Page 72 of Lone Wolf

“So we’re talking about the Fourth Industrial Revolution?” Evan asked. “Man against artificial intelligence, machine learning, all that?”

“Oh.” Allman looked almost dismayed. “You still don’t know.” He wet his meaty lips. “It’s already over.”

“What is?”

“The revolution.”

“How so?”

Allman’s mouth pursed moistly. “Imagine if I told you thirty years ago that every American would spend thousands of dollars on devices that remove them from reality, that place control over their persons in the hands of corporations, that cede access to their nervous system, that chart their every location and activity, that invade not just their privacy but the inner workings of their minds, and that they would do so willingly, even enthusiastically? What would our founders say? The framers of the Constitution?”

A coldness pulsed to life at the base of Evan’s spine. Across from where they sat was a fireplace framed in cold marble and devoid of flame, which seemed an apt metaphor for something.

“That nondisclosure agreement you signed just now,” Allman pressed. “Did you read it? In its entirety?”

“No.”

“Do you think anyone reads the consent forms or privacy-policy disclosures when they agree to install software or an application? Let alone vet them through a team of lawyers before clicking ‘accept’? Do you know how long they are?”

“No,” Evan said. “No. And yes.”

Allman was shaking with a puzzling kind of indignation, a droplet of sweat at the tip of his nose. Evan wondered how it didn’t tickle terribly.

“You feel a twinge of regret each time you click and yet you do it, you override your better instincts because the alternative is inconvenient. So you value laziness over rigor, convenience over responsibility, submission over freedom. And in doing so you consent to cede every last bit of agency I take from you. People today actually believe they’re too frazzled and overwhelmed to do any work themselves. More victimized by circumstances than our predecessors when they were winning the West or carving a ranch out of the frontier. Convenience, it will be the death of us.”

“And you profit off that.”

Allman looked at Evan as if he had a low tooth-to-head ratio. “What else is there to do? There’s no un-addicting America now. Or the world.” The more he spoke of the inhuman, the more animated he became. “Now it just comes down to what it always has, from the Spartans to the Mayans.” A wet gleam of a smile. “Power.”

“That’s all there is? Will to power?”

“That’s all there’s ever been. I’m only stating it plainly. When you’re at the top of the dominance hierarchy you figure out how much you can take and how much you have to give everyone below you so that they don’t take up arms or disrupt your system. Anyone who believes they’ve been socialized out of it is just practicing self-deception. Now we use weapons of mass communication. No different than a nuclear arms race.”

“Right,” Evan said, sincerely.

They were just two men sitting in chairs talking, and yet it seemed a corner of the universe was unraveling in the space between them, providing a glimpse of the abyss beyond.

As the unraveler, Allman had the upper hand, and he knew it. “You’re studying genius,” he said. “Do you really want to know what I know?”

Evan felt a creeping apprehension. I don’t, he thought. I really don’t.

He nodded.

Allman’s fingers fished around on the plate, came up with a cube of chicken, popped it into his mouth. He breathed audibly through his nose as he chewed, speaking through the meat. “I have eyes and ears in your phone, in your car, your smart appliances and virtual assistants, in the smart TVs peering into your rooms, the smart fitness mirrors in your home gym, et cetera. From any one of them I can collect over a hundred thousand data points a year and I can weave them together to compile comprehensive data logs for every member of your household. I know your visitors from your doorbell cams, who you talk to on the phone, what you say, what books and articles you’re reading. I know when you need to replace the toner in your printer before you do, when you need to reorder paper towels, when the lights go on and off in your house. I know what you look at on any screen and for how long, down to one-millimeter movements of your mouse. I even generate heatmaps of what your eyes focus on at every website you visit thanks to the webcam on your laptop. That eye-tracking tech also tells me when you’re paying attention to your boss or spouse or a sales clerk and when you aren’t.”

That coldness moved into Evan’s veins now, spreading its way through his body. He wondered what else Allman might know about him. And about Dr. Stanley Leigh.

He tried to cut in, but Allman kept on with that flat, dead cadence. “I know when you want me to tell you my widgets or soap bars are environmental or invested in social justice so you can feel virtuous buying from me. I know when you’re feeling insecure or agitated or happy based on which phrases you use in your social-media posts, YouTube comments, texts, emails, and podcasts. I know whether you had an aunt hospitalized for paranoid schizophrenia and when you’re searching symptoms of depression online. I know who you associate with, who you prefer to see on what day of the week, and which restaurant you’re most likely to pick depending on who you’re with. I know when you’re capable of absorbing a rent increase and when you’re at risk of breaking a lease. I know your fertility cycle from one tracker, your biorhythms from another. I’m in beta for a contactless heart monitor that bounces sound waves off the people around you so we can access their bioinformatics, too.”

He paused to emit a not-so-muffled belch. His appearance wasn’t repugnant because it was some sort of reflection of his moral state. It was repugnant because of how clearly it showed just how little he cared.

“All those fitness apps? Wearable tech? I’m not concerned whether you’re healthy or working out. I care about where you are on the map. What stores you’re close to and which free Wi-Fi access points you connect to— or even just the ones you walk by. If your blood pressure is high and requires meds. I can alter your movements by recommending different workouts and challenges or pushing promotions for stores you’re walking by. I can monitor your sleep, heart rate, perspiration, and target you for which pillow you think you want and what deodorant you believe will make you feel fresh. I can regenerate the same news story for every member of your family using different buzzwords and biases to stoke your respective pain points or proclivities for resentment—and then drive you to fight over it. I can drip drip drip into your social-media feed and a few months later have you enraged over black men kneeling at football games or white girls wearing cornrows at an Ivy League school. That constant anxiety and insatiable anger that you feel? It’s by design. It’s how we keep you in the desired state of”—Allman’s lips twitched as he searched for the word —“pliability.”

He seemed to have no need to respire; he was like a printer spitting out pages.

“The more agitated you are, the more you stay online and the more we can monetize you. People don’t know why they think what they think they think. I tell them. I tell them to stop eating meat or to hate specific public-policy experts. I can analyze your facial expressions when you post or teleconference and determine everything from mental state to dental health. I can gauge how clogged your arteries are from biomarkers in your vocal register. I know which molar is sore before you’ve registered it consciously, if it’s the mandibular right third or left maxillary second on the left. When you’re ripe for blenders, smoothie cookbooks, NSAIDs, Popsicles—”

“Why don’t you just tell them?” Evan asked.