“Did you try the headset before you did it? Are the studs worth it?”

“The headset experience is a little hazy and who wants to walk around with that thing on their head all day? The resolution with the studs is incredible. I now have twenty/fifteen vision without the contacts I’ve been wearing since junior high, and the audio quality is almost a religious experience.”

“So you hear through it? You have a mike on you somewhere like the hearing aid?”

“No, I still hear through my ears, unfortunately. But I downloaded my entire music library to it and the clarity is like nothing you’ve ever heard before.”

“Do you have the tooth mike, too?”

“No, I’m using the miniature under-the-collar mike. But I’ve got a call in to my dentist.”

“So what I’m hearing from you is that Dresner’s delivered.”

“If you tried to take it away from me, I’d beat you to death with a wrench.”

“I’ll take that as a warning. What about LayerCake?”

Smith eased to a stop in front of a flimsy-looking gate that was actually capable of stopping a fully loaded semi truck driving forty miles an hour. He leaned in close to the windshield and tilted his chin up, letting multiple hidden cameras get a good look.

“I’m still wrapping my mind around that—too much time playing Vampire Armageddon. The basic apps—things like weather and phone and GPS—seem pretty much flawless and the color-coding is incredibly intuitive. My hair dryer burned out yesterday and I was as the store staring at a huge shelf of them when I realized I could just use the Merge. I turned on LayerCake and a couple of seconds later picked the one with the darkest green glow.”

“But what about the evaluation of people that everyone’s talking about?”

“I’m reserving judgment at this point, but I have to admit that I think it’s going to work better than the press is giving it credit for. It’s been pretty accurate when I’ve looked at people I know well and I have to assume that it’s just as good for people I don’t know. And it’s only going to get better as it collects more data and collates user feedback,” Janine said.

The gate swung back and Smith pulled into what the sign said was the Anacostia Seagoing Yacht Club. The pleasantly winding asphalt and carefully landscaped berms reinforced that particular piece of fiction, but in fact had been designed to make a straight-on attack impossible. Smith winced as the Triumph scraped over a speed bump and then turned to parallel a dock full of boats that completed the illusion that this was just an extremely exclusive playground for wealthy yacht owners.

“It’s a brave new world,” the interviewer said, and Smith switched off the radio.

It sure as hell was.

9

Khost Province
Afghanistan

RANDI PUT THE HELICOPTER into a steep climb, feeling a jolt of adrenaline when she spotted the shape of a goatherd moving against the dead Afghan landscape. It wasn’t the fear of death that caused it, though. It was the fear that something might happen to the chopper.