“Well, I don’t think anyone needs to know that. That’s why I told you to lose the hat and put on the sunglasses. You made the cause legit by being locked up.”
“I’m not gonna pretend to be in prison, you psycho.”
Just then some market workers came with ladders and whitewash to address the vandalism. I was glad. I wanted to see them heal the tower.
“Fuckers,” Tobey said.
A tall thin man worked his brush over “Messiah” first.
“Well, there goes that,” Tobey said, as a streak of white was pushed straight across “Free the Messiah.”
“Looks kind of like a blank now,” I said.
“Yeah, that’s their point. They’re gonna make it disappear.”
“No,” I said. “I mean like a fill in the blank. It doesn’t have to say ‘Free the Messiah.’ It could say anything.”
“Like what?”
“Anything anyone wants to say about the cause.”
I had Tobey’s attention for the first time all day.
“In fact, you should start adding, like, ten of these symbols in the back of the book, with a dotted cutting line and blank lines above and below the image.”
“Like a meme?”
“Exactly like a meme. Let the disciples write their messages above and below the image, and drop them around town. Let them define the cause. Who I am isn’t important. I’m just the guy in the fedora. Let the symbol be their inkblot.”
“That is a great fucking idea. Maybe you are the Messiah.”
I smiled a too-proud smile.
“What?” Tobey asked, prying.
I bounced my ball one more time, and then looked up. “More like the Meme-siah, amirite?”
Tobey got really happy the way friends do when they know you’ve just created a shared moment to be recalled later, and I felt we were back on the same page. I put my hand on his shoulder, and he pulled me in for a hug. But that’s that thing about hugs: even when two people are together, they’re facing opposite directions, staring at different things. If Tobey weren’t looking the wrong way over my shoulder he would have seen what I saw: an approaching old-fashioned trolley. A quaint reminder of an earlier time which someone in California had resurrected and monetized for tourists. I watched it approach. And then I watched it explode.
Fire darted out from behind the first car along with a sound that hit me in the chest, seemingly unshielded by Tobey. We fell to the ground, divided. The front car had been blown from the tracks and onto its side, but the second car continued running along its tracks, burning. I pulled Tobey up and hobbled away from its trajectory. There was smoke and the awful sound of metal grinding against concrete. Worse than awful. Useless, because the screeching violence of rock and steel did not conceal the screaming. Not just the screams of spectators like Tobey and me, running aimless and afraid, but screams from inside the trolley. Screams of pain and the screams of those seeing the pain.
I was scared, but I walked back toward the suffering. At least I took a step in the right direction. I wasn’t sure I was brave enough to see more. There was a man, about forty, on what was now the first trolley car, his eyes darting around the market.
“You,” he said to me. “Please!”
And I went to him because how could you not? One step became two and then there was a jog that broke into a run because the man’s eyes required nothing less. I got to the trolley, and there was a boy on the floor. About ten years old. There was blood everywhere, especially in a puddle beside him, and I saw why. Most of his left arm was in it.
“You’re a doctor, right?” the father said, gesturing vaguely to my blue scrub-like prison uniform and my white sports jacket.
“Tobey!” I screamed. “Get over here.”
I took off my jacket and knelt down to the boy, who was very white and not breathing right.
“Hey buddy,” I said. “I want to show you something, but I have to do something first, okay?”
I grabbed the sleeve of my jacket and tied it around his arm. Hard. He moaned.
“Almost over, buddy,” I said.
I pulled it even tighter and tied it again so it would stay. The rest of the jacket draped over the stump, hiding the injury.
“Hey, Dad,” I said to the man. “Could you just hold this and maybe apply some pressure?”
I heard an ambulance, and I was glad because I was now officially out of ideas. Tobey was running to us.
“Get that ambulance here!” I screamed to him.
I knelt back down to the boy. “Hey, look. I got you something,” I said, and handed him the ball. “Can you take it?” I asked pressing it into his right hand. He was weak, but he closed his fingers on it and smiled for a second. He had dirty-blond hair long enough to move when he blinked. His lips were chapped. “It lights up.”
I heard the sound of medics running.
Tobey was standing over us now, and I took my backpack from his shoulder, removing the Internet phone book. I stared at the boy’s dismembered arm on the floor and remembered being in my backyard when I was about his age. I’d helped my dad put down some pesticide/fertilizer stuff on the lawn, and when we were done there was still two thirds of this stuff in an incredibly heavy vinyl-like sack. My father asked me to put it in the shed, but I was tired, and the mulch pile was closer. It wasn’t like me, but when he went inside, I dragged the bag into the mulch where it sank into grass clippings and leaves. I helped it sink, kicking more leaves over it, and made a note to remember where I’d left it, for next year. I remembered in fall when the leaves further buried it and I remembered when it snowed. In the spring, I knew my father would come looking, and one weekend, while he was at the hardware store, I went to dig it up and drag it to the shed like I should have in the first place. I remembered exactly where to go and if I hadn’t, I still would have known because now, right on top of where I was headed was a dead squirrel. It wasn’t like the roadkill I’d seen from the safety of a speeding car. It had gotten into the fertilizer and died a horrible death. Its body was frozen in convulsion like some hack actor’s portrayal of death, and a grimace had formed by the exposed teeth of his half-rotten face. I could not look directly at it. I could not touch it.
I lined a trash can with a garbage bag and put it right up to where my peripheral vision said the squirrel was. Then I dug blindly with my head turned. I wanted to grab a clump of leaves and dirt and squirrel all in one motion and dump it away. It took several tries, but when the shovel felt heavy enough and the garbage thud sounded right, I turned my head fully to make sure it was gone, before tying up the garbage bag and throwing it away. Then I dug down to the pesticide and pulled it to the shed, ignoring the tiny teeth and claw marks where he’d burrowed into his death.
There was no time for such half measures now. I made sure the boy was looking at the ball, and then in one motion, I grabbed the arm by the wrist and put it stump first into my backpack. I zipped it up and handed the backpack to the father.
“The ambulance is here,” I said to him.
He called over my shoulder, “Here! My boy is here!”
We watched them put the boy on a stretcher, and a paramedic tied a real tourniquet just above my handiwork. He threw my jacket on the floor before whispering to the father, who gestured to the backpack. And then they were gone. I grabbed my jacket, suddenly remembering it still held my letter to Romaya, now bloody. I put it in between the pages of the Internet phone book to blot it out, and folded my jacket into a square. There were more people than just the boy. Some dead or burned, some with just minor injuries. But no one else thought I was a doctor. Now I just looked like a convict covered in other people’s blood.
* * *
Tobey drove while I lay in the passenger seat, reclined all the way back. I wanted to go home, but I didn’t know where that was. It wasn’t Tobey’s apartment. It wasn’t back in New York. I wasn’t even sure it was here with Romaya. Maybe I was trying to claw my way back into something that would kill me. Tobey was rig
ht. I needed a place to hide, but not from the authorities—from everything I’d seen. Everything I’d touched.
We pulled into a space in his apartment garage, but were pinned by a limo as soon as he parked. The black tinted glass rolled down with mechanical efficiency, revealing a man in a Hellraiser Pinhead mask. “Get in the car, jackasses.”
“Quiff?” I asked.
“Do you know many other masked men roaming around in limos, Gladstone?”
It was Quiff, but before I could I decide if I wanted to enter, Tobey was inside, sticking his head out the window right next to Pinhead. “Dude, come on, there’s a wet bar and everything.”
I got in and the car began to move.
“Eventful first day out of prison, Gladstone?”
“Yeah, man, it was awful,” Tobey replied.
I turned to Tobey. “You know Quiff?”
“Of course,” he said. “I told you Anonymous pitched in when you went to the big house.”
The car pulled out of Tobey’s garage and out into Santa Monica.
“So, Gladstone,” Quiff said. “What happens now?”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
He shook his head. “If you’re gonna be the Messiah, Gladstone, you need to think more than no moves ahead. This is chess, not Ants in the Pants.”
“I told you, I wasn’t looking for war.”
“And I told you it would find you anyway, didn’t I?”
I had no clever reply.
“So I’m asking you,” he continued. “What happens now?”
“I don’t understand.”
Even through Halloween-store latex, I could tell Quiff was disgusted with me. “Driver, turn on the news,” he shouted.
Quiff sat back in his seat and listened to a news story he’d already heard in his head. One I hadn’t even begun to imagine. It was about the explosion at the Farmers Market. That much was no surprise, but clearly that wasn’t the important part. It was the ending. The part about the newly formed Internet Reclamation Movement, now seemingly called the Messiah Movement, being suspected in the attack.
“What the fuck?!” I screamed.
“You didn’t see that coming?” Quiff replied.
“Because it’s not true,” I protested. “Is it? Is it true, Tobey?”
Tobey was drinking some of Quiff’s vodka. “What? No. I didn’t order anyone to blow up a fucking trolley,” he said.
Quiff turned professorial. “But what does that matter? A trolley blew up. And in the shadow of your WiFi/fedora symbol—which is really nice, by the way.”
I reached for the Scotch and Quiff interrupted me by placing an empty glass in my hand. Then he poured me some Auchentoshan Classic, which was behind the decanter I was actually grabbing for.
“You’re a suspect, Gladstone,” he said. “So tell me. What happens next?”
“Well driving around with Anonymous/4Chan/Whatever the fuck you are can’t be a very good idea. It makes me look guilty.”
“That’s probably true, but the association is already known. Enough to paint you as guilty if they want, so I’d suggest you need all the friends you can get at this point. Friends you can trust.”
“Oh, right. Friends like masked vigilantes known to me only by a dirty joke of a nickname?”
“I AM the Batman,” Tobey said.
“I’ve explained this to you already,” Quiff said. “In this environment, the man in a mask is the only person you can trust. Everyone else has too much to lose.”
“Okay, Quiff, so what happens next? You tell me.”
“You will be blamed,” he said. “You will be discredited. And you will be vilified.”
Then, almost by cue, my old friend Senator Bramson came on the radio.
“I’ve been warning this administration and anyone who will listen about this so-called messiah for months. And for good reason. Look what this movement has done. And what does this administration have to show for it?”
I knocked back my drink and put my head in my hands, running my fingers over my face and through my hair like I’d seen exasperated men do.
“We’ll figure this out, Gladstone,” Tobey offered weakly.
“Cheer up,” Quiff said. “Don’t you realize Senator Bramson just became your best friend?”
“Ooh, with benefits?” Tobey asked.
“Shut up, Tobey.”
“Yes,” Quiff agreed. “Take a break, Tobey. We get it. You’re a moron.”
“How is she my friend?” I asked.
“Well, think about it: She’s blaming the NSA. The NSA just released you. So—”
“I was being held by the NSA?” I asked.
“Who did you think?” Quiff asked.
“Well, I dunno. That Rowsdower seemed like such an FBI guy.”
“He is. Was. But he’s been tasked as a foot soldier in the NSA’s effectuation of the NET Recovery Act. So anyway. If Bramson is blaming you, the NSA has two choices: They can arrest you again and try to bury the fact that they ever let you go. Or they can dispute Bramson’s allegations, which means you won’t be blamed. We have to get you on TV. Deny any involvement. Condemn the attacks. Help the government help you, because y’know, if they do need you to be the bad guy for this, then nothing can help you.”
“You think that’s all it takes? Go on TV and say, ‘Hey, I have nothing to do with this?’”
“Well, think about it. You’ll be so grateful to the U.S. government for not wielding its NET Recovery Act power on your ass for something you didn’t do, you’ll keep your nose clean. Think of it as a get-out-of-jail-free card.”
“But that’s bullshit,” Tobey said. “This movement goes on. And if they lock up Gladstone, we’ll only grow stronger.”
“Hey, good for you Tobey!” Quiff said.
I hated everything about Quiff’s tone, but I also knew he was right.
“So, no,” Quiff continued. “I think you should go on TV, but I don’t think it’s enough. It’s a stopgap. It saves your ass for now and allows the government to save face, but you’ll be compromised and they will never stop planning your destruction, because if they lock you up again, Tobey’s right, that buys them another problem. But for now, yes, going on TV will work.”
“Why so sure?” I asked. “You think I’m that charismatic that no one will doubt my performance? You think the government will take comfort from that?”
Quiff laughed. “No, Gladstone, you’re probably right. If the government had to rely on that alone they’d probably be more nervous, but I think they have another ace up their sleeve. Any guesses?”
Tobey thought hard. “Aliens?”
“Tell us,” I said.
“The Internet. I predict within the week the Net will make a temporary return. Just enough to quell unrest.”
“What does that get them?” Tobey asked.
“What does that get them?” Quiff barked. “How can you of all people ask that? Indifference. Apathy. It gets them that. You’ve had the most motivated productive month of your life without the Internet! It’s Governance 101. A content people are the least likely to rebel.”
“I thought that was the purpose of religion,” Tobey said.
“Yes, that too,” Quiff agreed.
“Professional sports,” I offered.
“Right again. These are the things that make capitalism work. The things that make you take your eyes off how the system is rigged to fuck the common man on behalf of the elite. You might be working more and more for less, but hey, wasn’t that World Cup exciting? And don’t worry, you’ll go to heaven ultimately while the rich burn in hell, so take comfort in that.”
“I feel like we’ve gone off-topic here.…”
“Not at all,” Quiff insisted. “Because religion, sports? They don’t have a thing on the Internet.”
“It’s bigger than Jesus,” Tobey smirked.
“Bigger than Jesus, the Beatles, and Elvis combined. You can steal content for free! You can communicate without long-distance cha
rges. You can zone out and do nothing while feeling like you’re doing something for hours, days, your whole life. Why am I explaining this to you, Gladstone? I read your book.”
I sat forward in my seat. I got close enough to Quiff to see his eyes were blue like mine. Blue like that not-Net creature I’d imagined in the Statue of Liberty at the end of my New York investigation.
“What’s wrong?” Quiff asked.
“Nothing, I just hate it. I hate this. Why does everything have to be just … fuck.”
Quiff turned to Tobey, who nodded in agreement. “What he said.”
“Look, I know the Net was created by geniuses in conjunction with the military,” I said. “But can’t it just be a symbol of our ingenuity instead of just another form of control? Can’t it just be a pure thing?”
“Like what?” Quiff asked? “Nuclear power that can solve the world’s energy concerns with just an occasional Chernobyl? Or television that can bring Shakespeare plays into people’s homes, as well as attack ads during presidential campaigns? Grow up, Gladstone. There are no pure things. People are dirty.”
I thought back to college. Romaya had taken a job at a mall Starbuck’s kiosk before quitting due to all the sexual harassment coming from her ecstasy-chomping hippie boss. I’d come to pick her up too early one day. I was always too early, but this day I used the time to wander the mall.
I wasn’t looking to buy anything with just twelve dollars in my wallet and too little in my checking account to make a twenty-dollar minimum withdrawal, but I saw a dollar store and wondered if I might find something stupid and fun to give her. Before I entered, I saw a father with three girls, all with tidy, clipped, ridiculously blond hair, walking toward the store. His T-shirt and jeans were stained, and I assumed he had a job that didn’t require him to shave every day. Despite having girls looking to be about ages twelve, ten, and eight, he couldn’t have been more than thirty.
The girls were leading the way, but before they entered, they stopped and looked back at their dad, who said proudly, “All right, girls. You can have anything you want!” They squealed and ran into the store like contestants on a shopping-spree game show.
Agents of the Internet Apocalypse Page 14