They are not the creatures they were, if you pay attention to the legends. We have that drilled into us, after we’re recruited, long before Carter lets a newcomer place fingers upon the keyboard. He wants to make sure we’re prepared what’s coming; barely understands the impossibility of the task.
We’ve got many names for them around the office: jinn; genies; the demons of a smokeless flame. Carter prefers to call them Entities, pronounces it so you can hear the capital E, but he isn’t present long enough for his preferences to matter.
Carter is an asshole, and tight-lipped with those in his employ. What the floor team know, we learned from Shamil, who works three desks over from mine. He believed in the Entities before Carter recruited him, brought his beliefs into the lab where the rest of us toiled at the keyboards. This affords him the status of an expert when we muse about the creatures we hunt.
Because of Shamil we recognize the Entities have free will, that God will judge them as he judges humanity when the end of all things arrives. And it’s because of Shamil that we have theories about the jinn’s withdrawal into the net, disappearing into a frontier of electrons and fiber optic cables after centuries inhabiting isolated mountains, clouds, and deep trenches of the oceans. Because of him we have arguments about how they ended up there, whether they retreated to internet of their own volition or were imprisoned there by a third party, as human mystics once captured jinn in lamps with occult seals.
Shamil was born in Los Angeles; spent his teenage years in Denver. The only kid in his class to study the Koran and memorize the Canticles of Solomon, who tamed the jinn and counted them among his servants, holding them in bondage until his death.
This, too, affords Shamil a measure of authority when discussing the jinn, for he understands what it is to relocate against your will and adapt to new surrounds. He tells tales that suggest Carter is not mad; that perhaps he truly can capture the Entities we chase and force them to attend to a master’s wishes.
I remain unconvinced, but I do enjoy the stories. They provide moments of respite amid the work Carter demands of us.
We spend our days on the internet, dreaming of things that shouldn’t exist. Bizarre porn; unexpected fetishes; weird little sites that serve no real purpose beyond their own existence. The kinds of dreams that make you wonder, “Who in hell puts this online?”
Except we don’t wonder, down in Carter’s laboratory. We know, ‘cause Carter makes sure we know. Because he lays it all out on the very first day, before you’re ever introduced to the rest of the lab, and he’ll remind you every time he sees you, however short his visit.
“Rule Thirty-Four,” he says, “that’s how we’ll chase the bastards down.”
Rule 34 exists because the jinn make their home on the internet. Any fetish you can imagine, they will provide.
Sit at your keyboard, with your mind clear. Let your fingers rest upon the keys, the worn squares of plastic with missing letters courtesy of years spent punching out word after word. Let your attention wander.
It starts with a simple indulgence. A fetish for women caught in the rain, their damp clothing welded to their body by the torrential downpour, or a penchant for feet with polydactyl traits, supernumerary toes displayed with pride. Men with octopus tentacles where their right arm should be, each specimen arranged naked, supine, and resplendent on a sandy beach. You don’t expect to find anything, but the web provides it anyway. There are sites full of pictures. Communities to join. People who seem to share your interest, willing to help you take it further. Porn sites. Slash fic. Secret Tumblr feeds and dark web enclaves, unapologetic in their content. If you’re smart, you’ll back off and forget about what you’ve seen. Realize there are some temptations one shouldn’t succumb too, even at an introductory subscription price of $2.99.
If you’re not smart, you’ll go deeper down the rabbit hole. You pit your will against the jinn and the illusions they can offer you, each of them darker than the one that came before it, but still so very sweet and tempting.
Some people—strong willed and conscious of their boundaries—recognize it’s time to cease engaging with the jinn.
Those of us on Carter’s team, we kept falling. Entertained desires so specialized only the jinn could cater to them. Called in sick to day jobs, so we could stay online. Gave up work, so we could better explore our desires.
We’d all be falling still if the boss hadn’t found us and offered us an alternative path.
Carter has a plan to capture the jinn. When our team finds a likely site, we alert his squad of hackers. They go to work locking down the internet, trying to seize hold of a figment as the jinn slips through fiber optic relays and disappears from the local nodes.
Some days we get bored, staring at the screens. Days when any fetish we can dream up seems tame and not worth seeking. On those days, we theorize about the jinn and what happens next. Shamil remains adamant that capture is possible, despite the prevailing theory that the jinn are light made sentient, their physical forms as illusory as the manifested fantasies that play out on our monitors.
Some mornings it all seems a waste of time: jinn; pornography; Carter’s long-term plans. They’ve slipped through our net too many times, placated desires we barely conceived of until they revealed themselves online.
And despite Carter’s warnings, it’s always a surprise. The jinn were never content to grant wishes, even in the stories. They twisted every desire, sought loopholes to exploit. They held up a facet of your own inclinations and made it seem darker, harder to deny.
You see things that unsettle you, in this job, not least ‘cause you find yourself aroused. You stop looking in the mirror, because it makes the days easier. I gave up mirrors a few weeks back; Shamil is starting familiar arguments, suggesting that he’ll be next.
But the money’s outstanding, so we sit and get paid for a thing done gratis: scour the net, getting specific, trying to prove Rule 34 wrong.
We search for a digital footprint in the landscape of our desires.