CHAPTER XXV
Binky Bean’s face flickered, a reflection on the monitor as she entered her unique password. Keep lives separate, that’s something she’d learned firsthand being Susie-4-Sure’s intern. You can’t let other’s fireworks—or duds—burn you out. Life must go on, as Cheryllynn Shapula had pointed out to her once…at least on to the next campaign.
The screen flickered, her fingers flexed, and then she entered into DuckDuckGo’s query box the terms “ZAnon video.” She used this search engine because it didn’t resell her information, wouldn’t even keep records. She paused for a moment, then added, “Debunking,” and pushed down with her little finger on ENTER.
There was the video of Matt, looking very familiar to her even with bad lighting.
She read the posting:
“There is a conspiracy to bring down the president. President Match in particular because he poses the largest threat in decades to the globalist illuminati, the wealthiest families that profit from chaos, from others’ suffering and from all things that cost the rest of humanity. This is the Crisis.”
It was clearly Matt’s voice. “Life goes on!” Binky Bean typed in the Comments box. Then she pushed ENTER.
A.S.A.P., she got a reply: “Who are you?” Z asked her.
She wrote back: “I don’t think I know you well enough for that yet.” She smiled at the flirtation.
“The end is coming. You don’t want to be last, and have no place to go. What if you texted, and no one texted back?”
“I wouldn’t like that,” she replied. She was feeling more than she was prepared for.
“We can’t let them do it.”
“Who’s them?” she interrupted.
“The global elite. The bad guys promising freedom while taking away your individual liberties. They’re milking the weakest with that line, letting them indulge their bad impulses to turn inward. Instead, turn outward! Make your world the mirror.”
That last line got to her. Hit home. She thought about her face and how it was changing, ever so slightly, but nevertheless irreversibly. The mirror showed her this, but she saw it in others’ eyes, too. They were mirrors—the infrequent times she saw anyone in person anymore.
“If they win, they’ll wipe out life as we know it. Be with me. Support Match.”
“My, aren’t we getting philosophical? But isn’t Michael Match a member of the global elite? He’s all gold. He certainly thinks he’s elite,” she shot back.
It felt to her as if they were alone together, this man she knew better and better with each click. It was as if they were on the shady banks of some primordial river, and no one else mattered. As if there were bunnies in the salad bowl of weeds around the circle of grass on which they lay.
That was strange, Binky thought as she logged off the black site. She didn’t know whether to trust him or not now. Or if it was him? But she felt it was. It sounded like him. But the power he’d amassed. Amazing! right under her nose.
So now she might trust him just a little farther—or rather trust her feelings for him. She at least knew what to expect. And yet all the information she had about Matt Matzzinger Moriarty would fit onto half a campaign clipboard.
CHAPTER XXVI
Judy Wordword was looking into the camera and pursing her lips so that the wrinkles on her cheeks multiplied like last year’s memories. She was thin, drawn but sure, like a finger of land jutting out into the ocean, worn to almost nothing by nature. The generous public funding of “public” television certainly wasn’t going to her grocery bills. Judy’s eyes looked tired, neither pleading nor fiery, but her voice terminated in that of a grateful survivor, intentionally not shrill or sharp, just accusatory:
“So, P.J.? Is that your name? Like in pajamas?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Well, makes me feel all warm and snuggly just saying your name then. So…why are we here today? What’s up? You’re telling us all about the great Z-Anonymous movement, aren’t you? I hear it’s grown to be hundreds of thousands of supporters on the Internet? Very powerful. And mostly—or all?—Match supporters, right? So what is Z-Anon, P.J.? What can you tell us about that?”
“Z is actually a reference…to the highest clearance level, in the Department of Defense. Usually, it’s used only for confidential military or national defense matters, things like atomic energy or nuclear waste.”
“Interesting. So that’s the Z, and the Anon is just short for Anonymous?”
“That’s right.”
“Amazing. Well, that’s a funny last name. But really, what’s the big deal, P.J.?”
“So this all started last fall, on a little-known anonymous Internet message board, called 4chan, where a contributor calling himself Z began posting little nuggets of information. ‘Crumbs’ is what Z-aficionados call them. Their theory is that Michael Match will somehow overcome a cabal of insider evil, and then throw all of these evildoers in jail. He—the blogmeister now called Z—has more power than God with these people. And their number is growing, Judy. A lot of women, too. They take these cryptic messages and unpack them, then they bake them into pretty-much-whatever they want. Before this, Match was in trouble. Not anymore.”
“Well, that sounds like quite a lot of kitchen time, P.J.,” Judy reacted slowly. “But how many people are we talking about here? I mean, do we know for sure?”
“YouTube pages where ZAnon’s breadcrumbs are baked get hundreds of thousands of hits—every day.”
“That’s perhaps millions of voters?”
“Yes, Judy, people are engaging.”
“Yes, you bet they are, P.J. Well, we’ll have to have you back soon to give us a further updating on all this. Thank you, P.J.. Now in other news this evening….
CODA TO BOOK 2
POSTED on the dark web:
We are the storm. Nothing can stop what is coming. Nothing can stand in our way. The great Awakening is upon us. Enjoy the show. We are condemned and saved. We are the world that is watching. Z
www.yourfunsten.com 