Lock In (Lock In, #1)

by John Scalzi

“Honestly. A computer inside your brain? What the hell did they think was going to happen with that? They got serious about patching when some hacker from Ukraine started giving people arrhythmia just for kicks. That shit’s actual attempted first-degree murder.” “I’m glad they fixed that,” I said. “Well, for now,” Tony said.

“What do you mean ‘for now’?” I asked. “Think about it, Chris,” Tony said. He pointed at my head. “You’ve got what’s effectively a legacy system in your head. Its upkeep is currently being paid for out of the budget of the National Institutes of Health. When Abrams-Kettering goes into effect next Monday, the NIH will stop paying for upkeep once its current batch of contracts expires. Santa Ana and Hubbard aren’t updating and patching out of the goodness of their corporate hearts, you know. They get paid to do it. When that stops, either someone else is going to have to pay for it, or the updates stop coming.”

“Some people will be screwed,” Tony said. “I’ll be fine because this shit is my job and I can hack my own network. You’ll be fine because you can afford to hire someone like me to maintain your network. Our roommates will be fine because I like them and don’t want them to have spam piped into their brains against their will. And the middle-class Hadens will probably be able to pay for a monthly subscription of updates, which is something I know Santa Ana, at least, is already planning for. “Poor Hadens, on the other hand, are kind of fucked. They’ll either get no updates, which will leave them vulnerable to software rot or hacking, or they’ll have to deal with some sort of update model that features, I don’t know, ads. So every morning, before they can do anything else with their day, they’ll have to sit through six goddamn advertisements for new threeps or nutritional powder or bags for their crap.” “So, spam,” I said. “It’s not spam if you agree to it,” Tony said. “They just won’t have much of a choice.” “Swell.”

“Because this is what I learned about myself that first day: My body is my body. I don’t want anyone else in it. I don’t want someone else controlling it, or trying to. It’s my own little space in the world and the only space I have. And to have someone else in it, doing anything to it, sends me into a panic.”

“And here we are,” Vann agreed. “Now you know why I stopped being an Integrator. And why I drink and smoke and fuck like I do: because I spent years working in a state of alcoholically managed panic, and then someone tried to kill me with my own body. I don’t drink as much as I used to. I smoke more. I fuck about the same. I think I’ve earned all of them.”

“He was a little boy when I was born and he knew that I was held within myself,” she said. “And so he would come to me, and kiss me on my forehead, and sing to me for hours. Can you imagine. What other seven-year-old boy would do such a thing. You have no sisters or brothers.” “No,” I said. “Do you miss them?” “I can’t miss what I never had,” I said. “Which is not true at all,” Bell said. “But I have put it poorly. I mean do you feel that you have missed out by not having siblings.”

“I’m sorry—” Hubbard said, looking at May and Janis. “Don’t you dare,” Janis spat. “You’re not sorry Johnny is dead. You were going to kill someone today. You’re sorry you got caught. But you did get caught. You got caught because Johnny stopped you from getting away with what you were doing. He made trouble for you, just like he said. My brother was slow but he could figure things out if he took enough time. He figured you out. And now look at you. My brother is ten of you.”