Agents of the Internet Apocalypse (16 page)

“Thank you for saving me out there,” I said to Alana.

“That's what I should be saying to you,” she said. “Can I buy you a drink?”

“Well, let's see what they have,” I said scanning the shelves.

“Well, I was gonna buy you a Macallan,” she said.

“Oh yeah?” I asked. “Even though I drank Jameson all through the book?”

“Well, yeah, but you explain that.” She flagged down the bartender. “That was just, y'know, to keep expenses down. You were drinking Macallan at the start of the book and when we met on Facebook. You used to post about it.”

It was hard not to be flattered by the attention to detail.

“Yeah, but here's the thing,” I said. “A couple of weeks ago, I decided to treat myself to Macallan. And I didn't like it.”

“Why not?”

“I dunno. I guess I just got used to the taste of the cheaper stuff.”

Just then the bartender came up to us. “What can I get you folks?” he asked, and before I could speak, Alana put down her card and said, “Two Macallans, please.”

Suddenly, I didn't feel flattered. I felt ignored, or at least misunderstood. But that happens sometimes when someone understands you better than you do.

Alana smiled at me and said, “Don't get used to the taste, Gladstone.”

I felt the kind of warmth inside me that had recently only come from good Scotch. I would have held the moment, basked in it, but Alana's face suddenly turned from compassion to fear, her eyes growing as wide as her makeup's illusion. I turned around to see something I couldn't believe was real. It was Rowsdower, but now he wasn't all gussied up for some TV appearance. He was in action, wearing a tan suit and skinny tie with an immaculate knot. Perhaps most noticeable was his fedora right out of G-man central casting.

“Rowsdower,” I said, unaware I was even speaking.

“Special Agent Rowsdower,” he corrected, and flashed his badge inches from my face.

“Wayne Gladstone?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“You have been declared a person of interest under the NET Recovery act. As such, I am empowered by the United States government to request you follow me for questioning. Will you be coming voluntarily or shall I place you formally under arrest?”

I didn't respond, and Rowsdower repeated himself.

“Will you be coming voluntarily or shall I place you formally under arrest?” he insisted.

“I thought I had a right to remain silent,” I protested.

“You have no such right under the NET Recovery Act,” he said, and in one fluid motion cuffed my hands behind my back before I could even think of a witty rejoinder.

Tobey jumped off his stool. “What the fuck, man?” he asked. “I thought this was America.”

Rowsdower kept one hand tight on my cuffs and placed the other on Tobey's shoulder.

“The NET Recovery Act passed four months ago, son, and you're still talking about what
was
America. Please get out of my way. I have a job to do.”

 

7.

My father retired just three weeks after I started working at the New York Workers' Compensation Bureau. It was as if Manhattan couldn't hold more than one working Gladstone at a time. He didn't mention that phenomenon during the one chance we had to meet for lunch. He just sat across from me eating his turkey club. No list of unfulfilled ambitions or impressive achievements was passed across the table. But for me it was still a changing of the guard, and I made a list for him, built from my memories and observations, and put it inside my coat pocket.

“That suit looks good on you,” he said.

I rolled my eyes. “It's from Syms.”

“Two for one?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

He smiled. “That's always good.”

Growing up, my father never shared a beer with me or taught me how to fire a gun. He barely drank, and hadn't touched a weapon since the Korean War. But I never felt deprived because I grew up in a house headed by a man who was always home unless he was working in the real world of New York City. He seemed the master of all the grown-up details that appeared far too numerous to be comprehended. My father could tell you where to park at the train station; where to stand on the platform for the doors to open; and which subway to take. He found his way home even when his train was canceled, and I would stare up in wonder, sure that if I were a grown-up, I'd stand in the middle of Penn Station crying in panic until I could give my name and address to a policeman.

He shaved every day—even on Saturday mornings—and I would scurry in and sit on the closed toilet seat beside him, waiting to be handed his electric Norelco razor and a tiny brush. He watched my fingers push back the tiny black tab that released the cover and offered encouragement as I worked the brush through the rollers and screens. I did a thorough job sweeping away yesterday's stubble and powder. It should have taken six seconds but I stretched the job out for a minute and furrowed my brow like a little Swiss watchmaker working delicate parts. He smiled while applying a thin film of powder from a squat round stick with a tiny plastic cover, and never rushed me.

When I was six, he showed me how to tie a tie. He taught me the full Windsor knot and gave me one of his ties to practice. You'd be surprised how many grown men can only tie a half Windsor. Half Windsors are quick and easy, but they're always crooked, even when tied correctly. I can tie a full Windsor, with no mirror, while waiting on a subway platform, and still get a dimple in the middle, just below the knot. My dad gave that to me, even though he ties half Windsors. And when I turned thirteen, he offered his electric razor, but taught me how to shave with an old-fashioned blade. I am not like my dad. I tie full Windsors, and buy disposable razors. But I am the choices he gave me. Some fathers can only teach you to be the man they are.

“Wake up, Gladstone,” Rowsdower said and entered my cell. In one hand was a tiny stack table, in the other, a folding chair he'd brought before. He passed me the table and set the chair beside my cot. Then he took the table back and opened it between us.

“Ready,” he called out over his shoulder, and a disgruntled guard came in with my lunch on a serving tray, dropping it on the table to destroy all the dignity Rowsdower was apparently trying to create.

That was prison in the Apocalypse. The NET Recovery Act allowed its enforcers a lot of freedom which was good and bad. It was a freedom that allowed Rowsdower the power to let me keep my real clothes, although the state was good enough to give me a couple of government-issue outfits. It was a freedom that let Rowsdower bring in unofficial furniture so he could sit down to watch me eat in my cell. And then there was my cell, which looked not at all like a cell. It was a room with a wooden door, and a wired glass window. It reminded me of high school. But the freedom was bad too, because without rules, a government is only as good as its people.

Rowsdower wasn't wearing his sports jacket today. Just a crisp white shirt with perfectly rolled up sleeves and a straight, navy blue tie.

“I wasn't sleeping, Rowsdower.”

He paused. “Would it kill you to say my whole name: Special Agent Rowsdower?”

I shrugged.

“So, Mr. Gladstone,” he said. “Let's go over it again.”

It wasn't the first time we'd been through this. On the first day, Rowsdower was all business the way I'd remembered him in New York. I sat on my cot and he stood tall and thin in his gray suit and fedora, like some 1950s throwback. His anachronistic wardrobe seemed to be the one indulgence in his button-down life, and I had to laugh because even his tiny act of rebellion embraced the fashion of a more rigid time.

“Nice to see you again, Mr. Gladstone,” he had said, staring at me in a way that revealed disbelief.

“Is this a social visit, Rowsdower? Because, y'know, we could hang out without you actually arresting me. How about bowling?”

“See, at this point, Gladstone, people are usually asking what their crime is. You've been here ten minutes and your first instinct is to be a dick. Why is that?”

I wanted to give a noble reason, but the truth was my wrists still hurt from the cuffs and it seemed defiance would ease that pain, but I wouldn't admit that. Not when there was a fight to be had.

“Why would I ask my crime?” I exclaimed. “You've already told me all about your NET Recovery Act. You can hold anyone indefinitely without counsel provided it's in furtherance of your investigation. You only need to tell me once.”

“Oh good,” he said. “I was afraid the message didn't sink in after all that Jameson and jerking off.”

He threw one of Tobey's blue photocopies of my journal on the cot.

“I'm sorry,” I said. “I'm not doing any signings today.”

Rowsdower paced the cell for a moment before moving his fedora to the back of his head to open his face for conversation.

“Y'know, for the record,” he said, “I may not be the best looking guy on the job, but I still don't think my head looks like a ‘yellow laminated skull.'”

He gestured to my book. I forgot I'd written that and I felt bad. Rowsdower was thin, and there was something about his teeth that attracted more attention than normal, but he was not the emaciated attack dog I'd seen before.

“Sorry. Unreliable narrator,” I shrugged.

“Also, it's not
my
NET Recovery Act. I didn't draft it, I didn't vote for it. Did you?”

“I didn't vote in the last election.…”

“Of course not. Why would the messiah of all e-humanity take an interest in politics?”

“Hey, look I—”

“Save it, Gladstone,” he said. “It doesn't matter. This was passing in anyone's administration. The people want their Net. But as long as we're talking about it, do you understand what I'm empowered to do?”

I didn't speak. I had no lawyer. There was no charge. There was no process. Only the authority to find results.

“You out of jokes?” he said, walking over to my cot and standing over me. I stood up too, feeling too defenseless, but that only made it worse because Rowsdower had a good four inches on me even when I was standing.

“Why don't you tell me what you know about the Net?” he said.

And that's how it went. Just like that for weeks. The constant intimation of danger, but no torture. Rowsdower would ask me questions about the disappearance of the Net, what role I played, who my associates were, and what information I had gathered. And I told him everything except my association with Quiffmonster and his gift of the Internet phone book. Not only had I made a secret of the only valuable thing I knew, but I was suppressing the only evidence I had that I was a man capable of accomplishing anything. Without that phone book, I had no clues. I had nothing to show for my efforts. Nothing cemented my mission as real except the faith of a growing number of strangers.

“So that's it?” he asked. “You got nothing? You stood in front of that room of fans to tell them nothing? To give them nothing? Why the fuck do you write everything down if you have nothing to say? You're as bad as the millennials. Do you think the world will stop spinning if you don't record your every fucking thought?”

“I don't understand,” I said. “I saw you on the news. I thought you knew I didn't know anything.”

“Frankly, Gladstone,” he said, “I don't know what you know or don't know. I just said that to shut up Senator Bitchface, but, yes, the powers that be have taken an interest in you, and you need to tell me something quick.”

“Why?”

“Because I don't
like
it here.”

“Sorry to hear that Rowsdower. Have you tried harassing some prisoners down the hall?”

“I don't mean here, with you. I mean L.A. They called me up because I met you already in New York. They brought me here … because of you.”

“Oh.…”

“I don't like being asked if I prefer egg whites when I order breakfast. Do you understand? I miss the subway. I don't like the traffic, the smiles. I don't like the
sun,
Gladstone. You might be okay shitting away your life in a room, but I am
not
okay watching you do it in Los Angeles. So, y'know, if you're gonna be useless and quiet, wanna do it in New York so I can go the fuck home?”

There was something I did want to tell Rowsdower. Something that had plagued me since Bellevue.

“I have a confession Special Agent Rowsdower,” I said.

He waited.

“Back in New York I told you my wife was dead. She's not dead. I'm sorry. I know that now. I was just … off.”

“I know, Gladstone.”

“You know?”

“Yeah, I know. I know everything. I knew it then. And even if I hadn't read your journal and done, y'know, my job, I'd still know.”

I didn't respond and he continued.

“Maybe because it's in your file. Maybe because I'm the hand of the most powerful government in the world, authorized with tremendous power to get results. Or maybe it's because she's waiting to see you right now.”

*   *   *

It had been weeks since I last saw Romaya or even spoke to anyone in depth. I was starting to hope Rowsdower would just beat the information out of me so that I'd spill everything and this could all be over. But maybe he knew what he was doing. Maybe he realized I was only good at sitting alone in a room when there was available liquor and functioning WiFi. Now I was antsy and eager.

Despite the million chirping voices pecking at my skull for freedom, I tried to stay cool. I wanted Romaya to see me self-possessed. I wasn't sure if I should change into street clothes, but ultimately decided to throw on my sports jacket and fedora over my blue prison attire. It created a look not too dissimilar to the jacket/scrubs ensemble I sported when I first hit L.A.