Freedom TM

the image is recorded and where it’s seen on our monitors, the empty background imagery of each camera’s sweep is substituted for the image of a person who is wearing some sort of electronic tag—to identify their movements through space.”
    “But how could the camera know the location of that person in three-dimensional space relative to the camera?”
    Shen was nodding as he said it. “The camera’s position is probably already known, but it could also be derived from a geometric analysis of surrounding landmarks. Software, General. It could all be done with software.”
    Haverford was still shaking his head. “But that would … it’s just not possible.”
    “Why not, Mr. Haverford? Do you think Americans are the only ones who can think ‘outside the box’?”
    Zhang was unreadable. “How do we fix it?”
    “The first rule of computer security, General, is don’t leave your equipment where people can mess with it.” He gestured to the screen. “What do we have here? Two million cameras sitting around in public? How many fiber-optic lines connecting them to publicly reachable network cables? Literally anyone anywhere in that complex chain could have done this.”
    “Then we need to have the cameras fixed. Replaced.”
    “And how do you know that you can trust the people who do the replacing?” Shen stood up and turned to the general. “I hope I have not spoken out of turn, sir.”
    General Zhang stared with great intensity at the image of Ross still on the screen. “You are dismissed, Captain Shen. I will be in touch with you soon.”
    Shen saluted grandly once more, casting Haverford a slight grin. Shen moved to depart.
    “Oh, and Captain.”
    Shen turned.
    “Excellent work.”
    He replied in Mandarin. “It was my pleasure, General.”
    Shen continued toward the buttonless elevator, and all he could think of was the great game that was now under way out there in the world. A game an old friend told him about. One that he had just now resolved to join.

Chapter 17: // Immortality
    Darknet Top-rated Posts +392,783↑
    The Burning Man Project has finished prototyping a fully functional Roy Merritt avatar linked to darknet and public Internet news feeds. Presidio and Enoble_6 have begun development of a “just-in-time” hero module. Individuals wishing to donate levels, credits, or powers to the avatar can contact any Order of Merritt signatory.
    Quillor*****/ 3,147 21st-level Programmer
    Loki’s traveling rig was a tribute to American automotive excess. He drove a customized Ford F-650 4x4 with a Caterpillar diesel engine. It had nine hundred foot-pounds of torque and could pull twenty-six thousand pounds up an unpaved 7 percent grade. With a series of three chromed fuel tanks tucked beneath each running board, that incline didn’t need to be anywhere near a gas station either. Composite-laminate windows and ceramic composite plating meant the driver and three passengers could recline in comfort while enduring a barrage of small arms fire. It was, in short, the ultimate vehicle for commuting through the Apocalypse.
    It could have accommodated five passengers if Loki hadn’t extended the storage area to provide room for various pieces of high-tech wireless communications equipment and supplies. Thiswas, after all, his mobile base of operations for running the one-man Stormbringer faction.
    Toward that end, Loki towed an enclosed forty-four-foot Gooseneck racing trailer, whose exterior surface was emblazoned with the image of a black-helmeted motorcycle racer viewed from the shoulders up and done in the style of a Japanese anime character. The entire branding effort was completed with the logo for Storm-bringer Motorcycle Racing, jagged with lightning bolts.
    To all outward appearances, Loki was a professional motorcycle racer following his circuit through the Midwest. The fact that his real business was hunting down and destroying at any cost a shadowy mercenary army hired to kill Daemon operatives was well concealed behind the patina of professional racing. With his big corporate sponsors (unwilling though they might be) listed on the trailer’s wall, he looked more than legit. He looked downright establishment.
    However, in this fight, as in all things, Loki remained a loner. He had no crew of mechanics. He preferred instead to communicate his needs through the darknet—pressing into service local maintenance factions to repair his fleet of razorbacks and microjets. That was, after