Wackos to Obliterate: Book Three (Chapter 3)
George, of course, had never heard of Summit. He did, though, hear from Julian by encrypted email. As he went about decrypting it, he smirked as he recalled his cohort’s leader, Rick, told him VoIP was more secure than landline phones. That was shortly before a whistleblower leaked documents that proved the government had been monitoring all internet communications including VoIP. Since then, all Bitmore communication was encrypted. That time in Indiana was when he first met Julian; at the stupid workshop Rick organized for the trolls he supervised. Julian was there to share a few insights gained through his years of trolling for the Bitmore Group.
George was reluctant to read what Julian had sent since protocol was for everything to go through Rick. He had only heard from Julian once before when he taught him how to communicate in the event that Rick was “deactivated,” which was a strange term. It sounded like it referred more to a robot than a human. He recalled it was what was used in the movie “2001” to mean shutting down the computer, HAL. Or, did they use the word: terminated?
Once decrypted, the email read: “I’m in your area, so thought we could get together. Let me know, ASAP.” George replied, “Meet in Joseph Bryan Park at the spillway between upper and lower Young’s Pond at 2:00pm tomorrow.” Within minutes, Julian wrote back, “OK.”
For some reason, he didn’t tell Mavis about the email or the meeting. He knew how anything he said about work bothered her for some reason; especially, after she realized he was trolling her “favorite” photographer – the artist who created the perfect cover for her most successful novel. “How can you be such a jerk?” she said as they lay in bed one night after learning Ryuji was in the Trinkets. Perhaps, another reason he didn’t tell her was his tendency to avoid mentioning anything about Julian who had discovered a surveillance bug planted in their fifth wheel. Her recalling that event may lead to reactivating her memory of the months she suffered through accusations leveled against her on her “favorite” SNS page, which occurred shortly after the bugging incident. Someone started writing posts on her page claiming she was a troll for right-wing causes. They figured this bullying was retaliation by some organization George had trolled. No doubt, they were able to trace some of the posts he wrote one day he used her computer. It took a few months for that kind of baiting to die down. As a result, she lost some fans and her book sales declined. Oh, a more innocent time: trolling before IP masking.
“If it weren’t for that goatee, I wouldn’t have recognized you,” George said, rather surprised at how much slimmer Julian was than the last time they met.
The facial hair framed a smile that appeared on Julian’s face as he looked at the short, rotund man, whose hair was mostly gone and no longer black, but still resembled a cartoon spy from an old TV show he remembered watching as reruns when he was a kid. “The name was Boris, right?” he asked.
“Whose name?”
“The name of the Russian spy from Rocky and Bullwinkle,” Julian said.
“Yeah Boris and Natasha was his, ah …”
“That’s what I always wondered: his mistress, partner, wife; his what? Anyway, like one of those guys back in Centerville, Indiana said: ‘you do look a little like him.’”
“Yeah, just a two-dimensional cartoon sketch, that’s me.”
Julian grinned at that. “So, how’s Natasha doing?”
“Oh Mavis is fine, I guess. She’s usually busy writing some hot romance to placate her masturbating fans, while I’m banging out my daily quota of 200 digital snowflakes.”
“You’re loyally adding your bit to the blizzard of truth provided by the Bitmore Group,” Julian said as they walked toward a vacant bench on one side of the pond.
Once seated, George pulled a small paper bag out of a pocket in his jacket and handed it to Julian. “I thought this was a good opportunity to give you back your bug detector.”
Julian opened the bag and saw the small gizmo that looked a little like a primitive MP3 player from the days of Y2K. “I forgot all about that. Thanks for returning it. You never know when it might come in handy again. By the way, did you ever discover who planted the bug?”
“Nope, that’s remained a mystery, like: how did you know we were staying here?”
“I recalled you were a huge fan of disc golf and surmised that since Bryan Park has a great course for the sport, where else would you be?”
“You know me so well. Yep, probably the best disc golf course is here in Richmond I would guess. No, really, how did you know we were in Virginia?” he asked as he watched some ducks on the pond. “It was pretty weird to get an encrypted email out of the blue requesting I reply ASAP.”
“Obviously, I learned through Rick. He had contacted me about something. He knew I was staying near D.C. and for some reason he mentioned you were close by. Since it’s a quick drive down 95 from where I’ve been staying, I thought: what the hell? It’s always good to bounce some ideas off a like-minded soul, so I figured this provided a good chance to do so.”
“You still got the same rig you had in Indiana, or you living in a more permanent place?” George asked, keeping his eyes on the swimming ducks.
“Yep, still on the road. According to Rick, you are as well. So, are you staying at a campground near here?”
“Actually, we’re staying on a plot owned by one of Mavis’s cousins. What about you? Why are you on the East Coast?”
“I take it you realize you’re just down the road from Bitmore’s headquarters. A few things came up that made me decide to hang out there for a few months and get some answers to a couple of questions bopping around in my brain.”
“I noticed your handles pop up occasionally on some of the same sites I’ve trolled; I take it you’re on the same project as our cohort.”
Julian started to grin again. “Those ducks are pretty noisy aren’t they? You picked this spot as good cover from Big Brother, huh?”
George noticed a strange expression appeared on Julian’s face. “I guess encrypted emails and such made it seem better to meet outside. Also, this park is a short ride on a city bus from where we’re staying.”
The anxious look on Julian’s face disappeared as he smiled again. “You probably don’t know this, but I used to live in Richmond as a teen. There’s a burger shop a couple of minutes up the road from here. It’s been there for decades. Why don’t we change the venue by taking my truck up there? We could chew on a couple of burgers while we talk. It’s kind of cold out here, don’t you think?”
“Well, it's definitely got that burger shack appeal, but it’s not as good as I remember,” Julian said after he sucked on the straw of his milk shake.
“It’s warmer back here than in the park. It was a good move to get out of the cold and away from those ducks quacking away. I’m kind of surprised, though, you’re still living in the back of this truck,” George said, noticing little changed except there were more computers and other electronics scattered around.
Julian watched the old guy taking stock of his living space. “I know I should get out more. Hell, the only vagina I’ve seen is the one on my face.”
“That sounds bad,” George said and pretended to shudder a little before he picked up his burger for another bite. “By the way, those ducks reminded me of this. Do you remember that Asian dude with the ponytail who went out duck hunting with us while we were in Centerville?”
“His camper was parked next to yours; it took the spot from the FBI couple.”
“Yeah, that’s the guy. Did you know he’s one of the TRinkets?”
“Rather amazing someone we’re trolling is someone we know. It’s really hard to believe, but hell, I’ve never bothered to look at a picture of the group,” Julian said and took another suck on his shake.
George nodded in agreement as he bit into his double cheeseburger. “So, what’re some of those ideas you want to bounce around?” he asked between bites.
“I don’t know, maybe I’ve spent too much time sitting in this truck alone, writing convoluted arguments to push an agenda in which I have little interest.”
“I actually enjoy mixing it up a little. There’s variety inherent in the interplay with the group and the legalization issue. I’m feeling a little strange, though, since the bass player is someone with whom I’ve nailed a couple of quackers.”
“Okay, here’s an idea I’m ready to bounce around. It might not bother you and I really don’t know why I’m concerned, but you remember Todd Green, right?”
George had great difficulty falling asleep that night. What was the real intent behind Julian informing him that Todd had worked for years as an FBI informant? George recalled the only time he had met Mr. Green. It was at a barbecue at Rick’s house to celebrate the end of the workshop Rick had organized for the cohort of trolls. Everyone at the party lived in Centerville except for George and Julian, so everyone else was intimate with Todd who was introduced by Rick as a prominent member of the community with connections to politicians and other movers-and-shakers in the business/political world, both locally and statewide; even as someone who held some sway in the more nationally-focused Bitmore Group.
The behind-the-scene connection Todd played in their work as political trolls troubled George not only since it was the first and only time he had heard anything about this man, but since this shadowy figure appeared just a day or two after the detection of an electronic listening device in his trailer. Now Julian shows up to tell him about the FBI link and that the RV park, in which they stayed while attending the workshop, was one of several owned by Mr. Green. Does this imply the bug had somehow been planted by Todd? Perhaps, the manager of the RV park did so while hooking them up to the water and gas.
Did Julian suddenly appear out of the blue just to let him know he may have solved the mystery about the bug? He said what they found was the most common model used by the FBI; he didn’t tell George how he knew that piece of information, though. What made it the most difficult for him to fall asleep was not the supposition Todd had the bug planted in the fifth wheel; rather, the fact the FBI knew about the cohort implied they were being encouraged by the government to troll. With cohorts of trolls throughout the United States surrounded by behind-the-scene men like Todd, it was not hard to speculate that perhaps government agencies created, encouraged, and designed the most effective ways to manipulate the zeitgeist.
Perhaps, as Julian said: “much of the work they did to promote a right-wing agenda was just a smokescreen to take the focus off of being a part of a ‘digital outreach team’ based out of Washington.” George had read the U.S. is constantly strengthening what it’s trying to prevent; thereby, ensuring it never loses its reasons to continue its war on whatever: the “war on poverty”; the “war on drugs;” the Civil Rights Movement; the Peace Movement; the Tea Party; gay marriage; ad infinitum. If the intelligence community is actively engaging across a wide variety of interactive digital environments to counter terrorist propaganda, it’s easy to deduce they’re using the same ‘wide variety’ to manipulate whatever they want domestically. Trolling probably fits into that ‘wide variety’ somewhere.
Links to the previous chapters of Book Three
(https://steemit.com/fiction/@keniza/wackos-to-obliterate-book-three-chapter-1)
(https://steemit.com/fiction/@keniza/wackos-to-obliterate-book-three-chapter-2)
Copyright (©) by Kenneth Wayne
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