“What did he say?!?” The Smoking Man fumed.
The Analyst and the Smoking Man were watching a real-time feed directly from Chigger’s cell phone to their secret base in {REDACTED}. The analyst had clandestine access to every cell phone in America, a fact which should surprise exactly no one.
“So, you’re pissed he thinks he’s Batman? Or that he’s gone rogue?”
“Oh, that?” The Smoking Man straightened his tie. “That happens all the time. We lose a few Extreme Greeters to the siren song of superhero vigilantism every year. It’s an occupational hazard. We have ways of dealing with them.”
“So, what’s the problem?” The Analyst, as usual, was pondering two concepts at once, the problem at hand (a breach of OPSEC) and the new revelation that there were apparently protocols and people already in place for hunting the occasional Batman. Wheels within wheels. He continued. “If necessary, I can brick that redneck’s phone, but doing so might arouse suspicion. We’d best not do it lightly.”
“It’s what he said he was chasing.”
“The phrase which must never be uttered?” The analyst frowned.
The Smoking Man cringed as if the thought alone was physically painful. “Yes!”
“You’re telling me that chasing a fellow named Achmed, who is from Pakistan, and has a sketchy background, and turned up on our radar screen as a possible terrorist, and as far as our intel can tell is at least nominally of the religion of…”
“Religion of peace!” The Smoking Man interrupted.
The analyst sighed, Muggles were confusing. He had, at his fingertips, more technology than had ever been assembled in human history (though he now had suspicions of a higher echelon of Batman hunters). Even accounting for an appropriate amount of humility, he was one of the smartest people in the NSA. Even so, he was often baffled by some of things the Smoking Man did.
He turned his chair towards the Smoking Man and looked him directly in the eye, which is a lot like staring at a cobra. “We’ve got a destroyed convenience store filled with dead bodies, there’s a helicopter doing God knows what, there’s a person who is linked to squirrel based terrorism and who may be a practicing…”
“Religion of peace!” The Smoking Man insisted.
The Analyst kept talking. “… I’ll skip that for now. Who is being chased by Batman. There’s a Ghostbuster out there. And a couple of gun toting yahoos with a pet bear that probably raped Mike…” He paused, taking a deep breath and trying to put that thought out of his mind. “…so if you want me to put this whole thing down an electronic memory hole I’m going to need the parameters for that operation.” He spoke earnestly as he knew the Smoking Man hated direct questions, but it had to be done. “What the hell is wrong with the phrase…”
“Don’t say it!” The Smoking Man insisted.
Then he shrugged and began to explain.
“We already know that mind control emanates from bullshit. We already know the bullshit resides deep in the human mind. We spent a great deal of time cramming as much crap into every American as possible. One subsection of the appendix of Directive 27B/6 establishes the parameters of certain bullshit we want planted in the human mind. Therefore, there are lists of certain phrases which we must always utter and other phrases which we must never utter.”
“And this list is…” The Analyst prodded for details.
“Classified.” The Smoking Man said with finality.
“But…” The Analyst stopped himself mid-sentence. He was perhaps the best man in the planet at detecting bullshit but even he was hopeless against it. How does a person sift data with only half of the equation?
“Use your head,” the Smoking Man encouraged, “think of some of the more recent bullshit. We’ve been working hard to plant many forms. They’re obvious to a man of your talents if you look.”
“Okay, I’ll play your guessing game.” The Analyst grinned, knowing things that no one else knew was the whole reason he held this job. It was the motivation to work with a man who made Darth Vader seem cuddly. His intellect was of the sort that he would gladly work for Satan himself provided it came with amusing challenges; here at the NSA he worked daily with a complex and half seen national mind puzzle. He loved it.
“So, if a fellow named Mohammed blows up busload of puppies while screaming allah akbar we’re supposed to pretend we don’t have the slightest hint of his motivation?” He scratched his chin; very clever. “Could be Lithuanian, might be workplace violence, possibly a disgruntled Canadian hockey fan?”
“Absolute, perfect, bullshit.” The Smoking Man grinned.
“And the religion of peace couldn’t be Buddhists?” The Analyst was getting into the groove.
“Of course not. When you hear that phrase, you don’t think of Quakers, Buddhists, hippies with flowers, or anything else do you?” The Smoking Man smiled proudly. “You can’t imagine how much effort we put into planting that bullshit in everyone’s brain; it’s in your brain too.”
The Analyst floundered, picking up these two pieces of floating bullshit was easy because he had been pointed in the right direction. Now the pressure was on.
Dredging deep, the analyst wracked his ample mental horsepower. Then it hit him… Holy shit.
“The youth of one of the most technologically advanced nations on planet earth…” He began. “…have access to every TV show, video game, movie, book, and graphic novel in creation. They’ve got Red Bull, Facebook, Adderall, and internet porn.” He paused for a moment, sounding the dimensions of the vast universe of bullshit and its implications. “Yet every male from age 9 to 12 is carrying one thing in their pocket.”
“A pocket knife, a harmonica, bus fare, a condom?” The Smoking Man playfully tried to nudge him off track.
“A fidget spinner!” The Analyst announced, suddenly seeing it so clearly now.
“Excellent deduction!” The Smoking Man nodded. “A pointless rotating mass that does absolutely nothing. An object upon which they willingly expend time, money, and adulation… for no reason whatsoever. Exceptionally effective bullshit don’t you think?”
The Analyst felt flush with discovery, a nearly orgasmic height of smug superiority. “What’s wrong with them?” He chuckled.
“Feels pretty good to identify bullshit doesn’t it?” The Smoking Man leered, then he sorted through his highly classified mental circuitry to drive the point home. “Now here’s the punchline…”
The Analyst leaned forward.
The Smoking Man uttered two words: “Duncan Imperial.”
The Analyst smiled at the memory. “Yeah, I had one back in the day. Mine was purple, best yo-yo I ever had. I also had a butterfly but that didn’t balance as well. I could do tricks, ‘walk the dog’, ‘around the world’. I…” He stopped. Shocked.
“A pointless rotating mass upon which young men expend their energies.” The Smoking Man chuckled. “Feel superior now?”
“The Smother’s Brothers?” The Analyst shuddered at the deep sorrow of knowing a youthful pleasure had been a managed process, a keyhole built into a mind so young it wasn’t yet susceptible to mini-skirts.
“The Smothers Brothers were some of our best agents. They were brilliant.”
“Bullshit in the past. Bullshit in the present.” The Analyst muttered.
“And bullshit in the future.” The Smoking Man completed the thought. “I prefer to think of it as paying it forward.”
“To facilitate nefarious schemes we haven’t yet dreamed and which will be implemented by those who may not yet be born.” The Analyst was in awe.
“Money in the bank.” The Smoking Man, nodded. “So now you see the importance of…”
“That redneck’s phone is toast!” The Analyst interrupted. “And I see he’s already uploading to YouTube. Not on my watch!”
“Do what you must.”
“I’m going to divert flights in the Eastern Seaboard, DDOS the Stock Exchange.” The Analyst was hammering on his keyboard, the Smoking Man’s presence all but forgotten. “Gotta’ cover our tracks. Diversion. YouTube going down for a few minutes won’t even make the papers.”
Satisfied the best man possible was intent on closing the loop, the Smoking Man stepped quietly out of the room. He had a few hours left in the day and was thinking of fomenting a revolution that would topple the government of Estonia. He had many irons in the fire.