Notes From the Internet Apocalypse (18 page)

“We can hit the streets first thing in the morning,” Tobey said.

“Yeah, well about that. It might be hard to do without interruption. Y’know, the Messiah business and all.”

“What’s the problem?” Tobey asked. “Jeeves has got the zombies uptown, the Christians are fractured, and no one knows what the Messiah looks like.”

“Well, in addition to your foreign government shenanigans, I may or may not have been shooting my mouth off tonight about being the Internet Messiah.”

“You didn’t,” Oz said.

“Yeah, I totally did. And then I went to 4Chan, and it coincidentally got raided, so y’know, tomorrow’s adventures in New York could be a bit dicey.”

Tobey stood. He had that look he got before thinking of a new humorous way to describe how much he wanted to fuck Demi Moore.

“Maybe we don’t need to be in New York. Why not try Staten Island!”

“Because we’re looking for the Internet, not Italians.”

Tobey frowned at my quip. I’d never seen him so serious. “Didn’t Quiffmonster42 say Anonymous believed the Internet signals might be coming from Staten Island?”

“Yeah, but if we leave New York, we won’t be able to get back,” I said.

“But the odds of continuing our search in New York without being spotted are getting slimmer anyway,” Tobey said. “Even if you’re not the Messiah, everyone’s acting like it. Might as well play the part. So whaddya think? Is the Internet in Staten Island?”

I didn’t know. I had no intuition. No divine voice leading me. I looked to Oz.

“I don’t care,” she said. “Just don’t ever leave me again. It took me so long to find you.”

“I won’t.”

“Promise.”

“Promise,” I said.

*   *   *

In the morning, we gathered everything we had, knowing we’d never be coming back. “Maybe we should ditch some of this stuff,” I said. “I kinda feel like all these supplies just bog us down.”

“We will do no such thing,” Tobey said. “We bought this stuff for a reason and we’re keeping it.”

I couldn’t imagine a scenario where we’d need our absurd Kmart camping supplies, but I deferred to the certainty of Tobey’s conviction.

“But, maybe you should lose the fedora,” he said. “I mean, you’re wearing it in that police sketch.”

“Yeah, but the sketch is shit, and also if I wear it I can pull it down to obscure the rest of my face anyway.”

“True,” Tobey said, “but if you take it off, you won’t look like a hipster douchebag.”

“I’m keeping the hat, Tobes.”

Tobey decided to cut his losses arguing with me and turned to the locked bathroom door. “Well, at least you’re working the rack today, right Oz?” he called.

Oz emerged from the bathroom in a t-shirt, jeans, and plain brown walking shoes.

“What the fuck is that? Are we going to Staten Island or an Ani DiFranco concert?”

“Sorry, Tobes,” she said, “but today’s about functionality. I’m not flashing tits on a ferry.”

We checked the news before leaving, just to see if there was any last minute information that could affect our journey. The now familiar buzz of NY1 would have been comforting, except it was pretty clear things had gotten worse—a live press conference from City Hall with all the trappings: a podium, suits, and flashing cameras. But most of all, Jeeves.

Apparently, he was now also a person of interest and helping the government in their search. He stood to the side of the podium, visibly uncomfortable by the company he was keeping and the ill-fitting suit he’d been persuaded to wear. It was a gray double-breasted affair, and with his face cleanly shaven and the remnants of his hair pulled tightly back, he looked like Kingpin’s weasely kid brother.

I didn’t hate him. I didn’t feel betrayed or lied to. I knew they had gotten to him. Maybe it was family or a loved one. I wasn’t sure, but I felt he’d succumbed to a threat and not a bribe, and I just hoped he was still on my side as much as he could be. My bigger concern was now at the podium. Agent Rowsdower was back, looking leaner than I’d remembered, his skin pulled taut like the yellowed plastic of a laminated skull.

“Good morning, ladies and gentlemen of the press,” he said, taking an extra moment to savor the room’s collective anticipation. “With the assistance of Mr. Dan B. McCall here, and based on information obtained from the government’s own investigations, we believe we have uncovered the identity of the so-called Internet Messiah.”

Everything in my body tightened and suddenly seemed to serve its biological purpose. I could feel the tendons in my arms holding muscle to bone. My veins were filled and flowing. Even the convolutions of my brain quivered like some twisted creature curled up for warmth.

“We believe the Internet Messiah is still in New York and goes by the name Gladstone. He has been declared a person of interest under the NET Recovery Act. The government seeks your assistance in locating him.”

I lifted my backpack and headed for the door. “We have to leave now. They’ll trace my credit card to the room if they haven’t already.”

“Easy,” Tobey said. “There’s no Internet. The hotel has to submit carbons to get paid.”

“No, wait.” Oz said. “There was still electronic credit card clearance before the Internet.”

“Was there?”

“Yeah. Remember in
Say Anything
? The dad’s credit card gets turned down at the luggage store. And that was like 1989.”

“Yeah, but how? Oh, wait, did it work through the phone lines?”

“I don’t care!” I screamed. “Staten Island Ferry. Now!”

No soldiers were waiting for us in the lobby, so we walked north looking for signs of trouble. By the time we got to the turnstiles at Fourteenth Street, we found it: troops spot-checking commuters.

“Quick, take off the fedora,” Tobey said.

“Fuck off, Tobey.”

“No, I mean, we’ll swap hats and I’ll wear your sports jacket.”

I stopped for a second and tried to consider the possibility of Tobey having a good idea. He did. And it had nothing to do with conning barely legal chicks into flashing their tits. I was impressed, and donned his baseball cap with a smile.

“Maybe I’ll even create a diversion. Make them think I’m you,” he said, slipping into my sports jacket and limping toward the entrance.

Oz laughed.

“What the hell is that? I don’t limp.”

“Shush. You’re interfering with my process.”

Oz scratched at the scruff under my chin the way Romaya used to. “It’s okay, Babe,” she said. “Let Tobey work his magic.”

Then she walked off behind him, still mustering a whole lot of sexuality out of a simple t-shirt and jeans. Two troops instantly asked Tobey to step to the side while a third turned his full supervisory prowess onto Oz’s ass. I headed through the turnstiles without a glance and watched them from the platform. One of the troops held the artist’s rendering of me next to Tobey and instantly saw that his gene pool was clearly restricted. My friends joined me just in time to catch the train to South Ferry.

South Ferry terminal sprawled out before us, all steel and glass against a clear June sky, and I realized this was the happiest I’d been since the Net died. Longer. The terminal’s big majestic letters were more suited to an amusement park ride than a mode of transportation, but that was just as well because the ferry was always the epitome of New York’s “no-money-fun.” When we were in college, Romaya and I rode the Ferry almost weekly, getting a mini-cruise with a view of lower Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty all for the accommodating price of nothing.

“I want to go inside,” she said.

“One day we will. When we have money and time.”

One day we did have those things, but it still didn’t happen. And then she was gone. And the statue closed. And now, in this Apocalypse, nothing goes to this tiny island.

We found our seats out on the deck beside a man buried in his
New York Times.
Oz closed her eyes to concentrate on the mist hitting her face, and I tried not to stare too hard or to let her see Romaya reflected in my eyes. Tobey seemed happy to have his baseball cap back, and the two of them flanked me on each side, protecting me from the world that wanted more than I could give. A twenty-four-year-old Aussie webcam girl, a twenty-nine-year-old pop-culture blogger, and a thirty-seven-year-old office cog on disability sitting in a row. It was one of those incongruous New York moments that made perfect sense, like seeing a dreadlocked dude in the subway playing the theme from
The Godfather
on a steel drum.

“Sorry to disturb you, Mr. Gladstone, but your government requires your assistance.”

It was Rowsdower, and his smile showed every one of his impossibly tiny teeth. He stood in front of me, perfectly still. The sky moved behind him.

Maybe it was because I was feeling closer to Romaya than I had in years. Or maybe it was because I had nowhere to run. But I suddenly felt a calm I’d never known, and I put it on like a cotton robe at the end of a long but now distant day. I wasn’t worried at all. Just disappointed that I wouldn’t have an unobstructed view of the Statue of Liberty.

“Rowsdower. Don’t you have something better to do than harassing civilians?” I asked.

“You’re coming with me, Gladstone,” he said, and pulled back his black sports jacket to reveal a badge and gun.

“Who is this dude, and why is he acting all butthurt?” Tobey asked.

“Ooh, don’t talk all 4Chan, Tobes,” I said. “You’re better than that.”

Oz wasn’t confused. “It’s the douchebag from the press conference.”

Tobey started unzipping his backpack, and Rowsdower unbuttoned the holster to his gun.

“Easy there, tiger. I’m just here for Gladstone. Government business. No one needs to get hurt.”

I noticed that Rowsdower wasn’t alone. Ten troopers had come out to the deck from down below to support this walking cancer that wanted me to help a government that could well be the architect of this Apocalypse.

“I won’t go with you,” I said. “And please sit the fuck down because the Statue of Liberty is coming into view.”

Rowsdower called to the troop: “Gentlemen, it seems the Messiah needs some assistance.”

Just then the man to the right of Tobey put down his newspaper and stood up. And although his words were muffled slightly by his Guy Fawkes mask, I thought I heard him say, “The Messiah will not work for you.”

“QuiffMonster42?” I asked.

“At your service, Gladstone,” he said, and then called over his shoulder, “/b/tards to battle!”

Instantly, a dozen guys with Guy Fawkes masks or plastic bags over their heads rushed to the deck. Some had spring-loaded snakes in cans of peanut brittle. Others had Crazy String or fart spray. But each set about creating the most infantile kind of offline chaos possible. With all the commotion, Tobey pulled the self-inflatable raft from his backpack and yanked the ripcord. It began to fill as the troop wiped the Crazy String from their SWAT goggles and tripped over spilled marbles. Rowsdower pulled his gun, but the raft rose between us, and then reached critical pressure, lunging forward as it unfurled with a snap. Taking a raft to the face, Rowsdower dropped his gun and fell to the floor. He was swarmed by /b/tards like Japanese businessmen to tentacle porn. Tobey pushed the raft forward over the side of the ferry, and there before me, with no obstruction but the Hudson, was the Statue of Liberty.

“And you didn’t want to bring the raft. Nice fucking messiah,” Tobey said, and jumped overboard backpack and all.

I grabbed Oz’s hand.

“Come on, Babe,” I said. “I’m taking you to the Statue of Liberty.”

12.

DAY 58. LIBERTY

Although it was June, the water still held the freeze of winter. Oz and I splashed down a few yards from the raft, and Tobey extended us each an oar.

“Did that really just happen?” I asked, shaking the water from my grandfather’s fedora.

“Fuck yeah, it did,” Tobey said. “We can’t go wrong. You’re the Internet Messiah!”

Oz started paddling. “This way to Staten Island?”

“Didn’t you want to go to the Statue of Liberty?” I said.

“Why? Aren’t we looking for the Internet?”

I stared up at the Statue, the raft pitching in the Ferry’s wake, and thought about all those whom she welcomed to freedom and the others she taunted by her firelight before sending back home to death. But I wasn’t a passive immigrant at the mercy of a foreign government’s bureaucracy. This was my country. My city. And my raft.

“We’re going to the Statue,” I said. “All the way up.”

Tobey and Oz didn’t argue at first. Maybe it was because they trusted me fully. Or maybe it was because rafting the Hudson was a bitch, and the Statue was our closest port.

Liberty Island was deserted, having been completely shut down after last month’s terrorist chatter and the increasing threats that followed every day. Once ashore, I took the first step toward Lady Liberty, and some sort of alarm went off. An old-time air raid siren. Code red. But I didn’t care, and my confidence had only grown as we had gotten closer to the dock. I shot toward the entrance so resolutely I hardly noticed my two friends trailing behind. But by the time we reached the Statue’s mid-section, the thwap of Tobey’s Converse sneakers behind me suddenly stopped. I turned and waited for him to make some sort of breast-based Statue of Liberty joke, but he was solemn.

“What are we doing?” he asked.

“I told you. Looking for the Internet. We’ve got to get to the top.”

“We can’t go there, Gladstone,” he said.

“We’re going. I feel it. The answer’s in the head.”

I looked to Oz for support, but she wasn’t moving either.

“Don’t leave me,” she said, her eyes barely concealing the few specks of hope bobbing in her fear. There was something familiar about the way the compromised light of Liberty’s hollow lit her face like the glow of a computer screen.

“It took so long to find you. Please don’t go. We can be together again.”

I didn’t bother to hide my disgust. I let it rain down on her from the steps above. “Why are you trying to stop me? Because of your government friend? What did he tell you?”

“What do you mean?” she said. “You haven’t told me anything!”