By David R. Bowne

I desperately banged on the left rear passenger window. I couldn’t break through, couldn’t even see through the heavily tinted window. I reached into my pocket for my phone but already knew that it wouldn’t work.  Whoever had abducted me in this self-driving car would not have forgotten to make it a dead zone. No wireless, no cellular, no GPS, no way to know where I was or where I was going.  I leaned back and kicked the window, more out of frustration than any hope of success. I should have been more on guard for this possibility; should have known speaking truth to power would put a bullseye on my back.

I resumed a seated position and stared up at the front seat. The Ford Focus had been modified to be completely autonomous – no steering wheel, no brake pedal, no radio, no interface to the outside world.  A completely self-contained mobile prison cell, its true function hidden in plain sight. It was their MO alright, down to the make of the vehicle. Sitting in silence, trying to calm my rapidly beating heart, I realized at least this confirmed I was getting close to the truth.

Oddly, I didn’t feel in danger, at least not in any more danger than a normal ride in a Ford Focus. I had no fear that my abductors intended to kill me. Perhaps I was being naïve, perhaps I was putting too much faith in the protective cloak of white privilege, too much security in my viral fame, but killing me would just make me a martyr, and that’s something they couldn’t afford. No, they’re just doing this to scare me, to put the fear of God in me, or rather the fear of the motor god they’ve been worshipping.

With my phone de-activated, I had no idea of my location in physical space or a means to call for help. I instead focused on the journey that took me to this self-driving purgatory, the journey from ignorance to understanding. It all started, as problems often do, at the public library.  My roommate was being annoying, always demanding the rent check, so I decided to relax at the library, rereading my personal copy of my all-time favorite banned book, Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut. Banned books always attracted me, like a moth to a flame, like a Nazi to a book burning. I wanted to believe the appeal was intellectual; that there was hidden knowledge within those banned pages. I would read the text and be enlightened. Well, I read the text, and I was enlightened. The truth set me free. Now whoever imprisoned me in this Focus was trying to silence me.

I had settled into my favorite spot at the library, close enough to the inhouse coffee shop to enjoy the aromas but far enough to avoid people. I leafed through the yellowing, fraying pages of Vonnegut’s masterpiece and read a passage that I had read many times before, but now it spoke to me in a new way. Now, it changed my understanding of everything.

“You know what I say to people when I hear they’re writing anti-war books?”

“No. What do you say, Harrison Starr?”

“I say, ‘Why don’t you write an anti-glacier book instead?’”

What he meant, of course, was that there would always be wars, that they were as easy to stop as glaciers. I believe that, too.

The truth hit me like an avalanche, like a runway Ford Expedition careening through a city street. Vonnegut was probing a deeper truth, not just about war, but about another of man’s atrocities – global climate change. I instantly realized that “as easy to stop as glaciers” was a code for how easy glaciers are to stop.  The evidence was all around us: 95° F days in Siberia, Glacier National Park becoming devoid of its namesakes, Greenland becoming more aptly named, lower snowpack causing water shortages. All that was required was injecting tons of carbon dioxide into the air, let the greenhouse effect do its thing to warm the planet, and bam, those sweet glaciers just melt away. Super easy. The only tricky part was pumping enough carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in a way that no one would notice until it’s too late and even then, people would be resistant to stop. It’s like addiction. You know it’s bad, you know it’s harmful, but you just can’t stop.  I felt like Vonnegut was trying to tell us something, but he wouldn’t or couldn’t be straightforward. He had to wrap the truth in fiction. Did he know who addicted us to greenhouse gas emissions? I figured Vonnegut knew all about addiction since he was smoking a cigarette in every picture I’d ever seen of him.  

I decided to read up on Vonnegut’s life, especially anything surrounding the publication of Slaughterhouse-Five. The library turned out to be a useful place to be. I already knew Slaughterhouse-Five was one of the most banned books in American literature, but I uncovered a huge clue in its first public banning. In 1972, a judge ordered it removed from a county’s public schools, declaring it “depraved, immoral, psychotic, vulgar, and anti-Christian.”  The judge’s decision reeked of such nonsensical hyperbole that I suspected something else was at work. I decided instead to investigate not what was said, but where it was said – Oakland County, Michigan, a county adjacent to Detroit and Dearborn, the home of Ford Motor Company.  Slaughterhouse-Five just happened to be banned in a county where a huge chunk of the economy was due to the automobile industry, an industry that’s at the top of the list of worst carbon dioxide polluters.  Could it be that Vonnegut’s novel was banned because it hit too close to home; too close to raising the anti-glacier warning?

I dug deeper, researching all that I could about Henry Ford. Here was a man obsessed with efficiency, of creating not just cars, but revolutionizing how every industrial product was made. Each and every step in his mass-production philosophy emitted carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Every virgin resource extracted from the earth, every moment along the refining process, every bolt, and every coat of paint, every tree harvested for rubber, every drop of oil pumped from the ground, every mile driven by those proud owners of internal combustion engines; each and every step pumps carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.  Each and every step warms our planet and melts glaciers. I remember the chills that accompanied the revelation. I slammed my hands on the library table, having my eureka moment. Here was our pusher, here was the man who made us all addicts, here was the man intentionally changing the world with our unintentional help, here was Henry Ford.

I tried to explain the truth to my roommate. All he saw was an opportunity to make money removing CO₂ from the atmosphere. I tried to explain the truth to the world. Slick videos I posted to YouTube and TickTok under the username DreadFred garnered millions of views. Millions saw the truth, but few believed it. Most thought it was a joke.  Sure, the videos of a deranged Henry Ford melting glaciers with a flamethrower were funny, but they weren’t a joke. How could an existential threat to our entire planet be reduced to a joke? Maybe that’s the problem; the only way to accept a truth of this magnitude it to make it into a joke. It’s like our puny brains overload with despair when faced with monumental truth. I don’t know, I’m not a psychologist or a neuroscientist, I’m just a guy who put two and two together and didn’t get four. I got Ford.

 

The car suddenly stopped, slamming me into the rear of the front seat, my shoulder absorbing most of the blow. Damn inertia. Just goes to show seatbelts are important, even while kidnapped. Before I could even recover, the passenger door automatically opened, and I was instantly bathed in the unflattering light of fluorescent tubes.  I hesitated for a moment, but then barreled forth, stepping outside of the capsule, taking one small step for me, one giant leap for all mankind.

I found myself in what appeared to be a bizarre mash-up of a car dealership and an army’s war room.  Twelve automobiles were parked in a circle, in an arrangement like numbers on the face of a clock. A single stool rested at the center, with the front of each car directly facing it, each about 20 feet away.  Each car was a different model, but they were all Fords. Of course, they had to be Fords. The self-driving Ford Focus had parked itself at 11:00. The one at the 12:00 position was a Model T in mint condition.  The circular walls of the room were decked out with massive LED screens, currently showing a global map with multicolored currents flowing over it.  The deepest reds straddled the northern hemisphere, flowing and ebbing in a hypnotic swirl. The United States was displayed at the most prominent location, 12:00, right behind the Model T. The display looked familiar, but I couldn’t quite place it. The room, as far as I could tell, was empty of other people.

A soft feminine voice echoed through the chamber, “Please be seated DreadFred. I’ll be with you shortly.”

DreadFred? So they knew my social media moniker. I remained standing next to the stool.

“What do you want from me?” I yelled into the ether. “You should know I have powerful friends. Very powerful. They will be looking for me. And when they find me, what they’ll do to you.” I was bluffing of course. I barely had friends, forget about powerful ones. But talking seemed better than silence. I was about to launch into the “I know karate” classic, but at that moment, a previously hidden door appeared in the video display, temporarily disrupting Brazil.

A woman walked through the door, looking like she just left the set for an end-of-the season car commercial. She was tall with flowing brunette hair; very pretty, but in a wholesome, down-to-earth way. Her tight red dress hugged every curve. Everything about her seemed designed to communicate that she could be trusted. I didn’t trust her for a second.

“Who are you?” I demanded.

She smiled, ran her hand over the hood of a bright red ’64 Mustang convertible resting at the 10:00 position, and replied, “Names are not important. You can just call me Prefect.”

I couldn’t help but smile back. I had fantasized going mano y mano with whoever led this conspiracy and now that I had my chance, I wanted her to know what kind of intellect she was dealing with. “Prefect as in the chief officer of this operation, or better yet, the Ford Prefect, the British car that ended production in 1961?” I dropped that one to show her I knew all about Ford.

“Either one is fine, but I prefer to consider the character from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.” She gave a sly smirk as she walked one spot over to an early ‘90s Probe. “Given your literary bent and deep intelligence, I would have thought that allusion would have occurred to you first.”

Damn, she was right. I was off my game. This would be a good time not to panic. I retreated to the Escape at the 3:00 spot. “Yeah well, being kidnapped doesn’t exactly make me think of comedic sci-fi novels.” It was a lie on my part. Adams’ books had abductions, out-of-control technology, and the destruction of the Earth. All very appropriate to my current circumstance.

“Yes, I am sorry about that, but it could not be avoided. You of all people must understand the demands of research.”

Research? Perhaps her connection to the Ford Prefect character was more than just a way to rattle me.  “Research on what?”

“On you, of course. We knew you wouldn’t come with a simple invitation. No, you respond to the dramatic, so here we are.”

Okay, so she did research on me. I do like the dramatic, but still, this was a bit much.

She leaned against the short aerodynamic hood of a late ‘80s Aerostar minivan. “We want to learn more about the man behind the viral video. Who is DreadFread, creator of a fanciful conspiracy theory that has captured the imagination of millions?”

“So you’re a fan of my work?”

She gently shook her head, remaining in her relaxed position against the Aerostar. “No, I think it’s garbage. A cartoon of Mr. Ford, a beloved American hero, singing “Hot Hot Hot” as he drives through glacier melt. It’s a crude character assassination masquerading as what, entertainment, education, erudition?” She smirked. “Whatever prompted you to create such nonsense?”

I moved counterclockwise to the next vehicle, a white Bronco. I groaned internally at the ominous sign. “Only the Truth.”

She smiled, lingering now next to a Taurus. “The truth, with a capital T, I’m sure. Have you ever noticed that proclamations of the truth very rarely have any basis in reality? They are just a way for ignorant people to profess their irrational belief in their own self-righteous certitude.”

I had to admit she had a point. Every preacher professes the truth, just before the plea for donations. The truth is out there, you can’t handle the truth. Maybe Old Ben was right, maybe truth does depend on our own point of view. Or maybe she’s just playing mind games.

“Don’t try to distract me, Prefect. A kidnapper with an alias can hardly lecture about truth. You can’t talk your way around cold, hard evidence.”

I was bluffing again, of course. I had no cold, hard evidence that Ford intentionally acted to raise the planet’s temperature and melt glaciers, yet it’s still as crystal clear as meltwater. I’ve been working on figuring out why he had something against massive rivers of ice but hadn’t made much progress. Perhaps with their hulking form smothering otherwise productive land, glaciers were an affront to his guiding principle of efficiency. Or perhaps while skiing on some mountaintop glacier, a love interest rejected his advances. Forever after, he associated glaciers with the coldness of her heart and vowed to warm them, in retaliation for his failure to warm her. Or maybe in his youth he dared to lick a massive block of ice, and like poor Flick in “The Christmas Story,” froze his tongue, forever burning into his psyche a deep hatred for the solid phase of water.  I may never learn his motivation, but the important thing was that he acted on his hatred, he did something about the offensive ice, he waged war on glaciers.  That was the truth!

“So where is the evidence supporting your truth?” She smiled again, calling my bluff, now caressing the door frame of an Edge as if she was a model on a game show. “Is this it?” She leaned through the driver’s side open window and pushed a button on the dash of the Edge. It triggered the stereo system in each car to blare my own voice saying “Proof is overrated. A cool video and slick webpage are far more effective.”

My bravado escaped. That was a conversation I had with my roommate months ago, shortly after my discovery of the Ford conspiracy. “How did you….?” I struggled for composure. “How did you get that?”

“I told you DreadFred, my job is research.” She walked towards me, her hand softly touching the hood of each car she passed “There is nothing about you, nothing about your interactions with your roommate Jim, nothing about your series of supposed one-night stands with Jill, nothing about your life that I do not know.  I know you need to clean that disgusting litter box in your room. I know you are barely making rent. I know your favorite food is a bowl of cereal. I know you’re a child in the body of a man. And I know you secretly hope Jim’s carbon sequestration plan will fail.” She must have noticed my surprise. “Yes, we know about the clams.”

The clams. My roommate, Jim, ever the entrepreneur, wanted to make money fighting climate change by using clams to take carbon out of the environment and then use the carbon in the shells as a raw material for concrete.

I backed up against a ’60 Falcon. This shit was getting scary now. They’re monitoring my every move. They must have cameras hidden in every room, recording devices set everywhere. Or maybe they’re just tapping into the virtual assistants that are virtually everywhere. Either way, this conspiracy just keeps getting worse. I’ll need to probe deeper when I get out of here. If I get out of here. My mind raced. How was I to get out? I looked to the Escape. No, too obvious. Maybe the best plan was to play along. She said they want to know me, but she also said there’s nothing they don’t already know. Solving that paradox may be the means of escape.

“Impressive, most impressive,” I said. “You have mastered illegal surveillance, but obviously there is still something you don’t know, or I wouldn’t be here. You could have easily made me road pizza, taken out in a hit-and-run by some autonomous Ranger. What do you need from me?”

“I told you, we want to know DreadFred. How you, among the billions of people on this planet, discovered Mr. Ford’s plan?”

And with that admission, everything shifted. I was floored, almost giddy. I was right. Me. That was unheard of. I mean, I always knew my various conspiracies theories were right, but you never get confirmation. That was kinda the whole thing with the theories. You believe them, you convince other people, but you can’t verify them. I pumped my hands in the air. I did a little victory dance.  I saw that damn good-looking ’60 Falcon and slid across its hood, Dukes of Hazzard-style. When I regained my footing, I smiled liked a madman at Prefect. She was obviously confused, which seemed like a novel state for her.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“I’m celebrating.” I continued to perform every stereotypical white-guy celebratory move I could think of.

Prefect, clearly flustered, interrupted me again. “Celebrating what?”

“My success.  You admitted I was right.”

Prefect eyes grew wide, almost to the size of a bird of prey. She steadied herself by perching on the Falcon. “Let me get this straight. You’re celebrating our intentional changing of the Earth’s climate?”

I paused mid-floss, disrupting the rhythm of the dance move. “Of course not! I’m celebrating that I was right about it.”

“But…” Prefect stood and approached me. “But, I don’t understand how you can…” She shook her head. Despite her association with Ford, she obviously wasn’t accustomed to the grinding of badly shifted gears. “We are purposely acting to flood entire islands. Whole countries are going to be submerged under the ocean.  And your reaction is to dance?”

“I’m not dancing because of sea level rise – that’s really fucked up. It’s just, man, I can’t believe I was right. Jim is going to shit his pants.”

Prefect rested her head on her hand. “You have to be the most self-centered man I’ve ever met.”

“That’s rich coming from a minion of Henry Ford. He’s the one changing the world in his image.”

“Yeah, well, I never met him in person.”

I laughed at my kidnapper. “That’s your defense? You never shook hands with the dude, so you don’t have to acknowledge his egomania. Pathetic. I expected more from you, Prefect.”

She crumbled like a crash test dummy against the hood of an EcoSport. “I’m doing the best I can. This is my first abduction.”

Despite everything, I felt sorry for her. I considered myself a pretty progressive guy, extremely supportive of women advancing in the workplace. Being a woman of authority in an evil international cabal must be challenging. It had to be a very male-dominated enterprise.

“Listen,” I said. “You’re doing great. I was really intimidated at first. All that stuff you know about me really freaked me out. It’s just, well. Here’s a tip – never tell a conspiracy theorist that’s he’s right. It’s going to derail anything else you want to accomplish. Even now, I’m doing mental backflips instead of paying attention to your evil plan.” I paused. “You were going to get to the overall plan, right?”

“Yes.” She said in a monotone as she hoisted herself up. “That’s what these LED displays are all about. It was going to be really impressive, but what’s the point now.”

Oh man, she’s behaving more like Marvin the Paranoid Android than Ford Prefect. My heart went out to her.  “Hey, why don’t you take a minute to compose yourself, and then launch into your spiel. I’m obviously not going anywhere.” I glanced toward the hidden door and imagined the secret surveillance devices hidden around the room. “And maybe you can edit out the embarrassing parts from the recordings before you show your boss.”

She brightened. “Great idea. Thanks.” She attempted to flatten out the wrinkles in her dress. “You’re the nicest person I’ve ever abducted.”

I smiled but couldn’t let the truth pass. “You also said I was the first one.”

“Well both are right.” Her eyes suddenly twinkled as she uttered that last word. She regained confidence.  She crossed her arms across her chest as she moved in front of the EcoSport. She launched into her pre-rehearsed diatribe. “We are well beyond right or wrong. Truth or fiction. This isn’t some game, some sport for you to obtain mental exercise. This is Real.” She paused for effect. “Yes, put a capital R on it if that helps your immature mind. A mind that somehow deciphered a plan hidden in the open for over 100 years. A plan that will not be interrupted by an idiot calling himself DreadFred.”

Idiot! That was a little too personal.

“Look around DreadFred.” She motioned to the LED display. “This is a simulation of the global movement of carbon dioxide through the troposphere over the course of a year. Isn’t it beautiful? The plumes of deep red CO₂ swirl and spread, dancing over the Northern Hemisphere as winds disperse it. The mesmerizing dance changes color to yellows and blues, as plants rob CO₂ from the atmosphere in the summer. As plants suspend photosynthesis in the fall and winter, the reds return in triumphant glory. Each year, carbon dioxide levels get higher, transforming the planet.” She turned to me. “Mr. Ford didn’t start this transformation, but yes, you’re right, he did act to accelerate it. He was a visionary after all. He saw a world with more land for agriculture once those useless glaciers were gone, with more carbon dioxide fertilizing plants increasing primary productivity, higher temperatures making cold-related deaths a decreasing problem, rising seas reshaping coastlines, making shrewd real-estate investments possible. You and your like focus only the negative, we at Focus focus on the positive.”

It was a good monologue, a bit too much overexplaining for my taste, but I did like the reveal at the end. The rumors about a secret organization that puts the Illuminati to shame were true. I just didn’t realize they were tied into Ford’s plan. Then it all clicked.

“The Ford Focus isn’t just a car, it’s an organization!”

She smiled one of those sinister smiles they must teach at villain school. “We appreciate word play as much as anyone. But still, Focus is greater than a car, greater than an organization, it’s something far greater. It’s an idea. An idea of transformation based on the collective decisions of individuals.” She spread her arms, as if trying to capture the entire world on the digital display. “To engineer a society where everyone contributes, everyone is important to the goal. It’s the perfect manifestation of Mr. Ford’s principle of mass production. We collectively are producing an improved planet, a newly functioning biosphere based on everyone’s manipulation of atmospheric chemistry.” She paused and winked at me. “And you DreadFred are the only who figured it out! You somehow saw through the veil of externalities to see the real intent of our ambition.”

I clapped, felt she earned it for getting her groove back. Still, she and her Focus were truly deranged. Everything she was saying was so horrible, so short-sighted and obviously flawed, but at least she was committed. And I still couldn’t get past the fact that I, and I alone, had figured it all out.

“That was good, very good. I do have a few notes, if you want feedback.” I walked towards her.  “For example, the ‘veil of externalities’ was a bit much.” Jim was always bringing up externalities. It may be small of me, especially now, but I still hated it when my roommate was right about anything. “The societal engineering part was quite good, as was manipulation of atmospheric chemistry. Very impressive, very dramatic.” I jumped up to sit on the hood of the Taurus.  “All that remains is what happens to me. If this was a bad movie, you’d be saying you’d have to kill me now.”

Prefect looked genuinely surprised at this suggestion. “Kill you? We’re not going to kill you. No, your mind is too valuable to be so needlessly wasted. We brought you here to join us.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because you already have. Everyone has, they just don’t know it. You can still make your little videos, perhaps organize a march, get children across the world to sing the praises of a carbon neutral society, but we know, and you know too, that it’s hopeless. Focus is the only game in town.”

I realized that my first impression of her wasn’t too far off the mark. She was a salesperson, just not a very good one. Definitely overselling. Time to call her bluff and get myself out of here. “Fine. I’m convinced. Where do I sign?”

“Really?” She looked as if she sold her first car, complete with the useless undercoating and extended warranty.

“Yeah, why not? If you’re right about the only game in town, I might as well play it.”

“But what about your ideals?”

“What have you learned about me that suggests I have ideals. I have ideas.  Very different.”

“But your climate activism?”

“Is non-existent. What have I really done to help the climate? I was simply pushing my conspiracy theory, which happened to be correct. Give me a few days and I’ll get behind some other far-out theory. Maybe something that you’re pushing – like elevated carbon dioxide being good for the planet.”

She smiled. “Well, it does help plants grow.”

Until something else in photosynthesis becomes limiting, like water, which tends to happen as higher temperatures drive higher rates of evapotranspiration.  For once, I didn’t feel the need to share the truth.  “Sure, whatever you say. I can work with it.”

Prefect gave a pleasant, contented smile. It was much better than the evil one. It was almost hot, like almost really hot.

“And what do want in return?” she asked.

I looked at her and the fleet of cars surrounding us. “Well, my freedom obviously. Not just from this weird bunker, but freedom to preach whatever I like without fear of being abducted again.”

“That seems reasonable.”

Damn right it’s reasonable. Now to be a little unreasonable. “And a car.”

“What!”

“I’d like one of these cars. Biking to work is such a pain in the ass.” The truth was biking was more of a pain in the testicles, but I didn’t currently want to discuss that with her. Maybe in time. I had also just realized they must have stolen my bike as a way for me to order the self-driving car. They were going to pay for that.

She shook her head. “You expect me to just let you drive away in one of our cars?”

I shrugged. “Sure, why not? You know I won’t go to the police. I can’t tell them the truth.  What evidence do I have?” I had also noticed the Crown Victoria parked at 4:00. As one of the most common police cars, it was a not too subtle reminder that Focus may have deep influence with law enforcement.

Prefect stared at me with the burning intensity of halogen headlights in the newer Ford models.  I assumed she was trying to discover my angle. Yeah, good luck with that. All her research couldn’t help her reach the one place she needed – the inside of my head. And I wasn’t about to let her in.

Prefect sighed, perhaps realizing she’d been bested by the best. “Okay, you can have a car, but you are leaving the way you came. Anonymously in the autonomous Focus. I’ll arrange to have the car delivered to you.”

I could live with those terms, but …  “How about you deliver the ’64 Mustang yourself. Then I’ll drive you to this little, intimate Italian place I know. The food is fantastic.”

Prefect turned color, first to white and then a red that matched her dress. “Are you asking me out on a date?”

“Sure, why not?” I smiled. “Maybe it’s the Stockholm syndrome talking, but I feel a connection here.”

She looked horrified and intrigued at the same time. I was used to that look from women. “Absolutely not. We have rules against that.”

It made me wonder what kind of HR rules govern a secret, international organization bent on climatic domination. I guess nothing escapes bureaucracy, not even evil. “Fine, I won’t push it now, but in the future…”

“And you don’t get the Mustang. Only the Taurus.”

I looked down at the sedan on which I was sitting. “But it’s such an ugly beast.”

She smiled, the mischievous one this time. “Very fitting.”

“That’s just mean, but fine.” I walked over to the autonomous Focus that played its part in my kidnapping, opened the door, and sat down. “Can you tell this robotic henchman to drive me home?”

“Yes.” She walked over to the still open passenger door and leaned in. “And thanks for your encouragement back there. It’s always tough for a woman to show weakness.”

“Don’t mention it. Just honor our agreement – no more kidnapping, the ugly Taurus, and a date.” I smiled as she frowned. “Two out of three ain’t bad.”

She then turned and tapped away on her smart phone. I wondered where she even carried the phone in that tight dress. Give me something loose with pockets any day. She abruptly turned to face me.  “And DreadFred, you may want to mention to your roommate that his clam plan won’t work.  The rapidly acidifying oceans from all the additional carbon dioxide will cause his clams to dissolve. Ford hadn’t intended for that to happen, but whoops, our bad.”

She just had to get one more blow in before I left, masquerading as genuine concern for the success of Jim’s project. And dismissing ocean acidification with a whoops. She was evil, so focused on Ford’s mission that she missed everything else. Missed, or didn’t care about the consequences of their focus? I was about to get one more comment in, one last withering retort, but the Focus closed its door and pulled out.

I put my feet up on the seat, not caring if I scuffed the fake leather, and appreciated the cleverness of my escape. Ideas not ideals – I’ll have to remember to use that line again. Such believable bullshit. With Prefect’s buy-in, I can work them from inside and outside. They wanted to know me, well they won’t know anything as I tear down their brave new world.

The proverbial light bulb shone brightly above my head. Brave new world – holy shit. From the deep recesses of my memory, I recalled characters worshipping Henry Ford in Aldous Huxley’s most famous novel. Did Huxley know of Ford’s secret mission? Was he warning us of Ford’s plan to make his own brave new world? Did other 20^th century novelists know of the conspiracy? So many questions. Fortunately, questions are like amphetamines for a conspiracy theorist. They will keep me stimulated for a long time. Long enough to prevent the Ford Focus from doing any more damage to our world.  That was to be my enduring mission, secret or otherwise.

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A scientist by training and a writer by inclination, David R. Bowne, Ph.D. is an associate professor of biology at Elizabethtown College in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania. When not mucking around in wetlands with students studying turtles and salamanders, teaching courses merging ecological science and creative writing, or enjoying quality time with his wife and two teenage children, he can be found tapping away in the dark of his basement office. His fiction and creative nonfiction works are published in Hippocampus, The Write Launch, and The Showbear Family Circus. His scientific articles are widely published in journals with less creative names.