A story exploring time travel and societal issues in the wake of 9/11. This is chapter 18. See previous posts for chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, and 17.
It was sunny in Seattle, where T2 and Ana shared a small cottage on the property of a much larger house that TAP had recently purchased. After spending months apart, the close quarters felt a little awkward at first. But they had worked it out.
T2 had reconnected with Ana at the Denver airport. Together, they flew to Seattle and met with Ana's bosses. The FBI accepted her resignation, but T2 had to agree to appoint secret intelligence liaisons at NIS and TAP. These liaisons were to maintain communication with a Bureau representative and send them quarterly reports. T2 gave them Reed and Eggs. The arrangement wasn't too onerous, and T2 got the impression that his companies weren't the first to be treated this way.
They sat now, drinking lemonade outside, with a local anarchist named Jump, who worked for TAP. Jump ran the collective responsible for the Federation Daily, a news website focused on the TAP network. The site wasn't mainstream. It mostly oscillated between communist and anarchist perspectives. After operating for a year, T2 had a pretty good idea of where the site was headed. And he wasn't entirely pleased.
"Have you given any thought to the material I sent?" asked T2. "The checklist?"
"Yeah, we talked it over and decided to reject it," said Jump.
"The whole thing?" asked T2.
"You can't be serious," said Ana.
"We like the free form style," said Jump. "Emphasis on free."
"So you're not interested in doing actual journalism?" said T2. "Christ, even the Moonies got it together enough to make the Washington Times happen. You telling me you're less with it than the Moonies?"
Jump looked blankly at him.
"Alright," said T2. "So the TAP news wire we set up. After looking over your year, it seems you published under five percent of the items on the wire. Why so low? And everything you did print came from only four cities."
"Our number one priority is facilitating the leftist conversation in this country," said Jump. "Everything we post is in line with this priority."
Ana laughed. "Sorry if I'm speaking out of turn," she said. "But you've had a year of funding and all you came up with was a bunch of irrelevant, pseudo-intellectual crap. You've got six writers and none of them can write. Including you. Six White dudes in their twenties. And just so you know, any story that includes the term proletariat isn't news."
T2 frowned. "You do know that this is a pivotal time, don't you?" he asked. "A pivotal time for free speech and society as a whole. But also a pivotal time for the Federation Daily. Do you have another funding source lined up? Because TAP seems unlikely to award you another grant for the coming year."
"Aww, seriously," said Jump. "So you're telling me that if we don't do it your way, you're pulling our funding? That's so ... fascist."
T2 and Ana looked at each other, their eyes filled with mirth.
"TAP funded you for a year and you produced a product of subpar quality," said T2. "The Federation needed a news outlet and you completely fumbled the opportunity. Deliberately, from the sounds of it."
"I don't see what the big deal is," said Jump defensively. "You said we could do anything. Anything."
"You seem disinclined to see the big picture here," said T2. "The Pentagon spends billions on psychological operations and treats the whole internet like an enemy combatant. Since 9/11, the CIA has been manipulating Hollywood like never before. And that's before even getting into the sway that advertisers and corporate owners have over the content of mainstream news. Can you see where I'm going with this?"
"So what?" asked Jump. "You want us to make another Huffington Post? Well, we're not doing that. We're radical leftists."
"I thought that might be your position," said T2. "Your grant application for the next year is denied. Minneapolis will be taking over the network's news service. The replacement site will go up next week, with the name changed to AFN, or Anything Federation News. You and your writers are welcome to submit applications to the Minneapolis node if you want to keep contributing to the endeavor."
"But what about all of our work?" asked Jump, who had clearly expected the conversation to go differently.
"The current site is archived on the Federation Blockchain," said T2. "Your collective has the right to use this however you want."
"But this is total bullshit," said Jump.
"Maybe it is," said T2. "Feel free to complain about it on the listserv."
After another minute of complaining, Jump got on his bike and rode away. T2 took a deep breath and Ana looked at her phone. "We've got five minutes until the next one," she said. "Think it'll go any better?"
"What do you mean?" said T2. "I thought that went fine."
A black sedan pulled up and parked. A middle aged man in an ill-fitting gray suit got out, tugging a briefcase behind him. His name was Archie Knox. They waved Knox over and he shook hands, then found his way into a seat at their table. "So you're the guy," he said to T2.
"Indeed," said T2. "Help yourself to lemonade. You ready to get into it?"
"All set," said Knox, opening the briefcase and removing a small stack of papers. "Here's a list of all of your residential properties in the state that met your criteria. You sure you want to sell all of these?"
"I'm sure," said T2. "For as much as you can get for them. I want all of them sold by the the end of 2007."
"I see," said Knox. "Like I said on the phone, I can do that, but with this many properties, even spread out between now and then, I'm afraid it might disrupt the local markets."
"Mr Knox," said T2. "I'm doing the same thing in forty-one other states. These are excess properties that I purchased to make exactly this move when the time came. And the time has arrived."
"I see," said Knox.
"Home prices will peak and then fall sharply for a few years after that," said T2. "At which point, I'll be buying again. Now, if you can handle these sales to my satisfaction, I'll use you again in 2012 for the next round of buys."
(Feature image from Pixabay.)
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