March/April 2007
Science Fiction: Osama Phone Home
What happens when an ideological, technologically adept, highly determined group of
conspirators are American?
By David Marusek
The following article appears in the March/April 2007 issue of Technology Review.
We arrived by rental car and parked next to a delivery van in the lot closest to the freeway
on-ramp. The van hid us from the security cam atop a nearby light pole. We were early,
traffic being lighter than expected. As we waited, we touched up our disguises. At 09:55, we
left the car singly and proceeded to our target site by separate mall entrances. I rode the
escalators to the food court on the third level, while G, C, and B quickly reconned the lower
floors, where shops were just opening their grates.

I started at the burger stand and ordered a breakfast sandwich. The girl behind the counter
was pretty, mid-20s, talking on her cell. She snapped it shut and asked, without making eye
contact, if I wanted something to drink with that. She looked as if she'd been crying. I said no
thanks, and she rang up and assembled my order. As she did so, I ticked off the mental
checklist we had memorized: slurring of speech--negative; loss of balance or
coördination--negative. About two dozen data points in all.

When my receipt printed out, she tore it off with a deft flick of her wrist and glanced up at
me. Apparently that was all it took, because she said, "I'm only working here to kill my
mother."

I made no reply, as per instructions, and fresh tears welled in her eyes. "Oh, it's true!" she
declared. "I'm a spiteful daughter who only lives to torment her mother. I admit it! I have a
freakin' master's degree in marketing from NYU, and I was a founding owner of
Toodle-Do.biz. I practically ran Toodle-Do from my bedroom. Sixteen hours a day! But did
she care? No! She was all, 'Why don't you find a real job?' She couldn't even comprehend
what Toodle-Do was. I mean, I could tie her to a chair and put a fucking laptop in her
fucking lap and use her own finger to point at the screen, and still she can't see it. I mean,
what do I have to do?"

Once she was rolling, the young woman's confession built up momentum and volume, and her
coworkers glanced nervously at us. "I'll tell you what I did! I sold my shares in Toodle-Do
and took the most demeaning, most mindless 'real job' I could find!" She gestured to take in
the whole burger stand. "See that?" She pointed at the deep-fat fryers, where a pimply boy
was racking baskets of fries. "I stand next to boiling grease all day. When I go home, I don't
even have to open my mouth. No way! It's in my hair. It's in my clothes. It's in my skin." She
raised both wrists to her nose and inhaled. "I smell like a freakin' exhaust fan, and it drives
her mad! Oh, it pushes her right over the edge! My grandmother died of a stroke when she
was only in her 50s, and every night I pray to God to give my mother one too!"

She went on like this, and the fries boy came over to add masturbatory sins of his own, but
I'd heard enough and took my egg sandwich to the seating area. I spied a middle-aged man
in a rumpled suit talking on a cell phone. He had a cup of coffee, so I went over to sit near
him. He was so engrossed in his conversation that he didn't notice me eavesdropping.

"Uh-huh ... uh-huh," he said while pushing doughnut crumbs around the tabletop with his
finger. "The reason I called ... uh-huh ... the reason I called ... uh-huh." He took a final sip of
coffee and said, "Listen, Ted, shut up for a minute, will you? I have something important to
say. Yeah ... that's right. You're my brother, and I love you, but I've been holding this back
for too long. Uh-huh ... You know Billy? Yeah, your kid, Billy, only he's"--the man wiped his
brow with a paper napkin--"he's not your son. He's your nephew."

There was a long pause, and then the man continued, "What the hell do I mean? I'll tell you