Take One With You (17 page)

How are you holding up?

It was the first time in days Anita had actually been able to get hold of Thane, even by text, what with the FBI coordinating efforts with the local TOWY task force. The death of the child by car bomb had suddenly turned a microscope on everything, and Thane had been working twenty hour days to try and find whoever was responsible for putting up the website.

Same old shi
t
, Thane typed in response. He was in the middle of another naptime briefing, trying his best to ignore the FEDSAC, otherwise known as the Federal Special Agent in Charge, or as Thane called him, the Nutsack.

The Nutsack hated it when he texted during meetings, so Thane tried to do it as much as he possibly could.

Plus, he hadn’t gotten laid in weeks and he was feeling it.

Anything I can do? :D

Thane smiled.

Wtever you want, baby.

God, he wanted to get her back in the sack.

But surprisingly, he didn’t just want to fuck her. He wanted to
be with her.
He missed talking to her, even over the phone, which had been rare of late. He missed her smell, her touch, her taste. Thane had not even washed the shirt he’d been wearing the last time they were together, taking it out of the closet and sniffing it when he got home sometimes like some goddamn Brokeback cowboy.

Anita had laughed like hell over the phone when he’d told her that. A year before, he’d never have considered sharing something so silly, mostly because it would have never crossed his mind in the first place.

The truth was, she’d changed him.

Even more surprising, he didn’t mind. Son of a bitch if he didn’t love her.

Thane looked up and saw that he’d pushed the Nutsack about as far as he dared in a single day, so he signed off with Anita and focused on the briefing, which was pretty much nothing but horseshit.

The problem with the FBI, as far as Thane was concerned, was everything. In this case, they kept him on as joint head of the task force, local edition, but it was clear that he was just around in case they needed a scapegoat. His only real power now was using his own investigative skills and a few back channels even the Feds didn’t pay attention to, to try and get a break in the case.

It was an unusual task force in that there was basically no perpetrator, but about a billion
possible
future actors, and the FBI didn’t generally do so well with crime prevention when there wasn’t a person to actually chase. The whole thing was more for show, as far as Thane was concerned, but that didn’t make it unimportant. On the contrary, the Feds were scared and it showed through in everything they were doing.

Some of their bean counters had obviously run the numbers and came up with a computer model that told them if they didn’t get a handle on things pretty quickly, this would turn into the first real world, viral murder spree.

Because of the notoriety of this, the Feds had a sealed John Doe warrant for whoever had put up the website, who were thought to be locals based on the content and thought to be young, based on their skills.

The TOWY site had been hosted until recently on The Pirate Bay, a notorious and secretive site that was banned all over the world but also had proxies all over the world, and whose founder, coincidentally, had recently fallen under suspicion for his own murder-for-hire activities.

The Feds knew that was bullshit, but they weren’t about to clear the poor bastard just in case they needed a scapegoat on the other side, which was another reason Thane didn’t trust them. The guy was going down for something, the Feds just hadn’t decided for what.

The warrant for the TOWY site founder or founders would never hold up in federal court, but for the time being the Attorney General had come up with a tortured legal reasoning to allow it, and when the person or persons were caught, something else could always be cooked up.

It was rumored that the Pirate Bay creator had also started the TOWY website, and there were other unsubstantiated rumors, as well. Some said there were Biblical prophecies that foretold the phenomenon, a kind of play on the old eye-for-an-eye, with a “newly discovered” ancient scroll that changed the translation to “an eye
with
an eye”, or some such crap, and others that it was the first sign of the apocalypse, that those who killed would come back to life like the fictional inhabitants of a popular television show.

There was even a version related to chemtrails and fluoridation, passed around on Twitter and Facebook much like the actual entreaties to rise up and take someone out if the opportunity arose.

All of the crazy theories developed over time, morphing anew and combining and recombining with each other until all semblance of sane discussion on the topic of the Towys seemed to be relegated to the impotent jurisdictional bodies and governments who seemed powerless to stop it.

Over time, the TOWY movement became a mirror reflecting whatever ugliness or saintliness or retribution or mercy that resided within the TOWY farmer, and there was all of that and more. The world economy hadn’t helped either, with feelings of hopelessness and despair contributing to the cause. New studies had found a correlation between hard times and suicide, findings that were disputed by many, and the TOWY movement was just another log on that particular fire.

No academics of consequence thought TOWY was actually driving up the numbers, but no one had ever seen anything like TOWY before.

People were choosing to take their life and the life of another for reasons as varied as there were people willing and able to join the movement.

All of this weighed heavily on Sarah and Charlie.

In truth, they agreed to take down the site as soon as they saw the news reports of the death of the child, but it was too late. Sarah had initially set up the site through a torrent site in Laos, sending encrypted files using Tor, but in just hours after the death of the toddler it had been mirrored hundreds of times around the world, through The Pirate Bay and others, eventually numbering in the thousands. Soon enough, the name and design had been appropriated by others, most of them quickly shut down, but just as quickly replaced.

All of this made the federal task force even more worthless since the originators had no more control over their “followers” than over the tides of the ocean or the clouds in the sky, but something had to be done, and by God, the government was going to do it. Whether or not it actually solved the problem.

Besides, there was always the faint possibility that the founders had a hand in their imitators.

In the course of several weeks, Charlie and Sarah had gone from confused and angry teenagers to loving soul mates to the focus of a worldwide manhunt. Unless somebody stepped in, they both knew it was only a matter of time before they were caught.

Their last afternoon of sweetness together, the same day a child was blown to bits by someone they’d inspired, turned out, much like two other lovers in their city, to be their last.

What brought them together had torn them apart as quickly and as easily as they had fallen into bed, and events had made it impossible to ever call back the genie.

Charlie and Sarah, like Thane and Anita, would live and die with the consequences.

1 YEAR, 8 MONTHS AFTER TOWY WEBSITE

From eyewitness accounts and Congressional Transcripts, House Judiciary Sub-Committee on Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security, and Investigations, the Honorable Elizabeth Ross-Levy presiding:

Ms. Ross-Levy:
I would like to welcome everyone back from lunch. Please take your seats. Thank you. Mr. Bronwyn, you reserved the balance of your time, are you ready to proceed?

Mr. Bronwyn:
Yes, Madam Chairman.

Ms. Ross-Levy:
Thank you. Dr. Matthews, are you ready for a few more questions?

Dr. Matthews:
Yes.

Ms. Ross-Levy:
Thank you, Doctor. Mr. Bronwyn, you may proceed.

Mr. Bronwyn:
Thank you, Madam Chairman. Dr. Matthews, during your previous
testimony, you stated that you’d changed your mind regarding the treatment protocols recommended by the World Health Organization, is that correct?

Dr. Matthews:
That’s correct.

Mr. Bronwyn:
And you’re aware the CDC has adopted the same set of recommendations, as well as the Justice Department?

Dr. Matthews:
Yes.

Mr. Bronwyn:
May I ask why? You were instrumental in the early adoption of these protocols, for the prevention and treatment of these people, the ones that failed, were you not?

Dr. Matthews:
If I might explain –

Mr. Bronwyn:
Please, because frankly, I’m baffled.

Dr. Matthews:
Of course. When I first met with one of the, as you called them, failures, I was intrigued because he didn’t appear at first to fit the criteria we’d seen in the early cases. All previous cases, actually.

Mr. Bronwyn:
How so?

Dr. Matthews:
As you know, the initial cases were primarily random, perpetrated by depressed individuals who were, for lack of a better word, ‘inspired’ to bring meaning to their lives –

Mr. Bronwyn:
You mean deaths, don’t you doctor?

Dr. Matthews:
I suppose you could put it that way.

Mr. Bronwyn:
Depressed people who were going to kill themselves anyway. Sometimes due to a terminal illness or what have you, these Towys started killing pedophiles and such before they committed suicide.

Dr. Matthews:
Uh…well, yes.

Mr. Bronwyn:
Until this one fellah.

Dr. Matthews:
Yes. With this particular gentleman, there were no health or mental issues as we’d observed in the initial cases, back when we first realized some of these events were connected. Before the discovery, or I should say, before the websites were known to the authorities, or anyone really, outside the first participants.

Mr. Bronwyn:
Participants, Doctor? I’d hardly call cold-blooded murderers ‘participants’.

Dr. Matthews:
Whatever you call them, Congressman, this man was different, at least from my past experience.

Mr. Bronwyn:
Go on.

Dr. Matthews:
I began to look at external factors outside the realm of the physical and psychological. To see if there was another –

Mr. Bronwyn:
I’m not following, Doctor. What factors could be affecting these people besides the physical and emotional?

Dr. Matthews:
I said outside the physical and psychological, not emotional.

Mr. Bronwyn:
Excuse me?

Dr. Matthews:
Congressman, if you’d let me finish, I think I can answer all of your questions.

Mr. Bronwyn:
Just as long as you understand I’m the one asking them.

(laughter)

Dr. Matthews:
Yes sir, of course.

Mr. Bronwyn:
Proceed, Doctor.

Dr. Matthews:
Thank you. And actually, before I go any further, I’d also like to thank my attorney.

At this point, eyewitness testimony differs slightly. Some said that it was then that Dr. Matthews removed the pen from his breast pocket, and others said it was later, just before the assault, but no one diverged from the main point; it was an exceptionally quick and brutal attack.

Matthews’ attorney, T. Richard Williams, Esq., turned toward his client and smiled awkwardly, apparently taken by surprise, as was everyone else, that he would be thanked in that way.

Dr. Matthews:
I mean it, Rich. Thank you.

Mr. Williams:
Uh, you’re welcome.

(scattered laughter)

At this point, Dr. Matthews turned back to the committee as if the interruption had been the most natural interlude in the world, and resumed his testimony.

Dr. Matthews:
This person, whom I will refer to as TOWY P2, was not at all –

Mr. Bronwyn:
P2? What does that mean?

Dr. Matthews:
Phase two.

Mr. Bronwyn:
I’ve never heard of any phase two.

Dr. Matthews:
It’s something I haven’t disclosed, dealing with subjects outside the current study group.

Mr. Bronwyn:
Why would you feel the need to change the criteria?

Dr. Matthews:
That’s what I’m trying to explain.

Mr. Bronwyn:
No, Doctor, I think you’re dancing around the issue, here. You’ve pretty much done a one-eighty on these protocols, protocols you helped develop, and I’d like to know why.

Dr. Matthews:
Oh, dear. I can see that I’m just going to have to cut to the chase.

Mr. Bronwyn:
I think you’d better cut to something.

(laughter)

Ms. Ross-Levy:
Dr. Matthews, please just answer the questions.

Mr. Bronwyn:
Thank you, Madam Chairman.

Dr. Matthews:
Certainly, Madam Chairman.

From eyewitness accounts:
It was at this point that Dr. Matthews sighed heavily and either picked up his pen from the table or removed it from his breast pocket, turned to his lawyer, and plunged it into the attorney’s neck, puncturing the carotid artery, sending a fountain of blood spraying toward the members of the sub-committee and the C-SPAN2 witness camera, the live coverage immediately cut.

It wasn’t known whether the chairman of the committee was hit in the face by the stream of blood as so many tasteless Internet rumors insisted, but she did faint and was treated for a concussion as a result of her fall during the subsequent chaos.

Once Dr. Matthews was certain the man who’d been secretly fucking his wife was beyond saving, he stopped fighting the Capitol police officers that were trying to drag him off his lawyer and broke away, reaching inside his jacket as if searching for another weapon. The officers responded exactly as he’d hoped and opened fire, killing him instantly and relieving the psychological, but not emotional, pain from which he’d been suffering. Dr. Matthews had always prided himself on his lack of emotion, something that would indirectly lead to his death.

Had Congressman Bronwyn (R-FL) not been quite so impatient in his questioning, the doctor might have imparted some very valuable information on exactly why he considered psychological and emotional pain to be different, and why he’d joined the Towys but diverged
(some would say perverted)
from their original
raison d'être, just as the man he referred to as TOWY P2 had done, a man whose son had suffered at the hands of a West Covina, California street gang.

Ironically, the person who best understood the doctor’s motivations at that moment, T. Richard Williams, Esq., died on the floor of room 2141 of the Rayburn House Office Building less than two minutes and ten feet away from the man he’d cuckolded. He was a man definitely in closer contact with his emotions, which was why the good doctor’s wife had turned to him for succor in the first place.

Rich Williams also immediately understood his client’s testimony in a way that others would not for some time; namely, two years after the Pioneer, the TOWY movement had definitely taken a much more sinister turn from its arguably noble birth.