Daniel Suarez - Freedom (TM)

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.