Chapter 7: Weird Scenes Inside the Gold Mine

From /Signified ---- Book Two of 2084 Quartet

PLEASE NOTE: The following material is intended for mature readers only.

A Note on Language

It is inevitable, in a work of speculative fiction, that futuristic technologies, technical terms, and even everyday slang appear in the course of the narrative. For the convenience of the reader, the first time each of these neologisms appears in the story, it will be marked in boldface and hyperlinked to the Glossary of Terms and Slang, where you will be able to find a definition. Additionally, on occasion a non-English language will be used in the dialogue among characters. While no direct translations have been provided, never fear. The reader will be able, quite readily, to discern the meaning of these utterances within the context of the story.

Quick Plot Recap

In Chapter 6, Sinalco and Mall evade ArcNet forces in the high desert. There’s a startling turn of events that takes Mall very much by surprise. (Even in a recap, I refuse to ruin it—go back and read!) We learn more about what Sinalco is and how her mission in TexArc has not been what it seems. Mall is captured, brutally, by Netsmen.

illustration by Clayton Combe

Chapter 7

Weird Scenes Inside the Gold Mine

            “He brought them here how?”

            Fargo and Wells stand alone in the Eye of the Waco Great Pyramid. A large ring of chairs has been arranged on its deep blue floor. It’s somehow unnerving to see furniture up here.

            “He had ArcSpace give them a ride,” Wells replies, already lowering his voice. “Get this. TAVs picked them up at BoiCity and—”

            “Are you shitting me?” Fargo’s voice raises. “No one’s allowed inside our Trans-Atmospheric Vehics! Especially not a pack of shitubers!”

            Wells stares Fargo quiet. Then he lowers his voice even more, down to conspiratorial. “You think it’s a good idea for us even to be talking about this up here and you’re going to make a damn scene?”

            Fargo quickly nods his apology. He adjusts his collarless denim shirt, a soft hazelnut hue, and glances around the deathly silent Eye. “But that’s so yanked,” he almost whispers. “Bringing the shitubers here for talks is yanked. Shit, even talking to the stupid shits is yanked. But flying them here on ArcSpace? Fuck. That’s totoyanked. Just what the fuck is he up to?”

            “He’s operating,” Wells shakes his head, sure of his assessment. “When is he ever not? But at fucking what?” He pauses in frustration. “I can’t tell yet. This time I can’t tell.” He frowns at his fellow exec. “But it’s something big. Damn big. Otherwise why all this weird shit? He had ArcSpace orbit the fuckers two or three times. Stopped them off at the Elevator so they could stretch their damn legs on the Executive Platform.” Fargo lets out a low whistle. “He’s got them staying here in execsuites above the hundred-and-eightieth floor. He’s feeding them real vit. Giving them access to the realhos. Letting them play the fucking turbolinks, for corp’s sake.”

            “Shit. That’s got to be like giving a chimp a chess set.”

            “No fucking kidding. A Parker on the links without grass-trimmers? That’s the end of corp as we know it.”

            “Agreed,” nods Fargo.

            “The end of corp,” Wells emphasizes, “as we should know it.”

            “Amen to that,” says Fargo. Then their caution grows palpable. “Do you think it’s time for change...” he waits a moment before adding, “Brother?”

            Wells doesn’t hesitate. “Brother, it’s now or never.”

            “You figure?”

            Wells leans toward Fargo. His voice is barely audible. “Brother. Think about it. How long have we been subceos?”

            “About five years,” Fargo answers in the same voice.

            “That’s an awfully long corptime, don’t you think?”

            “Well...yes. But...so what?”

            “Who’s been here longer than us? Top echelon at the Great Pyramid?”

            Fargo has to think about it. “Well...no one. But top management turns over all the time here. Everyone knows that.”

            “Yes,” agrees Wells, “everyone knows that top management turns over all the time, but does anyone know why?”

            After pondering, Fargo is left with nothing but inspirational bizsayings. “Because everyone’s always climbing the ladder?” he tries, knowing the answer is bad. “Because everyone’s always fighting their way to the top?”

            Wells puts a kind hand on Fargo’s shoulder. “Brother, is there more top to fight to than this?” He watches Fargo blink several times. “Have you ever met a former subceo?” Fargo’s jaw slackens. “Brother,” Wells delivers the knockdown punch, “can you tell me exactly how long he’s been ceo?”

            Mindfuck. Fargo eventually stammers, “Well...fuck...for as long as...I can fucking remember.”

            “Brother,” Wells presses, “isn’t it for as long as anyone can fucking remember?”

            The Eye stands spacious and staid. Within it comes their moment of turn. From under his shirt, Wells pulls his TD medallion. He begins to rub it, between thumb and forefinger, reverently. It takes some moments of solemn deliberation, but then Fargo does the same.

            “So,” says Fargo, “we call the question, then, Brother?”

            “Yes, Brother,” says Wells. “It’s time for his golden parachute and the thanks of a grateful corp.”

            “We can muster the no-confidence votes among the Cratocracy, you believe?”

            “I have faith, Brother, yes. Many, many are Shareholders in Christ. We will have their votes, of course.”

            “And the rest?”

            “We entice. And we convince. Is corp on the right track by negotiating with these filthy Wobbies?”

            “Decidedly not.”

            “Is corp on the righteous path by not nuking the idolatrous EVe back to the microchip-age?”

            “Decidedly not,” Fargo answers again.

            “Well then,” smiles Wells, “his days are numbered. Allegiance and Blood Purity must occupy our boardroom.”

            “Amen.”

            Almost inaudibly, the floor panel begins to slide aside for the platform lift. From the CorpControl Center immediately below, the party of forty delegates, half corp and half Wobbly, rises with increasing boisterousness into the Eye. Echoes of loud voices and affected laughs start to bounce off the four tall, pointed walls. In the midst of the gaggle stands Bleached Wheat, bizmingling expertly with the Wobbly contingency. Next to him, dwarfed, stands the runty Wobbly leader. Bleached Wheat has insisted that everyone in the Pyramid address this imbecile, respectfully, as Grand Pooh-Bah. The little clown fairly swims in his new Crat clothing. All the Wobblies do, decked out as they are in pleated trousers, casual polos, running sandals—the works. They look ludicrous. Wells and Fargo scowl with contempt. Bizcasual is for the elite.

            “Have all these shitheads been cleared to be at the apex?” Wells sneers.

            “Having them here at all has been a fucking Security nightmare from the start,” Fargo gripes. “But they all check out as just the usual deadjobbers. Yanking takers and parasites, the bunch of them. All except for that one over there. That’s a CorpTrooper if I’ve ever seen one.”

            Wells easily picks the man out. He’s tall. Fit. Hard. Obviously not to be fucked with. “Jesus Christ,” Wells forgets himself, then quickly touches his medallion under his shirt. “Why the fuck did you let him up here?”

            “Bossman insisted. I told him it was a terrible idea.”

            “No fucking kidding it’s a terrible idea.” Wells studies the CorpTrooper warily. The man still wears scruffy Parker coveralls. He’s speaking to no one. He’s got a determined look on his face. “Who the hell is he, anyway?”

            “We don’t know. We haven’t been able to posID him yet. Someone’s apparently dicked around with his biometrics. Even running a simple fotoID comes up zilch. Hell, doublezilch.”

            “That’s impossible.”

            “Tell me about it,” Fargo shrugs. “But the bossman wants him up here. End of story. What the hell else can I do?”

            “Well, shit, at least keep a close eye on him.”

            “Oh, absolutely. I’ve got three cams on him at all times from different angles and two goons standing close by ready to grab him at a moment’s notice.”

            “Good,” Wells nods, spotting the Security men hovering near the CorpTrooper. “But fuck this shit. I don’t like any of this. Shitubers should never set foot inside an Eye. Above all not in Waco.”

            “Gentlemen!” comes a shout. Bleached Wheat has struck a pose, arms upraised, in the middle of the big white star inside the thin red circle centered in the deep blue floor. “Please take a seat! Anywhere you like! In fact, Wobbly and corpexec, please mix and sit side-by-side! After all, there is no upstatus or lowstatus in our Eye today! We’re all in this together! Right?”

            There’s a bit of intermixing at either fringe. Otherwise, the Wrangle Ministry and the subceos take seats across from each other in the large ring of chairs. In this faceoff, Oak makes sure to sit Hap and Jip on either side of him. For the past couple of days, his Wobblies might have been feeding and fucking themselves silly, as well as trooping around that cockamamie indoor game course they’re so nuts about here, but they haven’t let down their guard. Not for a minute. They sleep using the same watch system they did in the wilderness area, just so nobody can sneak up on them. They’ve kept their sigcaps rolled down tight over their heads, even if that makes them look more the damn fools in their fancy new Crat duds.

            “Before we begin, though, gentlemen,” Bleached Wheat ignores the segregated seating configuration, “I must ask Yupcap and Java to go downlift into the CorpControl Center. There are some things I need you to attend to there.” Confused—almost ashamed—Yupcap and Java stand and, reluctant as schoolboys, walk to the platform lift. “Don’t worry,” Bleached Wheat hurries them along, “I’ll let you two know when you’re needed again up here.”

            As the junior pair descends out of the Eye, Fargo glances at Wells. He smirks about the two whelps being dismissed from the big-dog talk. Wells, though, is not so sure. It seems to him that, no matter how green they are, the subceos for Market Enterprise and Culture ought to be part of this deal—whatever this deal is that Bleached Wheat is swinging up here today.

            “Now gentlemen, to biz!” summons Bleached Wheat once the platform lift floor panel has sealed. He still stands at the center of the Eye. “First, I’d be remiss not to congratulate the Grand Pooh-Bah of Wobbly and his esteemed Wrangle Ministers for having the big-balls to climb to the top! Gentlemen, you have arrived! You are risktakers watching out for number one! Cowboys in our neoliberal rodeo! You truly embody the spirit of El Capital! And we at CorpHQ salute you!”

            Bleached Wheat begins clapping, his stern look prompting the Crats to join in. The ovation swells little above polite golf applause. As Wells claps tepidly, he monitors the CorpTrooper off to his right across the circle. The man sits sternly with his arms crossed tightly over his burly chest. The number of scars marking his meaty biceps and forearms is alarming. There’s your worst nightmare for you, thinks Wells. Corp brawn with libby brain.

            “So, tell us, Mr. Wat,” Bleached Wheat resumes, “exactly what is it that you want from us? Tell us, why have you made the bold move of raising an army and capturing a meg? Why are you shaking the very foundations of corporation?” To this bombast Bleached Wheat adds some sweeping arm gestures. “What is it that you would like to see happen? Why have you come to powwow with us at the Great Pyramid? In short, please do fill us in on your bigpic!”

            The Eye lapses into silence. Oak at last stands up. He shoves his hands down into the bottomless pockets of his loosefit chinos—an understated barn red to compliment his thyme pinpoint oxford. He curls his toes in the oversized gelsole runners they gave him. As he chooses his words slowly, he scratches at his free-hanging balls.

            “Well...shit,” he makes a start, “I ain’t really nothin’ for...for fuckin’ speech-givin’—”

            “Oh, no?” Bleached Wheat interjects lightly. “I certainly wouldn’t say that about your Uncle!”

            All the Crats laugh, partly because they know they have to, partly to help mock the shituber. Oak sneaks a glance at Enron, sitting surly off to his left, afraid somehow that the big bossman means him. But then Oak understands that the bossman is talking about Uncle Wobbly.

            “Oh. Yep,” Oak tries to grin along with the sniggering. “That old fucker could flat-out talk, all right. Them raghead bitches made good and sure of that.”

            “And what a cruel feedhoax it was to pull on you poor, credulous Parkers, too!” Bleached Wheat gibes. “Such a mean and dirty trick!”

            The chortling amplifies. Oak nods his head and sits back down. He sees how it is. He slouches down comfortable in his chair. Stretches his legs straight out into a wide V, like he’s inviting any cocksucker that wants to hoover hard on his bangbone. Loudly, he hawks up a giant wodge of phlegm. He spits that sailing far out over their deep blue floor, landing just shy of their big white star. After it splats down—not all that far, actually, from the big bossman’s feet—the Grand Pooh-Bah yells out, “Well fuck you too, Mr. Wheat!”

            The Crats hush, instantly and fiercely.

            “Or can I call you Bleached?” Oak goes on, casual and speaking in his normal voice. “Ah, fuck it,” he chews on his own question, “I think I’ll call you Bleached if you fuckin’ like it or not. After all, there ain’t no up or low in our Eye today, now is there, Bleached?” Oak snorts. The Wobbly side of the chair circle has its turn now to horselaugh. “And, sure as hell, I’ll be glad to fill you in on my bigpic, Bleached. It ain’t complicated. Me and my boys took your meg because them Crats in it were assholes. Pure and simple and outright assholes, Bleached.”

            “My word,” Bleached Wheat is fascinated, “do tell us more, Oak.”

            Oak grins at hearing his first name. He sniffs and readjusts his balls in his chinos. “They didn’t let the Free Market run fair and balanced, Bleached. Them assholes fixed everything in their own damn favor so they’d always come out on top.”

            “I can see how that would be distressing.”

            “A guy couldn’t never string together enough jobbin’ to get out of his credshole, Bleached. And when you tried to daytrade your way out, well, your averagejoe never got no insidertips that worked worth a damn, so you was always taking the stocks-n-bonds bone up your ass.”

            “The Market can be fickle, Oak. You have to stay the course, you know.”

            “Fuck stayin’ the course when you ain’t even on no course, Bleached. Fuck that in no uncertain terms. That there’s the exact damned problem. There ain’t any way just to break back even in the game. So fuck gettin’ ahead in it. Either you pile up your workcreds or you yankin’ starve. Them was our two choices in BoiCity, Bleached. That is, before Wobbly come along. Windbag hoax or not, the Uncle sure didn’t shit us. That’s for goddamn sure.”

            Oak has watched the smiles gradually stealing onto all the Crat faces across from him. All except for Bleached Wheat, who is keeping his face straight. Oak’s not sure yet what the smiles mean, but he knows Crats never smile out of sympathy.

            “Let me get this straight, Oak, because this is potentially quite disturbing news.” Bleached Wheat pretends to struggle for words. “Do you seriously mean to tell us that the Crats in BoiCity were not letting hard work and honest competition rule the day in your meg? That climbing the ladder was not a real possibility for every corp citizen there?”

            Oak doesn’t want to admit to himself yet his sinking feeling. “You got a dick in your ear, Bleached?” he shoots back brashly. “You got shit for brains or somethin’? Of course that’s what I’m fuckin’ sayin’.”

            “All right then,” Bleached Wheat holds up his hands defensively. “I just wanted to be perfectly clear.” He rubs his palms together. “And, if you don’t mind my asking, Oak, well, just what would you like me to do about this terrible situation?”

            Oak looks to his Wrangle Ministers on either side of him, checking if he’s heard right. Hap and Jip look as confused as he is.

            “Fix it, Bleached,” Oak answers. “Make it right. If you don’t make things run square, who the fuck will?”

            Bleached Wheat scrutinizes all the Wobblies around their semicircle nodding at him in perfectly earnest unison. “My God,” he realizes. “You’re serious. Aren’t you, Oak?”

            Oak checks his boys again, who all encourage him with a nodding go-ahead. “Course we’re damned serious, Bleached. Why the fuck else would we come here to powwow?”

            Bleached Wheat drops one act to start up another. “Well, to be honest with you, Oak, I was wondering—half-hoping, really—that you might be coming here with something more intriguing in mind. With something up your sleeve.”

            “Up my sleeve?” Oak and his Wobblies are only getting more confounded. “I don’t need anything up my sleeve, Bleached. I got about a thousand of them damned flyin’ Netsmen of yours held hostage back in my meg. Or have you forgot about our little trust swap?”

            “Ah, yes. That.” Bleached Wheat’s smile is broad and mocking. “Best deal I ever sealed, Oak. You gave me something you didn’t care about. I gave you something I didn’t care about. Now we’re going to see who’s left standing.”

            “What in the holy fuck are you jabberin’ about?”

            “Bigbiz, Oak. Bigbiz. Bigbiz is like a High Noon. You posture. You preen. You try to make the other guy piss his pants and back down before you even have to draw. But if you do, it all comes down to who’s is bigger.”

            “Shooting irons? Yankers? Who’s what is bigger, Bleached?”

            “Leverage, Oak.”

            “Leverage?”

            “Yes. And you’ve just shown me yours. And I’m afraid, Oak, you’ve got a needle-dick.”

            Oak watches all the Crat grins turn into scoffs. Now, of course, Oak sees he should have known better—not trusted this deal, not trusted the bossman. He’s spent his whole life mired in knowledge too late like this. Discovering again and again and again and again that he should have fucking known better. Oak bolts up out of his chair, shouting.

            “We’ll term every last one of them fuckin’ NetExos of yours!”

            Calmly, “A Grand Pooh-Bah’s got to do what a Grand Pooh-Bah’s got to do.”

            “But we gave you outright the Terd dykebitch that’s been dickin’ around deep in your feed,” Hap protests. “Don’t that count for nothin’?” Hap looks hopefully to his fellows then adds, “And we helped you track down that damned raghead sweetpuss that’s been makin’ up all this Wobbly shit.”

            “Quite true, Mr. Straw. And I thank you kindly for that brave show of corpatriotism. The dangerous and destructive revoevo slice that traitor and that spy had fabricated has been purged forever from our ArcNet. Thank God, it’s now safe to feed-surf again.” The irony in Bleached Wheat’s smile is its looking completely unironic. “But, as I just pointed out, Mr. Straw, you gave us something you don’t care about—those two bitches. That didn’t mean, though, that we don’t care about them. We very much do. And, even as we speak, both of those evildoers are being punished appropriately for their crimes against corp.”

            Here Bleached Wheat takes a moment to study the CorpTrooper, off to his right on the circle, sitting in silent concentration. When he’s satisfied that the CorpTrooper is not reacting, at the moment, to this conversation, Bleached Wheat turns back to Hap.

            “So you see, Mr. Straw, you’ve committed a basic bigbiz poochscrew. You gave me a prize. I gave you shit. You don’t have the knowhow to be able to put that ExoTech to use. And you can tear those Netsmen limb from limb for all I care. We’ll list them hero-kia and give their families double deadprofit, and everyone will be more than happy. Terds aren’t hard to please. In their own way, they’re every bit as stupid as Parkers.” Hap’s face turns miserable. Bleached Wheat consoles him. “Aw, don’t beat yourself up too badly, Mr. Straw. Just a rookie mistake. Perfectly understandable, given your newness to the game.”

            Jip is on his feet snarling.

            “We control the meg, you turd. We control the waters.”

            “Mr. Ball, BoiCity is a shit pile. No one would blink twice if it were shoveled away. As for the waters, well, a few quick tacnukes and your meg becomes the perfect holding pond.”

            “Just leave us alone and let us run the meg,” Hap tries desperately. “We can run it good. You’ll see. Damn doublego profit. We’ll cut you in for a Dmega slice of it, too. I promise.”

            Bleached Wheat shakes his head sadly. “Mr. Straw. Really. What are you thinking? Offering me a slice of my whole pie?”

            “Then take that yankin’ CorpTrooper over there!” Jip is shouting out suddenly, pointing accusingly at Enron. “He was always thick as thieves with them damned raghead bitches! I bet he can tell you all kinds of shit about EVe and all!” Despair mounts in his voice. “We don’t give two good shits about all that one big union hokum, boss. Not for actual fact. Hell, I couldn’t ever follow half of what that Wobbly fella told us. I just wanted to get my damned hands on some good guns.” Jiplap takes a knee. “So what you say, bossman? How ‘bout just lettin’ us get the hell back to jobbin’ in the Parks?”

            Bleached Wheat looks over his shoulder at Wells and Fargo. “Well,” he comments, “so much for our fears about comprehensive indoctrination. These rubes couldn’t labor negotiate their way out of a plastic bag.”

            Bleached Wheat turns back to Jiplap, who by now has also bowed his head. Hap gets down on one knee, too. Then all the Wobblies do. All except for Oak still standing and Enron still sitting focused in his chair.

            “Your show of fealty is stirring, Mr. Ball. It truly is. But I’m sure you can appreciate my problem with simply sending you Wobblies back outside the Gater wall. ‘How ya gonna keep ‘em down in the Parks after they’ve seen CratVillage?’ You know what I mean?” Bleached Wheat glances at Oak, then at Enron, then back to Oak. “Besides, Mr. Ball, you’re repeating Mr. Straw’s mistake. You’re trying to give me something I already have.” Bleached Wheat fixes his eyes on Enron. “You see, I know all about Mr. Wat’s Uncle En here. Oh, yes. I already know absolutely everything I need to know about him.”

            Wells sits up straighter, alarmed by the bossman’s remarks. He looks, too, across the circle at the CorpTrooper sitting like a sphinx. The Trooper’s face is flushing. Not, it seems, out of anger. Out of effort, maybe. Sheer strain, although the man remains sitting perfectly still.

            Then Bleached Wheat does something totally bizarre, even for him.

            The big bossman speaks this: “No, Mr. Ball, I have something else in mind for you Wobblies. Something far more remarkable. Because you’ve been swinging those great big Wobbly balls of yours so large of late, your movement has made, I’m afraid, a lasting impression. Particularly among the lowstatus brainslow of our corp, such as yourself and all of your kneeling buddies here. Under the stalwart leadership of your Grand Pooh-Bah, word has got out about your One Big Union. So I need to get out a word of my own to corp about becoming a Wobbly. And that word is: NO. And do you know how I’m going to punctuate my message, Mr. Ball? Mr. Straw? Do you? Well, I’m going to put all of your Wobbly heads on spikes, and I’m going to send each one to a different meg Pyramid around corp—but especially in the IMS and PC. That way, they can be on display in the lobby as a reminder. A reminder not to fuck with me. I’m the number-one fucker in TexArc, Mr. Ball. The fucker of the first-rate, Mr. Straw. Everyone else is the fuckee. Your Pooh-Bah, in fact, will be doubly fucked. First, we’re going to pull him apart into four pieces and hang a chunk for the crows at each corner of the Waco Great Pyramid. Then, the Pooh-Bah’s head also will be put on show down in the Dominance Foyer. Right next to the Petrol Extraction Tribute Fountain. Let me tell you, there’s no place of greater prominence than that. That way, lots and lots of Crats and Terds will be able to see exactly what happens to anyone joining up with the Greatest Thing on Earth.”

            As he delivers his monologue, though, the big bossman, inexplicably, pantomimes this: Re-center on the big white star. Lower the head. Slump the shoulders. Ever so slowly, spread arms like wings. Out to the side. In a slow arc. Pause when they’re perpendicular to the body. Forming a cross. Hold. Hold. Then continue the sweeping arc of the arms. Upward. Lifting. Gradual until pointing at the sky. Then tilt back head. Press palms together in prayer. Stretch, reach, tiptoe, long, struggle toward the apogee of the Eye. Then lower slowly the arms. Lower. Slowly. Back into a cross. And hold. Hold. Hold some more. Then suddenly, but just a touch, but suddenly, let dangle the hands. Let drop the shoulders. Let limp the head. Just a touch. Now dangling from that cross.

            The onlookers in the Eye—Crat and Wobbly alike—are flummoxed by this performance. Everyone, that is, except for Oak, grinning and shaking his head about this dumb-show, and Enron, paying no attention to it.

            “Just one thing you got all wrong, there, Bleached,” Oak drawls once the bossman is finished talking and locked into his final screwball Jesus pose. “It wasn’t that goddamned Brand and Mall who fucked with your feed so bad. No, sir. It wasn’t them that melted the brains of all them ArcAir and PC Terds. Nope. Not by a long shot.” Oak shakes his head and smiles like a rat. “Them two bitches helped out, all right. No doubt about that. But they wasn’t the ones with the real can-do. The honest-to-God savvy. You see what I’m sayin’?” Oak hawks up another giant gob and spits it sailing. This one lands just shy of the ceo’s suede chukkas. “Nah. If you really want to know who done all that, Bleached, I can tell’ya. You might not believe it. But it’d be the goddamned truth. Believe you me.”

            Bleached Wheat doesn’t move. The Crats in their chairs and the Wobblies on their knees don’t move. Enron with his arms still crossed over his chest doesn’t move. Stillness swallows the strange scene. Oak gives in finally to the eerie hush.

            “All right then, Bleached. I’ll give you a clue. But just a damn cocktease.” Before he does, Oak glances at Enron. “Who done all that shit was another gal. The goddamned strangest, most giant-ass, most tech-whizbang raghead puss you’re ever gonna see in all your life. Good God, but she was somethin’ else. Wasn’t she now, Uncle En?” Cat out of the bag, Oak grins at Enron, grins mean. “You know her best. Right, En? You was the one bangbonin’ that monster tits’n’ass all the damn time. Wasn’t you?” Oak smirks and Enron doesn’t reply. The CorpTrooper looks about ready to pop. The ceo still mimes crucified. “Anyways, Bleached, I just thought you might like to know what the real deal was with them dykebitches. You know, before you chunk me up and lop off all our heads, like you said you was gonna do.” Still silence. “We Wobblies here...well...you know...we know all kinds of good shit about them EVe slits, Bleached. Shit you should know, too.” Not a word. Not a stir. “Like...oh...I don’t know...maybe how the name of the giant gal you ought to be out lookin’ for is Sin—”

            BWAAWHOOO—

Enron and Sinalco did bangbone a lot. They went at it hard, almost violently, as they both preferred. It wasn’t until after Redfish Lake, though, that Enron knew for certain she was enhanced. Some kind of extrahuman. That just let them bangbone all the harder. Otherwise, he never asked anything about it. Enron did ask Sinalco a favor, though, just prior to their defense of Mountain Home and BoiCity. Enron asked Sinalco to reactivate the nanoplosives ArcNet had injected into his bloodstream for the Fribourg raid. He pointed out how handy it might prove for him to be a walking bomb again. Sinalco agreed. She devised and turned over to him an ignition process. Focus and flex, she called it. To prime, he had to clench his ass cheeks. This drew the nanoparticles from his extremities, pooling them in his lungs. Next, he had to cross his arms over his chest, tightening hard his pectorals and biceps while breathing deeply and regularly. This supplied the oxygen needed to spark. Sinalco warned him how it would take a while. Finally, in her whimsy, she made the trigger him pinching his nostrils together and blowing gently down into them, like popping your ears. “Only softly, très doucement, my sweet,” she explained. “Otherwise you might be hurting yourself.” That had made for a good last laugh he and Sinalco shared together. Enron remembered their laugh as he pinched closed his nose, opened his eyes, stared hard right back at that Crat fucker who’d been staring hard at him for the whole powwow, nodded once, smiled, and blew gently down. His only regret was that he had to set on autosearch the gift Sinalco had also reactivated for him. But what else could he do?

            —OOOOMMM!!!

            In the CorpControl Center one level down, the explosion in the Eye sounds like a two-ton weight being dropped overhead—muffled but devastating. Yupcap and Java stare in panic at one another. After some very long moments, Bleached Wheat’s voice comes calmly over comm.

            “Yupcap. Java,” it says. “Come quickly. I need you.”

            Smoke billows out the ceiling aperture the instant the platform lift begins to descend. The lift itself is ankle-deep in offal. Blue and oozy globs of flesh. Long white splinters of bone. The two young subceos take the time to wretch thoroughly before ascending into the Eye. That space has been transformed into a smoldering meat locker. Entrails slide down the beveled walls. The occasional whole arm or leg plops down from far overhead, hitting the floor with a wet, sick smack. Most surreal of all, though, is the sight of their ceo—fresh as a daisy, not even tousled—down on one knee putting a kiss on his fingertips and planting it adoringly in the middle of the big white star. A star surrounded by a thin red circle that is spotlessly free of gore—bone, blood, organs, teeth, hair, shit—as though no such filth dared to venture inside that charmed ring of the corp insignia.

            “Folks!” Bleached Wheat jumps to his feet, throwing his hands in the air and shouting for joy. “It’s a Miracle!” Next he strikes a contemplative pose, hand rubbing chin. “You see? If we don’t fight them over there, we’ll have to fight them here.” He gestures emotionally to the steaming carnage all around him. Then the big finish. The rallying cry “Backward and Upward!” with each word accompanied by a fist pump—one, two, three—and cut!

            Java understands right away that the bossman is making newsbig footage. “I’ll edit and get that out on Vieworld right now, sir,” he says.

            “Good man,” Bleached Wheat nods. “Be sure to hit especially hard all the UltraChrist channels. Those fucking bible-thumpers will eat this shit up with a spoon.”

            “You know it, sir.”

            “Do you need the Eye hosed out now or later, sir?” Yupcap asks.

            Bleached Wheat checks his watchwrist. “Now is good,” he says. “I have somewhere else to be. Notify all these Crat next-of-kin,” he waves a hand generally to indicate the remains splattered all around the Eye. “And toss in the kia double-bonus. Just for kicks.”

            “You got it, sir.”

            Bleached Wheat sees that he’s going to like these two. They’re more on top of it. A bit less formal and a bit more fun. He heads for the platform lift, issuing orders as he picks his way. “Yupcap, you take ArcNet. Java, you’re now boss of Security. I hope you’re fine with field promotions. That’s about all you’re going to see up here.”

            “Yes, sir,” they reply as one.

            “And find me two more subceos to take your places at Market Enterprise and Culture. Right away.”

            “No problem, sir,” they reply as one.

            “And make sure one of them is a mex or something. Anything dark. It doesn’t matter. How about that one subsubceo of yours, Java? What’s his fucking name? Pace or something?”

            “Yes, sir. Pace.”

            “He’ll do fine. Make him Culture. Wave of the future and all that shit.”

            “Yes, sir,” they reply as one.

**********

            This is on upleft:

            Wherever you go, there we are! [majestic sweepviews, inspiring leadmusic] See the world, be the world! [talkheads appear—stiff, grinning, perfect like adverbots] More youdecide breaking news! The newsbig of the day continues to come out of CorpHQ—conclusive evidence now linking EVe strongman Adolph Stalin with the terrorbombing of the Great Pyramid! [vidfeed: blood-smeared slanting walls, guts and quivering pulp thick across the floor of the Eye; flashpic inset downleft of upleft: EVe strongman Adolph Stalin—bearded, swarthy, turbaned, dark menacing eyes] Unmistakable traces found of chemical explosives used exclusively by covert and Dmega elite EVe assassination squads—targeting our ceo! His miraculous salvation now known to be an act of Divine Intervention to preserve our corp! Just witness this dramatic footage! [vidfeed: Bleached Wheat standing on the star in the Eye; then reaching skyward in prayer, then lowering his arms into a cross; him then seemingly dangling on that cross; then a sudden torrent, like a tornado of blood, whirling violently around him—but him remaining safe inside the sacred TexArc circle; now him down on one knee, offering thanks, planting a kiss on the star; now him with arms upraised, shouting in praise: “Folks! It’s a Miracle!”] Yes, folks! That’s right! It IS a Miracle! Unbelievable proof of God’s Love, right before our eyes! Our ceo is humbled and reflective! [vidfeed: Bleached Wheat’s iceblue eyes ablaze, his tone patient yet long-suffering: “You see? If we don’t fight them over there, we’ll have to fight them here”; his empathetic gesture now toward the devastation all around him] And our ceo is defiant! [vidfeed: Bleached Wheat pumping his fist with each word: “Backward and Upward!”] Not to mention the unspeakable sorrow of piecing together our fallen corpexec heroes! [flashpics: official corp headshots of a smiling subceo Wells and a smiling subceo Fargo topscreen side-by-side; bottomscreen side-by-side stillshots of two piles of glop] The unspeakable outrage of this cowardly attack has mobilized the corp! Calls for revenge are pouring in from every corner of TexArc! An eye-for-the-Eye! Avenge our fallen corpexecs! At last, our ceo’s many calls for justwar against the EVe roguestate are being heard...

            This is on upright:

            [happy sellmusic, vidfeed: happers at The Arcs] For a limited time only! Get your Eye of the McSlurry! Corpatriotic red, white, and blue swirled fury-slurry commemorating the tragic terrorvictims of the heroic Great Pyramid! [hardcut; ominous sellmusic, vidfeed: actual newsbig clip of street fighting in a Gater District] GaterPol, secure-guards, misters, and autoshields just not enough? [vidfeed: armed rabble scaling the walls of elegant CratVillage manor only to disappear in bright flashes along its top] ClaymoreCo’s got you covered! ClaymoreCo, for that little extra peace of mind! [hardcut; stirring sellmusic] Like a rock! [vidfeed: gargantuan pick-up with bed-mounted canon and skylight ball-turret 50-calibre, both manned by paramilitary beefcakes blazing away at rioters] Not sure when you’ll run into your next mob scene? Get the peace of mind of the all-new Waco Eye! The most bad-ass firepower on the road today! Guaranteed to...

            This is on downleft:

            We humbly thank you for aligning in with Body and Bread! [soothmusic, serenesmile talkheads] We have always known ourselves to be blessed as one Corporation, under God! But with recent miraculous events confirming now more than ever our manifest corpdestiny, we must not shirk our sacred duty and heritage as Soldiers of Christ! [vidfeed, continued voiceover: the TD logo emblazoned across the sky as a force of Strykers and CorpTroops emerge from a lovely pine forest to attack a small village in a pleasant dell; they burn and raze every thatched-roof stone house; they slaughter every fleeing inhabitant] Without reservation or hesitation, we must take up justified arms against these Godless hordes of EVe who would seek to destroy our special relationship with the Almighty! We must slay without remorse those minions of Satan who not only deny the One True Way, but who seek through violence to thwart God’s inevitable march toward...

            This is on downright:

            [autovoice-flashpic: clear bluesea, clear bluesky, bump white sand island with three swaying palms, sailboat entering from left] No jobapps pending! Searchmode nogo! Recent job-hist: none! Workcreds pending: none! Current credsgrades: seventytwo and onequarter percent! Jobfind likely at zero percent! Daytrade options: BlowEmUp Inc seventyfour and twothirds wayup seventeen and fiveeighths, Smithereens skyrocketing twentynine to twohundred even! [hotflash in upleft of downright] Hottip! Hottip! Haloburton quadsplit! Buy at sevenfifty! Buy at sevenfifty! Doublego Dmega hottip at sevenfifty! Buy now! Buy now!...

            Bleached Wheat stands over Mall’s naked body. For several minutes he’s been watching her half-closed eyelids twitching. She’s completely gone to the glassy. Not unusual for the first few days on align. He smiles. A signer swallowed by the Simulacrum. Delicious.

            He’d climbed down into the holding suite through the ceiling hatch then retracted the ladder. The nanoglass cube is dizzying to be in, suspended, as it is, high above the 57^th hole of the turbolinks. For days now, golfers have been distracted by the sight of a naked young woman floating far overhead. That can throw off your swing. What’s too far away to see is how Mall’s lying in her own shit and pissing herself every few hours.

            “Flush,” Bleached Wheat speaks into the vacuum silence. Thick blue liquid starts to trickle down the walls. The power-wash takes several minutes, churning the room into a turbulent mist. Mall is pushed and spun around by the cycle. Bleached Wheat stands unmoving and bone dry. Once the cube has drained and blow-dried, Bleached Wheat says, “Block sig. Seal and lock. Cams off.”

            The six transparent sides of the suite cloud into pure white, creating a dimensional no place. It’s nearly ten minutes before Mall even stirs, and then only groaning and putting both hands over her eyes.

            “You sought solidarity with the masses, Mall,” Bleached Wheat says to her, no echo sounding in the room. “I hope you don’t mind that I’ve taken the liberty of giving it to you.”

            Mall is dripping. She struggles up onto her hands and knees. The dislocated knee has been snapped back into place, but is horribly bruised and tender. Without moving her swollen jaw, she mutters, “Sodding prick.” She’s disoriented by the white blur of the walls, floor, and ceiling. Squinting her eyes, she touches her scalp with tentative fingers, afraid of what she knows she’ll find. Her hair is a few-days-old stubble. She vaguely remembers being shorn like a sheep soon after capture. Across the top of her skull, stretching ear-to-ear, she finds the raised strip of metal, cold to the touch and unbearably raw along its edges. Mall has been banded.

            “A clumsy graft, I acknowledge,” says Bleached Wheat, “but why bother with quality for what will be, in essence, a temporary job?” Mall drops her hand and works to focus her eyes. “Along with your iband, Mall, we’ve permimplanted an ipatch and an ihear. For your total vidaud pleasure.” He laughs. “It’s all authentic Servwear, too. Nothing but the worst. I knew you’d only want to experience the real raw deal.”

            “Who the bloody hell are you?”

            “Bleached Wheat.”

            “I was bloody afraid of that.”

            “Good.”

            The past days have been a horrid fog. Beatings. Water, food, and sleep deprivation. Dangling dimensionless in midair. Banded and succumbing to the glassy—to the nonstop hallucinations of their feed. Mall can barely think anymore.

            “Finally time to end me? Had enough of playing with your food?”

            Bleached Wheat smiles. “It has been fun to watch, I admit. You and Brand have been the absolute stars of the highest-rated reality game show ever to stream on the Simulacrum. Everyone’s talking about it.”

            Mall’s twisted nightmares are true, then. She’d thought as much, but dared to hope not. After being banded, reality and feed become indistinct—and sometimes simultaneous. Five or six or seven times she’d been hauled from her cell, tied down on a board in front of a live studio audience somewhere, and repeatedly near-drowned by what seemed contestants vying for prizes. It’s all a haze, a miasma of brutality and humiliation double-experienced by Mall. As she lived it, she had to watch it live on feed. If she’s remembering correctly, the show was called something like So, You Think You Can Waterboard? Amateur enhanced interrogation to the delight of all. For every show, Brand was tied down beside her—looking heavily drugged, her skeletal body even more wafer-thin. Between near-drownings, as they sputtered and gasped for air, Mall and Brand were peppered with questions about the EVe infiltration into TexArc. About their odious libby plot to destroy corp. Luckily, most of the questions were inane and beside-the-point. Stupid but meaningless hyperbole asked by idiots trying to show off. Mall was able to keep her head enough to reveal nothing of consequence. Brand, on the other hand, confessed to all. Confessed to collaborating with terrorists. To using her privileged tech knowhow to the detriment of corp. To not being companyman. She also begged for forgiveness. Begged to be taken back into the fold of corpatriotism. Allowed to go back to being commonsense joe. Mall remembers vividly the gameshow-host voice crowing about these coerced confessions and recantations. Bellowing out jubilantly above the chants and cheers of the spectators: “Yes, folks! At last! We’re seeing dykebitchs for what they are! Over-educated gender traitors that need to get back in the kitchen where sweetpuss belong!”

            Mall finally clears her vison and focuses her head enough to locate Bleached Wheat’s face in the white box. His cartoonish features, almost garish, are sharper and even more off-putting in person than they are over feed.

            “You call that sodding reality?”

            “My sway, Mall,” Bleached Wheat shrugs innocently, “my reality.”

            “What sodding bollocks.”

            “It’s surprising how effective amateur interrogation like that can be. The torture itself is horrifying enough. But to be in the hands of rank amateurs who have no idea what they’re doing, well, that adds a ‘wow’ factor that I find, shall we say, distinctly revealing of the character of the internee.”

            Mall says nothing. She fights to clear her head further. She knows she’s going to need it.

            “Nothing to say, Mall? Crat got your tongue?”

            “Brand told you everything there is to bloody know. Poor soul.”

            “Oh, please, Mall. Terds can’t tell me anything I don’t already know. They are my creatures. Don’t you have a tidbit or two you’d like to contribute to the story? Maybe about how you managed to stream that miraculous Terd taste of yours?”

            Mall knows not to hesitate in her answer. For cover, she adds some sass. “I’m but a signer. A weaver of dreams. A conniver of bullshit. I just make the rubbish up and somebody else bloody streams it off.”

            “Really now?”

            Mall lays on a touch of anger. “My technical grasp is limited at best. But I’m sure you already bloody know that, too. So piss off.”

            Bleached Wheat applies his plastic grin. After a few moments, he says, “Okay. Fine. We’ll put that explanation to the test soon enough. There’s no particular hurry.” He takes a few steps closer to Mall. “I can sure see how you’re a protégée of Harrods.” Mall fights not to tense at the mention of the Underminister. “What did he call you?” Bleached Wheat mimics precisely the Brit accent. “His ‘crackerjack signer’?” The sincere insincerity of his grin never dissipates. “Well, as a doublego signer, Mall, I’m sure you can guess how I’ve been spinning you to my audience. Care to take a crack at it?”

            Mall will engage in any small opportunity for distraction. “As an anarchist bitch from hell threatening to destroy all that is right and pure.”

            “You are good. And?”

            “High time for her to suffer a vengeful death at the hands of justice.”

            “Remarkable. I wish you worked for me. You’re much better than Brand.”

            “Fuck off and just get on with killing me, you bloody wanker.”

            “Oh, as I said, all soon enough, Mall. But there’s a bit more drama yet to be played out. For example,” he checks his watchwrist, waits several seconds, then nods, “I’m afraid, tsk-tsk, that BoiCity—or I should say OakCity—has just been satchel nuked by you raghead EVe fanatics. Millions dead. Billions in property loss. Your evil knows no bounds.”

            “No...” Mall protests hopelessly.

            “If you’d like to see the newsbig coverage for yourself on Vieworld, Mall, I can reactivate your feed. It’s quite a show.”

            Mall slumps down onto the stark white floor to sit on her hams and hug her knees to her chest. “No need,” she replies after a while.

            “It is a horrible tragedy, Mall. I agree. But, on the other hand, a good terrorstrike deep in the heart of TexArc sometimes is just what corp needs. You know, to focus giddy minds and silence the doubtoms.”

            “Slaughtering your citizens for their own good. Is that the idea?”

            “Citizens,” Bleached Wheat repeats the word making a sour face. “Such a lofty concept, Mall. Grandiose. Sentimental. Constitutionalist.” He steps closer to her. “No, my constituency is much smaller than that. Much more manageable. Although, God knows, they can be a giant pain in my ass at times.” He’s become slightly distracted, scanning all about the white room. “No, Mall, my concern is for investors. Shareholders. You know, the only people that matter. The only people who deserve returns.”

            “You are barmy. Bleeding certifiable round the bend.”

            “No, Mall. I’m a winner. And right now I am winning.”

            Bleached Wheat darts out a hand faster than Mall’s eye can follow. He latches onto something directly behind her head. Something that instantly thrashes in his grip. He swings the object, heavy and invisible, in a wide arc over his head. When he slams it to the floor on the opposite side of him from Mall, Jowler materializes. Appearing suddenly out of the white nothingness.

            “He must have loved you very much.”

            “Who?” Mall says, suddenly trembling hard.

            “Enron, of course. He’s had Jowler looking for you these past few days. Prowling all over the Great Pyramid.” The RHex lies in shards on the floor. Bleached Wheat snaps off the right forearm still in his grasp. He holds up the lethal toxdart for Mall to see. “This was about to be jabbed into the back of your neck. A mercy killing. Love hath no greater gift.” He flings the toxdart against the far wall. “You EVens must be damn good at tech. I was told these things couldn’t be put back together once their main circuit went overload.”

            Mall stares at the killing machine, no fonder of it now than the first time she encountered it. “I had no idea that sodding thing was active again.”

            “More evidence of your technological shortcomings, Mall?” Bleached Wheat waits for a reply he knows isn’t coming. “Well, that’s neither here nor there at the moment. The real problem is love.”

            “Love?”

            “Yes. Fucking love. Not necessarily the fucking kind. That can always be sidetracked into lust. No, I’m talking more about the ‘we’re all in this together’ kind. That corny kind of love propagated by your Uncle Wobbly.”

            Mall is likewise willing to prolonging this diversion. “What sodding of it?” she prods.

            Bleached Wheat smiles at her gamesmanship. “Well, obviously it’s infected a sizable area of my corp, Mall. You’ve turned IMS Servs in numbers, and they’re notorious for being blinkered morons. One of my best CorpTroopers just tried to term me and ride to your rescue at the same damn time. Hell, you even managed to flip a lot of well-disciplined and well-heeled Terds. Talk about not watching out for fucking Number One. Jesus.” The Bleached Wheat grin is back as he waggles a wry finger at Mall. “You’ve stirred up a lot of corpheresy, little missy. Harrods would be proud. I’m going to all kinds of trouble to wipe this Wobbly shit out.”

            “Good.”

            “No. Not good, Mall. All that means is your devotees are buying the firm in droves. You’re responsible for BoiCity glowing green right now.”

            “Sod off.”

            “And now a gruesome feed-plague is ravaging Portland’s TerdTowne.”

            “What are you even talking about?”

            “A feed-plague, Mall,” Bleached Wheat explains matter-of-factly. “Melting the brains of every Terd who came into contact with your ‘Best of All Possible Worlds’ taste. It’s awful the way this infection just turns the brain to goop.”

            “That’s not even possible, you bleeding loony.”

            “What do I care for possible, Mall? What cares a terrified Terd population? All they know is that your cunning and diabolical EVe teeks have developed a killer stream. And while our heroic ArcNet techs are working 24/7 to find a cure, I predict that won’t happen until, oh, my Netsmen have finished shooting every last Portland Terd in the head.”

            “You are a bloody pig.”

            “Yeah. That’s what losers call winners. I’m a glutton for getting ahead, all right.”

            Bleached Wheat speaks the words “remove debris” into the white room and the remains of Jowler get suctioned away. He also says “camera check all angles” and stands perfectly still until he seems to receive some kind of reply. He looks at Mall and smiles.

            “You’ll be happy to know that I’m not just slaughtering my ‘citizens,’ Mall. I’m taking a page out of your book. I’m pulling the wool over their eyes, too. Bigtime.”

            “I’m shocked.”

            Bleached Wheat’s smile broadens. “You’ll appreciate this one. I turned that little ratfuck Oak and his band of brainslow brothers into yanking folk heroes.” He chuckles to himself, maybe authentically, maybe for effect. “They’re shituber legends now. Rags-to-riches averagejoes who climbed the golden ladder to the top.”

            “You must be joking.”

            “Not at all. A few days back, when we picked them up at BoiCity, we held a very moving ceremony down by the Brown Belt. The backdrop of the devastated meg was choice. Very dramatic. I gave a nice speech, rechristened the meg OakCity, pledged several zillion DollArcs to its rebuilding, foretold what a doublechoice megmayor Oak will make, you know, as a man of the people. All very upbeat. The whole nine yards. We made a huge Simulacrum show out of it.” Bleached Wheat’s levity disappears. “We only streamed it to IMS Servs, of course. To calm them the fuck down. Those that wouldn’t calm down, well, we’ve since gone in and termed.” He shakes his head as though in regret. “SaltCity was the worst. When those goddamn sheep get an article of faith lodged in their heads, there’s just no knocking it out. Half of those Parks are still smoldering. But we had to revoevo cleanse over in Denver, too, and some down in Foenix. Again, your doing, Mall. Some of the nastiest mobile-to-mobile fighting corp has ever seen. All Parker blood on your hands. Did you really think we wouldn’t stop the spread of your marketing?”

            “And now we nasty EVe terrorists have ruined Oak’s realization of the TexArcan Dream. Haven’t we? You’ve made him a martyr of getting ahead.”

            “Exactly. All that hardwork right down the drain for him and his boys. What a pity. How unfair. Just when they’ve made it—bam. To die a hideous and senseless death like that as bystanders in a libby-crazed assassination attempt on me.”

            “As ever, achievement ideology indicated, but not enacted.”

            “Your take-away, maybe, Mall. My message to TexArc?” He apes an ill-informed, fretful voice: “Oh my God! Are we safe nowhere in TexArc anymore? Will these raghead fanatics stop at nothing? Why do they hate our freedom so much? We better buy more guns!”

            Bleached Wheat’s grin is toothy, perfect, intolerable. Mall thinks for a moment of Enron. Sweet, brave Enron. She decides it’s best just to get on with it herself. She’s had quite enough of this conversation.

            “What’s become of Brand?”

            “All4s pubex. In a matter of minutes. All of TexArc is waiting to watch the show. That turncoat dykebitch will be strapped in the hotseat very soon, learning her lesson.” Bleached Wheat takes a few steps backward to reposition himself in the dead-center of the white room. “It will be a grim tutorial, Mall. One that all Terds had better heed.”

            “With me soon to follow?”

            Bleached Wheat nods, then grins again. “The broad strokes of your public execution will be the same, Mall. Yes. But I have some special things planned for you as well. Some extra-special things.” The lighting intensifies by several degrees. “You are the most notorious corpenemy of all time, Mall. Your crimes are the most heinous ever committed in TexArc.” The cube becomes brighter, harsher. “Those monstrous acts demand revenge. Corp morale must have its boost.” The cell is without shadow, hard light radiating from its every surface. “TexArc investors need to see this, Mall. So do EVe citizens. For their own good.”

            “Then just get on with your bloody sodding dumbshow. Stop your infernal blathering.”

            “Ah, you’d like that now, wouldn’t you, Mall? Just cut to the chase, eh what old bean? Well, not quite so fast. You see, there’s still the little matter of a few questions I need answering. All-important questions, really. Essential. Questions that can only be answered by you.” Bleached Wheat plants his feet more than shoulder-width apart and perches his fists on his hips. “But as we saw during our little game show, you’re just not much of a talker. Are you, Mall? Under extreme pressure, you didn’t give up a single scrap of solid information about your precious commonwealth. Now did you?” Nodding, grinning. “All very admirable, I must say. But I’m afraid your grit has given me no choice but to ratchet up my interviewing techniques. I’m forced to implement an even more enhanced form of interrogation. One that goes, strangely enough, hand-in-glove with male enhancement.”

            Before Mall has a hope of sorting out that last statement, Bleached Wheat’s clothes melt from his lanky body. His penis elongates. Comically, at first—if it weren’t also terrifying. His cock extends directly toward Mall. Immediately she’s backpedaling. Crawling, belly-up, backwards as fast as she can. Watching with alarm the weird willy undulating toward her with the determination of a water snake. As it advances, the cock does tricks. Its crown performs a few devil-may-care barrel-rolls, coiling a tight spiral in its wake. Then it ripples up and down, making an absurd sound wave pattern. By the time Mall’s back hits the white wall, the serpentine prick is several meters long. The circumcised head hovers before Mall’s eyes, bobbing and weaving teasingly, as though self-aware. Then Mall hears it. The humming. This surreal knob isn’t erecting. It’s flocking.

            “You’re bloody nano,” Mall exhales, horrorstruck.

            “Bioborn 2016. Bot-reborn 2060,” Bleached Wheat says proudly.

            “You bloody lunatics are conplanting over here?”

            “We’re not,” Bleached Wheat explains to her calmly, “but I did. And why not?” Graciously, he moves the snaking head to one side so that Mall can see his face from across the room. “I am the logical conclusion of our New Century Forefathers, Mall. Even more so of the trumptopia corpatriot movement. When I got into upper management, I figured, why not just go for it? Why not seal the deal, once and for all?”

            The dickhead swerves playfully back to wag in Mall’s face. She slaps at it, but it’s far too quick. Bleached Wheat, standing at ease, knuckles on hips, enjoys this physical banter.

            “What’s the matter, Mall? Are we worried about a little gray goo?”

            The cock darts in to nuzzle her neck. Mall flinches violently away.

            “You’re simply insane!” she shouts.

            “Winner, Mall. I think the word you’re looking for is winner.”

            The cock goes back to bobbing and weaving in front of her, as though looking for an opening.

            “Besides, what’s a little immortality after everything else we’ve done? We ran the old LNA Republic into the ground, Mall. We whined about how biggov doesn’t work, then we made sure to slash corporate taxes, gut federal programs, and mil-spend out the wazoo so that obsolete piece of shit couldn’t work. It didn’t hurt to stack the judiciary and rig the vote, either.”

            The cock feints and Mall recoils.

            “Buying all the major media outlets was a good idea, too. So was waving the flag, thumping the bible, clutching the assault rifle, and dog-whistling white nationalism. Jesus, by the time we got through with democracy, incorporation was a fucking walkover.”

            The dick darts in to tickle her ribs. Then up in a flash to tousle her hair. Mall kicks out helplessly and swings her fists wildly in the air.

            “Do you want to know what the best part was, Mall? What’s been the most gratifying for us during this whole process?” The cock stops dead still in the air. “It’s that the good ‘citizens’ of the republic never had a clue. Most of them never even knew what was hitting them.” Poised to strike. “While we tore the house down, they kept their faces glued to a screen. ‘Liking’ posts they knew nothing about, ‘following’ people they could never know, ‘sharing’ their own pathetic lives with nobody who gave a flying fuck, clicking ‘buy now’ for overpriced crap they didn’t need.” Zeroing in. “Meanwhile, we rendered them into data that became our private gold mine. We marketized their debt as we bled them dry. We blitzed them with fake news until they gave up on the idea of news.”

            The prick darts down to wedge between Mall’s legs. Its head stops just short of caressing the lips of her vagina. Mall dare not move a muscle.

            “Easy choice here, Mall. Either you actually answer a few questions...or today...at long last...you become a woman. Your days as a principled abstainant will be at an end.”

            Mall can barely control her voice. “You get your jollies raping women, do you? Are you one of those old pathetic Incel types finally having your revenge?”

            “Oh, please, Mall,” Bleached Wheat replies equably. “This is just biz. When you’ve been nano as long as I have, there are no jollies or revenge. Just leverage.”

            It alarms Mall most to think he’s telling the truth.

            “Only Brand dealt with the technical matters of streaming our advert,” she insists anxiously. “I’ve told you as much.”

            “Brand never experienced your taste. Did she?” Bleached Wheat knows Mall won’t answer. “Never mind. I know she didn’t. Otherwise, she would have told you she didn’t have the knowhow to slice deeper into ArcNet than her access allowed.”

            “I don’t under—”

            Mall is cut short by the dickhead nuzzling the inside of her thigh. She struggles not to jump.

            “Because Brand wasn’t triggered by your taste,” Bleached Wheat explains calmly, “Brand couldn’t have broken out of the Terd metaverse. Couldn’t have betrayed corp. Not like all those ArcAirmen and Portland Terds did. The ones you contaminated.”

            “But she worked so hard to—”

            The dickhead nuzzles Mall’s opposite inner thigh.

            “Maybe Brand thought she had the ability to rogue stream the Simulacrum. Maybe somebody—gee, I wonder who?—planted that silly idea into her head. Gosh, who knows?” Bleached Wheat arches his eyebrows melodramatically. “But I’d never trust a Terd—or a Crat, for that matter—with core expertise like that. Come on, Mall. You know better.”

            It’s dawning on Mall, and at the very worst possible moment, that there are a number of things she should have known better.

            “But her confession,” she blurts quickly.

            Bleached Wheat shakes his head, amused at Mall’s persistence. “Oh, we questioned Brand separately about how she managed to stream that taste. She was talkative as hell, too. Needed no persuading whatsoever. But the way she explained how she did it made zero sense. Not even close. She obviously had no real idea what she was doing.” The dickhead just brushes up against Mall’s labia majora, then backs away. “No, Mall, that kind of techsavvy can only come from the outside.”

            Mall must risk the question.

            “What do you mean by the Terd metaverse?”

            Bleached Wheat smiles. “Jesus, you never give up with the evasive chitchat. Do you?” Bleached Wheat’s smile dissolves. “You know what I mean, Mall.”

            Mall hates even to speak the words.

            “Affective computing.”

            “Of course.”

            Mall swallows hard. “I imagine massive and constant data harvest. Nil privacy. Machine learning. The cultivation of confluent behavior.”

            “Bingo. Don’t tell me you’re surprised.”

            “No...just...sickened.”

            “Yeah. It’s not for the fainthearted. But, hey, it’s great for the bottomline. A machine-zone hive is so much easier to deal with than a contract-based society. Why hope for behavior when you can engineer it? EVe will soon be introduced to the many benefits of nondemocracy.”

            “Unconscionable.”

            “Who’s to say it’s not evolution? Machines were never going to be able to think like people. So why not just reverse the binary? Besides, to be fair, Mall, billions of people had already stuck their heads in that noose long before I came along. China had perfected its state surveillance system. And the rest of the world was falling all over itself to use of our commercial surveillance platforms. Only you eurolosers were worried about preserving your obsolete privacy.”

            “I never had a hope, then, of pitching to the Terds?”

            Bleached Wheat enjoys hearing the defeat in Mall’s question. “No. Not unless you had the key to that virtual kingdom.”

            Countermeasures must have known. Harrods should have told her.

            “But the Servs?”

            “Oh, you can pitch to Servs until the cows come home. We sure do. We don’t bother to datacompel them. That would be an inexcusable redundancy of resources.” Bleached Wheat takes pleasure rubbing it in. “So, yes, that’s why your quaint adverts worked their magic so well in the Parks. Servs still have their will to will.” He pauses to relish a vigorous scoff. “For all the good it can do them.”

            “And Crats?” Mall asks after a moment. “Do you tune, herd, and condition them as well?”

            “Some. But not so much. Their conspicuous privilege keeps them quite corployal, for the most part. You’d have to be one self-destructive do-gooder to give up CratVillage.”

            Mall nods. Her body frozen motionless. Her back fixed to the wall.

            “So it’s we middling sort that wants most the manacles.”

            “You tend to be the troubling lynchpin, yes. But you know that.”

            “Indeed I do. More so now than ever before.” Mall will risk one last question. “And you alone conduct this whole orchestra?”

            “Who else could? I’m a one-man show, Mall. The way it should be.” His voice grows more serious as he speaks. “I know. I decide. I decide who decides. That is, me. Me, me, and only ever me.” Then a slight, almost sad grin. “And I’ve just decided that our little symposium is at an end.”

            Ever so gradually, the dickhead worms its way to the brink of Mall’s labia minora. Mall refuses to react. To give him the satisfaction of her reacting. She won’t do this for Harrods. Sod Harrods. She won’t do this for Countermeasures. Sod Countermeasures. She certainly won’t do this for Movënpick. Sod sodding Movënpick. But she must do this for Sinalco. To protect EVe.

            “You might want to keep in mind, Mall,” Bleached Wheat issues a final caution, “that I was never known to be a gentle lover.”

            Sinalco had prepared Mall for just this moment, for just this eventuality. It seems eons ago now. Way back in Oxford. Over after-dinner cordials at Luna Caprese. Sinalco had told her that if Mall were ever put on the spot about any technical streaming matters whatsoever by whomsoever, she should simply repeat the following. Sinalco then had Mall practice the set piece by repeating it back to her several, several times. To Sinalco’s complete satisfaction. The teek technobabble, of course, made no sense to Mall then and still doesn’t now. But she repeats it now, flawlessly, to Bleached Wheat. She even answers, without the hint of a stumble, the several hard technical questions Bleached Wheat puts to her. Sinalco had anticipated those perfectly as well. Dear, sad Sinalco.

            “And that’s all you know about it? That’s all you can tell me?” Bleached Wheat probes, extremely reluctant to let go his skepticism.

            “Even if I wanted to, I could not relate another detail. Harrods prepared me just so far. He didn’t want to divulge anything more to me in case I was captured.”

            There’s a very long silence. Bleached Wheat finally mutters to himself, “Well...I can see how that might get you into the works just far enough...”

            After some more moments, Mall ventures, “To tell you the truth, I don’t think I could have comprehended much more.” She waits another few moments to hazard a bit more. “It took me forever just to grasp the bare essentials of those concepts.”

            Bleached Wheat inspects Mall’s face meticulously. Seemingly every pore. As he does, the cocktip pushes forward ever so slightly. Tiny bit by tiny bit. Mall still won’t flinch.

            “Fuck,” he says, “I know I shouldn’t believe you...”

            The penis suddenly withdraws to lasso her around the arms and chest. Mall is dragged roughshod to the center of the cube to be positioned at Bleached Wheat’s feet. The cock retracts and Bleached Wheat’s clothes reappear.

            “Cams on!” he shouts.

            Bleached Wheat palms violently the top of Mall’s skull and yanks her head backward to show her face to overhead cameras.

            “Behold the EVe terrorbitch, folks!” he cries out, looking upward with an expression half-crazed and half-triumphant. “You just watched the Terd traitorbitch getting strapped into the hotseat! Now watch these two criminals feel our righteous wrath! Watch them come to know—together—the terrible price they must pay for their treachery and their treason!”

            The moment Mall realizes she’s on feed, that she’s appearing over the Simulacrum—maybe livestream—she starts to call out: “Conplant! He’s a bloody conplant you bloody idiots!” But the first syllable is barely out her mouth when something closes her throat. Fills it shut. Chokes her words. Engulfing her is the smell of oiled gears. Of burnt rubber. Penetrating her sinuses. Throbbing in her ears. Drowning her.

            “Collaborators in crime! Now collaborators in punishment!” Bleached Wheat thunders, waving his free arm in exuberant gestures. “Just as they plotted against us together, so they will suffer our payback together!” He releases Mall’s head with a rude downward shove and shoots both arms into the air, forming a V for Victory sign. “For Corp and Freedom!” he raves. “Death to Raghead Bitches! Fuck EVe!” Spittle sprays. “You Can Trust Your Car to the Man Who Wears the Star! A Man’s Gotta Do What a Man’s Gotta Do!”

            Mall kicks and struggles but can form no words. She feels fastened to the spot. Bleached Wheat stops his roaring to narrate final instructions to his audience.

            “As you watch the traitorbitch fry in the hotseat, folks, watch the terrorbitch taste the penalty for treason! Yes, folks! You heard me right! Watch the EVe terrorbitch live the death of the Terd traitorbitch!” Bleached Wheat’s voice is thick with the glee of this novelty. “That’s right folks! Just for you! Cruel and unusual punishment! We do it all for you!” He spreads his arms wide and tosses back his head, bellowing out: “Backward and Upward! Backward and Upward! Watch these dykebitches squirm together!”

            Mall’s iband constricts across the top of her head. It starts to sear. She has the full-body sensation of being strapped naked into a cold metal chair. Then Mall is Brand. Brand is Mall. Every nerve in their body unravels. Peeling under intense heat. They contort. They writhe. Brand strapped in the white-hot metal chair. Mall spasming across the illumined pearly floor. As one, they shit black, vomit green, piss orange, gush crimson. Then Brand is dead.

**********

            Mall forces open her eyes. After a moment, she realizes she’s strapped naked into a cold metal chair. She has no idea how long she’s been unconscious. Minutes? Hours? Days? All she remembers is the agony of Brand’s death. Mall has been cleaned up and dried off. That took some time, anyway. She starts to shiver with cold. A cavernous space looms in front of her. She squints into it. Slowly, as her vision clears, a majestic theater materializes. Ornate. Dazzling. Upward-sloping stalls. Three rings of gallery. Thousands of seats. All of them posh. Upholstered in royal purple velour. Dangling from the ceiling are three enormous chandeliers, gauzy and rococo. She sits center stage.

            “Don’t worry. When we go live feed, all of the seats will be filled in digitally with TopCrats and celebrities. It’ll be a packed house.” Bleached Wheat’s face moves in to hover over hers. He examines each of her eyes and briskly pats her cheek to make sure she’s awake. “You understand, of course, how I can’t risk you blurting anything out to a live audience. Only two people in the world know I’m conplant, Mall.” He winks and nods. “And we’re looking at one another.”

            “Mammonism plus GNR equals shitstorm.”

            Bleached Wheat smiles, almost fondly, at the effort it costs Mall to mumble meticulously this string of words.

            “Still trying to save the world, Mall?”

            “Out of control.”

            Bleached Wheat leans in to hear her better. “Which one? The cash flow or the weird science?”

            “Both.”

            “Well, you don’t need to worry about the assemblers, Mall. I don’t control molecular self-assembly. I am molecular self-assembly.” He starts to tighten the many straps on the vintage-looking electric chair. “Besides, TexArc has perfected GNR control. Nobody does it better. Ever since individual molecules and atoms could be turned into circuit elements, we’ve kept the lid down hard on enablement.”

            Barely a whisper: “For return.”

            “Of course, for return, Mall. That’s fundamental supply and demand. All for the sake of profit. What kind of market would there be without an energy and a population crisis?”

            A voice comes from offstage. It asks several questions of Bleached Wheat. He listens to them, then simply nods his answer. He’s back to their conversation as he resumes adjusting her restraints.

            “When are you EVens ever going to wake up, Mall? Global instability is entrepretunity itself. The best damn biz deal of all time. You fools need to start parceling out your nanosol power and gengineering. Not just giving tech away to any third- or fourth-world nabob you can find. Why revolutionize crop yields or eliminate diseases without raking in the cash?”

            “It’s venal.”

            “Mall,” there’s true pity in his voice, “people are lusty brutes, like me. Not libby saints, like you. We want, and we don’t much care how we get. That pretty much sums up the human story.”

            She tries to shout a warning to whoever is offstage. Instantly, her throat is blocked. She can’t make a sound.

            “Come now, Mall,” Bleached Wheat frowns. “Behave yourself. If you told them, I’d just have to kill them. And that would be unpleasant for everybody. You’re against conplantbots, I’m sure, for the same routine, dreary reasons everyone else is. Moral principles. A.I. and tech singularity. Immortality just not meant for us. Blah-blah-blah.” He smiles. “Well, I’m against conplantbots, too, Mall. Any more of them. I like being fucking superman.”

            Mall summons resilience. She forces out a whisper, “Survival of the fittest.” Her throat stings for the effort.

            Bleached Wheat beams. “Now that’s more like it. Good girl, Mall. You just relax and enjoy it.”

            “No,” she corrects him. “You sodding wanker,” she adds for emphasis. “Adjusting to conditions,” she explains. She has to swallow hard to be able to finish. “Not the hairiest sodding knuckles.”

            A look of unfeigned interest comes to Bleached Wheat’s face as he considers her assertion. He stops to study the fury in her dark hazel eyes. His remain intolerably ice.

            “Okay. I can see your point, Mall. Fittest isn’t just a matter of brute force.” He deliberates for a moment more. “But two counterpoints. One. I am conditions. Aren’t I now? New and unique circumstances. Everyone needs to adapt to me.” This argument obviously pleases him. The next one amuses him. “And two, well, not to put too fine a point on it,” Bleached Wheat cinches the manacle around Mall’s forehead, “I’m the one doing the surviving here.”

            Mall wonders if he’s mirror or lamp. Locked in, now, to be the same asshole forever? Just amplified in his shiny new hardware? A post-human stasis? A living death? Or is he able to—even liable to—change because of the new housing? Become something completely and unrecognizably uncanny? Not human? Does the ghost alter in this different machine? Will his software, by compulsion, reconfigure somehow? And, if so—into what? What will he, has he, is he turning into? There is no telling. This is alien terrain indeed. For a moment, Mall pictures the two of them, Bleached Wheat and Sinalco, quite by themselves on a future and sterile plain, under a lowery and caramel-colored sky, locked in perpetual, gyrating, utterly strange nanocombat because there is, well, nothing else left for them to do.

            “Gray goo,” Mall rasps. “Your assemblers run amok. Digital matter over conplant mind.”

            “All suburban legend,” Bleached Wheat scowls. “Your leaders know that, even if they won’t tell your population how they know about it. That’s why EVe started the Know War. Not us. You’re the ones walking a tightrope between KME and KMD. Not TexArc. We don’t share our unstable tech. We leverage it to seize market share.”

            Mall realizes that, in spite of herself, she’ll be channeling Harrods now. “You left us no choice.”

            “We handed you the world on a goddamn platter, Mall. All the old EU had to do was go along with our Glassea deal. Help us dominate the planet. If you had, you’d be sitting pretty now. Kings of the heap. But no. You jokers had to kick that platter straight up into the goddamn air. You rejected our deal. Then you stabbed us in the back.”

            “Rubbish. We’d had our fill of exploitation. We’d outgrown your love of blood sport.”

            “Too bad. That’s turned out to be a really shitty decision. Blood sport and exploitation are about to swallow you whole.”

            Bleached Wheat signals thumbs-up to someone in the wings. The house lights dim. The spotlights come up. A long row of them train down on Mall from overhead. The hotseat glows inside a bright and pitiless halo.

            “One last thing, then, you preposterous shitheel.” Mall knows these are likely her last words. “Backward and upward makes no bloody fucking sense whatever. History inexorably marches onward.”

            Bleached Wheat positions his face maliciously close to Mall’s. If he chose to be exhaling breath at that moment, she would feel it, smell it. Instead, she just barely hears his flocking hum.

            “Who has ever said anything about any of this making any sense at all, Mall?” Bleached Wheat speaks low then mugs a questioning expression. “Hm? Certainly not me. I’m just in it to win it. That’s all the bloody fucking sense I need.” He readjusts one of her breasts, making sure the nipple is exposed from under the strap. Pubex research shows how audiences love to see the cha-chas jiggle when an attractive malefactor fries. The sexy-violent index is one of the most important approval indicators they have for calculating Simulacrum ratings. “Profit is its own logic, Mall. Its own reward. Everything else can go fuck itself.” He brings his face even closer to hers. “And as for history marching onward, inexorably? Well, of course it fucking does, Mall. No one’s stupid enough to think that it won’t.” He takes a few moments to tweak that newly exposed nipple erect. “That’s why once we’re done sucking all the economic life out of EVe, we’ll make sure that China is ripe for the picking. Then India after that. Then Brazil after that.” He reaches up to square her chin straight ahead for the opening camera shot. “You see, I’ll let each region fatten slowly and in turn, Mall, over five or six decades. Then I’ll pounce. That way, TexArc always has an enemy. To keep making us great again. And again. We’ll always have a new market to annex. To always keep us strong.” He pats Mall roughly on top of her painful iband. “But don’t fret. In a couple of centuries, it will come back around to being EVe’s turn. Again. When it comes to exploitation and blood sport, I’m playing the long game now.” He pecks a kiss on each of her cheeks. He backs away. “You see, Mall, even if history isn’t exactly over, it has crowned its champion. Me. Private greed incorporating superior technology to manage public oblivion. Wow. That’s turned out to be an impossible combination to beat.”

            Mall feels her throat swell closed. Bleached Wheat signals in two men from the wings. They’re both dressed like him. TopCrats. One is a slightly cocoa hue. They stand at attention on either side of the hotseat, but not too close. The sparking can be pretty spectacular. Bleached Wheat leans back in to whisper to Mall so that these two men can’t hear him.

            “My only regret is that Harrods won’t see you die this horrible death he’s sent you to. That gayboy and I met once, you know. Years ago. Just before I became bossman.” One last obnoxious grin. “That’s why I had to have the old goat eliminated. So he wouldn’t see me still looking so damn topchoice. That old fuck would have figured out for sure I’m a conplant.”

            Mall’s eyes widen involuntarily.

            Fire with fire. That’s Sinalco.

            Affluenza. That’s in Mall now. Somehow. And about to be set loose.

            And Sinalco knew.

            Bleached Wheat turns to address the absent theater audience. He announces, in tempered and sententious tones, that what they are about to witness—that what all of TexArc is about to witness on all4s—will be historic. The very latest innovation in corp’s long tradition of cruel and unusual punishment. What is this upgrade called? Doublejeopardy. How does it kill? In the worst way possible: a synchronized real/vir death. That’s right, folks. A maximum digiland fivesensestim of the hotseat while the bad guy gets shake-and-baked in the hotseat. Horrible? You bet. Unconscionably malicious? Oh, yeah. But don’t the very worst deserve the very worst, folks? And won’t the threat of Doublejeopardy make evildoers—both foreign and domestic—think twice before betraying our corp? That’s right, folks. The worst for the worst. And pay good attention, too. Because near the end, just for fun, we’ve added a twist. Emotive triggers tailor-made to the lawbreaker. Because what’s mere bodily harm without also crushing the soul? In short, ladies and gentlemen, what you are about to see is a terrorbitch wishing she’d never been born. Oh, yes. And one more thing. Something else historic. Unprecedented. For the first time ever, we’ll be streaming outcrop. This pubex will feed live into EVe. Whether those libby gayboy ragheads like it or not, they’re about to catch a glimpse of Justice, TexArc Style. So let’s show them who we are, folks. Let’s show them exactly who they’re dealing with. Stand up and make some noise, my fellow TexArcans. Let all the roguestates around the world know that, in TexArc, we’re all in—for God, for Corp, for Market!

            Bleached Wheat pivots on his heels to exit stage right. On feed, the digital TopCrats and celebrities are giving him a standing ovation. Wild hollering and applause. In the empty theater, it’s dead quiet except for his footfalls. Without looking at her, the big bossman comments as he walks off, “Live by the sign, die by the sign, Mall.”

            The ritual of pubex begins in close-up. Capturing that first dramatic moment when the switch gets flipped. The idea is to elicit in the spectator, right from the start, three competing responses: hatred of the criminal, empathy for the human, a profound sense of there but for the grace of God go I. Lingering first on the face of the victim adeptly initiates all three. Mall knows this move. During her time in TexArc, she’s made a minor study of the rhetoric of Simulacrum executions. So she knows, as well, that the only chance she’ll have at anything like communication will come at the onset. In the few moments before the voltage surges into the chair. She fixes a penetrating glare straight ahead into camera. One she hopes will tell EVe that this is all bullshit. One she hopes will let Harrods know—will make Sinalco know—that she knows. That Mall knows they’ve turned her into their bloody Typhoid Mary. Then the hotseat jolts. Her face screws to pain. Blood seeps from her eyes. Her angular physique levitates against the belts. The exhibition is prolonged. Ghastly. Finally, across the bottom of screens, the alert EMOSTIM starts to flash. Against her will, Mall realizes that everything she’s ever worked for, ever believed in, ever fought to make happen, ever accomplished...is useless. Without meaning. A complete waste of time. With certainty, she grasps how her entire life has been wrongheaded. Without foundation. A triviality about to be erased from human memory. She accepts the fact as well that this fiasco of her time on earth has been nothing but her own fault. The express result of ineptitude, shortcoming, foolish blunder, blind stupidity. A complete and utter cockup. Then Mall dies. When she’s dead, the rack of her body is hardly to be stomached by spectators domestic or foreign. But the look on her face, her death mask, simply is not to be borne.

**********

            One day later, subceo Yupcap, the newly appointed boss of ArcNet, develops, quite out of the blue, a troublesome cough and the achy sniffles. The day after that, his arteries dissolve. The doctors at CorpHQ are baffled. Then alarmed when they all start to sniffle and cough. Five days later, though, even with the contagion spreading out rapidly in concentric circles from ground-zero Waco and the deadcount going through the roof, subceo Java continues to enjoy perfect health. Not even a tickle in his throat. Good thing, too. He was the newly appointed boss of Security. Now he serves as the newly promoted boss of ArcNet. Oh, never stop climbing that golden ladder to the top!

End of Chapter 7

Coming in two weeks: Chapter 8 of /Signified

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