by Derek Milman
I get discharged around nine a.m., after a lot of paperwork. I fill the prescription for the anti-anxiety meds. I pocket the amber bottle with the round yellow pills, but I don’t take any of them. The rattling of the bottle is comfort enough—for now.
There is a tight ring of stone-faced police officers standing in the hospital lobby, all of them looking at me like I’m an alien. They part in half, in this biblical way, as Agent Schwartz emerges through the throng with a wave, wearing pretty much the same suit as yesterday. He leads me outside to a silver Toyota Camry idling in the emergency lane in front of the sliding-glass entranceway, next to an ambulance.
Schwartz quickly looks around us, in the manner of an investigator, and opens the back door of the car for me. As I get inside, he takes the passenger seat. A woman in a navy-blue pantsuit sits behind the wheel.
“I told you to circle!” Schwartz tells her, making a circling gesture, as we pull out.
“I circled. Then I came back,” she replies.
“This is Agent Monica Hernandez,” says Schwartz, gesturing at her with his thumb, leaning his elbow against the passenger window. “Seat belts, please.”
“Hi, Aidan,” says Hernandez, turning around. She has a wide smile. For some reason I think: She’s a mom. “Nice to finally meet you. How are you feeling?”
“Like I’d love some answers.”
“We’ll get some pancakes first,” says Schwartz. “As promised. We’re in from DC. But I heard about a good place around here.”
I notice, out the back window, two other Camrys tailing us, as well as two police cruisers, lights off, farther behind them. “What’s your specialty at the FBI?” I ask the agents, still staring out the back window.
“Cyber Division,” says Hernandez.
“Counter-terrorism Division,” says Schwartz.
“Oh,” I say.
We go to a place called Billy’s Pancake House where the waitresses wear frilly dresses with bows on the back, and brown bottles of different flavored syrups are clustered together on the tables. We’re shown to a booth by a window that looks out on a highway; they’re doing construction work out there. There’s something so mundane about this place, and the crawling, helpless traffic being redirected around orange cones outside, that it’s almost soothing. I stare, mesmerized, at the bright-yellow vests of the construction workers as they mill around, laughing, languidly holding traffic signs.
I get the Lumberjack Special, which is a short stack of pancakes with scrambled eggs and bacon. The food reminds me of the breakfast I had at the visitor center before the drone attack, so my appetite dissipates, then comes back in waves; the pancakes are just okay, nothing all that great, really.
We eat in silence for a bit, and when I slow down, only a quarter finished, Schwartz points at my plate with his fork. “Not hungry?”
“Not really.”
Schwartz looks at Hernandez, then wipes his mouth with a napkin and sits back. “You’re not in any trouble with the authorities, Aidan. I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, but we pretty much caused everything that’s happened to you.”
I clank my fork down on my plate, sit back against the booth, and wait for him to go on.
“It’s called the Digital Dust program,” says Hernandez.
“It’s an experimental program CTD devised a few years ago to combat homegrown terror,” says Schwartz.
I blink, slowly.
“We’d like to get you on a flight back to New York City at, oh…” Schwartz checks his watch. “2200 hours. Would that work?”
I nod.
“We’ve been watching the Swans for some time,” says Hernandez, in a light, placating tone of voice. Someone cast these two perfectly. Schwartz is the dad—the guy with the cold, hard facts. Hernandez is meant to soften that with a more maternal vibe. “As I’m sure you figured out already, they are a terror organization, targeting those they perceive to have a public, anti-gay agenda,” she says.
“They want to hack military drones,” I inform them, coolly.
“Yeah, we know about that,” says Schwartz. He wipes his mouth again, even though it’s already pretty clean. “Here’s the thing: When you’ve been in counter-terrorism for a long time, you come to accept that there’s going to be certain concessions. It’s a different world we’re in now. Sometimes it comes down to cold, hard risk assessment. Trade-offs.”
There’s a dead, knotted feeling inside me, devoid of light and love, cooling my blood. I grind my teeth.
“The Swans have a certain type they favor,” he says.
Of course they do. I think of fallen angels. I think of Darren Cohen, lost in that huge, soft bed.
“Their members tend to have a specific physical look, and a certain kind of background: they tend to be… troubled young individuals.”
I think of the pouty boy-clones by the pool in the Merrick Gables house.
I saw something in your eyes, Aidan, and I’m never wrong.
Hernandez clears her throat. “The Digital Dust program uses a computer algorithm that processes keywords and images across a solar system of digital output—tweets, e-mails, text messages. But also Instagram, Tumblr, Twitter, Kik, Snapchat…”
“Jesus,” I say.
“All that leaves a footprint, which the NSA can track. Digital Dust cobbles together a fictionalized persona using actual data with photographic backup.”
When I speak, my voice is flat and removed. “Why not just have someone go undercover?”
“Not easy to do, but we already have an agent on the inside,” says Schwartz.
“Then what’s the problem?”
“We needed a fictive decoy,” he replies.
I don’t like the sound of this.
He continues: “To lure the Swans out of hiding, acquire evidence, and learn what their plans were, as our agent inside continued to gather more intel. We coerced the suspect—who you knew as Benoît—to provide that necessary intel. A plan was in place designed specifically so Benoît would need to match the type of malware they were looking for with the source code that would be provided in the exchange.”
I watch my own fingers tap tap tap the table. “That’s the flash drive Benoît had?”
“Correct. We needed to convince the Swans they had found their gem. They already have teams of young hackers in place, spread out in a vast underground global network. But they’ve been looking for that special one.”
“A troubled, gay, black-hat cutie pie who can design malware to hack military drones?”
They nod, slowly.
It makes a certain kind of sense, but I can’t quite believe what they’re saying anyway. “And I was your fictive decoy?”
They both sit back with an eerie synchronicity, like I blew a giant gust of air at them. And then they nod again.
“So… all this happened to me because of what your agent inside and your Digital Dust program told you they were looking for?”
“Now that the Swans have caught the world’s attention,” says Schwartz, not really addressing my question, “they want to up their game.”
“The sniper attack in Kansas was pretty upped.”
“They want to take things further. By hacking military drones, they’re sending a clear message: every government building where someone denies a gay couple a marriage license—we will hit. Every small-town bakery that refuses to bake a gay couple a wedding cake—we will hit.”
Hernandez frowns at me slightly. “You’re smiling, Aidan.”
“Was I?” Honestly, I hadn’t realized.
Schwartz and Hernandez glance at each other.
I lean across the table. “Are they any more unethical than you guys?”
Hernandez sips her coffee, eyes trained on me.
Schwartz clasps and unclasps his hands. He looks like he wants to say a bunch of different things, but decides against all of them. “Well, they’re terrorists. Are you sympathetic, Aidan?”
“I’m not not sympathetic. Look who they’re a
ttacking.” My gaze keeps flitting around the restaurant, to other people’s pancakes, other people’s lives.
“I have a gay son,” says Schwartz.
Hernandez gives him a sharp look.
“Is he cute and single?” I ask without smiling.
“The reason the Swans knew what you looked like,” Hernandez cuts in, “is because Digital Dust flagged your image, as well as your background, from the cloud of digital data the algorithm was scanning.”
I think about PRISM, the surveillance program Edward Snowden exposed that sifted through people’s internet communications. This sounds suspiciously similar, equally covert, and way more pernicious.
“Then we took more surveillance photos and fed them to the Swans so they would know precisely who to look for,” Hernandez continues. “Once we chose you as our virtual decoy, we knew you would be at the Mandarin Oriental that day, so we set that as the drop-off point.”
“And we arranged a rendezvous for that evening,” says Schwartz.
“Pretending to be me?”
“Yes. And we were going to move in, arrest Benoît, who was a senior operative in the Swans, and recover the flash drive with their plans on it. Get that evidence.”
I give him a nasty grin. “You didn’t bank on DirtyPaws.”
“We didn’t know the target would initiate contact with you first, no.”
I almost laugh. “Your suspect wanted a side of dick with his malware.”
“Before we had time to make the arrest, it was too late.”
“You were attracted to each other,” says Hernandez. “The Digital Dust program worked too well.”
“You walked right into our sting,” says Schwartz.
“The thing is,” says Hernandez, “Digital Dust was designed to cobble together virtual identities—but when it tagged you, we looked closely and realized we had an opportunity on our hands that we couldn’t pass up.”
I glare at her. “I’m not a brilliant amoral hacker bent on revenge.”
“Your physical type was part of the equation. But it was your personal history that really interested us. Because we knew it would interest the Swans.”
She literally takes my hands in hers like we’re in a prayer group or something.
“Your brother’s death,” says Hernandez. “Your failed relationship with the father of a disabled friend. The tech genius stuff we could fake. But what we couldn’t fake is an actual troubled soul with a checkered past.”
I push her hands away. “That’s not me.”
“That’s what Digital Dust saw,” says Schwartz.
“You put me in so much danger! I was literally in a sniper’s crosshairs in that hotel room!”
Schwartz folds his napkin. “The hotel was crawling with agents ready to make an arrest. The snipers on the roof across the street were ours. We were closing in.”
I point at him with my fork. “You killed Benoît.”
“We took out the target once we had a clear shot,” he says.
I guess two people having sex wouldn’t present a clear shot.
“We didn’t think Benoît posed a specific threat to you. But he is affiliated with a terror group, so we didn’t want to take any chances.”
I sit back. I’ve been nothing but a pawn to everyone. People were playing around with my identity and my life like it was a chess game.
“So for your protection, we took him out, and lost both the evidence and the suspect in the process,” Hernandez finishes.
Because I handed the flash drive right back to the terrorists.
I picture that black glove slowly closing around the flash drive, and stab my fork into my half-eaten pancakes. “You knew everything that was happening every step of the way. Once I walked into a sting, why not just burst through the door the moment I entered that room if I was in any danger?”
But then I get it.
“Oh.” I almost laugh again; this is so vicious. “You didn’t want them to know there wasn’t really a Mr. Preston, did you? You’d rather have them—and the police—think I killed Benoît so you could keep your mission intact.” I glower at Schwartz. “Now I know what you mean by trade-offs.”
“We’re handling the police,” says Schwartz.
“Slowly but surely,” says Hernandez. “As well as the media.”
“You know where the Swans are headquartered. Why not just arrest them?”
“They hide too well,” says Schwartz. “It’s like they’ve been able to encrypt their entire existence. We don’t even have enough to get a search warrant. Which is why we had to use the virtual decoy to—”
“Stop saying virtual; all you did was change my name. OWN THAT.”
“Aidan, we’re s—” says Hernandez.
“Oh, God, please stop.” I cover my face with my hands. These are the adults? The authorities? Their hideous desperation is making me physically ill. I wonder how many times I’m going to be betrayed by the people who are supposed to know better. I can’t let this become a theme in my life.
Schwartz sighs and tries to touch my arm, some sort of a consoling gesture, but I pull away. “I’m a person!” I exclaim loud enough to make both of them recoil. “I can’t be reduced to digital dust. You fed my image to terrorists, and told them I was their guy without my consent. I’m not even a legal adult!”
They’re both just nodding, looking meek and sheepish. I hate them.
I want them to lose.
“The Swans are smart, though,” I say. “They’d see through this whole Digital Dust bullshit. This guy? He’d see through something that seemed a bit too pat and perfect—like some adorable hacker genius. Are you sure you’re not the ones getting played here?”
“We were very careful when we selected you,” says Schwartz. “The level of authenticity was our safeguard.”
“What authenticity? Tom? My brother? I was at Witloff, moving on.”
Hernandez takes my hands again. “No. The suicide was recent.”
That hits hard. I sit back in my seat, my mouth agape.
She clears her throat. “We knew how fresh that was. The Swans would respond to that.”
I, too, loved someone who took their own life.
The way Hernandez is looking at me right now, I can tell they’ve been combing through my life like it was a novel. And I’m the fictional tormented hero, now eating soggy pancakes in the flesh.
It was this past winter, after swim practice. The conversation went like this:
ME (answering the phone in the middle of jerking off, which is pretty much the only time my mom ever calls. It’s like a sixth sense with her): Hello? Mom?
MOM: Honey, what’s wrong? You sound out of breath.
ME (sitting back in my ergonomic desk chair, slamming my laptop closed, and hiking my underwear back up): I just got back from a yoga class.
MOM: Okay, well, don’t strain anything.
ME: I’m okay.
MOM: I just read an article about how yoga can actually damage—
ME: Mom, why are you ca—
MOM: I’m so shocked by what I just heard! I had to call you. You remember our neighbors down the street?
ME: What neighbors?
MOM: Your friend, Shane. His father—
ME (almost falling out of my chair): What happened?
MOM: There must be marital strife, a divorce in the works. She’s never around. That’s what I’m hearing, anyway. I ran into Julia at the supermarket—
ME: What happened, what happened—
MOM: He—Tom—Mr. Reid—hanged himself! Oh, it’s awful, Aidan.
Silence.
MOM: Honey?
ME (in a flat, faraway voice): Is he okay? Just tell me.
MOM: You seem upset. I didn’t know you knew Shane’s parents all that—
ME: Is he okay? TELL ME. JUST TELL ME.
Silence.
MOM: No, honey… he’s not okay. He’s dead.
I don’t remember the rest of our conversation. But I can pretty much pinpoint
the exact moment my stomach problems started—seven minutes later. Seven minutes after I learned my relationship with Tom ultimately led to that… which devolved into supermarket gossip that would perk up my mom’s ears while sampling mini triangles of toothpicked Havarti cheese.
He hanged himself with his own belt, apparently.
The pain started in the pit of my stomach, and over the days, and then weeks, it did not let up, and it went from a dull ache to these sharp stabs. I’d go to bed with it. I’d wake up with it. Drinking soda exacerbated it. I couldn’t go near alcohol (never was much of a drinker, anyway, as you know). And forget about spicy foods: I’d be sick for days if I had so much as a burrito. I started to miss sriracha the way junkies miss heroin. Eventually I saw the school nurse, who sent me to the doctor where I got the misleading EKG that started me on this whole road with my stupid heart.
What bothers me so much about Benoît and DirtyPaws is that after the whole thing with Tom and our breakup and his suicide, I realized certain actions of mine have dark consequences. I was heading down a self-destructive path. And I was aware of it. That’s what really sucks.
I promised myself I wouldn’t do anything like that ever again. But then, in a moment of silly stupid weakness, after the depressing anti-hookup with Darren Cohen, and feeling alone in a fancy hotel, there I was again hooking up with another rando older guy, thinking about Tom, pretending it was Tom.
It’s like I just couldn’t get past him. Makes me wonder if I ever will.
Even a computer program saw how damaged I was. Now that’s just sad.
And man, have I lived up to what Digital Dust thought I was, this partially factual digital avatar of myself. I’ve killed two people. I’ve cavorted with terrorists, lied to my family and my friends, wiped a crime scene clean, stolen a wad of cash. I’ve been on the run for days. I’ve become Mr. Preston and everything anyone hoped he would be—except, ironically, the brilliant hacker part.
“So what’s next?” I ask, shoving the plate away. The silverware rattles.
“We have a favor to ask,” says Schwartz.
“We’d love your cooperation,” Hernandez chimes in.
I shake my head at them, trying to feel something about their failure, unwinding their dubious motives in my head so I can understand them. They’ve devoted their whole lives to this, made untold sacrifices, and will get no public recognition, probably just a decent pension in the end, all in the name of national security.