“You son of a bitch!” she yelled. “How could you do this to us? To me! Do you have any idea what’s at stake?”

Donny grabbed her hands, but she pulled them loose. Then she shoved him with one hand and smacked him with the other. And kept smacking, with both hands, until he was down on the ground covering his face.

When the smacking stopped, he peeked out and looked up at Percy standing there over him, red in the face and breathing hard. She had three armed guards behind her.

“Watch him,” she said. “I need to go find Kendra, and see if she can check on our accounts.”

“It’s true what I said,” said Donny, half expecting to provoke a gun butt to the head. It wouldn’t be the first time. “But we have to be able to work something out. Is there someplace we can talk? Or someone else I need to talk to? Because I came here to make a deal.”

“What possible basis could you have to seize our accounts?”

“Well, I can only take partial credit for that. But the basis is patent infringement.”

“What patents? That money is our lifeblood. At least until we’re fully self-sufficient.”

“They say those are the proceeds from stolen property. Seeds.”

Percy looked at her colleagues.

“No one can own a seed,” said Claude. “The design of life belongs to nature. Even if you try to reengineer it.”

“Yeah, I hear you,” said Donny, standing up and feeling his face for cuts and bruises. “But that’s the law. A law most of the world follows. And that even applies here, at least on paper.”

“You’re representing Tripto Labs too?”

“Technically just Heather’s trust, but they own a big stake, and so the trustee was able to call in a favor. And the craziest thing is they didn’t even need a court order. I guess the licenses, and your accounts, are all coded into the Chain. And all they needed to do was transmit a few commands. Kind of ironic that the digital money system developed by the underground to finance the revolution turned into the smart contracts regime that lets companies enforce their rights without having to go through lawyers.”

“Fucking bullshit, is what it is,” said Claude.

“Can you go talk to Kendra and her team?” said Percy. “I’ll interrogate him in the meantime.”

“We’ll come with you,” one of the guards said to Percy.

“That won’t be necessary,” said Percy, looking at the cut on her hand from punching Donny.