“All those things are strictly forbidden in Dresner’s licensing agreement,” someone interjected.

She laughed. “And of course we can trust him. Don’t be evil, right? Unless you can make a billion dollars off it.”

“Let it go, Sharon. We’re not in the information age anymore, we’re in the information overload age. All that stuff is already out there. What we need is some way to sort through it and that’s what Dresner’s giving us. Better him than someone else as far as I’m concerned.”

“Beyond all that,” the host said, “what about accuracy? What if I have the same name as a convicted murderer and it gets confused? How is that going to affect the way people see me? Is there a system for fixing those kinds of errors?”

“LayerCake takes into account the quality of the information and is very conservative about how it weights it. But the answer to your question is yes. You can monitor the facts in your profile—there’s actually an app for it—and dispute them just like a credit report.”

“So what if the facts are right?” the man to the host’s right said. “I’m a decent person, but I’m a conservative. I hunt. I’m for the death penalty. I support Republican candidates. Does that mean it’s going to paint a pointy tail and horns on me to left-wingers?”

“Dresner can’t control people’s prejudices,” someone else chimed in. “But in the end you’ll probably be better off because he’s tempering their prejudice with reality.”

“I’m not sure I want a machine knowing everything about me and using that to tell other people what I’m worth.”

“Too late. The younger generation doesn’t value—or even define—privacy like we do. They don’t mind being advertised to and they don’t so much as have a cup of coffee without tweeting about it. They want to know if the person standing next to them on the train is a Christian who shares their passion for Siamese cats, if they have friends in common, if they’re looking for a relationship.”

The discussion became increasingly heated and Smith finally hit the “mute” button. It was an impossible situation that didn’t turn on right or wrong. Yet another of the growing number of issues that split almost exactly along generational lines. With him right in the middle.

He rose and padded to the bathroom, leaning on the sink and staring at his image in the mirror. The missing hair was a little more obvious than normal because of the military cut and he turned his head, catching the glint of one of the silver studs that had been screwed into his skull that morning. Interestingly, the process had been much quicker and less intrusive than the installation of the tooth mike Bailer had fast-tracked for him. He opened his mouth and pulled back his cheek, but couldn’t spot the molar in question with absolute certainty.

He’d considered wearing a headset and throat mike for the field test day after tomorrow, but then dismissed the idea. After all the germ, drug, weapon, and radiation testing American soldiers had been subject to throughout the years, going in halfway felt oddly dishonorable. And so, like countless others before him, he had been promoted to guinea pig.