Free Brain Jack by Brian Falkner Page A

said, “You didn’t forget about the radio, did you? What’d you do to it? Don’t matter, I guess.”
    All Sam had done to the computerized radio system was to change the frequency. As simple as that. No doubt someone somewhere would have picked up the transmission, but not the police or anyone else who would understand what it was.
    “Don’t matter,” Brewer said. “ ’Cause the fire department gonna be here in a coupla minutes anyways. They’ll have their own radios in their trucks, and I don’t s’pose you figured out a way to screw up their radios, now, did you?”
    Sam took another step backward, a couple of feet closer to the gates. His eye caught the security camera above Brewer’s head, and a plan started to form in his mind.
    “Don’t you move,” Brewer said, raising the gun, but Sam did move. He raised his hands high in the air and slowly turned around.
    “Better,” Brewer said. “Now you’re getting the idea.”
    In front of Sam the gates began to close.
    He took a step toward them.
    “Next step is your last, boy,” Brewer said.
    “I don’t think so.” Sam found his voice. “You won’t do it.”
    “I don’t think you wanna find out,” Brewer said.
    “See the camera?” Sam said, nodding toward the camera to the left above the gates. “CNN. Live feed. I wired it right into their network.” It wasn’t true, but how would Brewer know? He gestured toward the one on the right. “Fox News, and the two at the back are BBC. You want to be seen all over the world shooting an unarmed teenager in the back?”
    He took another step and there was no shot. He took one more. The gates were a quarter closed now. The gap was narrowing rapidly.
    He sensed rather than saw Brewer holster the pistol, but he heard the heavy, hasty footsteps behind him.
    Sam dropped his head and sprinted toward the gates.
    Brewer was older, fatter, and slower than Sam. Sam would have easily beaten him if he hadn’t caught his left shoe behind his right ankle and gone sprawling across the tarmac four or five yards from the gates.
    He was up quickly, though, and actually through the gates when a meaty hand latched on to the collar of his jacket. Sam was stopped dead in his tracks. He turned around to see the sweating, scowling face of Brewer just an arm’s length away.
    “Gotcha!” Brewer said triumphantly.
    “Not unless you want to lose that arm,” Sam noted.
    It was true. Sam had slipped through the slenderest of gaps, and Brewer was too large to get through behind him. The gap had already narrowed even more, and there was no way Brewer would be able to pull Sam back inside.
    Only his arm was through the gates now, and the heavy metal edges were closing in fast.
    Brewer swore violently and snatched his arm back inside, just as the gates slammed shut.
    Sam didn’t wait around for any clever repartee. He just ran. He had allowed himself ten minutes to get to the intersection of MacArthur Boulevard and Little Falls Road. He had already used three.
    Sam ran. A strong, gusty breeze buffeted him, alternately pushing him backward and helping him along. He stayed off the boulevard with its inconstant stream of headlights and ran on the grass of the reservoir park alongside, staying in the darkness by the high safety fence.
    Sweat streamed from his face. His chest ached, his knee also. He must have hurt it when he had tripped inside the cage. He ignored it and ran.
    Kiwi would have sent the “false alarm” message by now. The one thing Sam had needed him to do. It would take only a minute for the fire controller to relay that to the fire trucks, and they would turn around at the first place they could—the MacArthur Boulevard and Little Falls Road intersection.
    He had to get there first.
    Sam ran.
    He wondered what kind of confusion he had left behind him at Recton. The codes no longer worked. The phones and radios were inoperable. The cell-phone jammer was still operating, though; he had made sure of that.
    The