CHAPTER 23
Slamming the automobile into drive, Locke pulled onto the street and continued his quest to see more Symbols. He drove for a half hour without seeing any stray marks. He passed a couple of OWG parks. An OWG electrical power station. An OWG garbage dump.
Nothing.
Then, as though he had loosened his own blindfold, the Symbols started to stick out. On a concrete culvert. A cracked sidewalk. Street signs like the one at the bus stop. A grating covering the Gambling City sewage system. A brick wall of an empty building. A few etched into trees lining the streets. In one block, Locke saw the Symbol ten times. And those were the ones he could see from his automobile at night. Who knew how many he would see in the sunlight?
Hamilton told the truth. And, once again, the exclamation followed: Uh-oh.
His chills started at the gas pedal and snaked their way up his right leg. A few minutes later, his hands and legs shook with each passing Symbol. When his teeth started chattering, he turned the heater on. Within two minutes, the sweating and chattering rattled him enough to search for a place to pull off in a parking lot halfway between his living quarters and Homicide.
A large group of subjects would have been needed to draw all of them. They were everywhere, like Gambling City had a plague. The Symbols were a virus consuming the city. And nobody appeared to notice. Including him.
Locke berated himself for being oblivious when he was in Dale City and Cornville. Surely the Symbols were in those cities as well.
The Director needed to know about this. Locke would have to spin a few lies to make the story work. But, this was too important. The OWG must be protected from Hamilton and his Symbol-creating comrades. This was more than just cash and dead Agents now. Somehow they were able to paint all of these with no one noticing, even after the fact.
An OWG bus approached. Its drone drew his attention away from his thoughts for a moment. As it groaned by, Locke watched the subjects inside. It was half-full, more males than females. And not one of them looked up.
They kept their heads down. Their eyes were open—no one was sleeping. A couple of them shifted in their seats. But none of them gave one bit of attention to each other or the passing night.
Why had he never noticed this?
Still shivering, he came to a somewhat disturbing conclusion: The reason he hadn’t noticed was, until recently, he had his head down as well. In fact, the more he thought about it, he never gazed out the windows of a bus either until his trip home after the Hamilton interrogation when he noticed the casinos.
Was this a coincidence or something more?
It was no wonder these Symbols managed to spread without anyone noticing. Sure, subjects walked the streets, but not as far as the buses traveled. These walkers saw a couple of the Symbols and didn’t think anything of it. It would be the subjects who traveled long distances who ought to see how many Symbols there were. But if everyone acted like these passengers, then nobody had the hope of seeing anything.
It made him shiver more, and now it felt like his brain rattled too. He turned the heater to high.
He wanted to pull out to see more Symbols but changed his mind. He’d wait for the next bus, deciding to compare passengers.
Until then, he allowed his flustered mind to return to the Symbols. Hamilton said they signified something. It had to mean something important.
They selected something that reminded them why they were doing what they were doing. They picked something that reminded Hamilton why he was murdering fourteen Govicide Agents. They picked something that reminded the cash transporters why they risked their lives outside of Cornville and elsewhere. They picked something that caused everyone to think the same exact thought.
The Symbol reminded viewers why they opposed the OWG, the System, and Govicide.
Were they Offenders? Or could it be true: Could Hamilton and the others be mythical Free Enterprisers?
In the case of the Offenders Govicide caught and executed, they were subjects who followed the System but sometimes strayed. They got their food, health, housing, etc. from the OWG. But, they tried to trade tools with a comrade. They gave leftovers to someone who wasn’t managing his food well. They printed rudimentary forms of cash, not like the expert work Locke saw in Dale City. In essence, these subjects were fine with the OWG Goods and Services, but once in a while they stepped out of line and Govicide would reform them. Or get rid of them.
In the case of Free Enterprisers, though, the fables stated they were out to overthrow the OWG. They would destroy anything having to do with the OWG. They would dynamite the System and disband Govicide. Then, they’d wipe out all Goods and Services. In the end, there’d be nothing left but subjects and the world. No mandates. No leadership. No control. Nothing to eat. Nowhere to sleep. Chaos.
Who did Hamilton sound like?
It didn’t take Locke more than a few seconds to answer: Hamilton was a Free Enterpriser. He’d already killed fourteen Govicide Agents. Was this not a way of disbanding Govicide?
He’d helped in the circulation of a massive amount of cash. Was this not a way of destroying the System?
He’d gotten his own healthcare, food, clothing, and transportation. Was this not a way of wiping out the OWG?
Hamilton was a Free Enterpriser.
They existed.
On the passenger seat, his satellite phone rang. It could be only one of two subjects. One the OWG allowed him to love and the other it forced him to like.
It was Jade. His shoulders slouched in relief.
“Yes, Jade.”
“Where are you? I expected you home by now.” Concern and exasperation fought for control in her tone.
He clenched his teeth so she wouldn’t hear his Free Enterpriser fears. “I know you did. I lost track of the time. I’ll be home in a little while. Checking something right now.”
“You’re okay?”
“I’m fine. Jump into bed and I’ll be there before you know it.”
“Okay. Bye.”
He threw the phone on the seat. How would Jade handle the idea of Free Enterprisers existing? He wouldn’t tell her right away. But what of the Masses? How would all the subjects of the Masses handle the idea of Free Enterprisers existing if they found out?
The first problem in all this was Hiss. He wouldn’t believe Locke. The Agent already had the mindset that Hamilton was only a killer and the cash being moved was the regular operations of Offenders. These Symbols proved it was much more.
Hiss was like one of those passengers on the bus. He had his head down and kept to himself. In his case, his Govicide work. He was just getting on the bus at one stop and getting off at another, not noticing there were other things afoot.
But, there was something deeper. Hiss couldn’t imagine someone wanting to rid the World of the OWG because it was perfect and had no flaws. No mistakes. No contradictions. No unanswered questions because the OWG was always right.
“People have no rights when the OWG is never wrong,” Locke said aloud, interrupting his own thinking. His teeth stopped chattering. The automobile’s heater had done its work.
Locke found himself in a paradox. What was a subject to do when the Free Enterpriser--Hamilton--was telling the truth while the OWG seemed to be withholding the truth?
What was the truth? The truth was that something about the OWG didn’t seem . . . right.
That word again.
A familiar sound cracked his train of thought. Another bus came down the street. And like the last bus, this one passed and every passenger sat with his head lowered. No one looking out. No one talking to each other. No one concerned with anything outside the bus.
Locke craned his neck almost 180 degrees, watching the bus as long as possible.Still, he didn’t see one subject look up, look out, or look at each other.
Why?
One male had the answers. And he was the one subject who hadn’t lied to Locke yet. He was the one subject who made no excuses for anything he’d done.
Hamilton.
Locke put the car into drive. No clichés. No innuendos. No paradoxes. He was going to go back to the Homicide Prison to get answers.
He pulled out of the parking lot, going in the opposite direction of his living quarters. The tires squealed on the black pavement.
He wanted answers to the contradictions he saw. He wanted explanations for how Hamilton managed to live outside the System. He wanted Hamilton to tell him everything Locke didn’t know about the World. Why were there so many buildings? Why were the streets so wide? Why were airports so large? Why didn’t subjects notice the Symbols?
Hamilton would have explanations for everything.
And within the middle of this wave of intense curiosity another paradox came to him: He’d be asking Hamilton, a subject with seemingly no OWG education, to explain the World to him.
Locke made a right onto a deserted street. Five minutes to the Prison.
But Hamilton managed to turn the tables every time, only revealing what he wanted. Locke never got a feeling he’d tricked Hamilton into saying anything. All the words out of Hamilton’s mouth were of his own choosing. This frustration caused Locke to drive faster, barely stopping at lights or stop signs.
As Locke wondered how to see Hamilton for the third time, he realized something: he wanted Hamilton to be a Free Enterpriser. The feeling startled him. His foot slipped off the gas.
How could he have such a terrible thought?
Searching his emotions, Locke snagged the answer. He hated how Offenders got around the System for days, even months, and then, when caught, said they were sorry and would never do it again. One day Offenders were trying everything to get around the System, then a week after they got caught they’d be turning in other Offenders for doing the same thing.
Not Hamilton. He was a true believer in opposing the OWG. He wouldn’t turn in any of his partners. He would never assist the OWG in catching others.
Locke wanted to find at least one subject who opposed the OWG and was willing to die for what he believed. He wished someone could just say, “Yeah, I did it. The System sucks. The OWG sucks. Govicide sucks. I’m not sorry I did it. I’m only sorry I got caught.”
Hamilton was that subject.
Locke came to rest at a stop sign, taking the time to rub his eyes. No one appeared on the streets but plenty of thoughts glided through his mind.
It was funny, believing in an idea. Sometimes the only way to tell if an idea was correct or not was the degree to which other subjects opposed it. When everybody thought alike, it wasn’t a true indicator of whether the idea was valid.
Locke compared it to his relationship with Jade. He found that those topics on which they disagreed were the topics that had the biggest impact on their relationship. Those were the important topics. If Jade didn’t care, the topic and the point of view didn’t matter. The arguments she was willing to throw shoes over? Those were the times when the most communication took place.
Locke pulled up to Homicide again. If Offenders were competing with the OWG, then there was no competition at all. Locke wanted to see his pride and joy--the OWG, no matter if it told him the entire truth or not--overcome something big. Something proud of what it was. A real threat.
And the fact that Hamilton existed and got around the System, killed Govicide Agents, and was part of a large operation, made him the ultimate threat. The first real threat to the OWG. Locke couldn’t wait for the OWG to rise up and crush Hamilton and his cronies. Locke couldn’t wait to help.
In the meantime, Locke would exploit Hamilton.
In any way he could.