NEW WORLD TRILOGY (Trilogy Title) by Olsen J. Nelson

diligently with his work and only gave small hints about his future plans — just enough to keep them satisfied that he could be satisfactorily pegged — while changing the subject or being slightly evasive when they got too close, but nothing so obvious that it would draw unusual attention.  Never really expecting to get close to him, anyway, his colleagues generally respected his privacy, and with any that he suspected wouldn't, and there were a few, he made sure he kept a distance from them wherever possible — a skill that he had developed quite well over the years.
    Ikaros walked out of the office inconspicuously on his last day, just carrying a bag of personal effects, which contained a small box of chocolates he'd just been given at the office leaving party that afternoon; such events only occurred under these safe circumstances — sackings and retrenchments took place without social formalities, albeit uncomfortably and noticed by all, of course.  Finding it difficult to be honest for a variety of reasons, his leaving speech was predictably shorter than the usual, but nothing more was expected of him, given what everyone knew and believed about his style.
    In the week leading up to this, police investigators interviewed all staff, speaking to Ikaros briefly for ten minutes, showing some interest in his disturbingly long list of twenty-two jaywalking offenses that he'd collected over the past five years, many of which occurred directly and brazenly in front of officers who evidently were unable to deter him from doing it again despite their aggressive authoritarian attempts to reduce him to a fear-based and suppressed conformity; he later went to court several times contesting three of these tickets but was unsuccessful.  Ikaros had just shrugged off these offences and perhaps clung on to the practice of jaywalking as it represented a means of rebelling rather harmlessly in an otherwise overly controlled environment, and, in the end, only resulted in the occasional conflict with tall, psychologically and morally profiled adherents of the state and its power.
    The investigators also showed some interest in his plans to leave due to their proximity to the events, so they spoke to his editor about it and even contacted two papers that Ikaros told them he had approached about work.  On hearing about this from his editor, Ikaros shook his head slowly and feigned disappointment and anger, saying that he probably had no hope of getting a job there because of it.
    The editor attempted to console him by suggesting that it was just part of the process and that he had done the best that he could to assure the investigators that Ikaros was of sound character; the editor also contended that Ikaros needn't worry as they were professionals and were just being thorough, so they should fairly soon come to the conclusion that nobody in the office was responsible for the crime and move on, even give up, as so often happens in cases like these.
    Ikaros didn't argue and made it look like he was comforted by the editor's words.  In actual fact, he wasn't particularly worried about getting caught.  His main concern was getting the timing of his departure from the country just right: if he stayed too long without a job, it would look suspicious, but then, if he left the country too early, that would also, so he had to find a happy median and plan accordingly while being patient in the meantime.
    The main thing was that he had solved his funding problem and had found a means to deal with the haul discretely: it hadn't taken him long to find and follow a trail of hints and suggestions from one dark corner of a website to another, which eventually led him to what he had only heard vague reports on and really had only presumed would exist out there somewhere, anyway.  What he found was an underground counter-culture that was constantly on the move and changing its shape at a rapid pace to stay ahead of the authorities and prevent