Free Soulminder by Timothy Zahn

!”
    The vault-like door swung easily on its balanced hinges, and Everly stepped into the room, giving it his usual quick once-over before sealing the door behind him. “Join the party, Everly,” Sands waved him over, her eyes still on Harper. “Sackcloth and ashes for everyone—put it on Soulminder’s tab.”
    “Harper, huh?” Everly commented as he came up. “Puts on a good show—I’ll give him that much. Got good writers, too.”
    “He doesn’t write all this himself?” Sommer asked.
    “Oh, he does some of it, and rewrites the rest into his own style. But all the more flowery stuff comes from professionals.” Everly nodded toward the TV. “I did a check on him five months ago, when he first latched onto Soulminder.”
    Sands frowned up at him. “You hadn’t even joined us five months ago.”
    Everly shrugged, his eyes on the screen. “The Brainchild Project will be almost as controversial as Soulminder if it ever pans out. You’re ahead of the game if you can identify your opponents before they know whose side they’re on.”
    “My friends, I don’t have to tell you the state America’s in today. Abortion on demand, atheists in the highest positions of power, the systematic destruction of the family—God’s people are losing this country, my friends. Losing it to the false pride of modern-day Pharisees who think they have more wisdom than God-fearing men and women. Losing it to the arrogance of would-be tyrants who want to run our lives from halfway across the country. Losing it to the sterile, self-appointed morality of people who claim that the world is changing, that there’s no place for God in our schools, our legislatures, or our hospitals. All of them will try and tell you that they , not God, are the ones who should set the moral standards for our nation.”
    “A little hyperbole never hurt ratings, did it?” Sommer growled.
    Everly shrugged. “He acts like he believes it.”
    “Oh, right,” Sands said sourly. “And it’s pure coincidence that in picking on Soulminder he just happened to strike a major ultra-conservative nerve?”
    “It’s a major nerve because there’s a large chunk of people who really believe we’re evil,” Everly reminded her. “Who’s to say he isn’t one of them?”
    “Awfully charitable of you,” Sands said with a snort. “I still think he’s just playing games.” She looked at Sommer. “His people still nagging you to come on his show and defend our side of it?”
    “We get a registered letter from them about once a week,” Sommer told her, grimacing. “We’ve got a form-letter refusal I keep sending them. Can we turn this off yet? I’ve about had all I can take.”
    “Yeah, he’s probably finished flaying us for today,” Sands said, reaching for the switch and pausing a moment to listen. Harper had segued into a condemnation of welfare money intended for the poor instead simply disappearing into the bloated welfare bureaucracy; turning off the set, Sands settled back into her chair. “I’d sure like to find some way to shut that guy up.”
    “We’d probably do better to ignore him,” Sommer told her, listening to his heartbeat slow down. Harper’s accusations got far deeper under his own skin than he cared to admit. “Starting right now, in fact. So tell us about your trip to the new building, Frank. Everything going all right?”
    “Oh, the work itself is coming along okay,” Everly said. “But I think we’re going to have to tighten things among the employees. We’ve got what looks like four or five CIA men who’ve infiltrated the concrete crew.”
    “What?” Sands sat up straighter. “What are they doing, scoping out the floor plans?”
    “More likely looking for good places to plant bugs,” Everly said. “They would have had a complete set of the blueprints months ago.”
    Sands hissed a curse between clenched teeth. “What about Soulminder’s own employees? Your people finding any moles there?”
    “Oh,