I became a special agent 20 years before the great computer crash. Before I met young Adam Daley. Things were simpler then. Our lives were not controlled by codes and algorithms. People visited each other when they wanted to talk and we all didn't mind sending letters. Then came the twitter world and everything changed. This brings me back to the time, I decided to become an agent of the state. I wanted to dedicate my life to serving the nation. I wanted to keep people safe. Growing up, I never felt safe and I did not want anyone to be responsible for my safety.
Adam Daley remind me of my younger self. He is more driven and works hard than any teenager I know. I watched him do football drills in his backward. He was always focused. He knew what he was doing. I want to talk about how I met Adam but first I have to reflect on my how I became a government spy.
I still remember my interview to join the government. I went to the interview room unprepared. This was because I had spent the whole night thinking about the interview. It was going to change my life and I did not want to mess it up. I was 24 years old and all my effort for trying to get a job had not worked. I was about to give up when I was called for this interview. There were three people in the room. A woman dressed in a red pant suit sat in the middle and besides her were two men. One of them had a bald head and was older. They young man was dressed in a neat black suit and seemed uninterested. He looked at me like he did not want me to be there. He was more intimidating than the other two. Maybe it was because he was young and knew how young people lied when they tried to get a job.
“Tell us a little bit more about yourself?” Asked the man in a navy blue suit and bow tie.
“My name is Herb Campbell,” I replied. They stared at me for a minute expecting more. I did not have anymore things to say.
I froze, I didn’t know what else to say. How did I end up here? Oh I remember. I had given up on searching for the creature called job. Yes, I kept on sending the applications but I was not searching. Sending them had become a hobby. Spending hours on the typewriter typing every word, re-typing, revising, reading, re-reading and deleting had become a norm. They all came out pretty neat and sometimes too perfect for cover letters. I was the van Gogh of cover letters, Vivalding the sentences. The earlier batches came out neat and polite. They always began with “Dear Sir/Madam”, then I abandoned the pleasantries and would just write a direct message. That didn’t help either. They all changed from formal and composed to rude and abusive. I barely remember writing the cover letter that got me this interview. I must have written it whilst tired.
I was living with my friend Angie and her cat. No one lived with cats in his neighborhood. They were believed to be evil. Yet she kept one. Some of the neighbors tried trapping it and they failed. It was a smart cat. He was a mean. He was his own God. I often watched it go about its business for hours and wished that i was that cat- mean, aggressive and self-assured. It attacked people, its owner, other cats and could stare down neighborhood. Surprising it it ignored me. I suspect, it knew that I wasn't worthy looking at.
The invitation to the interview was shocking and I promised myself not to show up had it not been of the insistence of my roommate. She was not really my roommate since she paid all the rent and all I did was eat her food. I was just there and taking her space. She was a generous soul. I knew that her persuasive behavior was more of a threat to throw me in the street and I was not prepared for the streets. I was too weak for the street. I dreaded even just walking around and passing by people, bumping into bodies was difficult. How was I going to survive the whole night, days and months of it.
Sarah my roommate or to be precise my caregiver thought I was perfect for this job. I knew that had she read my application letter, she would have said something much more sanier. Nothing in it qualified me for the job except for the mentioning of one college class, a class I took four years back. It was a filler class. It was supposed to be an Introduction to Forensic Science class but it ended up being a special on ballistics. My guess is that it all was because of the tired bald headed second-amendment gun enthusiast who taught it.
“You understand what we do here,” the woman in red asked me.
“You do security work,” I answered.
“This is what we do. We here understand that computers are about to take over how we communicate and live as humans. We do not know where the innovation is taking us. Things are changing everyday. Even though we control and make computers, soon they will control us and we will not be able to do anything about it. The day computers take over is the day all human beings will die. You are going to be part of a project to control dangerous computer innovations. You will infiltrate networks and find out what people are doing. It won’t be an easy task but we believe you are good for the job. We want to be able to control our lives in the future and not leave it to robots. Do you understand?” I did understand. I began my work intercepting radio transmissions and communication between computer geniuses.
I discovered that something was wrong when I got a message in my inbox saying that I should be prepared for change. Nothing I was going to do would stop it. Everything was going to go down because the computers were going to shut down. I could not figure out who sent the threat. Somehow this made me want to buy more guns so that I could protect myself and it reminded me of Professor Matterson and his rule of three. These were the rules one needed to know about life. I didn’t listen or think about it when he told me then but they made sense now.
I am not sure what I got from that class except the fact that their was a raging debate in the good ol’ republic about guns. The debate was a bore. To my amazement most of my classmates got passionate about the whole gun thing. They needed to relax and i had no idea how I would make them do so. They thought I was odd and a sadist. I thought they were the odd ones. The professor even gave me a C for not participating. I tried to protest the grade by noting that the gun debate was none of my business. He wasn't convinced. His email reply to my plea for a better grade was a short sentence. He might have used the word ‘hopeless’ in it. I barely remember. But I do remember meeting the old professor in a restaurant the next semester. He was sitting alone at a wooden table drinking beer and chewing tobacco. Next to the pitcher was container of peanuts. I hated peanuts.
He invited me to the table and acted like I was one of his best students ever. Calling me by name. I reluctantly accepted his invitation. I sat down and helped myself to his pitcher.
“You should have pretended to care. “ He said as I poured another glass of beer into a bud light beer mug.
“I like this beer. I usually do not drink lagers but this is good. Do you drink?”
“No sir, I do not drink, I think alcohol is bad for you” I replied.
“What happened to you kid?” he asked.
“Nothing, I not interested in guns, I really want to know how computers work. I would like to create something new by using a computer. Something that can help our country” I answered.
“So you want to work for the government. I do not trust the government. It is corrupt, that is why I like guns, I want to protect myself when things get bad around here. I know these people are going to come for us and our guns,” said Matterson.
“You might need help kid” continued Mr. Matterson.
How ironic, I thought. I wasn't the one drinking a pitcher alone in the middle of the day on a Tuesday afternoon.
“I am fine. I did ok in that class.”
“You call a C ok?”
“I passed.”
“So you don't like guns?”
“I didn't say so,” I replied.
“You could use this experience back home,” he said.
“I doubt it, plus a ballistics class is irrelevant to me since where I come from we barely have guns or gun crimes. Only the cops and soldiers have guns,” I told him.
“That cannot be true.” He stated as he whipped his white beard and raised his finger to the pretty blonde girl working at the entrance. She must have been the only waitress on duty. The professor was getting drunk. He told me about a vast conspiracy to change the world and that I had to be very careful. There were people coming for me. He is the one who advised me to join the government as a secret agent. At first I was not sure but then that changed. I really wanted to become a government spy and did not know where to apply and whom to ask. My parents thought that my ideas were bad so they left me to figure out everything by myself.
When I woke up this morning, someone had blocked my access to the internet. I knew that something big was going to happen. I just couldn’t put my hands on it.
