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Fossen stared at the place. He needed to be certain the sheriff was right about Jenna before he confronted her. What had she gotten herself into? She had always seemed levelheaded—even as a teenager. Future Farmers of America, 4-H Club. Had he become complacent? Expecting her to never need his help? She excelled in school. Got a partial scholarship to ISU. Graduated with honors in biology—and walked straight out into the worst job market since the Great Depression. Here it was almost nine months later, and she was still living at home with no hope for work. She’d said she was volunteering at a nonprofit political action committee. Would she actually lie to—

  Someone suddenly rapped on his passenger window, startling him. He turned to see his twenty-three-year-old daughter, Jenna, standing in a peacoat and scarf alongside his truck. She had a scowl on her face. Even so, she looked as pretty as ever.

  Fossen sighed, turned down the radio, and unlocked the passenger door.

  She rapped on the window glass again.

  Exasperated, Fossen lowered the passenger window. “Jenna, just get in the truck.”

  “Dad, why did you come here?”

  “Because I need to know what you’re doing.”

  “It’s not what you think.”

  “Damnit, Jenna, I don’t ever interfere with your life, but I wasn’t born yesterday.”

  “I’m twenty-three. I’m an adult, and I don’t need you babysitting me. I haven’t needed anyone to babysit me since I was eight.”

  “What do you expect me to do? Just ignore this? Is that what people who care about each other do? As long as you live under our roof, you’ll follow family rules, and family members don’t keep secrets from one another.”

  He gestured to the fenced yard shop across the way. “What is this place, and what the hell are you doing in there?”

  She studied him unflinchingly. “The sheriff told you about this.”

  “Dave cares about you. He’s trying to protect you.”

  She frowned. “He should look after himself. He does know that he has political enemies in St. Louis, right?”

  Fossen suddenly felt as though he didn’t recognize the person standing next to his truck. “Hold it . . . what?”

  She sighed. “Dad, I don’t think you’ll understand what I’m doing or why.”

  “What you’re saying is you don’t think I’ll approve of what you’re doing.”

  “I don’t care if you approve of what I’m doing.”

  “If you’re living in our house—”

  “I can move out, if I need to. I just thought that with Dennis away . . .”

  He felt suddenly very hurt that she was so unreachable to him. She seemed to notice his reaction. “Dad. I’m not saying I want to move out. I’m just saying that what I’m doing is important.”

  “Why can’t you see that I need to know you’re safe? I’m just trying to protect you.”

  “That’s what you don’t understand, Dad. I’m the one protecting you. And I promise you, today was the last time Halperin Organix will ever bother the Fossens of Greeley, Iowa.”

  He was confused. “Halperin? How is Halperin involved in this?” He studied her. “Honey, what’s going on in there?”

  “Dad, if I show you, you have to promise not to try to talk me out of it. Because you won’t succeed.”

  “It’s a cult, isn’t it?”

  She laughed out loud. “You used to be upset that I wouldn’t go to church. Now you’re worried I’ve become a fanatic.” On his expression, she shook her head. “No, not a cult.”

  She put on a pair of expensive-looking glasses and nodded her head. “If you’re coming, now’s the time.”

  He got out of the truck and joined her as she crossed the road toward the brightly lit facility. “This is the old lumber yard, isn’t it? Do you need to tell anyone that I’m coming in or . . .”

  “They already know, Dad. They knew the moment you drove up.”

  As she and Fossen approached, the metal gates at the entrance swung open automatically. Fossen saw half a dozen people in their twenties and thirties moving busily around the yard, stabbing their hands at the air and talking to invisible people—probably on headsets, he guessed. Everyone wore expensive glasses, much like Jenna’s. An unmanned forklift whined past, seemingly under the direction of no one. It deftly lifted a pallet of unmarked crates and drove off into the warehouse.

  “Dad, you need to promise me you won’t bother the people working in here. Quite a few of them are doing critical work, and even though they’re looking right at you, they might not be able to see or hear you.”

  “Why wouldn’t they be able to see me?”

  “Because they’ll be looking into a virtual dimension.” On his uncomprehending look she sighed again. “I told you you wouldn’t understand.”

  She kept walking ahead and he followed, soaking up the bustle of the yard. It seemed odd. He hadn’t recalled this much activity here during the day. Come to think of it, he couldn’t recall a business with this much activity in Greeley in decades. “What is it they do here, exactly?”

  “This is the logistics hub for the Greeley Faction—the local node of a global mesh network powered by a narrow AI agent that’s building a resilient, sustainable, high-technology civilization.”

  He just looked at her. “So . . .”

  “Just come inside.” She opened a door in the side of the warehouse and they entered a large space lined with tall shelving. Along the far wall stood several computerized milling machines with their operators focused intently on their work. The center of the room looked to be a staging area, bustling with young people, all wearing eyewear and gloves. To the side was a raised platform lined with office chairs and desks where a dozen people were grabbing, pulling, and pushing at invisible objects in the air. They were all speaking to unseen people, as though it were a call center.

  Fossen nodded. “Telemarketers.” He turned to her. “This is one of those network marketing schemes, isn’t it? I’m really disappointed in—”

  “Dad! It’s nothing like that.” She walked up to a canvas tarp draped over a large object. She pulled it away, revealing an old, wooden piece of equipment.

  Fossen stopped cold. “A Clipper . . . what’s it doing here?”

  The antique seemed out of place amid the computer-controlled forklift trucks passing by. It was a century-old Clipper seed cleaner—a machine just like the one that had been in his family ever since the 1920s. His father and his father’s father had used it right up until Halperin’s lawyers seized it as evidence of “intellectual property theft.”

  He inspected it, leaning up and down. “I thought the biotech companies had destroyed most of these. . . .”

  “It wasn’t easy to find. We’re building new ones now, but I wanted to get you an original. I was going to surprise you.”

  He just shook his head. “This is stupid, Jenna. We can’t keep this. There are investigators taking photos of the house night and day. Halperin’s lawyers will claim we’re stealing their products again.”

  “Would you listen to yourself? They’re making us bow and scrape for the right to participate in the natural world. They’re seeds, not products.”

  “You know exactly what I mean. You know what these lawsuits have done to us.”

  “That’s over now.”

  “Jenna, stop talking nonsense. I just ran into their agents in the north field today.”

  “I know. That’s the last time. I promise. Our faction unlocked Level Four Legal Protection this week. It’s already been activated.”

  He just squinted at her. “Honey, none of this makes any sense.” He gestured to the rows of tall shelving, milling machines, and automated forklift trucks. “And who is paying for all this, by the way?”

  “We are.”

  “Oh really? How?”

  “Our network doesn’t use the dollar. We’ve accrued darknet credits—a new digital currency that hasn’t been saddled with twenty lifetimes of debt by corporate giveaways. We’re using that c
urrency to power a local, sustainable economy centered on Greeley.”

  “You’re going to wind up getting arrested.”

  “We’re free to use private currencies, as long as they’re convertible to the dollar.”

  “But why would you bother?”

  “Because the dollar is about to go into hyperinflation. There’s nothing supporting it. The darknet currency is backed by joules of green energy—something intrinsically valuable.”

  “I just don’t understand any of this, Jenna.”

  “My generation has no intention of living as serfs on a corporate manor, Dad. When people became more reliant on multinational corporations than on their own communities, they surrendered whatever say they had in their government. Corporations are growing stronger while democratic government becomes increasingly helpless.”

  “Listen, whatever you’re going through—”

  “Just look at corn and soybeans, subsidized with taxpayer money—creating a market that wouldn’t otherwise make sense. Why? So agribusiness firms have cheap inputs to make processed food. The taxpayers are basically subsidizing corporations to make crap, when we could have grown real food on our own. But, of course, they’ve made growing food illegal now. . . .”

  He started to walk away. “I want you to leave with me.”

  “Dad, there was a reason you didn’t want me or Dennis to go into farming. You wanted us to go to college and get away from here. Do you remember why? Do you remember what you said to me?”

  He stopped. He didn’t face her, but nodded. “I said that there’s no future in farming.”

  “Food is the very heart of freedom. Don’t you realize that? If people don’t grow the food, we both know who will: biotech companies like Halperin Organix. How can people be free if they can’t feed themselves without getting sued for patent violations?”

  He looked around the warehouse as workers passed by. “Look, your mother and I did the best we could for—”

  She came up and put a hand on his shoulder. “I know you did. You’re honest. So was granddad. And so am I. But they’ve rigged the game. It was like this during the Gilded Age of the 1890s. And then again in the late 1920s. It’s nothing new. We’re just trying to break the cycle.”

  He stared at her, unsure whether he wanted to understand what she was saying. “Then you’re not coming home with me?”

  She shook her head. “No. I’ve got work to do. I’ll be back home later tonight. ”

  He shrugged. “You know, I worry about you. You and your brother. I know it hasn’t been easy. I . . . there’s no real jobs anymore. I feel like we’ve let you down.” Fossen started to tear up.

  She hugged him tightly. “Dad, you didn’t let me down.” She looked back up at him. “You taught me everything I need to know: self-reliance, self-respect, community. Just don’t be surprised if I actually put it to use.”

  Fossen sat in his La-Z-Boy chair with the television off. He listened to the old house settling. To the ticking of the grandfather clock in the foyer and the refrigerator fan turning on and off as the minutes passed.

  It was late.

  Then he heard the dogs barking and a car coming up the long drive. He didn’t move. He heard footsteps on the back porch, and then the door in the mudroom squeak open and thump closed. Still he sat motionless.

  A creak on the floorboards nearby. Jenna’s voice. “Dad? It’s late. You okay?”

  He just held up a letter on embossed stationery. “You know, it’s been nearly five years. And after all that time, it’s just takes one letter.”

  She stood in the doorway.

  “How did you do it?”

  “I told you.”

  “No. You really didn’t, Jenna.” He looked up at her. “How does a twenty-three-year-old kid get a multibillion-dollar company to drop a lawsuit?”

  “It was the Daemon.”

  “What is the Daemon?”

  “It’s a digital monster that eats corporate networks. They’re scared to death of it—because it has no fear.”

  He turned to face the dark television screen again. They sat in silence for several moments.

  “What happens now?”

  “That depends on whether you want to continue running this place as part of their system.”

  Fossen looked up at the framed photograph of his eldest son in dress uniform on a nearby bookshelf. He nodded. “I didn’t realize we had two warriors in the family.”

  He turned around to face her. “What do we do?”

  She smiled. “The first thing we do is stop planting corn.”

  “And plant what?”

  “What people need.”

  Chapter 11: // Hunted

  Southhaven was a self-styled “six-star” golf resort catering to business. Pharmaceutical companies marketing blood thinners to cardiovascular surgeons, investment retreats, political fund-raisers—all of them were capable of filling the two hundred and eighty outrageously expensive guest bungalows. In another age it might have been a duke’s estate—a place where the affairs of men might be discussed with sophistication while wives strolled the gardens and the children took riding lessons. Now it was a rental that offered double mileage points.

  With a world-class golf course, four restaurants, and a bar that permitted cigar smoking, Southhaven Golf Resort was the ideal place to get business done in a relaxed atmosphere. The resort was located on Ocean Island—one of several barrier islands off the southern Atlantic coast of Georgia. Gated and patrolled, the private island consisted of the Southhaven resort, its golf course, and a hundred or so sprawling Mediterranean-style beach houses—third or fourth homes to people looking for somewhere to dump capital gains. Most of the homes were unoccupied at any given time.

  A big selling point for Ocean Island was its remoteness. It was buffered by a mile and a half of marshland to the west and north and linked to the mainland by a single causeway. To the east and south lay only the Atlantic Ocean.

  In short, it was perfect for The Major’s purpose. He’d long ago graduated from clandestine meetings in run-down safe houses or industrial spaces. He was the establishment now, and he enjoyed its perquisites.

  The Major sat on the arm of a sofa in their Emperor Bungalow, talking on his encrypted cell phone with a broker in Hong Kong. He glanced at his watch. Eleven fifty P.M. “Yes. It should be part of the dark liquidity pool. Right. Two hundred thousand shares.”

  He looked up at the dining room to see half a dozen senior managers of international security and military providers gathered around a table strewn with maps of the Midwestern United States, photographs, and documents. No two of the men had the same accent—South African, Eastern European, Australian, American, British, Spanish. Several were smoking as they pondered the maps. They were debating something, and the British executive motioned for The Major to rejoin the table.

  He knew he wouldn’t have too many more chances to shift his investments. And he wasn’t about to miss the upcoming event.

  The Major nodded and spoke into the phone. “Yeah. Empty the Sutherland—”

  His phone connection suddenly dissolved in a wave of static. The Major looked at the phone’s display and saw the message “Connection Lost.” He cursed and moved to dial again when he realized he suddenly had no network signal.

  “Damnit!”

  The Major looked up to see one of the nearby security executives putting his own phone onto his belt clip.

  The man shrugged to the others. “No signal.” Then pointed to a map. “Look, I’ll call them back, but we’re going to need materiel in-country for security teams well before then.”

  But The Major was no longer concerned with logistics for the counterinsurgency campaign. He was suddenly concerned about his own survival.

  They had just lost wireless connectivity. The Major remembered all too well that the attack at Building Twenty-Nine was preceded by radio jamming. The FBI operation at Sobol’s mansion was also plagued by wireless communications problems—all caused
by ultrawideband signals. The same technology used by the Daemon’s automated vehicles to communicate with the darknet. It was battle-level bandwidth that steamrolled everything else.

  The Major reached for a remote control on the coffee table in front of him. He used it to turn on the radio in the living room entertainment center. Nothing but static. He kept scanning stations.

  The South African executive frowned at him. “Ag, Major. We need you to make a decision here. Can we hold off on the stereo?”

  The Major wasn’t listening. His combat instincts had kicked in. The chatter of the senior executives at the table faded, and his senses focused on his immediate surroundings. On the significance of every sound. It brought him back to El Salvador. Listening for the snap of a branch—or for an unearthly animal silence that signaled a hastily prepared ambush. He heard the nearby men arguing as only muffled sounds. The footsteps of a Romanian private security contractor walking to the service tray near the curtained window to pour more coffee commanded his attention. The heavy drapes behind the man billowed as conditioned air washed over them.

  Then an unexplained sound, like a tent door being unzipped, came from the courtyard outside—and it kept unzipping—getting louder.

  The next few moments, he felt as though he were pulling himself through a pool of water—his mind racing ahead, screaming at his body to keep up. He pushed off the sofa and charged toward the contractor standing near the drape-covered window.

  The man started to turn, apparently sensing danger, but The Major leapt into the air, delivering a flying dropkick that sent the Romanian headlong through the thick drapes and French doors altogether, with a deafening crash.

  Just then, the front door to the bungalow burst open as a human-sized piece of twisted machinery blasted through it going eighty miles an hour. It careened across the room sending pieces of metal and plastic ricocheting off the walls, overturning the table, and clearing the men there off their feet.

  The Major didn’t look back as the deafening sound of powerful motorcycle engines suddenly erupted all around the bungalow. Behind him, he could hear screaming and motorcycles engines so loud the noise was physically painful. He ran through the smashed French doors, and once outside he saw the stunned and bloody Romanian trying to get up in a field of broken glass and splintered wood. The Major stomped on the man’s chest, flattening him on the patio stones.