Sebeck shrugged. “Ask Price. He was the one who revived me at the funeral home.”

“You mean Chunky Monkey, the operative back at the travel center?”

Sebeck just gave her a look. “His name is Laney Price. Another misfit the Daemon found somewhere.” He cast a glance at Riley. “No offense.”

“None taken.”

Sebeck decided to change the subject. “Is this your tribe’s land?”

“No. Right now we’re passing through the Acoma reservation. I’m a Laguna Indian. We’ll reach Laguna land in about fifteen minutes. The Navajo nation is north of us—much larger—and the Zunis are to the west.”

Sebeck gazed out the window at the mesas and light green grass bowing in a breeze. “This is beautiful country. I always thought of New Mexico as just sand and rocks.”

“The Spanish word for lake is laguna. That’s how our tribe got its name. Access to water is what attracted Europeans.” She pointed into the distance and a line of tan rock on the horizon. “The Acoma pueblo up on that mesa was first settled in eleven hundred A.D. It’s the oldest continuously occupied community in North America.”

Sebeck was genuinely surprised. “So they didn’t fall along with the Anasazi civilization?”

“You have an interest in Anasazi history?”

“It came up recently in conversation.”

“Well, Acoma rose partly from the collapse of Chacoan society. Some of the survivors resettled here.

“Acoma was attacked in the late fifteen-hundreds by the Spanish. They used cannons and attack dogs to force their way up the stone stairway onto the mesa. They killed all but two hundred and fifty of the twenty-five hundred inhabitants and cut one foot off every male survivor. The children were given to Catholic missionaries, but most of them wound up being sold into slavery. The Spanish then used the pueblo as a base to conquer the rest of the region.”

Sebeck didn’t know what to say.

“That was two centuries before the British colonies in the East declared their independence. We’ve been here a long time.”

“And now you’re a darknet faction leader. Are you some sort of militant?”

She laughed. “You mean, a violent fringe group? No, Sergeant. We’re builders.” A look came over her, and she tapped again at invisible objects on a hidden layer of D-Space. “In fact, you’ll see some of our work on the way.” She was about to say something, but then apparently thought better of it.

“What?”

“If you’re wondering whether I bear a grudge against the Spanish—or the U.S. government for that matter—I don’t. Nursing anger against people long dead is a waste of one’s life. Today if someone wrongs us, we do what anyone else does: we send our lawyers after them.” Riley fixed her gaze on Sebeck. “The Laguna value education highly. It is our rod and staff, as my father used to say.”

“How did a woman your age get involved in the darknet?”

“A woman my age?” She laughed. “Don’t sugarcoat it, Sergeant.”

“I’m just wondering how you—”

“Sobol’s online fantasy game—The Gate.”

He just looked at her.

“Okay, what’s a fifty-two-year-old woman doing playing online games? I found them interesting. The idea of putting on a body like clothing—there was something about it that seemed intriguing. That we might surpass our physical differences and deal with one another as human beings. With no preconceived notions about gender or race.”

“And that’s where the Daemon found you.”

“I did the finding, but it wasn’t the Daemon I found. It was the darknet. The encrypted wireless network Sobol created. Only later did I discover how much blood Sobol shed establishing this network. And yet, I can’t help but wonder, just as evil sometimes arises from good intentions, if good can’t sometimes grow from evil. It’s a distasteful notion, but human history makes me wonder.”

Sebeck gritted his teeth. “I may be on this quest, but that doesn’t mean I agree with Sobol. I accepted it because I had no choice, and I was concerned that unless I did so, he would enslave humanity. Matthew Sobol killed friends of mine. Police and federal officers—people with families.”

She held up a hand. “I’m not defending Sobol, Sergeant. I’m saying that Sobol was willing to be our villain to force necessary change. So that we didn’t have to.”

“Megalomaniacs always justify their actions by saying how necessary it is.”

She gave him a sideways look. After a moment she said, “Do you feel any guilt for what your ancestors did to the Indians?”

Sebeck was taken aback.

“You know, for the genocide that was perpetrated against Native American people by the U.S. government and the settlers?”

“That’s not the same as what Sobol did.”

“Why?”

“Because the theft of tribal lands occurred a hundred and fifty years ago. Things were different then.”

“Statute of limitations, then?” She concentrated on the road then turned an eye back on him. “I’m just making a point. You probably don’t feel guilt because you’re not the one who did it. You bear native people no ill will, and aren’t prejudiced against them.”

“Yes, exactly.”

“But then, we’re not getting the land back either, are we?” A slight smile creased her face.

Sebeck folded his arms. “It could never be sorted out even if we tried. That was a different time, Riley.”

“We’re not all that different from our ancestors, Sergeant. And even though the land Matthew Sobol grabbed was virtual real estate—computer networks—I don’t think anyone’s going to get that back either.”

Sebeck sat in silence for a few moments, watching the road. “He can force me to go on this quest, but I’ll never accept what he’s done.”

“Don’t waste time being angry with the dead. They’ll never give you satisfaction. Whatever punishment Sobol deserved he has either received—or not—already, and nothing you can do will change that. Now, there is only the system he left behind, and he’s given control of that to all of us.”

“I just spoke with Sobol yesterday. He is very much still here.”

She looked him in the eye. “Sobol is dead and gone, Sergeant. His consciousness no longer exists. What you’re dealing with is a recording—a scripted entity that responds to real events. It can’t feel. It can’t think. Sobol is gone.”

Sebeck just turned back to the window, lost in his reflections for several minutes. He thought about how much death the Daemon had caused and how much of his own life irrevocably changed.

Soon they approached a junction with an unpaved road. Riley slowed the van and turned left onto a road marked INDIAN SERVICE ROUTE 49. NO TRESPASSING signs flanked it. Moments later they were roaring down the dirt road, leaving a plume of dust in their wake.

Neither of them spoke for several minutes as the road curved between distant, rocky cliffs with batters of scree at their base. The grasslands and an occasional pond or stream gave the landscape a serene feel.

About fifteen miles later the road gradually curved around a tall promontory of stone—a mesa jutting out like the peninsula of a higher plateau. As they came around it, Sebeck could see the road for miles ahead, running straight toward a towering monolith, a mountain of rock perhaps a thousand feet tall. On the lowlands before it, glittering reflections spread across the landscape. Sebeck could also see signs of human civilization ahead—outbuildings and what looked to be a tall water tower under construction in the distance. Dozens of diminutive D-Space call-outs hovered over the land, their owners invisible at this distance. The valley floor was a vast darknet construction project.

Riley noticed Sebeck’s gaze. “The mirrors are heliostats. Trough mirrors that focus the sun’s energy onto a central tower to generate heat—and thus steam to run a turbine and generate electricity.”

“That whole valley floor?”

“No, no. The heliostats are an intermediary station. They provide on-site power for the real project. Otherwise the spike in energy usage would attract attention.”