CSI: American Carnage (Friday, October 11, 2019)
IN THE CYBER – The screaming has stopped, as it always does, and now comes the wait. Two minutes pass; the blast rocks the ground. At the edge of the forest deep in The Cyber, Little Timmy and the Professor’s small strike force look toward the ruddy horizon, streaked with dripping orange, as though Bill the Painter got sick of it all and just tossed what he had left at the wall and walked away. The trees in the woods have shed their leaves. But the forest is still a place of darkness. Three booms rock the ground. More deliverables pass over in the sky, black packages about to descend and explode. Serial tweets of the deadliest order. The Professor takes out his pipe and begins poking it with a stick. Timmy says, We’re exposed here, Professor. Maybe we should find cover. The Professor looks at the sky. The packages are flying far to the north before falling into concussive climax. Ka-boom! rolls across the burnt fields. Cow cutouts tip over with a splat! No birds, if there are any, venture into the air. The Professor chuckles and says, Oh Timmy. I don’t think that’s necessary. We can continue along the road here toward the main trunk back channel. Boris, genial triple agent, takes off his shoe and knocks a pebble out. Mohammed, Timmy’s friend, says, These tweets are coming in streams now. Rapidly, like real fast. Sarah, Timmy’s friend from the resistance potluck, says, Yes. Something must be agitating the autocrat. Whenever something goes wrong or is not to his liking, the frequency of tweets accelerates. Mohammed says, Something must be really wrong. The sky’s invisible. Tweets are blocking everything like a terrible storm moving in. Perhaps a hurricane? Boris says, They explode in different colors like aurora borealis! As the strike force watches the display, a defoliated bush moves surreptitiously along the side of the path. Mohammed nudges Boris and nods toward the movement. They casually stroll down the path. The bush stops. Like a heron striking, Boris reaches in and pulls out a little man with bug eyes. He says, Let me go! You have no right. The Professor walks over. Alt-Rudy! he says. My goodness! The man says, Absolutely not! Rudy is Alt-Rudy. The Professor says, Yes, yes. Of course. Deny everything. Alt-Rudy says, Shhh! No no no. You don’t know a goddamn thing! He holds up a paper and says, See, this is what it’s all about! It’s all right here! Everything! Spinoza! Kant! Cant! Can’t. The State Department asked me for help! Patriotic! Hunter. Joe Biden! The professor is speechless as Alt-Rudy dances about and pulls out his cell phone and waves some more papers. Sarah says, This is a serious disinformation ploy. Alt-Rudy says, Disinformation? Disinformation? There is no such thing! All information is useable. All can be decoupled and relinked. There’s been a leak. Information is pouring everywhere. You don’t believe me? It’s a stain. It’s toxic. They say disloyalty is spreading like rancid waste above ground. They say packs of dogs are running wild in the streets. I hear everything is destabilizing. Ukraine, they say, has taken over the U.S. and members of the U.S. government are disappearing into cones of silence. Timmy says, What! Alt-Rudy says, It is true. I have it on good authority. The highest. They say that the more that’s said, the more is not heard. Sarah says, And the autocrat? Alt-Rudy says, I don’t know. I don’t know him. They say he is softening up the base. They say he is preparing. They say he is digesting it all. Sarah says, Of course! He plans to absorb them. Alt-Rudy says, Well, I don’ know about that. You’ll have to ask him. — Friday, October 11, 2019