connected to the NSA leaks that had Anka so flustered. And partly because I wasn't sure how to pronounce 'Colineive.' I
Ed didn’t leave me with much to go on. And now he was trying to make things worse between Anka and me. Not cool man. I still didn’t know if I wanted to tell her about the secret files and my contact with Colineive. Partly because I wasn’t sure what was in them and I didn’t have any assurance that Ed was connected to the NSA leaks that had Anka so flustered. And partly because I wasn’t sure how to pronounce ‘Colineive.’ I mean, what is that? French? German? Spanish? How am I supposed to figure that stuff out? Super not-cool, Ed. Look, I know it’s not a good idea to keep secrets from the person I’m in a relationship with. To quote the great and powerful Birbiglia, “I’m in the future too.” But knowing now how terrible the idea was doesn’t change the choices I made in the past. Stick with me here. Bad choices make for good stories. Am I right? Am I right? Anyway, if I’m honest, a lot of my anxiety had to do with my relationship with Anka. Whatever was left of it. When we got together things were great. But it didn’t take long for things like toilet paper replacement and dishwasher loading to turn into fights. One of the biggest and baddest fights we ever had was about how to put the groceries on the conveyor belt at Safeway. I, being the logical person that I am, started rearranging the groceries she’d put on the belt to be in the right order. You know cans first, then other heavy stuff and finally the light and breakable things. That way the trained-monkey of a cashier doesn’t crush the eggs with a can of chili. Unfortunately Anka was unable to see my logic and got really mad about it. We didn’t go grocery shopping together after that. Remember those people who make relationships look easy? You know who I’m talking about. Those schmucks who are all giggles and smiles with their partner all the time. Yeah, they need a punch in the face. Hard. I’ll admit that my relationship with Anka was about the first real, adult relationship I’ve had, but I don’t think we’re that far off from the norm. Or maybe I just tell myself that so I feel better. I think we were starting to get the hang of things but then the NSA shipped her off to Montana. That made things so much worse. I really do love Anka, but not being in the same room with her makes it a lot more difficult to keep acting like it. I only see and hear her, so when it’s great it’s less than awesome and when it’s bad there’s no making up. At least not the good kind. On top of all that we both hated our jobs. I hated being a lab rat with no purpose and she hated being in Montana away from all the action. Sure the NSA said that she did a good job standing up to Stephenson, but they still gave her a crap assignment right after it all went down. It felt like punishment for trying to do the right thing. But of course she took it as a compliment. They gave her a promotion. That assuaged her. It made me think — just for a second — about creating a rank system within our relationship so that I could promote her when I needed to make her happy. Good job, Anka, now you’re a Second-Level Girlfriend with college-sweater benefits. In the midst of all this garbage I had to figure out if I trusted her enough to let her know about Ed’s files. She’d saved my life, but she still worked for the NSA. I guess I did too, but that’s not really the point I’m trying to make. Stay focused here. Or don’t, I’m not the boss of you. After letting my thoughts run in a loop for the hundredth time, I decided to get up and get ready for “work.” For all the banality of sitting in a lab and being tested all day it was my first
ready for “work.” For all the banality of sitting in a lab and being tested all day it was my first job where I needed to get dressed up. That’s something, right? With my polo and khakis in place I strolled into the office. In a nondescript business park in a nondescript neighborhood in a nondescript suburb of Seattle the NSA has set up an office with nondescript cubicles where nondescript people sit all day. It’s like my own version of hell. Cubicle hell. At least I got there early enough to avoid Bob. He’s the chief prodder of my brain. I’m not a Bob-fan. I sat at my desk and logged in to the NSA computer. I figured this was a good time to get to know Ed a little bit better. I fired up the software suite the NSA uses for its surveillance work. The friendly, animated, red stapler cheerily asked me what I would like to do. Who would you like to learn about today? I typed my response: Eduardo Colineive. Do you have probable cause to suspect Eduardo Colineive is being naughty? Click: Yes/No. I clicked Yes. Don’t get mad at me. It’s like the Terms of Service for iTunes. It’s so long that no one reads it. Everyone just clicks it. It’s the way of the world. Grow up already. The stapler politely asked me a follow-up question: Is Eduardo Colineive a United States citizen? Click: Yes/No. I clicked No. I know, it was a lie, but it was a little, white lie. Otherwise the happy stapler wouldn’t tell me anything. Plus it’s kind of Eduardo’s fault for having a foreign sounding name. He could have gone to Ellis Island or something and have that thing changed to Edward. The red stapler did flips for a while indicating that it was grabbing information about Ed from all of the networks the NSA can access, which is pretty much all of them. I think they might not have much going on in Google Plus, but that’s just because no one else uses it either. The report on Ed scrolled onto the screen. I saw where he was born, where he went to high school. Where he went to college and all his credit history. Toward the bottom of the screen I found the most recent information. Ed had been a contractor for the NSA and then took some vacation time. He went to Puerto Rico about a week ago and then disappeared. That’s unusual for the NSA tools. Sure someone can stop posting to Facebook for a while, but they still text, call and use their bank account for stuff. Ed had done nothing traceable by the NSA for seven days. That’s suspicious. Plus there was the whole leak thing that Anka had told me about, but I wanted to confirm things for myself. I’m weird like that. My phone buzzed in my pocket. Dude, I told you. This is big. It was Ed again. Did you leak all that stuff? For reals? I had to. Look at what you were able to pull up on me without any warrant. That’s not right. To say I was freaked out might be an understatement. Whatever Ed had done, he still had the ability to see that I was searching for him with the NSA software. What else could he do? It’s probably not right, but we have to do something to stop terrorists. We do. But pissing people off so they hate America and want to become terrorists doesn’t seem like the best strategy to me. Point taken. Look, I’m never going to be able to come back. I just want you to know that I did it for the
Look, I’m never going to be able to come back. I just want you to know that I did it for the right reasons. I don’t want to hurt America. I know Ed. You’re good people. Thanks Corey. It’s good to hear. All the news is just… I know, they aren’t being kind to you. I didn’t really know what the news was saying, just what Anka told me about what the news was saying. Yeah, that’s putting it mildly. Is there anything else I can do to help you? There is one thing. Yeah, what is it? It’s kinda big. How big? Light treason, big. Oh. You can say no if you want. I thought about it for a while. I don’t really have an abiding love for the NSA. They wantonly zapped my brain, shot at me with drones, sent my girlfriend away and have run tests on me for a year. But I don’t hate them either. That’s to say that I don’t want them to fail because I don’t want the US to fail. And a little bit it’s because Anka really believes in the NSA and I really believe in her. I just couldn’t help but think that if Anka really knew what the NSA was up to that she would change her mind. Never mind that most of our arguments devolve into me trying to say the same thing over again because I assumed that if she just understood my point she would agree with me. You sure it’s light? Ha, yeah man. OK, I’m in. Cool. I can’t thank you enough. What needs to happen? He sent me some lines of code and told me how to put them into the NSA software. The stapler kept asking if I needed help. At one point I think he frowned at me as I inserted a few lines that effectively made Ed disappear from the NSA’s systems. But it was done and, according to Ed, they shouldn’t be able to trace it to me. They would be able to see that Ed was gone, but that was about it. He explained that he couldn’t do it before he leaked the stuff for fear of tipping his hand before the leaks came out and he was safely outside US jurisdiction. Sure. Whatever.
