“How does that happen?”

“Unexpected interference between the D7 and the brain’s neural signals,” Tony said. “Which happens more often than it should. They run all the software through brain simulators before they upload it into customers, but real brains are unique, and Haden brains are even more so because of how the disease messes with the structure. So there’s always something unexpected going on. This patch should fix the problem before it causes gallstones. Or at least if gallstones happen, they won’t be traced back to the neural network.”

“Wonderful,” I said. “You’re making me glad it’s not a Santa Ana network in my head.”

“Well, to be fair, it’s not just Santa Ana,” Tony said. He nodded at me. “What do you have in there?”

“It’s a Raytheon,” I said.

“Wow,” Tony said. “Old school. They got out of the neural network business a decade ago.”

“I didn’t need to hear that,” I said.

Tony waved it off. “Their maintenance is handled by Hubbard,” he said.

“Excuse me?” I said. I was momentarily shocked.

“Hubbard Technologies,” Tony said. “Lucas Hubbard’s first company, before he formed Accelerant. Hubbard doesn’t build networks—another Accelerant company does that—but Hubbard makes a lot of money off of maintaining the systems of companies who left the field after the first gold rush. He did a lot of the early coding and patching himself, if you believe his corporate PR.”

“Okay,” I said. The sudden intrusion of Hubbard into my head, literally as well as figuratively, had thrown me off.

“I’ve done work for Hubbard, too,” Tony said. “Just a couple of months ago, as a matter of fact. Trust me, they have their issues.”

“Do I want to know?” I asked.

“Suffered any colon spasms recently?”

“Uh,” I said. “No.”

“Then nothing you need to worry about.”

“Lovely.”

“I’ve worked with them all,” Tony said. “All the networks. The biggest issue isn’t neural interference, actually. It’s basic security.”

“Like people hacking into the neural networks,” I said.

“Yeah.”

“I’ve never heard of that happening.”

“There’s a reason for that,” Tony said. “First, the architecture of the neural networks is designed to be complex to make them hard to program on, and hard to access from outside. The D7 being a pain in the ass to deal with is a feature, not a bug. Every other network since the first iteration is designed that way too.

“Second, they hire people like me to make sure it doesn’t happen. Half my contracts are for white-hat incursions, trying to get into the networks.”

“And what do you do when you get in?” I asked.

“Me? I file a report,” Tony said. “With the first iteration of networks the hackers would run blackmail schemes. Fire up a series of gory pictures or put ‘It’s a Small World’ on a repeating loop until the victim paid to make it stop.”

“That sucks,” I said.

Tony shrugged. “They were dumb,” he said. “Honestly. A computer inside your brain? What the hell did they think was going to happen with that? They got serious about patching when some hacker from Ukraine started giving people arrhythmia just for kicks. That shit’s actual attempted first-degree murder.”

“I’m glad they fixed that,” I said.

“Well, for now,” Tony said. His code had compiled and he waved his hand to execute it. From above, the network pulsed. It wasn’t just a pretty image. It was an actual simulation of the network.

“What do you mean ‘for now’?” I asked.

“Think about it, Chris,” Tony said. He pointed at my head. “You’ve got what’s effectively a legacy system in your head. Its upkeep is currently being paid for out of the budget of the National Institutes of Health. When Abrams-Kettering goes into effect next Monday, the NIH will stop paying for upkeep once its current batch of contracts expires. Santa Ana and Hubbard aren’t updating and patching out of the goodness of their corporate hearts, you know. They get paid to do it. When that stops, either someone else is going to have to pay for it, or the updates stop coming.”

“And then we’re all screwed,” I said.

“Some people will be screwed,” Tony said. “I’ll be fine because this shit is my job and I can hack my own network. You’ll be fine because you can afford to hire someone like me to maintain your network. Our roommates will be fine because I like them and don’t want them to have spam piped into their brains against their will. And the middle-class Hadens will probably be able to pay for a monthly subscription of updates, which is something I know Santa Ana, at least, is already planning for.

“Poor Hadens, on the other hand, are kind of fucked. They’ll either get no updates, which will leave them vulnerable to software rot or hacking, or they’ll have to deal with some sort of update model that features, I don’t know, ads. So every morning, before they can do anything else with their day, they’ll have to sit through six goddamn advertisements for new threeps or nutritional powder or bags for their crap.”

“So, spam,” I said.

“It’s not spam if you agree to it,” Tony said. “They just won’t have much of a choice.”

“Swell.”

“It’s not just updates,” Tony said. “Think about the Agora. Most of us think of it as a magical free-floating space somewhere out there.” He gestured with his hands. “In fact it’s run out of an NIH server farm outside of Gaithersburg.”

“But it’s not on the chopping block,” I said. “There’d be a panic if it was.”

“It’s not being cut, no,” Tony said. “But I know the NIH is talking to potential buyers.” He pointed up at the neural network. “Santa Ana’s putting in a bid, Accelerant’s making one, GM’s in, and so is just about every Silicon Valley holding company.”

He shrugged. “Whoever eventually buys the farm will probably have to promise to leave the character of the Agora unchanged for a decade or so, but we’ll see how much that’ll be worth. It’s going to be monthly access fees from there for sure. I don’t know how you’d do billboards in the Agora, but I’m pretty sure they’ll figure it out sooner than later.”

“You’ve thought about this a lot,” I said, after a minute.

Tony smiled, looked away, and made a dismissive wave. “Sorry. It’s a hobbyhorse of mine, I know. I’m not this humorless about most things.”

“It’s fine,” I said. “And it’s fine that you’re thinking about it.”

“Well, there’s also the side effect that once all these government contracts go kerplooey, my line of work is going to get tougher,” Tony said. “So this is not me being socially active out of the goodness of my own heart. I like to eat. Well, be fed nutritionally balanced liquids, anyway. The Hadens who are walking out this week are making the point that our world is about to be wildly disrupted, and the rest of America doesn’t really seem to give a shit.”

“You’re not part of the walkout, though,” I said.

“I’m inconsistent,” Tony said. “Or maybe I’m a coward. Or just someone who wants to bank as much money as he can now because he expects things to dry up. I see the wisdom of the walkout. I don’t see it as something I can do right now.”

“What about the march on the Mall?” I asked.

“Oh, I’ll definitely be going to that,” Tony said, and grinned. “I think we’ll all be going. Are you planning on it?”

“I’m pretty sure I’ll be working it,” I said.

“Right,” Tony said. “I guess this is a busy week for you.”

“Just a little.”

“Got thrown into the deep end, it looks like,” Tony said, looking back to his code. “You picked a hell of a week to start your gig.”

I smiled at that and looked up again at the pulsing neural network, thinking. “Hey, Tony,” I said.

“Yes?”

“You said a hacker gave people heart attacks.”

“Well, arrhythmia, actually, but close enough for government work,” Tony said. “Why?”

“Is it possible for a hacker to implant suicidal thoughts?” I asked.