A tall man with a shaved head ambled through the park. He must have been strong once, but by now, some of his musculature had turned to soft fat. His worn military attire suited his gleaming black skin well. The older, slender host sprang from his chair when he saw him and hurried to greet him.

  “Brin! I’m so eager to see you! Do you have good news?”

  “Good day to you too, Daan!”

  “Well?”

  “You could at least offer me something. I’ve just come from the zone. Do you know what it’s like to go through the airlock? They rinsed the crap out of me.”

  “Stop whining, that’s why it’s an airlock, to clean you. Did you find anything useful?”

  Brin nodded, and by the time he looked up, a wide grin stretched across his face.

  “We found it, boss! There are tons of blueprints there!”

  “The network maps?”

  “As far as I could scan, everything for the entire continent is there, plus, as a bonus, the supply systems for the new cities and the plans for the underwater cables.”

  Daan’s brow smoothed.

  “Then everything will finally come together. Are we doing this?”

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  “Are you kidding? Ten years of my life went into this! Of course, we’re doing it! We’ll blow something up, then switch the network, and get rid of the Church and the Truth Stamp! Finally, we can be our own masters again!”

  “If you find the coordinates, I’ll initiate the alert. You know, I have some self-justification in how much can be done outside the system, with traditional means.”

  “That’s why we don’t need these gadgets that think for us!”

  The Church and the AP were blinded by the digital network, and they greatly, greatly underestimated the power of the past.

  If there was such a thing as a solemn silence, it settled between the two men now. Unspoken words, every dead end of the past ten years, and now the moment when the last pieces of the puzzle could fall into place.

  “It seems I’ve found a teacher! They’ll eat her up! I’ll send her to the library to research. There’ll be a little media buzz.”

  Brin looked at Daan in confusion. Then his coal-black eyes glowed.

  “I thought we wanted to keep it a secret!”

  “Relax, it’s just a diversion. Where there’s media, there’s no secret. And we’ll gain some time with it; if you don’t find what you’re looking for, we can claim they shouldn’t demolish the building until she’s finished. She’ll prepare teasers for the books and check the catalogue. Perhaps we can expand the New Humanity library with new acquisitions. Maybe some lost books will turn up too. You’ll officially only be there to oversee her safety,” Daan smiled contentedly from behind his closely cropped, snow-white hair and tanned skin. He was hard to resist. Smart, determined, and persuasive.

  “And they’ll believe that? Your robots could do the whole thing in two weeks! You wouldn’t even need a guard.”

  “Leave it to me. They’ll believe it. It will be great! I’ve already coordinated with the demolition crews; they’ll send the flock to the other side of the city until then.”

  Brin flopped onto the chair, which groaned under his considerable weight. He grabbed one of the sandwiches that a small eight-legged robot had brought out in the meantime.

  “Alright. Two weeks then! I wasn’t planning to fuss with it that long, but I guess that much is acceptable. Let’s hope the teacher is up for a little casual sex.”