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stuff.”
    Lian chose not to waste any time figuring out if what Matt had said was offensive. She ate a couple of the spicy rosettes, with no adverse reaction, and deflected the topic again. “So . . . assuming you make it out of this meal alive, what are you thinking of doing with that home-school education? Burrito magnate?”
    He shrugged. “I don’t know. My dad wants me to take over Harrison Corp after he retires, but I don’t think I really have much of a head for business. Lately, I’ve been thinking it might be pretty cool to run my own surf shop.”
    She waited for the irony to dawn on him, but it clearly wasn’t happening. “Wouldn’t that require some kind of ‘head for business,’ too?”
    “I guess it would,” he admitted. “But you gotta figure it’s a mellower clientele, with significantly lower expectations.”
    “Your faith in your own abilities is inspiring.”
    He caught the sarcasm but responded with a perfect, friendly smile. “And you? Loftier goals than selling board wax to white guys with ill-advised dreadlocks?”
    She straightened in her seat. “I’m thinking of training to become a human rights lawyer.”
    “Ah,” he said, raising his eyebrows. “So you’re setting out to change the world?”
    “Is there something wrong with that?”
    “Oh,” he said, carefully unwrapping a thin strip of beef from around its bright green nucleus. “There’s nothing wrong with
saying
it. It’s the
doing
it that’s the hard part.”
    She was ready to argue. But, before she could, she was distracted by the conversation at the far end of the table.
    It was really more of a monologue by this point, actually. Harrison Senior had slowly drawn the attention of everyone down both sides of the massive table. His voice carried through the room, as rich and dark as the wooden walls that reflected it.
    “But none of these,” he was saying, “hold a candle to the threats found online. Modern business can’t survive without the Internet, of course . . . but the dangers are manifold. Every computer is a weapon if it’s in the wrong hands.”
    Lian felt the little hairs on the back of her neck stand on end and hoped that no one in the room noticed that she was suddenly somewhat self-conscious.
    “Every cyber-attack necessitates a rethinking of the firewall,” Harrison continued. “Maintaining that kind of dynamism bleeds resources from companies trying to build shields faster than their attackers can forge swords. But I can at least appreciate the hackers’ and coders’ tactics. That kind of warfare takes actual skills, a talent for parsing ones and zeroes and using them like a craftsman would. It’s not the programming geniuses who are the real threat to the corporations—what is stolen is insured. It can be recovered. No, the real threat to people like us is these . . .
bloggers
.”
    He spat out this last word like it was rotten fish.
    Lian could feel her ears burning.
    “Any monkey with a laptop and a Wi-Fi connection can jump online and post anonymously. The clever ones disguise their IP addresses or appear to be dozens of different commenters. They can post their slander without fear of reprisal, can spread their—often poorly spelled—thoughts to the world with no accountability. And they can cripple a company’s reputation with no more than a few clicks of a mouse.”
    Harrison puffed up his chest for his big summation. “They are dangerous, they are irresponsible, and I am certain you all agree with me that, regardless of cost, they
must be stopped
.” He pounded his fist into his hand with each of the last three words. The Australians and Americans applauded. Even the locals nodded vigorously.
    “That’s . . . not an entirely accurate portrait of the blogging community,” Lian said. She felt riled by Harrison’s speech, but she kept her words steady and strong enough to be heard as the clapping died down.
    Heads turned; eyes drilled into her. Lian saw her father cringe with