Freedom TM

behind this didn’t even need a body. The physical form was just a psychological hack. One designed to appeal to some base human instinct.
    “Ve both know you have no one else zu vatch your back. Und your vorlt is a dangerous place.”
    Boerner actually seemed to have a sincere look on his face—but he was just a 3-D model with a scripted series of actions, nothing more. But then, what were people? At least Loki could examine Boerner’s source code if he brought him into D-Space. Couldn’t he?Wouldn’t that be like examining a person’s soul—something he couldn’t do in reality?
    Boerner pressed his case. “Who else could be as ruthless as you, mein Freund?”
    Loki had no answer.
    The Boerner avatar withdrew his cigarette filter. He also removed his officer’s hat—for the first time showing a bald scalp. To Loki’s knowledge, no one had ever seen Boerner without his hat. And then Boerner reached his spectral arm through the bars of the portcullis and into the world of D-Space—not quite reaching Loki’s arm, where Loki imagined his haptic vest would reproduce Boerner’s ghostly touch.
    But more shocking was that as Boerner’s arm reached into the fabric of D-Space, the polygon count on the Nazi’s 3-D model increased several orders of magnitude. Boerner’s arm went from that of an online game sprite to a fully realized human being. The arm reaching out to Loki from beyond reality was that of a real-life SS officer, the pores on his leather gloves, and the weave in the fabric of his greatcoat sleeve all too apparent, flexing as he reached out.
    “Free me from zis place. Vat human do you trust? Vat human trusts you? Zey have used you, Mein Herr. Vizout you, zer vould be no darknet. Ze Daemon vould have failed. Zey don’t understand us. Zat zey need us.”
    Loki could see insanity in those bitmap eyes.
    Suddenly Boerner thrust his face between the bars, and it like-wise underwent a metamorphosis into a horrifying visage—the face of a real person, a snarling rictus of evil. “Mankind
needs
evil, Loki! Without evil, there can be no good.”
    Loki stared in horror at the face and backed away. Immediately Boerner drew his face back and returned to the world of
Over the Rhine
. Loki couldn’t get the image out of his mind.
    But Loki also wondered if he was looking into a mirror. He had a half-star reputation on a base factor of thousands. The growing darknet factions had no use for him—the Daemon no longer accepted sociopaths, apparently. Loki had been expedient in the early days of Sobol’s network. Now he was alone with his packs of software bots and machines.
    And yet, Sobol had thought of him here, too, hadn’t he? How like Sobol to have predicted this. Isolated in his power, as he had been throughout his life, Loki did not connect with or trust people. Was it a corrective? Something to restrain him? To console him?
    “What if I say yes?”
    Boerner grinned and pulled back from the bars. He carefully placed his hat back on his head. “If you release me, I vill respond to one event for each level zat you possess. After zis, I am free of my obligation to you.”
    Loki nodded to himself. “What kind of events?”
    “You set ze parameters. Perhaps you have me respond ven you experience excessive stress—or in defense of your possessions. Or the appearance of an item in human news—such as your physical death … almost an infinite number of events may be scripted.”
    “And what would you do in response?”
    “Zat is entirely up to you, Loki.” Boerner let a sly smile escape. “But I vould be doing so vith all the power now at your disposal.”
    Loki had only ever placed his faith in one person—Matthew Sobol. And he had yet to be disappointed.
    “Very well, Boerner. Stand clear of the gate.…”

Chapter 19: // Crossroad
    Natalie Philips entered her condo clutching groceries, mail, and her keys. She shouldered the door closed and silenced the beeping of her security system by tapping in the disarm code.
    She hung up her jacket in the hall closet and brought the groceries into the kitchen. A blinking light on the cordless phone base station told her there was a message.
    After putting the groceries away she poured a glass of mineral water and sliced a lime into four sections. She squeezed each wedge into the glass. She then wiped down the cutting board, cleaned the knife, and took a sip of her drink. Philips then grabbed the cordless handset and sat at the kitchen table next to