‘No more lines, Johnny. That band you put around my hand is the only line I care about. Every fucking corp, intel agency, and wannabe hacker has another line they’re ready to draw, just to push people over the edge of it. I’m sick of it, Johnny, we ain’t doin’ their shitwork for them no more. Look where it’s gotten people. Look where it got Sue and Sam next door. She can’t even look him in the face anymore, and he can barely take out the trash with his bad back and seared fucking lungs.’
He looked at her, unsure what to say. He’d built his career building those lines. It was all he knew. But she had a point. There were so many of them now, you didn’t know what word or act would cross some other invisible line someone drew around you. ‘Control,’ he whispered. ‘Sally, the lines are like yarn, invisible walls meant to keep us still. Herded, corralled.’ It clicked in his head. He began pulling those lines of yarn apart, one by one. ‘Let’s see where all those lines lead, Sally, eh? Let’s see what they’re…what’s that new word you like?’
She grinned her tight lipped grin at him. ‘Obfuscate.’
He smiled back at her. ‘Let’s see what those lines are obfuscating.’