10

Nick picked his way through the dappled infrared blue light, which scientists have proven has health benefits and boosts your immune system, and shade on the sidewalk. He was in Mexicoville. The Sun reflected brightly off the replica Teotihuacan Pyramid mall complex a few streets away. He stepped out into pools of the sunlight wherever the shadows from the neon fast-food signs parted.

When egirlebooks suggested this place, he had decided right away to spend some Good Boy Points and rent a car for a day. He had been thinking about a weekend trip anyways. He could afford it now because he had been posting more memes this iPhone and getting almost 14,000 steps a day.

Nick had been to Mexicoville a lot, but never this part. Mexicoville was one of those neighborhoods within Mars Camp Bell where you could live in the city for 30 years and not see even close to all of it. Most people only knew it because the quantum computer was there, in one remote part; the Qasim Quantum Computer aka the QCC aka the QC. The computer itself was relatively small; what took up all the space were the concourses for all the lines and crowds, the security infrastructure, the mall and food court facilities, the parking lots. It was like its own mini-city in itself. A solid percentage of the population of Mexicoville worked there.

Another major employer in the district now must be the Dick Sucking Factory, Nick thought suddenly. It just opened in like iPhone44time. Every time he ordered something from DS.com the tracking notifications would be “Arrived at Mexicoville, New Prime City regional Dick Sucking Factory – Mars,” “Departing from Mexicoville New Prime City regional Dick Sucking Factory – Mars,” and “Processed through Mexicoville New Prime City regional Dick Sucking Factory – Mars.”

The rental car place’s address was on the other side of the Teotihuacan Pyramid Mall. He walked around and found it. It was in a glass corner of the building near the greenway area.

Nick went in and talked to the clerk. It was very easy to get the car, he just ended up having to pay about 3 times as much as he was expecting. It was fine, though.

The lady also told him that the car they gave him would be the latest self-driving technology. Most cars now were self-driving to some degree or another, but this was the newest and most advanced. Nick was a bit excited in spite of himself. He wasn’t in cars very much, so he was always excited to see how far the self-driving technology had progressed since the last time.

The car drove around to the front. It was a brand new iPhone49 Tesla Hellcat, black. It was listed for 73 Good Boy Points per day on Priceline but with all the fees and insurance it came out to 220 Good Boy Points somehow. Nick got in it. He synched the car with the address from his Neuralink MarsMaps and pressed GO.

The car started moving. Wow, what a cushy ride, thought Nick. He looked forward to chilling and maybe rolling a joint while he enjoyed the scenery on the way out of the city center. The car drove itself out of the parking lot and onto a side street, then another side street. It drove very smoothly.

As soon as the Tesla pulled onto the highway on-ramp, Nick heard a highly realistic crashing sound and the windshield totally shattered. He freaked out and braced for the deadly impact; but no…the car hadn’t stopped moving. The shattered windshield changed to close-up footage of vodka pouring into a glass with some fancy looking ice cubes, the camera doing a swoopy move over the ice so it looked all dramatic and appetizing. “Red Star Vodka…mmm join the brotherhood…” The scene dissolved to a bright red star rotating against a black background, then faded out and the Tesla windshield appeared again. This happened about 12 times at totally unpredictable intervals on his ride. The ads were for products like paper towels, life insurance, Just For Men, Trident gum, the Safe Football League – East Playoffs, Pussy Spray, Crest toothpaste, the new 1984 remake, Wendy’s new bacon BBQ burger, Chungwa Cigarettes and Cannabis, the New Prime City Education Lottery, Mandarin Search, the new movie where a famous Uyghur sports hero is actually homosexual, and the Mao Zedong Visa card. “At 2.9% APR every purchase is a great economic miracle.” The entire time Nick was nervously looking out the window to keep his Neuralink from snapping to the windshield screen, and bracing himself for the next fake crash.

Outside the window he could see a lot of ads too. Every other billboard, it seemed, was reminding the public that June would be Chinese History Month, which was once again dedicated to the brave heroes of 6/9. Spaceship Girl’s childhood face was in all the Chinese History Month 6/9 marketing, even though she was in her 20s now…or was it 30s? There were also a few billboards for the new CCP comedy show that takes place at the Chinese Intelligence Agency and portrays it as a goofy but boring workplace. The CIA agents were all played by the MRC First Class Actors. Then there were a few billboards for Qasim: The Musical, about the plane crash that killed ETR president Ehmetjan Qasim. It was a massive hit in N.P.C.

Nick was putting his hand over the billboards so his Neuralink didn’t snap-to-vision and start playing the video version. One time he failed to do this in time and his Neuralink started playing a clip of the Yao Ming Show where the Yao Ming deep fake was interviewing Big Chungus. The topic was a new Netflix China documentary Freedom Groceries about the iPhone18time student protests in Tiananmen Square, Beijing.

In the clip the Yao Ming deep fake introduces Big Chungus, who is sitting with him in a director’s chair on a daytime TV set. They talk about the documentary, which Big Chungus hosted and narrated. Big Chungus explains how the filmmakers were actually able to track down the famous “shopping bag man” who stood there in front of the tanks as they rolled into Tiananmen Square to end the student protests there.

The Yao Ming deep fake says “now the traditional story about this event, I know that we media folks sometimes don’t get things totally right the first time around. The traditional story of this event was that these students were protesting the government…”

Big Chungus cuts him off, “Well Ming, that’s right, traditionally the story of this event has been that the students were protesting government authoritarianism, and that’s actually correct, in a way. They were. The government was being too soft on Uyghur terrorism, so the students weren’t able to learn and flourish in peace. But that’s not really the full story. Luckily, we were able to track down some of the key players and correct the record on this…”

The Yao Ming deep fake says, “and I think that’s what we’re going to see in this clip you’ve brought? Fantastic.”

The clip starts. It’s an interview with an elderly Chinese man. Big Chungus’s deep Han voice speaks off camera: “So you went to the grocery store that fateful day. And you got your groceries. And then you walked across the square, is that right?”

The man speaks: “Well yes, that’s right. There were all these student protestors there in the square. And, you know, I always love to see the young Chinese take an interest in their glorious nation and government. The great gift that comrade Mao has given this great country, and of course yourself sir, comrade Big Chungus, surely this exceeds in excellence even the greatest achievements of any empire in history, without a doubt. So when I saw all those student protestors, I was in a really happy mood. I had just gone to get groceries, and sure sometimes they can cost a little more with inflation, but that’s just the government doing what it has to do for the people, ya know? So then…I see some tanks rolling up, and I thought ‘huh, that’s weird. This is a peaceful protest! There must be some negative toxic element here, bringing violence and hate to these peaceful protests...’ And it was just then that I saw them, with my own two eyes. A gang of dirty little Uyghur thugs, rampaging down the sidewalk, their eyes wild with hate, their neck veins bulging out of their terrorist necks. Of course, at first I wanted to give them their space and be non-judgmental! I didn’t want to jump to conclusions. That would make me just as bad as them. So I just took a deep breath and walked on…but then I noticed that the leader of the Uyghur thugs had spotted a young Han Chinese student – she couldn’t have been 18, Mister Chungus – and he had locked his eyes on her. I could just tell by the look in his eyes that he had…he just had the worst intentions, Mister Chungus. In fact I heard him say to his little dirty little Uyghur buddy ‘hey there, what do you say I grab this little piece of ass and…’ I’m sorry Mr. Chungus I can’t even repeat what this evil little Uyghur boy said.”

“Aaawwwww that’s okay,” Big Chungus said with his deep soothing Han voice. (The Han First-Class Actor who did the voice of Big Chungus had raped his own step-granddaughter when she was 15 and had her boyfriend killed when he went to the police.)

“So anyways, that’s when I stepped into the street in front of that tank. I wanted to get the tank driver’s attention so they could stop this vicious violent assault…I actually have a daughter myself, Mister Chungus…”

That was as far as Nick could get in the clip. All of history was a palimpsest, scraped clean and reinscribed exactly as often as was necessary.

Suddenly on the highway there was a shitload of traffic. The car began to slow down. Oh—it was a toll booth. Nick had forgotten about toll booths. The traffic filtered quickly through the bottleneck. The self-driving Tesla never even fully stopped, it just rolled through the toll gate and Nick saw a flashing green sign that said TOLL PAID – 55 GBP.

Fifty-five fucking good boy points!!!!! Fuck!!!!!! It was nothing less than shocking. But, what was he gonna do, not pay it? He thought about the last time he had gone though this toll, in about iPhone42time, when was only like 12.50 GBP. He remembered thinking “that’s a whole Chipotle burrito.” LOL.

As the Tesla sped back up Nick glanced to the side of the highway in a fenced-in parking lot area where the cars went that were carrying people with open warrants. He remembered hearing that somewhere. Really anything that tripped the social credit score algorithm would get your self-riving car directed here.

Nick was already doing the math of the trip in his head. He knew he shouldn’t dwell on it and be blackpilled the whole time, but still. The train, the rental car, the toll…plus, he’d forgotten that his Good Boy Point direct deposit next week would be 15% less because he wouldn’t get his Happy Camper Credit, the extra credit you got if you agreed to not leave the downtown city districts. Oh well, he thought. It is what it is.

Nick zoned out and lit a roach he had been saving. He put his headphones back over his ears. On the prerecorded stream he was watching on NeuraPlay, BillabongKeith was also smoking a joint. Nick tabbed back to YouTube on his phone and turned up the volume. The stream was from the night before. It was War Machine with BillabongKeith in the office with him. Nick had already watched it through twice. The title was GARY GUANXI PERSECUTED! EMERGENCY WAR ROOM LIVE STREAM!! They weren’t actually talking about that story at all. All their titles were joke clickbait like that. They were talking about the latest season of The Party.  The only time they mentioned the Guanxi story was when War Machine said, during a lull, “I love the symbolism by the way. The allegory. Of the Gary Guanxi story. The latest psyop trial for treason. He’s guilty of treason now. For what? For fucking farting too loud while taking a shit. Ha!” They both broke out laughing. “What more apt metaphor could you possibly come up with for politics?”

BillabongKeith says, “Never forget, folks, the CIA is a literary project.”

They spent most of the stream taking Superchat advice questions from the viewers. Stuff like career advice, relationship advice, Uyghurs asking if they should just try to avoid politics or leave China altogether. One viewer said he was 17 and his family was assigned a CCP Family Friend who would spend 8 nights a month at the family’s house, and he always treated the guy’s brother like shit, and then one day the little brother said that the guy was molesting him. The viewer asked War Machine what he should do, should he report it to the police? War Machine punched his fist into this other hand and said “Well I’m afraid that sounds like something you’re going to have to take care of yourself there. I think you’re going to have to go find this guy and say hi to him. You’re going to have to find him and say hi to him.”

The abandoned Disney neighborhood was by some other abandoned luxury neighborhoods in the Doha City district. Past the outskirts of the city, the land had flattened into grassy plateau farm country. The Doha City Disney neighborhood was designed as a replica of Palm Jumeirah, the island neighborhood development in Dubai that’s shaped like a huge palm tree, with the streets arcing out as the leaves of the palm tree in the ocean. There was no water in the ocean/pond area yet, though. It was instead covered with grass. According to pictures online at least. This created a quite spectacular view, with the green plateau grassland and the red Mars mountains in the infrared blue Sky, which scientists have proven has health benefits and boosts your immune system, in the background.

There was another toll and a checkpoint to enter the Doha City district, then the car steered itself off the highway in an almost desert-seeming area. After several more quick turns, the Tesla finally steered itself through the boujee carved granite gates of the abandoned Disney castle neighborhood. The gates were covered in vines and tons of graffiti in all colors. Nick recognized the image from urbex thumbnails on YouTube. Before long the car came to a stop in front of one of the castles. Nick manually drove it a few blocks to a remote area behind some trees so the car wouldn’t be so obvious. He got out and walked back.

The ride ended up being 1 hour 28 minutes, exactly what the MarsMaps screen had said.

It was the second of May. All the empty pond areas that separated the streets were indeed full of grass. From somewhere in some deep grass nearby came the droning of ring doves. He was a bit early. The girl seemed like she knew this place was legit, so he was only mildly worried. He definitely didn’t want an encounter with any security guards or tweakers.

Egirlebooks must have done an urbex arc on her vlog at one point, he thought, or maybe she just seemed like the type who would. She had been pretty confident that this place was chill. But in general you could not assume you were much safer in the suburbs than in the city center. It was still private property and you could be sure there were cameras all over the place. Even more so in an abandoned place like this, probably, where there was potential for all kinds of mischief to happen. He was probably on camera right now, he thought. There were definitely security patrols too.

He decided to lay low until egirlebooks showed up. He walked around the back of the Disney castle at the address. It was constructed out of fake stone that looked like foam up close. Nick was thinking about the scene at the car rental place. It had been packed with normies who were hyped for the warm weather. It was all one large Uyghur family taking up like almost every seat in the waiting room. They must have just arrived in New Prime City from way out in rural southern Xinjiang. The whole family was there: from the toothless great-grandmother to a month-old baby. They were going out to spend the day at Water on Mars, and, as they wouldn’t stop telling Nick, tip back a few cold ones. They were all wearing new Camp Bell Dragons and Mars Marvins merch.

The wild bluebells in this castle’s yard were so thick underfoot that it was impossible not to step on them. He knelt down and began picking some, partly to pass the time away, but also from a vague idea that he would like to have some flowers for egirlebooks when they met. She wouldn’t expect it. If she was a fed, it would throw her off her game. He had got together a big bunch and was smelling their faint sickly scent when a sound at his back froze him: the unmistakable crackle of a foot on twigs. He went on picking bluebells. It was the best thing to do. It might have been the girl, but he might have been followed by some other urban explorers. To look around would let them know he heard them and he might have to talk to them. He kept picking the flowers. With the girl, he would be fine as long as he didn’t let her psyop him into like taking a photo with a gun or something. A hand fell lightly on his shoulder.

He looked up. It was the girl. She jerked her head as if to say “this way,” then walked around to the side of the castle. She unlocked a padlock that was holding a door on the side of the garage chained shut, then locked it again behind them. Obviously she had been this way before, for she stepped over the little doorway thing to the laundry room by habit. Nick held onto his bunch of flowers. His first feeling was relief, but as he watched the strong slender body moving in front of him, with the red bike shorts where you could tell she wasn’t wearing any underwear, the sense of his own inferiority was heavy upon him. Even now it seemed quite likely that when she turned around and looked at him she would draw back after all. Already on the drive from the car rental place the May sunshine made him feel dirty and etiolated, a creature of indoors, with the stink of his corporate-mall-hamster-tube lifestyle. It occurred to him that till now she had probably never seen him irl other than at the DS-Work. They came to the living room of this Disney castle house. Inside it was all graffiti’d and dingy, but you could tell it was once going to be a super boujee 70s retro suburban interior. The first floor was an open layout with high ceilings in every semi-closed-in room area, and a huge TV room in the middle with a recessed couch pit. The girl walked to the main room and flopped down onto the circular couch pit area.

“Here we are,” she said.

Nick stepped down into the couch area and sat down a few meters away. “Wow. You said you knew a place.”

“Disneyville, the luxury development by the visionary real estate partnership of The the Macintosh Republic of China and Prince Hossaini al Shayed of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Announced iPhone28time, started iPhone32time, abandoned after the real estate bubble burst in iPhone36time.”

“Some of them looked pretty rough on the way over here.”

“Well, that’s all relative. But yeah, most of them are destroyed or totally sealed up. A few of them are still in good shape like this.”

“You’ve been here before?”

She nodded. “With some friends from an urbex Patreon.”

“Ah.” There was a pause. They were making eye contact. “You know, I was thinking the other day that, I didn’t know what color your eyes were.” They were brown, he noted, a rather light shade of brown, with dark lashes.

“They’re brown.”

“Brown eyes…I see. You know, I’m almost 40, that’s crazy. Thirty-nine. Like literally almost forty. The guy in the story 1984, Winston Smith. He’s almost 40 too. Isn’t that old?”

“I couldn’t care less. I like older guys anyways. Guys my age are so immature…”

“Okay, you’re definitely a fed.”

The next moment, it was hard to say by whose act, she was in his arms. At the beginning he had no feeling except sheer incredulity. The youthful body was strained against his own, the mass of dark hair was against his face, and yes! Actually she had turned her face up and he was kissing the wide red mouth. She had clasped her arms around his neck, she was calling him darling, precious one, loved one. He had pulled her down onto the couch, she was utterly unresisting, he could do what he liked with her. But the truth was that he had no physical sensation, except that of mere contact. All he felt was incredulity and pride. He was glad that this was happening, but he had no physical desire. It was too soon, her youth and prettiness had frightened him, he was too much used to living without women—he did not know the reason. But he wasn’t getting a boner. The girl picked herself up and pulled a bluebell out of her hair. She sat against him, putting her arm round his waist.

“Never mind, dear. There’s no hurry. We’ve got the whole afternoon. Isn’t this a sick spot?”

“Mhm,” said Nick.

“Tell me, what did you think of me before the day I DMed you?”

He did not feel any temptation to tell lies to her. It was even a sort of love-offering to start off by telling the worst.

“Um I totally tuned you out. I don’t follow anyone who posts about the daily news cycle, even if their posts are good. Plus you’re a fed.”

The girl laughed delightedly, evidently taking this as a tribute to the excellence of her disguise. “A fed! You didn’t actually think that?

“You literally worked for the Chinese Intelligence Agency.”

“Yeah I had some internship on my resume. That makes me a fed?”

“Yes! Well, perhaps not exactly that. But from your general appearance – merely because you’re young and post pursed-lips selfies, you understand, and you’re so extremely online – I thought that probably—”

“You thought I was a good CCP Current Thing Doer. You thought I was into all the Heroes of Peace stuff and all that. On the hashtag right side of history. Banners, processions, think pieces, hashtag games, pronouns in the bio, all that stuff. And you thought that if I had a quarter of a chance I’d dox you for doing antistate misconduct and get you surfaced?”

“Yes, well, you do have your pronouns in your bio. You would do that. You’re proudly brainwashed. Even if you think you’re doing it ironically or something. A great many young girls are like that, you know.”

“Actually yeah, I do flex like that online.” They were both lounging on the couch now. “The way I see it, I’m just like Patrick Bateman. Like the thing where he’s like, in the car where his girlfriend is like ‘why do you have to do all that’ and he’s like ‘I just want…to fit…in.’ with like his crazy sociopath face. That’s how I see what I do too. Like, I know I’m a hot Chinese girl, so all I have to do is yell along with the crowd, do whatever the consensus take is, and everyone will think I’m a great moral genius and a hero. That’s my character in the Narrative. When people see me, dressed in my trendy clothes in a hip city like Mars Camp Bell, with a lot of followers online, they probably assume I’m like some kind of special supergenius from NASA Mars Space Academy, like Spaceship Girl. I’m literally her. She’s literally me. Just like in Patrick Bateman. So all I have to do is fit in and people will assume I’m great. Even if I’m participating in a system I know is bad. And if I’m wrong, oh well. I’m just a giiiiirrrlll! Ha!”

“Yeah but like doing that makes you a bad person. That’s what being glib is. And a bad person.”

“You’re trying to do it too, you’re just not successful.”

“Well then I have a different moral flaw. But you’re knowingly supporting probably the most evil government on Earth.”

“In the galaxy.”

“In the galaxy, that’s right.” She was trolling him but he was not triggered at all.

“It’s these stupid things that do it,” she said, ripping her red glasses frames off her face. “I don’t even wear glasses.”

She tossed the glasses in her backpack and got out a prerolled joint from a tin in one of the pockets. She lit it and handed it to Nick. Even before he hit it, he knew by the picture on the package that this was very unusual weed. It was like purple, and had like orange hairs in it, and like all these crazy crystals and shit. It also smelled like totally dank. Pretty much all weed in Camp Bell now was the government-produced Red Star Cannabis mids, which was definitely decent, but it was still mids. Nick knew that at some time or another he had had weed this good before. The first whiff of its scent had stirred up some memory which he could not pin down, but which was powerful and troubling.

“Where did you get this?” he said.

“The plug,” she said indifferently. “It’s from California. Actually I do seem like that type of girl, I know that. I’m good at hashtag games. I like being responsible. I always ended up writing all the notes in group projects in school. I do post Current Thing. I do regularly do activism work for the Heroes of Peace Climate Brigade, three nights a week in fact. Hours and hours I’ve spent posting stickers and crap all over the city. I always go to the Current Thing marches whenever the CIA starts organizing them again on Facebook. Always yell with the crowd, that’s what I say. It’s the only way to be on the right side of history.”

Nick savored the first hit of weed. The taste was delightful. But there was still that memory moving around the edges of his consciousness, something strongly felt but not reducible to definite shape, like an object seen out of the corner of one’s eye. He pushed it away from him, aware only that it was the memory of some action which he would have liked to undo but could not.

“You are very young,” he said. “You’re like ten or fifteen years younger than me. Also, don’t you have some rich boyfriend in the CCP?”

“Mmm well yes, but guys my age are so immature, you know. They don’t exactly get the job done if you know what I mean…” She was being coy.

“Ahh I see.”

“Also there was just…something about your energy. As soon as I saw you I knew you were against them. I knew you were a real one.”

‘Them,’ it appeared, meant the CCP #brotherhood posters online, and above all the feds—whom she talked with an open jeering hatred. This made Nick feel uneasy, although he knew that they were safe here where their Neuralinks didn’t connect.

“Big Chungus is just a meme made up as rage bait,” she continued. “To troll Xinjiang Uyghurs. Like in Rome when one of the provinces had a donkey as a senator or whatever. A fake and gay humiliation ritual.”

She said this like it was the most obvious fact in the world. A thing that astonished him about her was the coarseness of her language. #brotherhood posters were supposed not to say gay or retarded, and Nick himself very seldom did use those words, aloud, at any rate. Egirlebooks, however, seemed unable to mention a fake news storyline, and especially Current Thing, without using the kind of words that would get your post removed from any Mandarin space instantly. He did not dislike it. it was merely one symptom of her revolt against the CCP and all its ways, and somehow it seemed natural and healthy, like the sneeze of a horse that smells bad hay.

They had left the living room of the castle and were wandering through the rooms, with their arms around each other’s waists whenever it was wide enough to walk two abreast. They were in a front room now. Nick went to look out one of the tall stone windows that was curved at the top like a castle. Suddenly egirlebooks stopped and shrugged. “People need something to show devotion to. Even if it’s ironic at first.” He nodded and thought about this without responding.

“So why’d you get kicked off Twitter?” she asked.

“Um,” he said. He hadn’t thought of this since it happened…six iPhones ago now. “You know how when a hot skinny girl posts a picture, all the comments will be other girls saying ‘where are her organs?’”

“Yeah.”

“Well there was one of those in my recommended posts, a pic of a hot model girl and she was really skinny. Then I saw in the comments there was one of those fat activists—one of the Chinese First Class Actors actually—she posted ‘where are your organs?’ I was in a bad mood so I posted ‘where aren’t your organs?’”

Egirlebooks laughed heartily at this. “You were suggesting she was so large that her internal organs took up all quantifiable space in the entire universe?”

“That’s correct, yes. It was dangerous hate speech.”

When they had calmed down again she asked Nick, “Who would you want to be the People’s Representative from Xinjiang if it was real? Like an actual good one. Is there even a single Uyghur left?”

“Every Uyghur public figure is such a beaten down pussy sell-out. Maybe War Machine,” he answered.

“That fed?” she said. “He’s just as controlled as Big Chungus or any politician.”

“Ha. You think War Machine is a fed?” he asked.

“Of course,” she said. “He talks about how he’s been visited by CCP federal agents. He’s been in trouble and stuff for all the stuff in his past. He beat his girlfriend almost to death. But he’s still allowed in all these Mandarin spaces? He made a deal to avoid going back to prison. Why do you think he can still be on Twitter and shit. It’s because he’s controlled op. A strategic pressure release valve. It’s the whole reason the CCP got him out of that prison in California in the first place, as much as I hate to admit it. To be a podcasting operative in Xinjiang: h’s half Uyghur…he knows Joe Rogan…he was the perfect choice.”

Nick had never thought of this before. But of course, it was true. It was the only explanation. First it was guys like Kuleshav, Marconi, and Pasadena Orangefield. Now the version for Nick’s generation was War Machine.

“You think so? He’s allowed to always be armed in interviews. He has his guys standing behind him on camera with guns and shit.”

“That’s more evidence he’s a fed.”

She was right. “Have you seen his manifesto series or whatever…” Nick asked. “The War Machine Experience?”

“Ha. Of course. That’s what made me think of this. In one of the videos he talks about being visited by the feds, just to kind of scare him. To let them know they are watching him, then later a bunch of times he’s doing his like over-the-top irony and says stuff like ‘well I mean it’s not like I made a deal to avoid prison and I’m just here to distract you!’”

“Yeah. That’s his shtick, he knows people probably think that so he’s calling it out as a joke. It’s textbook metairony.”

“Yeah but that means the Chinese Intelligence Agency is like keenly aware of everything he does. There’s no, like, spicy off-handed comment that they just like missed somehow. And then, like, from War Machine’s perspective, he knows he can exist online now, making more money and like doing his like performance art cult leader thing…as long as he isn’t political.”

“That doesn’t mean that. I think it just means, like, spicy memes are mainstream now. They’re so trendy, even normies post memes that are like a paradise waterfall that says ‘life when you spread misinformation online.’ I saw one meme that said like ‘80% of adult male relationships consist of just sending each other cancelable memes and replying with lol’ and…that’s probably true.”

“That’s what I mean about being controlled via behavioral psyops, though, because that’s the bread and butter of the CIA. Monitoring all that spicy irony chatter online and tracking when the events might happen. Or, making them happen themselves.”

“Right, yes. Psyops.”

“I think what happens is they choose people who are so solidly good entertainers that anyone would like them, and conscientious enough to be like easy to work with, and they actually do turn out to be good content creators. Like Theo Von. They’re so good no one cares that he’s probably a CIA agent.”

“Imagine thinking anything you saw on the YouTube FYP wasn’t totally controlled by the CIA.”

“Ha. So that’s what the War Machine Experience is, like a regular Youtuber vlog series?”

“Well that’s just one part of it. There’s all kinds of stuff in it actually. All types of visual media content. It’s like…a pastiche.”

“Well I think I’m fine just watching his YouTube content. Doesn’t the other stuff make your social credit score go down? If your Neuralink sees that you’re you watching it?”

“Not anymore, that was just until last People’s Election. Now it doesn’t even matter. Millions of people are subbing to the Patreon to watch it. I subbed to it, my social credit score go down. My PayPal’s not doxed.”

“Yeah, easy for you to say, you’re not a Uyghur.”

“Hey! Don’t get too close to the front windows. There might be someone making a video. We’re all right if we just stay away from the front windows.”

They were standing at an angle to another, higher up window. The sunlight, filtering through innumerable leaves, was still hot on their faces. Nick looked out to the overgrown green front yard from this acute angle, and underwent a curious, slow shock of recognition. He knew it by sight. A green, grassy meadow, with a footpath winding over a hill, and a huge fluffy cloud in the sky right above it. The huge fluffy cloud from his dream. It was so close here, just on the other side of this neighborhood.

“Is there a stream near here?” he asked suddenly.

“Yeah. Yeah, there is. It goes down that way,” she pointed to where he had been looking.

“It’s the Golden Country – almost,” he murmured.

“The Golden Country?”

“It’s nothing, really. Something I saw on TikTok.”

“Look!” whispered egirlebooks.

A thrush had alighted on a bough not five meters away outside the window, almost at the level of their faces. Perhaps it had not seen them. It was in the sun, they in the shade inside. It spread out its wings, fitted them carefully into place again, ducked its head for a moment, as though making a sort of obeisance to the sun, and then began to pour forth a torrent of song. In the afternoon hush the volume of sound was startling. Nick and egirlebooks clung together, fascinated. The music went on and on, minute after minute, with astonishing variations, never once repeating itself, almost as though the bird were deliberately showing off its virtuosity. Sometimes it stopped for a few seconds, spread out and resettled its winds, then swelled its speckled breast and again burst into song. Nick watched it with a sort of vague reverence. For whom, for what, was that bird singing? No mate, no rival was watching it. What made it sit at the edge of the lonely grassland and pour its music into nothingness? He wondered how many microphones were picking it up right now. He wondered if any government agents were listening to it live. But by degrees the flood of music drove all the bad vibes out of his mind. It was as though it were a kind of viscous liquid that poured all over him and got mixed up with the sunlight that filtered through the leaves.

He stopped thinking and purely felt. The girl’s waist in the bend of his arm was soft and warm. He pulled her around so that they were face to face; her body seemed to melt into his. Wherever his hands moved it was all as yielding as water. Their mouths clung together; it was quite different from the hard kisses they had exchanged earlier. When they moved their faces apart again both of them sighed deeply. The bird took fright and fled with a clatter of wings.

Nick put his lips against her ear. “Now,” he whispered.

“Not here,” she whispered back. “Come back to the living room away from windows. It’s safer.”

Quickly they threaded their way back to the living room with the circular couch. When they were once inside the couch pit again, she turned and faced him. They were both breathing fast. But the smile had reappeared around the corners of her mouth. She stood looking at him for an instant, then felt at the bottom of her crop top shirt. And, yes! She lifted it over her head. Almost as swiftly as he had imagined it, she had torn her clothes off, and when she flung them aside it was with that same magnificent gesture by which a whole civilization seemed to be annihilated. Her body gleamed white in the sun, with the tattoos and everything. But for a moment Nick did not look at her body; his eyes were anchored by the freckled face with its faint, bold smile. He knelt down before her and took her hands in his.

“You sure you want to cheat on your boyfriend with some dirty Uyghur like this?”

She said, “pssh I’ve done this like 100 times.”

His heart leapt. Like 100 times she had done it. Cheated on this CCP dipshit. He wished it had been thousands – millions. Anything that hinted at corruption always filled him with a wild hope. Who knew, perhaps the CCP was all rotten under the surface, its cult of efficiency and self-denial simply a sham concealing iniquity. If he could have infected the whole lot of them with leprosy or syphilis, how gladly he would have done so! Anything to rot, to weaken, to undermine! He pulled her down so that they were kneeling face to face.

“Listen. The higher your body count is, the more I love you. Do you understand that?”

“Yes, perfectly.”

“I hate purity, I hate goodness! I don’t want virtue to exist anywhere. I want everyone to be corrupt.”

“Well then, I ought to suit you, dear. I’m corrupt to the bones.”

“You like doing this? I don’t simply mean with me: I mean the thing in itself. Fucking.”

“I adore it.”

That was above all what he wanted to hear. Not merely the love of one person but that animal instinct, simple undifferentiated sluttiness: that was the force that would tear the CCP to pieces. If she could be brainwashed one way so easily, she could be brainwashed back again. It was like Patrice O’Neal said, once you make someone hate you, you can make them love you. She loved going Goblin Mode. She got off on it. He pressed her down upon the couch, among the fallen bluebells. This time there was no difficulty. They had sex. The sloppy was insanely goated.

Presently the rising and falling of their breasts slowed to normal speed, and in sort of pleasant helplessness they fell apart. The abandoned castle seemed to have grown hotter. They were both sleepy. He reached out for his discarded sweatshirt and put it over her. Almost immediately they fell asleep and slept for about half an hour.

Nick woke first. He sat up and watched the freckled face, still peacefully asleep, pillowed on the palm of her hand. Except for her mouth, you could not call her beautiful. There was a line or two around the eyes, if you looked closely. The short dark hair was extraordinarily thick and soft. He looked at her sleeping and thought to himself, “I don’t even know this bitch’s real name.”

The young, strong body, now helpless in sleep, awoke in him a pitying, protecting feeling. But the mindless tenderness that he had felt in the front room, while the thrush was singing, had not quite come back. He pulled the sweatshirt aside and studied her smooth tattooed white flank. In the old days, he thought, a man looked at a girl’s body and saw that it was desirable, and that was the end of the story. But you could not have pure love or lust nowadays. No emotion was pure, because everything had to be mixed up in the fear and hatred of political gaslighting. Their embrace had been a battle, the climax a victory. It was a blow struck against the CCP. It was a non-political act.