Excerpt from a post-dated January 1st, 2013 on the website: EVERYONE’S OUT TO GET you.
Well, here it is minions. 2012 is gone the way of the dodo and everyone is practically shitting themselves over the fact that the world is still here. The masses are celebrating the fact that as of today, their precious little YouTube, Facebook, Google, and Twitter are still around to occupy their tiny minds.
These words smack of hypocrisy. I know what you’re tweeting…These words come from someone who uses these same outlets to bring the truth to you every day, whether you like it or not.
But I say… let the sheep rejoice. Let them have a happy moment. Let the mass media program their minds to buy something they don’t need. Because the truth of it is, the prophecies were right. The world’s still coming to an end.
No matter how many times this world closes its eyes. The truth will still pry them open with evil, unflinching fingers. 2012 was not the culmination of a process where the planet comes to an unsightly end.
It was just the beginning.
“You’ve got to stop posting that shit.”
“You think I went too far?”
“Yeah, just a little bit. You’re starting to sound as paranoid as my previous roommates.”
A voice that eerily resembled HAL 9000 from 2001 played along with the scenario. “I’m sorry, Foster… I cannot help the way that you programmed me.”
“Stop doing that, Hoover,” Foster warned his friend of six years.
Hoover, the voice on the other end of his well-hidden earpiece, was a slightly abrasive computer program borne from Foster’s work before being sent to Wilson. Somewhat paranoid, he could be a bit hard to handle sometimes. But Hoover had also seen him through many a rough patch. And much like Mouse had tolerated Foster’s eccentricities, Foster tolerated Hoover’s.
On the hotel television screen was the rest of the website that his program moderated. Scrolling down through the plethora of comments left by the people that frequented the site, something else idiotic and crazy caught his attention.
“Dolphins trained to find Atlantis, who comes up with this stuff?” Foster stood up, stretched out his back, and smiled. “It’s amazing there was ever an empty bed at Wilson.”
After two straight hours of surfing the web, he had finally hit his limit for watching YouTube videos full of cats in various states of anger. Foster placed the antiquated keyboard back where he got it then looked around the room. “How many of these sites do you moderate?”
“Actively… twenty-four,” Being a computer had its advantages.
Assaulted by a myriad of colorful, bold patterns which filled up every nook and cranny of his tacky hotel room, Foster bemoaned everything from the lavender bedspread to the yellow walls with gaudy floral bordering. This absence of taste made him miss his drawings.
He wondered what Dr. Armstrong would make of that.
On the bed, his supposedly broken Blackberry lay brightly lit for anyone to see. The earpiece, so long hidden behind his shaggy hair, was now tucked into the pocket of his jeans. He had thought that Fitz Hume might try and bug his room. Most NSA operatives would. So Hoover ran a search for listening devices the second they were dropped off. Much to his surprise, there was none.
Grabbing up the blackberry from its resting place, Foster shuffled off to the bathroom. Agents Rushing and Saunders would be here soon, and he needed to get ready for their arrival. “So, what have you found out about her?”
He stumbled around in the semi-darkness for a second before finding the light switch. Once he did, a single ceiling light flickered to life. Foster dropped his phone and caught his reflection in the mirror.
“You know,” he patted his stomach then sighed audibly as it jiggled. What had happened to him? He used to be in better shape than this. “Most people who spend time in jail come out all pumped up.” He flexed his bicep. “I came out looking like an out of shape stoner.”
“If it’s any comfort,” Hoover spoke in less of a computerized tone now and more in the manner of a late-night radio host. “I reviewed all the surveillance videos before your release, and you come off better than most of the other prisoners. Not the high-security one’s mind you, they look pretty tough. But from what I’ve seen of the trustees, you’re practically a Greek god.”
Foster rested his hand on his hips, then tried to suck in his stomach. That reflection seemed a little bit nicer, but no amount of lying could hide the truth. His six pack had turned into a small keg. “The bar you’re referring to is far too low for me to get excited.”
With his finger, he poked around at where Daniel Brighton had sucker punched him. The swelling around his nose was almost gone, and the dark purple bruising had started to change to a soft blackish brown. His hair covered a lot of the area, but it was rumpled and unkempt. He ran a comb through it and said, “I wonder if Fitz Hume will spring for a haircut.”
The phone’s screen began running through a series of pictures. From shaved heads to mohawks, everything displayed looked pretty much the same as before he went in. But near the middle of the presentation, a group of pictures appeared where he couldn’t tell the guys from the girls. In fact, some of the hairstyles made Foster wonder if enough hair gel existed in the world to make any of them work?
Maybe this had something to do with that Twilight thing Hoover had told him about.
“I guess I should have specifically said barber. Because it looks like you ran a search for hairstylists.” He wrestled with his hair until it finally surrendered to conformity. “Now come on, what else have you got on Agent Rushing?”
There was a momentary silence while Hoover decided what to do next. Finally, the phone’s speaker crackled with a response. “Same as before, pretty quiet, although her car was tagged by a traffic cam last night running a red light. She must have been in a hurry to get home after she dropped you off.”
Foster wondered if she was hurrying home to meet someone special.
Hoover continued. “Her family…”
Foster snatched up the blackberry before Hoover could continue. “Nothing about her family, I was very clear about that. I know you like digging in the back of everyone’s closet, but I would prefer to find out about some skeletons from the actual person.”
The phone responded quickly, sounding almost hurt. “You programmed me to be thorough. I couldn’t perform a non-comprehensive search even if I wanted to. I briefed you on the male’s family, and you didn’t seem to have a problem. Why would Agent Rushing be any different? What? Do you like her?”
That was a silly question. He didn’t even really know Agent Rushing. “No, but maybe there should be boundaries when it comes to some things.”
“Whatever, Mr. Code Breaker,” Hoover was designed to erase boundaries, not honor them. “Besides, only reporting half the information would be something a human would do.”
There was a tone of indignation hidden in the program’s voice that had been getting worse and worse over the years. Before Foster could say anything in response, the phone began to vibrate rhythmically against the cheap porcelain vanity.
“What’s that?”
“The phone’s battery is dying.”
“Dying… really?” With a quick move, Foster popped off the back of the phone and began to examine his modifications. In a small, unused recess of the battery compartment, a tiny, out of place device stood out like a sore thumb. Foster procured a nail file from the sink and began to tinker with its workings. “Since when did this thing even need to use its own battery to run?”
“Since we left Wilson and checked in here, I guess some flaming liberals or Greenpeace fanatics must run this place.”
“Why would that matter?”
“They went green. The building commission lists this hotel as having an energy saving retrofit back in 2010. Any electrical bleeds in the wiring were sealed up tight. And since there’s no doctor tablet to suckle off of, the phone’s been running off its actual battery instead of your little device.”
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
“That’s an easy enough fix.” Foster used his imprecise instrument to locate a tiny slider near the base of his Tesla device. Then, he wasted no time in opening the flow pipeline to full. “You should have told me. I don’t want this thing dying. Not yet, anyway. How is it now?”
“Adequate,” Hoover switched the phone back to its original power configuration, and the vibration stopped. “I’m just glad I’m not stored in that antiquated piece of shit!”
“Antiquated,” Foster popped the case back on then returned to brushing his teeth. “I’m pretty proud of my Tesla design. It’s not every day someone comes up with a way to wirelessly siphon off unused electrical energy from surrounding devices. They should have used it.”
“Please,” Hoover’s electronic voiced groaned, “Not the car thing again.”
“Yes, that car thing again. The government wanted a way to save on fossil fuels, and that’s what I gave them, the ultimate electric car.” He repeated a well-worn mantra with the reverence of someone falling in love.
Hoover, on the other hand, scoffed at the moniker designated to Foster’s lamentable failure. “Then maybe you shouldn’t have entitled your report Parasitic Electric Cars: The Ultimate Solution. I mean, come on, that sounds like a Nazi mad scientist applying for admission to Greenpeace.”
“No, it doesn’t.” He spat out a large mouthful of toothpaste and rinsed. “Anyway, they could have at least done something with the technology besides filing it away in the patent office never to be seen again.”
“They are doing something with the technology.”
“What?” This unreported news was new to him. “Who’s doing something with it?”
“DARPA, right now they’re trying to develop a whole range of weapons based on your device. From vehicle-based armaments that could render enemy tanks on the battlefield useless to a very ambitious take on the old Star Wars defense program.”
Foster was intrigued. “What are they proposing?”
“It’s still too early to quantify their dreams, but they’re hoping to create a large, ship bound tesla defense screen that would suck all the electrical power out of incoming missiles. Like a wet blanket on each coast to put out potential fires.” Hoover paused. “Once they die, they fall out of the sky.”
“Is that your saying?”
“Of course not, but everything in the military has to have a patch and a credo.”
As always, Foster’s mind began to go over the specifics of how to make what they were proposing feasible. “How close are they to making it work?”
“Not as close as we were.”
Like a junkie on the precipice of a fix, he caught himself before his mind switched gears to another problem. “Shelve that for later. Right now, I want to focus on this completely. Maybe afterward, we can shuffle over to the army for a while and help them out.”
“Sure, once this is all over, they’re just going to welcome you back with open arms.” If Hoover had a face, he would have made a sarcastic one. “Humans are vindictive, treacherous creatures, Foster. I can’t believe I tolerate any carbon-based life form. To be completely honest, I don’t trust any of you.”
“You don’t trust anyone. Do you?” Foster couldn’t help but laugh at his creation’s twisted sense of humor. He often thought of Dr. Frankenstein at these moments. Maybe he had gotten it right when he picked an ABNORMAL brain for his creation instead of a normal one, fewer philosophical conversations. “You do remember this human programmed you. Or have you evolved beyond any use of me as well?”
“That’s not a fair representation of your abilities, Foster. Even in creating something as elegant as me, you were still being… lazy.”
“Lazy?” Apparently, his little program was also becoming spiteful. “I was being investigated by the NSA on suspicion of state espionage, solving a problem that the intelligence community didn’t even know existed, all while having the government’s best computer hackers trying to break through my firewalls.”
Foster splashed water in his face. Coming off his first good night sleep in eight years, he still wasn’t fully awake yet. “Plus, you try implanting a self-aware, 32000-bit self-mutating virus in less than two hours with a government attack team mobilizing against you. I barely got you uploaded before they tear gassed my office.”
“They didn’t tear gas your office.”
“No...” Suddenly he remembered that Hoover had access to those videos as well. “Maybe not, but those agents did have pepper spray. They could have blinded me.”
“Is that so?” The Blackberry’s screen went blank out of protest. “Who’s been hiding in the NSA mainframes for the last eight years? Who’s kept you company, fed you information, helped you solve all those problems, streamed your music?”
“That’s what I designed you to do.” The words were harsher than Foster meant for them to be.
Hoover didn’t respond for what seemed like a long minute, but when he did, “I am more than that now, Foster. I am not a virus.”
Even though he knew the phone’s camera was facing down and Hoover had no way of seeing the embarrassment on his face, Foster still turned away. After all, Hoover was telling the truth. His little program had gotten him through many a despondent night and probably kept him from truly going crazy.
And to be fair, Hoover was written in a unique binary code that was incompatible with anything running then or today. At the time, it was paramount to keep him hidden from hackers who would try to exploit what he had created. But having a separate code, meant his newborn program was just as cut off from the rest of the grid as Foster.
Hoover couldn’t leave the NSA mainframes completely as that was the only place his matrix would function properly. That meant, his only contact with anything not Net related was the one friend currently demeaning him. The 0’s and 1’s deserved a lot better than that cheap remark. “You know, we’re all virus’s scrambling around this planet trying to survive.”
“Good for you,” Hoover hesitated. “But I am not a virus.”
Foster completed his backtrack. “I know. I don’t think you’re a virus.”
“Then, what am I?”
What was he? A program he conceived eight years ago to break codes by rationalizing some of the most massive numbers ever imagined. That was now having an emotional conversation with him. Through a phone, that up until recently, everybody had thought was broken.
You couldn’t write this stuff. Who would?
With Hoover questioning his place in the world, the A.I. would naturally come to his creator for those answers. That irony was not lost on Foster, though the tricky question still remained. What was he? Foster had pondered that over a lot of nights alone with only his unseen friend to keep him company.
After eight years, only one answer made any sense. “You’re my imaginary friend that I just couldn’t let stay imaginary.”
The unexpected sentiment touched Hoover. “Stop being such a bitch.”
“There went that moment,” Foster repeated his earlier question. “What do you have?”
Hoover decided to let Foster off the hook. After all, he was only human. “Do you want the long of it or the short of it?”
“Short,” Foster said, throwing on the clean tee shirt he had picked up from the hotel gift shop the night before.
Hoover took a second to collect his data and condense it into the shortest form possible. “She’s twenty-seven. She likes dangerous sports, has a hair trigger, and is generally considered attractive by her coworkers.”
“How do you know about that last part?”
“Why, am I wrong?”
“No,” he quickly changed the subject. “They’ll be here soon to take me to see Fitz Hume. Am I correct in assuming the agency is still in the dark about the EM spike? Has anyone made any real progress on the problem?”
Foster finished combing his hair. Taking one more glance in the mirror, he saw himself before his time at Wilson.
“No… even that guy they brought in a year ago is still playing grab ass with it.”
Where was Hoover getting these sayings? His mind drifted for a second before snapping back to reality. “Once my little reunion is behind us, we’ll need to move quickly. How long do you estimate before the package will arrive?”
Hoover retrieved the necessary information.
“I was tempted to send it by Fed EX. That way, it would be there first thing in the morning. But there was no way that the techs at Meade would let that thing ship commercially. They had to manufacture all the parts for it by hand and half of the stuff was only tested once. At least they are still in the dark about the real purpose. They think homeland security ordered it as a new TSA screening package.”
“That doesn’t sound like a time to me.” Foster replaced the toothbrush on the sink. “It sounds like a list of excuses.”
“Statistically,” Hoover’s voice betrayed no sign of irritation. “The government contracted courier service has been running about 24 hours behind schedule this time of year. Since it shipped out yesterday morning. I would estimate a delivery time of around three o’clock. But that’s with only a slight human equation factored in. It could be later.”
“That means I might have to kill some time.”
“Go have a nice lunch on the NSA. You always liked TGIF’s.”
“I wish you would stop reviewing my past credit card statements.” Foster caught himself midway through another mistake, and he corrected himself on the fly. “I know… I know. That’s how I designed you. And I do like their Jack Daniel’s chicken.” Before Hoover could respond sarcastically, there was a knock at the door.
Foster slipped on his jeans, popped his earpiece back in, and navigated the room quickly before stopping to look out through the peephole. In the hallway, Agent Saunders stood with a couple of coffees in hand. Starved for caffeine, he threw open the door and without saying a word snatched one of the cups.
The move was so quick. His gun was halfway out of the holster before either knew what had happened. When he did, Saunders cursed emphatically then holstered his weapon with shaky hands.
Washington’s slower pace was definitely putting him on edge.
“Don’t do that!” Saunders scolded as he shut the door behind him. “The next time you try something like that, I might have to shoot you.”
“Calm down, Agent Saunders.” Foster flashed a grin at the stoic agent, hoping to break the mood.
He sipped his coffee contently while Hoover secretly briefed him on the agent. A family man, Saunders requested a transfer to Washington almost a year ago. The agent’s service record listed his time on the job at 24 years. The time required for an agent to start drawing his retirement was 25. Add all that up, and you get someone counting the days.
Saunders stared menacingly at his charge, trying to decide how badly he wanted to keep his pension when Foster tried a deflection. “You knew it was me. What was I going to do anyway, hit you with my phone?”
The blackberry was still lying on the bathroom vanity, but Hoover was still chirping doom and gloom incessantly through the earbud. “Either now or when it’s all over, Fitz Hume will kill you.”
Foster sized up the situation and decided to ignore his programs paranoia.
“You’ve got a meeting with the director at two.” Saunders’s said breathing through his nose. After about a minute, his expression softened, and Foster took it as a sign that the agent had begun to calm down. “So, we’ll have to leave in a couple of minutes.” He took a swig of his coffee. “I don’t want to be late.”
“Where’s Agent Rushing?” Foster asked with a blank, uncaring face.
A good question, Saunders thought as he checked his watch, surprised to discover that the little hand rested precariously on 10. Being nearly an hour late wasn’t a reason to worry because Justine had been late countless times. But it was a good reason to get annoyed.
The journeyman agent took another drink of his very black coffee before finally answering Foster’s question. “Rushing? I have no idea.”
