by Mark Doten
What happened to him?
I assume he was killed. He stopped appearing on anyone’s radar.
Birdcrash had good intentions.
We dated. We had some good times. He was insane. We broke up. I stopped contact with him. I wondered why I had ever gotten to know him—why I’d ever written the book. I stopped opening his emails, I blocked him where I could.
What do you mean where you could?
He still sent messages. There were the attacks. There were Pastebin postings that referenced my book. And there was the final message.
The encrypted Pastebin.
I don’t know what that is. I never saw it. I’m talking about the attack.
1/28—you think that was a message for you?
No, let’s say it was omnidirectional. It was a broadcast message.
I told him that he was right, it was. My family had received the message. They had taken it to their deaths.
I said, Tell me who he was.
You’re ready to kill me in my bed, aren’t you? You have crazy eyes, you really do. I’d let you kill me, but I think they’d stop you, and our talk would be over.
Sebastian smiled. He said, I’d like for you to be able to visit their graves. Your wife and daughter. That’s a very nice idea.
The building beside the airstrip had a coffee machine that dispensed instant coffee into paper cups. It was coin operated, but the coin box was open, and four quarters lay in it. There was a sign taped to the front of it: DO NOT USE. And in a different color ink, scrawled below: If you do use, do not steal the quarters.
I saw three men get coffee, one of them twice.
I got coffee. A while later, another man came by with a sandwich for me.
You didn’t take any of the quarters, did you? he asked.
No.
We need those to make the machine work.
I didn’t. I raised my hands in a what do you want gesture.
He nodded. He said, Better safe than sorry.
Something in it, some irony verging on menace. Safe than sorry. Some inside joke I didn’t have the key to. Hostility, anyhow.
Or maybe I was just tired.
I kept my mouth shut.
Better safe than sorry.
Galloway landed after dark in a C-12 Huron, empty apart from him and the flight crew. An army officer materialized, asked me to stay in my seat. He sat beside me, staring blankly ahead. Galloway was seated several banks of seats behind us. I turned and waved—too emphatically, ridiculous, like the start of a parade float wave, which I arrested instantly, and my hand was just there, up. Galloway nodded.
Please face forward, the officer said.
This is silly, I’m going to say hello to my friend. I started to stand. Or that’s wrong: I did not stand, and I was not physically restrained, so it would have been more like when you are ready to leave a party and you start making testing gestures, not standing but shifting weight, positioning yourself to move, communicating intent.
But now the officer was standing: above me, looking down. He folded his arms. He said, My instructions are that you don’t speak until the general is present.
And when will that be? I asked.
He sat back down, said nothing.
What general? I asked. Who are you? Where are we?
He’ll get here when he gets here, he said. No more talking.
The general in question was the head of the Office of Communication Oversight. The man, I thought, who had been dogging us, watching us, controlling us the whole time. He was pale and bald, with a round face and broad, downturned lips. He had a gut, and his soft, deep voice seemed to rumble up from it, catching and rasping in the machinery of his throat—something choked and distressed. There was as well a high-pitched, singsong note that would break into his speech at odd moments—almost the sound of someone soothing a baby. And a hand would jump up and smooth the lapels of his jacket, or touch his throat, or just flap in the air.
We have a predicament, the general said. The car the dog caught. I understand that what was approved was a piece about internet humor on 1/28. I’m a bit perplexed how we got from there to, ah, a conspirator in the attacks. That wasn’t the assignment, and yet here we are. And so. And so. We are placed in an odd position. I’m afraid that this information can’t, we are not prepared for it to go out, and it is, ah, it is very sensitive. Very sensitive indeed. You have to excuse me, my first stop was the facility with Sebastian de Rosales, but he passed away—just a few hours after you visited, Rachel, I’m sorry to tell you. So how do we move forward? It is information of such a sensitive nature that those who have it, they would almost need to be quarantined.
Quarantined, I said.
Galloway said, I’d like to speak with my reporter alone for a few minutes. How can I talk about this when I don’t know what it’s about? I have been out of touch with her for almost three weeks—this is not an acceptable situation.
Well, the general said. That’s also delicate. We don’t want to have to quarantine you, Tom. Not you too, Tom, if it can be helped. As you know, I’m overseeing a number of reboots of marquee news outlets, and we’re happy with what you’ve done. Tom, we’re very happy with you, with the issue you’ve lined up. The piece about the endangered birds nesting in the ruins, making a comeback. The crossword puzzle. The word hunt for those less intellectually disposed, thank you for accommodating us there, Tom. The profile of the cellist playing out there in the middle of some danger—I hope I never oversee a disaster recovery where there isn’t a cellist playing somewhere dangerous, what a story. You’re putting together something real and worthwhile, and we don’t want to jeopardize it with this sort of mess.
If Rachel found something, she’ll write it up. We’ll be happy to work with you to make sure that it doesn’t damage security. But a true narrative of 1/28 is something we should be working toward. I don’t like this word, quarantine. The truth isn’t a sickness, Bill.
Well, Tom, that’s where we part ways. The truth can be a kind of sickness, under certain circumstances. Sure it can. Or we could say that the people, our people are a bit sick right now, and the truth must be administered in some cases judiciously. The truth, you see, the truth is really whatever helps the system, that’s what the truth is, the truth of and for the system, if you understand me. For a person who’s dehydrated, one might think of intravenous fluids as having a certain truth value. A person with cancer, chemotherapy—again, that’s a kind of truth. Isn’t it, Tom? That’s the truth we need right know. Of course the historical truth, the actual accounting of what happened on a more granular level, that will emerge—it’s of great importance that it does, it’s essential, no question—but when should it? We have built certain ideas here, around the notion that it was foreign powers that caused the internet attack. Now if it’s a domestic enemy, then that means a shift of emphasis. It’s still a narrative that can work. But if people have been saying foreign powers, foreign powers, and now it’s this? It’s not entirely flattering to the system, you see, to think it was just some kids, essentially. Now, there’s the Philippines angle, that’s something we can work with. A sort of hinge piece. The Philippines, I think people will remember something bad was going on there near the end, but it’s a bit of a blank slate for America. It’s something, at least. I’ve got teams who can help us figure this out. What works, though, with the nation’s image of itself? That’s in a sense the truth—what is real, and what the people will accept. Where those meet.
There are Filipinos living here, Galloway said.
I’m sorry?
It’s not a blank slate to Filipinos. There were millions of them, surely many thousands now.
Tom, don’t be so literal. Speaking of the way a nation sees itself is of course not an exact science—yes, on some literal level there are as many ways of seeing the country as there are people. There might be a, uh, a viewpoint of pansexual first-generation Finnish immigrants who work in the Forest Service that is quite distinct from this more g
eneral image I’m speaking of. Pardon me, but you know what I mean. And even in any little microgroup, division, contestation. But every nation has an idea of itself, something larger and more general, and even if we can’t fully pin it down in its particulars, we know what we’re talking about.
Mom and apple pie, Galloway said.
Johnny Appleseed, Apple computers, mom’s apple pie with the lattice crust. You understand me, Tom. Meanwhile, out among the unregistered, there are whispers, there are low-powered radio transmitters, old-fashioned—it’s really remarkable, the ingenuity—old-fashioned hand crank letterpress devices, analog bullshit, these really distressed and confused people who don’t understand what we’re doing here, or have a sense of how if they could just listen to our plans they’d find themselves in a position where they could be integrated into this new world, a world that’s going to be solid and have the potential to last, these people—it’s awful, really—circulating their own news, rumors, lies, with absolutely no standards. Do you know, they say—this is more widespread than you can imagine—they say that there’s no food left anywhere, and if you register, you’re actually going to be slaughtered and eaten up? That we’ve resorted to mass cannibalism?
Fake news, Galloway said.
Precisely.
I said, So what is the bottom line? I’ve been promised a trip to Brooklyn. My prize for getting Sebastian to talk.
The general pressed his fingertips together and let out a small laugh.
Well, yes. I know about that. Prospect Park. I think it’s a fine idea. Something I’d like to happen. But we don’t know where this is going. And we do want to reward you for your find. So. Let’s table the grave stuff for a moment. We are going to take this individual that de Rosales has identified as Birdcrash into custody. We’ve got people watching the place now, drones out there puttering around. There’s a little house—a cabin—it could be something.
The general rested his chin on his hands, elbows braced together on the desk, and smiled broadly. So, he said, that’s where we are. There’s a real possibility that it was de Rosales—I don’t think he’s as innocent as he claims. Perhaps this person is just some no one that de Rosales fingered for whatever perverse reason.
He is a novelist, Galloway said. He’s used to lying.
The general gave Galloway a look that seemed at the point of crossing into annoyance before the grin restabilized on his face. That’s right, Tom, he said.
For what it’s worth, I said, I didn’t have the sense that he was lying.
Thanks for that insight, Rachel. I’m very glad to hear your opinion. Because we’re going to take him in, this fellow in the shack, if there really is anyone there—the heat signatures are ambiguous, I’m told—and we’d like you to come with us.
I got the information out of Sebastian. That was the deal.
Rachel, I admire you so much. You have been a wonderful help. Though technically, we asked for the password—the password to the Birdcrash document.
So what do you want?
We want you to come for a ride-along. Tom, no objections to one more assignment for Rachel? Watch our brave men pick him up. If the story gets told—and that’s still an if—this will be a part of it. Rachel, Tom, I leave it to you, but I think you’ll have to agree that this is a good plan. In fact, Tom, if you don’t mind, I’d like to speak with Rachel alone.
After Tom had left—with a mixture of reluctance and obsequiousness, a pain in his face and defiance, before he turned on his heel and was gone—the general said, Rachel, I’m glad we can talk one-on-one.
He said, Tom is a wonderful editor, but he is also a bit of a true believer, if you know what I mean. I feel like you’re a different personality.
You feel that, I said.
So we’ve got you quoting Marx and bantering with one of the people who caused the end of the world.
Yes.
I’ve also, and this just happened to fall into my lap, just routine background stuff, you know, I’ve got you—the general checks his notes—saying that the idea of the mass slaughter of the ultra-wealthy helps you sleep better.
I’m not sure what you’re referring to.
Oh, it’s right here in one of the transcripts, a journalist friend of yours, she was apparently at the Washington Post. You said: You hear what happened to the rich people, the billionaires, I mean the super rich, luxury custom bomb shelters and compounds and all that? And they thought they were making themselves safe. And you explained that you’d heard how there was a clamoring for these rich bunker spaces, the whole system wanted them. And then your friend asked: What happened to all those billionaires? And you said: Killed like pigs in their ultraluxury slaughterhouses. Hunted and slaughtered, or starved out, or suffocated, in the safest little crannies in their beautiful ultradeluxe bunkers. Shot or stabbed or beat to death. And your friend said—oh, this was in a discussion about how to get to sleep, did I mention that?—your friend said: And that helps? And you said: Every night. And she said: Them dying. And you said: Beats counting sheep.
What’s the point? I said. If I do this, will I go to Prospect Park, yes or no?
I like you, Rachel. I think we can partner on this. You’re a good writer, and I think you’re a very pragmatic person. And if not …
What if not?
C’est la guerre.
So, Prospect Park?
The general pressed his fingertips together, then opened his hands wide. Prospect Park, he said.
We were four Humvees (one with an armored turret) and two tactical vehicles moving into undocumented space. Drones had been sent ahead of us to check for obstruction in the road. There was an arbitrary quality to the decay, what had been burned down and what remained. We passed a farm—soybeans—with several military vehicles parked outside of it.
What happened out here? I asked.
The soldier beside me said, It’s fucking animals out here. They go for the farms—you have to protect those first. Do you know how hard it is to protect a whole farm from ambush? But we’ve got to have the farms. For civilization. And it’s hard to fuck up a whole farm. A whole field. Do you know how hard it is to fuck that up without an airplane dropping a shit-ton of fire? And yet they creep in somehow and fuck it all up.
We were winding up some hills as the sun set—the roads were overrun with fallen branches or branches that had been put there. The vehicle in front of us had something like a cow catcher that knocked the debris aside. Then we were deep in the hills, and coming off the road to a long road through the trees, just two ruts. Tree branches banged against the side of the vehicle.
It should be here, the soldier said. This is where it should be.
We pulled up to a low structure—an old wooden shack—when the ground started to incline there were pipes emerging from it, and a grinding beneath us. Go! the soldier shouted.
But we were already falling—the earth beneath us dropped away, and we were crashing into a darkness.
I heard sprays of automatic gunfire, and then I was gone.
So you found us.
Through all the stuff of life, and control of life, through all the nodes that had assumed the power to give life and end it: you are here.
It’s your life we have and we have it here and we won’t end it, no not now.
They say we live in a universe fine-tuned for life. We say: for death.
The universe was fine-tuned for you to find us, just as it was fine-tuned for us to do all that we have done.
It’s our hope that you see. To be bound up like this. It’s not special. It’s all of us.
Nod if you agree, Rachel.
We are not all bound up in tape and dangling from chains from the ceiling, tape over mouth, head taped and pulled back, suspended, held there with our tummies down, and yet: we are.
The universe has been fine-tuned for the internet in its forty years to set the conditions of totalization to make the world’s end possible. To circumvent the controls of the bilateral mutually assured
destruction through distribution, through the insertion of the network into everything.
It spread through the benevolent technocratic California hippies, through hobbyists and web commerce and great military powers.
It gamified microloans and monitored dreams, and every night it cleared fifty trillion dollars in transactions.
It would do what it needed to do, to extend itself into every corner of the globe, and then overlay those corners, further control them, subdivide them.
Did you see The Mist. The scene in the pharmacy, the layers of webbing that overlay everything, it becomes almost a blur, a softening of edges, that overlays, that holds the humans in place.
While great alien beasts bestride the world, and little ones, and humans hum and bicker and doubt.
Cucktards, ashtray fags. Those words, that time.
And then the wind came, the great withdrawal. Poland and Hungary and Brexit, a rush to abandon the world markets, the totalizing systems.
In the Balkans and Kosovo, teens crafted fake news and sold it here, millions of clicks worth.
