Page 73 of Lone Wolf

“That they have an infected tooth?” Allman blinked at him, momentarily confused. “Because we’re still R-and-D’ing our dental division.”

Evan tried to say, Oh, but his throat was dry.

Biltmore stuck his head up over the pony wall. “Airtight NDA aside, perhaps you want to speak less freely about—”

Allman flared a dismissive hand once more, and Biltmore faded back into obscurity.

Allman adjusted his glasses with a stiff hand, his fingers straight and parallel, the middle one nudging the imperceptibly tilted frame into place. “Sick and suffering people are valuable, of course, because the ones who have any resources left are price-immune. And I can push them to meds that require more meds to manage side effects of the first meds, et cetera. Our subsidiaries lobby to have the prescription process more regulated with more ‘consumer rights’ forms which build more and more delay periods into the fulfillment cycles. When we pop people on and off their meds it makes them more susceptible—mental health, physical complications, et cetera.”

“This is all legal,” Evan said flatly.

“Legal enough. Or sufficiently hedged against potential settlement damages. Of course Solventry doesn’t want people too sick. We need functional units.” Allman picked at a string of chicken between his teeth. “You can’t monetize a corpse. We don’t want them too unhinged either, since we’re boxed out of privatized prisons. For now.” He sighed and sank deeper into the couch. “So we strive for a sort of unstable stability. It’s not a conspiracy because it doesn’t have to be. You can no more break free of it than a gazelle can break free of the jaws of a lion. It’s the natural order.”

Evan gave his best professorial nod. He felt his confidence falter. And yet. Allman didn’t seem to know who Evan really was, which meant there were still limits to his preternatural knowledge. Which in turn meant that maybe Evan—and the world—stood a chance.

“And the media?” Evan’s hands felt clammy. “No one’s found this out, reported it? Hasn’t someone put this all together?”

“Didn’t you get the tweet?” Allman’s smile was a joyless reshaping of his mouth. “No one cares about anything anymore.”

Luke Devine’s voice echoed in Evan’s head: The more bad shit happens, the more money goes to the top.

“The sick and suffering,” Evan said. “They’re a gold mine.”

Allman nodded encouragingly. “Want to know who’s really susceptible to lucrative shifts in consumerism? People in times of disruption. Death in the family, divorce, new move, that sort of thing. And the most valuable of all? Parents-to-be. Pregnant women in particular.” He chewed a thick lip. “I know when women are pregnant before they do. Shopping habits, sleep disruptions, et cetera. It’s obvious really. If you live in Pensacola and buy baggy jeans, sauerkraut, and woven rag rugs in pastel colors, you’re eighty-nine percent likely to be knocked up.”

Evan pushed out the words. “That’s impressive.”

“Oh, that’s nothing. What’s really impressive? Making them want to get pregnant. To create a pipeline.”

“Like cattle.”

“Yes, but with less methane.”

Evan studied him to see if he was joking. He was not.

“Guide them to scented bath products more likely to stimulate sexual interest. Aphrodisiacal music and entertainment during ovulation cycles. Pairing high-fertility matches on dating apps, et cetera. Everything OKCupid tried to accomplish with those mildly clever quizzes, only I don’t ask questions. And that doesn’t even get into interpersonal-communication engineering.”

“‘Interpersonal-communication engineering’?”

“Are you irritated or overbearing? Should we positively reward softer, more feminine tones to increase reproductive desirability? It’s easy to analyze the emotional content of your conversations—how everyone around you responds to what you’re saying. Speech synthesizers and language pattern recognition—emphasis, cadence, modulation, tone, changes in breathing—that gauge hesitations and degrees of uncertainty in your conversations. It has direct business applications, too. You can’t imagine how useful it is for algorithmic stock trading. Are employees of a certain company increasingly showing stressed vocal tones or overusing key phrases—‘cost cutting,’ ‘downsizing’—which can be predictive of corporate underperformance. Think Twitter sentiment analysis but on steroids and on the inside.”

“That’s legal?” Evan realized the question wasn’t so much a question as an interjected refrain in the epic poem Allman was reciting.

“It’s not illegal. Try explaining any of this to your average hundred-and-nineteen-year-old senator from a square state. And good luck passing legislation that gets past the libertarian brigade who I fund up the wazoo. So there I am. In your pocket, in your bedroom, in your body and mind. Gauging what mood everyone’s in around the kitchen table. And if you’re not ripe for procreating or inadvertently conveying stock tips—let’s say you’re sleepy or exhibiting brain fog—perhaps I steer you to order comfort food and watch family programming.”

When he blinked, the slits of his near-closed eyes pulsed like tiny fists clenching. “On the other hand if you’re texting or speaking erratically, should I plug you into a weepy rom-com and a bucket of chocolate ice cream to prime you for your next cycle? We haven’t even discussed neurotech yet—brain-sensing headphones, smart contact lenses, et cetera. The key is to keep you inside a little bubble of contentment, outrage, or dismay so I can operationalize you toward maximum profitability. Every time you have a feeling and you’re online, someone’s making money. And usually it’s not someone.” His thumbs danced across his fingertips, a rodent-like tic. “It’s me.”

Evan’s chest felt tight.

Luke Devine had laid out the scheme beneath it all, that fifty trillion dollars flowing ever upward to the top 1 percent. And then to the top 1 percent of that top 1 percent.

Evan couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt such a visceral urge to drive his thumb through someone’s eye socket.

Allman’s face cracked into another of his non-smiles. “Oh, you all want this. Of course you do or you wouldn’t let me do it. You don’t want to acknowledge what’s happening, not really. If you did, you’d know it already. It’s not secret. It’s all right there. All you have to do is stop and think.”

“So why don’t we? Stop and think?”

For once Allman gave Evan’s words some thought. “Because you’d be forced to understand how worthless you are. You’re one of ten billion people on this planet. There are a trillion galaxies with a hundred billion stars in each. The odds of your being special are spectacularly low. But I’ve managed to load the entirety of human endeavor into a chip the size of a corn kernel so that it can do everything—everything—better than you. Then what do you feel? Who are you? You’re only confronting what coal diggers felt when the mines closed, what factory workers faced when the assembly lines were boxed up and sent elsewhere to be operated by cheaper and more grateful workers who knew their place. Who cares about your degree from Cornell or your one shitty patent or your ability to compose a symphony? Not when I can make Brahms on demand. Not just Brahms. My Brahms. With a snap of my fingers, geared toward all the specifications I’ve prescribed.”