Freedom (TM)

“It wasn’t meant for you.”

“If you cooperate, I can give you your old life back. I can undo this curse Sobol cast on you. Make Detective Sebeck live again. Clear his name. Turn him into a hero.”

Sebeck just shook his head. “I’m not the person I was then, and I don’t want to be. I’ve seen the truth now.”

The Major nodded grimly. “Why would you help the same system that took so much from you?”

“This ‘system’ will help people take back control—from bastards like you.”

“ ‘Bastards like me’ serve a purpose. People need order, Sergeant. They need to be told what to think, what to do, what to believe, or everything will fall apart. This miracle of modern civilization doesn’t just happen. It requires careful management by professionals willing to do whatever is necessary to keep things ru

“Is that what you tell yourself?”

“It’s the truth, even if you don’t want to hear it.”

Sebeck shook his head. “I don’t have to believe you. I’ve seen the truth with my own eyes. The people don’t need to be protected from themselves.”

The Major glanced at his watch again. “You disappoint me, Sergeant. You really do. I would normally have taken a more patient and deliberate approach with your case, but time is of the essence, and I must be off.” He stood and pulled the chair back along the wall. “And you—along with your DNA—were officially cremated many months ago. We can’t have you popping up and ruining the official story. Not now.” He rapped on the metal door. A portal slid open with a clack. A moment of recognition and then the door opened.

Two beefy soldiers in ski masks with stun sticks and metal whips on their belts entered.

The Major pointed to Sebeck. “Take him and his friend out to the dump at Q-27. Put their bodies through a wood chipper. I don’t want anyone to find a shred of evidence that they ever existed.”

“Yes, sir.”

Sebeck glared from his chair. “You motherfucker.”

The Major regarded him. “Look at the bright side, Sergeant. Your quest is over.” He exited as the guards pulled out their stun sticks.

Sebeck rode in the passenger bay of a heavy vehicle. A diesel engine rattling somewhere beyond steel walls. He could feel his hands lashed behind his back as he lay facedown on a hard, cold diamond-plate floor. He was still nude. Road vibration circulated through his bones.

He turned over to see several sets of combat boots nearby and looked up into the masked faces of soldiers with M4A1s slung across their chests. They looked back down menacingly.

The closest of them pointed a gloved hand in Sebeck’s face. “If I get any trouble from you, I’m going to make it painful. You hear me?”

Another soldier on the opposite row of benches kicked Sebeck. “You hear him!”

Sebeck had the wind knocked out of him for a moment. As he got air back into his lungs, he turned to the man. “I’m an American. I’m one of you. Why are you treating me like this?”

“Shut the fuck up, you commie prick!”

He landed another vicious kick to Sebeck’s ribs, sending him rolling.

That’s when Sebeck noticed Laney Price nearby. Price was also nude, and he sat slumped with his back against the front wall of the vehicle. Price was staring into space with unseeing eyes. He rocked back and forth, muttered silently to himself. Sebeck was horrified to see Price’s body. He expected that it would be overweight and just as hairy as the young man’s face and arms, but instead what he saw along Price’s chest, stomach, and legs was a solid mass of burn scars. Sebeck was horrified.

“Laney. Laney!”

One of the soldiers leaned into view. “Tough little fucker, that one.”

Another soldier chimed in. “Yeah, you’re not going to reach him. He knows how to deal with torture. Don’t you, boy? You’re an old hand.” He smacked Price’s head.

Sebeck crawled closer to Price. “Laney.” Price’s eyes remained unseeing as his lips moved in a repeating rhythm. The scars all over his body looked old.

“Curling iron would be my guess.”

Sebeck turned to face the soldier who said it.

Another soldier shook his head. “This fucker had some sick parents.”

Sebeck felt his heart dropping. He remembered Riley’s words to him back at the Laguna reservation: You never asked about Price’s suffering. How could he never have realized? It nearly swallowed him with grief. He looked to Price. “Laney. Listen to me, Laney!”

The vehicle suddenly slowed and lurched into a steep turn.

The lead non-comm stood up and grabbed an overhead handrail. “Let’s finish this and get back in time for chow.” He wrapped a cloth around his nose and mouth, as did the other men.

The vehicle came to a complete stop and the back wall lowered like a drawbridge. Before he could react Sebeck felt himself grabbed by the feet and dragged roughly across the diamond-plate floor. He felt the pain of a dozen small cuts, and then he was unceremoniously dumped onto the dusty ground. All he could smell was the stench of death—so thick that he tasted it as much as smelled it. He heard the squawking and shrieking of birds.

Sebeck sat up and surveyed his surroundings. They’d been traveling in some sort of six-wheeled, armored perso

The whole place reeked of dead flesh. As he glanced around he saw nothing for miles in any direction. It was just flat scrubland.

Sebeck felt Price thrown against him, and as he sat there next to Price in the dust he leaned in once more to look Price in the eyes. He got up close. “Laney! Laney, it’s me, Pete! Talk to me. Please.”

There was a flicker of recognition in Price’s eyes, then they focused on Sebeck.

Sebeck looked around him as a squad of soldiers stared at two others pouring gasoline into the wood chipper’s fuel tank. Another was preparing a video camera with a ghoulish grin on his face.

Sebeck turned back to Price. “Laney, I’m sorry. I’m sorry that it ended like this.”

Price’s brow contorted. “It’s not your fault, Sergeant. Sometimes things end badly.”

“I want to thank you for everything you’ve done for me. I know you didn’t have to be here—and now I’ve gone and failed everyone.”

Price shook his head slightly. “Your quest wasn’t about you, Sergeant. It was about how people reacted to it. It was their quest. You’re just carrying the flag.”

Sebeck stopped. The truth of it hit him. It was the effect his quest had on others that was the purpose. He was just an icon. It made his burden suddenly easier to bear.

Just then the wood chipper’s deafening engine roared to life, and the birds lifted off in panic, fleeting shadows against the sun. Two soldiers walked up to Sebeck. One pointed first to Sebeck, then the wood chipper. They both nodded and slung their weapons. They grabbed Sebeck by the elbows and started carrying him to the bloodstained maw of the roaring machine. Sebeck felt primordial fear grip him as he struggled and dug his bare heels into the dirt. “No!”

They dragged him, twisting and shouting.

But then it suddenly became much easier, and he fell to the ground. Oddly, he was also sopping wet. He turned up toward the man carrying him on his right, but saw that the soldier was missing from the waist up. The man’s severed arm still tightly gripped Sebeck. He stared at it in disbelief. It was not the sort of thing a civilized mind readily computed.

Sebeck then realized no one was holding him to his left anymore either, and when he turned he saw his other executioner’s torso had emptied its contents across the dirt. The rest of the man lay farther on.