Daemon

taking a chance on me and for being a joy to work with.
    Thanks especially to Adam Winston, James Hankins, and Don Lamoreaux, writers and friends whom I’ve long admired and whose advice on early drafts of this book was much appreciated.
    Thanks also to Stuart McClure, Joel Scambray, and George Kurtz for bringing attention to cracks in the system, and to Thom Hartmann, P. W. Singer, Neil Gershenfeld, Carl Zimmer, John Perkins, Kevin Phillips, and Jared Diamond, whose published works helped to crystallize some of the sociopolitical themes in this story.
    Finally, tremendous thanks to my wife, Michelle, for her tireless efforts to help this book see the light of day. And for knowing I was a writer but marrying me anyway …

Further Reading
    You can learn more about the technologies and themes explored in
Daemon
by visiting www.thedaemon.com or through the following books:
    Hacking Exposed
by Stuart McClure, Joel Scambray, and George Kurtz – McGraw Hill
    Fab
by Neil Gershenfeld – Basic Books
    Parasite Rex
by Carl Zimmer – Touchstone Books
    Confessions of an Economic Hit Man
by John Perkins – Berrett Koehler
    Corporate Warriors
by P. W. Singer – Cornell University Press
    Unequal Protection
by Thom Hartmann – Rodale
    Wealth and Democracy
by Kevin Phillips – Broadway
    Collapse
by Jared Diamond – Viking

About the Author
    Daniel Suarez is an independent systems consultant to Fortune 1000 companies. He has designed and developed enterprise software for the defense, finance, and entertainment industries. An avid gamer and technologist, he lives in Los Angeles, California.
Daemon
is his first novel.

Read on for the first chapter of
Freedom TM
,
the explosive sequel to
Daemon
, to be published
by Quercus in April 2010.

Chapter 1://Dark Pool
    InvestorNet.com
    Profits in Milliseconds – “Algorithmic stock trading is the future of finance,” according to Wall Street titan Anthony Hollis , whose Tartarus Group employs sophisticated software that responds to market conditions, trading equities with sub-millisecond speed. Due to its extraordinary profitability, Hollis’s form of programmatic trading grew from 14% of all equity volume in 2003, to 73% of all volume in 2009.
    However, critics contend that high frequency trades – where a single stock may be bought and sold multiple times an hour – only increases market volatility while producing nothing of value .
    An elderly man emerged from the crowd and aimed a revolver straight at Anthony Hollis’s face. As the old worker’s thick index finger squeezed the trigger, Hollis sat up in darkness – breathing hard.
    He glanced at the clock on the nightstand:
3:13 a.m
. Motionless, he listened to his own rapid breathing.
    He started to calm down as he looked around his bedroom. It was illuminated only by the soft glow of large flat screen monitors mounted on the far wall, scrolling stock prices for the Nikkei, Shanghai, and Seoul exchanges. The monitors weren’t necessary anymore. They were merely a comfort to him.
    Hollis took one more deep breath and tried to shake off the nightmare. He was just about to lie back down when the unmistakable crackling of gunfire somewhere in the night came to his ears.
    He sat up again.
    The phone beside his bed warbled. He grabbed the handset. ‘Metzer, what’s going on?’
    The calm voice of Rudy Metzer, his security director, came over the line.
‘We have a situation by the service gate. It’s being contained.’
    ‘What kind of goddamned situation? Who the hell is shooting?’
    In the bed next to him Hollis’s latest girlfriend looked up at him sleepily. She was a third his age. ‘What is it?’
    He ignored her and tried to listen to Metzer.
    ‘Mr Hollis, as a precaution, I want you to move into your secure room as soon as possible.’
    ‘Are the police on the way?’
    ‘Sir, the estate’s outside lines have been cut. Cell phones and radios jammed. We’re isolated for the moment. I need you to move quickly and calmly to your safe room. I’ll phone you on the landline. Do you understand?’
    Hollis absorbed Metzer’s words and felt actual fear. ‘Yes. Yes, I understand.’ He returned the phone to the cradle and stared at nothing for a moment. The screens on the far wall now showed only video snow.
    ‘What’s happening, Tony?’
    Kidnappers? Assassins? Two months ago a retired autoworker had tried to kill him in Chicago. Metzer’s men saw the guy make his move, and they tackled him before he could pull