“You didn’t find that a bit degrading?” I asked when she came to get me.
“To an extent,” she said, “but far less degrading than sitting in a Starbucks and failing.”
Margo told Neville I was a technical consultant on her film as well, and we sat in his office while she did most of the talking. It was a far messier workspace than I’d imagined for a tech person, and pictures of his kids permeated the strange mix of opulent Old English leather and mahogany that clashed with the minimalist steel-and-glass bookshelves overflowing with electronics. I also counted no fewer than three ashtrays. I was surprised to see smoking allowed in a twenty-first-century office, but after lighting up, he flicked a switch on some sort of powerful vacuum/filtration system living in his drop ceiling. The smoke visibly lifted up and away.
“It’s good to be the boss,” he said before spoiling his moment with a hacking cough. No filtration system would keep away what was coming for him.
Margo started asking about ICANN, and he started a rote speech about the honor that had been bestowed upon him by the technological community. I zoned out for a bit, but while he explained that ICANN was an independent, private, international body tasked by the US Department of Commerce, I noticed something in Neville’s office besides papers and cigarettes: a picture of him and Hamilton Burke. The two men happy in their tuxedos. Neville was heavier and happier than he appeared now.
“I see you know our future president,” I said, and pointed to the photo, which looked to have been taken a good five years earlier, Neville’s skin a richer hue than today’s ashen color.
“Oh, this?” he said, taking the picture off the bookcase behind him. “Yeah, I met Hamilton Burke a couple of years ago. Some fund-raiser. He was a Republican then. None of this ‘Working Party’ stuff.”
“You and Hamilton still go bowling much?” I asked, hiding my surprise at how relatively recent the photo was.
He put the picture back and reclaimed his cigarette from the ashtray. “For folks looking for information on the Internet, you certainly seem motivated to find facts on people.”
“The Internet is people,” Margo said.
“And we’re still here,” I added.
I leaned back in my chair and pulled out the first of my three allotted cigarettes for the day. “Will that filter of yours work for non-bosses too?” I asked, and held my lighter in half tilt waiting for permission.
“Feel free,” he said, and Margo jumped in to rekindle the tech-speak of moments earlier.
“Mr. Bhattacharyya, as an outside observer I was hoping you could help me understand something about the Net that I can’t seem to get a handle on. Net Neutrality?”
“What it is?” he asked, trying to gauge the level of Margo’s ignorance, or purported ignorance.
“Well, I get the concept. We don’t want the private sector to run wild. I mean, if certain sites like Fox News could bribe cable providers to have their site load faster while something like MSNBC loaded with the speed of dial-up, that would be a bad thing.”
“Would it?” Neville asked. “I’d like to see them both meet a nasty demise, frankly, but I take your meaning. The Internet, as you say, is people. But it’s also information. It runs on an incredibly expensive infrastructure, and in that way it’s also like a public utility.”
“And if the government were to take it over?” I asked.
“Yes, what if that?” he asked. “Every government has its interests. They could monetize it differently. Governments like to do that. Tolls on roads. Fees. Maybe the Internet would be like your phone with data-usage amounts. That money could build a lot of bombs. Or maybe your fears about evil Fox News could be just as likely under a government-controlled Net. Maybe sites critical of the administration wouldn’t load as fast, or lose their verifications, or whatever.”
“But that’s not what Net Neutrality is, is it? Governmental control in place of the private sector?”
“You’re correct. That’s just what the conservatives in your country fear it is, but honestly, there are two reasons all bets are off regarding this issue. First, what I said was my explanation in a non-Apocalypse setting. Who knows what the conditions of a restored Net will be. But more important, and forgive me for saying so as a non-citizen of your fair country, but with massive consolidation and super PACs, the private sector has more influence over your government than ever before. Hell, you even have a billionaire running for president. So when it comes to who’s controlling a non-neutral Net, government or business, well, that might get increasingly hard to tell.”
He reached for another cigarette and noticed mine was still burning.
“American Spirits,” I said. “No additives to make them burn faster. See? America’s good for something.” I offered him the pack and he took one.
“Wait a tic,” he said. “Aaron Rowsdower? Special Agent Rowsdower from Gladstone’s book?”
“That’s me,” I said, and he got confused.
“Hmm,” he said and took a long drag of his cigarette. “Your teeth look perfectly normal to me.”
I laughed. “Thank you, sir. Well, Gladstone wasn’t really in the best place when he wrote that.”
“Yes, tell me about this Gladstone fellow,” he said.
“You don’t know him?” I asked.
“Why would I know him?”
I was going to say Because he told us to come here, but that was wrong. There was no need to show that card, and Margo knew it too, because she jumped right in and asked, “What would you like to know?”
“Anything you like. Is he a messiah? Is he a terrorist?”
“Are those the only choices?” Margo asked.
“Well, with all this commotion,” Neville said, “he’s got to be something,” and I remembered what Professor Leonards said about disasters and miracles looking the same in the distance.
“I can tell you something about Gladstone,” Margo said, sitting forward in her chair. “He believes in pure things.”
She had Neville’s attention, and having gotten it, she proceeded to tell a story about a college-aged Gladstone who witnessed a poor father take his three small girls to a dollar store and proudly announce they could get anything they wanted. Apparently, the girls squealed in delight and scurried inside like royalty. Margo was repeating what Gladstone must have told her, but it was no merely echoed narrative. She was feeling what he must have felt. She was struck that this father, who had nothing, managed to create a happy moment for his children through the sheer force of will. But it was more than that, she said. It was knowing the possibility existed, even in this world, that by the time these girls realized how desperately poor they’d grown up, it would be too late because they would’ve already had a happy childhood.
Neville tapped the American Spirit into his ashtray while looking at a framed picture of his kids by its side. “Well, that’s a lovely story, but sometimes, ‘possibility’ isn’t quite enough when your children’s futures are involved.”
We’d crossed a mark, and I knew the window was closing. “Before we leave you, Mr. Neville,” I said, “do you have a theory on who’s behind this Apocalypse?”
“Well, if I knew that, I’d be the Internet Messiah.” We waited for more instead of laughing, and he continued, “I’m sorry. I can’t help you.”
“That’s all right,” Margo said. “You’ve been wonderful, but that’s another thing I could tell you about Gladstone. He believes we’re all the Messiah. Anyone who believes. Anyone in the fight.”
“That’s another lovely story, isn’t it?” he said.
“Yes,” Margo replied, and stood to say goodbye.
Neville stood too, and Margo extended her hand quickly. A friendly handshake that kept the desk between them. “Thank you so much,” she said, and gave him another of her cards. “I hope we can call on you again?”
“Of course. It was a pleasure.”
I dropped the rest of my cigarettes on his desk. Now even three a day seemed too much. “A
gift from your friends in the States,” I said, and touched the brim of Gladstone’s hat in a polite salute.
I wanted to grab lunch and compare notes, but Margo said she was eager to get back to the hotel. She’d worn heels to make an impression and was apparently dying for some flats. We hailed a cab just as a bank of clouds covered the sun.
“Whaddya think of our friend upstairs,” I asked, and she replied, “You mean God?” but her heart wasn’t in it. She was too preoccupied.
“What’s wrong?”
“There’s something I haven’t told you,” she said, and it suddenly got even darker outside.
“Looks like we’re in for it,” I said, trying to detect any trace of the sunny day that had just vanished.
“Oh, this is nothing,” Margo said. “You’ve never been to England before?”
“No, ma’am, but let me guess, you backpacked here as a college kid.”
“Something like that. The Royal Albert Hall is coming up.”
I looked through the darkness and traffic to see if I could catch a glimpse, but just at that moment, we heard a sound like a truck colliding with something frail. A boom followed by tumbling pieces, but it wasn’t thunder or rain. The traffic stopped, and those English sirens I knew only from TV and movies started going off. This was more than a traffic accident, but I still had a stupid Beatles joke rattling around my head about someone who “blew his mind out in a car.” Thankfully, I kept my mouth shut because soon I saw smoke in the distance. And as we crept closer we could see the damage.
Later, the police would tell us about the pipe bombs, about the handful of people killed and the dozen more injured, but in the moment all we could see was the majestic hall and what was missing. There was evidence of several explosions. Synchronized destruction leaving smoke and darkness in sections where ornate brickwork and windows were supposed to be. And in those spaces, black smoke poured out, sometimes penetrated by darting flames that brought only more destruction without adding light.
“How many holes does it take to fill the Albert Hall?” I heard Margo ask.
“That’s not funny,” I replied, but she didn’t need to be told. She was crying, fumbling for the locks, until she was free of the cab and running. I threw some money at the cabbie without bothering to count denominations and chased after her.
“What are you doing?” I called, but she just kept running towards the destruction. I caught up to her and grabbed her wrist.
“Let go of me!” she screamed, and she was mad, almost violent, but I didn’t let go. I just held her differently—firm, but not forceful—and made sure she could see me when I asked, “Where are you going, Margo?”
“To help,” she said.
“You can’t help. Look, the ambulances are on their way. What can you do?”
“I don’t know. Something! Give blood.”
“OK, I understand,” I said. “Let’s give blood. We’ll give blood.”
She let me lead her, gently, back to the cab, still crying all the tears she’d managed to hold back at the Formosa Cafe. At the hospital, they had us side by side on cots as we and many others held out our arms for the victims. We bled and watched the news about those who didn’t bleed by choice. The dead were dead, and the injured were injured. Only a tiny fraction of people would need our blood. There was no shortage. Margo’s blood, my blood, and the blood of every Brit in a line that ran out the door would be largely useless to the survivors of this tragedy, but that wasn’t the point. We all knew that before we ever went to the hospital. The point was bleeding. To suffer a prick, to feel a loss, to bleed. Because not bleeding when surrounded by tragedy feels shameful. So we gave and as they pulled the needle from Margo’s arm, I saw her fight every impulse to grab it back and give more. She had more to give. She wanted to give until it hurt so much that she couldn’t tell it apart from the hurt that was already there.
“What did you want to tell me?” I asked in the cab back to the hotel. “Y’know, before the bombing.”
“I wasn’t completely honest with you,” she said, and my stomach tightened up.
“I got more than one letter from Gladstone.”
I waited, scared of getting a confession I didn’t want. To be told this was all Gladstone. That he planned this bombing. That she knew everything and was complicit.
She continued. “There were two letters in the envelope to me. One I gave you in Queens, and another one that Gladstone asked me to give you now.”
“Whaddya mean, Gladstone asked you?”
“Good point,” Margo said. “There were three letters. The one I gave you in Queens, this one, and a third one telling me when to give you each letter, but that was really more of a Post-it.”
She pulled out a sealed envelope addressed to me, “Special Agent Rowsdower,” and I wondered if the title were a sign of respect or Gladstone mocking me at the loss of my job.
I pulled out the letter. It was not a confession. It was another task. A request for help.
Dear Special Agent Rowsdower,
Thank you for coming to London. Thank you for doing what I cannot do while I’m in hiding for things I haven’t done and would never do.
Regarding that, there are two more men who also didn’t commit the crimes they’re accused of, and are sitting indefinitely in your old stomping grounds of the L.A. Veterans’ Affairs Building.
I think you know Jeeves and Tobey are innocent, and if you have any doubt, I can help you. The entire area surrounding the Hollywood sign was under video surveillance. In the moment, I thought that surveillance would be down because of the Apocalypse, but that was stupid, because the surveillance was a closed system. If footage still exists, it might show the helicopter that destroyed the Hollywood sign. Terror from above as the three of us ran screaming.
You will need the help of Anonymous, which is scary. You know where to find them. You might remember Quiffmonster42 from my book, I don’t know if you’ll find him there, but he is not to be trusted. He is not our friend.
Cautiously optimistic,
Gladstone
P.S. “Special Agent” is meant to be a sign of respect.
“We’re going back to New York?” I asked.
“Is that what it says?” she replied, and I handed her the letter.
“Why did he send us to London, just to go back to New York?”
Margo finished reading the letter and smiled. “Because he wanted to make sure he could trust you before he asked you to help his friends.”
“And why are you smiling?”
“Because he likes you, Aaron.”
Report 5
If Gladstone were here, he might write something like, “When the Net came back, it was nothing like we expected,” but he’s not, so I’ll tell things my way. The Net came back, but not the Net we lost. Not the one we were looking for.
The day after Margo and I got back from London, the president gave an address from the Oval Office to tell America the news: the Apocalypse was over. He didn’t say “Apocalypse,” because using that word to describe technical difficulties in the face of actual exploding buildings and death would have made him look like a prick. Instead, he said he was pleased to report that after much hard work, the Internet would be restored. The government had taken over the hubs long ago and kept them secure. He explained this would be an ongoing process that could not be left solely to the private sector without fear of another attack. The world, he said, was connected by cable, in a very real way, and physical or cyberattacks at a handful of key connection points around the world could keep millions in the dark. In addition to the hub occupation, the navy was now “supervising and supplementing” the private sector by patrolling the miles of cable beneath the ocean floor, keeping us working.
Then he referenced the bombings at the Farmers Market, the San Francisco movie theater, and outside the Formosa Cafe, and how even though the Wi-Fi symbol had accompanied each of the bombings, no one had claimed official responsibility for any of the attacks save f
or Penn Station and Disney World. The president did not directly reference the Royal Albert Hall bombing, and not just because it was overseas but because a terrorist group seeking, not the Internet, but the removal of any Western presence in the Middle East had taken credit for that one. They’d also promised more attacks throughout the West, and to the extent that the United States must always remain vigilant against terrorism in all its forms, Obama pledged the government’s dedication to the preservation of the Net.
Then he paused before explaining further that not all threats to “our Internet and our security” were as simple as maintaining connections. The “connectivity problem,” as he called it, had been fixed fairly quickly, but the best and brightest in our government had spent the last several months undoing cyberattacks and rebooting the safety protocols that verified each and every web address and email. That work was vital because each website, he explained, whether it was Amazon or your bank, had a discrete address made up of numbers. In a secure Internet, you could just type in the name of the site and get there without remembering those codes, because an organization called ICANN verified that address. That meant that when you typed in “Bank of America” and deposited $1,000, your money really went to you and not the private bank account of some scammer who’d hijacked the Net.
In closing, it was explained that all these additional security protocols required millions of additional hours of labor and expense, but that it was worth it to return the Internet, a source of “communication and illumination” to the people. However, to cover this ongoing expense, to keep the Internet safe and working, it would need to be monetized differently going forward. Internet use would be a little more like the data plans associated with smart phones, in the sense that you’d pay more if you used more. In addition to the fees already in place to the private sector, your cable providers, and paid sites, there would now be a usage fee paid to the government. Much like other public utilities like water and electricity, this was just a monthly expense to keep the Net flowing into our homes.
Reports on the Internet Apocalypse Page 5
