Free The Corporation Wars: Dissidence by Ken MacLeod Page A

complicated and conflicted history.
    “I… see,” he said, sceptically. “You got a market running in the background with free access as a user interface? Sounds legit.”
    She turned to him and laughed. “It is. And it keeps everyone happy, which is the point.”
    Carlos wondered if this was indeed the point: maybe keeping him—and the other walking dead soldiers whose existence she’d implied—happy in the notion that they’d be fighting on the side of a good society, was exactly what her account of this improbable-sounding arrangement was devised to do. A distant democratic Earth that fulfilled the promises of utopia without having actually made them in the first place might be as unreal, or at least extrapolated, as the pavement beneath his feet.
    She misread his frown.
    “So don’t worry, I did pick up the tab.”
    “I didn’t see you do it.”
    “It’s automatic. Think of it as a debit chip under the skin, though that is not quite how it is, even in the real world.”
    “I would have left a tip,” Carlos grumbled.
    “The thought does you credit.”
    He had to laugh. “Could I have, though?”
    “Oh yes. You have a chip, too. You have an income here, and you can spend it, and earn more. But money is not what you came here to earn.”
    “I didn’t
come here
to earn anything,” said Carlos, beginning to resent lugging the weight of his kitbag in the heat while Nicole strolled along chatting. “I didn’t exactly come here of my own free will.”
    “Free will!” said Nicole. “Yes, indeed, that’s what you’re here to earn.”
    They had almost reached the end of the arcade. She stopped outside the double swing doors of the last entrance on the strip. “Ah, here we are. The Digital Touch.”
    It was quite a respectable-looking bar, all polished hardwood and mirrors and marble tops and chrome fittings and wrought-iron table legs. A dozen customers and a couple of bar staff showed no curiosity or welcome. Nicole marched between the long bar and a row of small round tables to a wider room with a big glass ocean-view patio door that opened to a wide wooden deck sticking out over the beach. Carlos followed, hugging his kitbag vertically and awkwardly like a drunk dancing partner. He mumbled apologies to the ones and twos of people at the tables or on bar stools as he brushed past.
    Out on the deck and back to sea breeze and far horizon and the startling (again, but a little less so now) double-take sight of a segment of the rings. Not the sun: Carlos was relieved to see that an awning kept the deck in shade. Around two adjacent tables in the far corner sat a group of people, dressed like he was in olive-green T-shirts or singlets, combat trousers and pale brown suede desert boots. Nicole’s first footfall on the deck turned heads. The laughter and loud talk over drinks and smokes died on the air.
    A plastic seat tipped back and clattered as they all scrambled to attention. Clenched right fists were raised to shoulder height, then upraised hands clapped above heads in a rattle of applause. Nicole must have given them a far harsher bollocking and indoctrination than she’d given him—no “let’s-do-lunch” and chat for these guys, he guessed. They all remained standing, arms pressed rigid to their sides.
    Nicole was looking at him.
    “Salute!” she mouthed.
    Oh. Of course. Show the lady some respect. Carlos dropped his kitbag, straightened his back and jerked his right fist to his shoulder, then drew himself to attention, eyes on Nicole.
    After what looked like a moment of annoyed puzzlement she stepped back to his side and whispered in his ear: “Tell them, ‘At ease.’”
    “What?”
    “It’s
you
they’re standing up for and saluting, you dumb fuck!”
    “What the—”
    “Now!”
    “Oh, uh…” Carlos waved both hands in a “sit down” gesture. “At ease, everyone.”
    They all relaxed, and resumed their seats after a brief and excruciatingly embarrassing chorus of