This haircut was really doing wonders for me.
“Who told you?” I asked with faux outrage. “Unless … was that you manning the glory hole at Penn Station?”
I wished Margo were here for that one. She’d appreciate it, and it was about as quick as I could be. With jokes anyway. My reflexes were better for fighting, which was good, because he threw his right and I took half a step back, grabbing a fist of his thick, greasy black hair and redirecting his own momentum as I slammed his head into the bar. And then again. And one more time. I had to do three. He had friends I couldn’t take. This was a statement. I let him fall and stared at his buddies.
“I’m watching the end of this, got it?”
I had been distracted, but Dunican was asked if Tobey and Jeeves’s release meant “The Internet Messiah” also was no longer a suspect in the Hollywood sign or any other bombing.
“If by that you mean Wayne Gladstone,” Dunican said, “he is not a suspect in this investigation.”
I threw a twenty on the bar and turned my back on the three men who meant me harm as I headed for the door. Four, actually, but one wouldn’t be in any shape to do much of anything for a while. Quickening my pace would mean fear, and fear would mean I was ripe for attack. I walked extra-slow, but I snuck a glance in one of the beer-logo mirrors on the wall as I straightened my hat to make sure I was safe. But even when I got outside I kept walking. I felt something chasing me.
I wasn’t sure where the panic was coming from. The NSA had publicly declared that Gladstone wasn’t a suspect, and while I knew better than to trust them, making such a statement seemed needlessly declarative if they really were in pursuit. And I had to admit that despite my termination and predictions, even thirteen months into the Apocalypse no one was after me either. Plus, the Internet had returned, sort of. But I still kept walking faster and faster, positive I was being chased. Not by my job, because I didn’t have one. And not by my investigation.
I headed north again back to the Bay Terrace shopping center, until I caught my reflection in the Uncle Jack’s Steakhouse window. Maybe it was the sun or the warping of the glass but it reflected like a funhouse mirror. I was shorter, wider. Nothing drastic, just enough to make me not me, and I realized who was chasing me. Gladstone was in the glass, staring back.
I knew I had to go. I didn’t even want to hit my apartment before leaving, but I needed a passport and luggage. I packed a bag as quickly as I could, not even stopping to take a leak. I’d piss at the airport. The important thing was getting out while I still could. I threw three handfuls of clothes and my laptop into my suitcase and walked to the taxi service on the corner.
We hit the road and I watched Bayside get farther away. I connected my iPhone to my laptop like I had not yet done, and got online. I was fully aware that running off to Australia to find some girl made me just as much like Gladstone as staying in my apartment and getting drunk, but at least I wouldn’t be alone.
“Where you going?” my driver asked.
“JFK,” I said.
“I know,” he replied, “but which terminal? What airline?”
“Oh,” I said. “Not sure yet. I’m going to Australia.”
“Qantas? Virgin?”
“Either,” I said. “They both go to Australia, right?” I continued my investigation. Wherever Margo was, she was with her miner, and my invasion of her privacy had given me a name even if it sounded cartoonishly fake: Parker Lawrence. I had about twenty minutes before we hit the airport. I searched Australian records, driver’s licenses, censuses, anything I could that had a name. Nothing hit at first, and then I found him. On Twitter, no less. His avi was merely the site’s default egg, and he’d only tweeted a few times, but it was all I had. Twitter handle, @ParkerLawrence. His few tweets were only pictures of the beach. Insane blues in the water and sky, and white sand the likes of which I’d never seen at Jones Beach. He had his location settings on and I used that information to run searches with specificity, until I homed in on an exact address. We were entering JFK.
“I’m taking you to Quantas,” my driver said.
“That’s fine,” I said.
“You figure out where you’re heading?” he asked.
“I sure did,” I replied with a laugh, checking the name of this particular region in Queensland for a fourth time.
“Yeah?”
“I’m going to Gladstone,” I said.
Part III
Report 7
I didn’t know what I’d say to Margo when I got there, and I was worried about it, but less worried than I was about staying in Queens. Traveling made me feel like I was doing something, and while I may have been laid off, I could still afford the $1,200 ticket due to my pension and savings. That was a good feeling. Of course, the quarter bottle of Johnnie Walker I swigged at JFK wasn’t hurting either. In my hurry to pack, I’d thrown the remains of a bottle in a case, picturing myself unwinding with a glass in the bed of some imagined Australian hotel. Unfortunately, I’d forgotten the part about going through security with fluids, and since it was a shame to waste it, I knocked it back at the scanner. Then I settled into my buzz, keeping it at a nice smolder with periodic cocktails and laptop surfing for the rest of the day.
The next thirty or so hours, my trip from JFK to LAX to Sydney to Brisbane to Gladstone is a bit of a blur. I remember Googling that Gladstone’s main industry was mining, but it was no small Pennsylvania coal town. It looked like a resort postcard and even though June was their winter, the expected weather was in the 70s (or 20, using Celsius bullshit).
I also read complaints about the new web—and not just the fees it now carried, but glitches. Serious ones. Bank of America had closed its site temporarily and emailed all its customers not to conduct banking online while it investigated an imposter site.
Between sleeping on the long leg to Sydney, the booze, and the time change, I was completely disoriented by the time I reached Brisbane. The airport was bright and spacious like a mechanical heaven, but it had the earthly markings of KFC and Victoria’s Secret. So this is what I was missing by neglecting a life of travel and leisure. Their Burger King was called Hungry Jack’s, which I assumed was because crocodile hunters bow before no man. I found a bar and got a cup of coffee. It was a weird order for a bar, but I didn’t particularly care about what any Australian thought of me. The American influence continued to penetrate the airport. Charlie Rose’s interview show was on the bar’s TV. Tobey and Jeeves were sitting side by side at Charlie’s table in the darkened studio.
“Gentlemen, first I want to congratulate you on your release,” Charlie said.
Jeeves was quick with a reply. “Thank you, Charlie, but that sounds like we were convicted of something. There was no crime. There was no charge. We were just held, indefinitely, without right to counsel, because we were ‘persons of interest’ under the NET Recovery Act.”
“Do you think most Americans appreciate the due-process argument you’re making?”
“I’m not sure,” Jeeves replied. “Before the Net went down, there was no shortage of online content equating caring with foolishness. A kind of jaded and false intellectualism that mistook passion for naïveté. A culture that would give you a list of five reasons it was OK not to care instead of one essay about why things matter.”
“Mr. Tobey,” Charlie said, “I understand you’re a bit of a blogger yourself. Do you agree with Mr. McCall?”
Tobey hadn’t been listening. “Mr. McCall? Oh, Jeeves! Um, well, he certainly used a lot of big words, but I dunno. The Net’s also filled with people who care about stupid shit. Oh fuck, can I say ‘shit’?”
Charlie laughed. “You can’t say either of those words, but we’ll bleep it.”
“Cool, well then let me answer that in two ways. First, fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck, and second, I don’t think most people care about the NET Recovery Act, because they feel they haven’t done anything wrong, so they’ve got nothing to fear.”
“But that’s th
e point,” Jeeves said. “What did we do that was ‘wrong’?” he asked, making finger quotes.
“You mean, besides the super-gay way you just made those bunny-rabbit fingers? Nothing. We didn’t deserve this. I’m not arguing that. We were held simply for being friends with Gladstone.”
Charlie tried to focus the conversation. “You’re talking about Wayne Gladstone, the so-called Internet Messiah, and author of the Internet Apocalypse notebook that’s gone paper-viral as they say.”
Tobey and Jeeves nodded.
“What can you tell me about him?” Charlie asked.
“What do you want to know?” Jeeves asked.
“Well, for one, you’re the person who dubbed him the Internet Messiah. The Net is back. Is he still the Messiah? What does that even mean?”
“It’s confusing,” Jeeves admitted, “but I know what I saw, and I know we still need … actually, Charlie, do you mind if I just talk to the camera for a second? I’ll be brief.” Charlie nodded and Jeeves came right out of the screen. “Wayne,” he said, “I’m sorry for all the hits that came your way. I’m sorry for everything, but you’re still here. I feel you, and it’s time to come home. We’re here for you. Thank you, Charlie.”
“You’re welcome. Now, when you say—”
But Charlie didn’t get to finish because Tobey interrupted. “Actually, Charlie, could I also beg your indulgence for a moment?”
“Go ahead,” Charlie said, and the camera turned to Tobey, who then pulled a flashlight out from under his shirt and shined it around the blackened studio behind him, revealing cables, ladders, various tech equipment, and most of all, nothing of interest. But Tobey was delighted. “Whooooo! Man, I’ve wanted to do that for years,” he said. “Kind of a cheapskate way to build a set, huh Charlie?”
* * *
It was only an hour-and-a-half flight from Brisbane to Gladstone, and when I arrived I asked the kid at the rental-car place for a GPS vehicle. I didn’t trust myself to find the Love Miner’s apartment without it, especially driving on the wrong side of the road.
“I could sell it to you, but it won’t do you much good, mate,” he said, and I tried not to smile about how Australian he sounded.
“Why not?” I asked.
“The Internet’s down again, isn’t it?” he said.
“Is it?”
“It surely is,” he said. “Didn’t last long. Where ya headed?”
I reached for the paper I’d placed in my inside pocket. “Um, four slash eighteen Quinn Lane?” I asked. “Sorry, that looks like a fraction to me,…”
“That just means Unit 4, 18 Quinn Lane. Townhouses. You won’t need GPS, I’ll draw you a map. It’s like ten minutes away. Five roundabouts though.…”
I got into a Toyota Corolla not too different from my Honda Accord back home except that the steering wheel was on the other side. I was sober now, and that was good because I was flying blind without GPS and I took five roundabouts in quick succession like a kid at a birthday party spun round and round before being pushed toward a piñata. By the fifth roundabout I had no faith of traveling in the right direction and started looking for a service station where I might ask directions, but then I hit Trunk Street, just like I was supposed to.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” I barked at no one. Right there, at the intersection, some asshole had planted palm trees. I couldn’t imagine they were indigenous to Australia, but it was also hard to believe someone would willingly bring a little slice of L.A. into their home. The trees gave way to a string of business signage: GLADSTONE LEGAL, GLADSTONE HOLISTIC, GLADSTONE REAL ESTATE. Two more turns and I was on Quinn Lane. In one drunken, panic-infused dash, I’d gone from New York to Australia, spun five times round, and never got lost even driving down the wrong side of the road. Maybe Gladstone was on to something.
I sat outside the miner’s apartment in my rented Corolla without the first idea what to say. The door and windows of the two-story brick house remained closed with no signs of life inside. There was a car of the same make and model as mine parked outside the house, and I wondered if it was Margo’s rental. Maybe she’d bought one by now. She was here enough.
The day was overcast, without the tropical blues and whites I’d seen on Parker’s Twitter. I pictured him answering the door in a T-Shirt and jeans, after I rang the doorbell. It was hard to imagine him without a flashlight-topped miner’s helmet, which I knew was absurd. I also tried to picture Margo coming out of a back room, saying, “It’s OK, Parker. He’s with me,” but I knew that was just as ridiculous as the helmet.
I had no right to be where I was. No authority. As a soldier in the NET Recovery Act, I was used to that, but now there was no government behind me. Just me and my needs. So I sat there for an hour looking for an opening or any form of information to help me decide what to do next. There was nothing, but I’d been on stakeouts before, and I knew there was always nothing, until there was something. Besides, if this wasn’t business, then I was just a stalker. This was a stakeout. Why else would I have just pissed into my empty coffee cup?
After the second hour, I caught a break. Margo came out of the bottom apartment alone, moving with a determination that I read as anger, but maybe it wasn’t. Maybe her suitcase was just too heavy. Perhaps she’d added a padlock to keep out assholes like me. In any event, she was alone and heading for her car. I wouldn’t get a better chance than this, and I wasn’t going to let her get away.
“Margo,” I called, getting out of my car while pretending my legs weren’t asleep. I threw off a casual wave as if I’d merely spotted some close friend on the way to the supermarket.
She turned to the street where I was parked and popped her head forward in my direction. “What?” she asked, and that was all she said. The talking part was my obligation.
I limped toward her as casually as possible. “Going on a trip?” I asked.
“Sorry, Officer, but it’s not your turn to question. What are you doing here?”
“Let’s get a cup of coffee. I’ll explain everything,” I said, even though I had no idea what would even constitute a compelling explanation.
“What are you doing here, Aaron?” she repeated.
I looked at the house. There was no movement in the windows. I’d have to say something. She put down her suitcase and took a step away from her car and closer to me. “Aaron?”
“Well, the investigation doesn’t stop just because you fly off to Australia.”
We were now only a foot or so apart. “Why are you here, Aaron?”
“I couldn’t take my apartment,” I said, and that was the truth. It felt good.
“So you came to Australia?” she asked.
“Well, y’know, New York summers are sticky.”
“Aaron.”
“I didn’t know where else to go, Margo.”
I guess that was the right thing to say. She was touched, or maybe the anger that had pushed her from the house had returned. I wasn’t sure. I was never sure with Margo. But she swallowed whatever emotion was welling up, and said, “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
She grabbed her keys and popped the trunk. “Well, as it turns out,” she said, putting her bag inside, “I think I have a destination for you. Wanna go to Sydney?”
“Not really, no,” I said, “I’ve just been there, but we can take my car. I need to return it at the airport anyway.”
Margo took her suitcase out of the trunk. “Did you bring Gladstone’s fedora?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“I was hoping you had something to cover that haircut. You look like a hipster douchebag.”
* * *
I was too exhausted from the nonstop traveling to speak much on the plane. Besides, I wanted to give Margo her space after everything that had happened in New York. Still, I did ask her one question once we took off.
“Have you forgiven me?” I asked.
She swallowed her first response, which I’m pretty confident was so
mething like “I invited you to Sydney, didn’t I?” and, instead, said, “What you did in New York was an invasion.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I know you are,” she said, and smiled like I hadn’t seen since the day she showed up outside my apartment. I fell asleep, and it wasn’t until we landed that I realized I hadn’t bothered to ask where in Sydney we were going or why.
I found that out the next morning in the car. We were off to another ICANN key holder like Neville, except this one was very famous. Reginald Stanton, the Australian entrepreneur and founder of countless companies from the now long-dead music business to airline travel to Internet providers.
“How are we going to get his attention?”
“Shouldn’t be too hard,” she said, pulling into an office building parking lot in the center of the CBD, which I learned stood for central business district. “He reached out to me. We have a scheduled appointment at noon.”
“Seriously?” I asked.
“Yeah, he’s interested in investing in the movie version of Gladstone’s book.”
“It’s not even a finished story?”
“What difference does that make? You’re talking about a business that creates TV content out of shitty Twitter accounts. At least it’s got pages and a cover. Besides, he’s no dummy. He sees this thing’s got legs.”
“Oh, yeah, about that,” I said, getting out of the car. “I think you need a lawyer. I’ve seen bookstores selling their own versions of Gladstone’s book now. But you own the rights, right?”
“No it’s fine. I cut deals.”
“What deals?”
We headed to the garage elevator and Margo pushed the button.
“I gave the major chains the right to publish their own editions for a time,” she said. “They bore the printing cost, which wasn’t too bad considering the book had to maintain its humble appearance. And they had to agree not to sell it for more than a dollar.”
“Why so cheap?”
Reports on the Internet Apocalypse Page 9
