disappeared

---

Dear Ellen,

It's been so long since I've written; you must be terribly worried. I think I'm safe now, though. An old friend of mine has taken us in for the time being, while I look for a new apartment that costs less than $2000 a month. Of course, I can't tell you my address, since email here in the States might get read by God-knows-who these days, and I don't want Harrison to find out where I live or work now.

Leaving him was such a relief! I should have done it years ago, as you urged me to do, but it was how he treated poor little Justin that finally did it. It got ugly. I'll tell you more about that some other time. My arm has healed nicely, by the way.

I have a new job now, too. I'm still writing technical documentation, this time for a larger company -- it's a little more anonymous than a small one. It took forever for the background checks and health tests to get done, so we had no income for a few weeks. (How many times do they have to do genetic screenings? DNA doesn't change that much between jobs! They don't do that over there in Ireland, do they?)

Justin's almost three now, and he's so proud of how big he's getting! I'll take some pictures soon and send them to you.

Take care, sis!
Love, Kathy

Dear Ellen,

This has to be short -- I'm writing this on my handheld, on a subway train going to Boston. I'll use one of the public wireless networks to send it before I get in to work.

The good news: I found an apartment! We move in a few days.

The bad news: I think Harrison's already found out where I work. At lunchtime yesterday, I was outside enjoying the spring sun, and I saw his car drive by a little too slowly. I turned my face away. Will that be enough?

Love, Kathy

I'm a lawbreaker! No denying that now!

So here's a nice big picture of Justin, with my letter hidden inside it. This kind of encryption's pretty cool, isn't it? I hope it's not too much trouble to deal with at your end, but it means "they" won't read my email at all, since our email looks to the sniffers like an innocent picture, not a letter.

A new friend from work, Farhan, told me how to get the software that you and I downloaded to do this. At least for you it's legal. For me... well, I feel like such a bad girl! It's kind of exciting. I guess the terrorists do use this sort of thing, as Homeland Security keeps saying, but at least we're putting it to a decent use.

As for Farhan -- I've told him everything. He understands why I need to be more anonymous than usual. People of Middle Eastern ethnicity over here have to be kind of secretive too, since Homeland Security and the FBI take interest in them all too easily! So he and his friends (he's Iranian) know a few tricks about how to get around anonymously, how to hide certain things, etc. without drawing suspicion. He's been giving me advice, and telling stories about how he copes with Big Brother. What a sweetie! Did you know there are thousands of sites out there with illegal software and cracked DVD movies and music and such? The URLs keep changing, to make it hard for the government to shut them down, but if you know the right people (as Farhan apparently does), you can reach them once in a while. They even have their own special Google so you can find things in there.

Yes, I like him quite a lot. It's a little soon after calling it quits with Harrison, but who cares? At least he treats me well. And he's not abusive yet -- always a plus, don't you think?

P.S. Could you forward a letter to Dad for me? I don't think he can handle installing this encryption stuff, but I want him to know things are OK with me and Justin. Rowan, too, though I haven't heard from our dear brother since March! How about you?

It's Saturday, and I'm getting tired of staying in this tiny little apartment night after night after night. I yearn to get out. I want to take a walk, go for a late-night coffee, see a movie at the Somerville Theater a few blocks away -- all too risky. And anyway, I can't leave Justin alone, and I can't leave someone else here with him. What if Harrison comes to the door while a sitter's here? (What if he comes to the door while I'm here?...)

Tonight after I put him to bed, Justin asked me to sing for him, "like you used to do with Daddy." This is so hard on him. Do you think I'm doing the wrong thing? No, I know how you'll answer, and you're right; I can never trust Harrison again, especially not with my little boy. (Our little boy. But the way I see it, he forfeited his right to be a daddy when he hit Justin across the living room.)

Remember when we were kids, how our family would sing together at night? Before we outgrew it? They're such wonderful memories, and I was hoping so much that Justin could have family memories like that too.

Sigh.

I suppose I should keep you up to date with the political happenings over here, even though you probably read all about it on the Web. The polls say most Americans don't mind the new restrictions on travel, war news, and digital communication, as long as they prevent another terrorist attack like suicide bomber in D.C. last year. I'm not so sure. There's a lot of grumbling in chat rooms on the Net, and I don't trust either of the big news corporations to report these sorts of things correctly. Too cozy with the Bush administration, they are!

As far as the Presidential race goes, there's a fiery young Democratic representative from California named Alexander Wood that's hollering about the loss of Constitutional rights. More power to him, but I'm sure he'll end up like the rest -- either silenced by embarrassing revelations, or bought and sold by corporate interests.

By the way, the new traffic drones are working beautifully here in the Boston area! They're tiny things that zip down the streets, twenty to fifty feet up, sending traffic info back to whomever owns them. No one's reported a crash yet, but they're so little I can't imagine they'd do any more damage than a small Canada goose. Rumor has it they can scan the VIN transponders in our cars, but why would they care? They're busy looking for traffic jams and accidents. And they do a great job.

We're having the first real heat wave of the season. They say it'll crack 95 tomorrow. Earlier and earlier every year... you know how it goes. At least in Boston, we don't have to ration water. But the rhododendron blooms are drooping as soon as they start, the poor things. No time to evolve to warmer conditions.

You asked about Farhan. Yes. He's tall, slender, brown-eyed, and wears earrings; he smiles most of the time, and his mind is as sharp as his jokes. He speaks with a bit of an accent, but not much. He isn't afraid to talk about political issues around the lunch table. (But the Mideast War is kind of a sensitive subject, understandably. He still has family in Iran -- at least, he hopes so.) He's single and unattached, but we'll see how long that lasts...

Thanks for your wonderful description of the U2 show in Dublin. Glad to hear they've still got it, after all these years!

Hey, you haven't told me about any men you've met over there. Come on, out with it! :-) Who did you go to the concert with? Have you met anyone interesting at work?

Now you have a picture of Farhan! Someone kindly took this picture of us three while we were in Artery Park, watching "Wizard of Oz" on the outdoor screen. It was a lovely evening. Justin had a fun time playing in the fountain, then he fell asleep during the movie, which left just Farhan and I... which was okay with us!

And then Harrison showed up.

That's right, sis, he just happened to come across us in a crowded park in downtown Boston. He was polite, but when I introduced him to Farhan, his face got that odd blank look that means trouble. I'm sure he suspects something is going on between us (and well he should), and I'm afraid of how he's going to respond later. At least Harrison had the grace to leave quickly and quietly, once we'd exchanged small talk. Thank God he didn't throw a fit right there in Artery Park.

After the movie, Farhan took us home and made us dinner, unplanned. Maybe he was trying to repair an imperfect evening. It worked. There's still a little room for joy in my life!

How'd your business trip go? Sweden this time, right? Please do send pictures. Tell me everything; I could use a little vicarious travel...

Anyway, here's another good picture of Justin. I tell you, my imagination's getting away with me these days. His daycare center, like all of them these days, has cameras everywhere -- if anything bad happens to a kid, it'll be on disk. Anyway, a couple of their cameras are linked to the Web. So we parents can log in and watch our kids on the Webcam!

I thought this was a good idea, and it's comforting to watch Justin during the day. But today, as he was playing by himself, he looked straight up at the camera, and just... stared. Hard. Like he was looking through it at me. For some reason, it gave me the creeps. Is he going to be watched for the rest of his life? With that ID chip in him, is he going to be tracked everywhere for the rest of his life? I feel horrible about it, but I'd feel irresponsible if I let him get in harm's way just because of some idealistic nonsense.

I feel more and more helpless these days.

Love, Kathy

It happened. The daycare center called me this evening just as I was leaving work -- Harrison tried to pick up Justin! They have a policy to always call the primary caregiver first, thank God, so I told them not to let Justin go with him, under ANY circumstances. But he stayed out there waiting, waiting for me to pick up my baby and go home... I was followed home, I know it. I have no idea what to do. Go somewhere safer, and risk going between the house and the car? Stay here at home and wait for the knock at the door? Call someone? The police are too busy to care about this kind of thing, and anyway, Harrison probably has buddies there. He did when we lived in Milton.

This is the worst part: How did Harrison know where Justin was? I never told him which daycare center he goes to.

Fearfully, Kathy

Ellen, I'm going crazy.

I watch my back all the time now. I watch Justin at the daycare center all the time. I don't drive straight to work -- I go around blocks, out of my way, on errands, nothing predictable. I keep Justin in the same room with me at night, and I sleep (if you can call it that) with an axe under my bed. I am exhausted.

(What I'd like to do is carry something a bit more effective than an axe! But the gun-control laws really don't permit it, practically speaking. Even if I get a license, I'd have to wait three weeks before being able to buy anything, which is useless. The online underground has advice on how to get around that, but I really don't want to get caught. Besides, I don't think I could ever shoot Harrison, if it came down to that.)

Farhan and I think Harrison knows someone in Homeland Security who's giving him information about me, maybe through his police buddies in Milton. That would explain a lot. Someone there could find out all kinds of things: where I work, where I live, my Net activity, my health records, my ATM records, my debit-card purchases, whenever my car goes past a toll booth on any major road, ad nauseum. What more could a stalker want? Some of it might be illegal, of course, but no one knows if there are any meaningful restrictions on info usage in Homeland Security. Besides, they can buy any information they want -- legally -- from the companies in question, like my bank, my ISP, or the toll collection agency. Such joy.

So the only way out of this is either make Harrison stop, or disappear from HS's view entirely. A hell of a choice, isn't it? But something has got to give, and soon...

How utterly selfish of me. My self-absorption over this Harrison business blinded me to the danger I've put Farhan in. If Harrison really is getting info from Homeland Security about me, what's to stop him from getting it about Farhan too? And as you know, all they need to do is accuse him of conspiring with terrorists, and due process goes out the window. It only takes one tipster. Like Harrison himself, perhaps.

Farhan hasn't shown up at work in two days -- no one there knows where he is. He's not answering his home phone, cell phone, or email. Oh God, what have I done?

Four days. Still no sign of Farhan.

I have no appetite, I can't sleep, and even Justin picks up on my stress; he's alternately horrible and clingy. I'm sure leaving his daddy had something to do with that too, of course. I wonder what long-term damage we've done to him. No, not "we" -- Harrison. I've done my best. I have to keep believing that, or the guilt will make me crazy.

I feel like we're prisoners in our own lives, and it's starting to make me deeply angry. Farhan and I had been talking about this recently, and it's been an eye-opener for me (though you've been aware of these issues for awhile, I'm sure). First amendment -- gone; the press isn't allowed to report accurately on the "war," and the big media companies self-censor everything else according to their corporate interests. Second amendment -- gone; I can't protect myself with anything real. Fourth amendment -- gone; Homeland Security can grab any records they want, no warrant necessary. Fifth and sixth amendments -- gone; there's no due process or public trials for accused terrorists.

A study just posted to the online underground says that 70% of American citizens think the Bill of Rights is too radical. Why don't they just repeal the whole thing and be done with it? Maybe we keep it around because we like to pretend we're still the same noble country we used to be... except that now we're just fat, rich, paranoid, and self-righteous. I'm sorry if this doesn't sound like me. But it's getting harder to gloss over these things.

I think you did the smart thing, going to live in Ireland after the Chicago sarin attack. I wish I'd done that too. Now it's too difficult to even go visit you. Wish us luck over here; maybe the next Presidential administration will bring change, though it probably won't.

I can't keep my eyes open. But if I go to bed, I'll just lie there, unable to sleep.

Where is he?

This is a long letter, but there's a lot to say! I want to make sure someone else reads this story. I want to save it for Justin, too -- someday, he'll want to know what exactly happened, and why his Mommy got involved with all this. So bear with me.

Justin and I were eating lunch last Saturday at a little place in Coolidge Corner. As we were walking out the front door, my cell beeped with this message:

          Harrison is waiting at your
          car.  Don't go there.  Cross 
          the street.

I picked up Justin and held him tight. My legs were shaking. I crossed the street and stood on the median, next to the trolley tracks, waiting for the walk light. Another message beeped:

          Look left.  Silver Honda
          hybrid.  Walk over and 
          get in.

What the hell...? There were two men in the car already, who got out as I approached. They were ordinary-looking guys, one with a beard, the other shorter and a little dumpy. "Kathy Kenneally? Nice to meet you. Name's Rob," said the short one, as he put down a laptop and reached into the back to fiddle with a child seat.

"Should I know you? I'm sorry, I don't have any clue who you are," I said.

"No, you've never seen us before. Let's get in the car, and we'll talk."

"Uh, I'd like to know what's going on first, before I get into a car with strangers."

The other fellow walked around and stood close to me. He looked hard at my face. I hoped he couldn't see how scared I was. Ever feel like your heart is pounding so hard that the other person's sure to see your shirt moving?

"We're taking you someplace safe," he said, with a disarmingly quiet voice.

I wondered if "safe" meant "in custody." Did they know about the encrypted emails I'd sent and the software I'd downloaded? Did they get my name out of Farhan? Or were they not government at all? I couldn't tell. I'm not a detective, I don't know what to look for. So I delayed by brushing bagel crumbs off of Justin's shirt and saying something innocuous to him.

"We know you're being stalked by your ex-boyfriend. We know he's down the street. We also know where Farhan is. You might find it useful to trust us. Do you have any good alternatives?"

The answer, of course, was no.

"Is Farhan okay? Where is he?"

"It's a long story. Listen, you probably don't want to stand around out here for very long, in case Harrison comes out looking for you. Trust us, or walk away now."

Praying I was doing the right thing, I put Justin into the car seat and climbed in beside him. I figured that as long as my little boy was here, I would fight whatever came, for as long as it took. Other than him, I had nothing to lose. But the state could take him away...

As we drove away, we approached my parked car. "Put your head down, but look," said Rob. There, sure enough, was Harrison.

"Do you know what he's planning to do?" I asked them.

"No, just that he followed you here," said Rob. "We can track him as easily as we can track you. More so, actually, since you must have been using cash a lot lately instead of plastic. But that's beside the point. You might have been in imminent danger, so we decided to get you out."

"Thanks. But who's 'we,' where are we going, and where's Farhan?"

"Oh, right. He's with us; he told us what was up with you. Edward, you want to explain?"

"Sure." The bearded guy sighed and leaned his head back, pausing for a while as we waited at a traffic light. "Okay. Kathy, you've been using a steganographic email encrypter, right?"

"I'm sorry, a what?" (Yes, that's exactly what we've been using, Ellen!)

"Steganography. Making a message look like something else. Like an image or a music clip."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

Edward laughed. "You don't trust us, do you?"

"Trust you to do what?"

He laughed again. "You're smart. You have no idea whose side we're on, and I just asked you to admit to a crime." (What did he mean, whose side?) He abruptly pounded the steering wheel. "Goddammit. When innocents become routine lawbreakers just so they can lead normal lives..."

"...then the state forfeits its moral authority," finished Rob, with gravitas. "We've had this discussion a few times, Kathy. Sorry. We always end up arguing on the same side, but arguing nonetheless."

"Not a problem."

"Anyway, we believe privacy shouldn't be illegal," Edward continued while swerving around a double-parked car. "We believe a lot of other things shouldn't be illegal either, and a lot of folks agree with us. Some of us live up in New Hampshire now, in the same town, living what we believe. We stay friendly with the locals and generally stay out of sight while we, um, help out like-minded people. It's not a commune, you understand, but we share things like Net access and insurance and ways to fake out the state."

"Fake it out, or take it out?"

He laughed again. "Let's change the subject a bit, okay? Farhan's up there, and he's safe. He had to leave no trace behind him when he left, which is why he never told you about it. He had to disappear completely. We've known him for a while, and he was planning on eventually coming up, but... we think the FBI was planning on detaining him, so it became time-critical. That's why he's not here in the car with us, by the way."

"Thank goodness he's okay." Though at that point, I was still wondering if they were feeding me a line. "Detain him why?"

"Who knows?" answered Rob. "He has a friend of a friend who was detained for weeks -- a Pakistani ex-pat who came out still claiming to be innocent, but he was unable to talk about what he was accused of. Maybe nothing at all."

Edward added, "If nothing else, they can get Farhan on illegal software possession alone. Maybe more if they've raided his condo. If they claim he was sending encrypted terrorism information -- and who could claim otherwise? -- the whole trial gets locked up tighter than Al Gore's ass."

"Did Harrison drop a dime on him?" I asked.

The guys were silent for a second too long. "We don't know," said Rob. "We can find out a lot of things, but not that." He fell silent again, then continued.

"Anyway, our plan was to take you up to New Hampster. If you want to come, great. If not, we can drop you off anywhere in the Boston area, but honestly, I think your best bet is to come with us. No one can track you where we're going. We'll help you and Justin -- it's Justin, isn't it, kiddo? -- we'll help you live under assumed names, and help you find a new job if you want. Kinda like a witness protection program, you know?"

"Or an underground railroad?" I said.

"Yeah. Yeah, okay, that's an excellent way of putting it."

"We rescue slaves from bondage to the State," said Edward somberly, and grinned. "Are you in? Do you want to think about it?"

The decision didn't take long. This was far too elaborate to be a setup job, for someone as unimportant as me; they had me in the car, no need to keep up a story. But if they were for real -- I hadn't dared to think that people were taking resistance this seriously! And imagine that these strangers would go to so much trouble for me!

"Yes. I'm in."

So we went by my apartment in Somerville. They told me to be quick, just to pick up a few clothes and whatever things Justin needed to be happy. "But do not, under any circumstances, send email, or call anyone, or leave any sign that you were here or that you're going away." Within a few minutes, I was out again, with a snoozing Justin draped over my side and a kitchen knife hidden in my pack. I might still need it, if the worst happened. Bye bye, apartment!

On the way out of town, we stopped in a busy supermarket parking lot and turned off the engine. Rob plugged the laptop into a jack under the dashboard, typed for a little while, then pulled a handheld out of his pocket and held it near the glove compartment. A number appeared on the handheld's screen. "Done. Let's go," he said. To me, he explained: "The factory-supplied VIN transponders aren't very convenient for what we do, as you can imagine. We replaced them with our own, and they're programmable. We can put any vehicle identification number in there we want. So now as we drive out, we look like a different car than the one we drove in!" He grinned the grin of a hacker, and closed the laptop with a snap.

And on we went, up Route 3, over the border through the back streets of Nashua, and further north through anonymous small roads to avoid the transponder-driven tolls. We changed our VIN again when we crossed the border, in an enormous mall parking lot. We talked about passive resistance, and rights, and modern conveniences, and the weird ideological turnabout between Republicans (pro-state) and Democrats (pro-rights). We listened to XM radio from places scattered throughout the country, and generally got to know each other. Justin just slept until he got hungry for French fries.

But we got a scare once, as we passed close to Manchester. Edward suddenly slowed down. "Crap. Rob, hide the laptop," he said quietly. The police were parked on the shoulder, scanning VINs, looking for someone. I asked Rob if we were safe. "Oh, probably. The VIN we're using is probably from a car that was destroyed earlier this year by a sympathetic junkyard and wasn't ever reported. But it doesn't go with our license plate." He smiled when he said it, but I saw Edward's hands tighten on the wheel as we drove slowly past the flickering blue lights. We all breathed again as we sped up on the other side.

I remember that as we drove north, the steel-gray sky we'd had in Boston slowly cleared and brightened until we were under blue skies. The sunshine reminded me that I'd forgotten Justin's sunglasses. But it was a good omen nevertheless.

So here I am! I shouldn't tell you exactly which town we're in, but I can tell you that the White Mountains are visible from here. And it's far away from Boston! No public wireless nets, no high-tech jobs, no dragnets, exactly one ATM (which none of us dissidents use, of course; the local bank is sufficient). But there are trees, and three little stores, and spring peepers chirping at night. And Farhan is here. Oh, it was so good to see him again! He apologized over and over again for scaring me, but I can understand -- after all, I just did the same to some of my friends back at home.

Edward, Rob and his family, a wonderful tall 50-ish woman named Judith, and a few other households live in a commonly-owned plot of land where they had some houses built. Farhan and I are going to rent a place there too. As Rob said, things like Net access are managed jointly, and we share information about local employers, contractors, etc. who are trustworthy (some of whom are sympathizers). Judith has worked on Internet security issues for two decades, and she runs an underground Web server -- I suspect she's our source for Homeland Security information leaks, too, though I'd never ask her, and she'd never admit to it if I did. On the darker side, we have a cache of unregistered open-use guns too. I'll learn to use them as a matter of safety. But we don't think they'll be necessary except in the worst possible case; no one here wants an armed revolution!

Which brings me to our long-term plans. I've only been here for a few days, but I already have a place to live, and leads on a couple of jobs -- not great jobs, but enough for the low cost of living up here. Justin seems to be happy; he loves walking in the woods by our local stream, and he likes Farhan and Rob. (He misses his bed and his toys, but the guys and I will go back to get more of our stuff next week.) There's a sympathizer doctor a few towns over who can take out his ID chip anytime we want. And it's cold at night, but the mountains are so beautiful... In short, I don't see any reason to go back to Boston anytime soon.

Most people here in the "resistance" seem content to live their lives in peace and privacy, while doing subversive things on the side that may help to turn around the abysmal political situation. At the very least, they're turning around individuals, one at a time, by publishing "dangerous ideas" in the forms of editorials and scientific studies and software. They're not terrorists; they're resisters. You understand the difference, even if the government doesn't.

Meanwhile -- oh, this is interesting -- my ex-niece-in-law Caroline, at UIUC, says that the Wood campaign is picking up enormous support from the colleges and the whole 18- to 24-year-old demographic! They're registering to vote in droves! It seems the losses of freedom, the endless undeclared wars, isolationism, global-warming denial, and capricious enforcement of idiotic laws (usually at their expense) have finally galvanized American youth. And they identify with Wood, being that he's so young. They're calling him a second JFK, you know...

So maybe there's hope for the country after all, but it's a long time until the November elections, and even longer until the inauguration. We can wait out the summer and autumn here. If Wood can restore our rights and privacy, terrific; if he can't, or if he loses to the Republicans, things should come to a head in a year or two. There are too many people out there, dispersed throughout the country, who are fed up with it. I'm only now learning the depth of American discontent. It's both frightening and encouraging.

Ellen, I hope you get this letter. Keep it safe. I couldn't live with myself if I endanger the good people I've met here. But I also want you to know that I really, truly am safe now, even though I'm not reachable any other way than this. I've "been disappeared," but of my own volition. Tell Dad and Rowan for me, if you could. Thanks, sis -- I love you!

With love and gratitude,
Kathy.