Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre(20)
The last, perfect blue circle surrounds the volcano.
That’s our search sector. Hikers, mountain bikers, campers, those schoolkids—oh my God, those kids, the parents screaming at the governor, the governor screaming at us. Those thirty-six hours, especially after we found the abandoned school bus. Thank God they were okay, but some of the others, the folks who got caught in traffic and just abandoned their cars. That was what fucked us, really, combing the woods trying to find all those lemmings who tried to walk away. That’s why the search spread out so far. But as far as it got…
She stabs her finger at a point on the map well outside all three perimeters.
Look where Greenloop is…was. They were officially safe, and they weren’t alone. I can’t tell you how many backwoods cabins and communities are out there, mostly because they don’t want to be found. And most of them survived being cut off all winter, because they knew exactly what they were getting into. They either had the skills and supplies to hole up or the ability and gear to walk out. And a lot of them loved it. No. Seriously. They welcomed the challenge. They accepted the trade-offs. They weren’t anything like the folks at Greenloop.
Those poor bastards didn’t want a rural life. They expected an urban life in a rural setting. They tried to adapt their environment instead of adapting to it. And I really can sympathize. Who doesn’t want to break from the herd? I get why you’d want to keep the comforts of city life while leaving the city behind. Crowds, crime, filth, noise. Even in the burbs. So many rules, neighbors all up in your business. It’s kind of a catch-22, especially in the United States, a society that values freedom, when society, by nature, forces you to compromise that freedom. I get how the hyper-connectivity of Greenloop gave the illusion of zero compromise.
But that’s all it was, an illusion.
Her eyes wander to the vast expanse of empty map behind the volcano.
It’s great to live free of the other sheep until you hear the wolves howl.
*1 Harry R. (Randall) Truman, a casualty of the Mount St. Helens eruption, not to be confused with Harry S. Truman, thirty-third president of the United States.
*2 LaCroix carbonated drink is considered to be calorie neutral not calorie negative, while opinions are divided on the legitimate calorie-negative qualities of celery.
*3 According to a 2014 EPA study, Americans waste 38.4 million tons of food per year.
All animals are competitive by nature and cooperate only under specific circumstances and for specific reasons, not because of a desire to be nice to one another.
—FRANS DE WAAL, Bonobo: The Forgotten Ape
From my interview with Frank McCray, Jr.
As far as emergency supplies, or lack thereof…Look, I don’t blame Tony, even back then, when they first discovered what was left of Greenloop.
You can’t blame Tony, not as an individual. That’s just how the tech industry thinks. They don’t plan for what can go wrong. They “move fast and break things.” It didn’t occur to Facebook that the Russians might hijack their platform to hijack our elections, even though they’d been doing it to other countries for years. It doesn’t occur to Google, still, that while they’re racing, balls out, to corner the market on driverless cars, terrorists could hack those cars and drive them into crowds.
Hell, I was at a Menlo Park conference once where a guy showed us how he’d hacked his hand, literally. Attached electrodes to the skin above the muscles in his forearm to play the piano. He didn’t know how to play. Just typed in the commands, clicked “execute,” and shazam! “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” And that was just the beginning. What about a full exo-suit that could stimulate the entire body?
“Think of the possibilities.” That was what the guy kept saying. Disabled individuals. The elderly. “Think of the possibilities.”
I could think of a few. I raised my hand and asked, “Isn’t it possible for someone to hack that suit once you put it on, force you to pick up your perfectly legal assault rifle, and walk down the street to the local preschool?” He looked like I’d just kicked over his sandcastle. He hadn’t wasted one neuron on that thought, because, in his mind, it was just that. A waste. All positivity all the time. Learn to fly, even if it’s in the Hindenburg.
Move fast and break things.
JOURNAL ENTRY #5
October 3
Potatoes. That’s why Mostar sent me to Yvette’s meditation class. “We need them,” she said. Again with “need” and “we.” She’s convinced that potatoes are the “perfect” survival food, that you can actually live on them alone. I was charged with trying to get a few seed potatoes for the garden.
Which I’m not supposed to mention, along with any defense of Mostar. “If they say anything, go along with it.” She was very clear about that. “Agree, contribute, laugh with them, even at my expense. Be diplomatic.”
Nobody needs to tell me how to do that. I’m a diplomat by nature, and still not really on board with Mostar’s crazy plans. But I will say my mental needle’s moved a little bit in her favor since I heard the news. And there’s been a lot of news. Vincent listened to the car radio for an hour after the meeting, until Tony offered to relieve him. According to both of them, the reports from Rainier are pretty bad.