Freedom (TM)

Gold:$1.057USD/oz.

Unleanded Gasoline:$3.58USD/gallon

Unemployment:16.3%

USD/Darknet Credit:3.9

Chapter 1: // Dark Pool

An elderly man emerged from the crowd and aimed a revolver straight at Anthony Hollis’s face. As the old worker’s thick index finger squeezed the trigger, Hollis sat up in darkness—breathing hard.

He glanced at the clock on the nightstand: 3:13 A.M. Motionless, he listened to his own rapid breathing.

He started to calm down as he looked around his bedroom. It was illuminated only by the soft glow of large flat-screen monitors mounted on the far wall, scrolling stock prices for the Nikkei, Shanghai, and Seoul exchanges. The monitors weren’t necessary anymore. They were merely a comfort to him.

Hollis took one more deep breath and tried to shake off the nightmare. He was just about to lie back down when the unmistakable crackling of gunfire somewhere in the night came to his ears.

He sat up again.

The phone beside his bed warbled. He grabbed the handset. “Metzer, what’s going on?”

The calm voice of Rudy Metzer, his security director, came over the line. “We have a situation by the service gate. It’s being contained.”

“What kind of goddamned situation? Who the hell is shooting?”

In the bed next to him, Hollis’s latest girlfriend looked up at him sleepily. She was a third his age. “What is it?”

He ignored her and tried to listen to Metzer.

“Mr. Hollis, as a precaution, I want you to move into your secure room as soon as possible.”

“Are the police on the way?”

“Sir, the estate’s outside lines have been cut. Cell phones and radios jammed. We’re isolated for the moment. I need you to move quickly and calmly to your safe room. I’ll phone you on the landline. Do you understand?”

Hollis absorbed Metzer’s words and felt actual fear. “Yes. Yes, I understand.” He returned the phone to the cradle and stared at nothing for a moment. The screens on the far wall now showed only video snow.

“What’s happening, Tony?”

Kidnappers? Assassins? Two months ago a retired autoworker had tried to kill him in Chicago. Metzer’s men saw the guy make his move, and they tackled him before he could pull the trigger. Some pension fund loser bent on revenge. Tonight’s intruders sounded more serious.

“Tony!”

He turned to her. “Relax. Somebody tried to break in.” Hollis got out of bed and put on his slippers and a robe.

“Where are you going? I don’t want to be left alone!”

“Don’t be a pain in the ass. They caught the guy. I just need to take a piss.” He ignored her frightened look and headed to the master bathroom.

He nudged the door closed behind him, turned on the lights, and padded across the Italian marble floor, headed toward the walk-in wardrobe. He opened twin doors to enter a sizeable room lined with H. Huntsman and Leonard Logsdail suits and rows of Edward Green and Berluti shoes.

Hollis avoided his reflection in the wraparound mirrors as he closed the doors behind him. Yes, he felt a twinge of conscience, but then, he didn’t really know this girl. He hadn’t done a back-grounder on her yet, and he wasn’t about to bring her into his secure room. She could be a plant. People were capable of anything for money.

Hollis walked quickly to the far wall and opened the faceplate of a wall-mounted digital thermostat. It revealed an alphanumeric keypad where he tapped in his security code—the exact amount of his first investment. A section of the wooden wall rolled aside, revealing a hidden room whose lights flickered on automatically. The door was solid steel, nearly six inches thick—the reinforced concrete walls of his secure room were even thicker. A sign of the times.

He moved inside and tapped a red pressure switch near the door. The opening slid closed and locked with a dull boom. A large bank of monitors glowed to life on the far side of the room above a security console. From here he could watch the action through dozens of surveillance cameras. There was also a dedicated emergency phone line, a radio base station, and a house phone. The room also had a sofa, a wet bar, and flat-screen television—not to mention shelves of emergency provisions and a narrow door leading to a Spartan restroom.

Hollis had everything he needed to await rescue.

The house phone rang, and he tapped the speakerphone button as he clicked through monitors, trying to find the service gate cameras. “Talk to me.”

Metzer’s voice came over the speaker. “Can you get a dial tone on your emergency line?”

Hollis grabbed the emergency phone and held it to his ear. Nothing. Some cultural instinct compelled him to stab repeatedly at the hook switch. “It’s dead. This was supposed to be a buried cable. How did they know where it was, Metzer?”

Hollis heard talking in the background. Then Metzer came back on. “We’ll talk about that later. Right now I’ve got men missing, and motion detectors in alarm all over the estate. I’m pulling everyone back into a perimeter around the master suite.”

“How did these people get through the gates?” One of the security monitors showed the estate’s front entrance, which stood wide open.

“I don’t know.”

“It’s your job to know! I wasn’t supposed to ever need this room, damnit.” He fumed for a moment then added, “Send someone up to get Mary.”

“She’s not with you?”

“I can’t have her in here. Just put her in a closet or something. And figure out a way to contact the police. I don’t care if you have to use fucking smoke signals!” He hung up and kept flipping through security monitors. He’d spent a fortune on security, and he wasn’t getting much of a return on his investment. He was going to sack the entire security team after this was over—starting with Metzer.

As Hollis cycled through cameras, the monitors showed various rooms on a dozen screens—multicar garage, pool patio, pub room, dining room, driveway . . .

He stopped cold. In the middle of the driveway, one of Metzer’s suited security men lay in a pool of blood, still clutching a submachine gun. His head was missing.

“Jesus Christ!” Hollis picked up the house phone and dialed Metzer’s extension. It rang several times and went to voice mail. Hollis pressed the call button on the radio base station but heard nothing but static. “Fuck!”

Then the power went out.

Here in the safe room backup batteries instantly engaged, but on the security monitors he saw most of the lights kick off around the estate. Now only interior emergency lighting remained. Outside was blackness.

Hollis clicked through the interior surveillance cameras. There—he saw two security people in the grand foyer with Metzer locking the ornate front doors of Hollis’s twenty-three-thousand-square-foot mansion. Metzer was racing upstairs, pointing and shouting to position men at the top of the staircase. They all carried MP-5 submachine guns. The second floor was apparently going to be their Alamo.

Just then the front doors blasted open, sending door hardware, wood, and glass fragments silently spraying across the polished stone floor. Something the size of a man had burst through the doors at high speed, taking out the large antique table just inside the door and crashing into the far wall. The room started to fill with smoke.

The surveillance camera showed security men opening fire from the second-floor railing. More shadows were already racing through the front door. Hollis couldn’t get a good look at them in the dim light and smoke. They moved fast—through the doorway and up the wide staircase. In mere moments they exited the frame. Hollis clicked around in frustration to find a suitable camera to see what was going on.

He soon saw his own bedroom on one monitor—he’d had this security camera installed as a precaution against sexual assault charges (one never knew what visions of rape young women might dream up after the fact). It wasn’t on the rotation available to the security team, but here he could see Metzer grabbing Mary by the wrist and pulling her from the bed. She was nude and screaming, but the muscular German was having none of it. On camera Metzer noiselessly shouted at her and pointed under the bed, letting go of her hand as he reacted to something in the hallway.

Metzer trained his weapon on the door as Mary crawled under the bed behind him and moments later Metzer opened fire on the doorway in short bursts. Through the thick concrete walls of the safe room Hollis could hear the dull thud of the shots less than thirty feet away in his bedroom. A blade of fire stabbed forth from Metzer’s weapon, illuminating the intense expression on his face—but only for a few moments before a dark form raced into frame and lashed out with twin blades in a lightning fast one-two strike that cut Metzer into three sections: head, torso, and legs. The blades crisscrossed again, inhumanly fast, chopping the pieces into pieces. Metzer’s body fell apart like quarters of beef, spraying the room with gore.

Hollis stared in shock at the screen.

The dark silhouette of the attacker moved farther into the room, twirling the twin blades to shed excess blood—spattering the walls into a macabre modern art display.

What the camera revealed beneath the emergency lights was a machine—both familiar and alien. It was a powerful racing motorcycle, but it had no rider, just a series of whip antennas and sensors. The entire bike was covered in blades, which bristled like cooling fins along both sides. Where handlebars would normally be, it wielded twin swords at the end of mechanized gambols. The entire length of the machine was drenched in blood, as though it had hacked its way in here through every security man Hollis had. And every inch of the metal appeared to be engraved with symbols and glyphs—like some sort of high-tech religious relic.

The machine stood with the aid of hydraulic kickstands it had extended. After spinning its blades clean, it folded the blades back behind its bullet-pocked cowling. Two more identical machines rolled into Hollis’s bedroom behind it.

Hollis collapsed into his console chair and stared in incomprehension at the monitor. What he was looking at made no sense.

Swirling green laser light issued from the headlight assemblies of the bikes. The scene took on the appearance of a laser light show as the beams spread through Metzer’s lingering gun smoke and traced brilliant lines along the walls and furniture in the shadows—scanning for something.

Without warning, one of the bikes roared through the bathroom doorway. Hollis could see in the mirror where it crashed through the thin wardrobe room doors. They caved in like paper, and now Hollis could actually hear the muted throbbing of a powerful motorcycle engine just beyond his panic room door.

It knew where he was.

He swiveled his chair to face the solid steel door ten feet away. That door was the only thing that stood between him and a gruesome death. His heart was hammering so hard it felt like it had moved up into his throat. Hollis dug through the desk drawer and produced a Sig Sauer P220 Super Match pistol. He chambered a round and took another glance at the bedroom monitor.

The other two bikes had flipped the bed over with their sword arms, revealing the naked and helpless Mary beneath. She lay curled up, silently screaming beneath the blinding laser lights.

Oh god. No . . .

But perhaps this would appease them?

The bikes just stood observing Mary as she shrieked in terror at the sight of Metzer’s butchered remains on the floor around her. Hollis decided he would do something for Mary’s family after this. He would find out more about her. He’d help her family.

But the machines didn’t attack. Instead, they just stood watching as she got to her feet and fled the room.

Maybe she was part of this after all . . .

Hollis tapped buttons on the console, bringing up the image outside his safe room door. There he could see the third machine waiting. It seemed to know exactly where the concealed door was. From blueprints? There was no doubt that whoever was behind this had serious power. Access to his communications and electrical layout would have been no problem for someone who could do this. It was his secure room that had saved him, and there was no home automation link to its steel door. Once locked, it could only be opened manually from the inside.

Suddenly the house phone rang on the console next to him. Hollis recoiled from it. He glanced up at the screen again. The bloodstained machine stood impassively outside, still aimed at the secret door.

The phone rang again, and Hollis just stared at it. Perhaps it was someone on the security team? Hollis pressed the speakerphone button. “Hello?”

The line was silent for a moment—but then his own voice came back to him, talking fast, as Hollis always did on business calls. . . .

“Even if the U.S. markets crash, we’ll make money. Movement is all we need—positive or negative makes no difference. . . .”

It was definitely Hollis’s voice. Someone had tapped his phone calls. Another clip immediately followed. . . .

“What a company does is irrelevant. What a company makes is irrelevant. The market is a math problem we solve through value extraction.”

Someone somewhere had intercepted his words. But why?

Looking at the remorseless killing machine outside, he somehow couldn’t picture it being spawned by human rights activists. Whoever was behind it was decidedly more dangerous.

His laughing voice came to him again over the speaker. “We made it legal. Our people wrote the congressional bill.”

On the security monitor a different type of bike entered the wardrobe room. This machine wasn’t covered in blades, but in piping and pressure tanks. As it came in, the other bike moved aside. The new arrival slammed down hydraulic jacks to plant it firmly just outside the panic room door. Then, instead of twin blade arms, it extended a single robotic nozzle arm, with hoses trailing back along its length to half a dozen pressure tanks. A spark flashed, and then a white-hot flame suddenly stabbed out from the nozzle—instantly turning the wood paneling in front of the panic room door into a solid wall of flame.

Hollis stared at the machine on-screen, paralyzed in fear. He knew what it was. He’d owned stock in steel mills in the nineties. It was a plasma torch. Someone had mounted it on this terror machine, and it now stood before his safe room door, blasting aside the wooden millwork surrounding his bunker as though it were nothing more than ash. Already the scores of fine suits and leather shoes and carpeting in the wardrobe room were engulfed in flames as the twenty-five-thousand-degree cutting head on the machine penetrated the steel door like a knife through modeling clay.

The sprinkler system leapt into action, spraying water over the outside room, but the fire’s intensity vaporized it. The surveillance camera showed the remorseless machines standing their ground, one cutting, the other waiting, but soon, even the camera started to fail—and melt. The screen turned grainy and then went black.

Behind him, Hollis was suddenly deafened by a burst of pressure and a cracking sound as a white-hot jet of plasma burst through the steel doorway and began tracing a molten line along the length of the door. The sofa and wet bar beyond it burst into flames, and the glass cover of the flat-screen television shattered—the whole thing folding over itself like a big wax candle. Blue-hot sparks of molten steel scattered like marbles across the concrete floor. The safe room sprinklers popped and started raining over everything to no effect.

Hollis’s recorded voice still spoke to him over the speakerphone as he sat in a catatonic state, while the sprinklers soaked him with freezing water.

“Pure math frees us to create unlimited profit.”

Already the torch had finished cutting through the vault-like door. In a moment a huge section of steel fell forward with a crash that shook the concrete floor. The door’s edges still glowed red. Hollis turned to watch with the detachment of someone on morphine.

As he began to feel the heat of the flames outside and inside, even through all the water raining down on him, the killing machine entered his safe room and unfolded both sword blades with swift precision. The bike was stained with cooked blood and charred flesh. Steam rose from its metal frame.

Hollis put the pistol against his head as the killing machine moved toward him. It raised its blades in the same way he’d seen it do with Metzer.

There was no escape. Hollis pulled the trigger.

Nothing happened. The safety was on.

Hollis’s own words were the last thing he heard as he fumbled for the gun’s safety switch. . . .

“The beauty of it is: they can’t afford to let us fail. . . .”

Chapter 2: // Operation Exorcist

The surveillance video showed a man screaming as a robotic motorcycle wielding twin swords chopped him to pieces.

A voice spoke in the darkness. “Who was he?”

“Anthony Hollis—ran a highly successful hedge fund.”

“Has his name been in the news?”

“Yes. Lots of detractors in the business press. Four hundred and six negative mentions in the past year alone.” A pause. “You think the Daemon botnet is behind this?”

“Play it back. Slowly.”

The video replayed in slow motion, frame by frame. A blade-covered motorcycle advanced on the cornered man. The image stopped then zoomed in. Though motion blurred, the screen was frozen in midstroke, a sword leveled at the man’s neck while spiraling lasers in the bike’s headlight assembly illuminated his terrified face.

“Unmanned vehicle. Like some sort of ground level Predator drone. Daemon operatives call them ‘razorbacks.’ The same type Dr. Philips described in her report on the attack at Building Twenty-Nine.”

“So the Daemon is conducting class warfare now?”

“I don’t think so. These people were all engaged in a specific type of financial activity.”

“Sobol did say his Daemon would ‘eliminate parasites in the system.’ Could it have viewed Hollis and the others as parasites?”

A third voice joined the discussion. “With all due respect, these killings are just a distraction from the real problem.”

“Perhaps, but they reveal something important about the Daemon’s purpose. Bring up the lights, please.”

Suddenly the room illuminated, revealing the heads of America’s intelligence services sitting around a circular boardroom table in Building OPS-2B of National Security Agency headquarters. Plaques stood in front of everyone present—NSA, CIA, FBI, DARPA, DIA—as well as several visitors from the private intelligence and security sectors; suited executives from Computer Systems Corporation (CSC), its subsidiaries—EndoCorp and Korr Military Solutions—and a principal from the lobbying firm Byers, Carroll, and Marquist (BCM).

Their host scanned the room.

NSA: “The late Matthew Sobol created his Daemon as a news-reading computer virus. It activated two years ago at the appearance of Sobol’s obituary in online news, and has since spread throughout the world, siphoning capital from corporate hosts to sustain a network of human operatives who distribute and protect it. It has already used these operatives to destroy the data and backup tapes of companies that try to remove it. The question is: how do we kill the Daemon without precipitating a ‘digital doomsday’?”

DIA: “That’s the dilemma. If we act, the Daemon will react and destroy the corporate networks it’s infected.”

DARPA: “But we can’t just do nothing. It continues to launch attacks—like it did against the Daemon Task Force at Building Twenty-Nine and these recent assassinations.”

NSA: “Thousands of people are already dead worldwide—dozens of federal officers are dead. And I have to ask myself how a software construct with the intelligence of a tapeworm managed to do this to us. The free market quest for efficiency has made our infrastructure vulnerable.”

BCM: “You can’t expect the market to operate inefficiently. Efficiency is what makes modern life possible.”

NSA: “Yes, but we might need to place a greater emphasis on resiliency.”

CSC (gesturing to the screen): “Why? Because a few people are dead? These machines are not militarily significant. They’re glorified toys.”

NSA: “I was speaking more in terms of network security—but these razorbacks are becoming a serious public relations problem as well. Witnesses have seen these machines navigating at night on highways. People are uploading videos to Web sites.”

BCM: “We’re already aware of these videos, and are taking steps to minimize their public impact.”

NSA: “My point is that we may soon have no choice but to reveal the existence of the Daemon to the general public.”

BCM: “That will be difficult, Mr. Director—especially after going through so much effort to convince the public the Daemon was a hoax. How would you explain executing Peter Sebeck for a crime that never occurred?”

FBI: “That wasn’t our doing.”

BCM: “Nonetheless. If word got out that the Daemon had taken control of thousands of corporate networks, it would cause a stock market panic.”

CSC: “Mr. Director, we can assure you that none of these razorback videos will ever gain credibility by appearing in mainstream news.”

NSA: “But they’re being shared over the Internet. Millions of people have already seen them.”

EndoCorp: “That’s a manageable problem.”

NSA: “What do you mean it’s manageable?”

EndoCorp: “We’ve copyrighted the razorback.”

NSA: “How does copyrighting them solve anything?”

EndoCorp: “Owning the IP gives us legal control of their image. We’re spinning these viral videos as stealth advertising for an upcoming video game.”

CSC: “Which means the general public won’t take them seriously.”

NSA: “Whose idea was this?”

CSC: “We don’t get down in the weeds. It was done by our psyops division. As far as the Millennials are concerned, these razorbacks are just guerrilla marketing.”

CIA: “But people have witnessed these things. People have died. How do we explain that?”

BCM: “Fact and fiction carry the same intrinsic weight in the marketplace of ideas. Fortunately, reality has no advertising budget.”

CSC: “Persistence and presence create truth online.” EndoCorp: “We’ve neutralized eyewitnesses in Web forums by flaming them as shills for the game’s whisper campaign. We’ve created 3-D models, and fictitious how-it-was-done videos to ‘prove’ surveillance clips and cell phone videos are fakes.”

BCM: “So the public knows about razorbacks, but they don’t really know what they know.”

FBI: “Then we’re using some of Sobol’s jujitsu, then?”

BCM: “We might even see net revenue on the resulting video game.”

CIA (shaking his head): “When I hear this crap, I start to understand why Sobol is attacking us.”

FBI: “Don’t even joke about that.”

CIA: “Seriously, you’re going to sit there and tell us your idea for combating the Daemon is to develop a video game around it? If Sobol were alive, he would be laughing at us.”

CSC: “You said yourself that in the short term we can’t remove the Daemon from infected networks without triggering catastrophic data loss. Until a reliable countermeasure is available the only thing we can do to avoid panicking the populace and further disturbing capital markets is to make sure everyone thinks the Daemon is just a fiction.”

NSA: “And what happens when the Daemon’s army of followers takes more aggressive action?”

CSC: “Then we call them terrorists—anything but ‘Daemon followers. ’ But we cannot risk direct action against the Daemon itself until we find a way to disrupt its grip on corporate networks.”

NSA: “We agree on that much at least.”

DIA: “The U.S. dollar is already sliding. How do we know word hasn’t gotten out among key investors?”

DARPA: “Sooner or later word will get out that the Daemon exists—or foreign powers will decrypt the Daemon’s Ragnorok module and use the Daemon as an economic weapon against us. What do we do then?”

EndoCorp: “You’ve already got your answer: the Ragnorok module contains the key to destroying the Daemon. To crippling its command and control.”

EndoCorp: “There are flaws in Sobol’s code. Flaws we can exploit. We should have a Daemon countermeasure in a matter of months. But it’s vital we not provoke the Daemon before we’re ready.”

NSA: “And you really suggest we do nothing to counteract these razorbacks or the Daemon’s human operatives in the meantime?”

BCM: “Gentleman, let’s not forget what’s at stake here. Yes, it’s regrettable that people have died—and will die—but we must defend the core of our civilization: which is commerce. And commerce requires capital. That no longer means gold bars in a vault; it means ones and zeros in a database. Purely financial transactions moving through global markets on any given day outweigh transactions for real world goods and services by twenty-to-one, and that money moves automatically and instantaneously across borders. By disrupting the world financial system, the Daemon could destroy fiduciary trust. It could create global economic chaos in minutes. From that point of view the real-world manifestations of the Daemon—like these razorbacks and its human followers—are minor; dangerous only insofar as they threaten the public’s belief system. But if we kill the digital core of the Daemon, then its physical manifestations disappear along with it. This is what Operation Exorcist is designed to accomplish, and why it will succeed where the government effort failed.”

DARPA: “No one has ever successfully exterminated a botnet.”

EndoCorp: “Technically that’s true, but what we’re contemplating is disrupting its key communications to render it defenseless. In particular the Destroy function of the Ragnorok module. The logic that initiates a corporate data destruction sequence on demand.”

NSA: “Which would take away the Daemon’s claws. . . .”

BCM: “Precisely.”

DIA: “It’s interesting that Sobol designed online game worlds. Worlds with millions of players buying and selling virtual objects.

I just never realized how similar his game economy was to our own.”

BCM: “The chief difference is that our world is real—with real consequences. And unless we preserve faith in capital markets, all economic activity ceases. Society disintegrates into anarchy. And millions perish.”

Silence prevailed as the others digested this. Finally their host spoke.

NSA: “There’s one more item we need to discuss. A new development.”

He picked up a remote and turned off the video screen.

NSA: “Not all corporations are fighting the Daemon.”

BCM: “What do you mean?”

NSA: “Sixteen lawsuits were filed by Daemon-infected multinationals yesterday in federal district courts.”

Now the corporate side of the table fell into stunned silence for a moment.

BCM: “Which companies?”

NSA (handing over a list): “They’re filing suit against the U.S. government. Its lawyers claim that the Daemon has a constitutional right to exist under the precedent of corporate personhood.”

CSC: “Holy hell . . .”

BCM: “The Daemon has lawyers?”

NSA: “And it’s retained lobbyists. We’re negotiating with the courts to keep these cases classified; however, we can’t be certain what the judicial branch is going to do about them.”

BCM: “This is insane. The Daemon is a computer virus, not a corporation.”

NSA: “But it’s not the Daemon that’s filing suit. These are multinational corporations that host the Daemon. Their management feels that the Daemon gives them an advantage.”

BCM: “What advantage?”

NSA: “Survival, for one. They feel that the Daemon has a better handle on cyber security and might help them weather an anticipated period of coming chaos.”

BCM: “This is extortion. The Daemon will destroy their data if they don’t comply. RICO statutes cover this. And I see several firms on this list that some of our clients hold significant stock positions in.”

NSA: “But not a controlling interest?”

BCM: “It doesn’t matter. The management of these firms has no right to defend the Daemon.”

NSA: “They cite their right as ‘artificial persons’ granted in an 1886 Supreme Court ruling on the fourteenth amendment . . .” (he flipped through documents) ”. . . Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad. You’re a lawyer. You tell me if the courts will throw it out.”

EndoCorp: “These attorneys are agents of the Daemon—a known terrorist organization.”

NSA: “Maybe. Or maybe the attorneys are just following instructions from the corner office. We don’t know yet. Either way, we should be able to get the courts to close a nineteenth-century loop-hole that has unanticipated twenty-first-century consequences.”

BCM: “Wait. Let’s just wait a second. There are complex considerations relating to an entire body of legal precedents on corporate personhood, and the rights of free speech to corporate interests have a necessary and guiding effect on policy. Let’s not do anything rash. We should let these cases run their course. We’ll have neutralized the Daemon before they get their day in court, and then these companies will be back in the fold.”

CIA: “Is there something about that 1886 ruling we should know?”

BCM: “We don’t want to rehash established precedents. This is part of the Daemon’s effort to sow chaos.”

CIA (writing notes): “What was the name of that case again?”

BCM: “This is a perfect example of why government isn’t nimble enough to deal with the Daemon. It’s using our own laws and government institutions against us. To divide us. We should be helping one another.”

NSA: “Wait a minute. Nobody’s dividing anyone. Does corporate personhood expose us to danger?”

BCM: “That’s not the point. What I’m saying is that we can’t follow legal niceties in dealing with this thing. We cannot demonstrate weakness. Ever.”

FBI: “Our laws demonstrate weakness?”

The corporate side of the table conferred for a moment, and then the lobbyist turned to face the intelligence directors again. He took a calmer tone.

BCM: “Look, the current economic crisis has crippled state governments. States have begun to sell off assets to balance their budgets. They’re outsourcing services and selling their highways, bridges, prisons.”

NSA: “And?”

BCM: “We are buying them. We’re investing in America. We—and the chairmen of intelligence funding committees in the House and Senate—hope you will defend our legitimate interests while we help America through this difficult period.”

NSA: “Of course, you know that we will.”

BCM: “We need wide latitude to deal with these dangers. I think you’ll agree that it’s in the best interests of the nation to make all tools available to us.”

The two sides viewed each other across the table.

BCM: “I hope we can count on your support, Mr. Director. . . .”

Chapter 3: // Going Viral

“Roy Merritt represented all that was best in us. That’s what makes the loss of him so hard to bear.” Standing before a flag-draped casket, the minister raised his voice to carry above a cold, Kansas wind. “I knew Roy from the time he was a child. I knew his father and his mother. I saw him grow to become a loving husband, a caring father, and a respected citizen. He dedicated his life to public service and never gave up hope for anyone. In fact, Roy mentored some of the same troubled youth he faced in his law enforcement work. Blessed with a calm, physical courage Roy was often sent in harm’s way to protect us, and it was on such a mission that he gave his life. Although we may find it hard to carry on without him, I think it is precisely because of Roy that we will be able to carry on.”

A frigid wind whipped Natalie Philips’s coat as she contemplated the minister’s words. She stared at the coffin in front of her. Lost in thought, she didn’t feel the cold.

FBI Special Agent Roy Merritt and seventy-three others were dead because of her—killed on a top-secret operation she had led. An operation that had culminated in a disaster at a place she’d rather not remember: Building Twenty-Nine. Building Twenty-Nine was gone now, vaporized. But she would never stop reliving what had happened there. It was an operation no one else at this funeral knew anything about.

At some point in her reverie the minister had stopped talking and uniformed men had begun ceremonially folding the American flag. They extended it to a Marine Corps major general who in turn presented the flag to Merritt’s young widow.

“Ma’am, on behalf of the president of the United States, the director of the FBI, and a grateful nation, please accept this flag as a symbol of our appreciation for your husband’s service to his country.”

Merritt’s widow received the flag stoically, tears streaming down her face, as her two small daughters clung to her.

The bureau had presented his widow with a Memorial Star and posthumously bestowed on Merritt the Medal of Valor. Philips wondered if anyone else thought it strange that a Marine Corps general was presenting a flag to an FBI agent’s widow. The truth was that Roy Merritt was more of a hero than his family or his countrymen would ever know.

He shouldn’t even be dead, but then everyone who had served under Philips was dead or missing—all their work destroyed. It was the biggest clandestine service disaster in forty years, and Philips owned that failure. She might as well have perished with the rest of her team.

Philips took a deep breath and looked up at the massive crowd that had gathered for Merritt’s service. More than two thousand people stood among the headstones of Jackson County Cemetery north of Topeka, hats off and heads lowered. Two hundred and fourteen police cruisers and FBI sedans lined the cemetery road behind them, extending out onto the county highway.

She knew the number precisely. It was her curse to know. Her mind gathered everything she saw, and it forgot nothing. That had been her claim to fame in the NSA’s Crypto division, but it was increasingly a cross she had to bear as well. This day and the days leading up to it ran like an IMAX film in her head each night as she tried in vain to sleep.

Nearby, Merritt’s widow held her daughters close. The eldest child hid her face in her mother’s coat, but the youngest, only four, was looking around at the other adults, trying to figure out what was happening. When their gazes met, even from behind tinted, wraparound medical glasses, Philips felt her own eyes well with tears.

Philips had failed everyone.

She couldn’t withstand the little girl’s eyes. Instead she turned away and moved back through the headstones and the mourners, tears coming freely now. Philips wept as she moved among the living and the dead, wondering if her mind was capable of forgetting.

An honor guard fired three salvoes, startling Philips and provoking recollections of the desperate gunfire at Building Twenty-Nine. She felt panic rising and kept moving through the crowd. People made way for her. Kansas State Troopers in dress uniform, military men and women, local townspeople, children—people whose lives Merritt had touched. Some had traveled thousands of miles to be here. At the memorial service the night before, a hundred people stood up to tell heartwarming stories of Roy’s courage, compassion, and humor.

She recognized some of these people now as she walked past. A reformed felon. A Pashtun translator from Balochistan who was now on his way to becoming an American citizen. Merritt’s captain from his state police days. A Mexico City banker whose daughter Roy had rescued from kidnappers in a daring raid—and on and on.

As an agent in the FBI’s elite Hostage Rescue Team, Merritt had traveled the world and always into danger. But he brought the values he’d gained in this small town with him wherever he went. It had taken his death to finally bring him home.

Philips kept moving through the mourners. A young priest. City officials. A well-dressed woman in sports glasses.

Philips halted. Sports glasses. Her mind never missed details. She recalled the moments just before the attack. Merritt had come to her lab to bring captured Daemon equipment from Sao Paulo, Brazil. He’d brought her sports glasses—glasses that were actually a sophisticated heads-up display (or HUD) able to see into a virtual dimension. An augmented reality the Daemon had overlaid on the GPS grid. Sports glasses were the user interface to the Daemon.

She turned to look back at the woman, who was moving slowly but deliberately through the crowd as though searching for something. Philips turned to follow her but passed another mourner, a middle-aged man in a black suit, wearing similar glasses. The thick posts and unusual design of these glasses could easily be ignored as an annoying new fashion, but they could not be a coincidence. The man glanced at her and kept walking, also seemingly searching for something. Hot fear surged through her.

Daemon operatives are here.

Could they really be brazen enough to attend Merritt’s funeral? Her tears stopped. She palmed her L3 SME secure cell phone and marched purposefully through the crowd, putting distance between herself and the operatives. Before she walked ten feet she saw another man wearing HUD glasses. Philips stepped behind a tall headstone and looked for a sheltered place to phone for help. At the edge of the crowd she saw a weatherworn burial vault and headed toward it.

As she walked, she kept spotting Daemon operatives, moving through the mourners in a skirmish line, still scanning for something. There seemed to be no standard profile. They were equally male or female, young to middle-aged. There were dozens of them.

As Philips stepped behind the granite burial vault, she flipped open her phone—but then realized that she didn’t know who to call. Roy Merritt would have been her first choice. In fact, just about everyone she could think of calling was now dead or missing. There were hundreds of police officers and FBI agents all around her attending the funeral, but they wouldn’t have any idea how dangerous these people were. And what about the innocent people in the crowd? Did she really want to provoke a confrontation? But the operatives were here for a purpose. She had to do something.

It was then that Philips noticed she had no cell signal. There was no service at all.

“It’s rude to make phone calls at a funeral.”

Philips looked up to see a twentysomething man dressed in a dark suit, overcoat, and black gloves. An FBI badge hung from his breast pocket, giving him the appearance of an overeager rookie. She recognized him instantly. He was a Daemon operative. With short-cropped hair he was indistinguishable from a dozen other young FBI agents in the crowd, but unlike the other Daemon operatives he wore no glasses. Instead his pupils shone with the iridescence of mother-of-pearl—apparently contact lenses.

He was the one who had destroyed Daemon Task Force headquarters and slain all her people. This was Roy Merritt’s killer. The highest-level Daemon operative known.

“Loki.”

He approached her calmly, surveying the crowd. “I hear Roy didn’t have much in the way of family. Who the hell are all these people?”

“You made a mistake coming here.”

“Look. Actual tears on people’s faces. I don’t think you or I will draw a crowd like this, Doctor. What is it about Roy Merritt that inspires everyone so much?”

Philips glared. “It has to do with serving others—something you’d know nothing about.”

He stood silently for a beat. “I serve a greater good.”

“You’re a mass murderer who worships at the feet of a dead lunatic.”

“Is that right?” He noticed her still punching keys on her phone. “Don’t bother. It’s being jammed.”

Philips lowered it. “Why would you bring your people here?”

“They’re not my people. They came on their own. There’s a video simulcast of the funeral beaming out to the darknet. Hundreds of thousands are watching this event worldwide.”

“Why, so they can gloat over their victory?”

He gave her a sideways glance. “Don’t be a bitch, Doctor. This was no victory. Roy Merritt is the famous Burning Man to them. A worthy adversary who’s gone viral. There’s no predicting these things in a network. The factions came to pay their last respects—and to find his killer.”

She thought he was being glib, but he looked serious. “If that’s true, how do you think they’ll react when they find out you killed Roy?”

He smiled grimly. “They all know what happened. You’re the only one without a clue.” He stared at her intently.

Loki pointed to Philips’s tinted glasses. “How are your eyes, Doctor? Corneal damage? You must have been close.”

Anger rose within her at his mention of the attack at Building Twenty-Nine. “There are hundreds of police officers around us. You won’t escape this time.”

“Did you expect me to go into hiding? Is that it? Well, I’ve grown beyond hiding, Doctor. Besides, it would be a shame to sully the memory of Roy Merritt by turning his funeral into a massacre.”

She studied his face and decided he wasn’t bluffing. “We will stop you.”

“You can’t even stop tweens from stealing music. How are you going to stop me? Feds: always overreaching. And what if you could stop me?” He gestured to the Daemon operatives still moving through the crowd. “It wouldn’t stop them.”

“We’ll find the Daemon’s weak spot sooner or later, and we’ll destroy it. If you help me, I’ll see that you’re treated with leniency.”

“You really have no idea what’s going on, do you? You’re like Merritt was. A true believer. You should have listened to Jon Ross: never trust a government.”

He noticed the momentary look of shock on her face. “You did know The Major was spying on you, right? Tapping into his surveillance system was what gave me access to everything on your task force. Including your private conversations with the illustrious Mr. Ross.”

Philips felt doubly defeated and stood grasping for something to say.

“I have video from every camera at Building Twenty-Nine before it was destroyed.” He paused. “By the way, you and Jon Ross should just have fucked and gotten it over with.”

Philips couldn’t help a pang of loss at the mention of Ross’s name. Not an hour passed when she didn’t think about him—and how he’d saved her life. She recalled their last moment together. Then she purposely met Loki’s gaze. “Get to the point.”

“Have I upset you? I didn’t think you’d go for the criminal type, Doctor.”

“Jon Ross is dead.”

“So I hear.” Loki slipped a hand into his jacket. “You might find some of my surveillance video interesting.” He withdrew a metallic scroll and offered it to Philips.

She hesitated.

“If I came here to kill you, Doctor, I wouldn’t waste time talking first. Just open it.”

She took the metallic scroll and pulled the twin tubes apart to reveal a glossy, flexible video screen already glowing with electrical energy.

“You don’t understand the Daemon. You keep thinking it’s something we obey like automatons. But that’s not it at all. The Daemon’s darknet is just a reflection of the people in it. It’s a new social order. One that’s immune to bullshit.”

She held the flexible screen up as it began to play security camera video from within Building Twenty-Nine—just before the entire place was obliterated by a massive demolition charge. The scene showed Philips, Ross, a man known only as “The Major,” and several black-clad Korr security guards, standing near body bags in the gaming pit. The Major was officially the Daemon Task Force’s Department of Defense liaison—although, he’d also been connected with the Special Collections Service, a section of the CIA. At present, neither organization acknowledged his existence and his identity remained classified, even to her.

On-screen The Major was aiming a Glock 9mm pistol at Philips’s face. Jon Ross rushed to stand between them.

She felt torn at the sight of Ross’s handsome face. Seeing him stand in harm’s way for her.

In the real world Loki waved a gloved hand and froze the image. He pointed at The Major. “You remember this asshole?”

She nodded.

Loki pulled at the air with his gloved hand and the image zoomed in. The quasi-DOD liaison officer wore a tan sports jacket with a dark green button-down shirt. “A great many people have not forgotten him.”

Another wave of his hand and the image switched to a high-def video of a mortally wounded Roy Merritt lying in the middle of an industrial street. Blood covered Roy’s torso. He was panting and staring at two small photographs in his hand. A flash appeared in the doorway of a helicopter in the distance, and Merritt’s head exploded.

Philips recoiled in horror. Remorse flooded over her again. She glared at Loki with hatred. “This is what you wanted me to see? Do you find some twisted enjoyment in this?”

“It’s car camera video from my AutoM8. The cameras are part of the navigation system. I uploaded these videos to the darknet, and the crowd soon found the answer.” He pulled at the air with his black gloves, and the video screen in Philips’s hands zoomed in on the shooter in the helicopter doorway. The HD image looked grainy at this magnification, but the hooded figure in the doorway was clear enough. The shooter was wearing a tan sports jacket and a dark green button-down shirt. Loki waved his hand again and the screen split in two, with the earlier image of The Major holding a pistol to Philips’s head alongside the image of the shooter in the doorway of the helicopter. They were dressed identically. They were the same person.

Philips lowered the flexible screen and stared into space. “The Major.”

“Yes, The Major. Didn’t you wonder why no second helicopter arrived to pick you up? You’re not supposed to be alive, Doctor.”

She nodded absently. “They don’t want to stop the Daemon. They want to control it.”

“Which makes you pretty much the only person still trying to stop it. Your own side doesn’t want you to succeed.” He nodded toward Merritt’s casket. “And they didn’t want Roy triggering economic Armageddon before they could shift their investments.”

“The Major . . . killed Roy. . . .” She could barely get the words out.

“And they’ll finish you yet.” He pulled the screen out of her hands. “I’d watch your back, if I were you.”

She looked up suddenly. “Why are you telling me this, Loki?”

“Where is The Major?”

“I don’t know.”

“Find out.”

“He’s my problem, not yours.”

Loki tucked the scroll-screen back into his coat. “That’s where you’re wrong. The Major is everyone’s problem.”

Philips gestured to the operatives moving among the mourners. “Is that why they’re here?”

“Like I said, they’re not with me. Although, a million darknet operatives want vengeance for the Burning Man. I’m guessing they’ll tear apart heaven and earth to get it. There’s a high-priority Thread queued just for The Major. We have his biometric data from Building Twenty-Nine’s security system to help. His fingerprints. His iris scan. His voice. His face. His walk. We will find him, Doctor. But if you help me, I’ll see that you’re treated with leniency.”

She knew he was mocking her now. “I want nothing to do with you. We have laws in this country, and I intend to make sure The Major faces justice and that you face justice.”

“Justice? That’ll be difficult when you might be facing disciplinary charges yourself.”

Philips felt the rage building again. She didn’t know whether he was guessing or actually knew. The disaster at Building Twenty-Nine had indeed been laid at her feet. The Major wasn’t mentioned anywhere in the after-action reports. It was as if he never existed.

Loki turned back toward the funeral service. “If you find The Major, let me know, and the swarm will take care of him.”

“You know I won’t do that.”

“You might be surprised what you’ll do. Especially when you discover what they’ve done with your laws.” Loki narrowed his eyes at something in the distance.

Philips followed his gaze toward the edge of the funeral crowd.

A scuffle of some sort had broken out there. She could see at least one person being grabbed by plainclothes officers about half a football field away.

Loki watched with his shimmering eyes. “They never disappoint, do they? Leave while you can, Doctor.”

“Loki, don’t. There are hundreds of innocent people here.”

He ignored her, already manipulating unseen darknet objects with his gloved hands. “They just couldn’t resist. . . .”

She stood between Loki and the distant scuffle. “This will be a bloodbath. Please, Loki. Don’t do this!”

He spoke while looking through her; his hands moved frantically. “Did you know your friend, Jon Ross, joined the Daemon’s darknet recently, Doctor? I thought you might want to know.”

She stopped—unsure whether to believe him. The news hit her hard. She backed away from Loki and tried to contain her emotions. First she lost Merritt, now Ross, and now she felt she could trust no one. She felt the tears coming again. Not Jon.

Loki spoke to some unseen person. “Fuck waiting. I’ve dropped Angel Teeth. Everyone clear the area.” A pause. “I don’t give a shit.”

Philips turned away from Loki and ran toward the disturbance. He didn’t try to stop her. Fifty yards away, among cemetery headstones, she could see men in suits trying to overpower several people she assumed must be Daemon operatives. One of the agents held aloft a pair of sports glasses as more agents converged on the site. They were already securing a perimeter.

The mourners Philips passed by had begun to turn toward the scuffle. She noticed small children with many of them and shouted, “Evacuate the area!”

Several responded by saying, “I’m a police officer,” and followed her.

In half a minute Philips had pushed her way up to a dark-suited man with a radio earpiece. He was part of the security cordon around the still-struggling knot of two dozen men.

Philips displayed her NSA credentials and spoke calmly but firmly. “I’m a federal officer. You must evacuate this cemetery as soon as possible. These mourners are in great danger.”

The thick-necked agent didn’t bother to examine Philips’s credentials. He just looked at her. “Stand clear, ma’am.”

“Damnit, let me speak with the agent in charge! I have firsthand knowledge of an impending attack!”

He smiled humorlessly and spoke with an indistinct accent. “We’ve got it under control. Thanks.”

Suddenly gunshots crackled in the cold air. People in the crowd screamed and ducked. The mourners began to flee like a spooked herd—except for the dozens of police that remained behind, drawing weapons and heading toward the shots. Philips knew they’d be agents from the FBI, DSS, DEA, ATF, and a host of state and local police. Scores of them advanced using the tombstones for cover.

Philips faced the approaching agents and police and held up her credentials. “Stay back! Stay back! You’re in danger!”

The first wave of officers had already reached her, their various weapons pointed upward but ready. A distinguished-looking man in his fifties, a take-charge type without a weapon, came right up to Philips. “What the hell is going on?”

Before Philips could answer, everyone turned to see another black-suited, clean-cut man approaching from within the dense knot of operators who’d started the disturbance. The man held up credentials with a familiar logo on them—Korr Security International.

“This is a top secret DOD-sanctioned operation, gentlemen.”

The senior agent frowned and examined the operator’s ID. “I’m S-A-C of the FBI’s Kansas City office. I don’t take instructions from private security contractors.” He pushed past, along with scores of other federal agents and local police, guns still at the ready.

They pushed through a couple dozen plainclothes men with radio earpieces and submachine guns pointed skyward.

“Jesus H. Christ, who the hell authorized a takedown in the middle of a thousand innocent people?”

Philips followed on the senior agent’s heels.

Korr officers held up their hands. “Sir! You can’t come in here!”

“I’m in charge of the FBI’s Kansas City office, and until I see some government badges, I’ll go where I damn well please!”

The swarm of police and federal agents broke through to the center of the Korr team. The scene there shocked everyone.

Six bodies lay steaming on the frozen grass in a pool of blood, with more blood spattered over nearby headstones. One was a wounded Korr officer gulping air and being tended to by his colleagues. The other bodies looked to be Daemon operatives—one of them a young woman—lifeless eyes staring skyward. Philips noticed hundreds of footprints trampling the ground, indicating a mighty struggle.

The FBI SAC stood agape. “Mother of god . . .”

A tall, muscular Korr officer came up to him, showing credentials. “Sir, this is a top secret military operation. I need you to call—”

Suddenly there was a high-pitched whistle, followed by a sharp thwack. Everyone stared in horror at a dagger-shaped steel point that now protruded from the Korr officer’s left cheek. Blood ran from his nose and a large steel dart now extended from the top rear of his skull, like a sinister plume, with an antenna rising out the back. The stricken Korr officer staggered with a surprised look on his face. Servomotors on the vanes of the dart whirred and adjusted in response to his movements—apparently the guidance system.

The man collapsed as the others stared in shock.

And then more whistling was heard.

Without a word everyone scattered.

As she ran, Philips looked up into the clear Kansas sky and saw several glints of steel coming in. She dodged between tombstones as she heard the ringing of steel spikes ricocheting off stone behind her. Screams of pain came on the wind, and she turned to see first one, and then another Korr officer drop as they fled with the rest of the crowd—singled out by the deadly rain. Many of the darts missed their mark, but the spikes were relentless, eventually striking flesh and bringing the Korr men down, one by one. She saw an injured man try to get back up, only to be struck in the back by several more darts.

Philips slowed and watched in amazement as a Korr officer threw down his MP-5 submachine gun and ran toward other officers—who avoided him like the plague.

“Help me! Someone help me! Help!”

There was no cover in the middle of the vast Kansas cemetery, and he zigzagged among the mournful monuments as spikes clanged off stone and buried themselves in the grass behind him.

But finally a dart struck the man in the shoulder. He fell—only to be struck by several more darts as he crawled on the ground.

A Kansas state trooper in dress uniform grabbed Philips by the arm. “Miss, stay back!”

She cast her gaze farther afield, seeing more Korr contractors in the distance—visible because they ran alone or in pairs, slaloming, only to be struck down by a series of glinting missiles.

It was a surgical strike. Philips looked back where Loki had been, but as she expected, he was gone. In the far distance she could see thousands of mourners fleeing to their cars. She knew that finding Loki among them would be next to impossible—not to mention dangerous to the public.

She looked over toward Roy Merritt’s deserted gravesite and cursed Loki. And The Major.

Their war would never stop—not even to honor the dead.

Chapter 4: // End of the Line

“You know who you look like? That guy who killed all those cops. The one they executed.”

Pete Sebeck leveled his gaze at the convenience store clerk. She was a matronly Caucasian woman in her fifties. A portable television blared on a shelf behind her, tuned to the most popular tabloid news show in the country—News to America. Rotating graphics and techno music in the opening sequence proved distracting. “Well, if they executed him, I can’t very well be him, can I?”

She laughed. “I’m not saying you are him. Just that you look like him.”

Sebeck handed her a twenty-dollar bill.

She took the money. “Anyone ever tell you that?”

He shook his head.

“No offense. He was good-looking.” She paused, tapping her stick-on nails on the counter. Click-click-click. “What was his name? The Daemon hoax guy. Killed a whole bunch of people. Almost got away with like a hundred million dollars.”

“I don’t recall.”

She rang up the sale. “Man, that’s gonna drive me crazy.” She circled her face while clutching his change. “It’s in your face. He was on television every day for like a year. His head wasn’t shaved, though. And he didn’t have the Van Dyke.”

“The what?”

“The beard.”

“Is that what this is called?”

“You trim it like that, and you don’t even know what it’s called?” She laughed and handed over his change. “It’s called a Van Dyke. My ex-husband had one. Used it to cover a port-wine stain on his chin. Some people get the Van Dyke confused with the Winnfield or the Anchor, but they’re not the same thing.”

Her eyes suddenly went wide. “Sebeck! That was his name, Pete Sebeck. He was a detective, too. Did you know that? Killed his best friend, a woman, and like a dozen FBI agents before they caught him.”

Sebeck stared at her through sports glasses. “Well, he’s dead now.” He grabbed his energy drinks off the counter.

“Need a bag?”

“No, thanks.”

On the television behind her Sebeck couldn’t help but notice the blonde lip-glossed news model, Anji Anderson, stoking public hysteria about the latest prepackaged threat. It was especially ironic since Sebeck knew that, like him, Anderson was a Daemon operative. He still couldn’t figure out how she fit into Sobol’s master plan. In the two years he’d been in prison before his faked execution, Anderson had used sexed-up innocence combined with self-righteous indignation to claw her way from obscurity to the top of the prime-time ratings. She’d turned Sebeck into an infamous serial killer. The Daemon had everything to do with that.

“How can you watch this crap?”

“Anji? She’s great. I just love her. She’s doing this whole series on the collapse of the U.S. dollar. It’s on the way. There’s not a damned thing we can do about it either. I’m savin’ up cigarettes. They’ll be like gold after the crash.”

He stared at her for a moment to be certain she was serious, then walked out shaking his head. Sebeck sat on a desert hillside in darkness, staring up at a brilliant field of stars in the crisp night air. The Milky Way was a smudge of light out of the corner of his eye. He took a deep breath and listened to the silence.

It felt good to get away from the highway.

Sebeck had been on the road for weeks; following a line only he could see, toward a destination even he did not know. Before this journey he had never thought of the modern world as a machine—with humanity just the cells of its body. But a lot had changed since his arrest and execution by the government—and his subsequent rescue by the Daemon.

As a cop, he found it difficult to accept that the law was an illusion. If the powers that be identified you as a threat, right or wrong, you were destroyed.

Was that the lesson Matthew Sobol had taught him by destroying the person Sebeck once was? Sebeck’s only ally now was the very thing he’d been fighting against—the Daemon. No one knew how far its powers stretched or if it could be stopped. And the dead man who created it had assigned Sebeck a fearsome task.

Justify the freedom of humanity.

Coming from a software construct that had already orchestrated the deaths of thousands of people, it was a charge Sebeck didn’t take lightly—and one he had no idea how to accomplish.

Each day he followed the Thread—a glowing blue line that existed in a private virtual dimension Daemon operatives called D-Space, which was visually overlaid on the GPS grid. It was an augmented reality, whose 3-D objects were only visible through HUD glasses the Daemon had provided for him. For weeks now the Thread had led Sebeck through the American Southwest, and finally up onto this hillside in the New Mexico desert. Wherever he was going, it seemed he was about to arrive.

Just then Sebeck heard labored breathing on the path below him. He saw an ethereal name call-out bobbing toward him in the fabric of D-Space. Name call-outs were a means of identifying other members of the Daemon’s darknet (or encrypted network). The glowing words Chunky Monkey hovered three feet over a pear-shaped silhouette moving in the shadows. It was the network name of Laney Price, Sebeck’s Daemon-assigned minder. Sebeck knew that a similar call-out reading Unnamed_1 floated above his own head in D-Space. Matthew Sobol had indeed unnamed him by erasing Sebeck’s existence to the modern world, and giving him a new life on the darknet.

Sebeck waited as Price labored toward him then collapsed on the ground nearby. The light from pico projectors in Price’s own HUD glasses cast a soft glow onto his face, revealing a twentysomething kid with a thick beard and a mane of unkempt black hair. His face shined with sweat.

“Couldn’t we have . . . waited until daylight . . . Sergeant?”

“The Thread has never led us off the highway. We’re close to something.”

Price gazed around wearily. “It’s really leading you out here?” Sebeck could see the blue line extending like a crooked laser beam from where he stood, shooting uphill and disappearing over the ridgeline. It was the path Sobol had told him to follow. It was coded to him, and he was supposedly the only person in the world who could see it.

“You don’t have to come with me.”

“It’s my job, Sergeant.”

“You honestly don’t know where the Thread is heading?”

Price shook his head. “I’m just another slob on the darknet. Like you.”

“No. Not like me. You volunteered for the Daemon. That’s the difference between us, Laney. Don’t forget it—because I won’t.”

“For me it was an easy choice.”

They sat for several minutes looking up at the stars and the occasional meteor trail.

Price nodded, soaking up the atmosphere. “It’s pretty rockin’ out here.”

Sebeck jerked his thumb uphill. “Let’s keep going.”

In barely half a mile they crested the desert ridge in the moonlight. Price was panting and cursing by the time they reached the top. Sebeck was still in good physical shape—his prison ritual of sit-ups and push-ups remained the first thing he did every morning.

A quarter moon and a brilliant field of stars illuminated the surrounding mesas. Ahead Sebeck could see clustered shadows. The Thread led straight toward them.

“There’s something up ahead.”

Price was still sucking wind. “Anasazi Indian ruins.”

“How do you know that?”

“D-Space geotags. Layer nine. I could show you how to—”

“And you claim you don’t know where we’re headed. Sure. . . .” Sebeck continued down the path.

Behind him Price cursed again and struggled to keep up. Soon they came to the edge of stone ruins. They were taller than Sebeck would have expected for ancient Indian dwellings. The thick masonry walls were still several stories high, pierced by windows and doorways. He’d heard of cliff dwellers in the Southwest, but not freestanding stone buildings.

The Thread led directly through a low doorway in the face of a towering masonry wall. Sebeck approached and reached out his hand to run it along the wall’s face. It was remarkably straight and tightly constructed.

He kneeled down to look ahead and could see moonlight illuminating several roofless rooms, connected by a series of open doorways that lined up perfectly.

The sound of Price’s footsteps were behind him. Sebeck turned.

“Why are we here, Laney?”

“I told you, man. I don’t know. I’m just supposed to help you reach your goal—that doesn’t mean I know where it is.”

Sebeck glared at him then ducked into the rooms beyond. Price followed, and they moved cautiously through roofless rooms. Walls loomed above them, framing a field of stars.

Before long the Thread led Sebeck down a worn stone stairway, and out into a circular chamber about forty feet in diameter, open to the sky. Above them, the distant mesas and cliffs of the canyon formed a jagged silhouette along the horizon. Twenty-foot walls surrounded the space, with several more entrances leading into it, but here the Thread ended in a swirling aura of blue light that floated above the glowing apparition of a man. The ghostly figure wore a Victorian jacket and tie, and leaned on a silver shod cane.

It was a man Sebeck knew—the digital ghost of Matthew Sobol. The creator of the Daemon. Sobol’s avatar looked healthier than when Sebeck saw it last. It now took the form of a brown-haired, thirtysomething man—apparently how Sobol appeared before his brain cancer wasted him away. Weeks ago, Sobol’s recorded avatar had appeared to him in D-Space and offered Sebeck the opportunity to justify the freedom of humanity. Insane or not, it was a task Sebeck had dared not refuse. Especially given the Daemon’s growing power.

Sebeck glanced back at Price. “Can you see what I’m seeing?”

Price nodded emphatically. “Hell yeah. Looks like he recorded it before his surgery.”

“Then it’s a recording?”

“Interactive temporal offset projection. A three-dimensional bot, waiting here in D-Space for a specific event to occur. I think your arrival is that event, Sergeant.”

Sebeck turned back to face the glowing specter. The avatar was translucent, like all D-Space objects—a ghost.

Price nudged Sebeck. “Don’t be chicken, man. Go chat it up.” Sebeck took a moment to collect himself, then walked out into the sandy open space of the circular room. It was almost like an arena, but a fire pit occupied the center. As Sebeck approached, the glowing D-Space aura chimed then faded away—along with all trace of the Thread he’d followed.

Sobol’s apparition nodded in greeting, and its voice came through Sebeck’s headset. “Detective Sebeck, I’m glad you decided to undertake this quest. It will be long and difficult.”

Sebeck sighed. “Great. . . .”

Sobol’s apparition gestured to the masonry walls that rose several stories above them—perfectly rectangular doors and windows piercing the stone faces. “Look at the precision. One might mistake it for modern architecture.” He turned back to Sebeck. “And yet this pueblo was built almost a thousand years ago. At the very apex of Anasazi civilization.”

With a wave of his hand, glowing D-Space lines suddenly began to extend from the ruins, rising to complete the walls all around them—filling in the missing gaps and extending translucent 3-D walls and roofs above and around them. The immense structure was being rebuilt before their eyes. Pottery, possessions, and other objects appeared as though filling in a level map for a video game.

Avatars of Anasazi Indians walked through the doorway bearing baskets. Others moved through the rooms on their daily business, speaking to one another in their native tongue. Children ran past Sebeck, laughing. He could hear water flowing and song. Anasazi civilization had come back to life around them.

Price whistled behind him. “O-M-F-G ...”

Sobol’s avatar appeared to gaze approvingly on the scene.

“This structure contained six hundred rooms and rose as high as six stories. It was the tallest man-made construct in North America until the steel girder buildings of Chicago in the 1880s. The Anasazi supplied it with a network of eighty-foot-wide irrigation canals. They built four hundred miles of ruler-straight roads linking their capitol to seventy-five outlying communities. They flourished here for centuries.”

Sobol walked up to Sebeck and leaned on his cane. “Why did they perish, Sergeant? And so suddenly at the height of their achievements?”

Sebeck turned to observe the spectral avatars of ancient Anasazi priests coming into the great room in a procession, chanting. Like long departed spirits.

Sobol moved to let them pass. The priests didn’t notice him or Sebeck, but continued chanting as a spectral fire raged in the central fire pit, casting shadows that did not include either Sebeck or Sobol.

Sobol watched the priests closely. “Their fate holds important lessons for twenty-first-century man—because we are not exempt from nature’s laws. When the survival strategy of a civilization is invalidated, in all of human history none have ever turned back from the brink. When presented with disruptive change, without exception they perish.”

Sobol raised his arms, and with a wave of his hands the entire D-Space scene vanished—leaving only the real-world ruins again. And silence.

Sobol walked up to a ruinous window and looked out across the moonlit desert landscape. “But Anasazi civilization encompassed only this small region. By contrast our industrial civilization encompasses the entire earth. And should it falter, the resulting conflicts have the capacity to exterminate all human life.”

Sobol gestured where the Indian priests had stood just moments before. “They made a simple enough mistake. The same one we’re making. They founded their society on resource extraction, and in doing so, inflated their population beyond the carrying capacity of the land. They cut down all the trees and expanded arable land with irrigation projects. Until finally there were no more trees. And their topsoil washed away. And when drought came, their highly centralized society fell apart in bloodshed in a few short years.”

Sobol walked to the edge of the now cold fire pit and poked it with his illusory cane. “Instead of adapting, their leaders clung to power and strove instead to be the last ones to starve to death. The Mayan civilization in South America did the same, and I expect our own civilization will do likewise. The people behind the modern global economy will prevent any meaningful change until it’s too late.”

The avatar looked to Sebeck. “But the question that needs to be answered is whether civilization’s inability to adapt is a failure of leadership—or an unwillingness in humanity itself.

“Your quest comes at a critical time in human history, Sergeant. It’s time we knew whether a durable democracy is possible—one whose laws are not just guidelines. One where individual rights cannot be ignored by the powerful. I leave this for you to prove. The Daemon will continue to expand, regardless. Whether it encompasses a distributed democracy or a ruthless hierarchy is up to people like you. Prove that the collective human will can prevent its own destruction, and you will have justified humanity’s freedom. Fail, and humanity will serve the Daemon.

“So that all may know you . . .” Sobol aimed his cane at Sebeck’s call-out. A bright D-Space light flashed on his call-out, and an icon appeared next to his network name. It depicted a towering cloud with an opening at its base, like a gateway. “This quest icon will be your mark. Your high quest is to find the Cloud Gate. You will have succeeded when you pass through its arch.”

Sobol raised his other hand and a new, glowing Thread extended from it, racing south over the horizon in moments. “Your path leads not through the land, but through human events. It will lead you always into the heart of the changes now under way. And yet unless others lead the way, you will never reach your journey’s end.”

Sobol lowered his hand and stared into Sebeck’s eyes. “Good luck, Sergeant. For the sake of future generations, I hope we meet again.”

With that Sobol vanished, leaving only the new Thread behind. Sebeck nearly collapsed with the overwhelming burden now upon him. He turned to face Price.

Price stared up at the high quest icon now adorning Sebeck’s call-out. “You lucky bastard. . . .”

Chapter 5: // Getting with the Program

Sebeck moved through the crowd in a regional shopping mall. The place was packed with couples hand in hand talking on cell phones. Teens texting. The plaza looked new, with familiar anchor stores and all the usual retail fronts strung between them.

Sebeck had ditched Price back at the hotel. He needed time away from his troubles. Time to think. Getting lost in the crowd felt good—even though he could still see the new Thread just above him in D-Space. It always appeared ten feet in front, beckoning.

He tried to forget the Thread and his quest and instead watched faces passing in the crowd. Just a parade of mundane concerns. As though the Daemon didn’t exist.

Before long Sebeck spotted a familiar call-out approaching him, and Laney Price soon emerged from the stream of people. He and Sebeck stood face-to-face while shoppers surged around them. Price was munching on a churro. Snippets of conversation floated past them and faded away. They were anonymous in a sea of humanity.

“Needed a little ‘me’ time?”

Sebeck pushed past and kept walking through the crowd.

“Where did the Daemon dig you up, Laney?”

Price stayed on his heels. “Similar to your situation. Life delivers us to certain crossroads, and before you know it—bam—you’re serving a globe-spanning cybernetic organism. Same old familiar tale.”

Price noticed that Sebeck was ignoring him. “These people give you comfort, Sergeant? Walking among them like a regular person? Does it bring back the good times?”

Sebeck cast a look back at Price. “What if it does? Maybe it’s good to see how normal the world is. That there are still people who just want to go shopping.”

“Yeah.” He took another bite of his churro and spoke around it. “Too bad this place will probably be an empty shell ten years from now.”

Sebeck cast a frown back at Price. “How do you figure?”

“You heard Sobol. Modern society is heading off a cliff, and John Q. Public is out here stomping on the accelerator.”

“Have another churro, pal.”

“I’m just saying. So you dig all this?” He gestured to the overhead jumbotrons displaying clothing ads of fashion models flying through rainbows.

“It doesn’t matter what I think. Everything here exists because people want it. What gives Sobol the right to decide for them?”

Price shrugged. “Well, the public doesn’t really decide anything now—they just select from the options they’re given.” He stuffed the last of the churro into his mouth and chewed furiously. “Factions have a slang term for the general public. They call them NPCs—as in ‘non-player-characters’—scripted bots with limited responses.”

“That’s just obnoxious.”

“Is it? These people have only limited decision-making ability.”

“And we’re not Sobol’s puppets?”

“Okay, I think I know what’s going on here.” He balled up the churro wrapper and tossed it into the orifice of a trash can shaped like a robot. “You think these people are free, and that the Daemon is gonna take that freedom away.”

Sebeck kept strolling through the crowd. “Enough, Laney. Just let me walk in peace.”

Price stayed with him. “You, sir, are walking on a privately owned Main Street—permission to trespass revocable at will. Read the plaque on the ground at the entrance if you don’t believe me. These people aren’t citizens of anything, Sergeant. America is just another brand purchased for its goodwill value. For that excellent fucking logo.”

“Yeah, I’m sure it’s all a big conspiracy. . . .”

“No conspiracy necessary. It’s a process that’s been happening for thousands of years. Wealth aggregates and becomes political power. Simple as that. ‘Corporation’ is just the most recent name for it. In the Middle Ages it was the Catholic Church. They had a great logo, too. You might have seen it, and they had more branches than Starbucks. Go back before that, and it was Imperial Rome. It’s a natural process as old as humanity.”

Sebeck just stared back at him.

“Look, there’s nothing wrong with people admitting that they’re owned. That’s the first step in becoming free. They just need to admit it.”

“You’re a lunatic.”

“That’s right. I’m crazy. But stand up in here with a protest sign and find out how quickly you get your ass tased by security. You want to see the world the way it really is, Sergeant? Forget your cultural indoctrination for a moment.”

Price started moving his arms as if conjuring a spell. Sebeck knew what it meant: Price was working with objects on a layer of D-Space. A layer that wasn’t yet visible in Sebeck’s HUD glasses. Price was pulling at invisible objects in the air around him. Then he turned to Sebeck. “This is the real world, Sergeant. The one you so dearly miss being a part of.”

Suddenly a new layer of D-Space appeared overlaid on the real world, manifested as thousands of call-outs, glowing numbers hovering above the heads of all the shoppers moving past them. Dollar amounts, green for positive, red for negative. Most of the numbers floating over people’s heads were negative: “-$23,393” hovering over a twentysomething woman on a cell phone, “-$839,991” over a dignified-looking man in his forties, “-$17,189” over his teenage daughter, and on it went. Number after number.

Price raised his arms theatrically. “The net worth of everyone. Real-time financial data.” He frowned. “A lot of red out there, but then again, this is America.”

Sebeck stared at the hundreds of numbers moving past him. Not every person had a number above them, but the vast majority did. A young professional couple with a baby, both of them with negative numbers in the forty thousand range. A poorly dressed woman in her sixties sat on a bench near the fountain with a bright green “$893,393” over her head. Sebeck kept staring at the numbers passing by. There was no anticipating who had money and who didn’t. Some of the most successful-looking people seemed to be worst off.

“Okay, Price. This is all very interesting, but I don’t see what it proves. The Daemon gives you the power to peek into their bank accounts. So what?”

“It’s not the Daemon that gives me this ability, Sergeant.” Sebeck narrowed his eyes. “These numbers are appearing in D-Space. This must be the darknet.”

Price was already shaking his head. “I get the data from commercial networks, and I project it onto D-Space. Ask yourself, how can I know their bank balances unless I know who these people are? Remember: none of them are Daemon operatives.”

Sebeck thought for a moment. He moved to a balcony railing and scanned the hundreds of numbers moving through the mall.

“Their data follows them as they walk.”

“Yeah. How about that?”

“How are you doing this, Price? Cut the bullshit. You’re faking this, or are you trying to convince me that someone implanted tracking chips in everyone?”

“Nobody implanted anything. These people pay for their own tracking devices.” Price pointed to a nearby cell phone kiosk slathered with graphic images of beautiful people chatting on handsets. “A cell phone’s location is constantly tracked and stored in a database. Don’t have a cell phone? Bluetooth devices have a unique identifier, too. Phone headsets, PDAs, music players. Just about any wireless toy you might own. And now there are radio-frequency-identity tags in driver’s licenses, passports, and in credit cards. They respond to radio energy by emitting a unique identifier, which can be linked to a person’s identity. Privately owned sensors at public choke points are harvesting this data throughout the world. It doesn’t have anything to do with the Daemon.”

Price turned to the mall again and drew circles on his layer of D-Space—highlighting sensors bolted to the walls at intersections in the mall’s traffic flow. “Storing data is so cheap it’s essentially free, so data brokers record everything in the hopes that it will have value to someone. The data is aggregated by third parties, linked to individual identities, and sold like any other consumer data. It’s not a conspiracy. It’s an economy, but an economy these people know nothing about. They’re tagged like sheep and have about as much say in the matter as sheep.”

Sebeck gazed at the data whirling around him.

“What do we look like to a computer alogrithm, Sergeant? Because it will be computer algorithms that make life-changing decisions about these people based on this data. How about credit worthiness—as decided by some arbitrary algorithm no one has a right to question?”

Suddenly credit scores appeared above everyone’s heads, color-coded from green to red for severity.

“What about medical records?”

Lists of drug prescriptions and preexisting conditions appeared above people’s heads.

“Or how about something really powerful: human relationships. Let’s use phone records to compile the social network of these folks—to identify the people who matter most to them. . . .”

Suddenly everyone’s names appeared over their heads, along with a hyperlinked diagram of their most frequent contacts—along with names and phone numbers.

“What about purchasing habits . . . ?”

Lists of recent credit card purchases blinked into existence below people’s names.

“This data never goes away, Sergeant. Ever. And it might be sold years down the road to god knows who—or what.”

Price leaned close. “Imagine how easily you could change the course of someone’s life by changing this data? But that’s control, isn’t it? In fact, you don’t even need to be human to exert power over these people. That’s why the Daemon spread so fast.”

Sebeck clutched the balcony railing in silence, watching the march of data. The public walked on, shopping and talking, completely oblivious to the cloud of personal information they gave off. That governed their lives.

Price followed Sebeck’s gaze. “So you stand there and tell me that the Daemon is invasive and unprecedented. That it’s a threat to human freedom. And I tell you that Americans are fucking ignorant about their freedom. They’re about as free as the Chinese. Except the Chinese don’t lie to themselves.”

Sebeck said nothing for several moments. Then he slowly turned back to Price. “Laney, how is the Daemon any better?” He pointed up at his own call-out, hovering above him in D-Space. “We wear information over our heads, too.”

“Yes, but we can see ours, and we know instantly whenever anyone touches our data—and who touched it. That’s the best one can hope for in a technologically advanced society. Plus, we can readily spot nonhumans on the darknet, because Daemon bots don’t have a human body. So you know when an AI—like Sobol—is pushing your buttons, and you can choose whether or not to listen. Can these people say the same?” Price gestured to the mall shoppers.

Price then reached up to his call-out and slid the virtual layer over to Sebeck’s HUD display. A layer named Suckers appeared in Sebeck’s listing. “I want you to have this layer. In case you ever need to remember the world you left behind. The one you keep pining away for.”

Sebeck looked back up at the profusion of data above them. Beyond that loomed the Thread, still beckoning. For the first time he thought it might actually lead someplace he’d want to go.

A tanned couple walked up to Sebeck and Price. The man nodded in greeting. “Excuse me, guys.”

They turned to face him. The man was well-dressed with an oversized watch strapped to his wrist and a yin-yang tattoo on his forearm. He had his arm around a younger, attractive woman.

“Where did you guys get those sunglasses? I’ve been seeing them around, and I was wondering where I can pick up a pair.”

Sebeck just stared at him through the yellow-tinted HUD glasses. Floating above the guy’s head was a call-out indicating a net worth of -$103,039.

The man smiled. “They look kick-ass.”

Sebeck glanced at Price, who just shrugged. Sebeck turned back to the guy. “Trust me, you don’t want them.” With that he headed off in the direction of the Thread.

Price followed, but then glanced back at the man, gesturing at the guy’s invisible data. “Go easy with that Viagra prescription, Joe. It’s potent stuff.”

The man stopped cold as his girlfriend cast a puzzled look toward him. “Joe, do you know those guys?”

Chapter 6: // Waymeet

“That’ll be fourteen thirty-nine.” Pete Sebeck frowned. “That’s not right.”

He faced a lanky teenager in an ill-fitting franchise smock—one of the innumerable conscripts of the retail world. The kid glanced down at his computer screen and shrugged. “That’s what it is, sir. Fourteen thirty-nine.”

Sebeck leaned in against the counter. “Kid, I got a number two combo, and a number nine combo. What does that add up to?”

The cashier looked down at his computer screen. “Fourteen thirty-nine.”

“Stop looking at the screen and just think for a second.” He pointed at the wall-mounted menu. “How could a number two combo, at three ninety-nine, and a number nine combo, at five ninety-nine, add up to fourteen thirty-nine?”

“Sir, I’m just telling you what it is. If you don’t want them both—”

“Of course I want them both, but you’re not getting rid of me until you do the math.”

“I’m not trying to get rid of you, I’m just telling you that it’s fourteen thirty-nine.” He swiveled the screen so Sebeck could see it.

“It doesn’t matter what—Look, you’ve hit the wrong key or something.”

“You’re forgetting sales tax, sir.”

“No, I’m not forgetting sales tax. It shows sales tax there.” He pointed. “Listen, I want you to use your own mind for a second and think about this. Forget the machine.”

“But—”

“Three ninety-nine plus five ninety-nine is what?”

The kid started looking at the screen again.

“Listen to me! Don’t look at the screen. This is easy. Just round it up to four bucks plus six bucks—that’s ten bucks—then take away two pennies—that’s nine ninety-eight. Right?”

“You’re forgetting sales tax.”

“Kid, what’s five percent sales tax on ten bucks?”

“Sir—”

“Do it for me.”

“I don’t—”

“Do it! Just do it, goddamnit!” His shout echoed in the tiled restaurant.

People in the restaurant suddenly stopped talking and started watching what seemed to be an altercation.

“What is five percent sales tax on ten bucks?”

The kid started tapping at the machine. “I’ll need a manager to clear this.”

“Kid, do you really want machines doing all your thinking for you? Do you really want that?”

A balding assistant manager with a muscular frame emerged from the kitchen door. His name tag read “Howard.” “Is there a problem here?”

“Yeah, Howard, the kid has the price wrong, and I’m trying to get him to do the math.”

“And what did you order?”

“I ordered a number two and a number nine.”

The manager looked at the screen. “Okay, that’s fourteen thirty-nine.”

Howard was lucky Sebeck no longer carried a Taser.

Sebeck returned to the car with a carryout bag and two drinks. Laney Price was still refueling at the sprawling interstate travel center. There were at least twenty pump islands around them, brightly lit. Traffic hissed by on the nearby highway.

Price was using a squeegee to clean bugs off the windshield of the Chrysler 300 the Daemon had assigned them the day before. He seemed to notice the look on Sebeck’s face. “What’s wrong?”

“Humanity is doomed, that’s what’s wrong.”

“Oh.” Price kept cleaning the windshield.

Sebeck tossed the food in the car and took over the refueling. “That was something Sobol knew, wasn’t it?”

“What’s that?”

“That people will do whatever a computer screen tells them. I swear to god, you could run the next Holocaust from a fucking fast-food register.” He pantomimed aiming a pistol. “It says I should kill you now.”

“I see we’ve had another unsatisfactory consumer experience.”

“There are times when I miss the badge, Laney. I swear I miss it.”

“Why, so you can intimidate the shit out of teen slackers? Besides, what you’ve got now is something better—a quest icon. You’re like a knight of the realm now.”

“Just get in the car.”

Sebeck almost missed the turnoff. They were heading west on Interstate 40 about an hour outside of Albuquerque when his new Thread abruptly veered onto an exit ramp marked INDIAN SERVICE ROUTE 22. Sebeck was in the middle of taking a sip of bottled water when the turn came up on him, and he had to swerve one-handed from the fast lane onto the exit ramp, cutting across solid white lines just before an abutment.

He glanced over at the sleeping form of Laney Price, who stirred a bit but then settled back to sleep. Sebeck followed the glowing blue line superimposed on reality over a bridge that crossed the highway to arrive at a travel center where trucks and cars were clustered around gas stations, convenience stores, and ever-present fast-food outlets.

There in the middle of a parking lot his new Thread ended in a swirling aura of blue light, above a live human being this time—a woman standing next to a white passenger van. The van was parked in front of a Conoco convenience store.

It was not exactly the destination he’d envisioned—not that he had any clear idea what to expect. Sebeck parked the Chrysler facing forward in a row of cars across from the woman and peered through the freshly bug-spattered windshield at her.

She was a trim American Indian woman in her fifties with long gray hair braided into a plait. She wore jeans, cowboy boots, and a tan button-down shirt with some sort of logo on the breast pocket. She also wore slim, stylish HUD glasses, through which she was gazing directly at Sebeck. She looked like a Santa Fe art gallery owner. Her D-Space call-out marked her as Riley—a fourteenth-level Shaman. Riley’s reputation score was five stars out of five on a base factor of nine hundred three—which, if Sebeck had understood Price’s ramblings over the weeks, meant that she had an average review by nine hundred-plus darknet operatives who’d interacted with her of five stars out of five. She was apparently highly regarded—about what Sebeck didn’t know.

He turned off the engine and glanced over at the sleeping form of Price in the passenger seat. Sebeck pulled the keys from the ignition and stealthily opened the driver’s door. He didn’t feel like having his Daemon-assigned minder along for this conversation, so he placed the keys on the seat and quietly closed the car door behind him, checking that Price was asleep.

Sebeck then walked across the parking lot toward Riley, who regarded him with some curiosity, since he was leaving his companion behind. It was fairly cloudy and rather cool. Sebeck closed his jacket as he approached Riley. Fellow travelers came and went around them.

He took note of the passenger van she stood alongside. It was new and bore a logo for “Enchanted Mesa Spa & Resort”—the same logo printed on her shirt pocket.

When he reached her, the last of the Thread disappeared and a chime sounded—leaving only the soft blue light of a D-Space aura slowly swirling above her head.

Sebeck was unsure how to feel. He spoke without emotion. “I’m supposed to be looking for the Cloud Gate. Is there something you can tell me?”

She extended her hand. “Why don’t we start with hello?”

Sebeck took a deep breath and shook her hand briefly. “Hello. You’re Riley.”

“Shaman of the Two-Rivers faction. And you are the Unnamed One.”

“Yeah, that just about describes it. I hope you have some answers for me.”

“What sort of answers?”

“Like how I can complete my quest? How do I justify the freedom of humanity to the Daemon?”

She frowned. “That’s not visible to me.”

He rubbed his eyes in frustration. “Why do I have to wander all over hell’s half acre to complete this damned quest?”

“It’s the hero’s journey.”

He narrowed his eyes at her.

“Don’t forget: Sobol was an online game designer. In the archetype, a hero must wander lost in the wilderness to find the knowledge necessary for his or her quest. Perhaps that’s what’s happening to you.”

“And I’m supposed to be the hero.”

“It’s your life. You should be the hero of it. If it’s any consolation, I’m the hero of mine, too.”

“Riley, why did the Thread lead me to you?”

“Why me exactly? I don’t know. I suspect it has to do with my skill set and my proximity to you when some system threshold was reached.”

Sebeck nodded to himself. “Yesterday I spoke with Matthew Sobol. He gave me this Thread after our meeting.”

“And yesterday an avatar appeared to me on a deep layer. She was like an angel. A beautiful woman with copper hair and alabaster skin—bathed in light. She said you would come.”

Sebeck ran his hands over his bald head. He thought of Cheryl Lanthrop, the woman who had betrayed him. Copper hair and fair skin. She’d worked for Sobol, and had paid for that with her life. “This is madness.”

“The avatar told me you were on a quest from Mad Emperor, and that you needed to grok the shamanic interface.”

He was lost.

She nodded in understanding. “I’ll put it in layman’s terms: you need to fully learn the darknet and all its powers in order to have any hope of succeeding on your quest.”

“Powers.”

“Data magic, far-sight.”

“And you’re a shaman?”

She smiled. “I know what you’re thinking. There’s no such thing as magic, and restless spirits are wives’ tales. However—”

Sebeck held up his hand. “Yeah. I stand corrected.”

“Good. I chose my darknet profession, and it is shaman. It governs my skill tree and level advancement. Is that more clear?”

He nodded.

“I see that you’re a first-level Fighter. Which makes it all the more puzzling that you’ve been geased by Mad Emperor to complete this quest.”

“Geased? What’s ‘geased’ mean?”

“It’s ancient Gaelic. It means an enchantment that compels you to complete a task. It’s an incredibly powerful spell—far, far above my level.”

“Can I break free of it?”

“Not if you accepted the quest. The only one who can cancel it is the one who gave it to you: Mad Emperor.”

Sebeck recalled sitting in the office of a funeral home, talking with an interactive three-dimensional recording of Sobol. The avatar had asked him: do you accept the task of finding justification for the freedom of humanity? Yes or no? It was an out-of-control voice recognition monster, and Sebeck felt compelled to accept, if only to buy time. If only to protect his family.

“I had no choice.”

“Maybe. But be warned: you must choose your words carefully on the darknet. Words have power in this new age. They are not just sounds. Where ancient people believed in gods and devils that listened to their pleas and curses—in this age immortal entities hear us. Call them bots or spirits; there is no functional difference now. They surround us and through them word-forms become an unlock code that can trigger a blessing or a curse. Mankind created systems whose inter-reactions we could not fully understand, and the spirits we gathered have escaped from them into the land where they walk the earth—or the GPS grid, whichever you prefer. The spirit world overlaps the real one now, and our lives will never be the same.”

Sebeck didn’t know what to say. A couple of years ago he would have called her crazy, but she was right—spirits or bots, it was just semantics. “And what happens if I refuse to proceed?”

“If you stray from your path, the Daemon will compel you to return to it. Of more concern to me is how you could possibly complete your quest while remaining first level.”

“I can’t go up levels?”

“The darknet is arranged like Sobol’s game world. You can only go up levels by completing tasks—or quests. However, the Geas spell prevents you from taking on any other quests until you complete this one. You are stuck at first level until you achieve your goal. And you have quite a goal.” She didn’t appear too optimistic. Riley checked her watch. “We need to get going. You should wake up your factor.”

“Factor?”

She pointed at Price sleeping in the car. “Chunky Monkey.”

“Where are we heading?”

She patted the “Enchanted Mesa Spa & Resort” logo on the side of the van. “You’re with us until you certify with the shamanic interface.”

He glanced back at the car and shrugged. “I’m good to go.”

“You’re leaving your factor behind?”

“He’s a spy planted by Sobol.”

She reached up to manipulate unseen objects in a way that Sebeck had seen Price do many times. A few moments later she shook her head. “I don’t see that he’s reporting to anyone. Although, he has been tasked by Mad Emperor to handle the logistics of your quest. Unlike you, he can quit this task at any time and be replaced.” She lowered her hands. “But neither has he given you high marks for cooperation.”

“Leave him.”

She just looked at Sebeck. “And your things?”

“Replaceable. A few changes of clothing, toiletries.”

“If that’s what you want.”

Riley drove the passenger van south into scrublands, past creosote bushes and the occasional piñon tree. They were headed toward distant mesas of tan rock, mottled by the shadows of clouds. Sebeck was glad that the Thread no longer loomed in front of him. His view was unobstructed for the first time in a long while. The only reminder of his quest was when he looked at Riley and saw the subtle aura glowing above her call-out—she was his current goal.

He focused his attention out the window. A surprising amount of grass grew in the lowlands this time of year. It was beautiful.

Sebeck sensed Riley studying him, but for several minutes they drove in silence. She finally spoke. “I know who you are.”

Sebeck didn’t respond.

“You’re that detective—Sergeant Peter Sebeck—the one who was framed for the Daemon hoax.”

Sebeck nodded.

“They put you to death.”

Sebeck nodded somberly again. “If you believe the news.”

“You’ve lost a great deal. Your career. Your reputation. I don’t imagine you’re here voluntarily.”

“No.”

“Did you know Matthew Sobol? Is that why he gave you this quest?”

“Sobol was my primary suspect in a murder case. From the point my name entered the news, I was in the Daemon’s sights. Sobol effectively framed me with a computer program.”

“How did you survive your execution?”

Sebeck shrugged. “Ask Price. He was the one who revived me at the funeral home.”

“You mean Chunky Monkey, the operative back at the travel center?”

Sebeck just gave her a look. “His name is Laney Price. Another misfit the Daemon found somewhere.” He cast a glance at Riley. “No offense.”

“None taken.”

Sebeck decided to change the subject. “Is this your tribe’s land?”

“No. Right now we’re passing through the Acoma reservation. I’m a Laguna Indian. We’ll reach Laguna land in about fifteen minutes. The Navajo nation is north of us—much larger—and the Zunis are to the west.”

Sebeck gazed out the window at the mesas and light green grass bowing in a breeze. “This is beautiful country. I always thought of New Mexico as just sand and rocks.”

“The Spanish word for lake is laguna. That’s how our tribe got its name. Access to water is what attracted Europeans.” She pointed into the distance and a line of tan rock on the horizon. “The Acoma pueblo up on that mesa was first settled in eleven hundred A.D. It’s the oldest continuously occupied community in North America.”

Sebeck was genuinely surprised. “So they didn’t fall along with the Anasazi civilization?”

“You have an interest in Anasazi history?”

“It came up recently in conversation.”

“Well, Acoma rose partly from the collapse of Chacoan society. Some of the survivors resettled here.

“Acoma was attacked in the late fifteen-hundreds by the Spanish. They used cannons and attack dogs to force their way up the stone stairway onto the mesa. They killed all but two hundred and fifty of the twenty-five hundred inhabitants and cut one foot off every male survivor. The children were given to Catholic missionaries, but most of them wound up being sold into slavery. The Spanish then used the pueblo as a base to conquer the rest of the region.”

Sebeck didn’t know what to say.

“That was two centuries before the British colonies in the East declared their independence. We’ve been here a long time.”

“And now you’re a darknet faction leader. Are you some sort of militant?”

She laughed. “You mean, a violent fringe group? No, Sergeant. We’re builders.” A look came over her, and she tapped again at invisible objects on a hidden layer of D-Space. “In fact, you’ll see some of our work on the way.” She was about to say something, but then apparently thought better of it.

“What?”

“If you’re wondering whether I bear a grudge against the Spanish—or the U.S. government for that matter—I don’t. Nursing anger against people long dead is a waste of one’s life. Today if someone wrongs us, we do what anyone else does: we send our lawyers after them.” Riley fixed her gaze on Sebeck. “The Laguna value education highly. It is our rod and staff, as my father used to say.”

“How did a woman your age get involved in the darknet?”

“A woman my age?” She laughed. “Don’t sugarcoat it, Sergeant.”

“I’m just wondering how you—”

“Sobol’s online fantasy game—The Gate.”

He just looked at her.

“Okay, what’s a fifty-two-year-old woman doing playing online games? I found them interesting. The idea of putting on a body like clothing—there was something about it that seemed intriguing. That we might surpass our physical differences and deal with one another as human beings. With no preconceived notions about gender or race.”

“And that’s where the Daemon found you.”

“I did the finding, but it wasn’t the Daemon I found. It was the darknet. The encrypted wireless network Sobol created. Only later did I discover how much blood Sobol shed establishing this network. And yet, I can’t help but wonder, just as evil sometimes arises from good intentions, if good can’t sometimes grow from evil. It’s a distasteful notion, but human history makes me wonder.”

Sebeck gritted his teeth. “I may be on this quest, but that doesn’t mean I agree with Sobol. I accepted it because I had no choice, and I was concerned that unless I did so, he would enslave humanity. Matthew Sobol killed friends of mine. Police and federal officers—people with families.”

She held up a hand. “I’m not defending Sobol, Sergeant. I’m saying that Sobol was willing to be our villain to force necessary change. So that we didn’t have to.”

“Megalomaniacs always justify their actions by saying how necessary it is.”

She gave him a sideways look. After a moment she said, “Do you feel any guilt for what your ancestors did to the Indians?”

Sebeck was taken aback.

“You know, for the genocide that was perpetrated against Native American people by the U.S. government and the settlers?”

“That’s not the same as what Sobol did.”

“Why?”

“Because the theft of tribal lands occurred a hundred and fifty years ago. Things were different then.”

“Statute of limitations, then?” She concentrated on the road then turned an eye back on him. “I’m just making a point. You probably don’t feel guilt because you’re not the one who did it. You bear native people no ill will, and aren’t prejudiced against them.”

“Yes, exactly.”

“But then, we’re not getting the land back either, are we?” A slight smile creased her face.

Sebeck folded his arms. “It could never be sorted out even if we tried. That was a different time, Riley.”

“We’re not all that different from our ancestors, Sergeant. And even though the land Matthew Sobol grabbed was virtual real estate—computer networks—I don’t think anyone’s going to get that back either.”

Sebeck sat in silence for a few moments, watching the road. “He can force me to go on this quest, but I’ll never accept what he’s done.”

“Don’t waste time being angry with the dead. They’ll never give you satisfaction. Whatever punishment Sobol deserved he has either received—or not—already, and nothing you can do will change that. Now, there is only the system he left behind, and he’s given control of that to all of us.”

“I just spoke with Sobol yesterday. He is very much still here.”

She looked him in the eye. “Sobol is dead and gone, Sergeant. His consciousness no longer exists. What you’re dealing with is a recording—a scripted entity that responds to real events. It can’t feel. It can’t think. Sobol is gone.”

Sebeck just turned back to the window, lost in his reflections for several minutes. He thought about how much death the Daemon had caused and how much of his own life irrevocably changed.

Soon they approached a junction with an unpaved road. Riley slowed the van and turned left onto a road marked INDIAN SERVICE ROUTE 49. NO TRESPASSING signs flanked it. Moments later they were roaring down the dirt road, leaving a plume of dust in their wake.

Neither of them spoke for several minutes as the road curved between distant, rocky cliffs with batters of scree at their base. The grasslands and an occasional pond or stream gave the landscape a serene feel.

About fifteen miles later the road gradually curved around a tall promontory of stone—a mesa jutting out like the peninsula of a higher plateau. As they came around it, Sebeck could see the road for miles ahead, running straight toward a towering monolith, a mountain of rock perhaps a thousand feet tall. On the lowlands before it, glittering reflections spread across the landscape. Sebeck could also see signs of human civilization ahead—outbuildings and what looked to be a tall water tower under construction in the distance. Dozens of diminutive D-Space call-outs hovered over the land, their owners invisible at this distance. The valley floor was a vast darknet construction project.

Riley noticed Sebeck’s gaze. “The mirrors are heliostats. Trough mirrors that focus the sun’s energy onto a central tower to generate heat—and thus steam to run a turbine and generate electricity.”

“That whole valley floor?”

“No, no. The heliostats are an intermediary station. They provide on-site power for the real project. Otherwise the spike in energy usage would attract attention.”

They were coming up on a steel gate with a short stretch of fencing on either side to prevent casual drive-arounds. The gate was closed, but Riley wasn’t slowing down. As they got within a hundred yards, it opened automatically, revealing a new stretch of paved roadway beyond. A white SUV labeled SECURITY stood near the gate with two uniformed Indians inside—both had call-outs over their heads.

Riley exchanged waves with them, and there was a slight bump as they passed through the gate and onto pavement. Then the road was smooth—and suddenly quiet.

“The Daemon financed this.” Sebeck turned to her. “Didn’t it?”

“The Daemon’s economy is powered by darknet credits, Sergeant. Imaginary credits are all that money is.”

“But there’s a theft at the heart of it.”

She thought about it and nodded slightly. “Yes, the darknet economy was seeded by real world wealth. Wealth that was questionable in origin to begin with. Here, it’s being invested in people and projects that have begun to return value—not in dollars, but in things of intrinsic human worth. Energy, information, food, shelter.”

“But originally from theft.”

“That could be said of a lot of things that are now admired.”

The van followed a ruler-straight line through a series of ongoing construction projects—stark, windowless buildings, pipes, electrical lines, all of them leading toward the large tank being constructed in the distance, a couple of miles away still. It was enormous. They passed pickup trucks and minibuses moving workers—more than a few with D-Space call-outs above them bearing the mark of the Two-Rivers faction.

“So what’s this ‘real project’ you mentioned—that water tank?”

“It’s not a water tank. It’s a fifty-megawatt power station that will generate enough electricity to supply a hundred thousand homes. What you’re looking at is just the first three hundred feet. When it’s done, it will stand sixteen hundred feet tall and two hundred sixty feet in diameter.”

Sebeck whistled and peered through the windshield.

Riley gestured with one hand, and suddenly a completed, life-sized three-dimensional wire model of the proposed tower sprang into being in D-Space miles from them—rising sixteen hundred feet into the air in glowing spectral lines.

In spite of himself Sebeck smiled and turned toward Riley. “That’s incredible.” He looked back at the tower as parts of it began to animate, showing red arrows representing wind currents flowing in at the base and up through the tower’s shaft and out the top.

Riley aimed her finger, and a glowing pointer that must have been thirty feet across appeared miles away in the fabric of D-Space. She pointed at the heliostat array closer to them. “The problem with parabolic mirror stations is that they don’t produce much energy on cloudy days, and none at night.”

Her massive pointer moved to the base of the 3-D tower model, only a fifth of which was completed in reality. A sloping base surrounded the wire model as though it were a trumpet placed horn-down in the soil. “This design uses a transparent canopy to superheat air with solar radiation—energy that gets through cloud cover. The canopy is eight feet off the ground at the perimeter and slopes up to sixty feet above ground where it connects to the tower base. As the air heats, it rises, creating a wind that proceeds up the tower—which is lined with wind turbines.”

“So it creates its own wind.”

She nodded. “Even at night.” She pointed at what looked to be rectangular cisterns arrayed at intervals around the perimeter of the canopy. “Covered saltwater ponds gather heat energy during the day and release it at night—continuing the wind cycle.”

Sebeck didn’t know what to think. There was no dismissing the scale and ambition of this—but what was it for? “Why do you need so much electrical power?”

“To transform our environment. To power equipment, micro-manufacturing plants, chemical and material reactions. This tower—and other solar installations—will provide clean, sustainable energy and freshwater from the elemental building blocks of matter.”

Sebeck gave her a doubtful look.

She laughed. “It’s not my design, Sergeant. I’m not an engineer. What I do here is work with people—helping to define goals and needs of the community.”

“Seriously. How do you know this is not complete bullshit?”

“The design has existed for decades. The technology has been proven. My technical familiarity comes from dealing with the darknet engineers and architects handling the construction. I make it a point to understand, so I can convey the information to our people. This is a big deal for us.”

“No doubt. But, Riley, if this was economically feasible, don’t you think everyone would be doing it? Besides, I thought the Laguna nation already had water.”

“At present, yes, but darknet communities are founded on long-term thinking. In coming decades we anticipate water stress due to climate change and depleted aquifers. Sustainable water independence increases our darknet resilience score.”

He gazed upon all the construction. “But doing all this to irrigate fields can’t be anything close to cost-effective.”

“Water isn’t the product, Sergeant. Water is the waste.” In D-Space she pointed to highlight a line of small buildings being constructed down a road leading off to their right. “Those will be reverse-hydrolysis fuel cell stations. They’ll consume hydrogen to produce heat and electricity—leaving behind freshwater as the only waste product. We can produce a third of a liter of freshwater with every kilowatt-hour of electricity produced from hydrogen.”

“But where in the hell do you get hydrogen?”

She aimed her pointer at the surrounding valley walls. “From the crystalline structures of igneous rock. This whole region has vast quantities of it. Millions of years ago this volcanic rock picked up water vapor when it crystallized from magma. That means it contains molecular hydrogen. When crushed into a powder, it seeps hydrogen at room temperature through its fracture surfaces for hundreds of hours—no liquid water required. We use some of the electrical energy from the power tower to crush this rock”—her pointer moved onto the lofty power tower—“and the rock removal helps to create energy-efficient shelter in the cliff-faces—much like our ancestors had. But that’s just one aspect of the project. We’ll also use solar energy to reverse combustion.”

On his confused look, she moved the pointer. “Here . . .” The dot touched on a series of virtual buildings around the base of the virtual tower. “These CR5 units will use solar power to chemically reenergize carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide and oxygen. It’s done by heating cobalt ferrite rings with a solar furnace. At high temperature the rings release oxygen. When they’re rotated back into the presence of carbon dioxide, the cobalt ferrite snatches oxygen from the CO2 as it cools, leaving behind carbon monoxide—which, when we combine it with our hydrogen source, can be used to synthesize liquid hydrocarbon fuels such as methanol. Methanol is portable energy that’s easy to work with, transport, and store. The hydrocarbons can also produce polymers for plastics and other products. Likewise, it sequesters carbon out of the atmosphere—making it carbon negative. It just requires energy, Sergeant—and solar energy is something my people have plenty of.”

Sebeck was speechless.

“What did you think we were building out here, a casino?”

“But what you’re describing—creating water and pulling liquid fuel out of the air—”

“The sun is what made life on Earth possible to begin with. Oil is just ancient solar energy stored in hydrocarbons. The CR5 technology was developed nearby in Sandia National Labs. It stands for ‘Counter Rotating Ring Receiver Reactor Recuperators.’ The details are available to anyone on the darknet, if you’re really interested.”

He was still shaking his head. “Then why isn’t this being done everywhere?”

She turned off her D-Space layer and the lofty tower and virtual buildings disappeared. “Many things are possible, Sergeant, but not economically feasible. Of course, that all depends on how you calculate costs. Darknet communities factor in loss of economic independence as a cost. They factor in the cost of forcibly defending distant energy resources. They also factor in lack of sustainability and disposal of pollutants. That more than balances the equation. With this facility we’ll use solar energy as the foundation of a long-term, sustainable, energy-positive holon. And that’s the goal.”

“A holon.”

“Holons are the geographic structure of the darknet. Any darknet community lies at the center of an economic radius of one hundred miles for its key inputs and outputs—food, energy, health care, and building materials. Balancing inputs and outputs within that circle is the goal. A local economy that’s as self-sufficient as possible while still being part of a cultural whole—a holon—thus creating a resilient civilization that has no central points of failure. And which through its very structure promotes democracy. That’s what we’re doing here, Sergeant.”

They were coming up on the tower now. Scores of workers were scurrying over scaffolding while cranes lifted loads to upper levels.

Sebeck hardly knew what to say. It was as though he’d been transported to a different century. He was embarrassed to admit he had been half expecting to find a casino out here. He spent the remainder of the ride just staring at the construction under way.

A few minutes later they approached the face of the towering rock he’d seen from afar. Set into the cliffs were what looked like twenty-first-century cliff dwellings, with warm lights and tall glass windows. There were several dozen electric vehicles parked at the base of the rock, around a broad door that bore only a D-Space sign: TWO-RIVERS HALL. People of many races were walking in and out of the doorway, all with D-Space call-outs and all apparently busy. Too busy to note the arrival of a first-level newb—even with a quest icon.

Riley pulled the van up to the door. “We’ll get you settled in a room, Sergeant, and tomorrow we’ll start your training on the shamanic interface.” She got out of the van, and then turned around to lean through the window. “Oh, and welcome to Enchanted Mesa Spa and Resort.”

Chapter 7: // Shamanic Interface

Sebeck sat in the Mesa dining hall reading the local paper when he felt the table bump. He lowered his paper to see Laney Price sitting across from him with a tray loaded down with scrambled eggs, bacon, pastries, and pancakes. Price wore a crisp black T-shirt bearing the slogan “I’m undermining civilization. Ask me how” in bold white letters. He was already digging into his breakfast.

Sebeck folded the paper, and sipped his coffee. “So they let you in?”

“You’re a dick. You know that?” Price didn’t look at him, but instead busied himself reading something in D-Space.

“I needed to talk to Riley alone.”

“So you ditched me in a truck stop. No, that’s fine. Never mind that I had virtually nothing to do with your identity death, and that I resuscitated you after your near execution—for which I never received so much as a thank-you. No, it’s fine. It’s no wonder the Daemon could make a bad guy out of you. You know why? Because you’re a bad guy.” Price ripped off a piece of toast with his teeth and resumed reading in virtual space.

Sebeck didn’t feel like arguing, but then again, he didn’t feel like reading anymore either. He tossed the paper aside. It was a tribal rag that dealt more with school announcements and local council news. There was little mention of the vast construction project outside the window.

He turned to look out the tall bank of windows along the outside wall. The entire facility appeared to have been carved out of the solid rock face—and the crushed rock used to generate hydrogen, no doubt. The dining room had a broad view of the valley floor, and the extensive construction under way there.

Just then he saw Riley approaching through the dining hall. Many people smiled and waved as they saw her, and she paused at several tables to exchange pleasantries. But she walked inexorably toward Sebeck. He wondered how she knew where to find him, but then he realized he could probably be pinpointed easily in the fabric of D-Space.

Riley was dressed like the day before. As she stepped up to the table, she didn’t smile or greet Sebeck. “Are you ready? It’s seven thirty, and we’ve got a lot of ground to cover.”

Sebeck gestured to Price. “Riley, this is Price. Price this is—”

She interrupted him. “We’ve already met, Sergeant.”

Price nodded as he kept eating. “She heard my tale of woe.”

“You haven’t exactly been decent to Chunky, and the fact is that someone must handle logistics for your quest. At first level you barely have the darknet credits necessary to function. The darknet isn’t a commune, Sergeant. Things cost money. Chunky paid for your breakfast.”

Price nodded while still reading. “Don’t thank me. Thank the quest fund.”

It did occur to Sebeck that Price was always the one getting them new identities, new credit cards, and new cars.

“If you want to get to the next stage of your quest, you’ll need to be certified. Let’s go.”

He nodded. “Where are we doing this?”

A brief journey in a modern, climate-controlled elevator brought Sebeck and Riley twenty floors straight up through solid rock before the doors opened onto a solid stone corridor. It was amply lit by compact, warm-colored lights. Oddly, there were fire strobes and smoke alarms bolted into the solid rock walls. This was no ancient cliff-dweller ruin. It was modern construction—though it would take a volcano to set fire to the place. Apparently darknet communities had to follow real-world fire codes.

Riley walked purposefully down the hall past several numbered doors and stopped at one that was already open. It led into a large conference room with a broad wooden table surrounded by a dozen modern office chairs. A grease board was bolted to the nearby wall. She motioned for Sebeck to take a seat and closed the door behind them.

“Not exactly the environment I was expecting to learn magic in.”

She sat on the edge of the table nearby and just looked at him for several moments.

He gave her a questioning look. “What?”

“I’ve read up on you. You’ve suffered, but you’re not the only one who has. Did you ever think to ask Price anything about his life? No. And I don’t see that you’ve taken any responsibility for the suffering you’ve caused others, either. Your wife and son, for starters.”

“My family is none of your business. Yes, I lied to the people close to me—and to myself. I had a long time in prison to think about the person I was back then. I’ve got nothing but regrets, so back off.”

Riley considered this. Her expression lost its hard edge. She stood up. “A few years ago, I was riding near El Morro. I saw a coyote on a ridgeline, trying to keep up with his pack. He was missing a leg. He looked thin. But he was keeping up. That always stuck with me. It’s something we can learn from animals. They don’t waste time feeling sorry for themselves.”

Sebeck sighed. “What do you want from me, Riley? I’m here, aren’t I?”

“Are you? Just ask yourself what drives people to join the Daemon’s network. Do you really think all these people are evil? They just want their lives to make sense. This network is helping them achieve that. The Daemon has no ideology. It’s simply what we make of it. It will maintain order, but what type of order is up to us. You have a chance to help create something good for future generations. If you’re looking for some sort of redemption, now is your chance. This quest of yours might do some good. So I suggest you pay attention and learn what I’m going to teach you. Because the sooner you do, the sooner you can stop hating dead people and rejoin the world of the living.”

Sebeck stared at the table like a child who’d been scolded.

Riley moved to the front of the room. “May I begin?”

Sebeck nodded.

“The shamanic interface is the mechanism for interacting with the darknet. It’s called the shamanic interface because it was designed to be comprehensible to all people on earth, regardless of technological level or cultural background.” She made a series of precise flourishes with her hands, leaving behind glowing lines in D-Space that formed an intricate pattern. As she finished, an unearthly, angelic voice sounded in the room, like a good spirit.

Sebeck looked around him for the origin of the disembodied voice.

Riley lowered her hands. “It was a hypersonic sound, Sergeant. Linked to a macro that I created based on somatic gestures. But my point is that it looks like magic. Even the most remote tribes in Papua New Guinea understand the concept of magic—and that certain rituals must be observed to invoke it. They believe in a spirit world where ancestors and supernatural beings watch over them. The shamanic interface simply connects high technology to that belief system, granting ‘powers’ and equipment as a reward for useful, organized activity.”

Sebeck leaned back in his chair. “Useful to whom?”

“Humanity, Sergeant. This is big-picture stuff. Repositories of human knowledge and technology are being designed and built by various curator factions around the world. The spec is simply that these repositories be durable, inspire awe, and be equipped with automated systems that can teach people useful knowledge to empower the more rational among the population so that they can achieve leadership positions. That way, should human civilization be lost in a region, this system could put locals back on a path to regain knowledge in a generation or two. It could also be useful in resisting a downward spiral to begin with.”

Sebeck looked at the solid walls around them. He looked back at Riley quizzically.

“Correct. Two-Rivers Hall will be a repository when it’s finished. That may take many decades.”

“But doesn’t this just spread mysticism? Lies, essentially?”

“You mean fairy tales? Yes, initially. But then, a lot of parents tell young children that there’s a Santa Claus. It’s easier than trying to explain the cultural significance of midwinter celebrations to a three-year-old. If false magic or a white lie about the god-monster in the mountain will get people to stop killing one another and learn, then the truth can wait. When the time is right, it can be replaced with a reverence for the scientific method.”

“And this is why Sobol created the Daemon?”

She shook her head. “No, this is why they call it the shamanic interface. Because it resembles sorcery—and might as well be to low-tech people. But unlike sorcery, it exists and conveys real power.”

Riley raised her hands in front of her. “Now let’s teach you how to use it.”

Two days later Sebeck stood leaning against a railing on the edge of a terrace set atop Two-Rivers Hall—nine hundred feet above the desert floor. The view from atop the great monolith of stone was impressive, with mesas extending in a ragged line toward the horizon.

The master plan for the construction on the valley floor was more apparent from up here, although Sebeck now knew how to interrogate the objects themselves in D-Space. He could see call-outs for faction members, and knew also how to zoom in on them or adjust the layers of D-Space in his field of view. Or send messages. But none of that interested him just now.

He laid his chin on the aluminum railing and pondered the Scale of Themis, center-screen at the bottom of his HUD display. It fascinated him. It was a measure of the distribution of power within a Daemon user population. He could set it to show the whole darknet or just the holon he occupied. At present it was scaled to his current holon. It took the form of a slender needle on his control bar—in this case, leaning slightly to the right. Sebeck had customized his display so that he would always see it. If he looked closely enough, he could see it fluctuating.

Riley had taught him that the extreme right position meant Daemon power was held in very few hands, while all the way to the left meant Daemon power was evenly distributed across virtually everyone.

Oddly, she told him the goal was not to have the needle at either extreme. Too much power in too few hands defeated the common good, while too little power in any single person’s hands made it hard to get anything done. Thus, the goal for a darknet community was to try to peg the needle right in the center—“due north” they called it.

It looked like the Two-Rivers faction was about fifteen degrees off due north. Sebeck wondered if Riley skewed the scale. He’d had a chance to learn just how respected her opinions were in this holon. She wasn’t too impressed by herself. Individuals can always malfunction, Sergeant. Including me.

Riley was an interesting woman. Sebeck couldn’t recall ever meeting a person so patient, yet unyielding. She also demonstrated a prodigious knowledge of the world around her. He was starting to realize he wasn’t the center of Sobol’s new world order. Strangely, that gave him a measure of relief.

Sebeck considered the Daemon’s virulence. Riley had explained to him that the Daemon grew less virulent the more it spread. And that it became more ruthless as it contracted. It was designed like a natural organism to resist its own eradication with lethal force if necessary. It did explain the bloody origins of the Daemon, but Sebeck still couldn’t accept it. It was basically a parasite on human society, one trying to achieve symbiosis. A balance between what it took and what it gave. Yes, it drove them toward preserving civilization, but it diminished free will. And did they really want a cybernetic organism designed by a madman hanging over their heads?

Sebeck heard footsteps on the stone stairs behind him. He turned to see Laney Price wearing a new black T-shirt and parachute pants. The words “THANK YOU . . . for not emoting” were emblazoned on Price’s shirt in bold white letters.

“Where are you getting these stupid T-shirts?”

He stretched the fabric to read it. “Like it? Latest thing, man. Smart plastic. I got it at the gift shop the day I got in.”

“Wait . . . there’s a gift shop?”

“Yeah. Flexible, programmable plastic display. Takes about an hour to change messages. Pretty cool, huh?”

Sebeck turned back to the railing. “You downvoted me, you prick.”

Price came up alongside him. “Well, what did you expect? You treat me like crap.”

“A two-star reputation ranking?”

“Oh, out of a base factor of one! Big deal. You can fix it. Try not being a dick. It works wonders.”

“I oughta downvote your reputation ranking.”

“I’ve got a base factor of four hundred and six, pal. Good luck. And on what grounds, by the way? You know damn well that it has to be for a cause, and that it must pass muster on an fMRI countercharge.”

Sebeck threw up his hands. “Jesus, we sound like a couple of geeks at a Star Trek convention.”

“I happen to speak Klingon, pal. So . . . Hab SoSlI’ Quch!”

They heard more footsteps and turned to see Riley coming up to join them.

Sebeck nodded to her in greeting.

She appraised him. “You may not like it, Sergeant, but you’ll make an able member of the darknet. I think you’re ready to continue your quest.”

“Then you’re rating me?”

She nodded and raised her ringed hands. With a few precise movements she moved an invisible object to an invisible place, and Sebeck noticed a message come across his HUD display. It told him that Riley had just rated him on a scale of one to five—scoring him a four. Now with a base of two he had a reputation score of three. Half a star above average.

But more important, the moment she rated him, a new blue Thread sprang into being about ten feet above and in front of Sebeck’s HUD view. It ran quickly from the mountaintop, through the valley, and to the horizon northeast of them, where it disappeared.

Sebeck took a deep breath. It was difficult to tolerate the return of that domineering line. Where it would lead was anyone’s guess.

“Do you see it, Sergeant?”

He nodded. “Yes. My Thread is back.”

“I thought it might be. It seems your quest will lead you to places and events. Although how that might ultimately lead to this ‘Cloud Gate’ you’re seeking, I don’t know. I’ve searched for anything called a Cloud Gate in the structure of the darknet but found nothing. However, there is mention of it elsewhere.”

“Where?”

“In myth.”

“Great. So, I’m searching for a myth. . . .”

“Myths still have power, Sergeant. Sobol knew that. His games are predicated upon them. Myths are the archetypes that recur again and again in the hopes and fears of mankind. They have a hold upon us. The entire concept of a daemon stems from the guardian spirits of Greek mythology—spirits who watched over mankind to keep them out of trouble, and that’s become real enough.”

Sebeck shrugged. “Okay. What do these myths say about a Cloud Gate?”

“It was the gateway to the heavens and guarded by the Horae—the goddesses of orderly life. The Horae were also known collectively as the Hours and the Seasons. Their mother was Themis—the goddess of justice and order.”

The name tugged at Sebeck’s memory. “As in the Scale of Themis?” She nodded. “An allegorical personification of moral force—a myth powerful enough that she became enshrined in our own society as Blind Lady Justice—one of the only goddesses of our new Republic. Her symbol surrounds us to this day.”

Sebeck absorbed this, still uncertain what to make of it.

Riley placed a hand on his shoulder. “In Sobol’s online fantasy world, The Gate, different planes of existence were linked by gates, and those who controlled them or passed through them could control or change the course of world events. The outcome of your quest may affect us all, Sergeant.”

He nodded somberly.

She placed her hand on Sebeck’s shoulder. “Follow your Thread. I believe your heart is in the right place, even if you don’t agree with Sobol’s vision. Question everything. But don’t be surprised if the world you thought you knew never existed.”

Chapter 8: // Erebus

The Major stared down the length of Sheikh Zayed Road from his conference room on the fifty-third floor. Gleaming skyscrapers lined the twelve-lane highway below, creating a man-made canyon topped by familiar multinational logos. Not far off he could see Burj Dubai, the tallest building in the world. Its towering presence helped remind everyone that this wasn’t a wasteland of sand, but a petri dish of business culture.

Dubai was the perfect business environment. A blank slate—the way it should be everywhere. No interference. No taxes. No protestors. It had been a smuggling port for centuries, bringing gold into India and serving as a conduit for everything from slaves to silks. But now the coves and creeks on the coast had been turned into marinas for mega-yachts and resorts packed with sunburned Russians. First-world infrastructure and office blocks had been laid down with such vengeance in the last ten years that slow-moving pedestrians risked being paved over.

What The Major liked most about the Emirates was that there was order. Everyone accepted their role. The Filipinos provided service, the Indians and Bangladeshis provided labor, and expats from the U.S., Europe, Japan, and China did the business. The Emiratis . . . well, everyone needed at least one, but they stayed out of the way for the most part.

The only real authority was the market, and that was increasingly true the world over.

The Major returned his attention for a moment to the conference room and two MBAs tag teaming a PowerPoint presentation. They were here to parse reality into benchmarks and deliverables. He glanced over at his staff agronomist, who was listening with rapt attention to their bullet points, taking notes. That was his purpose.

But not the purpose of the meeting. The Major stood along the rear wall, ostensibly a back-office troll. However, these young MBAs had no idea that they were really taking this meeting with him. They were bringing a problem that needed solving, even if they didn’t realize it. They were the messengers.

His firm would get the contract. It would be for an infrastructure security assessment or a market risk analysis, or something similar. Korr Business Intelligence Services did not advertise, and they did not submit proposals. They were the junior partners of a security consultant to the engineering department of a construction division of a real estate subsidiary of a financial group. They had no signage out front and no listing for their firm in the lobby directory. Most of their employees were economists, researchers, and mathematicians. And very few of them had any idea what they were really doing here: preserving the global economy.

The two MBAs were still droning on about methodologies. These junior executives were always so earnest in their Savile Row suits. One was a pasty-white Brit, the other a Pakistani, also with an English accent. Probably graduates of the best schools. A wife and two young children at home—and no idea that there was video on file somewhere of them having sex with young women (or men) while they were on business in Panama, or Mali, or Brazil, or anywhere really. Get the footage while they’re up-and-coming—before they suspect anyone would care. Before they become powerful. These rich dynasties had been using offshore photo mills for decades to enforce loyalty with one another, their business partners, and their kids. Get them married, set them up as respectable people in the community. Pay them tons of money—but always get photos of them with underage hookers. The more perverse the better. It could pay huge dividends when they chaired a government committee or tried to go public with damaging information. Political ideology didn’t matter. They hosted junkets for left-wingers, right-wingers. The Major had cut his teeth on a Panama operation like that back in the late eighties, using cocaine and sex workers to generate potentially career-ending imagery that made the business world go round. Photoshop had pretty much ended the still picture side of the business by making photographs meaningless. High-def video was the only way to go now, and sooner or later computer graphics would do that in, too. Someone really had to come up with a solution, or the entire blackmail industry was doomed. Thankfully, The Major had long ago moved on to more serious operations.

The MBAs were now evaluating world commodity markets, highlighting key items with laser pointers.

The Major contemplated his present line of work—and what led him here. It was over twenty years ago that he’d taken his first life. God did not, in fact, strike him down. Instead, a problem disappeared.

He still remembered the musty smell of the La Paz hotel room. The bray of a two-stroke engine whining past outside while he stood with a bloody knife in his hand. The young trade unionist on the floor, her wide eyes staring at him as she clutched her throat, gurgling. Nothing stopped. The universe didn’t care. He might as well have been slicing bread.

And that began his awakening—his realization that the Western world was a bedtime story of comforting humanistic bullshit. Slavery existed everywhere—even in the United States. We were all slaves in one way or another. Slavery was just control, and control kept things running in an orderly fashion. It was what made progress possible.

But now the problem he’d been waiting on suddenly appeared on screen. A bar graph labeled “Decline in U.S. Agricultural Subsidy Applications.” He turned away from the window and tuned in to the Pakistani MBA’s presentation.

“. . . in certain counties, we’re looking at a ninety percent drop—unprecedented in the history of modern American agriculture. Farmers in these counties have basically decided en masse to stop growing subsidized crops—even though there is no distribution system available for anything else. Something is causing this, and causing it all at once on a local basis in defiance of market conditions.”

The Major saw it. Nothing else had the scope to do this—and with such suddenness. It had to be the Daemon.

He spoke from the back of the room. “Why would farmers willingly turn down subsidies? With prices rising, why would they not grow corn or soybeans?

“Excuse me, you are . . . ?” The Pakistani was taken aback by this sudden question from a junior staffer in the back of the room.

The Major’s agronomist stepped in. “Yes, that’s a good question. Why isn’t the free market correcting this imbalance?”

The Pakistani turned back to the front row. “Uh, we haven’t been able to determine the cause. These numbers are for the coming year.”

The Major spoke up again. “And you have on-the-ground confirmation. This isn’t just a reporting glitch?”

“No, it’s not a glitch. Agribusiness and biotech firms have a comprehensive network of private investigators, researchers, and surveyors throughout the Midwestern United States to enforce their seed patents. They’ve documented population movements, unexplained capital inflows, and infrastructure investments in alternative energy technologies, high-tech equipment, heirloom seed stock, and—”

“I assume this isn’t confined to the United States.”

The two MBAs looked at each other with some dismay. The Pakistani nodded. “We were, in fact, going to cover that later in our presentation.” He started clicking through interminable bullet points and diagrams. “We also project reductions in export crops such as cotton in Asia and Russia. Security services in various countries are reporting labor unrest in both the agricultural and industrial sectors. The number of container ships being placed into warm and cold layup from lack of cargo is rising.”

It’s tearing apart the global supply chain.

Staring at the screen, The Major could visualize it like a full-scale nuclear attack. But one that the average person wouldn’t notice—until it was beyond the tipping point.

The British chap took over. “We project that if corn and soybean harvests drop another seven percent, raw material costs for almost all processed food products will skyrocket. Low-wage factory workers around the world could suffer food shortages, with attendant increase in social unrest. Factory production and transportation might be disrupted, with serious follow-on effects for the world economy.”

The Major had to hand it to Sobol. The dead bastard was clever. They’d been too focused on the digital threat to see it coming. By physically changing the economy of rural America, the Daemon could render their investment reallocation moot. They could no longer simply wait for a digital countermeasure to the Daemon. Sobol was forcing their hand, and The Major did not like the enemy dictating the tempo of battle. They needed to act. But quietly. Without anything that could be traced back to Daemon-infected companies.

The Major stood and looked out the window again, at the gleaming towers lining Sheikh Zayed Road. “Change is our enemy, gentlemen. Change means disruption. Disruption means crisis. And crisis means conflict.”

That was, after all, why the powers-that-be had called on The Major. Conflict was his specialty.