EPILOGUE - THOMAS
“Welcome to the show, Mr. Brooks. I’m sorry you couldn’t be here in person, but we’ll take a satellite feed if we must.” The reporter smiles at me. “As long as we don’t lose transmission.”
Haha. Funny. Don’t quit the day job, honey.
Be nice, Sullivan, I chastise him. “No chance of that, Miss Manchen,” I growl out. “SkyEye is the most reliable service this city has ever seen.”
I give her the creeps because she leans back in her chair at my dangerous tone. Creeping is my main superpower and I like it. So I’m keeping it.
She clears her throat and says, “The whole city’s wondering just what it is you’ve unleashed on us. Can you explain it a little better? We’ve all watched the statement you gave earlier this week, but still…” She cocks her head. “It’s so… weird.”
“Is it weird?” I ask her back. “Is it really? I mean, in my mind, it’s just the next logical technological step.”
“But I think everyone was under the impression SkyEye and ToyBox were developing a… kind of virtual reality game. Something educational. Something that involves the history of the city.”
“Well,” I say, smiling. “I think if you look closely, you’ll see that’s exactly what we’ve done.”
“You think this is a game?” she asks, her tone incredulous.
“Why not? It’s got all the makings of a game.”
She huffs out some air, ready to be a little more confrontational. I bet she’s thankful for this satellite feed now. Makes her feel brave to have creepy me on the other side of the screen and not sitting four feet away. “It’s an invasion of privacy.”
“Is it?” I ask again. “Is it really? I mean, we didn’t force people to buy the ToyBox console. Or the SpyGlass tablets. Or the glasses.”
“But you did give the phones away for free.” She raises an eyebrow at me. Like she’s about to get the upper hand.
She’s not. “We did. After the district attorney hacked into the banks, shut down the power, contaminated the power plant, and blew up all the city’s cell towers. How could I not give them away, Miss Manchen? How? I’d be a heartless bastard if I didn’t come to the rescue of Cathedral City. I love this place. Dearly. It’s my home. The only home I’ve ever had. The only home I will ever have. I’m just trying to take care of it and the free sat phones were just the first step. I have many plans for this city. I’ve just begun to leave my mark.”
Just the first step in our little coup d’état, you mean?
Shut up, Sullivan. But I like having him around. He’s funny. And cool. And easy-going. Which means I’m all these things too. At least in private.
Miss Manchen scowls, undeterred. “So the fact that you had software running on those tablets and consoles, as well as the free phones, that maps every user’s facial characteristics and puts it in a database… that doesn’t bother you?”
“Why would it? Everyone signed a release. They gave us permission. We’re just trying to do what’s right.”
“With your game?” she sneers.
“Well, technically, the game belongs to Case Reider and ToyBox.”
“Your software then?” She’s losing her cool now.
“The software belongs to Lincoln Wade and Wade Industries.”
“So you take no responsibility for what’s happening out there?”
“Oh, sweetie,” Sullivan interjects, speaking out of my mouth. “We take all the credit.”
Manchen recoils. “What?”
“We’re proud of our product, Miss Manchen.” I put my hand out—off camera—and Sadie places a set of SpyGlasses in my palm. I put them on my face and Manchen looks like she’s ready to bolt. But we’re live on air. I told them I’d only do the interview if we were live. And I’d only do it with Manchen.
Because I know her dirty little past. And everyone else knows it now too.
That’s what SpyGlasses do. The facial recognition maps everyone who comes into your field of vision, tags them, then displays every piece of dirt Sheila could gather on them. Every newcomer who enters our little city nestled among the tall mountains is also tagged. By license plate as they pass through the tower’s invisible magnetic field. Or through cameras in the bus stations. Or the airport security.
No one gets through unless they have a tag. If they don’t have a tag… well, that just makes it easier to spot the criminals.
Manchen gathers herself. Straightens her chin. The dirty deeds she’s done are displayed above her head in red letters. The towers take care of the broadcast. And if people are out of range of the towers and have a SkyEye phone or a SpyGlass tablet, those devices will tag them too.
Manchen’s secrets are not as bad as some, but we did find a record of her working as a stripper in college. It’s nothing to be embarrassed about. Manchen probably made a great stripper when she was young.
“Hundreds, maybe even thousands, of people in Cathedral City have been fired from their jobs over this little invasion of privacy.”
“Maybe they deserved to lose their jobs? Ever think of that?”
“Mr. Brooks. If you’re not socially conscious enough to realize this is indeed an invasion of privacy, then I’m afraid you might not belong here among the citizens of Cathedral City.”
“Well,” I say. “We’ll have to agree to disagree. I’m not out to invade privacy. That wasn’t our objective. Our objective was to open eyes. And we’ve done that.”
“To the detriment of society.”
“Says you,” I reply.
She shakes her head at me, unable to believe what she’s hearing. “Look,” I say. “Information gives people power. They then use that information to make decisions. Decisions based on fact.”
“Your facts,” she snaps.
“My facts are accurate, Miss Manchen. If anyone has a dispute, we have a hotline. And we remove all mistakes from the database.”
She sighs, clearly done with me. But I’m not done with her. Because she just doesn’t get it.
“People always say they want the truth, right? Well, here it is. The truth is ugly, Miss Manchen. No one cares if you were a stripper in college.” She gasps, unable to believe that I just went there. But why not? It’s on fucking display everywhere she goes. She can’t turn it off. The only way for people not to see her dirty deeds now is to take the glasses off.
But it’s all too new. They won’t take them off. Not yet. Not until they’ve had their fill. Not until they feel comfortable with their neighbors, and friends, and bosses again. But one day they might.
“Life is nothing but one long string of mistakes,” I say. More to the camera than to the reporter. “Everyone makes mistakes.”
“Yes,” she agrees. “Everyone does. But they shouldn’t have to be reminded of them.”
“You can’t see your tag unless you look in the mirror wearing the glasses. Don’t wear them in the bathroom, Miss Manchen. No big deal. So you made some mistakes. There’s five million people watching this program right now. If they’re wearing glasses they’re seeing all kinds of shitty things I’ve done. It allows them to form an opinion about me.”
“My opinion of you is very low,” she spits out. “And I’d bet most of the audience agrees with me.”
I shrug. “So what? I can live with that. And my best advice for everyone watching is to learn to live with their mistakes too. One day, Miss Manchen… one day we’ll all wake up and decide we’re done with the glasses. We’re done with the truth. And we’ll put them away. We’ll learn to trust each other again. And that’s why I did this. There’s no trust in this city right now because it’s filled with liars, and criminals, and deadbeats who think they’re cheating the system. But they’re not now, are they? We know who the liars and cheats are. We get to decide who we’ll forgive and who we won’t.”
“It’s virtual vigilantism,” she sneers.
“People are a force of nature. You can’t control them, even when you think you can, you don’t control them. Because the collective is made up of individuals and everyone gets a say in the matter. SkyEye and ToyBox aren’t about judging people, Miss Manchen. It’s about forgiving people. Including yourself. And then moving on. Bad guys are real, yes. But the good guys are out there too. And isn’t it great that now we can tell the difference?”
I take my SpyGlasses off and hand them to Sadie. Then I reach out to the camera and switch it off.
Sadie climbs into my lap and plants a kiss on my lips. “That was perfect.”
I have a crooked smile for her. I don’t give one rat’s ass if people like what we did. But four hundred seventy-two people on the Cathedral City payroll were fired this week.
“It’s a very good start,” I say. “But enough of this bullshit. We’re tired. We want to take you to bed.”
She winks at me. Us. Because Sullivan is still here. And that side of me is one kinky motherfucker. I wouldn’t get rid of him for anything now.
He might’ve started out as chaos. And yeah, I thought being chained to that anarchist bastard was a punishment. A sickness.
But I’m getting used to his chaos.
And I have discovered… I don’t mind watching.
An evil laugh bursts out of our mouth as Sadie takes our hand and leads us towards the bedroom.
We’re ready, I decide. We’re ready for the revenge to be over. We’re ready for things to sort themselves out down in Cathedral City. And we’re ready for Sadie Scott to make us happy.
Because happy, ya know? Happy is the only thing that counts.
Yes, we’re a bad guy. The SpyGlass tag above our head proves that to anyone who’s interested.
But we’re thinking about getting out of the supervillain business.
Anarchy might have to live on without us.