CIVIL DEFENSE
It started with an email from a friend, asking if I was available to visit-a certain Washington agency.é There soon followed a flurry of messages from people I didnét know-some of them bearing that most shadowy of return addresses: ucia.gov. And then a weighty package in the mail, bursting with federal documents, and then forms and disclaimers.
Bill Thomas. The truth is out there: The author, serving his country with top-secret science fiction.
My mission, should I choose to accept it: sit in a room full of fellow sci-fi writers and help imagine, shall we say, things that might someday go bump. But first there was a definite moment of double take, and then a scramble to confirm that this wasnét some elaborate hoax. Because, like, the CIA needs my advice on scariness?
Letés face it: The FBI, the NSA, and even Israelés Mossad are second-rate bogeymen. When it comes to the paranoid fantasies of hit lists and ESP drugs, gigabuck dope deals, and orbiting mind-control lasers, the Agency rules. Then again, ités not entirely unprecedented for bureaucrats to draw inspiration from science fiction. Fed techies are as likely to read the stuff as any other geeks, and a few at NASA and the DOD even write it.
WANTED: MY DARKEST IDEAS
As I plowed through the last of the prereading on the flight out, I couldnét shake a grudging sense that the federal government, for all its faults, really is grappling with the new realities.-Libertarians,é a friend had warned me,-are awed by real government. Just like egalitarians are awed by royalty.é
I wonét tell you where the meeting was held. Iéve done government work before and have a collection of expired clearances, although in this case ités not classified data that binds me. Ités just that I promised not to betray our hosts by blabbing unnecessarily.
I will say that finding the right room was simply a matter of following the suits and uniforms through some double doors to a round table set with name placards. I wonét tell you whose names were on those placards, and I especially wonét repeat what I heard in there. The blinds were lowered, the doors closed, and that was that. Eight hours later we emerged, paler than we went in, and tapes of our conversations were carried away in a sealed plastic bag. Imagination concentrate: Do not add water.
From those tapes will spring transcripts and minutes, and eventually a summary document-all of which probably will be classified. The Agency produces millions of pages every year. But in the way of such things, this info will filter up through layers of bureaucracy, summarized and resummarized, until some ghost of it impinges on policy. And in the circle of a few hundred people who encounter our raw input, decisions will be subtly influenced. At the very least, the butterfly effect ensures that weéve made some kind of difference, rippling out into the future.
When it was all over, we were handed goodie bags from the CIA gift shop. Later, over dinner, we sci-fi writers were fussing with bills and receipts, fretting over the expense forms weéd have to submit, when something strange happened: A red, white, and blue flicker of nerdy patriotism showed through our jaded facades.-You know,é someone said quietly,-if none of this was reimbursed, Iéd have come out here anyway, on my own nickel.é
There were nods and murmurs all around the table, and someone else added:-I said yes before theyéd even finished asking. This is my country, you know? Who doesnét want to help?é I couldnét imagine.
START
signal : noise
Slaves to Our Machines
IBM Loosens Tie, All Hell Breaks Loose
R U Literate?
I Fought the Future for the CIA
Air Force
Putting the Farm in Pharmaceuticals
The Dirtiest Word in Politics: Businessman
big number
Street Legal
Dr. Roboto
jargon watch
Prophets and Loss
Not Your Da' Army Boot
VC to SEC: MYOB
Wired | Tired | Expired
Is AOL Toast?
