Free Amped by Daniel H. Wilson Page A

campfire conversation, kids panting and laughing, the occasional shriek of an air tool, and even the distorted thump of bass lines—combine into a familiar babble. Human lives unfolding. It’s comforting. Somehow, Eden is an honest-to-God functioning community. Pushed out here to the margins of society and huddling together for sanity but operating nonetheless.
    Almost normal people living almost normal lives.
    “I’m getting tired of the silent treatment, Jim. Why am I being hunted?” I ask. “What is the Zenith?”
    Jim hushes me.
    “Don’t say that word so loud. Only a handful of people in the world know what it means. If you were smart, you’d wish you weren’t one of them.”
    Jim looks around, suspicious. He continues, voice lowered.“It’s an implant like any other. Won’t make you a superhero. Just helps your brain process the world.”
    “I need to know more than that, Jim. A lot more.”
    “I can’t be responsible for you if you get hurt. I already done enough damage. Look at this place,” says Jim. “And we thought we were helping these people.”
    Eden may feel calm right this instant, but tension crackles just beneath every movement. Every sound. It’s a fragile picture of normalcy, wavering in the reflection of a soap bubble.
    “My dad said you would explain. It was the last thing he said.”
    The old man sucks on his beer and sits quiet for a moment, thinking. Finally, he swallows a last mouthful of beer and starts talking.
    “I only built the amp hardware—the army programmed them and your pop installed them. All thirteen. That was the whole run, but I don’t have the whole picture. Before activation, it oughta be doing basic Neural Autofocus tasks. Pushing your mind in the right direction. But it also knows things. Military skill sets, probably. I don’t know—I didn’t program that part. All I do know is that when you turn it on, the amp takes over.
     You go faster. No time to think. If you’re a good man, you’ll do good things. If you’re not, you won’t.”
    “It controls you?”
    “It’s still you. Only the Zenith doesn’t listen to you up here,” says Jim, pointing at my forehead. “It listens to you down here.” He taps my chest, over my heart. “It’ll give you what you’re really wishing for.”
    I consider that for a second. “How do I turn it on?” I ask.
    “A trigger. Part of the programming. Could be some kind of action or series of words. Only Lyle could tell you for sure.”
    Jim pulls down the last draft from his beer, drops it, and pops open the next in a well-practiced motion. Doesn’t say another thing.
    Then something thuds into the boards under the deck. Jim pulls his mouth into a line and stomps his boot against the sagging wood. The blows reverberate like a marching drum.
    “Get up here, Nicky!” he shouts. “You little prairie dog.”
    Covered in leaves and dirt, Nick crawls out from under the deck. He’s grinning, stiff hair sticking up over his low ears. “I know’d it,” he says. “I knew he was here to do something.”
    “Dammit, Nick,” says Jim. “Where’s your mother?”
    “On her way. I’ll tell her you’re lookin’ for her. See you later … Zenith.”
    Nick giggles and trots off into the darkness.
    “Christ,” says Jim.
    “I’ll talk to him about it,” I say, but Jim’s looking past me. Someone is coming. A woman walking slow and relaxed. She carries the kind of gravity that seems to pull light in around her.
    At first, I can see only her pale lips as she emerges from the shadows. Then she pushes dirty blond hair from her face. Sets a pair of bright almond-shaped eyes on me. The glow of every dingy paper lantern hanging on the deck is reflected at me in her eyes, each reflection like a possibility.
    Her temple is clean. She’s not even an amp.
    I set my beer down quick and open my mouth. Ready to spring into action. Ready for something. It’s just that I can’t think of what I meant to do. Or