Episode 3: No Such Island

It was a good life, Adam concluded. A rewarding life. Ever since being promoted and issued with a new office, he felt a sense of fulfillment. He enjoyed his work, and even having Kate for a boss was beginning to seem like less of a death sentence. Much of this had been because he mostly hid under his desk and didn’t answer the phone and didn’t do any work. He had angled the desk in such a way that from underneath it he could peer out the low window across the Swan river and the southern end of the CBD.

He watched the seagulls and boats drift here and there, and sipped vodka from a wine bottle. That had been another brilliant idea of his. As he was gifted bottles of wine by his new subordinates in a feeble attempt to curry his favor, he realized that it apparently not frowned upon for an executive such as himself to keep wine in the office, at least, not as loutish as keeping a half drained bottle of the galaxy’s shittiest vodka on his desk. He had dumped out the vile fruit juice from all of them and replaced them with sweet, sweet Borscht brand vodka to get him through the work day. Yes, it had been an excellent twenty five minutes since he took possession of his new office.



Presently he heard the door to his office bang open, and he tensed up and held his breath.



“Adam, where the fuck are you, I’ve been calling you!” Kate Chatadke’s familiar voice called out.



Adam said nothing. He heard Kate’s footsteps as she slowly entered the room.



“Adam?” She called out again.



Still, Adam maintained his silence.



Then, in a low voice, “What the fuck… Why is there a rubbish bin full of wine?”



He silently hoped she did not discover his filing cabinet full of vodka.



After a few seconds of inspecting his office, she spoke again. “Adam… If you’re under that desk I’m going to be even more disappointed in you than usual.” She said to the room.



“This is my safe space.” Adam said aloud.



Kate walked around the desk and poked her head underneath, eyeing his nest. “Well… it does look comfy.” She admitted. With a little difficulty in her neat grey skirt and heels, she shuffled into the space under the desk next to him, sitting heel to head facing him. She reached out her hand and made a grabby motion. Adam handed her the wine bottle, and she took a big sip, apparently unphased that it was not Chateau Au Grapejuice but instead an inexplicably legal and painfully harsh blend of low quality alcohol, mixed with lower quality alcohol.



“Sooner or later, you’re going to have to pee, and that means getting out from under this desk, and that can only end in you interacting with other humans.” Kate said.



“Not if you give me back that bottle.” He said.



Kate kept it, apparently not hearing him. “Besides, word has come down from the DD that an important individual is flying into Perth International in the next couple hours or so, and they want you to go collect him. He’s to be your first field officer.”



“I don’t want a field officer.” Adam said glumly, reaching out towards her. “I want Borscht.”



Kate took another sip and handed the bottle back to him. “Regardless, you’ll need to go out and collect him. There’s a carpool officer down in the first basement, he’ll issue you a nice shiny Lada, with a radio and everything. It probably even has a cupholder for your vodka. C’mon you’ll learn to like this job.”



“Okay, fine.” He said. “Just give me like, ten more minutes. Fifteen, maximum.”



“Alright, deal.” She said. Then, looking out the window, she pointed. “Hey, you can see the river from here.”



“Yep.” He said, smiling. “Look at all the little boats.”



For the next twenty minutes, they sat together under the desk, in near silence, and watched the boats chug up and down the river, passing the bottle between one another.



Both of them were startled as the door suddenly banged open again and a new set of footsteps entered the room.



“Hello? Adam?” It was the voice of Comrade Deputy Director Kane.



Kate glared at Adam and silently mouthed “Fuck!”



Adam nodded in agreement, and, lacking any other ideas, simply put his finger to his lips in a shushing motion. Silently, and moving nothing but their eyes, they followed the footsteps around the room. There was a slap of paperwork on the wooden desk top just above their heads. Kane rambled annoyingly slowly around the room, perhaps pacing while he waited. Then there was a swish of paper as he picked up whatever package he had dropped on the desk, and the sound of sliding metal drawers followed by the clinking of empty glass bottles.



“What… Borscht?” Kane said under his breath. “How very… provincial.” He apparently closed the vodka drawer, and located another place to deposit the paperwork he had brought.



Finally, and to the horror of Kate and Adam, Kane rounded the desk and sat down in Adam’s chair. Kate blinked hard, then glared at Adam. She motioned towards Kane with her eyes. Adam shook his head no. Resignedly, Kate nodded her head yes. Taking a deep breath, she leaned out from under the desk, poked Kane in the leg, and waited until he looked down at her.



“Boo.” She said, smiling her most disarming smile.

The highway to the airport was mostly empty of cars, and most of the guards at the security checkpoints waved Adam’s government-plated Lada through without stopping it. Likewise, the uniformed soldiers at the airport waved his car through, beyond the expansive parking lot, and into a private parking rank just outside the terminal. A soldier in camouflage carrying an olive green submachine gun opened his door for him.



“Thank you.” He said. “Should I …?” He asked, holding the car keys out to the soldier, who looked at him quizzically.



“Right, nobody’s going to steal it.” Adam realized aloud, and dropped the keys on the front seat.



He made his way into the terminal before inspecting a sheet of paper inside the binder which Kane had given him as he left his office. On the large scrolling screens, he matched the flight number that was listed at the top of the sheet. ‘CA-676 – Gate 3 – Now Disembarking’.



It had been years since Adam had visited the airport, and it took him a few moments to remember the layout of the terminal. As he made his way to gate 3, he glanced out the tall windows across the airfield. He was surprised to see the same blackened bomb craters in the grassy infield that he had seen last time. Or were they new ones? He couldn’t be sure. Several heavy military helicopters of Russian design were parked in the unused hardstands beside the apron, and a couple of blue-grey Ilyushin transport jets were parked at private military gates on the opposite side of the runways. In the distance, Adam could see a few missile trucks watching over the airport, presumably some kind of air defense system.



He arrived at gate 3 just as the first passengers were disembarking. He watched them shuffle past, apparently uninterested in anything except getting out of the airport. He glanced at the folder of paper again, inspecting a photograph, and scanning the crowd. He did not immediately recognize the man in the picture. Another sheet of paper had a name printed in large letters on it, Simon Kester. He held this up in front of him. As he waited and scanned the faces of the people streaming past, his thoughts began to drift. He wondered again if he would have made it across the border, and if he had, what his second life would have been like right now. He wondered if they sold Borscht in the East. As he thought about what might have been, a tall man in a greenish-brown army coat approached him from behind and tapped him on the shoulder. The man wore fatigues under his coat and held a stern, dispassionate look on his topologically complex face. Adam assumed him to be a military airport guard.



“It’s okay, I’m just waiting for somebody.” Adam told the tall man. “The bastard is taking his sweet time though. Probably drunk off his ass.”



“If only a man could get drunk from the swill that China Airlines serve.” Said the tall man. “I am Simon Kester.”



Adam frowned, glanced at the photograph in his hand, then at the tall man. He shook his head. “No, this is the man I am looking for.” He said, showing the photograph.



“This was taken thirty years ago.” The tall man said. “But it is me.”



Adam squinted again at the photograph and the man. “Oh, shit. It is too. It would have been nice if they had given me a newer photograph. Anyway, let’s head to the baggage claim to pick up the rest of you gear.”



“No need, I haven’t got any checked baggage.” Simon informed him.



“Oh, travelling light then?” He asked, glancing around to see where the man’s hand luggage was.



“Manner of speaking.” Simon said, fishing a pack of cigarettes and a lighter from his pocket and flashing them at Adam. “Got all the important carry-on right here.” He extracted two cigarettes, offered one to Adam, then lit them both.



Adam took a thoughtful drag on the cigarette. “Fair enough. Car’s out front.” He said. “By the way, name’s Adam.” He said, shaking Simon’s hand, and doing his best not to wince in pain as his fingers were mashed in the big man’s palm.

As Adam steered the silver Lada down the highway, Simon fidgeted with the laminated identification badge that he’d received. He frowned at the words printed on it.



“Something wrong?” Adam asked.



“It says ‘Department of Memes and Propaganda’. Is it supposed to say ‘Media’?””



“No, that’s right.” Adam said.



“What is a ‘memes’?” Simon asked.



“For real?“



Simon nodded.



Adam thought for a moment how best to answer. “Well, you know what propaganda is, right?”



“Of course.”



“How would you describe it?” Adam asked.



Simon considered the question. “Some kind of information which is provided to an enemy, and biased in some way to get some kind of reaction from them. Demoralize them, or encourage them to defect, or whatever.“ He said finally.



“Not just the enemy, but friendlies as well. Propaganda can be used to encourage a particular thing, like volunteering for the army, or buying war bonds. Whatever it’s used for, it’s weaponized information that is designed to evoke an emotional response to promote the political goals of the sender.” Adam pointed out.



“Sure, okay.” Simon agreed.



“But the thing with propaganda is that you have to somehow force the target to consume it, whether they are party members, civilians, or enemy soldiers. So we might drop thousands of propaganda leaflets over enemy battalions to sow dissent and mistrust, but that’s difficult, risky, and expensive. Moreover, none might pick it up and read it.”



“I’m with you.”



“Memes are just like propaganda, they are weaponized information, but dispersed less like a cluster bomb, and more like an Anthrax bacteria or some other kind of biological weapon. They only need to be seeded among the target population, and then they propagate under their own power. The party doesn’t need to force the target to consume the tainted information, the target does so willingly, and then they share it with their friends and colleagues.”



“Why would they do that?” Simon asked.



Adam shrugged. “That’s the million dollar question, I guess. Why would the target willingly consume information that they know to be false and misleading? Maybe it’s funny, or ironic, or so blatantly corrupt that there’s some comedic value in ridiculing it. Like portraying some infamously oppressive tyrant as a champion for human rights, especially when he himself is deluded in that belief. There’s comedy there, because it’s so obviously untrue. And because there’s comedic value, it gets shared.”



“How does it have any meaningful effect, if the only reason its disseminated is for its ridicule value?” Simon asked.



“Well, with propaganda, you pretty much only have one class of target. The one who consumes the media. But when it comes to memes as a political tool, there are at least two classes of target, those who propagate it, and those who passively consume it. In some cases, there are more. The goals are different for each class. For those that propagate the media, it’s irrelevant whether their worldview is influenced by the content. All that matters is that they propagate it, for whatever reason. For the second class, the true targets of the media, they rarely have an active role in the spread of the media. They only interact with it on the periphery of the social class that propagates it. They are influenced by it because they lack the context under which it propagates, and only see it as a suddenly pervasive, widespread biscuit of information or opinion. Without the satirical context of its original propagation, they risk consuming it with a vague understanding that it is at least based in truth, or represents popular opinion and isn’t merely an object of ridicule.



“To put it another way, it’s like a virus. Lots of viruses have their reservoirs in animals; the virus survives within a population of kangaroos in a forest or whatever, but the animals are hardly affected by it. Then there are carriers, like mosquitos for example. They spread it among reservoir animals, keeping the overall mass of the virus high, but they also spread it to humans on the periphery, where the virus can do actual damage. The humans are unable to spread the virus to each other, so quarantine is irrelevant, they can only wait until all infected humans have been cured or have died. However, the virus remains in the animal reservoir, and is extremely difficult or impossible to eradicate, nor can it burn out naturally, because the animals suffer no real symptoms from it. It just sort of hides and waits for the next chance to infect a new round of victims.



“That is the game the DMP plays. Keep the reservoir stocked, keep the periphery carriers active; usually these are entrenched socials like The Facebook; and when the time comes, inject some kind of manufactured trigger meme in there to periodically infect a new round of targets. It’s important not to force it, just to apply gentle, constant pressure on the direction you want public opinion to go. Sometimes, it doesn’t take root. Sometimes it does. And sometimes it snowballs, and becomes a self-propagating, exponentially increasing idea. Whole political movements, even revolutions have been triggered this way. One government doesn’t like another government, so they deploy whole teams of agents to gently and continuously pressure a particular divisive issue, to destabilize, de-legitimize, or simply to frustrate the enemy government. Might be a racial thing, might be a division of rich and poor, might be government corruption, or a religious issue. There may not even be a divisive problem to begin with, but with enough time and pressure any tiny crack of a societal issue can be wedged and levered open to a dangerous and unpredictable chasm.”

“The… Facebook?” Simon asked.



“You know… Facebook.” Adam repeated.



Simon shook his head.



“Google it.” Adam said.



Simon frowned thoughtfully for several minutes, not understanding at all.

Simon peered out the window at the city across the river as they drew closer., and chewed on the stub of his fifth cigarette. “Shit, so many new buildings. It’s bigger than I remember.” He said.



“Oh yeah?” Asked Adam, considering his statement, and failing to notice any significant difference in the skyline. “When were you here last?”



“Ninety four-ish.” Simon said.



“No shit? Where have you been all this time?”



“Chinese prison camp east of Jalainur.”



Adam laughed deeply, then stopped when he realized Simon wasn’t also laughing. He just stared out the window at the city. Adam cleared his throat. “Seriously?” He asked.



Simon nodded.



“Prison camp? Why?” Adam asked



Simon shrugged. “I guess they didn’t like the look of me. I was only in the country for a month before the SF’s came for me. I got the black bag treatment, spent a couple days in a bus, and eventually made it to J-land.”



“Man, what did you do to warrant that?”



Simon shrugged. “Too tall. Too ugly. Wrong colour skin. I don’t think there was any real reason.”



“Surely the Westralian authorities would have noticed that you’d gone missing. Didn’t they do anything to try to get you released?”



“I suppose they would have tried the usual tricks.” Simon said thoughtfully. “Though it’s a funny place, J-land. It’s right on the border up north, you see. On the Ergun river. One side of the river is China, the other side is Russia. Our camp was on an island in the middle of it. Man from Westralia comes to China, complains ‘You’ve got our boys in a prison camp.’ China says ‘That is Russian territory.’ Man from Westralia goes to Russia, says, ‘China says this prison camp is in Russia.’ Russia says ‘Never heard of it, that island belongs to China’. We called it ‘No Such island.’ Sometimes we chop trees in Russia, sometimes we break rocks in China. Usually the guards were outside hires from Mongolia or maybe one of the ‘stans. Never could tell with a bag over my head and a rifle butt chipping away at my skull, they all sound the same.”



“How can they get away with that? They are supposed to be our allies.”



“Allies… I’m not sure Westralia has any of those. Only states with momentarily aligned interests.”



Adam adjusted his grip on the steering wheel. “That… uh…. Sounds like a real bummer. How come they let you go now?”



Simon shrugged. “I guess they ran out of fingernails to pull.”



Adam glanced nervously down at Simons hands, but the other man burst out laughing. Gradually, Adam also began to laugh along with him.



“Just kidding.” Simon said. “They ran out years ago.”