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| It came a day later than it was supposed to. The web site said something about a security delay. I don’t really know what that means. I live in an apartment. “What is it?” “It’s my new laptop.” My neighbor had been delivered the package by mistake. I guess if there was a real security delay, I would have been spared the bomb, but my cheerleader neighbor would not have been so lucky. She’s nice and very pretty. She’s a cheerleader for the local arena league football team. They aren’t very good, but since we are a beach town, we have well tanned cheerleaders. In the end, that is what is important. “I heard the laptops came with the new Transistor mp3 player.” “Yeah, now I can take my music anywhere. I can start living in the now and move out of the stone age.” “Aren’t you the one that listens to the Doors?” “What, if you can’t strip to you it, it’s no good?” “Julian, it’s not stripping.” “You dance around in a bikini top with a picture of a shark near your whoha and a fin on your ass, close enough to stripping for me.” I begin opening the package with my pocket size Swiss army knife. The box flaps are pulled open and there it is. This grand white piece of technology that I have never had before. I am twenty six years old and this is the first time I have a laptop. I haven’t even looked up porn on the internet, that’s how far behind I am. I pull out the laptop. Just underneath it was the Transistor, a black square piece of equipment that played songs and videos, automatically linked you to the internet no matter where you were. I was really growing up today. I was becoming a man and there was even a woman there, just like the days my father used to tell me about. “Can I see it?” Evangeline puts her hand close to the Transistor. I hand it to her. I didn’t care, it wasn’t what I was waiting for. I open the laptop. I was overwhelmed with joy. I had saved up for nearly two years to buy this expensive piece of technology. No more frozen pizza, now the greatest advancement in technology was my laptop. “Good afternoon, Julian.” The damn thing talks. It talked to me. It knew my name and even took a picture of me, which was loaded as wallpaper once the initial boot up completed. It even knew it was afternoon. “Did you want something to drink?” “Sure, what do you have?” “I know for sure I have water.” “Sounds good, I’m on a diet.” “Evangeline, you weigh what ninety pounds soaking?” “That’s very sweet of you and I’m sure you would love to see me soaking wet.” “That goes without saying.” I go to the kitchen to get her some water. She only drinks bottled water, but I get some from the tap. I once heard that only New Yorkers drink from the tap. I’m from Texas; I don’t trust water I can see through. “Did the laptop come on yet?” She looks over. “No. I am having a hard time turning on this thing though.” I bring her the water. “Let me see.” “I heard there was an initial video that was pretty intense.” “Really?” “Yeah, this girl I know got one two days ago and she told me that when she turned on the Transistor there was this creepy video called ‘Mockingbird’ on it.” “Mockingbird?” “Yeah, she said it was some action movie clip or something.” “What does that mean?” She takes a drink of water. “I don’t know, I guess two people getting shot or something. You know what; I think that new Orlando Bloom movie is called Mockingbird. That may be it. I didn’t think it was an action movie though.” “Well, we are about to find out.” I turned on the Transistor. The screen turned white, a bright white. Suddenly, black letters appeared. It read: Mockingbird. “This is it. I don’t want to look.” She puts her face near my chest. The picture loads. It is somewhat distorted. Very fuzzy, but I can make out a woman. She looks to be crucified. This can’t be. The video has no sound. But I can see her mouth. She looks like she is screaming. “Well?” “Don’t look.” She looks up at me. I am obsessed with this image of a screaming crucified woman. There is blood running from her wrists and feet. “What is it?” She looks at the picture. “Oh my god!” The disgust on her face is what I am feeling on the inside. I can’t express it. All I can do is look. Someone else appears on screen. The woman starts shaking her head. I can see her mouth the word “No.” She isn’t mouthing it, she is screaming it, but there is no sound. Evangeline grabs the Transistor and tries to turn it off. “What is this? Why won’t it turn off?” I pull it away from her. The man strips the woman. She is naked on screen, screaming, helpless, voiceless. He puts a crown of thorns on her head. A tremendous amount of blood runs down her face. The man pulls out a knife. End it. End it quick. Please, for my sake end it. He cuts her. He pulls out breast implants. Oh god, I think I’m going to be sick. Evangeline is crying. The man turns around and shows the camera the implants. Oh god. He walks back over to the girl. She is unconscious. Helpless. Voiceless. He stabs her in the side and walks away. She dies in front of me. On camera. The screen goes white. I drop the Transistor. I look at my laptop. The internet has on. In bold letters I see it: Surface Systems to recall all shipments of Transistor. Strange virus found in all recent shipments of popular music and video player. “Evangeline.” She is still crying. I go to her. “Was that real?” “I don’t know.” My mouth says the words, but my mind knows different. She can see it on my face. What I meant to say was, “Yes.” I walk her back to her apartment. She says she is going to take a shower and that I am invited to as well. Any other day I would, but I was expecting a call. A call that came as soon as I closed the door to my apartment. “Yeah.” “Agent Flores.” “Yes.” “You’re needed.” “I’m already packed.” I go back to the field office in Corpus Christi, Texas. It has recently opened up. Now there are three agents that work in the office. The conference room is ready for the teleconference I was scheduled to have with Special Agent in Charge Snyder. “Several police departments have been getting calls…” “I know. I’ve seen it.” “How?” “I just bought a laptop, it came this morning.” “What are your thoughts?” “I believe that the unsub is using the Transistor as a way to make people enter his domain. The Transistor is notoriously known to be difficult to turn on and turn off. The unsub is using this fact to launch his terror. He wants to be caught. He has killed before and will continue until he is. He has mastered his craft and the video link is his way demonstrating it to the world. This unsub has learned that a city or a state is not enough, he needs, no wants, to make the world quake with fear. He will succeed.” “We’ve had the company recall all new Transistors.” “That won’t be enough. Soon the virus will be opened on every computer. He will control everything people see and hear.” “The video don’t appear to have sound.” “He purposefully turned off the microphone to the camera. On such a small screen, the pictures create the terror, but soon there will be sound without picture. When that happens, he will be difficult to catch.” “Come back to the office. I will need you here to build a profile.” “I’m on the next flight.” I’m not a profiler. That distinction is reserved for veteran agents. No, I have a Ph.D. in personality psychology from the University of Texas. I breezed through my undergraduate career at Texas A&M – Corpus Christi and was accepted to the graduate program at Texas. I did my dissertation on the behavioral similarities of suicide bombers. Easy enough as I am a charter member of the Society for Terrorism Research. I learned fluent Farsi and Arabic, as well as Spanish. I was recruited to the F.B.I. from my dissertation and the shortened for publication version that was the first article in the Society’s new journal. So here I am on this flight back to the Behavioral Sciences Unit at headquarters. I am thinking about the unsub and his use of the Transistor. I see a twelve year old girl with one in a row above me. It is not the version where you can watch video. Good for her. My personal television screen comes on. Damn, I wonder if they are going to charge me that. I didn’t order anything. The empty seat next to me also has the screen come on. I look around the cabin to the screens I can see. They are all turning on. “Please tell me this is a good movie.” “Mommy, what are they showing?” “Excuse me, stewardess…” “We are called flight attendants.” “What in God’s name?” I see the screen. It is a man strapped to an altar. He is naked. “Close your eyes, honey.” I see the mother put her hand over her daughter’s eyes. I ring the bell to call the attendant. She comes running. I show her my badge. “Is there a way you can turn off all the screens.” The screams begin filling the plane like smoke in a jar. “No.” “Tell everyone to close their eyes. They aren’t going to like what they see.” She does. Some people still look and they still scream. But they can’t look away. I see what the unsub is doing. A torture that hasn’t been done since the Dark Ages. I see the man scream, but I hear nothing. Still on the same kick. He is still focused on the image. What is this image you are showing me? Why this and not the crucifixion? Do the two ways signify something? A savior? No. An unjust action? Not to Christians. Shock? Yes. I am shocked to see this brutality. To see another human being do this. He wants me to be shocked. He wants me to be disgusted. Tell me. Tell me what I should feel. When the plane lands, the S.W.A.T. teams storms in and gets everyone out. Agent Snyder comes on the plane. “What did you see?” I tell him everything. We travel to headquarters and the conference is filled with all fifty of the profilers. They have one goal, to catch this killer. “How do we catch a killer when we don’t even know where he kills?” “He’s given us the key to catching him. We just need to smart enough to decipher them,” I tell them. I don’t believe it, but hey, I’m the new guy and they expect a big game from me. “We’ve set up a room with all of the video Mockingbird has broadcast,” Snyder says to me. “Mockingbird, we’re using his own title as his name?” “Nothing clever, it’s just as though he appears to mocking us with the fact that we can’t catch him.” I go to the room and begin watching. I feel sick. I feel I should rip out my eyes and burn in Hell for all that I have seen. Why do I feel like this? It started as simply snuff films, but has progressed into something else. What? Why do I feel wrong? Forensics came back clean on the airplane. I knew it would be. The unsub is hacking. But how can he hack into everything? “Agent Flores, you might want to come out here and look at this.” It was a news report on one of those twenty four hour news channels. Jumbotrons in America’s entire sporting venue’s have been broadcasting a scene in which the unsub brutalizes two males. “What do you make of current focus on males?” “This could be the trigger. Originally the focus was on females, as a way to rectify some traumatic event. Now he has come to grips with a homosexual tendency he can’t escape.” A nice theory from one of the more veteran profilers. I would agree except for the fact that it is completely wrong. “What do we know about the victims?” I ask. They turn to me like I know the answer. “I’m seriously asking.” “There’s been eleven of them. Based on dress the first was a professional girl.” “Okay.” “There’s been a child. Hard to determine whether the child was male of female because of the androgynous nature.” “How did he kill the child?” “Strangulation.” “What else?” “The third appears to be Arab.” “Could this be some new form of terrorism? Like how terrorist kidnap and behead journalist?” “Not likely. A terrorist’s main goal is to kill all of us, not focus on each American one at a time.” I start feeling it after I said it. The answer was in that statement, but I wasn’t smart enough yet to figure out. “What else?” “The fourth appeared to be a mail carrier. The victim had a satchel and it was filled with mail.” “The fifth appeared to be a video of a video of him killing a man in a backyard. We already have N.S.A. and forensics working on the video, but so far nothing.” I would hear that the sixth was a woman dressed in suit. He had used a serrated knife to violate her. The seventh was a teenage boy. He appeared to be hung from an electrical cord. The eighth and ninth were the couple that Evangeline told me about. Then the next two came. What was different about them? I went back into the office with the video equipment and began watching the videos. The profilers were all working so hard and I see them running around trying to find this killer and here I am. Here I am. I watch them running around through a glass window. Through a window. I am watching them and sometimes they turn to watch me. They will never find me. Because I can see what they are doing. I see how they are working so hard to find me, but I am too smart for them. I see them. I see all of them. They are looking in the wrong place. He is not killing people. He is telling us that what we are doing is wrong. He is telling us that we are vile and depraved. Look at how we turn technology. Look at what we use it for. Sex, violence, we shop and look for singles. We chat room. We post videos and play games. But we are disconnected from reality. The reality that is true pain. That is why no sound on the videos. That is why he tortured his latest victims. We weren’t listening. We were seeing but not looking. He wants us to feel again. He wants us to look at ourselves and connect in a real way. He is trying to save us from electrons. I walk back to Snyder. “Where was the first video seen?” “The first report came in from Austin, Texas. A defunct start up company still had some hand held video players that began playing the video.” “What was the name of the company?” Snyder looks through the file. His jaw drops. “Bird Technologies. Christ, why didn’t I see this before?” “We were seeing, but not looking.” The police come crashing down on a small town outside of Austin called Round Rock. This is the South’s Silicon Valley. Inside an abandon building we find what used to be Bird Technology’s research and development facility, now a torture room. Mockingbird is there preparing his next video, one that would spread through every house that had a satellite connection for television. Several billion homes worldwide. Soon he would be everywhere and nowhere. After his transportation to Huntsville, there were congratulations all around. I drove home. It was nice to be alone on the Texas highway. Outside, away from technology and Mockingbird. I didn’t even listen to the cd player or the radio. I simply had my window down and breathed the air, flushing out all the darkness that was Mockingbird. All the darkness that was my first case. I get back to my apartment. I see Evangeline’s light is on. I knock on her door. She opens the door perspiring and breathing hard. “Is this a bad time?” “No, just finishing my Pilates.” “Oh, I’ll just talk to you tomorrow then.” “No, come on in.” I walk in to her apartment. “Are you okay?” “I’m not sure.” “I saw you caught the guy.” “Yeah.” “You must be proud of yourself.” “It was a team effort.” “I can tell when you are lying to me.” “Hey, I’m the F.B.I. agent here.” She looks at me with a smile. I feel good. She touches my shoulder. I see her breathing hard. I see her. I feel her. “Why did he do it?” I wanted to tell her about his reasoning. His logic being that technology was keeping us from each other. From being around one another. I wanted to tell her that his company failed because people enjoyed the Transistor more than the Mockingbird, his handheld device. I wanted to tell her so much, but all I could say was… “Because there was a how.” “I don’t understand.” All I can do is look down at the ground. “I need to take a shower, why don’t you join me?” She walks away, taking off her clothes. I hear the water turn on. I don’t know what to do. |
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