SARA LANDED AT THE small airport in Santa Fe with her two bodyguards in tow.

“This place is unchanged,” she uttered.

They acknowledged with head nods. Sara was big time, and they knew enough not to express an opinion unless asked.

“When I was last here,” she mused, “maybe twenty years ago, things had just begun to settle down. Santa Fe seemed untouched even then. I’m not sure if it’s the character of the locals or simply due to its historical remoteness from a major city.”

She thought of Albuquerque and how its populace had been decimated by the infectious agent of the Debacle, much like other metropolitan areas across the world.

“A town beyond time. Tourist shops interspersed with old pueblo-style houses and one-off businesses. Not the usual gene parlors, drug outlets, and pawn shops we see in Vista.”

They drove a circuitous route a few miles from the town center and up a hill through pinon trees and tall pines. The bodyguard driving the SUV turned to her.

“We’re here, ma’am.”

Before them was an old storefront in a declining, nondescript strip mall. The only verification that they were in the right place was stenciled on the window in white and red: ‘Tai-Chi, Bagua.’

“Shall we lead you in, ma’am?” the bodyguard suggested.

Sara was concerned their presence inside the studio might impede the flow of the conversation. “No, but it’s best for one of you to cover the back door and the other in front. I assume this dude is alone.”

Her bodyguards were fully mech’d, sporting flesh-metal components on all limbs as well as having the latest Vistachit and other security tech embedded in their bodies. The SUV also contained a substantial supply of personal weapons.

“We’ve been monitoring this location, and our devices are planted inside,” the bodyguard assured her. “They indicate he is the only person in the studio. They also sense no weaponry on his body, though this location contains several traditional martial arts weapons throughout. With an abundance of caution, we prefer to frisk him and remove those weapons from the premises, if okay with you, ma’am.”

Normally, Sara would expect anyone to be frisked before meeting with her, and she always had at least one bodyguard at her side, even in the most private meetings. She was a Vista minister, after all, and that carried some risk whenever she was away from the Austin compound. Given the background information gathered by Edgar’s team and supplemented by her own researchers, she felt nominal threat of going in alone.

“No, I don’t sense danger, and I suppose if he wants to kill me, he could probably do it with his hands or feet in a matter of seconds. I’ll go up to the door, and I know he’ll welcome me since he’s been warned of my arrival. Despite claiming that he fears nothing in this world, I doubt he’d risk everything. Besides, why would he have a beef with me? He knows I’m the Social Infrastructure Minister, a pretty low-profile cabinet post to most citizens. No, I’ll do it alone.”

As she finished, the glass door to the studio opened. A smiling man was waving them in.

“Where’s his black belt?” she questioned. “He doesn’t look like a killer. But then, not everyone is mech’d to the hilt like you two.”

Neither bodyguard laughed. “Before you exit, let us get out and signal that one of us is heading around back, if only to let him know we mean business.”

“Sure, but no doubt the black SUV and you two enormously mech’d guys in your dark suits and sunglasses have already convinced him of that.”

Sara exited the vehicle. She considered bringing something with her, even a pen and paper, but hers was a job like no other. She didn’t want the distraction of a tablet or anything that might take away from the conversation. The bodyguards stepped from the SUV and signaled to the man where they would be located.

“Hello, Willie,” she stated, holding her hand outward.

Willie grinned and bowed his head. He was slightly under six feet tall. Husky, with very short dark hair, his facial features gave away his Chinese and Anglo bloodlines. Beneath his loose-fitting black shirt and pants, she couldn’t tell if he was mech’d, but her research information indicated he was not.

“Minister, so nice to meet you.” He shook her hand and beamed broadly. “Can your friends join? I have hot tea from Santa Fe’s best.”

“No, they’re fine,” she confirmed, walking into the studio.

She quickly scanned the place. It was the size of any strip mall sandwich shop but lacked a kitchen or stockroom. The floor was comprised of dark oak planks, a few of which creaked as she walked on them. Rather than have her sit across from him at his desk by the window, Willie had erected a card table and two metal folding chairs in the middle of the studio, one with a thin cushion for her.

“My apologies for the simple accommodations. We’re usually exercising in the studio, and the only chairs we have are against the windows for visitors to observe.”

“No problem.” She smiled tensely, wondering if he was offering these limited accommodations on purpose to limit her staying time.

“Tea?” he inquired.

“Hmm, I guess.”

“Ah, tea. True nectar of the gods. We have some of the finest tea in the world in Santa Fe. A friend of mine imports from many countries.”

Her mind was racing. She had only a few minutes to talk before catching the flight home, and she was already beginning to sense this visit was a waste of her time. Rasha indicated problems were escalating back in Austin, and she needed to get back to the compound to actively manage them. Forced to avoid the typical small talk, she got right to the point.

“If you don’t mind, I’ll call you Willie, and please call me Sara. I need this to be an informal discussion.”

She waited for him to respond, but he only smiled and nodded his head in agreement.

“I assume you’ve been fully briefed by my staff regarding the rationale for visiting you. Do you have any questions before we begin?”

Willie rubbed his chin. She could hear his whiskers brushing against his fingers. “I understand. No questions. Please, ask away, and hopefully I can say something you don’t already know.”

“We know a lot, of course, about you, your business, and your customers or clients. What are they?”

“I call them students, though they are also friends.”

“Are they also associated with this FYV group?”

Willie chuckled. “A few may know of this acronym, but I can’t say if they have fallen to the same conclusion on their own. Hard to put a definition on a thing that is deduced from reasoning, discernment, and contemplation.”

Sara took a deep breath, knowing they could beat around the bush for too long. “It’s not that Vista or Westrich are concerned about this new group. Not that at all, and I’m being totally square with you. It’s my job as Social Infrastructure Minister to occasionally get out of Austin to talk to leaders of new organizations like yours. I call them ‘cohorts’ from a marketing and communications perspective, but that doesn’t matter. This is my job. I find out what narratives drive these groups as they arise. I could give you a hundred examples of similar groups and organizations you probably know about from the news.”

“Why do you care?” he interjected.

“It’s in my title, and there are counterparts like me in the other oligarchies across the globe. My team is large, and it keeps tabs on where people are congregating and finding common interests in which the government might find interest. My team and I must always have our ears to the ground, to use an old colloquialism.”

“Understood. But why do you care?”

“It’s critical we have sufficient color on what these groups are about. I don’t need to tell you this, but Ron and his ministers have the most difficult jobs. We must ensure groups don’t become radicalized and dangerous to our citizenry. That’s obvious, I suppose, but much more than that. I’m charged with getting a clear picture of the psyche of our citizens. Where their heads are. What they’re thinking. This allows us to develop budgets and communications programs to accommodate their specific needs.”

Willie was silent, only nodding with a wry smile.

“Perhaps enough questions from you, as I expect you’ve done your research on me. Sorry, but I’m short on time. I only stopped here because Santa Fe was roughly on my way back to Austin from Oregon.”

“Really? I love Oregon! Someone there is not well?”

“What? Yes, cancer. Sister. How did you know?”

“Your eyes saddened for a moment.”

“She’s old school. Made the overt and questionable choice to reject any medical tech that could help her.”

“Sorry to hear.”

Sara bit her lip. With her team, she could always be very direct and precise. Review the facts and alternatives, understand the task, execute, and report back. She went nuts when people wasted her time with banter.

“I have questions around FYV, so your turn to talk now. What is it? Who leads it? Who named it? Who finances it? What are its goals and aspirations? We know very little, only that it seems to be in the initial stages of rapid growth.”

Willie leaned forward. “I welcome you here and appreciate your valuable time and requirement for brevity. FYV is a play on words, a humorous irony, or a name for a sarcasm that must be named. I can’t tell you who coined it, in fact. I’ve heard it called other things, but ‘Fuck Your Values’ seems to be used most often. It’s not a group and has no leaders, that I am aware. I chose to speak with you because someone on your team insisted on finding out more, and I thought I might help. Most Westrich citizens are leery of dealing with anyone representing the authorities or oligarchs from fear of invoking their wrath. I do not fear, however, and am assuming there is little risk in talking on the subject. Afterwards, you can always snatch me away or close my business or worse, but even then, I doubt I’ll die as a result.”

“This is not that kind of visit.” She clenched her fist on the table, a little angry he exposed what she knew already – that citizens in most of the global oligarchies were increasingly rejecting heavy-handed, centralized control.

“I didn’t think so. In respect for your time, I will tell you all I know. FYV is a concept or even a thought. One might easily wonder if there’s some kismet or providence when intelligent, discerning humans and hybrids fall to the same conclusion about the nature of human life on Earth. When such a concept arises, they give these ideas or feelings a name so that the next time it shows up, they have a verbal construct around it, even if it is ill-defined.”

“This doesn’t tell me anything.” She squinted, looking straight into his dark brown eyes. “I’ve come across many groups and cults in my day and have never seen an instance where a horde of humans suddenly arrive at the same conclusions free from any coercive measures. There are always underlying communications or propaganda vehicles and pathways. Always a credo of some type, a constitution, even a bible. Something must exist to codify their belief systems.”

“I would say FYV is no belief system. It is a perception. I keep coming back to the word ‘conclusion,’ and that may be difficult for you to understand, given your experience.”

She was getting more frustrated. “Again, Willie, I’m talking about shared ideas. Shared in conversations, if not written somewhere. They’re concepts deduced from logic or emotion or both, and they grow and have a life in human minds. They are always amplified by interpersonal communications. Are you suggesting FYV is too new and these ‘conclusions’ need time to solidify before a solid cohort can be defined?”

“No, I don’t think so. FYV is a convenient acronym some people use. I’ve heard it brought up in face-to-face or video conversations, and perhaps it is written down in a few places. It’s more an expression of emotion or a logical deduction.”

“Expression? Like ‘shit’ or ‘damn’ or ‘fuck’ or any other swear word?”

She noticed he didn’t flinch as she cursed.

“Yes, more like that. An exhortation.”

“How did it arise, and why are so many people using it now?”

“Sorry, but you likely have a better view of numbers than I, given your resources. I see or hear it used occasionally, nearly always in the same context.”

“What context?”

“Gee.” He thought for a moment. “The context of ethical entropy, I suppose.”

Sara cocked her head back in surprise, her mouth agape, then took a sip of tea. “Ooh, still hot. Willie, I feel I’m not getting clarity with you. What the hell does ‘ethical entropy’ mean?”

Willie stared at the dark wood floor. “Assume the word ‘entropy’ in this case implies an acceleration to disorder from things that were purposely designed or structured for the benefit of humans. Order to randomness. Focused energy to equidistant dispersal of that energy. The dissolution of all things in the conscious world that are organized. Maybe even to a pre-existent state where there was both pure order with no distinctions, and an organized state of pure disorder. One becomes the other, doesn’t it?”

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

She sighed, “Whew! Too deep for me. I was no philosophy major in school. Much more the pragmatist. Now ethics, ethics I get. How do ethics come into play?”

“Living systems require order and structure. Rules and norms to live within themselves and externally with others. This goes without saying. Cells have cell walls and nuclei. Viruses have DNA or RNA or some bio-hybrid variant. Buildings have structural beams. Take structure away, and it’s just atoms and maybe not even that. An atom is too much structure in a state of pure order.”

“Why does this matter for FYV?”

Willie drew in a deep breath. She noticed his belly expand greatly, as if he was intentionally sticking his stomach out at her.

“I assume you understand the basics of yin and yang. Two poles. Diametric opposition. How life hangs together between them?”

“Sure, but not so much. I was raised mostly in Texas,” she admitted, as if that might be an excuse for being unaware.

“To explain, human life was likely not always dependent on its ethics. Presumably, it was animalistic for many years. Yet, at some point, ethics came into play. Ethics and norms of behavior allowed humans to aggregate, congregate, socially interact, build societies, create economic systems and wealth. The binding glue of societies. However, any ethical systems unable to change with the times will break down and so will the society that depended upon such systems. If I can summarize, FYV is a satirical recognition of humanity’s failing status.”

“The whole thing’s a joke then?”

“No. The ethical and values systems of humans and hybrids have, in recent decades, become sorely compromised among the noise of technology. I don’t mean to say humans don’t have ethics and norms. We simply don’t use or apply them. We think we don’t need them, and we believe technology and what it brings us can serve as an adequate substitute. As a result, our society is terminally imbalanced and on life support, having passed a critical inflection years ago. We are now at the point of no return for extending the longevity of our species.”

“Oh, I get it,” she nodded with an arrogant smirk. “FYV is another doomsday group, right? Shit. You know how many of these now exist in Westrich? Ron has more than his share in Vista, given the extensive, rural geography he protects. He has so many cohorts and sub-cohorts who expose and share their belief systems in local geographies and over the Internet, as if they are the only ones who hold knowledge of the deep, dark secrets of the universe’s fate. And there is always, and I mean always, commercial profit behind these pseudo-science bullshitters. Somewhere at the top of the stench is somebody getting rich off the converts to the cause. Appears I wasted my time coming here.”

“Perhaps you wasted your time, but you reached an erroneous conclusion.”

“What’s erroneous? You’re another cohort enmeshed in some ‘end of days’ belief systems you conjured. It’s perhaps not a religious cohort, but it is of the same ilk. We get this narrative. Things in the world or Westrich or Vista are bad. People hate their lives. The world is a dangerous place and we’re all going to die. The oligarchies are evil and controlling, and our special belief system adherents are the only good people left. Honestly, Willie, I’ve heard this rhetoric over and over. I’m not saying I don’t appreciate groups like yours. In fact, I love them because of their predictability. In my communications game, they’re valuable and very pliable cohorts because they’re so fucking emotional about their disgusting little belief systems. But it’s not worth my time if that’s all I’m dealing with.”

* * *

Willie picked up his teacup. “I’m out of tea. More for you?”

Sara rose from the chair. “No, I’ve barely touched mine. Apologies for the wasted visit. I’ll tell the guys we’re okay to leave for the airport.”

He held his hand up as he poured the tea, signaling her to sit back down on the chair.

“When you see a tsunami that has flooded a country, do you not care what caused it?”

Sara sat down slowly and blew her breath visibly through her cheeks. “I know you’re a master at whatever martial arts, but I can’t take the philosophical bullshit right now. Too much else in the hopper today, and I’m poor at analogies. If there’s something you’re not telling me, then spit it out.”

“Thanks for a few more minutes. Sara, have you ever separated yourself from your thoughts and worries of the moment?”

“Like I said about the philosophical bullshit . . .”

“My question is important, if you care to understand this FYV phenomenon. I only need a few moments to guide your thinking.”

“Guide my what? Okay, okay. I’ll play along. Now, what was the question?”

“Have you ever separated yourself, who you are, from your thoughts or belief systems?”

“Why the hell would I do that? My thoughts are an inherent part of who I am. I can’t just separate them from me. They exude and sometimes explode from my brain as a result of all the processing that’s in there,” she claimed, pointing to her head.

“You are your thoughts, then?”

“Of course! My thoughts are only emanations of what my brain determines is the best course of action for me. Then I act on those things. I order my team to execute plans. I structure my words and vision to fit the need at the time. My thoughts make me.”

“Let me try an alternate path. Are you, Sara, inherently those thoughts, orders, plans, beliefs, emotions, senses?”

“Those are like ornaments on a Christmas tree. I’m the tree, and each ornament serves its purpose.”

“Can you decouple yourself from the ornaments?”

“No. Those ornaments are me. I own them.”

“You are what you own?”

“Look, just because these things come from my mind does not mean they aren’t me or I’m not responsible for them. I am those thoughts and actions, each of them. The sum of them is an outcome of my conscious mind.”

“Then the answer is that you cannot separate yourself from your thoughts. You are your thoughts.”

Sara frowned uncomfortably. She didn’t like anyone defining who she was or what she could or could not do. As a Vista Minister, she was at the top of the world. She knew who she was.

“It’s an illogical question. Maybe my Christmas tree was a poor analogy. Again, I’m bad at analogies.”

“You identify with your thoughts, then. Your sense of self is wrapped-up in the thoughts that emanate from your mind.”

“It’s electrical activity, damn it! My thoughts come from my experiences. I’m increasingly one of the few who doesn’t have a direct connection to the cloud, so I can clearly state this to be the case. Those others who are Vistachit connected, well, one always questions the origins of what goes on in their minds. But that doesn’t matter anyway. What matters is the value of the thoughts, their effectiveness, and how they advance certain defined or desired objectives.”

“If your thoughts come from your life experiences, how do your experiences emanate from your beliefs?”

“This line of reasoning is too fucking intertwined. Your question is backwards. My experiences drive my beliefs, and both of those drive my thoughts and actions.”

“And there is no base metal beneath this amalgam that is Sara? Sara is a result of her experiences that gave her a set of beliefs. The combination of those two are what drives her thoughts and actions, correct?”

“Yeah, you got that right.”

“As a result, Sara is unable to disconnect her sense of self from her experiences, beliefs, thoughts, or actions. All these things drive Sara. And what of ego, desires, wants, discomforts, comforts, emotions?”

“I’m more disciplined than anyone I know. I manage those nuisances. Repress them even.”

“No doubt you are the best at what you do, given your position. But you’re suggesting that you are unable to separate or decouple your sense of self from all that surrounds or exudes from you.”

“I have no need to do that. Never did. Why would I? How does all this philosophical bullshit relate to the FYV group?”

Willie smiled and sat back in his chair. It creaked slightly at bearing his weight.

“To understand FYV, you would first need to separate your thoughts, desires, needs, ego, ambitions, position, title, family, friends, and possessions from yourself, at least in your mind.”

She was ticked. “Are you telling me you can’t help me understand what this group is about because I don’t have the intellect to achieve the same mental state as the special chosen ones in this fucking group?”

“FYV is no group. Please, I don’t mean to make this personal. It’s not about intellect. Not about smarts or knowledge. Instead, it’s more of a recognition of sorts.”

“Recognition of what?”

“That you are not your thoughts. Given time constraints, I’ll cut to the chase, but I wish we had a few hours.”

“Please do. We’re wasting my resources.”

“FYV is an ironic twist on today’s values. If I can call it anything, it is a recognition that the world has far surpassed the inflection point, when it still had a chance . . .”

“Wait, wait, wait!” she laughed, pushing her hand outward toward him. “I know. We’re all going to die because of this or that.”

“Hmm. Not accurate. It more has to do with establishing within yourself the mental capacity to separate your sense of self from the trappings that might seem to define your person. The ornaments, as you indicated. When this is done, you arrive at a calm state, an objective state. Once this is accomplished, you can observe humanity as separate from your role in it. You’ll sense a distinct race of creatures on a planet in a solar system in a universe of endless systems. From this, you can deduce that every species has a finite lifespan. They come and go. Nearly all become extinct due to external pressures and forces, such as the inability to adapt to changing circumstances. Again, cutting to the chase, do you understand our changing circumstances?”

“I might see a little of your intent, but you’re wrong. Humans have changed a lot in the last century. Computing systems. Clouds. Information access. Auggies. Vistachit systems. Add to that the menagerie, literally, of human-animal-plant-mech freaking bio-machine varints we have today. So what? What about these changes? They are what they are. We can’t modify them. In fact, it’s specifically my job to manage them, to sculpt and coerce their narratives so they don’t become dangers to our larger society. They need to support Ron and all he is doing for them. Nothing’s wrong with that.”

“You are kind of on the right track, at least in terms of the tech we have today. A hundred years ago, only a few people on Earth could ever conceive of such rapid changes, and here we are today with millions of variations on whatever theme. We have advanced technologically at a torrid pace. Mathematical. Exponential. Logarithmic. Take your pick.”

“And . . .”

“And at the same time, what has happened to the ethical structure of this ever-evolving human and hybrid menagerie with its new tools and toys?”

“Crap, you’re sounding like my sister. I don’t get why you keep bringing this up. Ethics. We have lots of laws in place, especially after the Debacle. We had to install them. And it didn’t start with the Debacle. Other pandemic issues in the past sparked the whole damn control thing. Governments were forced to monitor and manage people, or they’d risk massive outbreaks and death. The recessions and depressions and loss of economic value were staggering, and the aftereffects became a factor in the social upheaval that led to the horrific post-Debacle times.”

“True. After all that occurred, you’d think we might have become more caring. Instead, we turned within ourselves, our cohorts, if you will, and the larger benefits of working together as a species to prevent future existential catastrophes never occurred. Every country worked on doing their own thing, driven by their own need, greed, fears and hatreds. Every country turned within itself, establishing stronger borders and immigration restrictions, limiting intermixing of peoples and ideas, fomenting pre-existing hatreds and bigotry. All with the apparent intent to ‘protect the public’ from other outbreaks or evolutions, whether natural or manmade.”

Sara was increasingly anxious. She wanted a conclusion. “Whatever the result, we are much more prepared and effective now, at least in Vista and Westrich. We have air and water sampling stations even in the remotest parts of the country. Stringent border crossing controls. Fences and aerial systems to limit migration. With the Vistachit’s help, we know where most of our collective citizens are at any point, no longer needing to access their cellphone or auggie records. This has greatly enhanced our monitoring capabilities and provided assurance that we can mitigate the effects of bioweapons regularly unleashed on our country. You can’t possibly know the virulent strains that are constantly passed our way from competing nations. We keep that info to ourselves, but you don’t hear about it because we don’t have hundreds of thousands or millions dying at a time. Not any longer. You name the defense mechanism, we instituted it. Then we have our regular anti-virus and anti-agent inoculations and immunetech. It’s top-notch and has saved countless lives.”

“Yes, and I’m not criticizing what the government does to protect its citizens, many of whom provide positive economic value to Westrich and therefore must be saved. Sorry, I’m thinking too much like an AI. But I am slightly off-topic, so back to FYV. I’d say it’s a nonobvious but accurate recognition that our technological prowess has far outpaced our societal progress. Humans became much more fearful as tech advanced, particularly genetic tech and the potential for bioweapons of mass destruction.”

“Tell me something nonobvious,” she retorted.

“We are experiencing a natural outcome for a technologically advancing species whose prime working emotions are fear and entitlement. Without proper ethical systems to pace concurrently with our technological advances, our society grows increasingly imbalanced. One example of this is how wealth and power are now super-concentrated at the top, among the very few, even to you being within that group.”

“Oh, I’m far from rich, despite what the news puts out. News I’m often responsible for, by the way. Depending on the channel and cohorts, we establish persona narratives about all the ministers that are useful to the nation.”

Willie drew in a long breath. “So, how long can this go on? How long can humanity advance technologically without all of its people coming to agreement on even a single thing? What potentially virulent tech will we create in the coming years, and what ethical systems will we create to manage that tech? Can we forever continue to advance technologies while avoiding the hard work of evolving our norms and standards? How we treat each other? Respect. Tolerance. Compassion. Giving?”

“We’re doing a lot of hard work now.”

“One can argue that technological advancement is no longer hard work. Costly, in some cases, but with AI assisting in every step, humanity can do almost anything it once dreamed of doing, both positive and negative. In fact, you might call technology an ‘easy thing’ because each next generation of tech is very predictable. Yet humanity perennially avoids taking the most difficult step, which is the hard work of establishing a few common ethical constructs or beliefs about our objectives as a species. Like agreeing we should work collectively to ensure the long-term survival of the species, despite the accelerating pace of tech. Like correcting the massive social and wealth imbalances that have occurred in recent decades.”

She’d heard similar complaints before from other cohorts and understood well how to placate them, to assuage them with platitudes, to advance communications narratives that amplified Ron’s magnanimous goals to spread the wealth, despite the deceit sewn inherently within those messages.

She’d had enough.

“Stop!” she demanded. “These are old complaints. Nothing new here. After this discussion, I’ve determined that FYV is no more than another cohort that regularly uses the Internet or other means of communication to complain about how bad things are. Do you know how boring that is? Why don’t you people get off your asses and do something constructive?”

“You missed the point.”

“Being?”

“Nobody is getting together or communicating in an overt, covert, or surreptitious manner. There’s no plot or plotting or attempt at overthrowing the current order of things. As I said from the start, FYV is only a satirical recognition, mostly realized by people who can separate themselves from their mental constructs, that we have passed the inflection point.”

“Okay,” she sighed, clicking her tongue in disgust. “One last statement, then I’m out.”

“The inflection point occurred some decades ago, a time when we should have and could have realized that our technological advancements were grossly outpacing our normative systems. At that point, we became indelibly imbalanced. One side of the teeter totter was getting all the weight. Worse yet, there was no solid fulcrum at the center of the board, and now the entire system is sliding down into the abyss below to the latter stages of inevitability. Lastly, please don’t start collecting people who speak or write about the FYV acronym. They are no threat to Vista, assuming they’re even an identifiable cohort. This is mostly people who see the imbalances and understand we have reached the end of our time as a species. Something will initiate the final slide of the teeter totter board off its crumbling fulcrum. Later, even eons later, something on the planet may replace us as sentient beings. Maybe those aliens who have yet to arrive. Maybe a being evolved from the bacteria on my hand. But we’ll have had our opportunity long before, and we’ll have wasted it.”

Angry she had spent so much time with him, listening to his drivel, Sara slapped the card table. It nearly collapsed, but Willie held it underneath.

“Sorry to have angered you,” he conceded.

She shook her head. “Don’t worry about your friends. Yes, you’ll be monitored, along with your like-minded buddies and anyone else the AI beasts determine is worthy. But I’m seeing no risk here, only hopelessly pathetic philosophy and aberrant belief systems. And maybe a lot of people are indeed coming to this conclusion, I don’t know and don’t really care. The only benefit I got from this visit is the clear message that my team and I are not communicating as effectively as I might have hoped. That somehow, people like you and your invisible FYV cohort are not understanding how lucky you are to be citizens of Vista.”

“We did not yet discuss such a thing.”

“You apparently don’t appreciate all that Ron is doing for you, how he sacrifices for you, and how much weight he carries on his shoulders, managing the burdens of this grossly underfunded, widely dispersed domain. I’ll need to get back to the regional experts on my team and order them to redouble efforts to monitor groups like yours, groups that are just not getting the correct picture of Ron’s goodness, of his generosity and compassion. But right now, right now, this cohort appears to be of little risk or consequence to how Ron and Vista can benefit from it. Too bad I wasted my time.”

Still holding the collapsed card table in one hand, Willie held his other hand out to shake hers. Sara took no notice of it and rushed through the door.