Freedom TM

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. Dollaramounts, 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,