Feed Read Online Free Page B

cost? Ramone had been one of the people who’d protested giving up that last token of privacy when the cameras had first been used to monitor people. 
    He’d been in the minority.
    First there was a string of terrorist attacks on U.S. soil. Major city after major city clawed its way out of rubble and debris created by suicide bombers. Initially, the consensus was that freedom was worth the danger. But then eight bombs went off at eight different high schools and middle schools in five different cities. How could this happen? was the shocked outcry. The final straw. At the time, the nanocameras were being used by people with neural damage to their eyes. Soon, the cameras were modified into something more powerful. Tiny engines roared to life in them, floating, gliding on invisible currents, intelligently steering their way around terror suspects.
    Soon questions of privacy arose. The cameras could be used as more than just monitors of suspected criminals! It started with those who guided the cameras to their subjects. They put the cameras on themselves and set up instant feeds straight to the Internet, giving the feeds titles like, “A day in the life of…” Boring titles, but who could resist the urge to watch someone else’s entire day? It had a strange pull.
    People like Ramone were outraged. But after hundreds of veritable children were murdered en masse, how could someone suggest something so monstrous as turning off the nanocameras? Lives could be saved! Their protests were smothered and ridiculed. And then, eventually, the strongest proponents in favor of these voyeuristic uses of the nanocameras were the social media aggregates, and not surprisingly, it was they who owned and controlled the news networks. The world was ready, it seemed, to be seen at all times. And the courts, well, money talks.
    That’s what Ramone believed, anyway.
    He knew the machines were there, quietly, silently hovering around him. There were Editors watching him, perhaps twenty-four seven, filtering his life, splicing it, adding effects and music if they wanted, and turning anything even remotely entertaining into something they could sell on the feeds. It was sickening.
    And now, he knew this thing in his heart, this embarrassing wanderlust leading him away from Sue and toward Blythe would be exploited if they felt like it.
    The only escape was to pretend he felt nothing. The only thing to do was to be completely honorable.
    So far that hadn’t been working. So far he’d been an open book. He cringed inwardly as he merged into the line of cars ribboning along the freeway. He imagined what sort of music they’d put to this fascinating, thrilling drive home. Could the jerks make rush-hour entertaining?
    He frowned at a new thought. Was he being self-centered to think the Editors would even notice his ridiculous blushes around Blythe and the tiny infidelities he was experiencing about her in his heart? Rubbing his forehead as he eased his car forward a few feet on the freeway, preparing to turn control over to the vehicle, he realized he was being one of the indulgent, self-absorbed people who made special efforts to gain notoriety on the feeds. Didn’t it take that sort of mentality to arrive at the conclusion that the Editors would pay special attention to him?
    No one would make a musical montage of his life. No one would even notice the way his hands got sweaty around her, the way he couldn’t form articulate sentences when he looked into her eyes, the way he burst into laughter without warning about the most inane things. He was sure if he could see it from the outside, it would be apparent that everything was in his head. That the things he was interpreting as chemistry and interest were all in his imagination.
    Hobbling down the road, hands relaxed impotently in his lap, thinking these self-recriminating thoughts, his phone suddenly beeped. He had a new message.
    It was probably his wife. He took a deep breath to calm