"Target A"-Carlos Mendoza, a financial titan adept at playing the game of multinational capital-died of sudden "acute neurogenic shock" while watching a documentary about the Great Depression of 1929 in the private theater of his villa with its sweeping ocean views. The official report was vague, but undercurrents were already stirring in financial circles. Several highly leveraged, high-risk funds under his control began showing signs of instability.
W's public opinion machine sprang into action with precision once again, deftly linking Mendoza's death to recent international proposals calling for tighter financial regulation. An impending regional economic crisis, triggered ahead of schedule, was portrayed as "the market mechanism's self-purification" and "a warning of the need for stronger regulation."
Efficient, precise, far-reaching.
I closed the news page. The screen went dark, reflecting my blurred, pale face. The shadow in the mirror had empty eyes, without the slightest ripple from completing the "surgery," only a dead stillness of nothingness. Paying the price had become a seamless process, like a step on an assembly line. I completed it numbly and numbly accepted the loss of a memory-this time, the sense of freedom I had felt riding into the wind when I first learned to ride a bicycle.
Before I even tried to recall what that feeling had been like, it was already gone. All that remained was the hollow shell of a concept: "I once knew how to ride a bike."
W's "optimization plans" were like an efficient drug. Even as they relieved the immediate pain, they sharply reduced my tolerance for suffering, while my dependence on "efficiency" grew by the day. I found it increasingly difficult to endure the sluggish, painful struggle of devising things on my own.
The encrypted phone became the only "beacon" in my life, guiding me toward the next "efficient"