I’ve spent years writing about the intersection of technology, culture, and policy. When social media is increasingly used to create events, rather than report on them, I find that work increasingly relevant.
It is one thing to write an essay here or a newsletter there. Given the potential harms, utilizing adding additional forms, like narrative, seems warranted. Hurricane David is a corporate-gothic tech tragedy set in a near future Florida Archipelago. This post-truth fable traces the edges of where reality can be manufactured - and what happens when the natural order reasserts itself.
I hope you enjoy this one, and maybe see a bit of your own fight in it. For more on the story’s background, check out the appropriate section on my Stories page.
~Matthew
Scene 3 - Vindication
The analyst break-room coffee wasn’t better, but it came with a perk: instead of cardboard cups, they had real mugs, stamped with the Bureau’s slogan, CALM IS CONTAGIOUS.
Steam curled from David’s mug as he climbed the stadium seating of the command room - a college lecture hall as if it were built by defense contractors. The lighting was dim. The space was almost entirely lit by the floor-to-ceiling monitors comprising the front wall. It pulsed with blues and reds, trending terms, sentiment analysis broken out by geography, ideology, education, and any of two dozen more demographics summarized in pixel form; the sum total of the world’s anxiety abbreviated as light.
Generally, the command center was quiet - the hum of the HVAC indistinguishable from whatever fan noise came from the dozens of computers in the room, the whir occasionally punctuated by flurries of keyboard assaults.
There were no assigned seats,technically, but people are creatures of habit. Maya was already at her usual spot, along the left edge and about half way to the top. She was staring intently at her space’s screen, tapping aggressively - summoning forth modals and then, summarily, dismissing them with a flick.
David slid into the empty seat next to hers, its screen waking when it detected activity.
“Miss me?”
Maya only grunted an acknowledgment, still pursuing something he couldn’t see.
David tilted his head toward the front wall. “How’s our girl today?”
Maya looked up in irritation. “She’s being a drama queen. It’s been yellow alerts non-stop.”
As soon as he logged in, an alert covered David’s screen.
“The f-.”
“-see? It’s been like this since I started my shift at 5am. It’s got all the signs of an economic rumor cascade.”
“Gulf side?”
“Uh-huh. Home-grown and running hot.”
“Hmmm.” David skimmed the included detail.
“There was a seawall-crack shock clip. I cross-checked the footage. It is legit; it’s not doctored. The actual impact, though, is pretty slight. There is flooding in the lower 37th zone, but it’s contained; a localized, not systemic, failure.
“But it looks bad, and the clip is breaking containment. It’s that time of year - old axes out again. Alethia keeps readjusting feed weights and dropping chaff. She’s managed to keep it off trending lists so far, but it’s starting to go viral on its own merits.”
“Sentiment acceleration?”
“Look who’s been reading their manual! But yeah, could be big. People love any reason to short archipelago real estate for a quick buck. Hashtags are #floridaFail, #sunkenAssets, and #waterSoWet.”
The reality of what Maya was saying was huge. If the Archipelago looked unstable, insurers would re-price everything by the next morning. Markets would collapse. Panic had bankrupted just as many banks as storms did.
“Hey, is there someone on the seawall video?” Alethia’s algorithm must have tripped over some threshold and started recruiting additional analysts for help. José, down in front, was scanning around the room for confirmation.
“Over here-“
“We’ve got it,” David cut in, “Maya and I are tag-teaming it.”
Maya looked at David, skeptically. “You sure about that, rookie? Confidence index is at 62.5% and falling. We’ll have a sell-off on anything under 50%.”
David winked. “What, you scared?” He turned back to his screen and began launching his script agents; some boilerplate, others requiring brief field entry.
Maya weighed her options, then mockingly crossed herself and addressed José, who was still waiting for confirmation. “Override. I guess we got it. We’ll rope you in if we need it.”
She turned back to David.
“I’d started ID’ing mouthpieces for a credibility challenge. Not a whole lot of influencers active at this hour, but we’ve got a handful of puppets that might apply.”
David’s fingers were now flying. “Is the source dirty?”
“Like I said, bona fides look clean. But something always turns up, if we dig long enough.”
“Do we have time for that?”
“Probably not. There is the usual terms and conditions take down. Something, something public safety. Quick and clean-“
“-T&Cs are too blunt. Looks like a cover-up. The Streisand effect is the opposite of what we want.”
The chyron scrolling across the bottom of David’s screen turned red. A neutral voice addressed the room. “Confidence index is below 60%.”
“Whoa, easy, girl.”
“What’s the play here, rookie?”
David gathered his thoughts for a moment before speaking. He suddenly brightened.
“We can use this, flip it.” David launched a volley of keystrokes, triggering an equal number of new dialogs. “It’s all about perception.”
Maya made a prune face and leaned over to follow along on his screen. “Come again?”
“So right now it is an infrastructure-fail that is playing.” David dismissed a few of the topmost related posts referencing the video, then pointed to the next in the queue, tapping through as Alethia sorted in real-time. “We’ve got climate aura farmers, government trolls, Florida haters… “ he rapidly swiped several more items in the carousel, “… a few members of Cirque du Soleil, for some reason-“
“Rookie!”
“How often do they inspect the seawalls?”
“I can find out. Why?”
“We reframe this footage captured of a maintenance test, or a drill. Something deliberate to test disaster response. Proof that the green plan of mangroves and cordgrass work as expected.”
“We’ll need to dummy and backdate some work tickets.”
“Is that a problem?”
“Shouldn’t be. Alethia has access those county systems.” Maya started typing. “And the flooding?”
“Localized, right? We spin it as an unexpected byproduct. Cracking eggs to make an omelet. Invaluable real-world insights that will be used to refine and upgrade the entire system performance.”
Maya returned to her terminal and ran a probability forecast; the trend line stabilized, but not high enough. David, watching over her shoulder, leaned in and tweaked demographic and geopolitical targeting sliders by hand. The projections wavered a moment, then orange coded labels bled to yellow.
Maya leaned back and crossed her arms. David looked at her expectantly.
From behind them, Jeter said, “That’s not bad.”
David nearly jumped out of his seat. During his color-coding, he hadn’t heard Jeter approach.
“The seawall leak, I presume?”
“Forming an approach,” Maya answered, “We’re about to execute.”
“Run it back for me.”
Maya looked expectantly at David and David cleared his throat.
“We supercharge the spread.”
Jeter’s eyebrow twitched. “Unconventional.”
“We frame it as proof of diligence - routine testing, proactive governance. Push hashtags like ‘StressTestSuccess’, or ‘MakingSafeHappen’ and run with whatever pops.”
Jeter grunted affirmatively. “Shift the sentiment from panic to civic pride?”
“Exactly! Like ‘Look at our proactive resilience’.”
Maya joined in. “It’s too cute, by a lot. Those tags need a pass or ten through sentiment refactoring. But it might work. The types that might otherwise spread it will back off; they won’t want to seem pro-gov. And it will be like catnip for those looking to clown on the climate types.”
“We bait a positive spin. It’ll be chum in the water.”
Jeter stroked his beard for a moment before speaking. “Alethia: projection?” The manifested voice localized between the three of them. “Projected confidence recovery is 67 percent.”
“Okay. Do it. Nobody leaves until we’re back over 65%. The markets don’t dip when they open tomorrow.” Jeter took in the rest of the room for a moment. Finding nothing else amiss, he told David good job before ambling back to the crows nest at the rear of the room. David beamed.
“Hey! We’re not out of the woods yet, David.” Maya chided, pushing his coffee toward him. “We’ve got a long day of cleanup ahead of us.”
End Scene 3 - Check back tomorrow for the next installment.