The cell block on Alcatraz didn't smell like a prison. It smelled like a newsroom.
Ink, stale coffee, and ozone.
Jason walked down the central corridor, flanked by Hemingway. The cells on either side weren't locked. The bars were open. Inside, men and women sat at desks made of stacked crates, hammering away on typewriters.
Clack-clack-clack-DING.
It sounded like a machine gun factory.
"Gates can delete a file," Hemingway shouted over the noise, pouring a clear liquid into a tin cup. "He can wipe a server. He can edit a video. But he can't delete ink."
He handed the cup to Jason.
"Bathtub gin," Hemingway grinned. "Made it in the toilet of Cell 42. It'll strip paint, but it keeps the cold out."
Jason took a sip. It tasted like turpentine and regret. He coughed, wiping his mouth.
"You're fighting a digital god with typewriters?" Jason asked, looking at a woman furiously mimeographing pamphlets.
"We control the physical narrative," Hemingway said. "Gates has the screens. We have the paper. We print 'Samizdat'—underground truth. We smuggle it into the city through the tunnels. People read it in bathrooms, in closets. It reminds them they aren't code."
"Quartermaster!" Hemingway barked.
A thin, nervous man with slicked-back hair stepped out of a cell. He was holding a clipboard and shaking slightly.
F. Scott Fitzgerald.
"We're low on ribbon, Ernest," Fitzgerald said, his voice jittery. "And the paper supply from the mainland is cut off. We're printing on napkins."
"Make it work, Scott," Hemingway dismissed him. "Where is the Sniper?"
"Watchtower," Fitzgerald pointed. "She's in a mood."
They climbed the spiral staircase to the guard tower.
A woman sat in a folding chair, looking out over the foggy bay through a high-powered rifle scope. She wore a cloche hat and smoked a cigarette in a long holder.
Dorothy Parker.
"Anything?" Hemingway asked.
"Just the usual swarm," Parker drawled without looking up. "The drones are buzzing around the Golden Gate like flies on a corpse. I shot three. It was remarkably unsatisfying. Metal doesn't bleed."
Jason looked through the window.
San Francisco glowed across the water. A blue dome of energy covered the entire peninsula. Above it, the drone cloud shifted and swirled.
"We can't fly through that," Jason said. "The force field would fry the Icarus before we got close."
"Einstein analyzed the shield," Sarah said, joining them. She held a notebook. "It has a refresh rate. Every sixty minutes, it blinks for a microsecond to vent heat. But that's not enough time to fly a ship through."
"So we don't fly," Hemingway said. "We walk under it."
He unrolled a map on the floor. It was old. Yellowed parchment.
"Gold Rush era," Hemingway tapped a line running under the bay. "Smuggling tunnels. Opium, gold, human traffic. They run from the island straight to the Palace of Fine Arts."
"Flooded?" Jason asked.
"Damp," Hemingway corrected. "But walkable."
"What's the plan?" O'Malley asked, checking his flamethrower. "We walk into the city and shoot Gates?"
"We can't shoot him," Jason said. "He's not a person. He's a program running in the Transamerica Pyramid. We have to corrupt the system."
"A virus?" Sarah asked. "The iPhone is gone. We can't write code."
"Not a computer virus," Jason said. A smile spread across his face. "A human virus."
He looked at the stacks of paper in the cell block.
"Gates is an algorithm. He processes data. He looks for logic, patterns, efficiency. What happens if we feed him... nonsense?"
"Nonsense?" Hemingway asked.
"Fiction," Jason clarified. "Paradoxes. Surrealism. Lies. If we dump a massive amount of illogical data into his central input hub, he'll try to process it as fact. It will create logic loops. A 'Narrative Overdose.'"
Hemingway laughed. A loud, booming sound.
"You want to weaponize bad writing?"
"I want to weaponize imagination," Jason corrected. "We're going to tell him a story he can't understand."
"Gather the manuscripts!" Hemingway shouted down to the cell block. "Everything! The dadaist poetry! The surrealist plays! The drunken ramblings! We're going to the library!"
The entrance to the tunnel was a rusted iron grate at the waterline of the island.
O'Malley cut the padlock with bolt cutters. The smell of rot and saltwater drifted out.
"Ladies first," Hemingway gestured to Jason.
"Funny," Jason muttered. He clicked on his flashlight and stepped into the darkness.
The water was knee-deep. It was freezing. Rats scurried along the pipes overhead, their eyes reflecting the beam.
"Wait," Jason froze.
The rats stopped. They turned to look at him.
Their eyes weren't reflecting the light.
They were glowing blue.
"Cyber-rats," Jason hissed. "Gates bugged the wildlife."
SQUEAK-SCREE!
The swarm attacked.
Hundreds of rats dropped from the pipes, splashing into the water. They moved with unnatural speed, their teeth flashing steel.
"Burn them!" Jason yelled, kicking a rat that lunged for his throat.
WHOOSH!
O'Malley triggered the flamethrower. A jet of orange fire filled the tunnel.
The rats screamed—a digital, distorted screech. Their fur burned away, revealing metal endoskeletons and sparking wires.
"Die, you mechanical vermin!" Hemingway shouted, firing his shotgun with one hand and holding a lantern with the other. BOOM. BOOM.
It was messy. Claustrophobic. The smell of burning hair and ozone filled the tight space.
"Keep moving!" Jason ordered, stomping on a robotic rat that was chewing on his boot. "Don't let them swarm!"
They pushed through the fire and the water, fighting their way yard by yard.
Finally, they saw a ladder.
"Surface!" Jason yelled.
He climbed up, shoving the heavy manhole cover aside.
Fresh air. Fog.
They climbed out.
They were in the Marina District. The Palace of Fine Arts loomed nearby, its classical rotunda looking out of place in the futuristic city.
Jason looked around.
The street was empty. Pristine.
The pavement was smooth white composite. The streetlights were sleek chrome pillars. There was no trash. No graffiti. No noise.
"It's a hospital," Hemingway whispered, reloading his shotgun. "A city sterilized."
A drone buzzed overhead. Jason pulled the team into the shadows of a colonnade.
"Look at the people," Sarah whispered.
A group of citizens walked past. They wore identical gray jumpsuits. They all wore headsets with glowing blue visors covering their eyes.
They walked in perfect unison.
Left. Right. Left.
"Processors," Jason said. "But advanced. He's fully integrated them."
"Where is the Pyramid?" O'Malley asked.
Jason pointed.
Rising from the downtown skyline, piercing the fog, was the Transamerica Pyramid.
It was black glass. Smooth as obsidian. Blue data streams pulsed down its sides like waterfalls of light.
"The Cathedral of Data," Jason said.
He hefted the heavy waterproof duffel bag on his shoulder. It was filled with fifty pounds of handwritten chaos.
"Let's go make a donation."