“What would have happened if I hadn’t done it?” I felt numb.

“Look kid, don’t ask questions you don’t really want to know. Right now, the whole world is looking for people like you and most of us are worried. Counter-intelligence is shitting themselves. The brains think that whatever happened to you, happened to about point one percent of the world. That’s a lot of fucking people. Now we got to worry about the Russians, the terrorists, the Chinese, basically everyone, not to mention these new organizations popping up like Nerve-Ana, the Shakabuku and the Angels of Death. According to the President himself, you’re either with us, or against us. But between you and me, I think you did the right thing.”

Surprisingly, that didn’t make me feel any better.

“Why are we suddenly afraid of everybody?”

“The Chinese have more people than we do, so they have more untraceable human weapons and less ethics. The Russians are our oldest enemies. The terrorists can strike with precision and impunity. The list goes on.”