The Loop

July 20th, 2024

I had had to drive to pick up Harper from work the previous night; she had been too much of a wreck to drive herself. I didn’t want to go, but my parents had made me. I didn’t want to leave the house, because it meant time away from the computer, and in front of the computer was the one place I could convincingly pretend I wasn’t scared.

The computer was a constant source of information—news, updates, eyewitness accounts; all of these were available to the general public. Largely, the media had been neglecting to report on what was going on, but there were still stories slipping in here and there, and almost everyone knew something big was happening. But to someone with the right tools—someone like me—the really juicy information became available. Reports and documents that were buried behind firewalls on government servers, research and observational data that were only supposed to be accessible to people with the right corporate credentials, real time communications and forums that were locked away from most people's view.

Now Harper was standing in my doorway and pestering me for answers. She knew enough—not everything, thank God—about what I did online all day to know that I might know more than the average person.

“So what the fuck is going on. Are we going to be okay?” She stood just in the doorway, as if unafraid to come any farther into my room. Afraid that somehow her presence would disrupt the magic, the flow of information? Afraid that each step she took in discovering information would make it all the more real?

“I … I think we’ll be okay, Harp,” I lied. “What’s happening is scary, obviously, but the people at the top know what they’re doing. They’re not going to let things get out of hand.” That wasn’t strictly true, of course. I had seen enough information to know that a lot of people—even those at the top—were still running around with no idea how to handle things.

This information gave me a clearer picture of what was unfolding than nearly everyone else on earth. For example, I had known for four days before the president’s disastrous address that the government had already verified several of the videos that had been circulating. I knew by then that they had already been internally working out how to disclose this information to the public, right down to the minutiae of debating what to call these incredibly powered persons (I personally liked the exchange between the German-born military analyst and the clueless general about why uberhumans might be a bad choice). We knew, too, that the government believed that the recent meteor showers were connected to these more recent events, but they weren’t yet sure how.

“And I saw that thing on the news a week ago about the meteors. Is everything okay with that? We’re not all going to be wiped out like the dinosaurs?” Harper asked, her eyes wide. I was always amazed by her ability to voice out loud what I had just been thinking about. Part of that was that we were siblings, of course, and when you know someone for long enough you become tuned to the way their brain works. But part of it was all Harper and her natural ability to see through people.

“Harper, how much do you really want to know? People online are saying that the two events are probably related, somehow. There’s a theory, that, well—”

“When you say ‘people online’, you mean like, your special group?”

“Yes. My ‘special group’.” I sighed. I wasn’t sure how much I wanted to get into it with her. The last time we’d talked in depth about my online activities had been because they’d almost cost me my life. “As I was saying … there’s a theory that those meteors carried some sort of virus or bacteria or something that’s altering people’s DNA.”

“Well, isn’t that like … terrifying?”

“It could be. But people aren’t just dropping dead, are they?”

She looked out the window, as if she half expected a meteor to fly right through it and strike us both dead. She sighed. She was scared and I couldn’t blame her. So was I. What had happened the night before was completely unprecedented. If it weren’t for my ability to keep a thumb on the pulse of world events, I’d have felt even more untethered than she did.

Of course, hacking and espionage at the level I was involved in was illegal in the sort of way that didn’t get you prosecuted, it got you disappeared, but I was far from the only one doing it. The group I was with called ourselves the Exposure Collective, although we never exposed anything except amongst ourselves. Admittedly, I was among the more novice hackers in the group, but everyone—even the veterans—shared information freely, as long as it didn’t leave the group.

Despite all the information we’d gathered, and everything we had thought we knew, the events that had transpired at the president’s address had been an unpleasant surprise, and they’d left me badly shaken. That’s why leaving my computer the night before, which seemed at that time like my only tether to the flow of information that might protect me and keep me sane and help me make sense of an increasingly nonsensical situation, was a difficult proposition. But what could I have said to my parents? “No, mom and dad, you don’t get it. I’m part of a group who has a better grasp on what’s going on than anyone else on the planet, and if I don’t stay here we might all be doomed?”

I got up to stretch my legs and take a piss, squeezing past Harper as I left my room. I knew I hadn’t given her enough answers to satisfy her, to ease her fears. But there weren’t enough answers to do that. She stayed in my doorway for a few seconds after I walked down the hall, as if she couldn’t believe that I would walk away in the middle of something so important. I didn’t leave my computer much, and something on her face made me think part of her was surprised I still could.

I had no doubts about what my parents thought I was doing alone in my room all those hours with my computer. For a while, they had given me a rough time about sticking around after high school, about not going to college, about not moving out. Why don’t you want to go to college? Your friend Adam is going. You two could room together. I’d had my reasons, but they wouldn’t have made sense to my parents. And anyway, eventually I had found a job I was good at, that was mostly legal, and that I could do from home. When I showed them my first pay statement from that job, they’d accepted my decision, even though I knew they still didn’t agree with it. And as far as moving out went, I told them I’d do so as soon as Harper left for college. Truth be told, I actually liked the little brat, and wanted to stick around for her sake.

And also, I worried about her. I knew things about her that no one else did. Which was a little ironic, considering the secret she kept for me.

Two Years Ago

Seventeen and ready to take on the world. I’m with my best friend and we both know that we’re destined for great things. Of course, I’m the asthmatic computer geek with poor social skills and undiagnosed depression, and Adam’s the indecisive slacker who probably smokes more weed than is strictly wise, and if ever there was a pair that looked from the outside utterly un-destined for great things, it’s us. Still, we’ve both been accepted to Rice University for the fall semester. I’ll be pursuing a major in computer engineering, Adam in business.

“Hey,” he says to me over the phone. I’m sitting at my computer and putting together a list of things I’ll need to bring with me when we move in. He’s at the beach with our couple other friends. I was invited, of course, but I have so much to do that I can’t justify the time away. I’m not sure how he can. “So I’ve been thinking about the living situation for the fall, and—”

“Let me stop you right there, Adam, you are not going to bail on being roommates this close to the start of the year.”

“No, fuck no. I was just thinking maybe we could live together off campus?”

What the fuck is he talking about? I think. It’s way too late to change our arrangements now. We already have a shared dorm room paid for. But then it hits me: Christine. Christine is going into her second year at Rice for political science, and she lives off campus. He has some half formed idea in his head that if he lives closer to her, he’ll be closer to her. Idiot.

“It’s obviously too late for that, man. Next year, though.”

“Yeah, yeah. Next year … Anyway, I’ve gotta let you go,” he says. “If you need anything else, just shoot me a text.”

I would’ve shot him a text, but we can never seem to get coordinated unless we actually talk. I realize as he hangs up that we never even got around to what I had called him for in the first place. I wanted to ask if he was planning on bringing his TV for the dorm room or if I should plan on bringing mine.

I’m excited to go, of course. We’ve been talking about how we’ll make our mark on the world for years, and there’s an undeniable energy in the idea of getting away from this place and taking the first steps to make it real. We have this big plan to start a company that uses drones to deliver medical supplies to remote towns in the arctic. We’ve been talking about it ever since we took a week long field trip to Alaska in our junior year of high school. In this scenario, I run the engineering side of things, and Adam manages the business end. It plays to both our strengths, he always says, although truth be told I’m not sure he really has any strengths. He’s charismatic enough, when he needs to be, and people do seem weirdly drawn to him—at least, more so than they’re drawn to me—but other than that he isn’t anything special. That’s not a very nice thing to think about a friend, I know, but it’s honest. Still, he is my best friend and I believe that as long as we’re together, we really could make it work.

Now

For once I was sitting away from my computer by choice, rather than by compulsion. The informational cascade was becoming overwhelming, and there were, for the moment, too many conflicting voices within my group to really get an idea of what was actually happening.

One thread of the forum I’m on is full of conspiracy theorists who insist the entirety of the president’s televised address was fake—either because it was CGI or because it wasn’t really the president or because it was really the president, but the men and women he had killed were actually communist plants trying to overthrow America. Another thread is full of conspiracy theorists who insist that everything we’d seen so far was demonic in nature and a clear signal of the end times. I was starting to get the sense that not every one of the people I associated with online was entirely stable. Not that I was, either, but at least I didn’t think the president was a reptilian imposter sent to prepare the earth for an invasion.

I headed downstairs to where my parents and sister were gathered around the T.V. in the family room. Their attention was straight ahead and I don’t think they even noticed when I sat down.

“Another address?” I asked, although I already knew the answer.

Harper peeled her attention away from the screen long enough to give me a faint smile and the barest of nods.

Information burnout from the internet had me so twisted up that at that point, the mainstream media seemed as good a source as any to get some hard facts about what was going on. And besides, sometimes it was nice to experience things with other people.

As far as what had gone on the night before, the general public now knew as much as I did. It seemed that the president’s address the night before had been entirely unplanned and announced at the last minute, much to the concern of his advisors. The working theory was that during his visit to Minnesota, his old ‘friend’, Senator Theodore Barnes, had used a newfound superhuman power to turn the president into a super-powered drone, and when the two of them returned to Washington, Teddy had planned on creating and using an army of these drones to take control of the capital and install himself as the new Overlord of America. Thankfully, there had been enough quick acting secret service personnel nearby to fatally shoot Teddy, thereby freeing his drones. The president, however, had also been shot and had succumbed to his injuries.

Although it had gone completely disastrously from almost every angle, it had accomplished one thing: it had forced the government’s hand in regards to disclosure. The former vice-president, now president, called for another press conference almost immediately after being sworn in. Likely due to the previous night’s monumental address, it was slated to be the most watched presidential address of all time. My family and I—and all of America—were watching with bated breath, praying that nothing crazy would happen, and maybe, in some small dark corner of our minds, hoping it would.

The screen went black and then came back on to a view of the outside of the White House, the new president standing on a podium there. Good choice, I thought. Distancing themselves from the look and feel of the last presidential address.

President Morgan Blithe stepped up to the podium, cleared his throat, and began.

“My fellow Americans, it is with a heavy heart that I stand before you today. I know yesterday’s events have left a burden on my soul, and I’m sure that’s true for every one of you. I’d like to start by addressing the legacy of my predecessor … President Thomas was a truly good man, who cared about his country and his people deeply. Whatever you’ve heard about his motives in regards to yesterday’s events, let me assure you, the man you saw on T.V. last night was not the man I knew. He was not in control of himself, and he was not responsible for what happened.”

Even though this was one of the most monumental moments in the nation’s history, I’ll admit I zoned out a bit. When you’re used to having limitless access to information as quickly as you can consume it, the slow pace of a planned speech starts to feel tedious. I had enough attention on the screen to get the main points though.

In the end, the address was brief and boring in tone, if not in content. The most interesting bits were revealed during the portion when he responded to reporters’ questions. Personally, I was surprised any reporters had shown up at all; things hadn’t gone so well for the reporters the night before.

Yes, he said, superpowered humans were popping up all over the globe. No, he said, they weren’t all losing their minds and plotting government takeovers like the late Theodore Barnes. Yes, he said, the recent meteor showers were related, as it appeared that some sort of foreign objects had entered earth’s atmosphere and landed sporadically around the globe, and contact with these objects seemed to trigger the development of powers. No, he said, he himself had not seen one of these objects and the government hadn’t obtained one for study. Yes, he said, they had come up with an official name for these powered individuals: Hyperhumans. No, he said, if you found one of the objects you should not approach it.

And like that, with an urgency and a certainty of purpose I didn’t understand and couldn’t have explained, I resolved to find one of the objects and approach it.

Two Years Ago

Six more weeks of summer, and I’m starting to get antsy about leaving home. It isn’t so much that I’m afraid of not being here, because I have next to nothing here, it’s that I’m afraid of who I’ll be when I get there. What will people think of me? That I’m the weird kid who never leaves his dorm room and doesn’t shower often enough, probably. It hurts because I’ll be smarter than most of them, but intelligence has never been enough for me to win friends. In fact, it seems more often to drive people away. If I can find my people—that is, intelligent people with similar interests to mine—then I’ll thrive. And everyone keeps telling me that absolutely everyone can find their people at college; that there are groups for every interest under the sun, but I’m not fully convinced.

It would be different if I knew I could count on Adam. Most of the friends I have here are really just Adam’s friends who tolerate me because he vouches for me—they’re still not exactly the cool kids, but they’re better than no one. I know this, and I’d be okay with making friends the same way in college. In fact, that’s a big part of the reason why I applied to all the same schools as Adam; I figured I could lean on him to provide the social connections I’d have trouble forming on my own. I’d been looking forward to meeting new people and experiencing new things, but always with the subconscious understanding that Adam would be introducing me to these people and these things.

But as the summer drags on, it seems like Adam is drifting farther away. It’s probably just my imagination, but it seems like we hang out less every week. He’s actually taking extra shifts at work and I’m sure it’s just so that he can spend more time with Christine. I confronted him about it, although in the least direct way I could manage, and he played the whole thing off.

“You’re really loving making pizzas lately, huh buddy?” I asked.

“Yeah, well, gotta get some extra cash before school starts, ya know?”

“Yeah, sure. And it doesn’t hurt that you’ve got Christine there to keep you company, I suppose.” I didn’t mean to bring her up that early in the conversation, but it just kind of slipped out.

“Sure, I guess? What are you getting at?”

“Nothing, nothing. Just that you’ve been spending a lot of time at work. And that maybe you’d rather spend all your time with Christine than with … your other friends,” I finished lamely.

“Are you mad at me or something? That I like a girl I work with? What about that Soo-Yeon girl you’re always chatting up online? Do I get mad that you’re talking to her?”

“Seo,” I corrected.

“What?” he asked.

“Seo-Yeon, and she goes by Shannon, anyway. And that’s different.”

“Different how?” he asked. “I can’t believe we’re even having this discussion. I don’t get what you’re getting at, like at all.” His cheeks were starting to turn red and I could see his shoulders hunching and his body tensing. He’s even more non-confrontational than me, but if pushed far enough I think he’d snap. Part of me wanted to make that happen, as retribution for what I perceived as … abandonment, I guess. I realized it was stupid as soon as I made the connection between what I was saying and why I was saying it, but it was too late to back off; the conversation had its own momentum by then.

“Shannon is … she’s like a real girl, not just some fantasy. You know, like someone I actually have a chance with. Not someone I’m just wasting time talking to and ignoring my real friends over.”

He paused for a minute and I had the distinct impression he was trying hard to control his temper. We were playing a game in my room and up until this point in the conversation we’d both been acting like the game was our main focus and our words were a simple afterthought, but now he paused the game and set down his controller.

“The implication being,” he said with visibly suppressed rage, “that I don’t have a shot with Christine. That I’m just wasting my time?”

I realized that I’d gone too far, but I had no idea how to repair the damage.

“Adam, man. I didn’t mean it like that …” I had meant it exactly like that, but I wouldn’t have said it if I’d thought the consequences through.

He was already out the door and halfway down the stairs, though.

Now I’m lying in bed staring at the ceiling and wondering if I even still want to go to Rice if I can’t count on Adam, if I won’t have him with me as a friend. And thanks to my stupidity and arrogance, it’s looking like that might happen.

I think to ask Harper for advice, but she’s just a kid; what the hell does she know? And besides, she’s probably too focused on her gymnastics routine or track and field or whatever to spare a thought for her big brother’s worries.

July 27th, 2024

“So you think you’ll just mosey on down to the Exotic Objects from Outer Space shop and find yourself one of these fancy … things, which by the way no one can even say for sure what they look like, and then what? Touch it and become a superhero?”

This was an endlessly looping conversation we’d been having over the past week, since the newly sworn in president made his announcement on the White House lawn. Since then the world around me had regained a sort of thin and stretched veneer of normalcy. I shuddered to think what might be beneath that veneer, but as far as I could tell, the people around me were all taking things in stride. Any questions they had were being openly answered by the government and the media, and people seemed satisfied with those answers. I had the feeling that maybe a lot of people didn’t want to know any more than they were being told. A lot of people weren’t like me.

Shannon was staring at me and it took me a moment to realize she’d spoken.

“Who says I’d be a hero?” I said, and Shan punched my arm and laughed.

Somehow, no matter how many times we talked about it, and no matter how much we analyzed the whole thing from every conceivable angle, I got something new out of the discussion each time.

“Oh no, scary Linc the superhuman villain!” she giggled.

“Hyperhuman,” I corrected, laughing with her. “God, what a stupid name.”

“Speaking of stupid names, what’d you call yourself, do you think?”

“What do you mean?”

“Everyone needs a superhero—or villain—name. A pseudonym, you know?”

“Oh, right. I hadn’t thought of it.”

Of course, I had thought about it. A lot, actually.

“I guess it would depend on my powers, right?”

“Of course! Like, if you had water powers you could be … Hydro … Guy.”

“That’s definitely … an option,” I said, clearing my throat.

Shan laughed and punched my arm again.

“Seriously, though,” she said, suddenly sober, “you can’t honestly want that. Can you?”

“I don’t know,” I lied. “I guess not.”

“Good. Because you just know the government is going to start rounding these people up before long. I mean, just look at what happened with the president. The media is downplaying it right now, Linc—probably because the feds are telling them to—but one of these hyperhumans literally assassinated the president. This is unprecedented.”

I had to concede the point. It wasn’t something I had really considered, but it was an objectively true analysis of what had happened: the first hyperhuman to go public with their identity and powers had immediately used them to brainwash the president and attempt a violent coup of the government. For the time being we were all being told that the government had no intention to interfere with any people with powers, that crimes committed by them would be considered the same as crimes committed by anyone else, and otherwise they’d be left alone. It was in stark contrast to how some other national governments were handling the issue.

In Pakistan, for example, the government had announced that all Mubaraks (the preferred term for powered persons in much of the Middle East) would be required to enlist in compulsory military service. India had quickly followed suit. Of course, it was a given that many people would not want to sign up for military service, and would therefore keep their powers hidden, either for personal gain or out of fear of persecution. Similarly, the Russian and Chinese governments had both announced that their militaries would be collecting for scientific research any and all foreign materials from space that had landed within their borders, and any citizens who found such materials and failed to report them to the government would be considered traitors and enemies of the state.

It was no wonder, then, that in the good old US of A, the government wanted to present themselves as different from those authoritarian and militaristic regimes. Here, personal liberty was respected. Here, freedom was an ideal held above all others. The government wasn’t going to meddle in your private affairs. The government wasn’t going to treat you any differently just because you could set things on fire with your mind. And they’d put that into law if they had to. What a bunch of bullshit, I thought.

They’d be sneakier about it, alright, but there was no doubt in my mind that they’d be very suspiciously watching anyone they suspected might have powers, ready to pounce at any perceived misstep, and it wouldn’t be long before a lot of otherwise innocent people were having strange men in black suits show up knocking at their doors and flashing fancy badges and talking about national security and civic duty.

And did I really want all that scrutiny? Did I want to have to keep a secret like that? From my family? From Shannon? Because to rope them in would be to put their lives in danger, too. Looked at from that angle the whole thing started to feel incredibly selfish. For the people who had already come across these things, not knowing what they were, and ended up with powers they didn’t ask for, I started to feel almost sorry. In my initial, probably ill-conceived, fantasy, I’d been envious of them, but now I realized that for many of them these powers would be life-altering, if not life-ruining.

Did I really want that?

Yes, I decided. I did.

I smiled reassuringly at Shannon as I climbed out of the bed.

“I’m going to grab a glass of water. Do you want anything?” I asked her.

“Grab me a beer.”

We’d talk about other things when I got back. Or else we wouldn’t talk at all.

Two Years Ago

I’m not going to Rice. I’ve made my peace with that. I’ve started teaching myself how to hack into computer networks remotely, utilizing social engineering, phishing, and simple password hacking programs that I found online to gain access to things I’m not supposed to have access to. It’s thrilling—the danger of it—and nothing feels better than the rush of actually getting into a file, a folder, a computer that isn’t meant for my eyes. I tell myself I’m doing it for the right reasons; I’m not stealing people’s identities, I’m not trying to take anyone’s money, or tank their credit rating, I’m not stealing nudes off of people’s phones to extort them. I’m honing my skills with the goal of breaking into the big leagues and stealing corporate data to expose corruption, to help the little guy. I tell myself this. But the thrill is the same no matter the size or scope of the heist.

My parents aren’t taking my announcement that I’m not going to college well. I’ve told them that maybe it’s just not right for me right now, that maybe I’ll go next year. I think they can sense that this is a deception, even though I’m not certain that it is. Adam’s barely responded to my messages since he stormed out of my room three weeks ago. Harper and Shannon are the only two people I really talk to in person, but I’ve found an entire network of friends online. It’s a group that calls themselves the Exposure Collective, and I’m hoping to work my way up the ranks. I pulled off a quick hack of a local credit union’s private email server, and found that they’re scamming their clients out of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Impressive, came the word from the top of the group, an enigmatic figure calling themself ‘Overseer.’ I asked what they planned to do with the information, hoping that we’d expose the fuckers and help some people out, but they told me that we’d sit on it for now. “There’s nothing more valuable than information you have that they don’t know you have,” they told me. It makes sense, I guess.

Overseer has set me up with a job with a legitimate company, Custodian Systems Inc., that they apparently have some major pull with. I’m using the skills I’m developing to help shore up and strengthen their cybersecurity, and running constant drills finding and exploiting vulnerabilities in what they tell me are simply ‘test systems’. I don’t ask too many questions and they pay me well. I’ve tried to find more information about them online, but outside of their own, very barebones corporate website that doesn’t quite describe what they actually do, I’ve come up blank. Considering that they employ people like me, though, maybe it’s not surprising that it’s hard to find any information about them that they don’t want to be found.

“Hello, Lincoln.” Overseer’s digitally altered voice comes through my phone. “How are things going in your new job?”

“Fine,” I say. I’m not entirely comfortable with them knowing my real name, especially when I know next to nothing about them, but it was kind of necessary in order for them to get me the job.

“I’m just checking to make sure that everything is alright. I want to know that you’re in it for the long haul.”

“Of course,” I say. I’m not certain where this call is going. I don’t think I’ve done anything that would seem disloyal. I’ve tried to do a little digging into Overseer, but their identity is so well hidden that I don’t have a shot in hell of finding anything out. Is the very act of looking considered a betrayal? Are these people really that paranoid?

“In a couple years, the world is going to be a very different place.” This statement comes after a long pause, during which I wasn’t entirely sure they were still on the line. It doesn’t seem like the sort of statement that demands a response, but my curiosity is piqued.

“How do you mean?”

“Wait and see. What’s important for now is that we have good people working with us. Are you a good person, Lincoln Sinclair?”

“I … I like to think so.”

“And we can count on you?”

“Definitely.”

“Then goodbye, Lincoln. We’ll be in touch.”

July 30th, 2024

“Lincoln, man, how are you? It’s Adam, by the way. God, it’s been a while … Too long,” said the familiar voice on the other end of the line.

“I know who it is. You haven’t changed your number since high school.”

“Right. Right. Of course. Listen, Lincoln, man, we should get together. Real soon. I’ve missed you, bud.”

We hadn’t seen each other since the previous summer, when Adam had made a token gesture much like this one, and we’d met for a beer at a bar not even two blocks from his work. He hadn’t even bothered to change out of his stupid Slice of Heaven uniform, making it clear that if meeting me hadn’t been a convenient stop on his way home from work, it wouldn’t have happened at all. Despite myself, despite my anger at him, I had actually had a good time. I resented him even more because of that, and I resented myself for it, too. He’d ended his guilt-driven hour and a half of hangout time with poor old Lincoln by telling me that he and Harper both really thought I should apply to work at Slice of Heaven, and that he’d give me a call soon. I had been mad at the idea of him and my sister planning my career behind my back, but I said nothing about it, just that it was fun catching up and I’d see him again soon. We hadn’t spoken since.

It seemed obvious that this was the same thing over again; either his conscience or my sister had convinced him that he needed to spend some time with me, and he was giving me my annual chance to hang out with him. How generous, I thought. But I was too busy and distracted to deal with him right then. For one thing, I had a difficult task to deal with at work. For another thing, I hadn’t heard from Shannon in three days, and my concern was turning into panic.

“You know what, Adam? I’m pretty busy, actually, these days. I just don’t think I could find the time. I hope you have a great rest of your summer, though, and good luck with the school year.”

I took the phone away from my ear and was about to hang up when I thought better of it. I’d let him off too easy. It was time I told him what I really thought, and I might not get another opportunity. I put the phone back to my ear just in time to hear him say, “Wait, Lincoln … Linc, this is important. There’s something I have to show you. Something big. Get here as soon as you can.”

Two Years Ago

I fucked up. Last night I tried to hack Overseer himself. Or herself. Themself. Whatever. That’s kind of the point. No one knows anything about them. Since I started I haven’t seen any evidence that they do any of the things they claim to do. That is to say, they don’t use any of the information we gather to try to make things better. They don’t try to expose government corruption or corporate wrongdoing. They don’t seem to do anything at all besides obtain information and hoard it. Myself and a few others in the group were getting curious, if not outright suspicious, and agreed that some action had to be taken.

I wasn’t the one who suggested we try to gain access to Overseer’s data, but I was the one who volunteered to do it. Another user, Incog1248, gave me access to several tools he’d developed and explained their use to me. It was beyond anything I’d done before, but I understood the basics well enough to figure it out. And it worked! I gained access to a server located here in Texas, not more than a three hour drive away. It was well protected, and at first appeared to be located in Sweden, then Argentina, then China, then Greenland, but in the end it was in my own backyard. And that wasn’t the most surprising thing. I found a website associated with the server, and a simple whois lookup showed me that it was registered to a Samuel Shoal, dead five years. I dug a little deeper and found that, despite an obituary and a death certificate, Mr. Shoal appeared to still be relatively active online. Was this Overseer? I wondered. And then my computer shut down.

A message appeared on my phone: STOP. I stopped.

A day later and my computer won’t power on, and my phone won’t display anything but that message. And a strange black sedan has circled the block and passed by my house at least eleven times today. And just now, another message showed up on my phone. It’s a video file. I open it and I see a video of myself standing in an alley. The camera pans around to reveal that there’s a young girl on her knees in front of me, head down, crying. Without a word and without warning, the me in the video winds back and clocks the girl in the face. He begins brutally and mercilessly beating her, and her screams pierce through me. I am transfixed and unable to look away. No one who knows what I look like would doubt that this is a real video, nor that the person in it is me. It looks so real that I’m almost convinced myself. What the fuck is this?

The me in the video finally walks away, panting from exertion and with bloody sores on his knuckles. The video lingers on the girl lying still in the street, her body and face broken, her screaming forever silenced. It’s clear that she’s dead. Two men come from just out of frame to pick up her body and toss it in the back of a truck. The video ends.

Another message shows up on my phone. It’s a link to a news article. An article about a young girl, Tamara Rimes, aged 9, who went missing two months ago in Galveston. According to the article, authorities are imploring the public for any tips that might lead to her recovery.

A final message appears: It’s over for you, Lincoln. I’m sorry it had to happen this way. You shouldn’t have tried to find me.

An hour later I’m regarding the noose I’ve tied from the ceiling fan above my bed. It’ll work, I think. There’s knocking at the front door. Probably the police. Better get this over with. I step up onto my bed, put the noose around my neck, close my eyes to stop the tears, and prepare to step forward. Harper walks into my room unannounced. She’s facing the window and doesn’t see me right away.

“Lincoln, guess who just stopped by?” she asks, not waiting for a response. “Adam!”

Harper has long had a crush on Adam, which is obvious to anyone who’s spoken to her when he’s around, or even when he’s brought up in conversation.

I try to get the noose off my neck before she turns around, hoping I’ll somehow be able to explain the situation to her. I was just, uh, testing the strength of this beam, I think to say. Just as she finally turns to face me and I’m standing there holding the noose, looking for all the world like someone on the verge of suicide—which I am—Adam walks into my room.

“My God! Lincoln … What are you doing?”

There’s nothing else to do. I break down and explain everything to the two of them. I show both of them the video on my phone. I’m halfway through desperately explaining that it isn’t me, can’t be me, when Adam stops me.

“Lincoln … Linc … I don’t know what you’ve gotten yourself into, or who you’ve gotten involved with. But that video is fake. They found that girl today, alive. Her dad took her, but he phoned the cops when he ran out of money. They were staying with some friends of his in El Paso.”

“You mean she’s okay?”

“Yeah, man. But are you?”

Harper is staring at me, dumbfounded. Adam looks like he’s seeing me with clear eyes for the first time.

“The whole thing was a test,” I say, ignoring his question. “A test … or a warning. And I fuckin’ fell for it. How the hell did they make that video so quickly? And so realistically?”

The two of them are still staring at me as I untie the noose and sit down on the edge of my bed. They both seem frightened to approach me. It seems necessary to say something to smooth the whole thing over. But I realize that’s absurd. Nothing can be said that would smooth this over. Still, I have to try. Not that I care much what Adam thinks, but if he told the wrong people what he just saw, it could hurt me badly. And Harper … Well, I care about the kid, love her even, and I don’t want her thinking her brother is some sort of fucked up criminal hacker constantly ready to kill himself if a job goes sideways and someone blackmails him. Although that’s not far from the truth at this point.

“Look, guys. I could try to tell you that this was all some sort of elaborate prank, but that would be obvious bullshit. I could try to tell you that I’m fine, but you’ve both known me long enough to know that I’m always pretty far from fine. All I can say is that I think I understand what I’m into a little better now, and I’m not going to fuck up in the same way twice. I hope you both can keep this between us.” I can see that they’re both about to object, but I push through. “And that means don’t tell our parents, or Shannon.”

They take a minute to process this. I give Harper a hard look, a look that says I’ll keep your secret if you keep mine. I’m not even sure she knows that I know her secret, but she’s Harper; she picks up on things better than anyone I know. Good chance she’s worked out that I can hear her puking in the bathroom every day.

“And you … you have to promise me that I’ll never find you like this again, Linc,” she says.

“I promise,” I say, without hesitation but also without much conviction.

“This is all too much for me, man. I came over here to tell you I’m sorry for how things have gone this summer, that you’re my best friend and I love you, and that no matter what you do this year, I’m sure you’ll find your path to happiness, and I wish you all the best with that,” says Adam. “I literally had a whole thing planned out. But this … this is too much.”

He turns to leave.

“You won’t tell anyone, though, right? Promise me, Adam.”

“I won’t tell anyone. I promise … Good luck, man.”

And he walks out of the room and out of my life.

I assume we’ll never speak again.

July 30th, 2024

As I drove to Slice of Heaven, where Adam told me to meet him, I was thinking back to that day two years ago when I came closest to the edge. I had assumed then that Adam would fail to keep his promise. In fact, part of me had wished he wouldn’t keep it. It seemed like the right thing for a friend to do to report such egregious and dangerous behavior when he saw it. I almost resented him for the fact that he hadn’t betrayed my trust, that he hadn’t tried to get help for me. But then I remembered something that had happened years before that. When we were thirteen, I’d found him behind his house, smoking pot, and he’d begged me not to tell his parents. I’d promised I wouldn’t, and he’d asked me how he could be sure I was telling the truth. “Friends don’t betray friends,” I’d said simply. I guess that had stuck with him

I guess he was a better friend than I’d ever given him credit for.

Maybe it would have been better for me if he wasn’t. After that day, contrary to what I had expected to happen, Overseer had actually started putting more trust in me. I became something of a protegé to them. They taught me tricks of the trade that they said they’d kept to themself up until then. They taught me how to access their botnet and various other tools they’d spent years programming and building. They’d given me increasingly challenging tasks as if I were training for something. It became clear that Custodian Systems and Overseer’s organization were intricately linked, perhaps one and the same. And through all this, they kept paying me, and to the outside world, I kept looking like an ordinary—if somewhat underachieving—young adult, living with his parents and working from home.

Most important for gaining my trust, Overseer had admitted to me that the entire thing with Tamara Rimes was a ruse; they’d paid her family to fake her disappearance. They’d staged the video with Tamara and some actors and then used clever CGI and AI tools to create fifteen different versions of the video, one for each member of the Exposure Collective. They’d known one of us would try to dig into their identity eventually and they’d wanted a surefire way to dissuade us. But … but the girl had been found the same day that they’d sent me the video, so it was obvious they never really intended for me to get arrested. It had been, as I’d thought at the time, a test. But I hadn’t failed. Somehow I’d been exactly what Overseer had been looking for.

It was obvious to me now that they were planning something big, something they’d need help for—how else to explain the mountains of data that they’d amassed—the dirt on businesses and politicians—but never actually done anything with? How else to explain their vague statement about how the world would change in a couple years. Of course, that seemed oddly prescient given what was happening in the world now. But there was no way they could’ve known about that. Could they? I wondered.

But if it wasn’t that, then after two years I realized I still had no idea what the plan was, or what my role in it would be. But based on the lengths they went to to get what they wanted, and the enigmatic way they conducted business, I suspected it was nothing good. If I was going to stop it, I’d need some help myself.

I pulled up in front of Slice of Heaven and realized with a small measure of surprise that I’d never actually been inside. I’d dropped Harper off or picked her up plenty, and I’d had plenty of pizzas from the place, but I’d never actually set foot past the front door. Somehow I doubted that going into Slice of Heaven would be the only thing I did for the first time that day. Or the most interesting.

I wasn’t surprised to find the whole gang there when I walked into the back storage area to meet Adam: my sister, Christine, their other coworker, a tall black kid I didn’t know but I surmised must be the ‘Jaleel’ Harper had mentioned a few times.

“What are you guys all doing here?” I asked, not wanting to waste time with niceties. “And why am I here?”

They were standing in a circle with Adam closest to the door, facing me. As if in response to my question, he stepped aside to reveal a table at the center of the room. On that table sat a metal sphere, perfectly round, roughly the size of a five pin bowling ball. It was the most uniform and impeccable example of geometry I’d ever seen; the platonic ideal of a sphere. The notion that it might be man made seemed laughable. It reflected the room like a fish eye lens, and I could see in that reflection that while I was staring at it, mesmerized, everyone else was staring at me.

“All you have to do is touch it,” said Adam.