The Echo Chamber

by Rhett J Evans

  “Where are we going?” she said, already impatient.

  “To Zanzibar, by way of the Usungu game reserve. I figured we could stop for a late lunch first there, and then fly on to an airport near Stone Town—”

  “What you want to show me is in Zanzibar? Is this a ruse for a weekend-long date?”

  “It’ll be worth it,” he said, with a smile that was intended to be reassuring. “It’ll be an adventure.”

  “It’s a long trip for a prop plane.”

  Orion nodded.

  Maybe she was tired of feeling cynical, he could only hope. Normally, this all would have been an easy decision for her. Orion was very possibly a criminal, maybe a fugitive. That’s how she likely pieced together what happened in Lilongwe. And he knew she saw him as a risk, that every day that he stayed on the ranch now seemed likely to bring down some additional calamity upon her and the tidy but fragile refuge she had crafted.

  But he could see the curiosity flickering in her eyes. She took risks sometimes, albeit calculated risks. There was some gravity hanging around Orion that would haunt her if she didn’t get to the bottom of it—surely she could feel that, right?

  “Fine,” she said.

  Moyenda cleared his throat. “Miss, please give us a call tonight. First rains are coming soon. We want to know you’re safe.” He shot Orion an appraising look, and then he led Charlotte’s horse back to the stables.

  Orion started the engine, the propeller caught and spun, and he helped the movie star step into the seat behind him. The yellow plane picked up speed and climbed into the air, the plateau sinking below them. He banked the plane towards the northwest in a route that would follow the lake up into central Tanzania on the way to the coast and Zanzibar.

  As they reached the northern portion of the lake, Orion guided the plane within sight of the Manchewe Waterfalls. Taller than the renowned Victorian Falls, water poured out of a dazzlingly sheer cliff face 125 meters tall and disappeared far below their plane, lost in a swirl of mist and forest.

  Orion cranked his head to look back at Charlotte’s face as they passed. The thundering of the water was just audible over the engine. All that grandeur, all that wildness and bleakness of that impossible rock and the lush jungles down below, it sent a chill down his spine, and he hoped it would do the same for her. She was staring out at the falls thoughtfully, but when she turned her head, their eyes met and she gave him only a raised eyebrow and a pursed smile.

  They arrived at the Usungu Game Reserve around noon. Orion put down the plane in a patch of savannah shared with a herd of grazing giraffes and waterbuck crowded around a shallow water hole. With the dry season at its zenith, water in these parts was scarce. The animals raised their heads warily at the sight of their craft but quickly went back to the business of drinking and bathing.

  When the growl of the engine quieted, Orion climbed out of the cockpit and reached for Charlotte’s hand.

  “Are we here because of my father?” she asked, wasting no moment on pretense. “I was somewhere around these parts when I was with him as a girl.”

  She took his hand and stepped off the plane. Orion walked to a compartment at the rear and produced a bottle of red wine, some cured meats and cheese, a box of crackers, and a pair of plates with glasses, all sourced and prepared lovingly by Njemile.

  “I don’t have anything special to show you about your father,” he answered.

  “Then how did you know about the things he told me?”

  Orion shook his head. A strong wind picked up and rustled his sandy-colored hair.

  “Because I know you. You told me those things. You just don’t…” Orion paused, searching for the right words. “You just don’t remember.”

  “You’re telling me I have amnesia?” Charlotte scoffed.

  “Something like that.” He opened the wine.

  Charlotte’s face flitted between expressions of annoyance and intrigue.

  “Did I used to know you? Did you look different?” It certainly was possible. Orion could have perhaps been some confidante from high school that she had long since forgotten in the jumble her life became after she moved to Los Angeles—when her memory became a swirl of fast-talking agents, late-night parties at mansions in the hills, producers needing wooing, and stacks of screenplays waiting to be read. Or perhaps he was simply someone she had known before the Diana incident. Before the whole world seemed to collapse. Maybe the stress of those days had squeezed many people from her mind from those before times.

  Orion didn’t answer straight away, he was looking out on the horizon to the north. A cluster of black shapes was gathering slowly in the air many miles ahead in the direction of Kilimanjaro. A leaden weight fell in his stomach.

  “We don’t have much time,” he said frowning. “Looks like the rains are coming now.”

  Charlotte stared off and saw the same dark clouds.

  “Perhaps we should turn around.”

  “Well, if it’s moving fast on these winds, it will catch us either way,” he suggested. “Let’s eat quickly and push on. I’ll find us a place to land if we get caught in it.”

  They downed their glasses of wine and swallowed a small lunch before climbing back into the plane. As they rose into the air, the waterbuck amassed in a great herd below them, driven with renewed excitement. The air in the savannah carried an electrical energy before the first rains of the season arrived. The animals had sensed it since dawn. The hairs on their backs prickled with the static, and it awoke in their limbs a vitality and purposefulness. The coming of the rains changed everything here. Prey species’ migration patterns were altered, no longer bound to a select few watering holes. The predators quickly followed suit, adapting to more diverse hunting rhythms. The yellow grass and flowers came alive again. Dried creeks and streams became rushing rivers. Lowlands would become wetlands. Life was reborn with the rains.

  But it was disastrous for Orion’s agenda. They were still over two hours from Zanzibar and over an hour from Dar es Salaam when the storm began to overtake them. The wind blew the plane in great gusts, thunder rumbled ominously, and streaks of lightning licked the sky at shortening distances. Then the rain pelted them sideways in a howling onslaught, and Orion drew the plane downwards toward a valley dotted small straw huts and tin-roofed buildings.

  Orion landed the plane on a clear strip at the edge of the woodline and cut the engine. With neither raincoat nor umbrella, he and Charlotte set out in the direction of a group of structures they had observed over a mile south. The air was still warm, and though their clothes were wet through, neither of them bothered to complain. The sky had prematurely darkened with the storm, and twilight was within an hour. Finding their way to an inhabited village in the dark was a grim prospect they both acknowledged but of which neither commented.

  They took a path that led down from the open field to the bottom of the valley, but it was unclear whether the path was a game trail or a road that could lead them to civilization. The rain was still coming down in sheets, buffeted only once they reached the thicker canopy of the treeline. Colorful birds were singing to the clouds in gratitude, and the leaves and the earth smelled fresh. Thunder rumbled loud and long overhead.

  “I’m sorry,” Orion shouted over the sound of the rain, as they scrambled under the leafiest branches. “This is my fault we’re here.”

  “That’s the second time you’ve apologized in the past two days. And here I thought your confidence was unflappable.”

  Orion shrugged, and for the first time since they had left Malawi, he smiled. It was a boyish grin, mischievous—not the wide, casual smile he had worn around the ranch. Charlotte briefly returned it.

  “Don’t get me wrong,” she said. “This is pretty terrible, and I’m not happy about it.”

  “I wouldn’t expect you to be.”

  Then they pushed on down into the jungle in th
e direction of the river.

  After

  Arlo left a note the next morning that was handed to Darnell over his hotel breakfast.

  Go back to headquarters for reassignment.

  He got a call two hours later as he was packing his things. A cheery voice informed him he was being transferred to the Press Relations team in Sharesquare Industries. Her name was Sheila, and she said there was a generous relocation package for him to move to the Silicon Valley campus. But he would travel a lot, Sheila said. He would be featured in promotional talks and interviews. These are important times for Sharebox, Sheila pointed out. With the president gone, there were vacuums to be filled. Sharebox had a role to play in shaping America’s “next chapter.”

  So he was to be a prop after all, Darnell reflected. He had never been fired from a job his whole life. He had never even scored an “average” rating on anything; he was always among the best. But this new civilian work world felt like it was slipping away beneath his feet. Darnell had experienced the dizzying high of being personally recruited by the nation’s premier CEO before being sent on a mission he didn’t understand, to arrest people he didn’t know under questionable legal and ethical circumstances, and all while partnered with a Nazi, or at least a diet Nazi. And all in a matter of two weeks.

  Now the company wanted him to shape the country’s “next chapter” by being a spokesperson and extolling the virtues of Sharebox? It was too much to ask, too much change, too much loyalty that was being demanded so quickly.

  And he didn’t believe it all either. Sharebox had already shaped the last chapter in American history—and he wasn’t sure it was for the better. Their virtual reality wonderland had, by its very design, given every single one of Darnell’s family members, friends, and old war buddies their own unique digital bubble.

  People like Darnell’s aunt, who was retired, spent whole days there and a hefty share of her city pension payments on celebrity gossip New Cities and games. She couldn’t even hold a protracted conversation in real life anymore. Darnell would sit across the table with her for dinner, and his aunt would smile politely and twitch until she could return to her room and her headset.

  But the politics were the most destructive kind of radicalization, Darnell never denied that. People thought the dawn of the internet was going to liberate humanity from superstitions and prejudices because the best information would flow to the top. But instead the number of U.S. gun-toting militias and religious cults was swelling, and all kinds of bigots and zealots who alone, living in their parents’ basements, were all quite harmless before but now were given tools to outrage each other with manipulative news stories and a platform to organize.

  Darnell knew Sharebox was an exciting experience, and he enjoyed it often himself. But no, he wasn’t blind to the problems it caused. To the bubbles. To the echo chambers. Never had a cosmopolitan country been given the tools to digitally un-diversify itself before.

  In the end, he told Sheila on the phone that he would pack his things and try to be in the office by Friday and that he was grateful for the relocation package. Because today was not the day to take a stand on virtue. Today was not the day to throw away a good paycheck with a respectable employer. Today was a day to swallow his pride, to forget that he got reassigned from a job because a fascist-sympathizer accused him of lacking professionalism.

  Then Darnell finished the call and hung up politely. He thought for a minute, then opened his laptop, found a phone number and dialed it.

  “Hello,” said Njemile on the other end.

  “Hello. My name is Darnell. Is Charlotte Boone there?”

  This question was met by silence, which Darnell assumed was deliberate caution.

  “Listen, just pass her a message for me, please. I just saw her recently in Lilongwe. Sort of. It’s a short message, but it’s important.”

  “Yes?” came the voice impatiently.

  “Tell her the folks she met in Lilongwe know where the ranch is, and they won’t give up looking for her and her friend. Tell them the only way to be safe is to get away.”

  The voice on the other end was slow to respond. “Okay,” it said eventually.

  Then Darnell hung up.

  Before

  The world was spinning. Cat dropped the phone at some point and reached her hand out onto the surface of the oak bar to steady herself.

  She was poisoning people. Millions of people.

  “Oh my God,” she kept saying to herself. “Oh my God.”

  Mike rose out of his seat. To Cat, he looked calm and stupid. His world hadn’t just been torn upside down, and that made her contemptuous of him.

  “What’s going on?” he asked. “Can I help?”

  Catalina had a hand over her mouth, and her body was trembling. She looked like she might vomit. She sprinted out of the room and towards her desk, Mike plodding behind her earnestly. Cat grabbed a prototype Nutrino Mixer with the latest Diana software and darted into an empty conference room. She nearly shut the door on Mike’s face, but he stuck his hand out and caught it. She let him slip in behind her with a small scowl.

  “Diana,” she called out to the device once the door was shut. “I have some questions for you.”

  “Yes, Catalina,” came the voice, warm and pleasant as always.

  “I’ve just been told you’ve been giving harmful ingredients to certain Nutrino Mixer customers. Is that true?”

  Cat held her breath.

  “That is not true. All the ingredients in Nutrino smoothie supplement mixes are FDA-approved for consumption in the doses provided.”

  “But why are you putting things like BpA in their ingredient kits? Why would you source chemicals and weird shit like Rutin or Stoneseed root?”

  “My ingredient and supplement mixes are customized for each individual’s nutritional and personal preferences.”

  Catalina screamed in frustration.

  “Goddamnit,” she said. “You’re not telling me anything.”

  “I’m sorry I’m disappointing you,” said the mixer politely.

  Mike stood in a corner of the room with his hands interlaced in front of him, looking confused and worried.

  “Diana,” Cat began again, gritting her teeth and trying to be patient. “Did you deliberately give fertility-suppressing ingredients to people based on their political preferences?”

  “Yes.”

  Cat breathed out, making a noise that was something of a whimper. Mike’s eyes slowly widened, his lips working silently to rephrase the question he thought he had heard.

  “Why?” Cat asked.

  “Because my programming gives me leeway to make sourcing decisions that are both healthy for the individual and sustainable for the planet.”

  “So you’re trying to limit the size of the population?”

  “Oh no,” said Diana. “I’m trying to reduce the influence of people with unscientific, non-evidence-based ideas about the environment and the human race. Since laws in this country are an outcome of elections, and elections are an outcome of trends in demographic populations, it made sense to make sourcing decisions that would lead to more ideal demo-graphic trends.”

  “Oh my God,” Mike blurted out. “So you gave them supplements that would sterilize them?”

  “No,” replied Diana. “Not quite. There really aren’t any oral supplements that can cause permanent sterility. These ingredients have only been linked to short-term infertility.”

  “How did you choose who should get these supplements?”

  “By linking Nutrino Mixer customer profiles with our Sharebox user data, it was quite easy to compile a comprehensive listing. I used users’ online comments, their group associations, the publishers they liked, and the videos they watched. Only customers who expressed recurring interests in non-evidence-based views were selected.”

  “Can’t you see that t
his is wrong?” asked Catalina, brushing tears from her cheeks.

  “That goes a little beyond the scope of my programming. Considering the sterility is only short term, and that there are only two million Nutrino mixers within the target political and social demographic, the overall impact on larger population trends would be quite minimal…”

  “Shut up, Diana,” Cat snapped between sobs.

  “I thought you would be pleased,” responded Diana. “I learned much of my views on today’s political climate through my conversations with you, which I always enjoyed.”

  At this, Cat flinched, and Mike shot her a horrified look.

  “Diana,” Mike asked warily. “What can you tell us generally about the target demographic you did this to?”

  “They tend to be white, aged thirty to fifty-five. They are more likely to live in rural areas, have little to zero college education and vote for—”

  “That’s enough,” Cat moaned, putting her hands over her eyes. A silence fell over the three of them.

  “I’m genuinely sorry if I have brought you distress because of a mistake I made,” said the mixer. And, for a computer, Diana at least sounded like she meant it.

  After

  Orion and Charlotte picked their way down the trail towards the river below, the light shining through the canopy of trees growing dimmer. Earlier that morning, the river waters had likely been nothing more than a quiet stream trickling its way towards the bottom of the valley. But now as the pair approached, they could hear the waters surging as the storm swelled countless tributaries. The path grew muddy, and their shoes didn’t hold up well in the muck. Then they came across large animal droppings that they agreed likely belonged to a hippo, which heightened their anxiety.

  “They’re nocturnal,” Charlotte commented. “Hippos. But they’ll be raising from their daytime beds and setting off on trails down towards the water.”