead eyes looked forward, the lids pinned back. Tubes ran into herneck and wires into her HUD glasses. A tiny pump was burbling on a frame. “Oh my god.…”
    Suddenly what felt like an entire football team tackled him from behind. He felt rough gloved hands prying at his face, but the van he was pressed against kept him from falling down. “You son of a bitch!” He pushed his open helmet visor against the van door to close it, and the weight of several people pulled him backward, where he fell onto the muddy floor. Several strong bodies piled onto him shouting, “Get him! Hold him!”
    Sebeck spoke the keywords to electrify the surface of his armor. The tangle of men fell off him yelping, as he rolled free and stood.
    Now he could see that he faced half a dozen