The Echo Chamber
Page 26
“Why do you darken my doorway today, my disgraced head of special security?”
Arlo scowled at the barb, his tongue clamped between his teeth as if he were suppressing some wicked words that threatened to escape. But he recovered himself, running his fingers through his neatly parted hair with a short, joyless laugh, and then he smiled again—the same smile he wore so often that his face had long stopped aching from the strain. He sat in a chair opposite his uncle, and he looked contemptuously at the assistant before telling her to shoo.
“I hear the surgery is today,” he said, once she had left the room.
“I believe it’s already begun.” Devon didn’t look up from his phone.
Arlo tapped his index fingertips on the table with interest.
“Delightful,” the younger man responded. “Did you ever learn anything more about what it is?”
Devon put down his phone and gave Arlo a look that suggested his patience was being strained.
“I told you. It’s probably just that dumb implant he got when we used to work together. He was always an idiot. He used to tell anyone who would listen about how technology would solve problems like inequality and injustice. Now he’s a little wiser. Now he sees that technology is like every other market good, it serves those who have the money to build it and crushes those underneath.”
“You’re underestimating him, Uncle,” Arlo replied with a hiss. “The Citadel breakout, that was about him. I was there when Darnell walked into Catalina’s cell. He was expecting someone else to be there. He was looking for Michael.”
“Spare me your Patriot Palace alleyway conspiracy theories,” Devon snorted. “I didn’t forget you were there during the breakout. How could I forget? An employee of mine turns out to be a radical leftist mole, and then he outwits my nephew in front of all downtown San Francisco.”
“You’ll see once we look at the implant,” said Arlo, pretending the insult did not wound him. “There’s something special about it. There’s something special about that man. I saw it in his eyes as we questioned him. It’ll be just like the black box the security team recovered over the Farallon Islands. Already we’re finding software in there that’s far ahead of its time. Things are about to happen. Momentous things. And if we play our cards right, we’ll be in a position to change the world.”
Devon rolled his eyes. “Change the world? We’re sitting on top of the world’s most valuable company in a nation with the largest military ever conceived, and every politician in power right now is either indebted to us or wants to woo us for a campaign contribution. What world do you still want to create exactly? What bloodlust or greed of yours has not already been sated by our success?”
“There is always more to accomplish, Uncle,” Arlo grumbled. “I at least have the ambition and stomach for it.”
“You continue to talk like that, and the board of directors will never want you running this place. You already make them nervous.”
“It may not matter, if I’m right,” the young man responded coolly. “The Citadel breakout was just the beginning. A reckoning is upon us. You can see that the old order is ending when a ragtag group of homosexuals, sluts, and thugs can storm the most invulnerable prison in the world and get away with it. I, for one, stand ready to do what it takes to greet threats like that to save our civilization.”
There was a tap at the door, and Devon’s assistant’s head appeared.
“Save your apocalyptic prophesying for your weird friends in those chat lounges,” Devon snapped at Arlo. “Maybe the lefty critics are right. Maybe we do need to start putting a muzzle on you nuts.”
Arlo looked scandalized at this, then he looked furious. He opened his mouth to respond, but the assistant cut in.
“There are some guests in the main lobby for you, sir,” she said, looking pained trying to juggle her vapid, painted smile with a sudden rush of anxiety. “I think you’ll want to talk with them.”
Charlotte Boone was wearing makeup for the first time since she first landed in the States almost a month prior. She had given up on red lips and eyeliner when she decided to become a criminal. But it felt appropriate today. Today she wanted to make a good impression.
Alexi had helped her find a new black skirt and a blue blouse that fit well and complemented her auburn hair. If she was going to be arrested today, there would be lots of cameras, and she didn’t want the narrative to be that an illustrious movie star went rogue and Oh, see how pathetic she looks now? No, she wanted to be just as dazzling as they remembered. Maybe it would give them all pause.
Darnell shook his head and said she was crazy for bothering with makeup. But he didn’t understand. Most men couldn’t understand because they’ve never had to worry about how perceptions of their sexuality are used to measure their worthiness to be respected.
Already Boone was the talk of the nation, or the world rather. The press had no new photos to go off of. The Patriot Palace and the other News Cities were replaying clips of her on the red carpet from her hit, The Ruins of Eden, from a lifetime ago and publishing pictures of her on a beach that marked one of her last public appearances before she left the country for Malawi. She dominated the news cycle for at least three days. The press made her out to be the ringleader of the Citadel breakout that stunned America, with some outlets deeming her a “radical socialist agent.” Pundits speculated that she was brainwashed, others refused to believe it. America’s sweetheart turned enemy of the state? They couldn’t stomach it. One radio talk show host even cried about it on air. It was all so…pathetic.
Someone in the resistance had made a black-and-white sketch of her face with her eyes raised triumphantly towards the sky and slapped the likeness on t-shirts and protest signs with phrases like Viva la revolucion or simply Resist. They sprouted up as a rallying cry hidden away in Sharebox that the company worked hastily to outlaw. Charlotte was quite certain at this point that Sharesquare’s PR team was likely regretting going public about her suspected involvement in the raid.
She walked at a brisk pace next to Darnell, whose eyes were darting around the street. It was a short distance from where Alexi dropped them off, but it still made him anxious to be caught so exposed. This was Manhattan. Did they really need to come to Manhattan to do this? He had cheated death so many times in his life, and this last gambit felt like an invitation to be rebuked for pressing his luck.
“You know, if you look too nervous, they’ll never take us seriously,” Charlotte said, giving him a sly but encouraging smile and a warm squeeze on his arm.
“I was never much of an actor, Charlotte. I wear all my emotions on my sleeve. I can’t help it.”
“Well then, let me do most of the talking.”
They walked down 14th Street, and then onto 2nd, and came to the entrance of a forty-story building that housed several financial agencies’ offices along with the corporate headquarters of Sharesquare Industries. It had none of the warmth of the Silicon Valley office with its playful motifs and foosball lounges. Perhaps because he was still feeling traumatized by the experience, but here the postmodern glass lobby and its meticulously clean walls recalled the Citadel to Darnell. He suppressed a shudder.
Charlotte reached the front entrance first and pulled the door open for Darnell. She offered what she hoped was a confident smile.
“Shall we?”
“You should leave now, before they get in here,” Devon waved his hand dismissively at his nephew.
“Leave? Are you mad?” Arlo cackled, rubbing his hands together. “You’d have to drag me out of this room kicking and screaming. I wouldn’t miss this for anything.”
Devon was fussing with organizing the trinkets on his desks and putting his shoes back on his feet, but he paused for a moment as if he really did consider having Arlo dragged from the room kicking and screaming. But he shrugged it off. There probably wasn’t enough time.
“I suppose they’re here to negotiate,” Arlo mused, pacing the office and talking to no one in particular. “They must have some kind of bargaining chip, something they found in the Citadel vault, perhaps. They want their friend back, and they think we’ll compromise with them. What a sad joke.”
But it wasn’t a joke to Devon. There were skeletons in that vault. Beads of sweat had started breaking out in his armpits from the moment his assistant announced that a pair of outlaws were in the lobby demanding an audience and threatening unnamed “consequences” to the receptionist. He had fretted that something like this might happen.
There was a knock on the door, and Charlotte and Darnell stepped into the red-carpeted office of the CEO. The girl was striking, even now; she carried that Hollywood halo that marked her as something dreamy—something royal. And Devon found himself both awed and repulsed by how commanding her presence was. Darnell Holmes, by contrast, was dressed as a nobody in a pair of patchy jeans and a hoodie. They strode up to Devon’s desk and took seats without waiting for an invitation.
Darnell remembered this place. It had awed him before with its sweeping views of Manhattan and the vaulted ceiling that proclaimed the importance and prestige of its officeholder. He had sat in the same seat looking at Devon, with Arlo there slinking around behind him again, but he wasn’t awed this time. Before, he had walked in here on his knees and departed the office full of mutters of gratitude. Now he was here to threaten to burn everything down.
Arlo took in the girl briefly, but he shook her looks off for a distraction. All his eyes were for Sergeant Holmes.
“I suppose there is a reason I shouldn’t just call the police right now,” Devon said, staring off at the ceiling and trying to affect a casual air. “Though I’m sure you realize that the only way you’ll leave this building alive is in a squad car. We’ll get you back to the Citadel in no time. We’re working on some revised security procedures there, you know. But I suppose you have something to say to me first?”
Charlotte did not mind letting a silence hang in the air. She sensed Devon’s discomfort. There was a fleeting quiver to his lip, a soft wavering to his voice that he had unnaturally tried to deepen, a hint of sweat just beginning to glisten on his forehead. They were here to negotiate, and he knew it, and his best opening move was to strain what machismo was granted to him by the power of his position. But Charlotte wasn’t afraid of those games. She let men—producers, directors, and agents—thump their chests at her before. They could waste their words and debase themselves. She didn’t need to be a man to be the best at everything.
“Yes, well,” Charlotte began. “You probably figured that we found something interesting breaking into the Citadel vault and recruiting Miss Fernandez to work for us and all.”
Devon scowled at hearing Cat’s name, his former coworker, and then mastered himself.
“But you’ll probably still be be shocked to hear everything we found. The illicit data you keep hidden for several of your clients was certainly juicy. The revelations will cripple the company, very likely. Because even in this day and age, people have a limited tolerance for a scandal involving billionaires who bribe politicians and then collect secret dirt on their browsing histories to blackmail them with. You’ve collected obscene footage of countless users in erotic Sharebox rooms, virtual sexts between business leaders and their interns, money moving between shells companies in the Cayman Islands…. Really, this scandal has a bit of everything. No one will feel safe being on Sharebox anymore.”
Devon nodded his head at the guard who had patted down Charlotte and Darnell for weapons before escorting them into the room. The guard slipped out of the office noiselessly and closed the door behind him, leaving just the four of them.
“You overestimate your hand here,” Devon said. “Everyone already knows their politicians are corrupt and adulterous. Everyone’s tapped out of outrage. And no one is going to shed any tears. So, we kept footage of folks having Sharebox liaisons with interns and out-of-work actresses and porn stars? Big deal. That’s the thing about the American people. They like it when you expose sex-addicted sinners, and they forgive them just as quickly.”
“Even if you really believed you’d get off so easily for all your corporate wrongdoings, that’s not even the best part,” Charlotte said, leaning over the table. “Cat found the logs, Devon. She found an old snippet from the codebase that was skillfully removed, and the deletion flew under the radar because it didn’t break any system tests on Diana’s integrity. But you know whose name was in the log file for that change? That was you.”
“You forged some computer forensic information that no one but nerds could understand and you expect me to be afraid?” Devon was scoffing, but he was visibly squirming in his chair.
“Even better. We were able to tie an old username you once used in the early days of the original Sharesquare app. We found a bunch of messages you passed around exhorting fringe groups to buy Diana Nutrino Mixers and tell the AI that the world would be a better place if people with conservative views didn’t reproduce in it. You took advantage of Diana’s programming loophole by flooding her with information from real people that led her to make a bad choice. You taught her to sterilize people by grinding the thought into her programming. We have the transcripts now of over fifteen thousand conversations that were spammed to her by your old group friends. And the scheme wouldn’t have worked if not for that code you deleted, the one that inhibited her from entertaining obscene thoughts.”
Charlotte slid a copy of the logs files over the desk. Devon’s username was circled in red in multiple locations. On another page there was a screenshot. His alias “patriotDudeinTech1” from a Sharesquare chat app was the same one he had once used in a public Reddit posting under his real name. There would be no denying that he had encouraged people to sabotage the Nutrino Mixer by overwhelming it with bad ideas that Diana earnestly digested in its quest to learn about human interaction.
“Was it because you wanted to make Cat look bad? Or did you really think you would set off the beginning of the end of the world by getting the Nutrino Mixer to sterilize people?” Darnell asked.
Devon laughed nervously now, it was a high-pitched kind of giggle like some choking songbird. Then he got quiet.
“You really think you can blackmail us?” Arlo snapped, moving from behind Devon’s chair. “We are Sharebox. We control everyone’s information. All the information that matters. This doesn’t change anything. Have you ever even been to the Palace? Have you seen all those screens and all those people who eat up every word we print there? That’s where America gets its news, and it’s not the truth if we don’t say it is. As long as the Patriot Palace stands, we’ll spin your story into nothing. And the police, the government, they’ll hear your accusations, and they’ll all just shrug. That’s real power.”
Darnell and Charlotte exchanged glances and then turned back to Arlo.
“Yes,” said Charlotte, slowly as her ruby lips widened into a smile. “We figured you would say something like that.”
Cat would have preferred to never log into Sharebox ever again. She had lived with a headset strapped to her face for nearly three years and putting one back on now twisted her intestines so tight she nearly retched. But she wanted this mission too much to pass up on the opportunity. This job was important.
She logged in from the safe house Gabriel had found for them. It was her first time seeing her avatar—the one from her true user account—from before the Nutrino Mixer revelation went public. In the Citadel, they were all assigned avatars with serial codes striped across their bodies and issued white, bland male faces. But here was a shimmering digital version of herself, long-limbed, shiny hair and wearing yoga pants, and it was almost nice to see this reflection of her old self.
Cat’s avatar walked through Homepad and was served up several ancient posts from friends and family with labels like “Here’s what you m
issed in the last 857 days since you last logged in.” She ignored them all and went to the main transit hub, where she then navigated to the front entrance of the Patriot Palace.
It wasn’t quite the same as it used to be. It was louder and gaudier, and the growth of that heinous News City—the rotten heart of everything that had soured in Sharebox and accelerated its collapse into an absolute echo chamber of tortured speculation, bigotry, and propaganda—was like some cancerous urban sprawl that had spread outwards in all directions. She strolled through the gates, past a band of bots playing country music, past a flock of men talking with bowed heads and greasy parted hair, and then past a large crowd huddled around a giant screen of a man in a tie who was complaining about how men just aren’t as manly as they used to be. The center of the square was surrounded on all sides by high rises for those willing to pay real money to own digital property there. They were the true believers. Though, in a way, everyone here had long since abandoned any interest in a reality that did not pander shamelessly to them.
People had started following her around. It started with whispers, but there were some shouts of exclamation now too. The likeness of the avatar graphics was so fully realized now that her face was recognizable to passersby. A Patriot Palace paparazzo pushed his way in front of her, and his red recording light blinkered on.
“Ma’am, is it really you? Are you here to make some kind of statement?”
Cat ignored him at first. There were sirens she heard in the distance now too, but those didn’t matter. No one could harm her, not with all the Sharebox privileges Diana plundered from the Citadel vault and modified and blessed her avatar with. Now she got to play God.
Reaching her fingers into the air, she activated an interface of deletion and destruction protocols. Then she began pulling the buildings down, tearing them from the sky as if she were a witch conjuring some apocalyptic curse. They fell just like real buildings, bricks and windows smashing and crumbling into one another as they clattered onto avatars in the square all screaming and dashing for an exit. The smart ones had the sense to log out, but most didn’t. Most didn’t have the sense.