Swarm

by Guy Garcia

  LucyintheSky: so what’s stopping you?

  Swarm012: growing up without a dad, you’re not always exactly sure who you are, so it’s hard to reveal yourself to others. you seemed so natural, so free, so real—I had to trust my instincts, risk my feelings

  LucyintheSky: …

  Swarm608: still there? sorry if i scared you.

  LucyintheSky: sorry about your dad. i like what you said

  Swarm: 6922: the things I do as Swarm, they’re not me, at least not all of me. the flash mobs are performances

  LucyintheSky: political theater

  Swarm7537: I’m a little blown away. I mean the odds that I could be attracted to you and then find out that you’re even more amazing inside, even more beautiful …

  LucyintheSky: no fair

  Swarm3042: why?

  LucyintheSky: you know what I look like but I can’t see you. a little one-sided, wouldn’t you agree?

  Swarm1958: cant argue with that. but I have to be careful—some people think I’ve broken laws. maybe I have, technically, but I’m trying to make people look around and think … People get threatened when their assumptions are challenged … Make sense?

  Lucyinthesky: it makes perfect sense. I get so frustrated sometimes because I see people just lurching forward, without thinking about the consequences of their actions or the consequences of their inaction

  Swarm112: i wish I could be more normal about this …

  LucyintheSky: how’s that?

  Swarm2550: you know, get a friend to introduce us online, follow each other, join the same groups, go on a date in public …

  LucyintheSky: sounds like a relationship

  Swarm7578: sorry, I’m being pretty presumptuous

  LucyintheSky: slightly. But u don’t have to apologize

  Swarm3258: yes, i do. it really sucks that I have to be so stealthy and just barge in on you like this.

  LucyintheSky: im glad u did

  Swarm4200: really? Can I talk to you again?

  LucyintheSky: sure

  Swarm3354: awesome. I’ll find a place online for us to meet and we’ll take it from there.

  LucyintheSky: that sounds good ☺

  Swarm3585: do you know the avatar world called Luminescence?

  LucyintheSky: yeah, of course. I love that place! I like to take walks by the river and watch the sunsets

  Swarm2204: meet me there next Thursday at midnight, at the castle under the drawbridge.

  LucyintheSky: how will I find u?

  Swarm1876: just look for Mr. Aws

  It was salsa night at the base, and the lifestyle committee had set up a DJ deck under the awning outside the mess hall. A GI wearing a Mexican sombrero, Hawaiian shirt, cut-off shorts, and combat boots stood behind a card table dispensing beer and hard liquor. Duggan asked for a Jack Daniels on the rocks and edged closer to the fray. The men outnumbered the women by about four to one, which the females seemed to be using to their advantage. Someone had wrapped a string of plastic chili pepper lights around a lamppost. Out on the crowded dance floor, couples formed, collided, broke apart, recombined.

  “We recycle the party favors.”

  Mitch Wasson was standing a couple of feet away to Duggan’s side, a sweating can of Budweiser clenched in his fist. There was no sign of Davis, not yet anyway.

  Duggan nodded. “I can see that.”

  They watched the dance floor maneuvers for a few seconds. “You know,” Wasson said, keeping his voice below the music, “trying to get us to like you only makes us more suspicious.”

  “Oh yeah? How suspicious are you?”

  “Very.”

  “That’s the nicest thing anyone’s said to me all week.”

  The corners of Wasson’s mouth twitched in the direction of a smile. “If I had half a brain, I wouldn’t tell you a fucking thing.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Ha—that’s a good one.” Wasson tipped his head toward the dancers. “See that blonde in the white top?” Duggan indicated that he did. “Keep watching her while we talk.”

  Duggan took a swig of bourbon and obligingly ogled. Wasson was right—they only had a few minutes before their conversation would start to attract attention.

  “Westlake was a UAV driver, and Marty Fisk was his sensor.”

  “What kind of driver?”

  “Man, I thought you spooks were supposed to be smart. A drone pilot. UAV, unmanned aerial vehicle, or RPA, remotely piloted aircraft. The pilot flies the drone, and the sensor controls the cameras. The pilot and the sensor are a team, like salt and pepper. They go through the same training. They live in the same barracks. They do everything together. They are a two-headed killing machine. The sensor finds the target, and the pilot fires the missiles. But it’s not unusual for both to press the button together. If anyone can tell you what really happened to Donny, it would be Marty.”

  “I thought all the Middle East drone operators were based in the States.”

  “Congratulations,” Wasson said. “You finally asked an intelligent question. Westlake and Fisk were training RPA operators. Now I’m going to make this one easy for you—what country are we in?”

  “You’re telling me Westlake and Fisk were stealth training Afghans to fly their own drones,” Duggan said, forcing himself to keep his voice low. “The CIA couldn’t take Afghans to the United States without attracting attention, so the RPA training had to be local, a clandestine operation.”

  “Bingo.”

  “So you’ve got a couple of UAV operators who have no official business being here on a secret mission. One of them goes off the reservation, but nobody wants anyone to know what they were actually doing, so they cover it all up and write Westlake off as a wacko. I’m betting Fisk didn’t take too kindly to that.”

  “They awarded Marty a Distinguished Warfare Medal, and he gave it back. Ballsy son of a bitch.”

  “Is that why Fisk got discharged?”

  “Duh,” Wasson said. The blonde had registered their attention and was wending her way in their direction.

  “Was this an inside job or an outside job?”

  Wasson drained his beer before answering. “Are you talking about the base operations or Westlake’s head?”

  Duggan said nothing, digesting the comment.

  “What you’re looking for isn’t here, not anymore,” Wasson said. “But I think you already knew that.”

  The blonde was within striking range, her hips undulating to “La Bamba.”

  “Peace, bro.” Wasson took a couple of steps forward and started to dance. He and the girl faced off and jostled into the middle of the crowd, provoking hoots and hollers of fervid camaraderie. Jello shots were deployed.

  Duggan looked at his watch; he had to be packed and ready for his ride to the airport in five hours. He went over to the bar and got himself another drink.

  7

  J. T. Nutley was standing in the doorframe of Duggan’s office, arms crossed, lips pursed to convey urgency without commentary. His designer suit was custom fitted, and his shoes gleamed in the fluorescent light.

  Duggan put aside the file he was reading. “What?”

  Nutley cocked his head down the hallway, indicating that Duggan should follow. They’d been friends since meeting at cybersecurity training camp, where JT had teamed up with Duggan on several assignments. Beside also being from Illinois and sharing a rabid devotion to the Cubs, JT had impressed Duggan with his incisive logic and knack for ferreting out the political motives behind even the most mundane organizational directives.

  “Are you going to tell me where we’re going?” Duggan asked, even though he had a pretty good idea.

  Like most government agencies devoted to conducting covert operations on a large scale, the NCSD frowned on unnecessary communication of any kind. Only the most tr
ivial or most important information was ever rendered onto paper or transferred verbally. Everything else was implied, inferred, committed to memory, and/or immediately destroyed. Doodling in a notebook during a meeting, for instance, was grounds for a reprimand, or so JT had once told him. Nutley was an encryption expert, which he liked to describe as “making sure that nobody knows what nobody knows.” Like everybody else at the Department of Homeland Security, it was hard to tell when he was joking or serious because even the most lighthearted quip could contain a coded insinuation or warning, which was probably why the summons by Duggan’s boss, Section Chief Simon Gupta, was delivered by his colleague and friend without a single word being uttered.

  Two minutes later, Duggan was standing in front of Gupta’s desk, waiting for him to finish typing on his computer. Nutley stared into his phone for a moment before leaving them alone. Duggan liked Gupta, who shared his background in software engineering and his distaste for supercilious superiors.

  “Jake, sit.”

  Duggan did.

  “How was your trip to Afghanistan?”

  “I filed my report yesterday, sir.”

  “I don’t want to read your report,” Gupta said. “I want to know what you think.”

  Duggan told him that the whole assignment was a wild goose chase and a waste of time and that the last thing the Defense Department wanted was for anyone to know what had actually happened to Donald Westlake in Kandahar. “They left a laptop that had already been sanitized and showed me the base bowling alley,” Duggan said.

  Gupta made a sympathetic face. “Well, so the case is closed.”

  “I guess that’s one interpretation of the facts.”

  “Exactly.” Gupta leaned back in his chair, indicating that they were moving on to a new topic. “I need you to think about something else, Jake. We’re conducting another round of sim games, this time with the Russians.”

  Gupta was referring to a series of cyber-warfare simulations that the United States conducted jointly with foreign powers to preempt the real thing. Cyber war games were intended to provide a common framework for both countries to deal with large-scale cyber-attacks before they escalated into full-blown confrontations. The last one had been with China, but it didn’t take long for the Americans to suspect that the Chinese were using the event to understand how to repel or disable US cyber weapons. In response, the United States had begun a parallel program overseen by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to build a national cyber test range at which American programmers could fight mock cyber wars in a more controlled environment. The joke around the NCSD was that the games were a thinly disguised rehearsal for a digital skirmish that both sides knew had already begun, or, as JT liked to say, “a game within a game within a game.”

  “I want you to go to NetOps in Colorado,” Gupta continued, “and brief the participants on backdoor worms.”

  “To keep them from planting any?”

  “In a perfect world, yes.”

  “Always more than happy to take another bullet for the Pentagon Cyber Command,” Duggan said cheerfully.

  “Objection noted,” Gupta replied. “JT will assist with logistics as usual. I’d like you to leave today.”

  When Duggan got back to his office, JT was there to greet him with an I-told-you-so shrug.

  “You knew I was going to get drafted for NetOps.”

  “Yep.”

  “And you’re smiling because you’re going too.”

  JT shook his head gravely. “I’m smiling because I’m not. But how about you let me buy you a welcome back and bon voyage lunch at Outback.”

  “As wonderful as that sounds,” Duggan said, “Outback will have to wait until after Colorado.”

  “Is Gupta up your ass?”

  “That’s not it,” Duggan said. “It’s the trip I just took to Kandahar.”

  “The Westlake shit show.”

  “Yeah, Donald Westlake. A soldier goes berserk for no apparent reason and the Pentagon responds by using the NCSD for a fresh coat of whitewash. Doesn’t make sense. They were hiding something, but I can’t figure out why. Especially since …”

  “Since what?”

  “There was definitely a breach, but I think it came from inside.”

  “Whoa. You mean a worm inside Cyber Command?”

  “I don’t know, but the CO at the base couldn’t get rid of me fast enough.”

  JT was pensively studying the carpet. Duggan could almost see the dots connecting.

  “Maybe I can cheer you up,” JT said finally. “There’s a guy I know at the NSA, Jordan Sharpe. I’m pretty sure he’ll be at NetOps. He’s a sniffer, with a particular interest in Cyber Command shenanigans. I bet he’d love to hear your story. Off the clock, naturally.”

  “What’s to stop him from ratting me out to his bosses?”

  “He’s a player who keeps his cards pretty close, especially when the stakes are high.” JT made a church steeple with his fingers. “How lucky are you feeling?”

  “Not very,” Duggan said.

  “In that case,” JT said jovially, “you’ve got nothing to lose by shuffling the deck with Agent Sharpe.”

  Tom could usually hear Xander before he saw him. It started with boisterous dings from the bell on his pedicab, followed by squealing brakes and, in the case of this particular night, a ceremonial howl of animal exuberance. Once he actually arrived, Xander was in perpetual motion, flipping a random piece of paper between his fingers, making electric drum noises with his mouth. Evoking sound from inanimate objects and his own body was how Xander perceived and internalized his environment. Chairs, cars, walls, books, empty cereal boxes, dining utensils, pencils and pens, pots and pans, chest, hands, elbows, and feet—all were potential instruments to express a mood or texture or to simply confirm an object’s thingness. In Xander’s universe, until something made a noise, until it was coaxed to release an audible presence, it didn’t completely exist.

  An almost preternatural obsession with the timbre of a drum or the buzzing chatter of electronic instruments was only the most obvious manifestation of Xander’s aural compulsion. He was instinctively attuned to the cadence in a person’s breathing, speech, and stride; the swaying of trees; the asymmetric arias of traffic, the swooning waltz of the moon and sun; the way shadows of passing streetlights kept time inside a moving vehicle. He was even sensitive to the way a sentence could be orchestrated and scored with staccato starts and stops, sub clauses, hyphens, and commas, pausing abruptly to make a point or unspooling into rolling legato ribbons of words that pooled and cascaded on their leisurely journey to illustrate an idea or make a larger statement about human sensitivity to the metronomic intervals between letters, spaces, events, and ideas before finally punctuating its finale with a single conclusive period.

  “What,” Xander shouted, his fists battering the sill of Tom’s window, “is happening!”

  “Where,” Tom shot back, “is happening?”

  “Why is happening!”

  “Who is happening!”

  Xander vaulted over the threshold and planted himself directly in front of Tom’s chair. He beamed and pointed both thumbs at this chest. “This guy!” he boasted. “Because I just signed a deal with Mash Machine Records. And we, my friend, are going to Vegas!”

  “You’re spinning on the Strip?”

  “Yeah, man. I just got a paying gig at the freaking ARK Festival!”

  Tom tried to look surprised. During the months since Operation Uncle Sam had reinforced Swarm’s standing as a social media sensation, Tom had surreptitiously dedicated himself to boosting Xander’s career. By anonymously hacking into every electronic music webzine, chat room, and message board, in addition to posting ersatz reviews along with Xander’s photo and a sample of one of his best mixes, Tom managed to nudge his buddy from a total unknown into a budding phenomenon. The mas
ter stroke that pushed Xander over the edge came during the Austin City Limits Music Festival, where many of the top musicians in the world, and most of the top music executives in the country, gathered for a three-day marathon of parties and showcases by hundreds of performers of every stripe. As Tom guessed, it wasn’t very hard, given Xander’s genetic gifts and musical proclivities, to tilt the media machine in Xander’s direction by inciting a flash mob of more than a thousand instant fans to gather for his ACL gig, vaulting him into one of the festival’s fast-track discoveries and getting him a “New DJs to watch” clip on Turntable.com. Tom stood on the sidelines and observed proudly as Xander mesmerized the crowd with a thudding tattoo, building an interlocking matrix of bass lines anchored to layers of gritty synth; turning the knobs of the mixing board with kinetic flair; looking up from the decks and raising his palms toward the writhing crowd like a high priest giving his benediction; and blessing the jumping, pumping throngs that came to worship the beat and give themselves up, if only for a few hours, to a higher audible power.

  Tom had clinched the Vegas gig for Xander by secretly instigating a grassroots campaign among the trendsetters who drew their power from sniffing out the next cool thing and serving it up to the ARK bookers on a digital platter. Xander’s sound system and lighting were still relatively rudimentary, but that would change now that he had Mash Machine Records to back him. Mash Machine’s marketing whiz, Fabian Beres, who already represented several of the world’s biggest DJs, was taking Xander to the next level as his new pet project. Tom could help with that too since Xander had asked Tom to join his crew to “deal with the technical stuff.” Tom agreed, on a conditional, part-time basis, to contribute code for the audiocontrol system and supervise some of the visual effects.

  “Tom, I’m going to be spinning on the same stage as fucking Tiesto and Deadmou5?” Xander’s statement was uttered as a question, as if saying it aloud to Tom would somehow make it more tangible.

  “That’s great, Xan. You’ve worked hard for this. You deserve it.”