The house where Marty Fisk lived was located on a leafy suburban street in Millwood, just a short drive east of downtown Spokane. Duggan had rented a car and a room in a hotel with a gilded Wild West decor that evoked the town’s nineteenth-century-roots as a hub for miners, loggers, and farmers. Perched on the eastern edge of Washington State, between the Pacific range and the stern expanse of the central plains, Spokane retained a scrappy outpost aura that even the shiny new malls and snazzified saloons on Main Street couldn’t gentrify or tame. It was a good place for a man to hole up and hide.
Duggan walked up to the plain stucco facade and knocked on the door long enough to get the small dog inside barking. He waited a few seconds and knocked again. When there was still no response, he slid his card under the door. A moment later, a comely young woman warily opened the door and asked him what he wanted.
“Hi. I’m looking for Laura Fisk.” The woman didn’t respond. “My name is Jake Duggan, and I’m an agent with the Department of Homeland Security. I’m investigating an incident that your husband was involved in before he was discharged. I’d like to have a word with him.”
The woman’s tight smile hardened. “He isn’t here.”
“I see—then could you please tell me where I can find him?”
“See those mountains over there?” She tipped her head to the end of the street where the city succumbed to grassy green fields and, beyond that, a snow-streaked range of jagged peaks. “He goes fishing every other weekend. He always goes alone, just him and the trees and the fish. There are a thousand miles of river in those mountains. He probably stands a better chance of finding trout than you do of finding him. He’s usually back in a week or two.”
“I can’t wait that long,” Duggan said.
When she saw that he wasn’t going to budge, Laura Fisk added, “Maybe you should talk to his shrink.”
“His psychiatrist?”
Laura Fisk nodded. “Peter Palladino. His office is downtown on Sprague. You should have gone there first.”
Palladino’s assistant seemed annoyed that Duggan had shown up without an appointment, but when Duggan identified himself, she grudgingly ushered him into a reception area furnished with two Shaker-style armchairs and a large leather sofa. Duggan lowered himself into one of the chairs and regarded a framed reproduction of miners panning for gold in a mountain stream. Duggan felt himself being scrutinized by a trim, youngish man with piercing blue eyes and long dark hair tied back into a knotted stump.
“They didn’t tell me that anyone from Homeland Security was coming,” Palladino said. He held out his hand, and Duggan shook it.
“They?”
“The people at the Fairchild Air Force Base Hospital. Almost all my referrals come from there. But it’s unusual to get a visit from Washington, even in a case like this.”
“What kind of case would that be?”
“Would you mind,” Palladino asked, “telling me why you’re here?”
“I got your name from Martin Fisk’s wife.”
Palladino blinked. “You know Marty?”
“No,” Duggan admitted. “But I’d like to ask him some questions about his drone pilot, Donald Westlake. I thought maybe you could give me some insight into their relationship.”
Palladino’s eyes flickered toward his receptionist. “Let’s go into my office.”
Duggan followed him into a small, spotless chamber decorated with framed awards from various psychiatric associations and a PhD certificate of philosophy from Gonzaga University. Palladino waved Duggan to a chair, and there was a prolonged silence as the young doctor studied his uninvited guest, his limpid eyes probing, evaluating.
Still standing, Palladino said, “I really don’t mean to be rude or uncooperative, Agent Duggan, but there are certain privacy issues at stake, not to mention doctor-patient confidentiality. I mean, is this an official investigation?”
Duggan made a quick decision. There was only one way to get Fisk’s psychiatrist to talk, and that was by telling him the truth. It was risky but unavoidable. As Duggan spoke, Palladino became visibly tense. Duggan had wagered correctly; the doctor was smart enough to know that he could never repeat what he had just heard without getting Fisk and himself into trouble.
Palladino sat down behind his desk and looked at Duggan. “You think the government is hiding something? Something about Marty?”
“I don’t know—maybe. Not Marty, though. Westlake, his drone pilot. A few weeks ago, in Afghanistan, he—”
“Yes, I know. A psychotic episode ending in bloodshed, caused by battle fatigue. Plus the additional stress of being in the kill zone.”
“How so?”
“Well, I’m sure you know most drone pilots almost never leave the United States. Marty and Donald were actually in Afghanistan, which is unusual.” He looked at Duggan for confirmation.
“Go on, Doctor.”
“Well, I treat a lot of F-16 fighter pilots. They look down on the drone operators.”
“Why’s that?”
“The main reason is that they’re generally perceived as not being in any physical danger,” Palladino explained. “The airmen who fly jets in battle zones think the drone pilots don’t deserve their respect. They call them ‘Nintendo fliers.’”
“But Fisk and Westlake were near the front lines in Afghanistan,” Duggan observed, “so they were in harm’s way.”
“Yes, of course.” Palladino was nodding. “That makes sense. It explains a lot.”
“It explains what?”
“In my practice, the men I treat are all suffering from different degrees of PTSD. The symptoms include nightmares, depression, withdrawal, antisocial behavior, and, in the worst cases, self-destructive tendencies.”
“Suicide?”
“Sometimes.”
“Are you saying that Marty Fisk is a danger to himself?”
“No, no, I don’t think so.” Palladino crossed his arms. “The fact is that Marty is a very special case.”
“How so?”
“You see, there are a number of treatments for PTSD. One is called CPT, for cognitive processing therapy. You take the patient through the story; you get him to talk about the event that caused the trauma in detail so it can be neutralized. You knew that Fisk was the one who shot Westlake, right?”
Duggan grimaced. “No, I didn’t.”
Palladino was on his feet again, pacing as he spoke. “The thing is, when I had him reenact that moment, which would have been highly emotional for anybody … I mean, imagine putting a bullet through your best friend’s head. Anyway, his neural indicators barely moved. I thought it must be blockage, yet he had no trouble talking about it. And that’s not all of it. Another type of treatment is EMDR, or eye movement desensitization and reprocessing. In this approach, the patient talks about the trauma while we expose him to visual and audio stimuli. The idea is to use flashing lights and sounds to jog or detach the trauma from the memory at the root of the problem. I thought maybe he was being haunted by the guilt of killing people by remote control—bad guys and good guys all look the same on a video monitor, right? We get a lot of this type of thing from drone operators, particularly the sensors, who pick out the targets. But that didn’t seem to be the problem with Marty.”
“So in Marty’s case, you’re saying none of the standard PTSD therapies worked.”
“I’ve been giving him Prozosin, an alpha blocker, to stop the nightmares so he can sleep at night. That certainly helps. But here’s the weird part: when we do the EMDR, like I told you, we use flashing colored lights and different sounds through headphones. The theory is that artificially inducing an emotionally aroused state uncouples the traumatic memory from the person’s emotional response. Anyway, when we put the headphones on Marty and turned up the volume, he totally lost it. He had a very violent reaction …”
“Wait,” Duggan said, “did you say Fisk freaked out when you made him wear headphones?”
“Yes,” Palladino said. “We had to discontinue the therapy.”
“What kinds of sounds do you play when you do EMDR therapy?”
“We use all kinds of sounds—loud tones, raucous music.”
“You treat patients by playing loud music,” Duggan said, “through headphones.”
“Sometimes. Yes.”
“What about words?”
“No, that’s not my technique. But maybe some other psychologists do that. You’d have to ask them.”
“You said a drug is helping Marty Fisk.”
“Prozosin.”
“But Prozosin only treats the symptoms, just the nightmares, right?”
“As far as I can tell, it’s been helping. There’s a cabin in the woods where Marty goes to get away …”
“To fish?”
“To hunt demons,” Palladino corrected. “Look, considering what these soldiers go through, I’m surprised more of them don’t crack. Marty’s a strong guy. I helped him get a job in the athletic department at Gonzaga. I’m pretty sure he’s going to get through this.”
“This cabin where Fisk goes—do you know where it is?”
Palladino shook his head. “Did you ask Laura?”
Duggan exhaled. “Maybe I should ask her again.”
Palladino’s gaze hardened. “Maybe you should leave Marty alone.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Listen, Agent Duggan, veteran suicide is an epidemic—twenty vets kill themselves every single day. A few, like Westlake, become a danger to society. But the vast majority of these guys find a way back from the edge, and eventually they adjust. They can take care of their families, hold down jobs, and watch sports on Sunday afternoon. With proper therapy, most of these broken soldiers can be repaired. The thing is, one way or another, we just keep making more of them.”
Tom looked at himself in the mirror and used his hands to push the wrinkles out of his favorite T-shirt, black with a single white lightning bolt on the front. Tonight was his Skype date with Lucy, and he wanted to look good, at least from the neck down. He had run the options in his head a hundred times, but showing his face to her was out of the question. Too dangerous for both of them.
Tom went back to his workstation and found an e-mail from toke:
meta militia wants to meet u. log on to 4chan/mm/. click on green hair, passwd: silky. 9 p.m.
The first thing that got Tom’s attention was that he was being summoned to a meeting on a 4chan IRC channel for an unspecified reason, which was unusual. The second thing was that there was no /mm/ section at 4chan.org, at least not officially. He had browsed a few backdoor IRCs, but this was different: a password-protected channel created specifically for a private chat between Swarm and Meta Militia, whatever that was. As Tom expected, 4chan.org/mm/ led to a 404 File Not Found message decorated with an anime image of a girl with green hair. He clicked on the hair and entered the password. Two people were waiting to chat, toke and mm629.
toke: hi swarm thx for coming
swarm2020: no prob what’s up
toke: my friend mm629 has a gift for you
swarm3711: really? what’s that?
Tom’s screen refreshed, and a new user name replaced toke’s.
mm629: hi swarm. I’m a fan of yr stuff, and the boys on 4chan say you’re ok. I have something very special, something that could be very powerful in the right hands … in yr hands
swarm2979: really?
mm629: it’s potentially very dangerous, too dangerous to be kept secret. Do u understand?
Swarm9331: nope
mm629: just look at it. no strings. if you like what you see, we can talk more. If not you destroy it. Deal?
Swarm8206: i know you’re not heat because toke is a pal. I’ll look if you want but no promises
mm629: no promises, no strings. we’ll send an onion encryption to your server. the file will only download once. then the channel will self-erase.
swarm5082: gotcha
mm629: i hope we’ll be talking again soon, swarm
swarm4646: what’s meta militia?
mm629: self-explanatory. i’ll wait till you open zeph.r
Swarm0716: zeph.r?
mm629: yr wasting time …
Tom watched as zeph.r began to download. The progress bar inched across the screen counting megabytes: 300 … 400 … 500 … It stopped at 629.
From the instant he opened the file, Tom knew that this was no ordinary piece of code. He had expected a malware virus of some sort, but this was completely different. Besides instructions for various controls, there was a variable frequency generator and transducers for audio outputs. The bulk of the software was diagnostic, similar to an MRI brain scanner, except that it seemed to be connected to a transmitter of some kind. He was intrigued.
Tom saved the file to his hard drive and flipped back to the IRC chat.
Swarm6593: where did you get this?
mm629: ha. not yr problem
Swarm2356: it is now
mm629: DOD
swarm8144: really?
mm629: the one and only
swarm4778: jesus. why is it called zeph.r
mm629: u can call it whatever you want. it’s yours now
swarm5348: what’s the point of giving me something like this?
mm629: zeph.r increases the susceptibility of the human brain to visual and audio suggestion. it can be broadcast through airwaves or embedded in an app. you already rule the smart mob scene … imagine the possibilities …
Swarm2671: do you realize what you’re suggesting?
mm629: fuck yeah
swarm8801: I need time to think
mm629: understood. just don’t think too much or you might change your mind
mm629 has logged off
Tom checked the time and opened a specially encrypted version of Skype. He had considered using one of the various VR dating apps, but he ruled them out as too public, glitchy, and hackable, not to mention the mood-killing clumsiness of donning an ocular headset. Skype was simple, familiar, and relatively secure, and Tom knew several people in long-distance relationships who swore by it. Adding a live visual dimension to his trysts with Lucy was a big step, with plenty of potential to misfire. Maybe taking it slow on their first Skype date was the wisest option.
Tom clicked on the camera icon and watched as the screen filled with Lucy’s creamy skin, full red lips, and flowing hair. But it was that smile, so knowing, playful, and warm, that dissolved his resolve to keep a PG rating.
“Hi, stranger,” Lucy said. She giggled. It was a friendly, inviting sound.
Tom raised his hand and waved. “Hi.”
“Oh, thank you,” Lucy said, clasping her hands in pretend prayer. “Thank you, dear God!”
“What?”
“At least now I know you’re not some fat hairy stalker. Not to be so judgmental, but you have no idea how worried I was.”
“Yeah, it was a possibility, I guess.”
“More like a probability.”
“Well, thanks!”
“You’re welcome. And even though it’s a little fucked up that you still won’t show me your face, I can see already, just from your arms and body, that you’re, hmm, late twenties or early thirties and nice looking.”
“Really? You can tell?”
“For real. And your voice … It’s just how I hoped you’d sound—masculine yet sensitive.”
“Are those mutually exclusive?”
“Too often,” Lucy said. “How about me? Do I sound the way you expected?”
“Yeah, actually.” Tom added, “I already knew what you looked like, remember? From the Fourth of July flash mob.” He decided it was best to leave out the part about hacking into her laptop and eavesdropping on her phone conversations.
“Right, I remember.” Lucy ran her hands over her breasts and hips. “So you’ve seen me naked already. And you’re looking at my face. And what do I get? A torso shot from a men’s T-shirt catalog. Does that sound fair to you?”
Tom swallowed.
“Wait,” Lucy said. “I’ll make it easier for you.” She lifted her top and leaned into the camera lens. Her presence filled the high-def screen, almost to the point where he could smell her.
“Jesus,” Tom said.
“You like what you see?”
“Sure, I mean, it’s just that the way you looked at me right now … It was like that first time on the Fourth of July.”
“So then let’s have some fireworks. Your turn to lose the shirt, Mr. Don’t-Worry-I-Won’t-Say-It.”
This was exactly what he had hoped for and exactly what he had feared. Tom peeled off his shirt. He knew that their Skype tease was a degrading sideshow, a compromise that was equal parts sacred consummation and college dorm cyber porn. He had gone along with it anyway, against his better judgment, yet there was no denying the insistent throb in his pants.
“Get closer,” Lucy commanded. She stood up, and he watched as her hand slid down into her underwear. “Now you.”
Tom unbuckled his belt and pulled down the zipper.
“Nice Calvins,” Lucy said. “Keep going. Don’t be shy. Show me what you’ve got.”
Tom did.
“Well, well, “ Lucy said. “I see someone was ready to come out and play!”
Luminescence, for all its limitations, had been their iridescent Garden of Eden, a protected oasis of pre-carnal innocence. Now they’d graduated to the realm of visual contact, sexual lubrication, and self-conscious shame. He could feel the pastel flowers fading and the iron gate clanging behind them; no more carefree idylls in softly glowing pastures, no more delusions of a normal life, whatever that was. Could that cold exile be the forbidden knowledge denied by God to mortals, the knowing that some lives were meant to be lived on their own terms, that sometimes normal wasn’t good enough, that there was something sublime out there beyond the fringe of the pedestrian comforts his mother so ardently wished for him. And anyway, wasn’t this blessed body delirium normal too? It was easy to imagine it was Lucy’s hand on him, tugging him farther into the mossy meadows of Pan’s forest, gripped by an elemental force dating back to the first time homo erectus took hold of his own erection while staring intently at the original Lucy lounging insouciantly on a branch in the next tree. She was saying something, but it was hard for Tom to hear over the huffing bio-hydraulics, no longer caring what this might cost him, the last vestiges of prudence and restraint swamped by roiling spasms of original sin, just as he had dreaded and rehearsed it in the mirror so many times. He always knew that once they crossed the line, there would be no turning back, no redemption or forgetting the tart tang of apple, the silky slither of serpent, the vertiginous, delicious fall from grace.