It was probably true that the borders were uncrossable. It was probably true that your chip was programmed to blow your head off in the unlikely event that you succeeded in crossing anyway. Nevertheless, Nevada was the sole exception to Goog’s assertion that there was no getting away from the Scab. It was the one place on earth where millions of Americans weren’t paying federal taxes. Accordingly, mere mention of the traitorous malcontents drove Willing’s most influential dinner guest into a rage. It would be prudent to change the subject.
“So how’s it going at the Bureau, then?” Willing asked Goog brightly.
“What’s this,” Goog said suspiciously. “Interest in my work?”
“Everyone in America is interested in your work.” Willing had perfected this poker face in adolescence. His ridicule and sincere esteem were indistinguishable.
“Since you asked,” Goog said, “we’re bringing in some new reporting requirements that are bound to affect you, Nollie. After all, it doesn’t seem fair that most of the country sends in so much data on income and expenditures, while outliers can operate under a cloak of secrecy and obfuscation, does it?”
“Yes, my keeping a purchase of incontinence panty shields to myself seems a rank injustice,” Nollie said.
“Starting in January next year”—Goog’s voice rang with relish—“the unchipped will be legally obliged to file a same-day report on every purchase and deposit. We’ve already designed the online forms, and they’re quite extensive: address of vendor, federal tax ID number, time and date, serial or product number, purpose of purchase—”
“You mean the federal government needs to know why I bought incontinence panty shields,” Nollie said.
“Best of all, the forms don’t accept cut-and-paste.” Goog simply could not stop smiling. “You may find that remaining outside the system will cost you rather a lot of toil and trouble.”
“That’s harassment,” Nollie said.
“Looked at one way,” Goog said blithely, “all of government is a form of harassment. But you wouldn’t want to look at it that way, would you?”
Savannah puzzled, “Why not just make the shrivs get chipped like everyone else?”
“Coercion is crude, and invites tantrums,” Goog pronounced. “This way, the long-lived are persuaded to embrace chipping as a welcome salvation from the paperwork equivalent of Abu Ghraib. Think about it: if I wallop you with a cudgel, you’ll get mad, and you might even hit me back. If I prick you over and over with a straight pin, you’ll thank me when I stop.”
“You’re diabolical,” Nollie said.
Goog accepted the compliment with a gracious nod. “Oh, and we’ve also started digging into old files, now that Congress rescinded that random seven-year limit on our curiosity. Lotta irregularity in the thirties. Like those Tax Boycott crybabies, who refused to file returns in some boo-hoo over having been bankrupted by ‘their own government.’ With compounded interest and fees, those chiselers will lose everything. It’s complicated, converting dollars to nuevos, but we’ve worked out a formula.”
“Toward the end, the value of the dollar was changing every day,” Willing said. “Every hour, even. So your formula must be terribly sophisticated.”
“It works out roughly to our advantage, if that’s what you mean,” Goog conceded.
“Yes,” said Willing. “That is what I meant.” He took care to add, “More patriotic that way. Better for everyone. For the country as a whole.”
Goog studied his cousin again, searching for mockery. But he must have been accustomed to civilian pandering. Willing’s was pro forma.
“So it turns out other folks were under the yunk impression that they could deduct losses from voided Treasury bonds,” Goog continued. “Or they had the impudence to subtract the difference between what they were compensated for gold and its grotesque over-valuation on the open market. Like Dad always said, it’s a moronic investment, so they deserved to take a hit just for being nitwits, if you ask me.”
“I don’t know how foolish an investment it’s turned out to be,” Willing said, keeping his tone companionable. “Anyone who kept hold of all that glitters in ’29 would turn a handsome profit today—even after 85 percent capital gains.”
“They’d earn nothing but a prison sentence,” Goog said sharply. “Any gold in this country remains the property of the US government. You wouldn’t happen to know anyone who’s still hoarding?” Hoarding remained a synonym beloved of bureaucrats for retaining your own assets.
Willing bore up with a bashful smile. “I was being theoretical.”
In the face of the kind of grueling interrogation once reserved for terrorists and now exclusively practiced on alleged tax cheats, the suspect’s most commonplace mistake was to assume a range of high-intensity emotions: indignation; flopping, tearful contrition; wrath. Yet the most effective defense against Goog had always been bland geniality. An unruffled happyface drove the scabbie insane, but he couldn’t object to it.
“Though if gold is such a yunk investment,” Willing added politely, “why does the government want it?”
“The US didn’t set up the terms of the bancor,” Goog said with contempt. “Speaking of which—I got an advance tipoff on a revolution in the works that’s gonna make our lives at the Bureau biggin’ easier. The administration’s been lobbying for years, and the decision’s finally gone our way. So you heard it here first: the NIMF is going to eliminate the cash bancor.”
Nollie crossed her legs on the sofa with a demure femininity out of character. Savannah blanched, barely able to get out, “Why?”
“Use your head,” Goog said. “The entire black market is conducted in bancors. But the cashless economy is catching on the world over. Pretty soon you won’t be able to stash liquidity in a shoebox anywhere. Being off-chip will be the same thing as being flat broke. The complete elimination of cash internationally will dispatch corruption, tax evasion, racketeering, and misconduct of virtually every sort.”
“I wonder…,” Willing mused, as if having only just thought of this, though he and Jarred had discussed the matter at length. “What do you make of the proposition that the definition of a truly free society is a place where you can still get away with something?”
“I’d say that’s a treacherous definition of freedom, Wilbur. The law is the law. You obey it, to the letter. Freedom is what’s left over. If the law doesn’t say you can’t do it, then you can.”
Willing put on a confounded expression. “I’m not sure freedom works for me as a remnant. Like the snippets of material left over when my mother made curtains. Isn’t freedom a sensation? After all, you don’t have to exercise a freedom to possess it. I don’t have to get up for a drink of water. But knowing that I could get up, it changes the way it feels to sit, even if I stay sitting.”
“You’re talking treasury, kid,” Goog said. “You were obviously claiming that in a ‘free’ society everybody gets to break the law and not face the consequences. So in your deviant little mind, liberty is just another word for rampant criminality.”