Under Twin Suns: Alternate Histories of the Yellow Sign by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hippocampus Press
Published: 2021-06-29T05:00:00+00:00

Y2K

Todd Keisling

[Transcription Date: January 3, 2000]

AGENT: “—Recording now. This is Special Agent Hayden Dyer, badge number X2L328N. Interviewing suspect Elliot Crawford of [ADDRESS REDACTED] regarding his whereabouts on New Year’s Eve, 1999. Mr. Crawford, you have been read your rights and have waived your right to an attorney. Would you please state for the record—”

SUSPECT: “This is Elliot Crawford and I confirm I have been read my rights. I’ve waived my right to an attorney. I don’t see any point anyway, he’s just as fucking crazy as the rest of you.”

AGENT: “Thank you, Mr. Crawford. Please state your former occupation.”

SUSPECT: “Do we really have to do this? You know where I worked.”

AGENT: “Then you know this is protocol. Please state your former occupation.”

SUSPECT: “Fine. I was also a part of the agency as recently as three nights ago. You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”

AGENT: “I am just doing my duty, Elliot. You would have done the same, if . . . well, we’ll get to that. Cigarette?”

SUSPECT: “I quit.”

AGENT: “Since when?”

SUSPECT: “Since now. Let’s get this over with.”

AGENT: “As you wish. Why don’t you start from the beginning? Walk me through it. Help me understand how you ended up in that lethal chamber last night.”

SUSPECT: “Does the saying ‘self-preservation is the first of the law’ mean anything to you, Agent Dyer?”

AGENT: “I’m not—”

SUSPECT: “Right, right, I’ve got some years on you. I’m sure the headmaster squashed whatever levity he could after my graduating class. Anyway. We had this saying back in my academy days: ‘Self-preservation is the first of the law.’ A joke among my fraternity brothers, of course; a tongue-in-cheek slant on the institution we were all training to be a part of.”

AGENT: “Ironic, no?”

SUSPECT: “Oh, yes. The irony was not lost on us. The true saying, ‘Sane preservation is the first of the law,’ was the basis of our philosophical and moral code at the agency, and as we went through our training in the ensuing years, the humors of our youth slowly withered with time. Humor has no place in the preservation of American minds, you see, and neither does this concept of the ‘self.’ We’re part of something greater, you and I, soldiers fighting a war against an enemy we can’t see.”

AGENT: “You mean these . . .” [PAGES SHUFFLING] “. . . Coffin Worms.”

SUSPECT: “To a degree, but then again, after last night I suppose you are also part of the enemy now. Everyone is. Even if you don’t realize it.”

AGENT: “You’re implying the glitch was successful?”

SUSPECT: “Indeed. We failed, Agent Dyer. I failed. But that’s not why you’re really here. You say you want to know all about the dubious Y2K ‘glitch,’ but really you want to know how things went down in Times Square on New Year’s Eve. Why you found me in the decommissioned lethal chamber. I suppose it’s peculiar, finding a Preservation Agent hiding inside one of those, especially since they were outlawed a decade ago.”

AGENT: “You would be correct in that assumption, yes.

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