Insider X (26 page)

“What is wrong with cat owners?” Crush said.  “I am being serious.”

“You don’t think profiles with the name ‘Cat Lover’ sounds fake to you?” Na said.

“Certainly not,” Crush said.  “Americans love cats.  Have you not watched YouTube?”

“I guess you think a handle name like Mike-435677 is also a good name?” Na said.

“Sure,” Crush said.  “Why not?  If your name is Mike you might use that handle.”

“I see,” Na said.  She didn’t smile, but wanted to.  Because Crush had just projected a thought.  It was more than a single word this time.  Na sensed it.  It was two words.  Crush had just projected:
Easy, Na
.

So who is being subversive on who now?  Na nodded and listened.  Either she could read his thoughts, or she couldn’t.  She didn’t know for certain what was in her head and what wasn’t.  But whatever it was, she definitely had some weird connection with Crush.  They seemed to see things eye to eye.

Was this the same thing as a soul mate?  Easy, Na.  Don’t get crazy.

Crush continued with instructions regarding good techniques.  How to make reviews and comments seem real.  Not fake.

BEFORE SHE KNEW it, her first day of training was over.

3 PM.

“Exhausted?” Crush said.

“Yes,” Na said.  “Lot to learn.  Lot to digest.”

“It is the weekend,” Crush said.  “Huiliang wanted me to tell you she will be stopping by your place.  You are coming out with us tonight, aren’t you?”

“Of course.”

“Good,” Crush said.  “Good job today.  You listen well.  I think you will make an excellent member of the Online Blue Army.”

“I hope so,” Na said.  “I will try my best.”

“Crush!”

The voice startled Na.  It came from the left.  Na turned.  There was the colonel standing with two men in uniform.  Two more grey men!

“Yes, colonel?” Crush said, standing erect.

“I would have a word with you,” the colonel said, his voice flat and without emotion.

The two men with the colonel stepped forward and stood next to Crush, one on either side of him.

“Certainly, colonel,” Crush said, bowing his head.

The colonel turned on his heel.  Na watched Crush follow him with the two men alongside him.  The four of them walked away.

An uneasy feeling came over Na.  A very uneasy feeling.

Not good
, said Kitty Kat.

No, it wasn’t good.  Na got a very bad feeling.  A feeling, an overpowering feeling, a feeling she may never see Crush again.

And that feeling was absolutely terrible.

44

NA WALKED BACK to Tower 9 with a feeling that was best described as dread.  Seeing Crush escorted away had disturbed her.  And it wasn’t just her it had disturbed.  She had sensed it from others that were nearby that saw what happened too.  No one had spoken.  No one had asked questions.  A few had looked at Na, and then looked quickly away.

All of them had briefly projected fear.  Their feelings were palpable.  No one had stayed around.  Nobody chatted.  Nobody dawdled.  They had all left.

Na was surprised how quickly the building emptied.  Two thousand people doing their duty, and all of them were gone in minutes.  She had walked down the massive front steps around 3:07 PM.  She was probably one of the last to leave.  The others were already well ahead of her.  Hundreds of young men and women walking to their respective apartments.  Leaving quickly.

Leaving Doodie Town.

Doodie Town.  Not funny anymore.  Na knew why Huiliang didn’t like this place.  It was a place where bad things were done.

Na had just seen a glimpse, but it was enough.  Twelve hours of training, and she felt like she already knew everything bad that was being done there.  Crush had mentioned lists.  Everyone was given a list.  Everyone was given a duty.

Not all duties were the same.  From the examples shown in the training modules, Na had pieced together some of the things being done.  Reviews on products was the mild stuff.  That stuff wasn’t the bad stuff.

The other stuff was the bad stuff.  What they were trying to do.  One of the examples Na had seen had shown a thread of comments.  The comments had all been written by teenagers, or fake profiles posing as teenagers.  It was hateful stuff.  Cyber bullying is what they called it.

You should kill yourself, you fat cow.  Nobody likes you.

(x_x)

You’re ugly.  You’re stupid.  You’re wasting our air.  Go jump off a building, you disgusting heifer.

Na had been taken aback by the words, time and again over those twelve hours of training.  So many horrible examples like that one.  All just made up.  From what she could tell, they were directed at a girl who must have been raped by several football players.  She was called a drunk.  A whore.  And other terrible things.

The trick to it, as the training module explained, was to piggyback off other comments.  To mimic the same words, but “amp it up”.  “Magnify” what the others were saying.

Just a game.  A game of hate.  What could be the purpose of such an ugly thing?

Na thought of the video she had been shown in the beginning.  The blatant propaganda.  The hatred it projected towards America.

Seeds of dissent… destroy them from the inside
,
the voice had intoned.

Corrupt the minds of their youth.  Warp them.  Inject them with poison.  Infect them with hatred.

Like another training module had shown.  It showed an article of a shooting in an American school where many young children and some teachers were killed.  And then it showed the comments under that article.

A whole thread of comments.  709 comments in all.  Comments all done by fake profiles.  A whole discussion about gun control being had by fake profiles.  Heated.  Unruly.  Like a mob.

You can pry my gun out of my cold dead hand before you take away my guns.

(x_x)

How can you say that?  Have you no shame?  How many more children need to die?

(x_x)

As many as it takes.  Guns are our right.  Our birthright.  Read the Constitution, you dumb bitch.

The names of the profiles were as varied as the range of comments.  Some comments seemed normal, if normal was the right way to describe them.  All of that was fake?

According to the training module?  Yes.  All 709 of them.  It illustrated the example as being successful at pushing the message.  Dividing the Americans.  Divide and conquer.  Destroy them from the inside.

Seeds of dissent.

Apparently, soon after those 709 fake comments were posted, other comments were written.  They were not written by fake profiles.  It drew the Americans in.  They stewed in their own juice.  Their own vat of hate.  304 more comments were written.  This time they were all real.  All filled with hate.

It drew out the haters.  Fanned the flames. 

Incite.  Foment.  Destroy.

Na walked up to her building.  It towered over her.

It loomed.  It was no longer a dream apartment.  Right now, through her eyes, it was a prison.

45

AS NA WAITED in the first floor lobby for the elevator that would take her up to her apartment, she looked at the small square window.  It was in an alcove.  A small faux tree in a planter was in front of the window, and obscured most of the view.

Na took a few steps and looked past the tree’s realistic-looking plastic leaves.  Out the grime- and dust-covered square window, she could see the construction site in front of the building.  There was the dusty roundabout where the black sedan she’d come in had driven up and parked.  There were the steps she’d walked up.  Yesterday.  That had been yesterday.  It seemed much longer than just yesterday.

Yesterday the grey men had escorted her into this building.  It felt like weeks ago now.  She saw the same sedan.  It was parked in the roundabout.  Had it never left?  There were two men standing next to it.  It looked like the same men as yesterday.  But it was hard to tell.  They weren’t looking her way.

She saw three people walking towards the sedan.  She recognized them.  The man in a suit was the same man that had gone up in the elevator with her.  The man that had told her she was very lucky.

Lucky to be here, no doubt.  Where she could eat wonderful food.  Shop for amazing clothes.  Live a life of luxury in her dream apartment.

Yes, that would seem lucky.  Very lucky.  A small insignificant price to pay—she only had to do her duty.  Work twelve hours a day making up stuff online.  They were just words.  What was the big deal?

This place is very special
, Huiliang had said.  Had those words been what she really thought?  Na didn’t get that feeling from her.  She was pretty certain Huiliang had been lying, not telling the truth.  Huiliang thought differently.  She didn’t like Duty Building.  She feared it.  That had been what Na had sensed.

It all made sense now.  It wasn’t a nice place.  But they were just words.

Just words.

Na’s thoughts vacillated back and forth, as she looked out the window.  Next to the man in the suit were the two people she had seen yesterday at the restaurant.  Chen and An.  The lovers.  The two who were leaving.  They had decided to start a life together.  Crush had said they were going to get married and have a child.  Have a family.

They had saved up their money.  The money they made working here. 
We are very well compensated here
, Huiliang had told her.  Those two were leaving.  They weren’t going to do another tour.  A tour was three years.

Na was being silly.  She could do this.  Three years?  Wouldn’t seem long.  She’d make a bunch of money and she could leave like Chen and An.  Be driven away in style with a fat bank account to show for her efforts.

But Na already had some money in the bank.  The money she’d made selling those corporate secrets.  It wasn’t a ton, but it had seemed a lot just a day ago.  A considerable amount of money from a beggar’s perspective.  Money to start a new life.  Leave the dens.  Not have to do that crappy work.

Yes, that work had seemed crappy.  No fun.  Boring boring.  Soul sucking.

But she knew better now.  The work here could really steal your soul.  Steal your goodness.  Steal your faith.

Faith.

Na thought of that word.  Its meaning.  Behind her the elevator doors made their ting sound and opened.  Na took her eyes from the window and walked into the open elevator cab.

 She pulled out her card and waved it across the reader.  She looked at the buttons.  Looked at the numbers.  She hesitated, and then pushed a button.

It wasn’t the button for her floor.  The elevator doors closed.

46

THE TWO MEN at the sedan stepped forward and stood at attention.  Chen smiled at An.  He felt like the weight of the sun and moon was lifting off him as he walked down the steps and away from the building.  Away from Facility 67096. 

An smiled back at him.  She was so beautiful.  He was a very lucky man, he realized.  To know such love.  To have someone like An in his life.

Their whole life lay in front of them now.  The things they would do.  The places they would see.  The family they would have… eventually.

But not here.  Definitely not here.  They wanted more than one child.  Wanted a different life.  A life where they weren’t watched.  Weren’t under the yoke of The State.  Where they didn’t need to live in fear.  Be afraid all the time.

Be afraid that The State would view them as a liability at some point.  They knew what Facility 67096 did.  The State might someday want to tidy up such loose ends.

So the plan was to leave for America.  They’d whispered it to each other.  Made those plans.

America.

Where The American Dream was.  It existed.  They knew.  No words could destroy it.  Facility 67096 certainly had tried.  Chen and An had been part of that.

For six years.  Two tours. 

And now they were leaving.

They would make amends.  That was also their plan.  They would tell certain people about Facility 67096.  Reveal the ugly truth.  Expose it.  Let everyone know what was being done there.  Tell about the lists.

The lists with names of their own countrymen.  That had been An’s duty.  Chen’s duty had been more of a ‘suppress ideas’ nature.  His lists had been movies and books that The State wanted to censor.  Not a bad duty compared to some.  Some lists were truly terrible.  The duties that some in the Online Blue Army had to do every day.

An’s duty had been very hard.  It had taken its toil on her.  She’d lost so much of her beautiful hair that she’d worn a wig for a while.  The stress pains she’d had were so numerous.  Her duty had started to destroy her.  To poison her from the inside; causing her such pain.  Taking out so-called “dissidents”.  So-called “traitors”.  Destroying those people’s lives.  Or trying to destroy their lives.

An was so good.  So pure of heart.  It had been such a long six years for her.  Such a hardship for her to bear.  She had never asked for this duty.  She, like everyone else at Facility 67096, was misled into thinking their employment at this place was just a normal job.  Albeit, a job with high level clearance.  A coveted position in the PLA.  They were recruited.  Promised riches.  They could make more in a year working at Facility 67096 than they could make working ten years at other companies.

Once they found out what they did, what they had to do, it was too late.  They were already too deep into it to leave.  Their remuneration, all the money they could earn, was dangled in front of them like a carrot.  Money corrupted.  Yes, it did.  It made people do bad things.

They had done bad things.  But that would soon be behind them.  They were almost free.

“Are you looking forward to new horizons?” the man in the suit said.  “Leaving behind your privileged life?”

Chen forced a smile.  “Yes, we are.  It was a difficult decision.  We liked living here.  Felt proud to do our duty.  But we also would like to have a family.”

Next to him, An forced a smile too.

The man in the suit nodded.  He seemed to understand.

“They are working on a new building over there,” the man in the suit said.  He pointed ahead, past the sedan.  There were two concrete trucks in the process of pouring a slab.

“Would you like to see it?” the man in the suit said.

Inside Chen a hole opened up.  Freedom.  So close.

“No thank you,” Chen said.  “We are looking forward to new horizons.”

“But I insist,” the man in the suit said.

The two men by the sedan stepped forward.

Chen looked at An. 
I love you
, he mouthed.

A tear welled up in An’s eye. 
I love you too
,
she mouthed back.