Adam said, as he had several times before. The food really was terrible, but it was better than some alternatives. Such as starving.That afternoon, several hours passed in silence, Pavel hunched over the Lightcap formerly worn by Hana while Adam sorted through the mountains of information in LaMont’s datafile. He found there was just as much, if not more, random junk as there was useful data. The man had digital receipts for dry cleaning from five years before, a hotel receipt from a year and a half prior, file after file of unimportant data. Despite the hunt for digital needles in virtual haystacks, Adam did find useful information. It appeared to Adam that the Brain Sync acquisition was just for show, a formality, a way to add to the Adaptech balance sheet and increase its clout in the world market. He found notes going back over a decade showing LaMont had an intimate knowledge of the inner workings of Brain Sync, and access to its confidential intellectual property. At the very least, LaMont had someone on the inside. He found files suggesting the Mind Drive v5 had incorporated elements of Lightcap tech, specifically the components which helped to create a sense of docility, making the wearer more open to suggestion and less likely to experience intense emotions, even suppressing the capacity for self-reflection. The files explained a great deal, especially why no one seemed to mind that things kept getting worse. Between the mesh vid nodes, the lack of personal connections in daily life, and the high adoption rate of Mind Drive v5, people were too entertained to think and too preoccupied to care.Adam found additional information suggesting LaMont had controlled Doctor Velim for quite some time. Daily log files going back more than five years, observations on his attempts to break her spirit while she wasn’t wearing the Lightcap, which led to lower inhibitions during future Lightcap sessions. Adam was horrified to learn that after several years of almost daily use Sera Velim now sat quietly, awaiting commands, even when she wasn’t wearing the Lightcap. LaMont noted Velim did occasionally resist commands against her personal moral code, such that he found her unreliable. LaMont had forced Velim to wear the Lightcap nonstop for the past ten months.As Adam read through hundreds of pages of LaMont’s notes, he found one recurring theme: LaMont trusted no one. Adam had sometimes thought he himself suffered from paranoia, a byproduct of an overly analytical mind and a tendency to see every potential point of failure or weakness in a given system. LaMont made Adam appear a careless exhibitionist. There were dozens of pages of rants—long, rambling pieces casting nearly every person within his social and professional circles as a potential spy or saboteur, including Adam.
