Read Online Heaven is a Place on Earth by Graham Storrs - Free Book Online

fight terrorism. She had seen petitions against it in her messages and had deleted them along with all the other junk. A thin-faced woman was arguing that the bill was a terrible threat to civil liberties. A round-faced woman agreed, pointing out that similar bills had been defeated in every OECD country over the past decade or so and, if Australia passed this measure, the country would become little more than a totalitarian regime. A jowly old conservative man seemed to think that the menace of terrorism had to be fought no matter what the cost and, besides, the Government could be trusted not to abuse any new powers the bill would give them. That brought a guffaw from everyone else on the panel.
    Ginny switched to another feed, then another, wanting to find something entertaining she could stare at and not think about while she ate her soup. The argument about the bill had disturbed her. Normally she was vaguely liberal in her political views. To be honest, she didn't pay much attention until it was time to vote and, even then, she usually voted Labor or Greens on the ground that they generally seemed more humane than the other lot. But what had happened yesterday made her wonder if people were quite as safe as they believed they were. Criminals with guns, people going untagged, people impersonating police officers, data cubes hidden in plain sight by AR systems that had been illegally tampered with. Maybe the Government did need more powers to monitor what people were doing. Maybe then they could catch some of these people.
    People like Cal.
    And that was the most disturbing thing of all. She thought she had been getting to know Cal. She thought she liked him. Yet there he was, mixed up with vicious, clandestine murderers.
    She thought again about going to the police but dismissed the idea. She had taken Cal's package and handed it over to that Tonia woman. How did she explain that to the police? Or to a court, if it came to that? She could hardly explain it to herself. Well, it's like this, Your Honour, I sort of fancied the bloke and he asked me nicely. Can I plead naïve stupidity?
    She watched an African cartoon feed as the soup gradually revived her body and spirit, then she showered and watched a Brazilian soap until the sun came up and she judged it wasn't too rude to call on her friend. Della took the call, scowling and grumbling, but agreed to meet her for breakfast at Cassini's.
    “I've only got half an hour,” Della said as Ginny entered the restaurant. “I need to be in early this morning. We're doing a big sales presentation. You couldn't have picked a worse morning really.”
    Ginny grimaced. “Sorry. It's just that I had a very peculiar day yesterday and I'm all on edge about it.”
    She glanced at the menu and tapped it to order a coffee.
    “ You're not eating?” Della said. “You dragged me out for breakfast and you're not even eating?”
    “ Yeah. Sorry. Already eaten.”
    The restaurant was enormous and full. And it wasn't just simulated ambience. Cassini's was a popular spot. A space station orbiting just above the rings of Saturn guaranteed spectacular views. Today, the moon Enceladus was hanging in the sky so close that Ginny could see the fissures on its frozen surface.
    “Who's the presentation to?” she asked, finding herself reluctant to talk about her day, despite having thought of nothing else but getting it off her chest for the past few hours.
    “ Wouldn't you rather tell me whatever it is you dragged me out here for? I assume you went to give the package to this Gavin bloke. What was the master criminal like then?”
    Ginny's reluctance was developing into full-blown paranoia. She really shouldn't say anything else. Della knew too much already thanks to her blurting it all out the night before last. Now Ginny knew about a dead man – one she had not reported to the police – and she had been threatened by an armed woman, and handed over the package to her, with its stolen data or