Borderless (Analog #2)

by Eliot Peper

It was easy to forget, but cars were just computers that drove you around. Houses were computers you lived in. Hospitals were computers that healed you. Factories were computers that made stuff. Farms were computers that grew food. Utilities were computers that delivered power and water. Everything and everyone was connected to the feed, which made everything and everyone dependent on it.

it would finally provide the oversight that techno capitalists like Rachel had evaded for so long. It would put voters back in charge of critical infrastructure. It would clarify what had long since been obvious: the digital world was just as important as the physical one and ought to be a public jurisdiction, not a walled garden.

Secrets. Those gems of privileged intel that she had dedicated so much energy to collecting, whose possession made her feel special. But the superiority of omniscience was an empty sort of pleasure. It was a way to detach herself from the life she was too scared to live.