CSI: American Carnage (Saturday, September 21, 2019)
IN THE CYBER – Hey, says Little Timmy, pup reporter. Look! It seems as though the tweet bombardment has paused. The small strike force, which has taken refuge in a cave deep in The Cyber, peers out at the rubble-strewn landscape. Dead trees poke up through the ashy ground. A lurid yellow light falls over all. The stillness is palpable. Sarah, Timmy’s friend from the resistance potluck, is kneeling, a stuffed bird in front of her and a chewing gum wrapper in her hand. She says, This is ominous. Even in sleep the autocrat commands great armies of bots to continue and intensify the tweet onslaught. Absence of tweets suggests a change in strategy or at least a disruption. Boris, genial triple agent, says, Perhaps eet ees beginning of Poo Poo Squishy black op. Mohammed, Timmy’s friend, Poo Poo Squishy is not a thing, it’s a world leader, mark my words. It is someone the autocrat has been communicating with. We have intercepted the communication here where The Cyber intersects with the network of backchannel communications. The Professor knocks some unburned dried lettuce leaves from his pipe and says, Well, Mohammed, that is an interesting theory, but it’s still just a theory. Following the standard investigatory playbook, we must conduct an investigation. Sarah says, Oh come on, Professor. You’re not running for congress. We know this dead bird was launched by the autocrat. Who else has such an iron grip here in the cyberwastes? The Professor says, That may be so, Sarah, but we cannot abandon all principles or we become like him. Where will standards be if there is no one to uphold them? Sarah says, If there is no one to uphold them? That sounds pretty ominous Professor. Timmy says, What the Professor means is that by abandoning standards, we abandon the very thing we are fighting for. We become rudderless. Sarah says, No. We become dead. Or at the least, we become prisoners. Boris says, Eet ees Poohteen strategy. Eef all else fail, kill them. Maybe not even all else; maybe eef at very first time there’s a fail, kill them. Or maybe just kill them. Sarah says, Look, we have a chance to make our way out of this cave. The Professor says thoughtfully, Perhaps the bird is not a bird. Boris says, Eet ees stuffed bird. The Professor says, Is it? Perhaps the bird is an emblem for something else. We celebrate holidays by consuming stuffed birds, perhaps this bird has more to do with celebration, a nostalgic reference to a long-ago past when Grandma carried the cooked bird to the table, grandpa, in suit and tie, stood behind her, and all at the table smiled and laughed because there were no people of color or ragged urchins. Happy times! The strike force stares at the Professor in silence. Sarah says, Poo Poo Squishy? –– Saturday, September 21, 2019