Free Chicken Little by Cory Doctorow Page B

wanted this?"
    She peered at him. "A world of people who understand risk are nearly as easy to lead around by the nose as a world of people who are incapable of understanding risk. The big difference is that the competition is at a massive disadvantage in the latter case, not being as highly evolved as the home team."
    He looked at her, really looked at her for the first time. Saw that she was the face of a monster, the voice of a god. The hand of a massive, unknowable machine that was vying to change the world, remake it to suit its needs. A machine that was good at it .
    "Clarity," he said. "Clarity." She looked perfectly attentive. "Do you think you'd have tried to kill Buhle if you'd been taking Clarity?"
    She blinked in surprise. "I don't think I ever considered the question."
    He waited. He found he was holding his breath.
    "I think I would have succeeded if I'd been taking Clarity," she said.
    "And if Buhle had been taking Clarity?"
    "I think he would have let me." She blurted it so quickly it sounded like a belch.
    "Is anyone in charge of Buhle?"
    "What do you mean?"
    "I mean -- that vat-thing. Is it volitional? Does it steer this, this enterprise ? Or does the enterprise tick on under its own power, making its own decisions?"
    She swallowed. "Technically, it's a benevolent dictatorship. He's sovereign, you know that." She swallowed again. "Will you tell me what happened with Clarity?"
    "Does he actually make decisions, though?"
    "I don't think so," she whispered. "Not really. It's more like, like --"
    "A force of nature?"
    "An emergent phenomenon."
    "Can he hear us?"
    She nodded.
    "Buhle," he said, thinking of the thing in the vat. "Clarity made the people who took it very angry. They couldn't look at advertisements without wanting to smash something. Going into a shop made them nearly catatonic. Voting made them want to storm a government office with flaming torches. Every test subject went to prison within eight weeks."
    Ria smiled. She took his hands in hers -- warm, dry -- and squeezed them.
    His phone rang. He took one hand out and answered it.
    "Hello?"
    "How much do you want for it?" Buhle's voice was ebullient. Mad, even.
    "It's not for sale."
    "I'll buy Ate, put you in charge."
    "Don't want it."
    "I'll kill your parents." The ebullient tone didn't change at all.
    "You'll kill everyone if Clarity is widely used."
    "You don't believe that. Clarity lets you choose the course that will make you happiest. Mass suicide won't make humanity happiest."
    "You don't know that."
    "Wanna bet?"
    "Why don't you kill yourself?"
    "Because dead, I'll never make things better."
    Ria was watching intently. She squeezed the hand she held.
    "Will you take it?"
    There was a long pause.
    Leon pressed on. "No deal unless you take it," he said.
    "You have some?"
    "I can make some. I'll need to talk to some lab-techs and download some of my research first."
    "Will you take it with me?"
    He didn't hesitate. "Never."
    "I'll take it," Buhle said, and hung up.
    Ria took his hand again. Leaned forward. Gave him a dry, firm kiss on the mouth. Leaned back.
    "Thank you," she said.
    "Don't thank me," he said. "I'm not doing you any favors."
    She stood up, pulling him to his feet.
    "Welcome to the team," she said. "Welcome to Buhle."

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Chicken Little
    Cory Doctorow
    © 2011 by Cory Doctorow
    Copyright for digital edition for all languages
    © Digitpub srl 2011
    via Adige 20 - 20135 Milano, Italia
    www.40kbooks.com - [email protected]
    ISBN EPUB 978-88-6586-083-0
    ISBN MOBI 978-88-6586-583-5
    Cover by Roberto