Tony frowned at this for a minute, considering. “Are we talking general feelings of depression, leading to suicidal thoughts, or specific thoughts, like ‘Today I should eat a bullet’?”

“Either,” I said. “Both.”

“You could probably cause depression through a neural network, yeah,” Tony said. “That’s a matter of manipulating brain chemistry, which is something networks do already”—he pointed up at his network simulator—“although usually accidentally. The patch I’m doing now is designed to stop just that sort of chemistry manipulation.”

“What about specific thoughts?”

“Probably not,” Tony said. “If we’re talking about thoughts that feel like they’re originating from a person’s own brain. Generating images and noises that come from the outside is trivial—we’re both doing it right now. This room is a mutually agreed-upon illusion. But directly manipulating consciousness so that you make someone think they’re thinking a thought you give them—and then making them act on it—is difficult.”

“Difficult or impossible?” I asked.

“I never say ‘impossible,’” Tony said. “But when I say ‘difficult’ here I mean that as far as I’ve heard no one’s ever done it. And I don’t know how to do it, even if I wanted to, which I wouldn’t.”

“Because it’s unethical,” I prompted.

“Hell yes,” Tony said. “And also because I know if I’ve figured it out, someone else has too, because there’s always someone else smarter out there, who may not have ethics. And that would really mess with shit. It’s hard enough to believe in free will as it is.”

“So,” I said. “Really difficult but not actually impossible.”

“Really really really difficult,” Tony allowed. “But theoretically possible because, hey, it’s a quantum physics universe. Why do you ask, Chris? I sense this is not an entirely idle question.”

“What’s your work schedule look like?” I asked.

Tony nodded upward. “It looks like my patch is doing what it’s supposed to. Once I clean it up a bit, which should take less than an hour, I’ll send it off and then I’m free.”

“Have you ever done work for the federal government?”

“I live in Washington, D.C., Chris,” Tony said. “Of course I’ve done work for the government. I have a vendor ID and everything.”

“Do you have a security clearance?”

“I’ve done confidential work before, yes,” Tony said. “Whether on the level you seem to be thinking about is something I guess we’d have to find out.”

“I may have a job for you, then,” I said.

“Involving neural networks?”

“Yes,” I said. “Hardware and software.”

“When would you want me to start?”

“Probably tomorrow,” I said. “Probably, like, nine A.M.”

Tony smiled. “Well, then,” he said. “I should probably finish up what I’m doing so I can at least attempt to get some sleep.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“No,” Tony said. “Thank you. It’s not every day that a new housemate comes bearing work. That makes you officially my favorite housemate.”

“I won’t tell,” I said.

“No, go ahead and tell,” Tony said. “Maybe it will inspire a competition. That’ll work out for me. I could use the work.”

Chapter Fourteen

“DON’T TELL TRINH I said this to you,” Captain Davidson said, pointing to the five Hadens he had in his holding cell, “but I would be delighted if the FBI took these idiots off our hands.”

The five Hadens, or more accurately their threeps, glared at me, Vann, and Davidson from the other side of the holding cell. We could tell they were glaring because their threep models came with customized heads that displayed faces and expressions. The faces these threeps carried were not their owners’ actual faces, unless their owners were the spitting images of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, Thomas Paine, and Alexander Hamilton. The threeps were also wearing colonial-era uniforms, which may or may not have been historically accurate. It was like an elementary school diorama of the Continental Congress come to life.

The threeps were just threeps, of course. The Hadens driving them were somewhere else in the country. But when you’re a Haden and you’re arrested in your threep, if you disconnect, that’s considered resisting arrest and fleeing the scene. This fact was courtesy of a young, rich Haden who in the early years of threeps carelessly knocked down an old lady, disconnected from her threep in a panic, and then spent three years and a couple hundred thousand dollars of Mommy’s money trying to get out of what would have been a standard-issue moving violation. She eventually also ended up adding perjury and bribery to her docket. She should have just done the community service.

Thus our colonials, cooling their heels and glaring through their pixels.

“What you in for, George?” I asked Washington. Davidson had called us in to deal with several different Hadens in his holding cells. This was the first bunch.

“For exercising our constitutional Second Amendment rights,” Washington said. His real name was Wade Swope, from Milltown, Montana. His information was popped up in my view. “Here in the dictatorship of the District of Columbia, a man is apparently stripped of his right to bear arms.”

Vann turned to Davidson. “Shocked, shocked I am to find men with guns somehow landing in jail.”

“Yes, well,” Davidson said. “Our founding father here is correct that he has the right to bear arms, which in this case were long rifles for each of them. The part he’s skipping over is where his little group of colonial fighters went into a coffee shop—private property—and started to make a scene, and when they were told to take a hike, commenced to wave their rifles around. We have it on the store video, not to mention the phone of every single person in the store.”

“We’re here to be the security detail for the march,” said Thomas Jefferson, aka Gary Height, of Arlington, Virginia. “We’re a militia, consistent with the Constitution. We’re here to defend our people.”

“You might be a militia,” I said. “But I don’t think waving your firearms around in a coffee shop accurately describes ‘well-regulated.’”

“Who cares what you think?” said Patrick Henry, aka Albert Box of Ukiah, California. “You’re standing with them. Those who oppress us.” He pointed to me. “You are a traitor and a sellout.”

It occurred to me that Henry/Box actually had no idea who I was, although I don’t know if that would have changed his opinion any. I glanced over at Vann and Davidson. “Oppressing us, as in we Hadens, or oppressing you, dudes waving around firearms in a coffee shop?” I asked. “I want to be clear on the depth of my traitorness.”

“You know what confuses me, Shane,” Davidson said, before any of them could answer.

“Tell me,” I said.

Davidson motioned at the colonial Hadens. “On one hand these guys seem like your basic crazy conservative types, with the Second Amendment and their Yankee Doodle hats. But on the other hand they’re saying they’re security for a march protesting reductions in government benefits. Which seems pretty liberal to me.”

“It’s a puzzler,” I agreed.

“I don’t know,” Davidson said. “Maybe it’s not about politics. Maybe these guys are just assholes.”

“Seems the simplest explanation,” I said.

“We have a right to assemble—” Washington/Swope began, clearly winding himself up.

“Oh, Jesus, don’t,” Vann said. “It’s too early in the fucking A.M. for your brand of pathetic patriotic bullshit.”

Washington/Swope clammed up, surprised.

“Better,” Vann said, and leaned in toward the lot. “Now. Your threeps are here, but each of your physical bodies are in a different state. That makes you the FBI’s problem. Which means you are my problem. And I say five jackasses dressed up like the back of a two-dollar bill, claiming to be a militia and waving around rifles in a goddamn Georgetown coffee shop violates Title Eighteen of the U.S. Criminal Code, chapters twenty-six, forty-three, and one hundred two.”