News that Google has been cloning smart-phone users for the purposes of market research and then killing them has met with mixed reviews from the public, with reactions ranging from outright anger to total indifference. “So they know I like pizza, big fucking deal,” Citizen Danny said Wednesday on Richmond, “They're not killing me, just a cardboard cutout of me, which is pretty much all a clone is. It doesn't have any of my memories, it's thoughts and fears are it's own, so it's no skin off my back.” On the other end of the reaction spectrum is Google's Actually Slaughtering People, a group who's website says they are focused on actively destroying Google's new marketing scheme through awareness campaigns and active resistance. The leader and spokesman for GASP is a Swedish national named Axel Hjalmar, who's rabid articles have spread across the internet in recent weeks condemning Google's actions, demanding they cease the cloning program and insisting Google stop their policy of total media silence since announcing the program.
Axel Hjalmar is a hard man to find. In an effort to speak to him one starts with the people sympathetic to his cause and tries to pin him down from there. After weeks of trying to contact him this reporter finally received word that he could meet Hjalmar. To this effect I was blindfolded by a group of his fellow resistance fighters in a port city on the Atlantic coast and taken on a two day car ride, three different helicopters, forty minutes in a rickshaw and finally a short walk down a flight of stairs. When the blindfold came off I was faced with the man - tall, blonde, totally Swedish and standing over a topographical map of Antarctica in a dank and dark steel room with water dripping from the ceiling. Here is the full transcript of my conversation with Axel Hjalmar, leader of the underground resistance to Google's tightening grip on the world:
James Betty: You're a hard man to find, Mr. Hjalmar.
Axel Hjalmar: Yes. I prefer it.
JB: So you don't get many Christmas cards then?
AH: [steely silence]
JB: Sooo... you don't visit your mother often then?
AH: Occasionally I mail her a page from the current Farmer's Almanac. She knows what that means. She knows I am alive. That is all the comfort I can spare.
JB: You run a pretty tight ship.
AH: How do you know this is a boat?
JB: I, uh, don't...know... this is a boat.
AH: Good. That was a test, to see if you know you are on a boat.
JB: We are definitely not on a boat.
AH: Why did you do that?
JB: Do what?
AH: You winked at your tape recorder. Why did you do that?
JB: [stuttering] I was just hitting on it, you know, practicing my game for when I get back on land... where ladies are.
AH: I told you how important security was to us. This is not the awareness I envisioned a journalist creating. You promised discretion in your questioning. It is very difficult to hide from a company that has it's own satellites and cars driving around documenting every inch of the world's public domain. You have no idea the setback you have created for GASP's ultimate operation.
JB: Wait, that sounds important, what is GASP's ultimate operation?
AH: You must leave. You can keep your tape recorder and do what you wish with the contents. GASP has certain free democratic principles that we will not allow ourselves to break, but GASP will be packing up and moving it's entire operation to a new secure location...
JB: [interrupting] One that can't sink?
AH: Yes, one that cannot sink. Now leave. You have already wasted enough of my time.
JB: Okay, if I want to contact you should I...
AH: [interrupting] Leave meddlesome typist!
JB: Right, I'll just...
[sounds of scuffling]
JB: [muffled] You're moving anyways, do I need the bag on my head to leave?
AH: Yes, at the moment we prefer it. I bid you good day, Mr. Betty.
[footsteps]
That didn't go well. No information was gained as to the details of GASP's ultimate plan for ending Google's new marketing scheme, but the bag they put on my head kind of smelled like crayfish. More details to come as they become available.
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