Children of Paranoia

In Chicago, I was supposed to assist in a lecture to some local kids. I knew what to expect. It was more an initiation than a lecture. Each kid would be roughly sixteen years old. They’d still be innocent. They’d still have two years left before their worlds began to collapse around them. They’d have two years to get used to the idea that there were people out there who wanted to kill them. I was invited to these things because I represented death. They didn’t know it yet, but I was their future. One of our Intelligence guys would lead the lecture. He would introduce me near the end of his talk. My job was to tell these kids about what I did for a living, to show them what they might one day become. It was kind of like career day for the criminally insane.

The lecture took place in the den of a house in a wealthy Chicago suburb. The kids sat on couches and upholstered dining room chairs that the adults had pulled into the room for the lecture. Everything was set up so that the kids’ eyes would be directed toward an empty wall where the television usually was. The man hosting the event had three children, two boys and a girl. The oldest child, one of the boys, would turn sixteen in two months. The father had taken the two younger kids into the city for the day. They’d eventually have to sit through this lecture, too, but not today. Most parents tried to shield their kids from the War for as long as they could.

All told, there were eight kids there, all from around Chicago, all within three months of their sixteenth birthday. There were three girls and five boys. Each of the kid’s parents had dropped them off for the lecture, kissing them, promising to come get them in roughly four hours and driving off, probably crying as they drove. This was no bar mitzvah or first communion. This wasn’t about ceremony. This really was the end of these kids’ innocence. None of them really knew what the lecture would be about, but none of them were clueless either. When you grow up in these families, like I did, you can’t help but know things.

I sat in the back of the room on one of the chairs. I’d have to watch most of the lecture, only contributing my part at the end. Then the lecturer and I would take questions. We always got a lot of questions. We answered the ones we could. Some questions just went unanswered. The lecturer today was a guy named Matt from Intelligence. I’d never seen him before. I would probably never see him again. There was no rhyme or reason to our pairing. There never was. Matt wore a dark blue, pinstriped suit. His hair was cut short and he wore silver wire-rimmed glasses. He looked like a banker. These kids, they were our investment.

Matt began his lecture. “Hello, everyone. My name is Matt. I’m here to tell you guys a bit about the world and about how you fit into it. I’m not here to lecture you. This is a talk. Feel free to ask questions at any time. I guess this will kind of be like your high school sex-ed classes, only I’m going to tell you some things that you don’t already know.” That’s right, butter them up, I thought. His line got a nervous laugh from the kids. They shot quick glances at each other, trying to figure out if it was okay to laugh. It’s okay to laugh, kids, I thought. You might as well laugh now while you still can. Matt continued. “Before we get started, I think it would be useful if everyone introduced themselves, first names only. Then tell us a little something about yourself, about clubs you’re in, sports, hobbies, favorite band, whatever.” They did this in every lecture that I had attended. I always thought it was strange because from here on out, so much of their world would be shrouded in secrecy. Normally, if you get ten of us in a room together, the idea is to share as little information about each other as possible. There is safety in silence. This was different. This was the first time for these kids. It was important for them to know that they weren’t alone. It was important for them to know that there were others out there, people on their side, people dealing with the same issues as them, other people who, like them, would go on to lead lives full of fear and hatred. Matt’s eyes turned toward the kid whose house we were in. “Ryan,” he said, as if he were an old friend of the family, “why don’t you start?”

Ryan stood up. He was a big kid. He looked like an athlete. He was nervous, though. He put one hand in the pocket of his jeans to try to keep it from shaking. “Hi, my name is Ryan. I’m fifteen, going to be sixteen in two months. This is my house and I play football.” Football. If Matt weren’t about to fuck with Ryan’s head, Ryan probably could have been a popular kid. Maybe he could have been homecoming king. Maybe he could have dated a cheerleader. Maybe. The girl to his left spoke next. “Hi, my name is Charlotte. I just turned sixteen and I play the violin.” Charlotte glanced at the other kids’ faces as she spoke. When she was finished, she quickly turned her gaze back to her lap. It went on like that for the next fifteen minutes: Rob, the hockey player; Steve, the science club president; Joanne, the drama club member. None of these kids knew each other. They had been handpicked for this very reason. Even if they had friends that were on our side, they weren’t supposed to know it. Jared and I weren’t supposed to know that we were both part of the War. The fact that we’d found out was just dumb luck.

When the kids were done introducing themselves, Matt went on. “Okay, I know you guys are nervous. You’re nervous for two reasons. First, you’re nervous because you don’t know why you’re here. Second, you’ve got an idea about why you’re here and you’re nervous that you might be right. You all know that you are different. You know your lives are different from your friends’. You can feel it. I know that you’ve asked your parents questions over the years that they’ve refused to answer. Well, first let me assure you that they refused to answer your questions because they were trying to protect you.” Matt paused for effect. “I’m here because soon everything is going to change for you. Ignorance will no longer protect you. I’m here to tell you the truth.”

The truth? The word bounced in my head. It echoed there for a moment and then died away before I had time to think too hard about it. Matt jumped right in. “How many people here have had a close family member murdered?” Six of the eight kids raised their hands. Matt raised his hand too. I could have but chose not to. “How many of you have had a parent murdered?” Three of the eight. As they raised their hands, the kids looked around the room, the expressions on their faces a mix of fear and amazement. The names, the clubs, the sports, those things didn’t help any one of these kids bond. The death, that’s what bonds them together, that’s what bonds all of us together.

“Strange, don’t you think?” Matt nodded. “Well, my job here today is to tell you who killed your parents”—Matt made eye contact with the three kids who had lost parents—“and your relatives”—he lifted his head and gazed across the broader room. At this point, Matt turned on the projector that he had hooked up to his laptop. It projected an image against the blank white wall. All of the kids were now hooked, their eyes fixated on the picture in front of them. In their wildest dreams, this is not what they expected. When I was in their spot, it wasn’t what I had expected. I remember how shocked I was. The picture glowed on the wall. It was a picture of a white man, roughly thirty years old, with blond hair, brushed to the side. He looked like a television star, handsome, strong. The next picture was of a black man, roughly fifty years old, with a white beard and glasses. Matt clicked a button on his keyboard. The next picture was of a dark-haired woman with deep-set eyes and a slightly crooked smile. Another picture, this one of an Indian man wearing a turban, then one of a chubby white man with a crew cut, then one of a young black woman with her hair tied back, a Hispanic woman, a Korean man, another white man, another white woman, a woman wearing a Muslim headscarf, a man with a long beard, a Chinese woman, and on and on. This little slide show lasted nearly twenty minutes. We had video. We had plenty of video, but they’d tested it and the pictures always had more effect. The pictures gave the kids time to ruminate on the faces. I had seen nearly all of these slides before. There were only a few new additions. Each of these people was one of our enemies. We knew it. About half of them had been eliminated already. The rest were still on the list.

“They all did.” Matt turned the lights back on. He walked slowly to the front of the room. We actually knew who had killed Rob’s mom. He was still alive. He lived in St. Louis. They chose not to use the pictures of the people who’d actually killed the kids’ family members. They didn’t just want to show them one killer. They wanted to make these kids hate them all. “They’re all complicit. Do you guys know what complicit means?” Each of the kids nodded. Smart group. Matt had their full attention. “They all killed them. They worked together. The scary part is that’s only a small portion of them. And they’re not done. They’ll never be done. They’ll stop only when we stop them. They are bloodthirsty killers. They are evil. They are the enemy. This is a war. It’s been going on for generations. If you’re lucky, it will be your generation that ends it.” I had heard this part of the speech enough times that it had begun to turn my stomach each time I heard it. The propaganda wasn’t my style. I always thought that it was unnecessary. I looked at Rob. He was staring at Matt. He had a slight twitch in his left eye and was flexing and unflexing his right fist. I couldn’t help but think to myself, just tell the poor kid who killed his mom and send him on his way. You won’t have to tell him which side is good and which is bad. As far as he’s concerned, he already knew. Matt continued. “Two years from now, when each of you turns eighteen, you, too, will be a part of this War. There is no way out of it, no escape. These people”—Matt spoke the word people with disgust, as if it really shouldn’t apply, then continued with more confidence, his voice growing louder with each word—“will come after you too. They want you dead. Make no mistake about it—each of you was born into this world with a special destiny. Each of you can work to make this world a better place. Once you turn eighteen you will be a target. You can be killed, just like your parents or your aunts or uncles were killed. You can be murdered, in cold blood, by the enemy. As Joseph here . . .” Matt pointed to me, acknowledging my presence for the first time. All of the kids turned in their seats to look at me. I simply sat there and nodded. Matt continued. “As Joseph will explain later, there are things that you can do about that. Once you turn eighteen, you can be killed, but you can also act to stop the killing. You can stop the violence. You can get revenge.” Now I was interesting. The kids all turned to look at me again. Matt went on unfazed. “There are lots of things you can do to help us defeat the enemy—but more on that later.

“There have been countless times in history when people have been slow to recognize that evil exists. Each time, people have been passive. They sat around while others died, only acting when it was nearly too late.” At this point, a cadence developed in Matt’s voice. “Well, I want you all to recognize that evil exists and that you must fight it. We know who they are. We have to fight our enemy head-on.” Matt pointed at the pimply-faced kids in the room. “You will fight them head-on. We will attack them and defeat them before the evil grows too large to be defeated. They’ve already killed members of your family. They will kill again. They’ll stop at nothing, unless we stop them. They are filled with hate. You don’t have to hate them back. You just need to realize what they are capable of.”

With that, Matt turned off the lights again. He turned his computer back on. This time, projected on the wall was the picture of two bloody bodies, covered in white blankets. It looked just like the picture in the New York Post I had seen the day before, the picture of Jared’s victims. Matt clicked the button on his computer. The new picture was of a car burning, the flames reaching high into the air. I could just barely make out the shape of two charred bodies in the car. Matt clicked the button on his keyboard. The next picture was of an older man, roughly sixty, slumped in a chair. His eyes were glazed over and his mouth hanging open. He was dead. Another atrocity. Matt clicked and clicked. Another murdered man, another murdered woman. And on and on. I remember the first time I saw the slide show. It reminded me of the video I was shown in high school with all the graphic pictures of victims of drunk driving. That movie was supposed to make you afraid to drive drunk. It was supposed to make you afraid. Matt’s slide show had a different purpose. It was meant to elicit that other primal emotion—hate. No matter what Matt said, I knew that we could only defeat them if we hated them. Even if the propaganda turned my stomach, I knew that this was true. Sitting in the back of the room watching these kids, I could tell that they were afraid. I could also see that they were beginning to hate. I’ll be honest, Maria, at the time, their hate gave me hope.

“This is a lot to take,” Matt said, as he flicked through a few more images of strewn, lifeless bodies. Again, we could have shown them video but we had to be careful. Too much too soon wouldn’t help these kids turn into fighters. We had to ease them into it. We had two years. “But I have a few more slides to show you. You’ve seen our enemies. Now . . .” Matt’s voice lightened. A smile broke out on his face. He continued. “Let me show you pictures of your friends.” Matt clicked on his keyboard and a new image appeared. This picture was brighter than the rest. The room began to glow. The first picture was of a white man. He had an athletic build. He was standing in a large field of grass. He was smiling. Matt moved to the next slide. It showed a blond woman. She was standing in front of a skyscraper on a city street. The next slide was of a black man in scrubs, then an Indian woman working at a computer, then a Hispanic man in a business suit, and on and on. Each slide showed another face, another pose, another race, religion, ethnicity. Each slide showed a new person, each one attractive, attentive, serious yet smiling. These pictures were the same at every lecture I’d attended. These slides were meant to represent hope. Hope for these kids, that they could manage this life, hope that they could survive. Hope because they weren’t alone. I remember how much that had meant to me.

When I was a kid, I remember walking into a room full of adults, only to have the room suddenly grow quiet. I knew they had been talking about something, something important, but they left me in the dark. Matt led those kids through a whole cycle of emotions, from fear to anger, from anger to hate, from hate to hope. It was somewhat sanitized, somewhat canned and rehearsed, but it was marketing genius. I knew how to kill people. Matt knew how to convince people to want to kill. I’m pretty sure that there’s more blood on his hands than on mine. I remember leaving the meeting when I was sixteen—frothing at the mouth, ready to start killing. The meeting gave me a purpose. I was sixteen. All I wanted was a purpose. Now, I sat watching Matt’s little presentation and felt nothing. Now I had my own reasons for hating the enemy. I didn’t need the slide show anymore. War will do that to you.

“When do we get started?” Ryan asked. Only when the words finished coming out of his mouth did Ryan realize how afraid they made him. The words scared the shit out of all of them. There was no answer that Matt could give that wouldn’t be too soon. Yet that was the question that was usually asked, burying the other question—the question that we needed to answer—under a heap of peer-pressure-induced bravado. I guess the when is the question that’s usually asked because when somebody punches you in the nose your first instinct isn’t to ask why, it’s to feel pain and anger and to want to punch back. Eventually, you’ll ask yourself why. The why always comes. It’s unavoidable. That’s why we try to answer that question here, in the first class, because if you give these kids a why, they might not try to find their own. We finessed it, though. We tried not to force it because it worked better if they asked first. That way, they felt like it came from them. So we’d only bring it up ourselves at the very end and only if no one asked.

“For the same reason,” I answered. “Because they think that the rules will help them win, but we know better.” I did not tell them the real reason why I followed the rules. I followed the rules because they were the only thing keeping me sane. Even if they didn’t make sense, at least there were rules. They existed, islands of sanity in this absurd ocean. I continued with my explanation. “Rule number one: No killing innocent bystanders. The large majority of this world does not know that this War is raging on beneath their noses. Those people are to be protected at all costs. No collateral damage. The penalty for killing an innocent bystander is death, whether administered by our side or theirs. No excuses. No extenuating circumstances.”

“There are no accidents,” I responded quickly, and then moved on. “Rule number two: No killing anyone under the age of eighteen no matter what side they’re on. Until you turn eighteen you’re considered an innocent bystander. Therefore, the penalty for killing anyone who is under eighteen, including one of the enemy, is death. The corollary to this rule is that no one, on either side, can play a role in this War until they turn eighteen. So, Ryan”—I addressed him directly for a moment—“you wanted to know when you can get started. Well, you will get started the day you turn eighteen.” I paused for a second, debating whether or not to continue, whether or not to pile it on. I decided that I should, that they should hear it. So I added, “You’ll get started when you turn eighteen whether you want to or not. Until then, over the next two years, you will be trained. You will be readied for the transition. Your free pass is almost over.” Eighteen years wasn’t long enough. No amount of time would ever be long enough. The next two years will be hell for these kids. They will have to endure physical training and emotional training. They will be taught how to kill and how to defend themselves from being killed. They’ll see things they can’t even imagine, things they’ll wish they never saw. These kids weren’t ready for that yet, but it would come.

“No, they don’t kill them. We don’t kill them. The other side simply adopts them. They raise them as one of their own. So, by violating this rule, instead of increasing the population of our side, you increase the population of theirs. Instead of making our side stronger, you make their side stronger. Eventually, that child will grow up. It will grow up and it will join this War and it will fight. It will grow up to fight its own parents, fight its brothers, fight its sisters.” I looked around the room at the shocked faces. It was clear that already they viewed this punishment as more cruel than death. I let it sink in before I went on. “So, those are the rules. That’s it. Three rules that you cannot ignore. Three rules that you cannot forget. Three rules that you must obey. Everything else that I tell you today is simply procedure. So, who here has guessed what it is I do for a living?”

“That’s right,” I replied. “I’m a soldier.” A soldier. That’s what they called us. Me, Michael, Jared, we were soldiers. We were supposed to be proud of the title. I went on to explain to the kids the different roles they might one day grow up into. They didn’t have to follow in my footsteps. We organized our side into three basic categories. Which category you joined depended on your desires and your aptitude for any one specific role. Frequently, as people aged, they could shift from one category to another. The first category was the soldiers. I had expressed a desire to be a soldier shortly after I went through my age sixteen information session. I thought it would be cool. Soldiers are the front line in the War. The soldiers are the offense. The soldiers meet the enemy head-on and are responsible for beating them. Like the kid said, we kill people.

Of course, the killing is never as simple as it seems. I couldn’t just go out, find the enemy and kill them. A game plan is needed. First you have to know who among the masses is part of the enemy. Figuring that out isn’t so easy. They come in all shapes and sizes, all ethnic groups, all religions. It’s only if you trace their genealogy back far enough that you’ll find they are all related. It was a strategy at one point in this War’s history, effectively executed by both sides, to try to hide members by diversifying their gene pools. So what do they have in common? A few genes and a common enemy—me, my friends, my family, these kids. So how do we find them? That’s the job of the second group: Intelligence. The Intel group includes guys like Matt. There are lots of different jobs in Intelligence: genealogists, translators, education experts, marketing gurus, military planners, computer experts. The list goes on. The Intel group is the biggest group. They’re the ones who tell me, Michael, and Jared who to kill. Sometimes they tell us why. Sometimes that stays secret. They also work on the training and education. They teach us to kill and then they tell us who to practice on.

The third group are the deep cover guys. We simply refer to them as breeders. It’s their job to assimilate completely into everyday life, to lay low and to try as hard as they can to raise normal families. They’re the ones who make sure that our ranks are not depleted. The danger for them, of course, is that their defenses will be down, that they will grow soft from years undercover and they will be discovered. If discovered, they’ll be killed. Their defenses are limited. Most breeders spend at least some time in another role. They may start as soldiers or in Intelligence. Then they either burn out, or meet someone they want to settle down with. Then they go deep cover.

“Matt has told you that they are evil, but what is evil?” I shrugged. “Sometimes I’m sure I know. Sometimes I have my doubts.” I looked at Matt. He was glaring at me nervously, unsure of where I was going with my answer. He didn’t have to worry. I’d done this before. “Here’s what I do know: they’ve killed your parents, your brothers, your sisters. If they haven’t yet, they’re going to try.” I paused, purely for effect. “They will kill everyone you’ve ever loved, and then they will kill you.” I stared at the girl even though I wasn’t only speaking to her. I was speaking to all of them. “Unless we stop them.”

“I’ve got two more slides to show you guys.” We had to ease them into it, but we had to give them a taste too. I motioned toward Matt. He clicked a button on the computer. The close-up of a man’s face lit up on the wall. There was nothing extraordinary about the picture. He was a white man, about thirty-five years old. He was stocky and his hair was receding. In the picture he was smiling, but it wasn’t a pleasant smile. It was smile full of malice. Intelligence had picked a good picture for their purposes. “This man’s name is Robert Gardner.” The kids stared at the face. “When I was twelve years old, this man killed my uncle. I was with him at the time. My uncle had taken me to the mall to pick up a new baseball mitt. We were walking through the mall together and I turned to look at the dogs in the pet store window. When I turned back around my uncle was gone. They came up and grabbed him when I wasn’t looking. My parents had to come to the mall and pick me up after I’d searched the mall for my uncle for hours. Nobody told me at the time that even before I gave up my search, they’d found my uncle in the Dumpster behind the food court. The men who kidnapped him had slit his throat from one ear to the other.” Nobody in the room made a sound. He was my favorite uncle. I loved him. He was with me one minute and the next minute he was gone and I was alone. I never got to see him again. You don’t know what that’s like, Maria. Those kids did, though. “When I turned eighteen, they told me what had happened. Then they told me who did it.” I looked back at the photo on the wall. Then I turned toward Matt again and nodded. He clicked the button on the computer and another image came up. It was a picture of the same guy. Only this time, he had one eye stuck closed from swelling. His mouth hung down loose on his jaw and his tongue was blue. There was a deep gash on his right cheek. His one open eye was fully dilated but lifeless. “This man’s name is Robert Gardner. He murdered my favorite uncle. When I turned eighteen they told me who he was and where he lived.” I pointed toward the grotesque picture on the wall. “This is what he looked like when I was through with him. I was eighteen years old and he was the first man I ever killed. After I was through with him, he never had a chance to murder another one of us.” I looked around at the room full of kids. They were all staring at the picture of Robert Gardner’s beaten, lifeless face. A couple of the kids looked like they were going to be sick. It was to be expected. They’d seen a lot that day. They’d seen more than most people could handle. But it was only a couple. The rest of them looked inspired. I looked at Matt. He was quietly noting each kid’s reaction. The inspired were one step closer to becoming killers.