Free Amped by Daniel H. Wilson

weird and know it than be a stupid ass.”
    I can’t help but feel like I’m speaking to an adult.
    “What about you?” asks Nick.
    “Me?”
    “Yeah. You want to be a reggie?”
    “It would make life a lot easier.”
    Nick stops, frowns at me. “Would it?” he asks.
    ----
    General Biologics to Close US Offices
    PITTSBURGH—The General Biologics corporation, makers of the popular Neural Autofocus ® brain implant, announced today that it will be closing the main offices in downtown Pittsburgh as well as satellite offices around the country.
    A company spokesman indicated that it was impossible to continue in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling, saying, “Recent decisions in the US courts have created an incredibly hostile environment here in the United States—not only for our clients but also for our workers and their families.”
    Several weeks ago, an explosion at a Pittsburgh laboratory claimed the life of Dr. David Gray, a General Biologics medical researcher. Despite increased security at other research facilities, the threat of violence has become a day-to-day factor for many employees.
    The spokesman said the company will likely be moving the bulk of its in-patient operations and production facilities to an as-yet-undisclosed location in Europe. Approximately five hundred employees, many of them highly skilled factory workers, have been invited to move with the company, although it is unclear how many will accept the offer.
    The current product line is due to be phased out over the coming months, and American patients with existing implants will be provided with emergency care only.
    ----

When night hits Eden, the close-packed trailers light up with ratty old strings of paper lanterns, citronella candles, and the fleeting streaks of kids playing with flashlights.
    I sit with Jim on his dimly lit deck, a crusty folding chair biting into my ass. The old man hands me a cold beer and we watch the nightlife of the park settle into the shadows. He doesn’t speak and by now it doesn’t surprise me.
    Jim was right—battle lines are being drawn. Every third trailer or so lurks dark and empty. There are hardly any unmarked temples left in Eden—all the pure humans have packed up and moved on. In their place, harried families of amps have arrived from miles around. Renting the empties. Their gleaming new cars stud the parking lot. Newcomers are coagulating here at random, many of them with nothing in common except those little flecks of metal in their
     brains.
    They’re not here because Eden is safe or even welcoming. They’re here because there’s no other place to go. Nowhere else to rent or go to school or work. No more options. We’re all running for our lives, in one way or another. Being left alone is the best we can ask for.
    And we can’t even get that.
    I’m startled by how soon I get used to the spotlighters. The winking scrape of their lights over our trailers seems to live in myperipheral vision. Occasional gunfire and hooting laughter come from beyond the fence.
    The local amps seem unimpressed. Across the way, a stained slab of concrete sits where some repossessed trailer used to live. A shirtless guy has got a clamp light hanging from a tree branch, the extension cord running to his trailer. It illuminates an old door supported by two sawhorses. Tools and empty beer bottles are scattered around the makeshift workbench. The guy is ignoring the field, busily fixing the knees of a plastic exoskeleton that’s sprawled out
     like a corpse.
    A fiery red dot sizzles across my vision. It’s a teenager in a hoodie, jogging past. He’s carrying a crummy old boom box that amplifies music from a portable player tucked in his pocket. The node on his temple throbs in time to the beat. A neon attachment the kid has made himself. I don’t know if he’s proud of being an amp or just oblivious to the stigma. Either way, the implant is impossible to miss.
    All the ephemeral sounds of Eden—the low hum of