Code Breakers: Beta by Colin F. Barnes

panel with increasing speed when Control replied.
    “I’m patching you through to the station. Please hold, Mr Cardle.”
    “Told you already, I’m not holding.”
    A second later, and as Gerry swung the shuttle round to approach the access panel from an oblique angle, a voice came over his communicator. It was Jachz. Gerry would recognise that programmed voice anywhere. Its cool tones hummed as if nothing in the world was wrong.
    “Mr Cardle, please report in. The Family need an update of your status.”
    “Can’t do that, Jachz. You’ve got about ten seconds before I smash a big hole in the Dome.”
    “Please, Mr Cardle, this isn’t the right approach. I’m sure—”
    “Five seconds.” He braced himself tightly into the seat of the shuttle, tensing his legs against the footrest, wedging himself in tight.
    “Ger—”
    “Bye, Jachz.”
    Travelling at over 600 kph at the point of impact, the shuttle smashed the Plexiglas panel right out of its fitments, making the Dome reverberate with the noise. The shuttle blasted through the debris into the open air.
    “Now that’s what I’m talking about,” Gerry said, knowing that Jachz was still on the line and not caring one little bit. If the damned Family were going to spy on him they would learn exactly what he was capable of, and he would be damned to hell if he were going to let a bunch of cowards on a space station, hiding from the realities of the world, dictate to him what the hell he was going to do.
    “You getting all this, huh, Jachz? What’s that? No, you can’t see the video feed anymore? And yeah, that audio is all messed up with static. I don’t appreciate being spied upon. I’ve got a job to do, I suggest you tell ‘my’ family up there to leave me the hell alone.”
    “I’ll pass on the message, Mr Cardle. But, please, indulge me. What are you hoping to achieve with this behaviour? We can help if you cooperate.”
    “Jachz, tell me something. Are you capable of free thought, or have The Family made you a limited and neutered robot in a fleshy body?”
    “Indeed, Mr Cardle, The Family have created a vast array of free-form protocols and I—”
    Gerry laughed, steered the Shuttle up and over the Dome, and headed west to GeoCity-1. While he talked with Jachz, he focused his mind on the shuttle’s various computer systems, disabling the GPS link and adjusting the various transmitters to send back junk data. He didn’t want them to track his movements.
    “That’s it though, Jachz. You can only think within tightly controlled parameters, just like the citizens in the Dome. They’re given the impression of freedom and free-thought, but with those AIAs in their heads controlled by the Family, well nothing is really free, is it?”
    “I see.”
    “You don’t see anything up there in your lofty position. I bet you haven’t even left the lab in which you were created. I bet you’re sitting there right now in a cubicle, much like your clones next to you, doing everything The Family tell you, never questioning, never thinking. You’re trapped, Jachz, doomed to live a life of slavery. You know what that is, right?”
    “I have access to vast quantities of data, Mr Cardle. I’m familiar with the concept.”
    The shuttle had cleared the Dome. The vast dusty abandoned lands ahead stretched out to the horizon. The low sun caused long shadows to stretch across the ground where a number of rocky formations jutted from the dust. Gerry noticed the tall towers and the fence that secured the Dome from the outside, and he remembered back to his first kill. The NearlyMan: the low-level cyborg that secured the perimeter and at the time was hell-bent on destroying Petal.
    He shook his head. In such a short amount of time, he’d had so many memorable events with her, and Gabe.
    “I’ll leave you with those thoughts, Jachz. I’ve got a job to do. Tell the Family to get off my back and then maybe they’ll see more cooperation from me. If they don’t,