Part 1 A standing ovation . The general , who had entered the room first , now stood beside me . He was also clapping , his chest thrust outward . He regarded me with as genuine a look of admiration as I think I ' ve ever had directed at me . With a gesture he silenced the room . A man who clearly needs no introduction . a few of them laughed . He turned to me Sir , we are just so honored to have you here today , I doubt I ' m the first to tell you how many lives you ' ve saved and will continue to save . Your technology gives us the tools we need to infiltrate and strike a real blow where it counts . And we ' re able to do this efficiently and effectively every time . On behalf of myself , this administration and the country , our sincerest thanks . More applause . And it kept going . Awkward . I was beginning to worry that someone would ask me to speak and I didn ' t want to . It ' d have to be all patriotic and I ' m just not good at that stuff . Besides , I didn ' t start selling the shit for the politics , I did it for the money . Unbelievable amounts of money once I got the government contract . All my friends are poor . I ' m basically God to then now . So I wasn ' t there to give speeches . I mean yeah I had to keep up appearances and maintain friendships , but under this administration making friends is easy as keeping your mouth shut . I was there for a show and I had it on good authority that this was one of the best ones in town . Perhaps picking up on my desire to get on with it , the general barked Okay ! That ' s enough ! Let ' s show the man what we do ! Those on the lower floor spun back around in their chairs . Most of the others on the mezzanine filed out through doors on either side of the room . It wasn ' t until then that I realized that some people had come in from other departments just to get a look at me . Christ , this shit was really a big deal for these people ! The General gestured toward the stairs to the control room floor . We descended . He asked over his shoulder What do you already know about what we do here if you don ' t mind me asking ? Well , I said I imagined it was like a police show with , like , mug shots on the wall , like an organizational hierarchy or something and agents calling in with clues . The general laughed , well no , you can see it ' s a little bit more complicated than that . Indeed it was . There were three giant screens , rising up from the floor past the mezzanine balcony dominating the forward wall . The lower floor consisted of at least a dozen terminals . Off to one side , under the outcropping of the second floor , which appeared to be used primarily as an observation area for higher ups and civilians in expensive suits , there was a large table cluttered with open files and on either side of that a desk . On the opposite side of the room there was a large , glass office that I figured for being the general ' s . In the office , there were two large monitors on the wall . On one of them I could make out what looked like a man being hit repeatedly with something . The other showed what appeared to be a static image of an empty chair . Interrogation rooms . He must have followed my gaze . You bring them here ? If we have to . Have a seat . The General pulled out at chair at one of the empty terminals nearest the forward wall . We have two jobs here Identify and neutralize . In Performing our duty in a clean and efficient manner we serve to make the country a safer place by curbing all that civil unrest , as the type we saw when this administration first came to power . He gestured to the large screen directly in front of me . This is what we call a heat map . This doesn ' t give us an exact location or anythingthat ' s our job to figure out but what it does do is tell us is where we ' re going to be having problems . I wish we had unlimited resources but unfortunately a lot of that money ' s tied up right now in making this country great in other ways . So this lets us know where we need to be focusing our efforts at any given time . In a few minutes you ' re going to be observing the completion of a sevenmonth operation in Devonston . I looked at the screen . The map was straightforward enough , but there were all these numbers and stuff I didn ' t get . So wait a minute , how do you know where problems are going to happen ? And what ' s this , this channel variation ? It ' s exactly what it sounds like , how often are channels being changed in the region . Like , television channels ? Yes sir . Used to be we ' d be tipped off by the fact that they , by and large , didn ' t tend to watch , or even own TVs . So as you know , we started backdooring usage and location data from newer sets and it was like bludgeoning monkeys in a barrel . Under 35 with no TV data , but enough money to afford a nice really set , I mean , come on , guy like that ' s obviously out there occupying streets . But they must have caught on because now they always have nice , new TVs and they ' re certainly turning them on , but we realized that they ' re still not watching them , the freaks . They just turn ' em on and leave ' em . So if we see a region where the TVs are always on but there ' s a low channel variation then that ' s a sign that we have some work to do out there . Of course there ' s other stuff that feeds into this to . You can see search histories , social media post content as well as likes , internet activity in general . Excuse me sir , a small man in a black uniform interrupted . Team Melbourne is in position and they ' re awaiting authorization to proceed . The man handed the General a clipboard . Authorization granted . he said as he signed the clipboard and handed it back to the officer . He then shouted across the room at a guy sitting behind one of the other terminals in street clothes Grey , put this through to terminal 14 for our guest . ' Grey ' looked up from whatever it was he was doing , sweeping his medium length , almost white hair behind his ears . The kid looked like he was thirteen Audio and video sir ?