Nick groaned as he slid into the self-driving limousine. He hated his dad's public events. They consisted of interminable meals consisting of foods that were chosen because their blandness would not offend anyone. On the rare occasions that alcohol was served, the drinking age was enforced and he had to abstain. And all the while, the guests persisted in nonstop glad-handing. Unfortunately, there had been no way to get out of this fundraiser. He'd missed the last two, and he was running out of excuses.

Ironically, this was the first time he actually had legitimate reasons to miss an event. Sparkwise Energy was growing fast and he was devoting more and more time to it. To attend this dinner he was missing the morning opening of the Shanghai Futures Exchange. But he didn't want to tell his father about his energy venture just yet. So he had grudgingly left the company in the capable hands of Laura and Kobus, and pulled on the tuxedo his maid had left out for him.

By attending the event meant Nick was having what was becoming an increasingly rare experience: leaving the privacy of his apartment and being exposed to the public eye – or as public as he ever experienced, given that he travelled to exclusive venues in chauffeured limousines. Yet any form of exposure was uncomfortable for Nick, because of the shiny metal cooling ducts that protruded from the base of his skull. No matter how long he grew his hair, the MindWave vents always stuck out.

There were still only about fifty users of the MindWave worldwide and most regular people had simply never seen one of the so-called cyborg barbarians before. Whenever he was out amongst people, even amongst the most rarefied company, he was harassed by strange looks and sometimes probing questions. Every long stare reminded him of how he had been taunted and bullied at school. And every awkward encounter reminded him of Peggy's cold decision to dump him right after he had the implant.

His limousine made the last turn towards the hotel. He saw a crowd of protestors standing outside the entrance, holding placards demanding lower energy prices. "We Need Gas!" "Winter Is Coming!" "Help Families Heat Their Homes!" Cordons of policemen and hotel security officers were holding back the crowd, but there would be no way to escape their view.

Even before his car fully stopped at the curb, he pushed the door open and hunched over as he hurried towards the hotel entrance. He didn't look at the crowd of demonstrators, who stood in the darkness outside the pool of light emerging from the glass doors. But he could hear them. "Look it's one of the freaks!" screamed a voice from somewhere in the crowd. Other voices chimed in.

"Cybarian!"

"Sociopathic monster!"

"Why don't you donate to my family's heating oil bill instead of some corrupt Washington politician's campaign?"

Then he made it through the doorway and trudged unhappily through the hotel towards the ballroom where he'd be dining with three hundred donors to his father's political action committee. As he caught his breath, he cheered himself up by musing that at some point, he'd gain enough mastery of the autopilot feature of his MindWave that he would be able to send his body to eat, make small talk, and otherwise endure these events without the need for his conscious mind to be present.

The room held over twenty large round tables, each covered in a beautiful white linen tablecloth and set with translucent bone china, elegant crystal glasses, and glimmering silver utensils. He was assigned to table number two. That would be at the front, near the podium where his father would give a speech later in the evening.

He walked through the room, past the sea of grey-haired guests in their conservative evening wear, chatting about their golf swings, bragging about their grandchildren, trading tips about vacation spots. It was going to be a long night.

At the front of the room, short in stature yet unmistakable because of his turban, his father was having an intense discussion. His counterpart was Senator Hal O'Brien, the main beneficiary of tonight's fundraiser. His dad had cultivated a relationship with O'Brien since the man's first run for national office a decade earlier.

Nick knew his father would be too busy handling the Senator and other VIP guests to spend much time with him. His mother, as normal, would be skipping the event but would undoubtedly swoop over in a limousine to pick up her husband as soon as the evening started winding down. Nick's role was simply to find his table and avoid offending the guests seated with him.

He saw table two. A white-liveried waiter was pouring wine for one of the guests, partially blocking his view of the table. Still, Nick could see that the twelve-seat table was already populated by ten gray heads wearing dark suits and gowns. He sighed. No one within thirty years of his age.

And then the white-liveried waiter stepped away.

There was a head of long golden hair at his table. She was facing away from him but her bright red dress stood out against the grayscale surroundings like a torch in a dark cave.

And the only remaining empty seat was next to her.

He stepped up behind the vacant chair and stood there running his hands up and down the seatback, forgetting to greet the guests. The blonde woman had left her stylish black leather handbag on the chair next to her. No wonder the seat was still empty.

She was looking away, trading some insights into the latest footwear fashions out of Beijing with a matronly woman a few decades her senior.

The older woman saw Nick and gestured in his direction. "I think this young fellow would like to sit next to you." She began the sentence in the kind of knowing, mischievous tone Nick was accustomed to hearing older people use when introducing two attractive youngsters to each other. But just as Nick knew it would, her voice trailed off to an embarrassed murmur as her eyes played over the shiny implants in the back of his skull.

The blonde girl turned to Nick, remarking, "Oh, I'm terribly sorry, I've left my bag here haven't I?" She extended a bare, toned shoulder to pick up the bag before looking up at Nick.

Nick's hands froze on the seatback. He needed to hold it firmly to keep his balance. She was the most beautiful girl he'd seen in real life. Sure, he'd seen prettier girls in the ether, but he'd never seen anyone like this face to face. "Um," he mumbled, and felt his face flushing red to match the girl's dress.

"Oh, please don't worry at all, no one's sitting here," the girl gestured at the seat with a polite smile. Nick wasn't sure if she really thought his embarrassment was due to a fear that he was taking someone else's seat, or if she had understood the meaning of his blush and graciously covered it up. Either way, he was relieved, even as his heart beat rapidly in anticipation of sitting down next to her.

"Thank you," he said, trying to muster a casual smile as he sat down. By now she would have noticed his MindWave. He braced himself for the usual mix of disgust and curiosity exhibited by strangers when they spotted his implant.

But this girl had no look of shock. Instead, she held his eyes and maintained an inquisitive smile. "Oh, sorry," he mumbled, "I'm Nick."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Nick," replied the girl, holding out her exquisitely manicured hand. "I'm Sarah."

***

Reverend Tracy Cruz sighed and brushed back a lock hair as she spent the minutes before her Sunday service at the National Unity Church running through her sermon.

Doc had passed away on the last day in September, almost exactly two months after he'd told her of his disease. Those last two months had been rough. Doc had barely had the energy to walk her through the basics of running a small nondenominational church.

The two months after his death had been even harder. She smiled sadly in memory of his bewildering habit of insisting everything was part of God's plan. If that were true, then God's plan had worked out pretty well for Doc. He'd had a good long run and then checked out just before he would have become responsible for ministering to a hopelessly poor community in the middle of an economic depression.

Ricardo popped his head into the small office where she sat and rapped on the doorframe. "Ten minutes, madam Reverend."

She rolled her eyes at his mock formality. "Are you filming the sermon and posting it online again?"

"Of course. It's the best way to get the word out. A lot of the families in the congregation are having trouble attending the sermons in person without gas."

"You don't have to sugarcoat it for me, Ricky. They just don't like the job I'm doing as pastor."

"Nonsense, honey." He stepped across the room and hugged her from behind as she sat at the desk, head cradled in her hands. "You're the best pastor this town has ever had."

She pushed him off. "You know that's not true, Ricky. I don't mind helping out but I'm no replacement for Doc." Her eyes flitted to the wall where his Doctor of Divinity degree had hung for decades. The degree was gone, yet it had left a rectangular patch of paint that was a shade lighter than the paint around it.

"You have plenty of degrees, too, hon."

"Not the right kind."

"It doesn't matter. Degrees don't mean anything. It's whether the Lord speaks through you that matters."

"Why don't you read through my draft sermon and let me know whether you see the Lord's voice in it." She passed him the tablet.

As he read through the document she contemplated the desk she sat at. "I don't even feel like I belong enough to clean out Doc's desk. It's still full of his old cigarettes."

Ricky looked up from the tablet. "Clean it out, hon. You're pastor now. I really like this paragraph: 'We may be poor, but it was the salt of the Earth that Christ died to save. We may have been hit hard by the recession, yet it was Jesus who taught us to turn the other cheek. We must not wallow in anger and self-pity at our lack of worldly riches, for it is our very poverty, our very acceptance of what the Lord has planned for us, that dignifies us in His eyes. As Paul wrote in his Epistle to the Romans:

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, for thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

"My friends, what we can learn from Paul's wisdom is that the most important thing we can do is not to struggle for more material wealth, but to maintain and nurture our faith, in ourselves and in each other."

Cruz shook her head. "Exhortations to keep the faith, promises that Christ loves the poor, admonitions against anger at the unfairness of the world. It's a load of bullshit."

"Honey, don't say things like that!"

"These people out there, those that can even come, things are so bad they're lucky if they can put food on the table. And things just keep getting worse, Ricky. They need food and they need jobs. They should be angry. They should be trying to get better lives. What good are empty words telling them to be patient?"

"Things are going to get better. They always do. And if they don't, we can all just move on somewhere else. The Lord will show us the way."

She stood up and looked out the window at the small playground Ricky had helped her build in the churchyard. It had taken weeks of late nights, yet if it kept one kid off the street and out of the rapidly growing gangs, the effort would be worthwhile. But she wasn't sure anymore that anyone could be saved. "It's not just Kerrville, Ricky. Kerrville's lucky in some ways, because we don't have to worry about heating in the winter. The whole country is suffering, the whole world as far as I can tell. Everyone is getting poorer, everyone is struggling."

"It can't be this bad everywhere, not for everyone."

She turned back towards him, remembering the energy market manipulation she had been intent on uncovering before she'd quit her job, before the pipeline had exploded, before she'd taken over the ministry. "No. Not everyone. There are a few who are profiting from the misery of the many."

"Who?"

"It's those computer-brained kids. The Aeons."

"The Cybarians? I thought they were just spoiled rich kids who'd opted out of real life. A bunch of kids is causing all this pain? Can't we do anything about it?"

She reached out and took the tablet back from him. "I don't know. Our only weapon is our voice, and no one's listening."

***

Sarah stepped out of her limousine and walked across the pavement quickly. She wasn't hurrying just because of the cool late-fall breeze. Even here, in Manhattan's wealthiest district, she felt unnerved by the envious glances sent in her direction by pedestrians. Just a few miles from here, university students were occupying a city park in protest of the most recent bill increasing taxes and reducing social services.

She slid past the liveried doorman into the restaurant where she was to meet Nick Lal for dinner. It had been easy enough to lead him into asking her out while sitting next to him at the fundraiser.

And so, the date had been set and she'd returned to the ranch for a lengthy debriefing. Now it was a week later, and she'd travelled to New York City from halfway across the country to meet Nick in Blue Genovese, one of the trendiest restaurants on the East Coast.

She remembered saying goodbye to Michael. They'd shaken hands wordlessly, because Jaeger had been present. But he'd clung to her hand too hard and too long. Apparently, Michael was not happy to see her go on another date with possibly the most desirable bachelor in the country. She'd wanted to tell Michael to relax, that it was just an assignment, but it was impossible to do so under Jaeger's watchful eye.

She realized the tuxedo-attired maître de was staring at her. She'd been lost in thought while he bowed and asked for her name.

"Sarah Trenton," she answered quickly. It seemed strange that her undercover identity was so similar to her real name. But Willy had suggested that with everything else she needed to remember when interacting with Nick, it would be too hard to keep track of a second identity.

"Of course. Your host is already here, allow me to take you to the table."

Sarah followed him through the dimly lit restaurant. In contrast to the beautiful wooden floor of the foyer where she had entered, the main dining room was floored with blue tiles. These tiles, she knew, were engineered to absorb noise so that diners did not have to fear that their conversations would be interrupted – or overheard.

Ahead of her, over the shoulder of the maître de, she saw Nick, sitting on the inside of a booth discretely placed behind one of the columns that supported the high, frescoed ceiling of the dining room. She allowed herself a brief smile of relief. He had shown up on time; that was a good sign on a first date. Especially since she'd been worried that he wouldn't show up at all.

With all of the distractions available to him over his MindWave, he could just as well have blown off the date. Why would a man go through the trouble of dating a woman embodying all of the imperfections and challenges of a real person, Sarah reasoned, when at his whim he could summon one, or three, or three dozen perfect virtual beauties who would behave exactly as he wanted?

Nick rose to greet her, while the waiter pulled out her chair. Sarah gave her date a quick once over. He was dressed in expensive, tailored clothing that highlighted his athletic figure. But his jeans and collared shirt were understated and casual, not formal or flashy. The outfit made sense for someone who suffered anxiety about being seen in public, as she was sure Nick did.

Good. Her choice of clothes had been appropriate. She wore a knee length baby blue dress that complemented her eyes. It was tailored enough to show off her figure, yet not so tight or clingy as to draw attention. The dress was cinched at the waist by a white fabric belt that matched her white clutch and low white heels. The pearl earrings that peeked out from below her blonde hair completed the outfit.

Nick leaned in, clearly not sure whether he was meant to shake her hand, embrace her, or kiss her. She solved the problem by presenting her cheek and brusquely air kissing him, making use of a gesture she'd learned during her crash course in debutante etiquette. She sat down and allowed the maître de to push in her chair and spread her napkin in her lap.

Sarah glanced over at Nick to assess his body language. He was clearly a little nervous, and afraid of looking either too eager to please or too disinterested. She recalled feeling the same while flirting with boys she liked at the Lal Orphanage. It was strange to see her own former childish foolishness reflected in someone as wealthy as Nick Lal.

He was hers to lose. She felt her pulse increasing from the thrill of the hunt. She used her TacWave to suppress her adrenaline. She needed a clear head.

She took advantage of the time between the maître de's departure and the waiter's arrival to begin employing her charm. She looked at Nick and smiled. "You're remarkably well behaved."

"What do you mean?" asked Nick, nonplussed.

"Well," she explained, "you're dressed nicely, you showed up early, and you even stood up to greet me."

"That's just basic etiquette," equivocated Nick, clearly not sure whether to be embarrassed or cheered by her praise.

"You'd be surprised..." Sarah rolled her eyes emphatically before smiling mischievously. "But speaking of basic etiquette, you did make one mistake."

He furrowed his brows. "What's that?"

"You're supposed to let the woman sit on the inside of the booth," she said, in a playfully officious whisper. She was glad to confirm that she was still an excellent flirt. She had grown out of her former inclination to seduce every boy that came along, but teasing Nick was her mission tonight.

"Why's that, so I can protect you from the big nasty waiter? Don't worry, this is a reputable establishment and the waiters usually don't attack their guests," replied Nick with a slight roll of his eyes.

"No," she retorted. "It's to prevent the man's gaze from being distracted by other women who walk past!"

Nick laughed this comment off uneasily. "I'm sure I won't be distracted tonight."

Sarah decided to accept the implied compliment with a smile and drop the topic. She assumed Nick had sat with his back to the wall to hide his MindWave from other diners. His anxiety about his appearance was at play. It wouldn't be good to spend the night magnifying his unease – he would never want to see her again. To get him feeling settled, she'd give him an easy win.

"So you picked this place. What's good here?" she asked, running her finger through the holographic menu that was floating in front of her.

As she had expected, Nick smiled more assuredly now. "They have some fresh