Notes From the Internet Apocalypse

Notes From the Internet Apocalypse Read Free Page B

Book: Notes From the Internet Apocalypse Read Free
Author: Wayne Gladstone
Tags: Fiction, thriller, Suspense, Retail
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why are you in my apartment?”
    “Because,” he said, holding the nearly empty bottle of Yuengling against his bruised cheek, “someone still has it.”
    “What?”
    “It’s true. I heard it in a Reddit circle just outside your apartment. How do you think I got these bruises? Man, those dudes did not like my defense of Corporate America.”
    I was slow to respond, and not just because Tobey was now eating from my jar of peanut butter, assisted only by his finger, but because nothing about this made sense. Online, Tobey was a name. A green dot. A series of sarcastic, meta-humorous messages that broke the monotony of my day. But in my kitchen, he was a twenty-nine-year-old man-child who blinked a little too often and moved with more energy than was required to accomplish any task.
    “Tobey, seriously. Sit the fuck down. You’re getting me nuts.”
    Tobey pulled a chair from the kitchen table and sat down. I handed him a napkin and another beer.
    “Are you hurt?” I asked, but then I got distracted by another question. “What do zombies do in a Reddit circle anyway?”
    “Mostly talk about how much Digg circles suck,” Tobey said. “But occasionally, you hear a good rumor. Even zombified Redditors know their conspiracies.”
    “And you heard someone in New York still has the Internet? How?”
    “How do you think, G-Sauce? They stole it.”
    “What does that even mean? It’s not the Pink Panther diamond, it’s, I don’t know, it’s the Internet.”
    “Hey, I’m just telling you what I heard. You don’t like it, take it up with the zombie Redditors, but I don’t know. It just feels right.”
    “It does?”
    Tobey moved with the ease of a man without a job. His limbs conserved no energy for reports to be written. His mind eagerly soaked up anything in the ether without fear of losing more important details. It was a freedom that made him so light he couldn’t even sit still in his chair. He went over to the sink, washing his bruises and stains before drying off on the towel hanging from my stove. Then he put his hands on my shoulders and looked me straight in the eye. Even as a grown-up, he still had a few freckles dotted across the bridge of his nose.
    “The Internet lives, Gladstone,” he said with a smile. “And it’s here. In New York.”
    Suddenly a vague disconnect bubbled up the way it used to when I’d detect a fraudulent claim at the bureau. Little things you’d think people wouldn’t bother to try. Blaming a preexisting left arm injury on a right arm incident. Or sustaining injuries in a workplace ladder fall and presenting with day-old black-and-blue bruising only minutes later.
    “Wait a second,” I said. “You only just heard this rumor. But you were already in New York. Why?”
    Tobey picked at the decal of his Mr. Bubble t-shirt. “Well, y’know, the site’s been down three weeks. I got nothing coming in.…”
    “I don’t follow.”
    “Well, I was down to my last thousand bucks.”
    “So you used it to come here and live off me? Why not save it or use it to pay your bills until you get a new job?”
    “What bills? I do all my banking online.”
    “They’ll just send them to your home.”
    “But see, that’s the beauty of the plan. I don’t live there anymore. I’m off the grid, baby!”
    Off the grid. The phrase caught me more than I expected, and Tobey could tell he was on to something.
    “Let’s find the Internet, Gladstone. Someone’s got it.”
    “It’s not so easy, Tobes. Unlike you, I don’t just crack jokes online. I have a real job to think about.”
    Tobey took a step closer. “First of all,” he said, “I resent the implication that making up funny one-liners about how fat Jennifer Love Hewitt has gotten is not a real job. But more important, are you serious? Being a desk jockey for the Workers’ Compensation Board? That’s a real job? Judging from the amount of beer in your fridge and the fact that you’re wearing jeans on a Tuesday, I’m

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