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Chapter 28. In Country

A tingling numbness started in Max’s his scalp and spread downward to meet up with the fuzzy burn that radiated from the toy car in his hands. Suddenly, both the sensations and the little car were gone. Linda too had disappeared. Otherwise, the room was exactly the same as it had been a moment before.

He walked around to the desk chair, slipped the rifle off of his shoulder and sat down. It would take a few moments for Linda to follow him, assuming that she would even end up in the same place. He swung his feet up on the desk.

---

Listen to the Chapter 28 podcast with roboreader Sangeeta.

---

It was possible that the little car had taken her somewhere else, or to a different incarnation of the same place – perhaps a copy of the room without Max in it.

A moan from the other side of the desk confirmed she had made it through. She called his name in a trembling voice.

“I’m here,” he replied without rising from his seat. Assuming that the beetle affected her in the same way that it affected him, she should be fine soon. Everything had at least started according to plan.

“That was freaky,” said Linda, apparently still on the floor. “Like wrestling with a paint mixer.”

Max stood up and leaned over the desk to see her sitting cross-legged on the floor, her hair mussed but otherwise looking well enough.

“It feels more like an electric shock to me.”

“I guess,” she said as she massaged one of her hands. “I’ve never been shocked. Not with an electric current anyway.”

Linda grasped the edge of the desk and lifted herself up.

“What now?”

“I guess," said Max, "we do what I did last time.”

He thought back to the first Beetle episode, trying to recall each of the steps he had gone through before.

“Exit environment,” he called. The room transformed into the cluttered lab. He held out his hand. “Come on.”

He led Linda to the heavy metal door that opened from the lab to the outer office. The scene outside was familiar; Stephen’s desk, the gray waste basket, the cinder block walls covered in glossy gray paint. There was a subtle shimmer to the room and the items in it, as if at any moment they could suddenly change into something else. He kicked the trashcan. It tumbled over with a clang that was very much, but not quite, like the sound he would have expected.

The route to the exit that opened on the darkened parking lot was shorter than he remembered, and when they stepped into the night, his was the only car in the lot. It was parked under the bright spot of a street lamp.

He grasped the handle. A muted click and a beep indicated that it recognized his touch and that the doors had unlocked. Max nodded to Linda. She walked around to the passenger side and climbed in.

He handed his rifle to her as he settled into the driver’s seat. The seatbelt secured itself across his lap and over his shoulder as the engine purred to life.

“Home please,” he ordered the auto-chauffeur program. The car glided out of the parking space toward the street.

“Nice car,” said Linda, waving her hand at the dashboard.

“I guess, for an econo-box. I don’t really keep it this clean.”

Linda nodded soberly. “A little light on the details?”

“So it seems.”

The streets of the campus were uncharacteristically empty, and the route felt to Max to be distinctly abbreviated. He realized that enough details were missing from the road and landscape that he might have had a tough time finding his way home, if it weren’t for the automated guidance. Clearly, whoever had programmed the environment had left the reality turned down a bit too low. That must have been what made the trip home feel so odd the last time he’d been here, although it had been good enough that it hadn’t registered as anything more than mild disorientation at the time.

His car pulled up in front of the awning that sheltered the steps leading into his apartment. They stepped out and Max led Linda up the stairs. He stopped and turned to watch his car park itself in his reserved space. As at work, the lot was empty save his lone car. It was an absurd omission, considering that nearly all the residents should surely have been home in the evening.

They made their way up the steps to the second floor landing. Max turned the key in the lock, pushed open the door with the rifle-butt and found the apartment in the exact condition he remembered from the day of his abduction. The furniture and laundry piles, the television and his laptop, everything was just as before. A prickly cold chill swept over him as he eyed the floral print sofa and the princess phone on the floor in front of it.

“Are you OK?” Linda asked.

“Sure,” said Max. “I’m fine.”

“You look pale.”

He steadied his rifle and turned to peer into the kitchen. The oven was closed, but lacking the crisscrossing layers of duct tape he’d used to seal it during his weeks of seclusion.

“It’s just that this part was a bit rough the last go ‘round.”

Linda moved in close behind him and put a hand on his arm. “Can you handle it?”

“I think so.” He noted, as much to assure himself as anything, that Spencer and Perske weren’t likely to be expecting them, and would not have sent the abductors that assaulted him the last time he was in his virtual apartment.

Linda walked around him into the kitchen. She braced her rifle against her hip, pointing it at the oven door.

“So,” she said, “this is the way in.”

Max nodded.

“What are we waiting for?”

“I’m ready if you are.”

She lifted the pendant off her chest and pressed it against her lips, like an athlete kissing a crucifix before a match.

“All set.”

Max stepped in front of her and grasped the oven door handle. He took a deep breath and pulled, letting the door drop. It bounced briefly as it revealed the gaping maw of darkness. His heart raced. The trip hadn’t really been so bad the last time, but he hadn’t had a choice either. It was one thing to be shoved into the void screaming and struggling, and another to dive in of his own volition.

He rocked back on his heals.

“You know Linda, you don’t have to go.”

She tapped the pendant.

“I’ve got this.”

Max shrugged. “Well, just give it to me. I’ll take care of it.”

“You're sweet,” she said, brushing his cheek with the back of her hand. “But I’m going. If you like, I’ll go alone and you can stay behind.”

Max shook his head. That wouldn’t work.

“Alright then,” she said, “it’s settled. Now, who first?”

“Me, I suppose.” He knelt in front of the open oven and braced himself on the door. He stuck his head and shoulders into the pitch black darkness, careful to guide the rifle in alongside. The silence was deafening. A lump rose in his throat. He swallowed hard, pushed against the kitchen floor, and inched his torso through the gap. Only the pressure of his free hand against the oven wall stopped him from tumbling in. He took a deep breath of the emptiness, leaned forward, and slipped into the void.

Max could see nothing at all. The darkness was so complete that he couldn’t tell if his eyes were open or shut. He blinked deliberately, but detected no change.

He extended his arm, searching for any point of reference. He reached, and reached, and reached. There seemed no limit to how far his arm could stretch. It was as if he were reaching out to the whole dark world {{Pause=0.25}} – to the great, empty universe. He pointed his toes and his legs too stretched out forever. His entire body was expanding, until it felt as though the tip of his nose was miles from the back of his head.

He tried to make a fist. He could feel that the muscles were willing, but the response was incredibly slow in coming, as if his nerve impulses were ripples traveling through molasses. His breathing slowed in his enormous lungs, his swelling heart thudded ever more ponderously with every beat.

He wondered, with thoughts that were as slow and deliberate as his pulse, if he would eventually dissolve into the cosmos, like a smoke ring blown into the air, expanding and fading to a shadow, then to only a memory of the ring that it once was.

He hovered for a time in the void like a cloud in a pitch-black night.

The expansion reversed itself. It was a gradual collapse at first, almost undetectable. His extremities began to pull back from the endless expanse. As they did, he could feel his body regaining its substance. His breathing and pulse increased. The contraction steadily accelerated until he was not simply solidifying, but imploding. He bellowed soundlessly. Would it stop? Would he be restored to his original form, or crushed, like a dying star collapsing into a black hole?

The contraction sped still further until there was a sudden snap, like the release of a rubber band. He was lying face down, with his nose crushed against a cold, hard floor. Max flopped onto his back gasping and struggling to regain his bearings.

He was back on the acropolis where Spencer and his goons had met him and dragged him down to see Betty’s mangled form.

He lifted himself onto his elbows, still panting and shaky. Linda hadn’t arrived yet. Max rocked forward and climbed to his feet. He scanned the horizon beyond the soaring marble columns and wandered a half dozen yards across the marble floor to the steps that led down to the field with its manicured hedgerow.

He surveyed the town, paused for a moment, then dropped to the floor onto his belly. He reached forward, hooked his fingers on the edge of the top step, and pulled himself along the smooth stone until he could just peek over. There was motion on the streets beyond the field. Dozens of people meandered about like ants living in a colony of marble houses and cobblestone streets. Some disappeared into the white stone buildings while others emerged. They were walking, jogging, and riding bicycles. Groups gathered here and there, perhaps to chat under the clear blue sky.

The town had grown since the last time Max had visited the place, and a network of roads spread cobbled fingers off to the horizon. At the town’s farthest reaches, the structures had a hazy, glittery quality to them.

There was a sudden pop and a whoosh of air. Max ducked instinctively and hid his head under his arm. A tense moment of anticipation followed, but there were no rough hands under his armpits, and no squeaky, fat man voice welcoming him to Wonderland.

He rolled onto his side and saw Linda sprawled on the floor, just as he had been when he first arrived. She stayed perfectly still for several seconds, then her chest heaved with a deep breath. She turned her head and laid her cheek on the floor. Her hair spilled across her face, obscuring her eyes.

“Linda?” said Max.

She nodded almost imperceptibly. Max squirmed around on the floor and scrambled to her on his belly, staying low to keep out of sight of the people milling about below. He reached out to her shoulder, but stopped short of touching her. Instead, he crossed his arms on the ground and rested his head on his elbow to wait for her to recover.

“That was,” Linda croaked. She cleared her throat. “That was wild.”

She slid her hand to her face and pushed her hair aside.

“Do you think that’s what email goes through when you hit send?” She let her hair drop back over her eyes and spread her arms and legs across the floor.

She pulled her limbs in tight and lifted her chest off the floor.

Max inched closer and placed a hand firmly on her back. “Stay down.”

“Why? What’s the matter?”

He crawled back across the floor to the top of the steps, beckoned to her with a flick of his wrist and whispered, “Come here.”

“What?”

“Come here,” he said more loudly.

Linda started to rise to her feet.

“Stay down,” Max hissed, and she dropped back to her hands and knees. Linda set off crawling across the floor.

“OK, cowboy,” she said when she was finally beside him. “What’s up?”

Max pointed to the city.

“Wow, busy place,” said Linda. “Who are those folks?”

“I have no idea. They weren’t here last time.”

“They don’t look very dangerous," said Linda. "In fact, the whole thing seems kind of Utopian”

Max agreed with Linda’s assessment. Compared to the grimy Freedom Club compound, this place was paradise, or so it seemed from a distance.

“Too bad we’re going to have to make such a mess of it,” she said. “What now?”

Max shrugged. “I’m not sure. We can wait for Spencer to find us, which I’m sure he will, eventually.”

“Or we can go find them. Either way, the end result is the same.” She pointed toward the amphitheater in the center of town. “That’s where you last saw the boy.”

Max nodded.

“We should get as close to him as possible,” she said, touching the pendant on her neck. “Any suggestion about how we deal with them?”

Max sat up and swung his feet over the top step. “Nope.”

“OK then. I guess there’s no point in hiding up here." She stood, slipped her rifle off her shoulder, and checked its settings. "I'm ready. Let’s go.”

“They’re growing, you know,” he said.

Linda looked out at the town. “What do you mean? They're getting larger?”

“No, they’re building up.”

The indistinct look of the far edges of the town, Max guessed, resulted from the fact that those structures were actively under construction. It reminded him of an image he’d once seen of bacteria in a Petri dish. Instead of microbes and slime on gelatin, housing construction was creeping along the fractal fingers of roadways radiating out from the amphitheater at the center.

“That’s not good,” said Linda. “I’m not sure what it means, but it can’t be good.”

She set off down the stairs. Max followed.

“I imagine not,” he said.

***

All was still atop the acropolis. Only a subtle grinding under the polished stone disturbed the silence – until a pillar, in the back corner farthest from the stairs, erupted with a thunderous sneeze.

"Bless you," said a gravelly voice from beneath the floor.

"Shut up Eddie," the pillar replied.

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Chapter 27. Zero Day

Joel was recovering well after two days. Both his eyes were still blackened from the blow to his face, but Max had restrained himself enough that he hadn’t actually broken Joel’s nose after all. The lunatic had Linda to thank for the last minute mercy. If she hadn’t asked Max to go easy, Joel would have been in much worse shape. Nevertheless, he wore his protective foil cap down low on his brow and kept his distance as Linda and Dr. Murray prepared Max for the trip back to Perske’s corner of the dark net.

---

Listen to the Chapter 27 podcast with roboreader Sangeeta.

---

Max stretched out in the lounge chair and Linda placed a pair of headphones over his ears. She swung around a set of goggles mounted at the end of a jointed boom, and positioned them in front of his face. The contraption looked like it had been kluged together with parts scavenged from a dental drill, an optometrist’s testing station, and the guts of a microwave oven.

“If that thing slips,” said Max, “you’ll crush me.”

Linda winked at him and continued about her business, twisting the positioning knobs and lining up the eyepieces. She beckoned Joel to help her. He approached hesitantly, careful to keep Linda between himself and Max.

“Can you see the test pattern?”

Max focused on the image in the lenses.

“Yep, there are the cross hairs. The focus looks about right.”

“And you can still hear me?”

He nodded.

“It’s a little muffled.”

When everything was set, she stepped back to survey the set up, and then climbed into the twin lounge chair nearby.

“Wait,” said Max, “I thought I was going with Joel.”

“No, it’ll just be you and Linda,” said Dr. Murray as he began arranging Linda’s equipment. “May Ted guide and protect the both of you.”

Max lifted the headphones off of his ears.

“I’d really prefer it if he came along instead.”

“You and Linda will make a more cohesive team,” said Dr. Murray. “He’s going to work on finding a vulnerability for us to get you in. That’s really more in keeping with his talents.”

“We’ve worked things out haven’t we Joel? Come on, it’ll be fun”

Joel shook his head in a silent but vigorous negative reply before busying himself at the keyboard and monitor across the room.

Max pushed the goggles to the side.

“What’s the matter?” Linda asked. “Don’t you trust me? Or is it because I’m a girl?”

“No, it’s not that.”

“I’m a much better shot that Joel. Much better than you too, as I’ve heard.”

Max stammered, “This isn’t the way I thought it would go down.”

“What did you have in mind?”

“I don’t know. It’s just not what I expected. That’s all.”

After a moment, he pulled his goggles back in place.

“I’ll try to adapt.”

Joel made himself small at the terminal. Linda fiddled needlessly with the equipment mounted to her lounge chair.

Dr. Murray broke the awkward silence by describing the zero day exploit. Joel, he explained, was scanning the recent security bulletins for high priority patches and the flaws that they addressed. The inevitable delay between the announcement of a vulnerability and the installation of patches by sysadmins, he said, means that there is almost always a window of opportunity for a fast moving hacker to take advantage of a security flaw. Places like the University, where staff were likely to be less attentive on the weekends, are particularly vulnerable to flaws announced in bulletins released late in the day, at the end of the week, and over holiday breaks.

“In the summer,” said Murray, “they might as well hand us the keys during happy hour on basically any Thursday or Friday you like, Ted willing.” He checked his watch. “It’s five thirty Joel. Anything promising?”

“There are a few possibilities,” Joel mumbled.

“Lets get started,” said Linda. “We’ll hang out on the inside until you find an exploit.”

Dr. Murray placed a hand on each of their shoulders and blessed them and their mission in Ted’s name. He stepped back, flicked the switches on a pair of small vacuum pumps resting by each of their chairs, then opened the valve at the top of an insulated liquid nitrogen canister. Max recognized the hum of a large power supply, but the sound of a rustling wind quickly drowned it out.

He found himself standing at the prow of a large boat, with the deck rocking lazily under his feat and the distant horizon rising and falling with the rhythm of the long, low swells.

Linda squatted nearby, rummaging through an equipment locker.

“What are we doing here?” he asked.

“Just waiting,” said Linda. She lifted a rifle from the locker and tossed it to him, then pulled out a weapons belt like the one Joel had demonstrated. “You said something the other day about going on a cruise. I thought that this was the least we could do.”

She strapped the belt around her waist before reaching in the locker for another and handing it to Max. She tapped her belt’s root kit button and faded to a vague outline. Although he could still make her out as a translucent distortion against the background, she was nearly invisible other than a ripple that became more distinct when she moved. She reappeared after a few seconds with her hand in the act of falling away from the belt, where she had apparently toggled the setting back off.

“Try yours.”

He located the button on his belt and pushed it. Although he felt no change, and his extremities looked to him to be as visible as ever, Linda nodded in approval.

He clicked the button again.

“Excellent,” she said. “Should we go over the plan again?”

Max shrugged. “It seems simple enough. I show you the way in and cover you if we get in a pinch. Once we get close to Perske and the Jasons, you’ll take care of the rest. Then it’s back out in a hurry.”

He leaned over and peered into the empty locker. “Where’s that little fire cracker Joel showed me?”

Linda pulled at the collar of her plain white t-shirt to reveal the pendant on a chain around her neck.

“Do I get one?”

“No,” said Linda. “If we get close enough to set it off, we won’t have time for a second try. One’s enough.”

“Sounds exciting," said Max. "Incidentally, thanks to Joel’s little demo session, I know how to bail out in an emergency. What about your escape plan?”

Linda shook her head. “I get out the same way we go in, or I don’t get out. At least not in the same shape I’m in now.”

“What happens if you don’t make it?”

“Based on what we’ve seen in the past, short term dementia is the best possible outcome.”

“Really?" said Max. "So we’re not the first from the Freedom Club to give it a shot?”

“We haven’t sent many in, but there have been a few, and it’s never turned out well.” She rested her rifle barrel against the railing. “Joel was probably the luckiest. He was catatonic for a few days. The first week was touch-and-go; teaching him to swallow, then to chew. He’s not what you’d call normal yet, but at least he can wipe himself.”

Max whistled softly. Joel’s aluminum foil cap didn’t seem so outrageous in light of what he must have been through.

“It’s a risk you’re still willing to take?” he asked.

Linda slung her rifle on her back and tightened her belt, but said nothing.

“Alright then,” said Max, “I guess we’ll have to make sure everything goes off as planned.”

She pointed at a dark smudge on the horizon beyond the ship’s bow.

“It looks like they found us a way in.”

Max shouldered his rifle as the smudge spread across the sky like ink soaking into a cloth. When all the sky was at last dark, the deck of the ship bucked, sending Max and Linda stumbling toward the railing. He extended his arm to steady himself and found his hand resting on a warm, smooth surface.

It was the desk in his home environment on the University system. Everything was in its place, just as he remembered it. After weeks of trauma and struggle to adapt to the primitive conditions of the Freedom Club, it was a comfort to find himself in a place so familiar, so perfectly tailored for his needs.

Linda studied the walnut desk, the ceiling fan and the ancient filing cabinet.

“Welcome home Sam Spade.” She lifted the telephone receiver and tested its weight. “Where to now?”

Max scratched his chin. “I guess I need to find the message from Perske with the attachment she sent me the last time.”

He opened the filing cabinet drawer that held his email and flipped through a few of the recent files.

“I never had a very good organizational system. Hold on a moment. It’s better if I have Betty handle it.”

“Who?” said Linda.

“You’ll see.”

Max called for his virtual assistant. The door on the wall across from his desk opened immediately and Betty entered. She was dressed in her usual mob moll garb with the diving cleavage, heavy black high heels and tight skirt that stopped just above her knees.

“Betty, could you find the last message that I opened from Dr. Perske? The one with the attachment please.”

She sauntered to the cabinet and reached into the drawer to select a sheet of paper and the box that went with it. She handed them both to Max, perched herself on the edge of the desk, and pulled a nail file from her frilly sleeve.

“Thank you Betty. That will be all for now.”

“Interesting,” said Linda as Betty slipped off the desk and exited.

“Isn’t she though?”

He set the email on his desk and lifted the toy car out of the box.

“This might be a tad disturbing, but it’s how we get in, I think.” He flipped the car over and found the small switch on the bottom that set the toy lights blinking and the horn beeping. “Just follow my lead and you should be fine.”

He turned the car around and stared into the stroboscopic headlights. The fuzzy caterpillar sensation erupted in his forearm. The room began to spin. He felt his eyes roll upward.

Here we go again, thought Max.

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Chapter 26. Target Practice

---

Read about the Dark Net Target Practice game inspired by this chapter.

---

At first glance, the rolling green hills, brilliant blue sky and puffy clouds looked reasonably convincing. But the illusion didn’t hold up well under close scrutiny. Everything had the shoddy artificialness of a low budget virtual environment, like an old fashioned sound stage in some epic film from the glory days of Technicolor Hollywood. Max imagined if he were to climb the nearest hill, he would find that the distant horizon where the earth met the sky was nothing more than paint on a rippling canvas backdrop.

---

Listen to the Chapter 26 podcast with roboreader Sangeeta.

---

The half dozen creatures frolicking on the artificial turf a few dozen yards away weren’t rendered any better. There was a cat that was apparently made of scraps of paper swept up from the floor of an artist’s studio, a cartoonish dog walking on his hind legs and wearing a red cape, a bearded man with an Elizabethan collar that Max assumed was supposed to evoke Shakespeare, a levitating UFO about the size of a basketball, and a claymation Albert Einstein. The final creature was the most animated of the bunch – it was a twisting, cavorting, spastic paperclip with googly eyes that Max recognized as the annoying office assistant from some ancient word processor program.

“Ready for target practice?” Joel asked as he hefted a rifle to his shoulder and took a bead on the dancing paperclip flitting through a patch of yellow flowers. He squeezed the trigger and fired off a shot that froze the creature in mid frolic.

“That just hangs the process,” said Joel. He tilted the rifle and twisted a knob on the stock. “You can adjust how long you want it to halt with this. Watch him. He’ll get going again in a second.”

After a few moments, the frozen paperclip jerked back into motion just as Joel had predicted.

He flipped the rifle over and pointed to a switch just in front of the trigger guard. “This lets you set it to corrupt the bugger all together. Wanna try it?”

Max shook his head. “After you.”

Joel aimed again and shouted, “Hey dude, it looks like I’m writing an obituary.”

The paperclip bounced spastically. “Would you like help?” it screeched.

“I think I know how to compose this one.”

Joel fired a shot. The grinning paperclip melted into a blob of gray goo that seeped into the grass.

Joel thrust the weapon into Max’s hands.

“Give it a go. It’s fun.”

The faux wood stock was warm and smooth. The rifle had a comfortable heft.

Max set the switch back to the pause position and pointed the gun up to the sky at a cloud that was unconvincingly drifting by. The butt bucked lightly against his shoulder and a jagged portion of the cloud stopped in its place, while the remainder continued on its way. He lowered the rifle toward the ground and pulled the trigger again. A spot on the shimmering grass dimmed a bit.

Finally, he aimed at the claymation Einstein. The first shot went wide right, and the second was too low. The third was dead on, freezing Einstein in place.

“If we’re going in there armed with these,” he said, “I hope you’re not counting on my marksmanship.”

Max turned as he spoke, and Joel leapt back clumsily stumbling on his robes.

“Watch it,” he squeaked. “Don’t point that at me.”

Max lowered the muzzle.

“Excuse me. Is it dangerous to humans?”

“Indeedy,” said Joel. “They tried it on me once. It was only set on pause of course. Have you ever been wrapped in a wet rubber sheet?”

Max admitted that it was not a pleasure he had ever experienced.

“You can imagine what it feels like. Anyway, we’re not relying on your aim. Linda’s a crack shot. She’s the one who popped me. I can tell you, I wasn’t standing still for it. She hit me at fifty meters and a full run.”

The image brought an involuntary smile to Max’s face.

“Besides,” said Joel, “you don’t have to aim very well with these.”

He lifted a portion of his robe to reveal a belt with a collection of canisters hanging from it. One was marked with the red letters FB, another bore the marking DOS, a third was labeled ZB, and the final canister read Ctrl-Alt-Del.

“This,” said Joel as he removed the first canister from his belt, “is a fork bomb. I like to call it a wabbit, ‘cause it breeds processes like mad.”

He pulled a tab at the top of the canister and heaved it into the field near the scrap-paper cat. After a moment, a series of translucent blobs about the size of softballs erupted from the canister and rolled in lazy trajectories on the grass. Several of them stuck to the cat, which was soon enveloped in a mound of the jelly blobs.

“The zip bomb,” he said as he launched a second canister into the midst of the animated characters, “hogs memory and slows all local processes to a crawl.”

The canister went off with a muted thud. The walking dog and the Elizabethan poet, although still animated, moved with fits and starts, like characters in a movie recorded on a scratched DVD.

“This one,” said Joel holding out the DOS labeled can, “is a Denial of Service beacon. It won’t work here because this system is isolated. There has to be at least some network connection for it to have any effect. It’s handy if you need to block a portal and shut off network traffic for a while.”

He replaced the beacon and pointed to the final canister.

"Control-Alt-Delete grenade - it's old fashioned, but it'll do the trick if you need to stop a lot of local processes in a hurry. I'm sure you can figure that one out on your own."

Max nodded. “That’s quite an arsenal. It looks like you’re all set to make real nuisances of yourselves. What do you need me for?”

Joel cinched the belt tighter around his waist. “Someone has to show us the way around. You’re the only person who’s ever been in and made it back out intact. Don’t get me wrong. Finding your way in is easy enough. It’s taking care of business and getting back out that’s tough, at least with all your wits about you.”

From what Max knew of Joel, it seemed he had little to fear when it came to losing his wits.

“Is there anything else?”

Joel tapped the belt at his waist and pointed toward a small red button.

“This enables a root kit. It’ll give you some stealthiness in most systems, but it’s not fool proof, just helpful. And then there’s this.”

He lifted a pendant on a chain around his neck. It was a black fob about the size of a peach pit and similar in shape.

“It’ll compromise just about any program in range, as well as mangle data and corrupt executable code. You just activate it like this.” He jerked the pendant off the chain and held it between his thumb and index finger. It glowed a menacing red and flashed, slowly at first and then gradually faster.

“Count to three and chuck it.”

He lobbed the pendant. It exploded with a brilliant flash, instantly incinerating the cluster of animated creatures and leaving a charred scar on the ground. At the point where the jewel had detonated, a small fireball hovered like a tiny sun. Max grimaced at the destruction and held up a hand to shield his eyes from the brilliance of the fireball that pulsed and swelled.

A circle of seared grass slowly expanded as shining blades curled, blackened and erupted in smoke like hair in a match flame. Max and Joel stepped backward in response to the increasing heat.

“Now what?” shouted Max through his clenched teeth.

“I’m going to run like hell,” said Joel, “but you can take a shortcut.”

“What?”

Joel reached out and grasped Max with one hand on each shoulder. He simultaneously pulled down and lunged forward, slamming his forehead into Max’s face. The grinding crunch of his breaking nose sent Max reeling back onto the ground.

Over the roar in his ears that came from a combination of the flaming fireball and the agony in his face, Max heard Joel holler, “Now we’re even. See you back at camp.”

***

Max returned to consciousness with a start. The pain was gone, but the throbbing memory of it was still vivid. He whipped his head around in search of Joel, but only the empty lounge chair stood where the bastard had been hooked up to the Freedom Club’s crude virtual environment interface.

He lurched forward and tried to stand. A firm but gentle pressure pulled him down from behind.

“Your OK. Take it easy.”

It was Linda’s voice.

“My god,” Max choked. “He broke my nose.”

“I know. He told me.”

Linda stepped in front of his chair, still holding him with one outstretched hand.

“He wasn’t supposed to do it that way. But he made the point.”

“What the fuck point was that?”

“Shush, you’re alright now,” she said. “The point is that you can get out at any time, provided something triggers a seizure. Pain is the quickest way.”

Max’s chest heaved. He touched his nose gingerly. It was intact and painless.

“How convenient,” he said, “all I need is for Joel to assault me and I’m out.”

Linda shook her head. “No, anything painful enough will do. I suggested breaking your arm. Dr. Murray thinks a dislocated finger would do it. Joel did this on his own.”

“I’m gonna kick his ass.”

“Maybe you should,” Linda said. “But you might want to change your pants first.”

Max looked at the wet spot that extended from his crotch and down his right thigh.

“I don’t want anything to do with you lunatics. I thought Joel was the only madman. You’re all crazy.”

“It’s up to you," said Linda, "although I don’t know where you’re going to go. They’d find you if you set foot anywhere near your apartment.”

“Somewhere else then.”

“OK,” said Linda, “any ideas?”

“I don’t know,” he snarled, “anywhere. Maybe a cruise. I’ve always wanted to go on a cruise.”

Linda shrugged. “It’ll cost you. And even if you have money, you remember what happened when you bought the soda back at the fuel station.”

Max grumbled wordlessly.

“I’ll set you up with supplies, if you want to take off on your own. But the minute you resurface, you’ll be in trouble. The way I see it, you can help us take them down, in which case you’re clear and we’re on our way to liberating everyone else.”

Max wanted to be angry, but her calm tone dampened his fury.

“So you’re out to destroy them and the whole Web? That’s a tough job.”

She walked over to Joel’s lounge chair and sat on the arm.

“Constant struggle. That’s what revolutions are all about.”

“If you succeed,” said Max, “then what?”

“We put the skills we’re learning to the test. Live like we’re living now, the way nature intended.”

“Like cave men?”

“Like natives. Humans. Not slaves to the machine they call the Internet. You can help us, or you can go your own way. I’d prefer it,” she said softly, “if you helped.”

Max slipped off the chair and stood. He pinched the leg of his pants and pulled the damp cloth away from his thigh.

“When are you planning to go in?”

“Soon. Probably on a weekend. We’re waiting for a zero-day vulnerability we can exploit.”

Max shook his head. The term was lost on him.

“Think about what you want to do and I’ll explain it to you if you decide to join us.”

“First,” said Max, “I’m going to find Joel and exploit his vulnerability for a while. Then I’ll let you know.”

“Good enough.” Linda led the way to the door that opened onto the stairs to the landing at the front of the farmhouse.

“After you change,” she said when Max was halfway down the steps, “you might try looking for Joel in the north barn. That’s where he hides when he knows he’s in trouble.”

Max rubbed the bridge of his nose.

“Thanks,” he said as he reached for the doorknob. “I’ll change after I check out the barn. No point in washing up now just to have to clean his blood off later.”

“Max, don’t be too rough on him.”

“Goodnight Linda.”

He walked across the porch, flexed his hand, and imagined how good it was going to feel breaking Joel’s nose for real.

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Chapter 25. Weatherman

The hottest part of the day was past, but the evening breeze that alternately lifted the plain white curtains and pressed them flat against the screens in Linda’s cabin was still too warm to be of any comfort.

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Listen to the Chapter 25 podcast with roboreader Sangeeta.

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Max sat on the edge of the small bed, stripped to his underwear and t-shirt, sweating and waiting for the dinner bell. After dinner, he imagined, he would lie here and wait for breakfast. Then lunch, and then dinner again. Eventually he would become nothing more than a great, fat, sweating lump, venturing out only to eat.

Joel was right – if you’re going to drop out you have to commit to it. This was about as out as he could get.

Although Linda had promised to explain everything to him, the information she’d offered was vague and minimal. She and her compatriots at the Freedom Club, she said, had been keeping an eye on Herman Grunding, as well as Perske and a think tank that Linda called the Jasons. How a bunch of granola munching Luddites in the Pennsylvania Mountains managed that was not something she was willing to go into, just yet anyway.

Max had only come to their attention when he’d logged in as Herman and started raising red flags by lumbering around and asking lots of questions that Herman would surely have known the answers to.

The door opened and the curtains snapped tight against the screens. Linda stepped into the room, leaving the door open behind her.

“Here you are,” she said. “Is everything all right?”

“Sure. Just doing my part. Staying low, dropping out.”

“Had enough of hornworms?”

“Yep,” said Max. “It’s not much of a hobby. The tomatoes are as good as dead anyway. I figure Joel can collect them himself, if he’s hungry.”

Linda shrugged and stood quietly for a while, apparently in search of a reply. When she didn’t find one, she made her way to the bathroom. The water ran briefly in the sink, then she stepped out as she dried her hands on the rough hand towel from the hook next to the bathroom mirror.

“You know,” said Max, “it’s not as exciting being on the lam as I might have imagined.”

“It never is.” She tossed the towel into the bathroom where it landed soundlessly on the tile. “There are,” she said as she crossed the room to sit beside him on the bed, “ways to pass the time.”

“Checkers?”

She placed her hand lightly on his thigh.

“Not board games.”

Max blinked. “It’s very hot, you know.”

Linda plucked at the leg of his boxers.

“It would be cooler without these.”

He reached for her hand and gave it a squeeze.

“Thanks, but I don’t think so.”

“Don’t you like me?”

“It’s not that. I have,” he said slowly, “a problem. It’s the drugs, mostly.”

She slid closer to him, pressing her leg against his.

“Are you sure? Have you tried?”

“Of course,” said Max. He stood and stepped away from the bed.

“Would you like to just lie down for a while? Until dinner.”

She pulled her shirt over her head, unbuttoned her shorts and pushed them down to the floor, then stretched out naked on the bed.

“Please?”

Max climbed onto the bed and she snuggled against his side.

“I’m sorry – about your problem,” she whispered.

“So am I.”

He stared at the ceiling as sweat trickled off his brow to the pillow behind his head. When the bell finally rang in the distance he took a shower, dressed in a fresh shirt and overalls, and walked with Linda down to the tent to eat.

***
{{Pause=0.5}}
“Attention, brothers and sisters,” called a man standing by the fire pit where the Freedom Club members gathered after dinner. He was dressed in robes similar to Joel’s but much cleaner. Even from a distance of twenty feet or more under the dim light of the crackling fire, Max could see that the man had wispy white hair and skin that was dry and loose.

Despite his announcement, the chattering of the crowd subsided only slightly. “Your attention please,” he said more forcefully. “I have a few announcements to make before this evening’s workshop.”

Linda patted Max’s knee and leaned back to rest her elbows on the blanket she had spread across the grass for the two of them. But for the most part, no one else appeared to pay any mind to the host.

“Holy robots,” the man shouted. “People shut up.” The crowd fell silent with the exception of what sounded like a woman softly whimpering.

“Thank you friends. The quicker we get started, the quicker we can wrap this up.”

He glanced at a single limp sheet of paper in his hand.

“First of all, I want to remind you that tomorrow is silent Thursday. Please avoid speaking for any reason other than absolute emergencies. Take time to reflect on your autonomy -- your individuality and separation from society. This is especially important for the new comers.

“Secondly, Friday’s workshop will focus on skinning and cleaning of small game. Brothers Alan and Justin will lead the class. Guys,” he said to a pair of young men seated next to the fire, “do you have anything to add to that?”

One of the men stood up. Max recognized him with a shuddering start. It was the hoodlum who had stripped the clothes from him in the parking lot outside the café.

“Please bring your knife,” said the ruffian, displaying the toothy smile that still haunted Max. “We’ll have a few squirrels and rabbits for those of you who don’t have a chance to trap one of your own, but not enough for everyone. So if you’re relying on us, you might end up just watching this time.”

“Thanks Alan,” the host said.

“You’re welcome Dr. Murray.”

“Third,” the old man continued, “I want to recognize sister Lorraine.”

The soft whimpering grew louder at the mention of the woman’s name.

“As you all know, her son Richard turned four last month and it was time to place him with a host family. Ted bless him.”

The whimper escalated to a muted wail.

“Ted teaches us that rebels beget and nurture more rebels. Our precious young revolutionaries are the greatest export that we can send to heal the world.”

The wail was broken with racking sobs.

“As you all can hear, sister Lorraine is overcome with joy at the prospect of her second son following the first in venturing out to plant the seeds of revolution. I’m sure we’ll learn great things about Richard in the decades to come. Would someone please help Lorraine to her cabin where she can celebrate her son’s transition in privacy for a while? Thank you.

“Finally, I want to welcome our guest, Max Caine. Most of you have met him by now. He’s been through a lot, as you all know. He’s staying in cabin twelve for the time being, and Linda has moved temporarily into the big house.

“He has walked among the enemy, and returned to tell the tale. He’s the only one we know of to have done so. We have a lot to learn from you, Max, and I hope we can teach you a thing or two as well. You’re welcome and safe here until it’s time to return and take up the battle again.”

Max asked Linda in a whisper what the hell the old man was talking about.

“He’s being a little dramatic,” she whispered back.

“Now, brothers and sisters,” said the old man, “let us recite from the manifesto.”

He raised his hands over his head and began a droning speech. Linda and the rest of the Freedom Club members muttered along with him.

“The Industrial Revolution and its consequences,” they said in unison, “have been a disaster for the human race. Over socialization leads to low self-esteem, a sense of powerlessness, defeatism, and guilt. Science marches on blindly, without regard to the real welfare of the human race or to any other standard, obedient only to the psychological needs of the scientists and of the government officials and corporation executives. Freedom means having power; not the power to control other people but the power to control the circumstances of one's own life. Industrial-technological society cannot be reformed. We resort to modern technology for only one purpose: to attack the technological system.”

“Thanks be to Ted.” The old man said. He let his arms fall to his sides. “Tonight we’re going to focus on the restriction of freedom in modern society. Consider the ways that people have become enslaved by the very technology that is claimed to free them. A supposedly free citizen labors day in and day out to earn the money to buy machines – cars, washing machines, refrigerators – to save, of all things, labor. How absurd it is to work all your life to build machines, and then buy those same machines, only to have them do the things you don’t have time for because you’re building machines. Why be a slave to your car when you can walk? Why sell your freedom for a washing machine when you can buy a basin and some soap for a thousandth the price? Refrigerators? They are no more than tools of the enslaving industrial complex designed to prevent you from producing your own fresh and wholesome food.”

He glared at his audience, as if daring anyone to contradict him.

“There’s nothing new about this. Absolutely nothing that Bookchin or Proudhon, Tzu or Zeno, or any of countless other anarchists didn’t already know. Despite all their wisdom and insight, however, there is one insidious evil they didn’t see – one that they couldn’t possibly imagine. Since the beginning of recorded history, so-called civilization has been nothing more than an effort by the powerful and rich to harness the strength of your body. But even Whitney, Stevenson, Deere and Ford couldn’t dream of what Gates, Jobs, Anderson, Page and Brin had in store for us. I would gladly turn back the clock to the time when all they could steal was the strength of my right arm. Manual labor is yesterday’s currency. Today’s unit of exchange is the mind.

“My friends, when a person boots up a computer, when they turn on their GPS, when they sign into an ATM, they’re not logging into the system, they’re logging out of life. Ask yourself why email and I M are so seductive. Why do technophiles get the shakes when they can’t connect? Why would a person adore their Second Life lover more than their spouse? And why do so many people coddle and refine their avatars more than they play with their children?

“It’s because every time you log off, part of you stays behind. They are kidnapping you, thought by thought, experience by experience. The average person used to watch four or more hours of television each day. They said that we were trading our lives and culture for bland mind candy. Now, most workers spend six or more hours a day online, only to go home to hours more time with their interactive entertainment system. At least when we watched TV, the information only flowed one way, only came into our heads. Now it goes the other way.

“The evil of television is that it added something to your life that you found addictive. The Internet, video games, and interactive entertainment can’t work unless they take something from you – your input. And when you step away, that stays behind. Your bank account, your emails, your web page, your blog. If I erased all that, the average person would effectively disappear. They’re not addicted to the Internet, they’re incomplete without it.

“That’s part of the reason why we’re here – to become whole again. But there’s more to it, as you all know. Otherwise we would be no better than our primitive Amish neighbors. No my friends, that’s not enough. That’s merely selfish. Ted tells us that we have a mission. Technology is evil. Evil is seductive. Someone has to be strong enough to resist the seduction and put an end to it, not just for us but for everyone.”

The old man took a step forward and scanned the crowd deliberately.

“Are you strong enough to resist? Are you committed enough to fight? Think about it.”

He brought his hands together and knit his fingers. “Now gather in your workshop groups and discuss ways that you will resist the insidious, creeping influence of technology and mind control. I want each of you to tell your group at least one thing you’re willing to do. Would you follow the example of our new friend Max and risk your very existence to venture into the lion’s den? Could you walk in Ted’s footsteps and attack the technological backbone of society? Be bold. Be creative.”

The crowd shuffled and divided into small clusters. Linda turned on the blanket to join a pair of couples sitting behind her, while Max kneeled up to get a better view of the exercise. Some groups launched into vigorous discussions almost instantly, others talked casually. The bunch near the fire that included the skinners Alan and Justin seemed to Max to be particularly ill at ease, as the two young men dominated the conversation. Although he couldn’t hear everything they said, he made out a few words from the thugs, including suicide vest, improvised explosives, and air burst. Linda’s group focused more on passive resistance and demonstrations.

The old man wandered from place to place, asking questions and making suggestions. When he caught Max’s eye, he grinned broadly, marching over and thrusting out his hand.

“How are you Mr. Caine?”

“You can call me Max.”

“Certainly,” said the old man. “My name is Henry. What do you think of all this?”

“I think,” said Max, “that you don’t need a weatherman.”

“To know which way the wind blows?” said Henry. “Very old school, Max. That’s excellent. I hate to drag you away from all this, but I think we should take a walk. Linda, would you like to join us?”

The three of them stood and Henry led them along a path toward the big house with its glowing window eyes.

“Linda has told you a little about us, I imagine.”

“Not much,” said Max as he strained to make out the dim crease of the path in the darkness.

“We’ll fix that.”

They climbed the creaky steps of the farmhouse and Henry stopped on the unlit porch. He knocked on the pitch black door. It opened slightly and a beam of light from inside illuminated Henry’s face.

“What’s the password?” asked a voice behind the door.

“The password, Joel, is ‘let us in.’”

“Righty ho.”

Henry pushed his way through the doorway with Max and Linda close behind. Max squinted at the relative brightness inside. Despite a dull and worn carpet, and a rustic mantelpiece of stained wood, there was little that resembled the country house that Max had expected. Instead, racks of instrumentation, much like the equipment back at the university lab, lined the walls. In the panel above the fireplace, where a mirror or family portrait had probably once hung, a video panel displayed several news feeds, two in English, one in Chinese, one in Arabic, and one in German.

Joel stood next to a rolling stool parked beside a screen with a shot of the gathering outside the dining tent, with the Freedom Club members rendered in the glowing green of a night vision camera.

“High tech,” said Max. “Aren’t you worried about Jobs and Gates stealing your souls?”

“We’re just stirring up the weather.” Henry smiled and winked. "If you know what I mean."

Max had no idea, but it didn't sound good.

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Chapter 24. In the Garden

Max squatted among the rows of tomato plants, turning over leaves one by one in search of hornworms. When he plucked them off the plants, they would squirm and twist in a sort of slow motion panic, as peristaltic ripples flowed from one end of their bodies to the other. The largest of the hornworms were about the length and thickness of his pinky. There were plenty of the pests to find munching on the pesticide-free plants in the Freedom Club gardens. After only an hour of searching, he had already collected enough to cover the bottom of the rusty coffee canister resting on the dirt by his knee. They weren’t really worms at all, but a fleshy type of caterpillar with rich, emerald green skin and a menacing though apparently harmless horn at the tail.

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Listen to the Chapter 24 podcast with roboreader Sangeeta.

---

As a rule, Linda had told him, everyone staying at the Freedom Club compound was assigned chores. Although in Max’s case it wasn’t required, considering the circumstances of his arrival. He did essentially nothing for his first three days in the compound except breathe deeply of the manure scented air, eat mounds of organic food, and wander about observing the rest of the residents hard at work planting, harvesting, and tending to animals.

It wasn’t long before boredom and a twinge of guilt at his privileged leisure inspired him to volunteer for work. Lacking any other identifiable skills, he’d been assigned to the vegetable gardens. He’d never had much luck at gardening in the past, but given the choice between working with plants or the commune’s collection of pigs, sheep, and goats, picking vegetables and clearing hornworms off of tomato vines seemed the best option for a soft, son of the suburbs.

When Joel first led him out to the garden, Max cringed at the thought of picking hornworms by hand, and gagged when Joel picked a juicy one from a leaf, pinched off its head and tossed the squirming remains into his mouth.

“Best way to make sure they won’t be comin’ back,” Joel said. He grinned to reveal bits of emerald hornworm skin on his yellowing teeth. “Or you can do it the sissy way and put ‘em in a bucket.”

Max had opted for the bucket.

When he reached the end of the row of tomato plants, Max tucked the captive hornworms into the shade under the vines and stood, pressing one hand against his lower back to ease the crick that had resulted from squatting in the garden. He was, at best, a quarter of the way through. Considering the density of hornworms and lack of viable tomatoes, there seemed little chance that the plot would ever be very productive, unless the goal was to harvest the hornworms rather than the fruit.

He arched his lower back until the muscles spasmed in protest, and listened for the telltale clatter of cooking pots and utensils that would have indicated that the communal lunch was near. For the moment, he could make out only an occasional hammer blow, along with the mews and brays of farm animals and the syncopated cough of the archaic engine that ran the camp’s generator. Although there was a promising sign in the wisp of gray smoke that snaked from the stovepipe poking out of the long, low tent that served as a dining hall.

The Freedom Club compound was tucked in the Amish hills of Pennsylvania. Buggies, scythes, and horse-drawn ploughs littered the outdoor spaces. Of the several dozen people in the camp, most dressed like Max in denim overalls, t-shirts, and work boots. Every article of clothing as far as Max could tell had a ragged patch sewn in where the label had been torn out. A few residents, like Joel, preferred linen wrappings that may have been intended to evoke scholarly dignity, but achieved something closer to a frat boy toga party look. Universally, hygiene was a lower priority at the camp than Max was used to, even in comparison to the grad students back at the university. No one looked particularly dirty, other than Joel of course, but regular bathing, antiperspirants and deodorizing soaps were clearly uncommon at the Freedom Club. After a few experiences with the poorly heated shower water, Max was inclined to let himself get a bit ripe before washing up as well.

The Freedom Clubbers were about as friendly as they were fragrant. Which is to say, just a little friendlier than Max cared for; offering a hug rather than a handshake, for instance, or a pat on the back instead of simply saying goodnight after supper.

Idle conversation, however, was generally limited to speculation about the weather and observations on the size and quality of the vegetables and plants. None of them expressed much interest in revealing anything of themselves or learning about Max. It seemed that they knew all they needed to know. Just what that was they didn’t say, but with the exception of Joel, they treated him with a kind of familial affection and respect, as if he were a revered but mildly demented uncle.

Inevitably, they sprinkled their lightweight chatter with cryptic invocations.

“It’s a beautiful morning,” a woman had said as she was gathering onions in a garden behind Linda’s cabin, “Thank Ted.”

“May Ted protect you,” responded a ruddy man pushing a wheelbarrow full of wet cement when Max had apologized for stepping in his path.

“Ted only knows,” was a common response to many of Max’s queries, from the state of an ailing dog’s health, to the prospect of rain, and even the time of day.

When Max experimented with the phrase “Ted be with you” in lieu of a simple hello, no one seemed startled at the sentiment. “Ted-sundheit,” in response to a sneeze, he had discovered, crossed the line of propriety.

The joke solved one mystery. When Max made the irreverent remark at dinner the night before, the woman who had sneezed hopped up from her seat and wove her way through the picnic-style benches to the picture of the chained prisoner, which was mounted on a post to offer a clear view of it to everyone under the tent. She kissed her fingertips and pressed them against the captive’s cheek, then returned to gather her plate and utensils and move to a seat facing away from Max, only stopping long enough to glare at him and say, “May Ted forgive you.”

He hadn’t been very surprised at the connection. The photograph hung throughout the camp. Every room had at least one copy in place. There were other pictures as well, mostly of revolutionaries and libertarians who Max would not usually have recognized, except that many had the names of their subjects inscribed across the bottoms of the images. Thomas Paine, Jean-Paul Marat, Molly Pitcher loading a cannon, and Che were among the ones he had identified. But only the mysterious Ted-in-chains appeared everywhere.

Perhaps he was only being paranoid, but the slightly-too-friendly Freedom Clubbers seemed to have cooled a bit toward him after the dinner incident. Their hugs were less sincere, though just as frequent, and the pats on the back were slightly more spirited and a bit painful. When they’d rearranged the seats for the after-dinner lecture, which focused on fifteen fun ways to use Willow bark, the seats on either side of Max had remained empty.

As he stood in the garden working the tight spots out of his lower back, he was glad that collecting hornworms was a solitary task. It gave him fewer opportunities to offend anyone. Still, he was careful, as he tapped the can of hornworms with his foot, to double check that nobody was close enough to hear him say to the entangled wad of caterpillars, “May Ted have mercy on your slimy souls.”

The tomato plot was set part way up the side of the valley, at the edge of an area cleared of trees and brush. The vantage point gave him a clear view of the haphazard smattering of cabins and the dusty paths cut into the turf that radiated out to each of them from the ogre-head house. A similar spider web of paths linked each of the cabins to the dining tent at the opposite end of the camp. The indelible marks left behind from the foot traffic suggested that the dining tent and the big house were in nearly equal competition for the campers’ attention. The popularity of the first was clear enough, based on Maslow’s pyramid of needs -- after all, everyone has to eat. Max was not yet privy to the reason for the attraction of the second.

He was on the verge of returning to the hunt for hornworms, when a team of horses emerged from the woods beyond the dining tent, pulling a wagon piled high with bundles, packages, and bushel baskets.

The driver stood on the bench at the wagon’s front. It seemed to Max a reckless way to drive a horse team, except that the man so easily maintained his balance atop the swaying cart. The driver’s face was hidden beneath the broad brim of a straw hat. He wore a pale blue shirt buttoned up the front with the sleeves rolled neatly to the elbows, black pants with suspenders that seemed more decorative than functional, and shiny black boots.

The driver guided the cart across the spider web crisscross of paths to the center of the Freedom Club clearing, pulled on a handle that ratcheted into place, and leapt gracefully to the ground by way of a step that protruded from the cart next to the front wheel. He strode across the grass, ignoring the worn pathways, to vigorously ring a brass bell that hung from an A-frame of heavy wooden posts. He turned to head back to his rig, and Freedom Club residents began emerging from the cabins to gather around the wagon.

Max jumped at the sound of a violent struggle that erupted in the woods beside the tomato plot. Joel careened out of the underbrush, his grimy linen toga entangled in raspberry briars, and stumbled into the garden.

“Come on man,” he said, “the ice cream truck is here.”

He snatched up the coffee can and gave it a shake.

“Nice haul,” he said with a wink. “I’ll take care of these slimy souls.”

Joel lunged down the hill, clutching the can in one arm while urging Max to follow with the other.

After a moment’s reflection, Max started down the hill as well. He’d assumed they were keeping an eye on him. But he was shocked that Joel of all people could have managed to be so stealthy as to hide in the woods only a few meters from the tomato patch.

The crowd clustered around the back of the wagon. A man and a woman who had climbed on board handed down baskets and bundles into outstretched arms. At least one basket appeared to contain ripe red tomatoes, which put the anemic green ones in the Freedom Club garden to shame.

Meanwhile, Linda negotiated with the driver, who Max could now see sported a tidy beard but no mustache. She counted out cash, and then bent to open a small suitcase that stood by her side. She flicked it’s latches and lifted the lid, revealing a pile of cell phones and other gadgetry. The man in the straw hat picked out a half dozen phones, some miniature video players, and a couple of memory sticks.

Linda laid the selection on a cloth and rolled it up into a tight bundle, which the man tucked under his arm.

The wagon was emptied in a few minutes. The crowd dispersed and the driver hopped back to his perch, pausing for only a moment to lift the seat and stash the rolled package in a compartment underneath.

“Electronics buff?” Max asked Linda as she approached, the suitcase in her hand.

“Sort of,” she said with a shrug. “Jacob’s really a kind of smuggler.”

“No kidding.”

“The Amish elders don’t look kindly on modern evils, but there’s a demand anyway.”

“Really,” said Max. “I thought you were trying to break free of that stuff too.”

Linda nodded. “We are. This is just business.”

“I see. And the tomatoes. They looked tasty. What’s the point of a tomato garden if you have them shipped in?”

“We haven’t had much luck with the garden, but Joel said you wanted to work on it. See you at lunch.”

She hefted the suitcase and chose a path that took her to the ogre-head house.

Max gazed up at the blighted patch on the hill where the spindly tomato vines nourished the hoards of hornworms.

“Ted dammit,” he said.
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Chapter 23. Welcome to the Freedom Club

The old van struggled along the hilly roads, coughing and sputtering as it labored up toward each crest and revving frantically in a motorized scream as it careened down from the heights. To Max, it felt less like a trip in a panel van than a ride in a creaky trawler that was climbing the petrified waves of an ancient storm, frozen in time and encrusted with ribbons of asphault.

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Listen to the Chapter 23 podcast with roboreader Sangeeta.

---

Max had only a vague notion of where they were headed. But the angle of the shadows on the road ahead indicated that they were traveling north. Considering they had been en route for several hours, that placed them somewhere in the middle of Pennsylvania. The rocky, tree-covered hillsides seemed to confirm his guess.

The asthmatic engine relaxed a bit as their travels took them to slower secondary routes, and soon was drowned out by the rattling spray of gravel against the wheel wells and jarring rhythms of washboard dirt roads. At last, Joel stabbed the break pedal and killed the engine. The van ground to a halt.

Linda slid open the side door and Max followed her out. He stretched his aching legs and scanned a hodgepodge of cabins nestled into groves at the edges of a tiny valley that was ringed with tree-lined hilltops. The largest building in sight was a clapboard house at the far end of an oval-shaped expanse of severely mowed grass. It was two stories tall and painted in pristine white with black tar roofing and a screened veranda that extended the full length of the first floor. The building was brightly illuminated by the sun, which was on the verge of sinking behind the hills. A pair of gables poked up through the rooftop. In combination with the veranda and jet black door at the very center of the structure, the gables created the impression of a squinting, angular head, as if some wooden giant was buried up to his chin. Max couldn’t decide if the behemoth was rising out of the ground or being sucked down in. Either way, the expression seemed an indication of his irritation at the glaring sunshine blinding him as he strained against the earth.

The brilliant white farmhouse was in such glaring contrast to the rest of the shadowy valley that it took a few moments for Max to make out the figures on the veranda and strolling about near the other buildings. There were perhaps a few dozen people. It was impossible to guess their genders, partly because of the distance and partly because they all seemed to be dressed as Max was, in denim overalls and white t-shirts.

Joel leapt from the driver’s seat and waved his hand in an attempt at a grand flourish. “Welcome to the Freedom Club, our Shambhala of the Poconos.” He dropped to his hands and knees to kiss the dirt.

“Shit,” he said, wiping grit off of his lips. “It don’t taste like paradise.”

He sprang back to his feet, but stepped on the hem of his robe in the process, which prevented him from standing fully erect.

“Unless,” said Joel, contorting his bent body so that he could grin at Max, “paradise is supposed to taste like crap.” He tugged at his robe with both hands, tearing the hem. “It sure smells like crap. In case you hadn’t noticed.”

Max had noticed indeed. It was an amplified version of the fragrance - if so delicate a word can be applied to such an odor - that Joel had been emitting the first time they met at the café back home. Out here, Max guessed, the smell was probably due to nearby stables and animal pens of some kind. Joel may have picked up his stench from tending livestock, but it seemed just as likely that he was capable of generating it all on his own.

Linda reached for Max’s arm. “Come on.”

“Are we going to give him the grand tour?” asked Joel as he struggled to disentangle his foot from his robe.

“It’ll be too dark soon," said Linda with a shake of her head. "We can show him around tomorrow.”

“The dark,” said Joel, “ is when this place is in it’s best light. ‘Course, you’re the boss.” He winked, nodded, and hitched the rope around his waist a little tighter.

“Hold on Joel.”

“What?”

She extended her hand, with her palm open.

“Oh,” said Joel, reaching into his robe and searching around near his crotch. “You want these?” He pulled out two blister packs of pills and laid them in her hand. They were Max’s Phenobarbital tablets.

Linda turned to Max.“Is this all?”

“I had three packages.”

Joel hung his head and reached into his robe again. “Really? Three? Are you sure it wasn’t just two?”

“Three.”

“Right.” Joel produced another pack and handed it to Linda.

She pulled at Max's arm, leading him onto the grassy oval as Joel knitted his hands behind his back, looked skyward and meandered away, whistling tunelessly.

She handed the pill packs to Max. One pack, he noticed, had been ripped in half along its perforated strip. “He kept eight tablets.”

“I thought he might snag some. Is that going to be a problem?”

“Eventually.”

“Well,” said Linda. “We can take care of it later.”

Max tried to recall when Joel would have had a chance to get his hands on the pills. He couldn’t think of an opportunity. Then again, most of the day had been a blur. At least he wouldn’t have to worry about refilling his supply for a few weeks.

They started off across the grass. The work boots were heavy on Max’s feet and the stiff denim of his overalls seemed to resist his every step. They had only gone a few dozen yards when he had to stop to catch his breath. Linda waited in silence until he was ready to resume the walk. The sun had sunk just past the hills, and the sky was a bright orange to the west while darkness was rapidly encroaching from the other side of the valley. The giant-head house no longer gleamed. It seemed to Max that the building grew noticeably grayer in the few moments that they paused, although the angry eyes of the gabled windows still reflected the flame of the sunset in burning orange slits of light.

He couldn’t bear the thought of trudging any further in the leaden boots. He dropped to his haunches and untied the laces. He stood and lifted his feet out of the boots, tied the laces together and hung the boots over his shoulder. The short, stiff blades of grass crackled with each step and tingled the souls of his feet. It was mildly stimulating and gave him the energy to continue.

After the rattling ride in the van, the valley had initially seemed dead silent. Now that his ears were adjusted, Max was inundated with a multitude of hums, chirps, and croaks of invisible insects and distant amphibians. A dip in the landscape to their left indicated the likely presence of a stream that was apparently the source of the thrumming that he recognized as the calls of bullfrogs. Countless lighting bugs flashed in the dimmer sections of the trees, and occasionally the shadowy outlines of small birds or bats flitted overhead in acrobatic pursuit of an invisible meal.

Max struggled to keep up with Linda despite her leisurely pace. She led him to one of the small cabins. It was of the same style as the farmhouse, painted white with tar shingle roofing and its own tiny porch that emulated the farmhouse’s veranda. It even had tiny, obviously decorative gables peeking up from the roof and a door painted in glossy black. He followed her up the short flight of steps to the porch and through the door that Linda swung silently inward. She pulled a string attached to a lamp mounted at the center of a slowly spinning ceiling fan. It illuminated a single room that appeared to encompass essentially the entire floor plan. There was just enough space for a small bed, a couch that was barely more than a love seat, a dresser and a writing desk. A narrow door near the back stood open, where Max could see a sink, a toilet and a white vinyl shower curtain. The only decoration in the room consisted of two photographs in simple black frames; one was of Che Guevara, and the other of a bearded man in an orange jump suit and manacles who bore a passing resemblance to Joel.

“This is my place,” said Linda. “We’ll find one for you in the morning. For now, you can have the bed and I’ll take the couch.”

Max dropped his boots on the floor, shuffled to the bed and collapsed on his back without bothering to turn down the sheets.

He heard water running in the bathroom. After a few moments, cool fingertips brushed his forehead.

“How many?”

He opened his eyes to see Linda standing over him with his pill packets and a glass of water.

He held up two fingers

She popped the pills from the pack. Max heaved himself up onto his elbows and opened his mouth. Linda placed the pills on his tongue, and then held the glass to his lips. The water was tepid and tasted of metal. When he finished drinking, she took the rest of the pills and the glass to the bathroom.

He dropped back onto the bed and turned his head to study the manacled prisoner in the photo. The man didn’t seem distressed at his chains. His head was up, with his brow slightly wrinkled and his lips parted as if he where on the verge of speaking. Max suddenly had the impression that the prisoner wanted to ask him a question, although he had no idea who the man could be.

As his eyelids grew heavy, Max half dreamed and half hallucinated that the prisoner said, “These are just chains. They’re nothing. How about yours? Do you have an escape plan?”

Max thought he might.

He slept at last as visions of flashmobs, search engine cabs, chess-playing penguins, couch creatures, laundry monsters, and an eviscerated virtual Betty flitted through his dreams like bats on the wing.
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Chapter 22. Roadtrip

Max fingered the buckle on one strap of the stiff denim overalls as he shuffled to the restroom at the highway convenience plaza, where Joel had parked the van so that Max could pee. The plaza was a bustling collection of hydrogen recharge points, a few gas pumps for older combustion-engine cars and farm vehicles, fast food joints, and convenience shop counters where travelers in a rush could pick up gum, coffee, newspapers or condoms.

Joel hadn’t wanted to stop, but when the girl, whose name Max had learned was Linda, threatened to let Max have another swing at him, Joel had given in and pulled off the road.

---

Listen to the Chapter 22 podcast with roboreader Sangeeta.

---

Max passed up the rows of urinals that lined the ceramic-tiled walls, and chose one of the larger stalls designed to accommodate the handicapped. He was going to need extra room to maneuver the overalls. They were dark blue and stiff, with creases at the calf, thigh, waist and chest from where they had been folded when Linda pulled them out from under a pile of blankets in the van. She had also given him a stretchy, white cotton shirt with long sleeves, and a pair of workman’s boots that were a few sizes too large. All the garments were brand new, as though they had just come off the shelves of a department store, except that the places where the tags would have been, - at the back of the shirt collar, the bib of the overalls, and the uppers on the boots, - had ragged tears where the manufacturer information had been cut out.

Just in case anyone cared to glance at his feet under the wall that surrounded the stall, Max undid the second strap and pushed the overalls to his knees to pretend to urinate. He didn’t really have to go. He just needed a few minutes away from his two companions.

Joel had driven north toward Pennsylvania after they had whisked Max away from the mob, muttering and ranting the whole way. The lunatic act, it seemed, hadn’t been an act altogether. Linda was constantly on guard; ready to snap at Joel to keep him focused on the road. To make matters worse, the van’s heads-up display was out and the avoidance collision system was apparently malfunctioning, allowing Joel to take the van screaming up on other cars from behind, which would force him to pump the brake and holler obscenities at innocent drivers. Then he would pass, swerving across oncoming lanes to the left, or onto the shoulder to the right. Fortunately, the collision avoidance systems in all the other vehicles they encountered were working well enough to deal with even Joel’s erratic driving.

For the first half hour or so, Max had sat silently, wrapped in a blanket and wedged against the wall of the van as it rocked and jerked along the road. Linda watched him patiently, when she wasn’t chastising Joel, and occasionally raised her eyebrows or cocked her head in gestures that invited Max to speak up and ask the obvious questions.

The shock of the assault in the parking lot kept him quiet. When he finally spoke, he only mentioned the need to relieve himself. While Linda dug out the clothes and boots for him, Max decided to simply walk away once the van stopped. But as he stood in the urinal with his pants around his knees, he didn’t feel that he had the strength to take off by himself, in the middle of nowhere with no car, no plan, and no drugs.

He hitched up the overalls and opened the stall door. It closed automatically behind him. Water rushed in the self-flushing toilet, and the disinfectant spray hissed briefly before the stall door reopened to await the next patron. He passed his hands under the faucet to keep up appearances in front of another man who was entering the bathroom as Max was finishing up. He tried unsuccessfully to avoid looking at his reflection in the bathroom mirror. He had aged a lot in the past few weeks. His eyes were bloodshot, and the bags underneath were deep and dark. There were creases around his mouth and across his brow that he couldn’t remember having seen before, and his hair was getting long and jagged around the edges where it was starting to grow down over the tops of his ears. The white shirt and overalls made him look more like a day laborer than a lab technician, except that he was too pale for a person who worked in the sun.

As he walked out of the restroom he found Linda and Joel sitting at a picnic table in the grassy stretch between the fuel station and the convenience store. He stuffed his hands into the deep, crisp pockets and wandered over to join them.

“Everything work out okay?” Linda asked.

“Yes,” said Max, “thanks.”

As Max approached, Joel stood and gathered the hem of his linen robe, revealing skinny hairless calves and filthy, sandaled feet.

“Alright then,” he said, “let’s go.”

“Hold on,” said Max, taking a seat at the picnic table bench. “First I want to know where we’re going. Where,” he corrected himself, “you’re taking me.”

“You wanna go dark, don’t you?” said Joel.

“Shut up and sit down,” said Linda to the lunatic. She turned to Max, “You were in danger, we’re trying to help you get away.”

“In danger? From who?” said Max. “Away from what?”

“From everything,” said Joel. “From everyone. That’s how you go dark, newbie.”

“Shut your trap.” Linda smacked Joel across the shoulder. “Look, Max, you closed yourself off in your apartment. . . .”

Max interrupted. “How do you know my name anyway?”

“I’ll get to that. You shut yourself off, dropped out, right in the middle of the town. We know a little about what you’ve been through, what you’re trying to get away from. But if you are going to do it for real, you’ll need our help.”

“Who are you, exactly?”

“That’ll take some explaining.”

Max shook his head. “I don’t care. I just want to go home.”

“No you don’t newbie,” muttered the lunatic.

“Joel,” said Linda, “shush. We’ll take you home, if you like. But you’re not safe there.”

“I’m safer riding around in a broken down van with you two?”

“Believe it or not,” said Linda, glancing quickly at Joel. “Yes.”

She had a look of sincerity and concern in her big, brown eyes that Max thought might have been intensified by her lenses. He wondered what she might look like without the glasses. Her brown hair, which almost exactly matched the color of her eyes, was straight and hung down just to the line of her jaw. Her skin was smooth and lightly tanned, and her lips were pouty and full with no sign of lipstick. Max guessed that she was in her late twenties at the oldest. She reminded him of the activist hippy vegetarians he had met occasionally when he was in school. If it had only been her, Max figured he would probably give in. But there was also Joel.

The lunatic even had trouble sitting still at the table. Every few moments he would open his mouth on the verge of speaking, and then shake his head as though some voice only he could hear advised him not to.

He traced the graffiti carved into the picnic table with his filthy thumbnail, and occasionally blinked at some small revelation he seemed to discover there. Twitchy Joel was more than Max could stand.

“I want to go home,” he said.

Linda pursed her lips and nodded soberly.

“Well now it’s my turn to pee,” she said. “Joel, start the van. I’ll be right back.” She stood and headed toward the restroom.

Joel hopped up and grumbled something under his breath, then tripped spastically toward the parking lot.

Max watched as Joel climbed into the van, which soon produced a puff of blue smoke and roared to life. I can’t believe that guy is driving, he thought to himself. He lifted himself off the bench. Rather than spending time alone with Joel in the van, he made his way to the convenience store to buy a soda, with the hope that it might help calm his stomach on the rough ride home. The clerk, a pudgy, pimply teen, sneered at Max as he perused the bottles in the refrigerated case. He chose a drink and avoided the clerk by heading to the self-service checkout at the front. He pressed his thumb on the biometric screen of the checkout counter. A computerized woman’s voice thanked him for the purchase and noted the debit to his account. Max declined a paper receipt and slipped the soda into a pocket of his overalls.

He wandered slowly to the van, hoping Linda was already inside. When he slid open the side door and found that she wasn’t, he leaned against the fender and waited. He could feel the van bounce slightly on occasion, no doubt due to Joel’s restless twitching.

When Linda finally appeared at the restroom doors, her hair was pulled up away from her cheeks, which were shiny and slightly pink. Max thought she must have washed her face and dried it a bit too roughly.

She smiled at him and winked before she climbed into the van. He almost bumped into her as he climbed in behind. The near touch gave him a minor, disquieting thrill. For a moment, he reconsidered going home, if for no other reason than to spend more time with her. He shook his head and took his place amid the blankets. He wasn’t her type anyway; too old, too nerdy, too tired. Although there was just the smallest hint in her gentle smile as she nestled in behind Joel’s seat that maybe he was her type after all.

Max could feel the blood rise into his cheeks at the thought. He was probably just misinterpreting her desire to help him, if she really was out to help. He reached over and slid the door shut. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the comparative darkness in the van. He hoped Linda couldn’t see him blushing in the dim interior.

She thumped the back of Joel’s seat and told him to turn back. Although Max couldn’t see where they were going, he felt the pressure of the blankets against his back as the van carved around what must have been a cloverleaf, taking them back to the highway heading south. He had a sudden urge to engage Linda in idle conversation. It wouldn’t be long before they got him home, and he wanted to make the most of his time with her, with anyone really.

“What?” asked Linda, when Max made a feeble attempt to speak.

“Nothing.” He cringed and wondered if he was starting to look a bit like spastic Joel.

“Are you thirsty?” he asked.

“No,” she said, resting her head against the back of the passenger seat.

“Okay,” he said, nodding and trying to smile. It felt more like a grimace. He fumbled for the drink in his pocket. The stiff denim made maneuvering difficult. He had to struggle to insert his hand. In the cramped space, he couldn’t straighten his leg enough to extract the bottle. Linda’s brow wrinkled quizzically as Max tugged. He had the sudden embarrassing revelation that it might look like he was groping himself.

“Sorry, it’s stuck.”

“Stuck? What’s stuck.”

“Hold on,” he kicked his leg out, and leaned back.

“Can I help you with something?”

“No, no. Just a second.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. I mean, no.”

After a heave, he managed to free the bottle and held it up to show that there was nothing unseemly about his efforts.

“Just a drink.”

He had hoped that the sight of the bottle would relieve her, proving that the awkward acrobatics were innocent. It had the opposite effect. She leaned forward, her brow knitted in alarm.

“Where did you get that?”

“At the convenience store.”

“I hope you stole it.”

Max was aghast. “No. I paid for it.”

“How?”

“With the checkout ATM.”

Linda rocked forward onto her knees. “A biometric ATM?”

“Yes.”

“Thumb print?”

“Yes.”

“Give it to me.” Linda thrust out her arm. “Now!”

Max blinked and handed her the bottle. She grabbed the handle of the side door and threw it open. The rush of the wind was deafening at highway speeds, and the light of day blinding.

“What are you doing?” shouted Max over the noise.

She leaned precariously out of the opening and scanned the highway. “Slow down Joel!”

She appeared as though she might tumble out at any moment, and Max clutched at her ankle. As Joel slowed, a stream of traffic passed by. She peered at each vehicle in turn, until one that Max couldn’t see caught her eye. She leaned out still further, and tossed the bottle. It arced through the air and landed in the bed of a passing pickup truck. She hauled herself back into the van and pulled at the door. It was heavy and, with the wind rushing by, she couldn’t budge it. Max put his hand on top of hers and pushed. The door slid shut with a thud.

She scrambled to the front passenger seat.

“What the hell was that about?” asked Max, following her forward and wedging himself between the high-backed seats.

She ignored him, glaring at the pickup truck that was steadily pulling away from them.

Max persisted, “Tell me what’s going on.”

She let out a loud breath. “The UPC symbol.”

“What?”

“The bottle had a UPC symbol on it - a radio ID tracking label.”

“So what? Everything does.”

“Unless you take them off.”

Max didn't follow her drift. “So?”

“You’ve given yourself away,” she snapped at him

“What are you talking about?”

She nodded at the distant pickup truck. “You bought that with a thumb print access to your bank account. The system knows it was you, where you were, and what you bought.”

“So what?”

“If the system knows, then they know. So, now all they have to do is find the bottle.”

“They? Who are they?”

A speeding black sedan flew past the van on the right, tossing up a cloud of dust as its tires hung off onto the shoulder.

“Them.”

Max watched over Linda’s shoulder as the sedan closed on the truck. It swerved into the left lane, then back to the right, catching the tail end of the pickup, and sending it into a screeching slide. The truck careened left, overcorrected, and swerved back. It caught a guard rail, flipped into the air, and tumbled into a ditch, throwing up a cloud of debris and gravel.

The intervening traffic slowed and Joel slammed the brakes.

“Holy shit dude,” said Joel.

By the time they approached the accident, two men in brown pants and short-sleeved pastel Oxford shirts were standing at the guardrail, with their hands on their hips, studying the mangled pickup. The van inched by with the other cars that crawled past the scene. Max was stunned to see how threatening a pair of men in Hush Puppy footwear could be.

“Do you still want to go home?” Linda whispered.

Max swallowed hard. “Not just yet, I suppose.”

“Turn it around," she said to Joel. "Take the back roads”

At the next exit, the madman flicked on the turn signal and headed off the highway onto a rolling, vacant country road.
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Chapter 21. Flashmob

The lunch crowd was just starting to trickle into the cafe as Max waited for his muffin. He had hoped to avoid the rush, but it was beginning earlier than he'd expected. It was just past eleven and the tables on the sidewalk were rapidly filling. The crowd was young, primarily college age kids and a few professionals, and even some kids who looked as though they should be in high school.

---

Listen to the Chapter 21 podcast with roboreader Sangeeta.

---

Max lowered his head and studied the wadded bills on the table to keep from catching anyone's eye, in the unlikely event that any of the arriving patrons knew him from campus. He picked the bills apart slowly and spread them flat on the checkered tablecloth. It had been so long since he had used paper money that Max almost didn't recognize the currency. All four were ten-dollar bills. They were old, worn, and crinkled. Someone had written on the least crumpled bill. The handwriting was jagged and juvenile, and he was having a hard time making out what it said.

He could feel the numbers of the patrons swelling around him. He recognized the sound of one-sided conversations that meant many of them were chattering on cell phones. He glanced up briefly to see that others were gathered in small groups. There was an excited buzz in the air. Max had the impression that there was more to the activity than hungry people in search of lunch. As he turned back to the writing on the bill, a skinny kid engaged in an animated phone conversation bumped roughly against Max's table. He mouthed an apology and continued into the throng surrounding the cafe.

Every seat was taken at the outdoor tables, and more people were on the way, strolling down along the sidewalk or dropped off at the curb by cars on auto pilot. The flow of customers had turned from a trickle to a flood, and was still building. This was definitely not a normal lunch crowd. Max dropped the wad of bills the lunatic had given him on the table and began rapping his fingers lightly on his thigh. The crush of bodies was making it hard to breathe. Max tried not to think about it, but he was continuously being jostled as more and more people arrived. He placed his hands open on the table and pushed down as if, at any moment, it might fly away and carry him with it.

He stared at the bill in front of him, and struggled to stay calm until his muffin arrived. Someone, probably the lunatic, had written a across the president’s face. , "U r 6e1ng w4+ch3d." It was clearly a novice attempt at shorthand for "You are being watched."

It was just the sort of thing he would have expected to find on money carried by a guy who wore a metal hat. On the other hand, thought Max, it was possible that the note was meant for him.

"Nonsense," he said to himself, while glancing up at the wall of bodies that surrounded his table and slopped over into the parking lot. It seemed the lunatic’s paranoia was contagious. Surely the note wasn't for him. On the other hand, the man had insisted that he count the money, perhaps to get him to notice the message. Still, why should he worry about paranoid missives from a deranged fruitcake?

He covered the bill with his hand to hide it from anyone looking over his shoulder. After a few calming breaths, he lifted his palm enough to peek at the message again. A shudder ran through him when he found that the writing had changed. It read "\/\/3'r3 h3r3 2 h31p.”

Max snatched up the bill. It looked like plain old-fashioned money, as far as he could tell. But paper money didn't have shape-shifting messages on it. He was still trying to make out the new message when it shifted again. The writing, still in that childish hand now read "d0n+ f34r +h3 fl45hm06."

Max blinked and slowly translated the script. "Don't fear the flash mob."

He frantically scanned the wall of bodies that surrounded his table. Flash mob? What the hell is that? Somewhere in the noise of the crowd, amid the laughter and shouts, he imagined the waiter trying to make his way back with a muffin and coffee in a paper cup.

Forget the damn muffin, he thought.

The crowd's seething was pushing him ever harder against the edge of the table. It was getting dangerous to sit. He squeezed out of his chair and stood. Instantly, there were warm bodies on all sides of him. Only the expanse of the small table beside him remained clear.

A thumping noise was gradually rising in somewhere in the depths of the cafe. The rhythm grew more complex, syncopated. All around him, people began swaying and bouncing in time with the beat. Music erupted, and the mass of humanity gyrated to a frantic tune constructed of whistles, hoots, and squealing guitars.

Although he had no intention of joining in the dance, Max could not fight the collective motions of the masses that enveloped him. Hips, thighs, chests grinded against him, and he had no choice but to grind back. Other than those immediately in front of him, he couldn't even determine which of the bodies bumping against him were male and which were female. Briefly, a pretty young woman, with deep green eyes, dark hair, and glasses was pressed against him, almost nose to nose. She smiled and mouthed something that he couldn’t make out over the music and the noise of the crowd. The woman seemed on the verge of kissing him when the flow of bodies swept her away. She was replaced by a slender, androgynous person whose back was toward Max. He tilted his head back and concentrated on the awning above in an attempt to put the grinding of the androgynous buttocks against his groin out of his mind. While he was mildly disturbed by the intimate contact, it had at least erased the rising claustrophobia he had been suffering from a few moments before. It occurred to him that his own buttocks were similarly grinding against the anonymous stranger behind him. Max decided it was best not to think about it and instead just ride out the madness with the dancing mob.

The base line pounded, a lead singer wailed. Occasionally, the mob shouted unintelligibly in response to some equally unintelligible line from the song. The music was punctuated from time to time with a blast from an air horn. In the distance, a police siren screamed. Coordination in the crowd began to crumble as the siren’s volume rose. The mob seethed, and pitched to Max's left. If he hadn't been so firmly entrenched, he would have toppled over, but here there was no room to fall. The mob surged again, inching toward the parking lot. It, and Max, gathered speed. Soon they were walking as the mob shouted and hooted. Then they were jogging, and finally running. There were multiple police sirens now. The wails threatened to drown out the music as Max and the mob exploded into the parking lot.

They were racing through the rows of cars in the lot when Max was abruptly slammed against the side of a parked pickup truck. He felt a tug on his shirt collar. There was a rough jerk and the shirt was ripped from his back. He spun to spot the culprit, but couldn’t pick anyone out in the fleeing mob. Two athletic young men with silvery sun glasses leapt out of the masses and lunged toward him. One rammed him against the truck. The other reached for the waste band of Max’s sweats and pulled. Time stood still briefly as Max stared wide-eyed at his distorted image in the mirrored glasses of the man pinning him against the truck. Max saw a flash of metal. The other man had a knife.

“Please don’t,” Max begged.

The man pressing Max against the truck grinned broadly, revealing gleaming white teeth. Max twisted his face away to look at the other man and saw the knife swing down toward his belly. The tension in his waste band increased, and suddenly was gone. A ripping sound followed as Max’s sweats and underwear were torn from his body. The two men turned and dived into the crowd, with the ragged sweat pants fluttering behind them. With the exception of his shoes, Max was naked.

He dropped onto his heels to cover himself. Someone running with the mob collided with Max’s shoulder and sent him sprawling onto his back on the rough asphault. He rolled under the truck and peered out at the countless thundering feet. A wailing police siren deafened him, and he saw the tires of the passing police car roll slowly by, briefly stemming the flow of the mob. Then it was gone.

Max cowered under the truck. “Come back,” he pleaded to the police car. “Come back.”

A pair of bright red tennis shoes appeared beside the truck, inches from his face. The person in the tennis shoes dropped to their knees. There was a hand on the ground. Then there was a face. It was the dark-haired girl from the mob at the café.

“Max,” she said. “Come on. Let’s go.”

“What?” he tried to ask, “Where?” But the best he could do was a guttural croak.

“Come on!”

She reached under the truck and her fingers brushed Max’s arm. He flinched at the touch, and squirmed farther under the chassis.

“We’re here to help,” said the girl.

He twisted away to the other side of the truck, scraping his back against the rough ground and raking his belly on the dangling truck hardware. Pebbles dug into his knees as he struggled to his feet. The girl had made her way around the truck and approached him with arms outstretched and palms held upward.

“It’s going to be OK,” she said gently. “I promise.”

Max turned to run, but a battered white panel van pulled up and blocked his way. He was trapped between the girl and the van. The van’s sliding door shot open revealing piles of blankets and rusted walls with peeling white paint.

“It’s going to be OK,” the girl repeated. “Just get in and we’ll help you.”

Max looked back at the open van. Its interior, though dingey, offered a darkened haven from the madness of the flash mob that still rampaged all around him. It was a place to hide his nakedness.

The girl stepped closer. Her eyes pleaded with him. He nodded and turned to head for the open van.

“Wait,” called the girl. He felt her hand on his shoulder. “You can’t go like that.”

Max stopped and looked down at his naked belly with his genitals peeking out below. He covered his groin with his hands and turned back to the girl.

“Take off your shoes,” she said.

He shook his head in bewilderment. “What is wrong with you people?” he shouted at her.

“Just do it. I’ll explain later.”

“Dammit,” he snarled, kicking off his shoes and diving into the van. He clutched at one of the old blankets and wrapped it around himself. The van rocked slightly as the girl followed him and slid the door closed behind her.

The driver leaned over in his seat and asked, “All set?”

It was the lunatic with the aluminum foil hat.

Max stared blankly at the girl, and then rolled toward the front of the van, balled up his fist, and slugged the madman in the mouth. The lunatic’s head snapped back. He covered his mouth with his hand and stared at Max with wide-eyed shock. A trickle of blood oozed between his fingers.

“Man,” he said behind his hand, “that hurt.”

The girl crawled over a pile of blankets and inserted herself between Max and the lunatic. “Drive Joel.”

The lunatic straightened up in his seat, wrenched the steering wheel with his free hand, and punched the gas. “I told you,” he said through his fingers covering his mouth, “I want to be called ‘Chalk Warrior’ from now on.”

The girl reached back and smacked the lunatic’s shoulder. “Joel, Just drive.” She winked at Max, who pulled the coarse blanket tight. The engine revved and the van weaved though the lot, and the chaos of the mob slowly died away.
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