Reports on the Internet Apocalypse

by Wayne Gladstone

  “Why is he making this public?” I said. “I thought he wanted to build a case.”

  Margo was on her iPhone. “Well, he’s not exactly making it public,” she said. “You’re the only person who follows him. He has no other posts. Not sure anyone’s watching.… Oh, and he’s marked his account private so only his followers can see. So yeah, just you.”

  Rowsdower turned to the door as it opened, and Patrick Dunican, wearing those aviators Rowsdower hated so much, entered his home.

  “Good afternoon, Patrick,” Rowsdower said, but Dunican was too smooth to show surprise.

  “Afternoon, Aaron,” he said. “Figured you’d already come inside when I saw you weren’t in your car.”

  “Yeah, sorry about that,” Rowsdower replied. “I needed to take a leak and besides, your locks are kinda shit.”

  Dunican sat down at a chair to the side of the couch. “So Aaron, have you come to accept my offer?”

  “I have, Pat. Guess I should get used to calling you ADIC Dunican like old times.”

  “Probably a good idea,” Dunican replied, and took out a Camel Light.

  “Could I trouble you for one of those?” Rowsdower asked.

  “Thought you’d quit,” Dunican said. “I didn’t see any ashtrays in your apartment.”

  “I had, but y’know, special occasion, return to work, all that.”

  The camera went out of frame as Rowsdower lit up and exhaled, but then he turned himself squarely to Dunican again. “Before I return,” he said, “if I could deliver evidence on who was responsible for the cyberattacks against the Internet, for the bombings at Farmers Market, the Hollywood sign, and others, and who murdered both Gladstone’s ex-wife and former ICANN crypto officer Michiko Nagasoto, would the government be interested?”

  Dunican laughed. “What kind of a ridiculous question is that? Of course!”

  “No,” Rowsdower continued. “When I say interested, I don’t just mean curious. I mean would the federal government prosecute the cyberterrorism, would state government prosecute the criminal acts?”

  “Why wouldn’t they?”

  “Because it’s big, Pat. It’s not some Third World combatant, it’s not some rogue superpower or disgruntled former CIA. We’re dealing with an incredibly powerful man and multiple people on the take. At least one of the ICANN crypto officers for certain.”

  “Who is this man?”

  “Hamilton Burke.”

  Dunican stood up and looked out his window.

  “You don’t seem surprised,” Rowsdower said.

  “Why should I be? We’ve been heading an investigation for over a year. There’s been talk, but we’ve never been able to get anything concrete on Hamilton Burke. Can you really nail him?”

  “I can,” Rowsdower said, and took a flash drive from his pocket, framing it in the same shot with Dunican. It wasn’t the flash drive I got from Jeeves, but it didn’t need to be. If Anonymous had done its job, it was a drive containing concrete documents and evidence tying Burke to each of his collaborators and actions, not just Jeeves’s thoughts and impressions.

  “Who’d you get that from? Gladstone?” Dunican asked.

  “I told you, Pat. I don’t know where Gladstone is. This came from Anonymous.”

  “You’re shitting me.”

  “Well, y’know, when I didn’t have a job, I had to make new friends.”

  “You sure did,” he said, and moved farther from Rowsdower. He leaned against the desk on the opposite side of the room.

  “This isn’t right,” I said.

  “I can’t believe it,” Dunican laughed. “A straightlaced guy like you. Special Agent Aaron N. Rowsdower spent his sabbatical as an agent of Anonymous.”

  “I wouldn’t go that far, Pat, but you know me well enough to know I get my man.”

  “I know you, Aaron. And I know you took shit for twenty years rising just high enough to be known in the bureau as being really good at taking shit. And when we needed you to fall, you fell, and when we asked you back, you came. But you’re no dummy, so what I can’t figure out is why you didn’t realize breaking into my home gave me probable cause to kill you.”

  Dunican pulled his gun from his holster and fired almost directly at the camera, and I dropped my phone like I was being shot. Rowsdower must have fallen from the couch onto his back because the camera turned to the ceiling and then slid out and over his shoulder to the floor. Rowsdower’s ear went in and out of the frame and Dunican came into view, kneeling over Rowsdower’s body. Somehow, only hearing Aaron made it worse. The blood in his breathing.

  “You stupid shit,” Dunican said. “Do you know how easy this will be for me? Disgruntled, disgraced employee, consorting with Anonymous, breaks into my home. It’s almost like you wanted me to kill you.”

  The gurgling became worse because Aaron must have been trying to speak. And he did. “Yeah, almost,” he said, and then his bloody hand reached over the phone, and there was Rowsdower, looking right at me, dying. Blood in his otherwise perfectly normal teeth. “Download,” he said, and when he tried to smile more blood leaked from the corner of his mouth.

  Days 435–436

  The fists I made the moment Rowsdower was shot only tightened, and the intensity of it radiated up through my whole body as it shook with the muscle memory of Romaya’s loss. It made me so tight and hard that no grief could enter for the moment. There was too much rage, and Margo made a sound I’d never heard before, panicked gasps cutting the wailing. She was saying something I couldn’t understand, and she tried to say it again before grabbing the phone and tapping the screen. She watched and waited. Then she tapped it again.

  “Download,” she said, and dropped the phone back on the bed. She’d saved the footage. It no longer lived only on PeepHole’s twenty-four-hour server; I had it in my phone. I went to Margo’s Mac on her desk and copied it to her hard drive.

  “Now it’s in two places,” I said.

  Margo got up and went to the closet without speaking to me, pulled out a suitcase, and threw it on the bed.

  “Where you going?”

  “We,” she said, pushing tears off her cheeks with the base of her palm. “I’m sure hitting Download will give our GPS location on the phone.”

  I hadn’t thought of that. That’s what over a year off the grid does to you. Makes you believe you can ever be alone. “Well, we had to push it anyway before it could be deleted off the server, or at least the Internet shut down again?”

  “Right.” Margo went over to her laptop to copy the footage again onto a flash drive. “Fucking Macs,” she said. “One tear and the whole thing will probably short circuit.” Then she turned and looked at me for the first time since the broadcast. “You’re not crying,” she said.

  I walked over to Margo and, seeing her tears, took a deep breath and used all my strength to unfurl my fist before I could gently wipe them from her face. “I don’t have the time to cry,” I said.

  “Oh, Parker,” she replied. “You have to learn how to multitask.”

  I held her for a moment. I thought we could spare it. Besides, if I was wrong, this seemed like a pretty good place to die. But that’s when her apartment buzzer rang, and we both jumped. “No one could get here that quick,” Margo said, and went to the Intercom by the front door to answer.

  “Oi, special delivery from Reginald Stanton.”

  I only knew Stanton from Rowsdower’s reports. “Does that sound like him?” I asked.

  “Maybe?” Margo replied.

  I pressed the Intercom. “If this is really Reginald Stanton,” I said, “then what’s the password?”

  “Get fucked. That’s the password, mate.”

  “Yeah, that’s him,” Margo said, and buzzed him in. He was at the door a minute later and after double-checking that he was alone, Margo let him in. He was carrying a square box.

  “Special delivery,” he said to Margo. “Rowsdower sent this to me with instructions to deliver it to you.”

  The
n Stanton noticed the tears and turned to me. “What’d you do to her?”

  “Watch yourself, Gladstone,” she said. “He bites.”

  Stanton dropped the box. “You’re Gladstone?”

  “Pleased to meet you,” I said, shaking his hand, “but we’ve suffered a bit of a loss today. Rowsdower’s been murdered.”

  Margo called Stanton into her bedroom and replayed the PeepHole transmission from her laptop, knowing neither of us had the energy to explain. She hit Play and left.

  “Fuck me,” Stanton said when it was over, and Margo returned with a long bread knife and handed it to me. “I’m sure the package is for you,” she said.

  Stanton placed the box on the hardwood floor and we sat around it as I ran the knife along the sealing tape. Inside, there was an envelope, a flash drive, and a hat. I opened the envelope and read the letter out loud.

  Dear Internet Messiah,

  As you read this, I might once again be Special Agent Rowsdower of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, working within the system to bring down terrorist, murderer, and presidential candidate Hamilton Burke. If so, great! Good for me. But if not, I’m dead, and I have a feeling it’s probably the latter, so I have a few things I need to explain.

  First, Anonymous came through like a champ. The flash drive containing all documentary evidence of Hamilton Burke, his contacts, his monetary transactions, and even some surveillance footage pulled from security cameras, is all on the flash drive in this box. That is NOT what I showed Dunican. If you’re curious, I can tell you what Pat will see when he plays that flash drive is video of me having sex with his ex-wife, Vicki. (She was always kind of sweet on me, and well, I wanted to go out with a bang.) But the point, Wayne, is you have the evidence and no government to give it to. There are too many corrupt players. If Dunican is dirty, he can’t be the only one because a man like that isn’t brave enough to do anything alone. It has to be given directly to the people, and without the Internet that will be difficult.

  But you have more pressing problems, because the moment you downloaded that footage of my murder, you made yourself traceable, and while our friend Reginald Stanton would most likely tell the government to get fucked if they came calling for that data, under the NET Recovery Act, a federal judge will grant a seizure order within hours. The point being, you need to get the fuck out of Dodge, and as a man with many properties, I’m sure he can keep you hidden until you get it sorted.

  Lastly, I know you said the fedora was a gift, but as I won’t be using it anymore I’d like you to have it back. Besides, as you said, anyone who wears that hat can be the Messiah, and there’s still work to be done.

  Margo, I’ve worked with some wonderful partners over the years, but you were my favorite. In another life, if your reincarnation isn’t still with that asshole Gladstone, I would very much like to open a detective agency with you. Be well, and good luck with Prague Rock Productions.

  Gladstone, I’ll keep it simple. Thank you for putting me in touch with the subversive, but thank you more for believing in me. I believe in you too.

  Sincerely,

  Aaron N. Rowsdower

  P.S. I’ve included one more page for the reports. A prologue. I know that’s something more fitting for a book than an investigation, but what can I say, you’re a terrible influence.

  We went from the car to Stanton’s helicopter in L.A. to the roof of his Vegas apartment building. I was surprised a helicopter could make a trip that far, but Stanton said that was because I was a “fuckin’ drongo.” His cowboy yelps, harsh turns, and periodic dives were a good distraction from our grief, and when he finally leveled out and settled into the main leg of the journey, I had a few hours to contemplate the next steps.

  Meanwhile, Margo was on her laptop reading through all the evidence that Anonymous had pulled on Hamilton. In some cases, there were paper trails, payments to overseas accounts, contact with known mercenaries, even photos of him and Neville together, picked up by London security street cameras.

  When we landed on Stanton’s roof, he checked his watch and shouted, “Three thirty! Not bad.” He showed all of us the time, pointing to his watch. “And I wasn’t even wearing my flight suit,” he said. We took the elevator down from the roof to his place on the top floor. It looked a lot like Rowsdower’s description of Stanton’s place in Manly, except the giant windows now overlooked the Vegas strip. He could have lit his whole place indirectly with the city’s sparkle. Margo and I sat in two of the leopard-print recliners facing the bar, and Stanton set out three glasses as he assumed his favorite role of bartender.

  “So what’ll it be then?” he asked

  Margo ordered a Koala Fucker, knowing there wasn’t much of a choice.

  Stanton took a quick look behind the bar and said, “Ooh, sorry, love. Can’t. I’m out of Krazy Straws.”

  “Ah, I’ll just take a vodka soda then if you’ve got it,” she replied.

  “Me too,” I said. “Minus the vodka.”

  “On the wagon?” Stanton asked.

  “No, but I’m saving it for the right occasion.”

  Stanton fixed our drinks while he called his messenger service from his landline. “Fuck!” he screamed. “The fuck I will!” He poured himself nearly a full glass of Beauté du Siècle by Hennessey and stared at it with near disdain. “Bullshit!” he yelled. “How’d they do that without me?” He took a gulp. “Yeah? Until when?” Then he paused for a moment before adding, “Fuck,” and hanging up.

  He brought Margo her drink and said, “They’ve shut down the Internet again. Not at the hubs. They’ve rebooted the security protocols, de-verifying those three sites and my PeepHole app. And the government also wants the GPS download data from Rowsdower’s broadcast.”

  “So that means that Dunican told Burke about Rowsdower. And Burke contacted Bhattacharyya or whatever other source he’s got in the government.”

  “Would seem so,” Stanton said.

  “Well, in fairness to the government,” Margo said, “regarding the download data, whoever found out about a former NSA agent’s broadcast allegedly involving information about the Internet Apocalypse might want to know more about it for the right reasons.”

  “Or they just might want to kill whoever downloaded it,” Stanton said, topping off his drink.

  “Yes, that too,” Margo agreed.

  “So fuck them. They’ll have to seize my operation before I cooperate.”

  “First of all,” I said, “they will seize it. Rowsdower’s already told us that. But more importantly, I want you to cooperate.”

  “See?” Stanton said, turning to Margo. “Not leading-man material.”

  “It’s the right play,” I explained.

  “The fuck it is,” Stanton said. “I did not go into business to become a spy for the government. My customers have to know that not every electronic thought or action can become the property of the US government. So why would I give them the GPS data telling them your whereabouts willingly?”

  “Because we’re no longer in California, so that’s a good place to send them looking. And more importantly, you’re hiding us so the more they trust you the better off we are. But most of all, because I still need you as a trusted crypto officer. By the way, how did they change the protocols without you? I thought you needed three?”

  “Yeah, me too, but my service told me ICANN can use two out of three in an emergency and no one could reach me. Probably because I’ve been in the sky for the last several hours. I’m calling Leonards to find out more.” Stanton checked his iPhone, which, without the Internet, had basically become a Rolodex, and then called from his landline, apparently getting an answering machine. “Kev, it’s Reggie. You mind telling me how you and Bhattawhatever rebooted the protocols without me and fucked my app in the process? Call me at my Vegas number. I’ll be here.”

  “Let me ask you this,” I said after he hung up. “How would you go about using a key that added all the sites back? Would you need all three crypt
o officers for that?”

  “Well, the code for each new key is reviewed in a ceremony of about twenty wonks. Each is given a handout and we do it line by line on an overhead projector.”

  “Right, and what happens to that key?” I asked.

  “Well, pre-Apocalypse, it was kept in a safe that three crypto officers have access to in case it’s needed to reboot the Internet’s safety protocols. But now that we’re changing protocols weekly, we reboot, allowing in new sites, and then keep it locked up for safekeeping until the next launch that verifies and adds more sites.”

  For all his swearing and swagger, Stanton’s discipline was becoming more clear. Still, I didn’t have the information I needed. “Yeah, but what if you went through the ceremony but just used a different key at the end. One that put everything back online?”

  “Well, unless all three officers were in on it, someone would notice the switch, but other than that, it could be done.”

  “Wait a second,” Margo said. “Are you fucking kidding me? At ICANN—this international organization with multiple security protocols—in that ICANN, three dudes can just decide to use the wrong key and that’s that?”

  Stanton laughed. “I didn’t say it could be done with impunity, but yes it could be done. You’d be shocked to see how much of the world, especially at the highest level of society’s structures, is held together by inertia.” He finished half his drink in one gulp. “Look,” he continued, “the key is generated and placed in a safe. Three trusted crypto officers are given the keys to safety-deposit boxes that contain the cards that, if inserted one right after the other, open the safe to the key card that reboots the security protocols, got me?”

  “OK…” Margo said.

  “But let’s say the entire facility is blown up. What then? Well, then there are nine recovery-key shareholders who have a fraction of the security key such that when they come together can rebuild the security key.”