Free Killing Time by Caleb Carr

purveyance of consumer goods. The extent of
Malcolm's anger, despair, and what I took at the time to be guilt over this
matter was certainly evident as I watched him that night; indeed, it soon propelled
him into something of a relapse. He once again began to hiss and clutch at his
head—more covertly now, given the size of his audience—and these telltale signs
quickly brought Larissa to his aid. She took his right hand in her two,
whispered a few calming words in his ear, and then, reaching into the pocket of
his jacket, withdrew a small transdermal injector and held it for an instant to
a vein in his left hand. In moments he seemed to be dozing, though fitfully, at
which point Larissa spread a small comforter over his legs.
    Only when they were sure that
Malcolm was asleep did the rest of the ship's company feel comfortable
attending to other duties. Colonel Slayton descended to the control level of
the nose to man the ship's helm, while Fouché and Tarbell went off to make sure
that the vessel's engines had come through the various "system
transfers" smoothly. As for the Kupermans, Larissa asked if they wouldn't
mind prepping me for our visit to Afghanistan while she continued to look after
her brother. Jonah replied that he thought it imperative that everyone on board
get some rest before we reached our destination, but both he and his brother
did agree to take me down to the armory first to show me how to operate the
basic gear with which I would need to equip myself when we arrived. On our way
out Eli added that the session would offer me a chance to ask at least a few
questions about the group's past activities, and it was therefore in a mood of
no little anticipation that I descended into the deepest recesses of the
vessel.
    As we approached and then entered
the armory—a compartment filled with racks of weapons unlike anything I'd ever
seen—Eli and Jonah told me that the first members of the team to find their way
to one another had been themselves and Malcolm, who had all been in the same
class at Yale. Apparently the Kupermans—who since childhood had been idealistic
opponents of the dominance of information technology over every field of human
endeavor, including scholarship—had originally sought the young Tressalian out
to confront him: Malcolm had recently assumed control of his father's empire
following the latter's death under seemingly tragic circumstances, and Eli and
Jonah wanted to know if he intended to end the Tressalian Corporation's
reliance on Third World hardware sweatshops, as well as conduct the company's
other operations in a more ethical and responsible manner. On finding that
Malcolm's philosophy was in fact far closer to their own than to his father's,
Eli and Jonah took to spending long hours in the company of the silver-haired
young man in the wheelchair, hacking into corporate and government databases
and generally raising informational hell. Malcolm eventually proposed that the
three take their activities to a new and more daring level, and the twins
quickly signed on for what turned out to be the first in a long string of
attempts to hold a mirror up to the global information society and point out
its very serious flaws and dangers. The result of this endeavor was to become
infamous, in the years that followed, as the "Fools' Congress" of
2010.
    Utilizing the Tressalian
Corporation's resources but working in strict secrecy, Malcolm and the
Kupermans created an imaginary, digitally generated candidate for the U.S.
Congress. The fact that they were able to convince the good people of southern
Connecticut that their almost absurdly virtuous creature actually existed was
remarkable enough, but when they went on to get the imaginary character
elected to office through clever manufacture and manipulation of bogus
background information and news footage on the Internet and in other
information media—and when genuine news cameras failed to find any trace of the
up-and-coming leader on