Daniel Suarez - Freedom (TM)

There was silence for several moments.

NSA: “What do they want?”

BCM: “They need Army Regulation 500-3 amended to include private military contractors. And then they expect it to be invoked.”

DIA: “You expect us to suspend the Constitution ? Are you insane?”

BCM: “You’re to stay out of the way while they deal with the Daemon. If you do so, global financial institutions will support the dollar—of course, there will need to be economic and social reforms put in place first to ensure a return to fiscal discipline.”

The government half of the table looked like they were pondering violence.

DIA: “Why are you doing this?”

BCM: “My clients are simply defending their property—they own the genes being stolen by the Daemon’s operatives. They own the networks and software it has compromised. They own the global brands it has undermined. Representative government doesn’t have the will to defeat this threat.”

DIA (to the NSA director): “Have him arrested!”

The BCM representative gestured to the phone near the NSA director’s chair.

BCM: “It’s your call. Try to arrest our people. Try to have the military interfere with our security operations. I think you’ll find that no one in your government has the stomach for it. We are not the enemy of America.”

NSA: “I don’t know what you are. But some people in government still take seriously their oath to uphold the Constitution.”

The NSA director picked up the phone and started dialing.

Jon Ross moved through the crowd that had gathered around a soup kitchen. Grim-looking, recently middle-class refugees surged toward the queues. He could see the isolated D-Space call-outs of darknet members keeping order.

“Form four lines! Four lines, please!”

Ross stood up on the bumper of an abandoned car and gazed across a vast tent city, accumulated like so much plaque at the confluence of two interstate highways outside of Des Moines, Iowa. It was actually a mixed tent/car/RV city. He estimated several thousand makeshift campsites. There was music, the buzz of voices, dogs barking, and the shouts of children playing in the maze of humanity. The acrid smell of people cooking over magazine-and-newspaper fires filled the air.

Ross searched for a path through the crowd and noticed a current of people flowing along a makeshift lane. He headed toward it, inching his way through a mass of people. He caught most of a conversation at the end of a soup kitchen line as he edged past. . . .

“Where were you headed?”

“We were trying to reach Ohio—my sister’s in Columbus—but the bastards privatized the interstate. The tolls are insane.”

“We couldn’t afford gas. I’ve been trying to trade my truck for a motorcycle. You know anybody who has one?”

“No, sorry. . . .”

Ross reached the pathway and started passing individual camps—recent arrivals to homelessness. People with Infinitis and Lexus sedans. Furniture piled into the backs of expensive, crew-cab pickup trucks. A few people even had living room sets with sofas and matching chairs set up beneath tarps. Others used high-end camping gear meant for a trip to the lake. Still others sat, looking dazed and lost, in well-appointed camping trailers and motor homes. An economic hurricane had passed through these people’s lives, and they were still in shock.

Ross did see one burgeoning business rising out of the ashes of consumer culture. Several heavily armed men were standing atop a container truck as brokers at the open doorway haggled with refugees. A banner hanging along the side read: WE BUY WATCHES AND JEWELRY. Ross had seen them in every tent city—hustlers repatriating luxury items for sale back to Asian markets, where the real money was. High-value items worth their shipping weight.

Meanwhile, the bulky stuff—the plasma-screen televisions and furniture—was all winding up in piles, sold cheap to be stripped of metals and fabrics, and wood. Already trash was accumulating into mounds—some of it burning.

Ross finally reached the edge of a darknet medical clinic. A cluster of call-outs hovered there in D-Space. He did a quick search and suddenly his target flashed—a second-level Horticulturalist named Hank_19 .

In a few moments Ross approached a weathered but hardy-looking man in his forties wearing a baseball cap, jeans, and a work shirt. He was lowering boxes off the back of a thirty-year-old stake bed truck into the waiting hands of clinic workers.

Ross waved, and Hank_19 waved back.

“You still headed to Greeley?”

“Yeah, just as soon as we drop off these supplies.”

“I appreciate the ride. Gas shortages have made traveling difficult.” Ross joined the crew off-loading and in a few minutes they had cleared the truck bed. Hank_19 wiped his brow and hopped off the tailgate. “Damn it’s hot.” He extended his calloused hand. “Henry Fossen. Call me Hank.”

Ross shook his hand. “You don’t go in for darknet handles, I take it.”

“My father gave me my name, and I intend to use it. I would’ve just selected the handle ‘Hank,’ but eighteen Hanks already beat me to it. You got a real name?”

“Jon.”

“All right, Jon no-last-name.” He looked up at Ross’s call-out. “I guess a twelfth-level Rogue’s gotta be secretive. What the hell’s a ‘Rogue’ do on the darknet, anyway?” He slammed the tailgate closed. “I thought rogues were bad guys.”

Ross laughed. “In the darknet we’re more like scouts. We infiltrate systems and facilities, and we detect threats to the network. Move about unseen, that sort of thing.”

“Oh, reconnaissance .”

“You could say that.”

“My boy’s in a recon regiment overseas.”

“I hope he comes home safe.”

“So do I. And I hope we get this economic mess sorted out before then.” He glanced up at Ross’s call-out again. “Well, you’ve got a four-and-a-half-star reputation on a three K base—which means you must be doing something right. Hop in.”

Fossen whistled to two younger men cradling scoped AR-15 rifles. They wore tactical gear and body armor—fourth-level Fighters with Scandinavian-sounding network handles. They had been busy talking to a young nurse at the aid station. They nodded to Fossen and came running, hopping up into the cargo bed.

Ross got into the cab with Fossen, and they were soon easing the old Ford stake bed through the tent city crowd.

Ross gestured to the truck. “Biodiesel?”

“No. Dimethyl ether. They split the water in Greeley with wind turbine electricity and add the hydrogen to something to create hydrocarbons. Makes a pretty good diesel fuel. I still don’t quite understand it. I had no idea half this stuff existed until a few months ago.”

“So, the guards . . . are you expecting trouble?”

He shook his head. “No. The town council requires armed escorts down to the city. A lot of desperate folks out here. But there’s a darknet recruiting station to the right. Hopefully it’ll get people sorted out in the next few months.”

Ross looked over to see a series of motor homes resembling bookmobiles. Dozens of call-outs clustered around them. Lines of civilians were waiting to be interviewed by the automated recruiting bot of the Daemon—what was known as The Voice. Ross had gone through a similar process, just not with such a crowd.