Chapter Twelve: Martians
They came from everywhere and at once, rising up like a flood. For years they had been the largest constituency in the country and yet before the death of Melvin Sninkle they had practically not existed at all. They had moved through the political landscape like dark matter, calling themselves the unaffiliated, the independent, and occasionally even the undecided. Needing reason and finding none, they had left almost no sign of their existence. They were people who had looked upon the previous political system with exasperation and had refused to devote themselves to one of two bad options and yet who had no better ideas. They had many thoughts and many needs, but what they valued above all else was sanity. They demanded sensible and open discussion. They demanded reasonable approaches that did not trample on freedoms. They demanded results they could feel in their actual, everyday lives.
In a single day, they came awake and they were united by one single thought: Melvin Sninkle’s death was not an accident and someone had to be held accountable.
For the first time a seeming-conspiracy was underfoot and the common person had the ability to independently fact-check the official narrative. For the first time, in the face of a suspected cover-up, clear chains of trust could be established contrary to the corporate press. The Index began to collate data on the death of Melvin Sninkle as quickly as Digital Citizens could type. Experts were called upon to examine the people examining the car. The examiners were found to be suspect, political operatives who had been involved in numerous scandals. Other experts, Index approved, were pointed to as a superior choice. Not only did the Index shed light on the inadequacy of the traditional process, but it insisted upon a demonstrably better process. Protests erupted across the nation, demanding the Index Team be given charge of the investigation. The Forum endorsed this, showing that a two-thirds majority of the voting population supported this notion. By the end of the day it was over three-fourths. The face of the Stranger was plastered across the internet, in every nation on the Earth, demanding an answer to the question: “Who is this man?”
The corporate press -for now only the Index could be described as mainstream- began to push the story that Melvin Sninkle had been an agent of the Chinese government. Their offices were stormed and sometimes on air, rioters would take over the newscast and read from the Index explaining exactly why this line of reasoning was implausible. One of them wore a hoodie that read: “Occupy Mars.”
When one incredulous newscaster demanded to know who the rioters were and whether they were liberals or conservatives, the person in the hoodie replied:
“God it’s always the same two stupid choices! It’s all falling down around you and you still can’t even imagine anything outside of your little bubble! We’re Martians! We’re from outside of this stupid game you’re playing! We don’t want to play red or blue, we want to play baseball or tennis or anything other than this stupid tale-chasing we’ve been stuck in for fifty years. We’re tired of nothing working and nobody doing anything to actually fix it and everyone lying about what’s happening! We’re tired of everyone acting like it’s all some kind of big joke and that nothing matters! We’re tired of being told that all we’re good for is staying inside and shopping online and that the world is ending but keep consuming and don’t expect it to ever get any better! We’re tired of having every kind of food you can imagine and every distraction imaginable but not enough money to buy a house and have children! Look at yourself! You’re trying to start a World War because it helps your job security! Are you out of mind? You’d kill everyone on the planet to boost your ratings! Don’t you see you’re a rat trapped in a maze? We’re not going to take this anymore! There’s a better maze! There’s a whole universe out there, waiting for us to grow up and be responsible! You hear me? The Martians are here!”
The name stuck.
By the hundreds, then by the thousands, and finally by the millions they gathered around the PIST offices to offer up their flesh as human shields to protect the future. For there was, at last, a future worthy of their personal sacrifice. There was again, a dream of a nation worth dying for.
Alone in her exile, Chastity Anderson was at last able to focus. Through a haze of wine and pills she finally saw her way clear to a grand new political theory that was certain to put her back on top. Previously, she had supposed that any time anything went wrong anywhere in the world, no matter how culpable she or someone she liked appeared to be, that it was somehow Russia’s fault. It had taken her several painful weeks of self-reflection to realize that her present circumstance was not the fault of Russia. Her therapist had forced her to confront this truth over several sessions. When the woman had looked at her meaningfully following the realization, as if to say, “Do you see whose fault it really is, then?” Chastity Anderson found herself descending into a deep psychological spiral until she’d finally hit rock bottom and had been forced to confront a new terrifying reality.
For almost her entire adult life she’d been able to blame Russia for everything that had gone wrong in the world. From her first divorce to inflation, Russia had always been there, manipulating events in the background. Of course, as the Index so tediously explained, these events could sometimes be explained by a much longer, more complex, and less narratively fulfilling set of facts… but wasn’t that the sort of thing you’d expect to find if a super-competent and hyper-powered nation was trying to cover its tracks? A truly powerful nation could act and leave no trace at all. The comments as she’d tried to defend herself had become vicious. One of her detractors had demanded she explain exactly what she even meant by “Russia” because it was never clear if she meant the geographic territory, the people, the government, or specific individuals. She’d floundered to find an answer herself. Later she found herself asking the same question over and over again: What was Russia? What was anything for that matter? Her detractors had wanted her to explain the functioning of intelligence agencies or politicians but that was so evidently missing the forest for the trees that she’d barely been able to respond. Russia was a unity, both an axiom and an atom, a prime, indivisible, whole. They may as well have asked her to explain the nature of God than to explain precisely what she meant by Russia.
Article by article, piece by piece, they’d debunked not only all the fault she’d put at the feet of Russia -except for a few political assassinations she’d barely mentioned, which the Index had specifically and painfully documented as being carried out on the order of the Russian Premier, because they were too boring and which the Index attributed to people within Russia rather than the nation as a whole- but her entire epistemological understanding of reality. In the end she’d had to find new ground to stand upon.
It came to her, on her third sleepless night, as she danced to music only she could hear, her entire consciousness maintained by enough amphetamines to kill a small pony. What if, she supposed, everything going wrong was actually China’s fault?
She shared this idea with several of her friends in the Military Industrial Complex who in turn shared it with several members of various Intelligence Agencies. Paperwork was produced to support the foregone conclusion. She wrote with a fervor, producing multiple articles a day, faster than they could be disputed on the Index. She wrote a giant, self-contained loop, creating entire articles whose only sources were articles she herself had written previously. A sort of tumor made out of circular logic began to metastasize. It was not a reason for what would follow, but it was at least a serviceable excuse.
“It has to be done,” an analyst would say.
“Why is that?” another analyst would ask.
“For the good of the country,” the first analyst would reply.
Later, the loop would close.
“For the good of the country, it has to be done,” they agreed.
Lawyers were engaged to create new legal realities. Judges were blackmailed to secretly approve of them. Special Forces teams were sought, reviewed, and filtered until anyone with moral credibility or legal understanding was dismissed. Only those who had previously been on disciplinary measures or warning lists remained.
A brief presentation was given. It explained that PIST was the tool of a hostile foreign power, specifically China. After all, what was a representative democracy if not the ultimate form of communism just with some extra rules tacked on? Wasn’t relying on self-consistent chains of fact-checking, open to dispute, and free from bias simply the ultimate form of propaganda? What was ultimate freedom to choose your future and cooperate with others if not another name for anarchy? For the freedom and security of the United States it was vital the nation be conquered by an all-powerful military dictator. A single slide of the Power Point made the claim that China had even orchestrated the entire meteor strike and placed select candidates in key positions to take power. Melvin Sninkle had worked with several people from China, was this supposed to merely be a coincidence? The Forum and the Index were both almost Social Credit Scores just with extra rules added, was this also a coincidence? These questions were presented without evidence or answer.
At last the order was given, “For the good of the country, it has to be done. Everyone in the PIST offices must be executed, including acting President Scott Gibbeck.”