Jet lag hit me right at customs. That weird mix of recycled air, caffeine sweats, and frayed nerves—all soaked into JFK’s distinct aroma of mildew and policy. The sign above the “U.S. Citizens” line still pretended it meant something. I held my passport in one hand, my worn-out MacBook in the other. Technically, I was home. But the flickering fluorescents made it feel like a mistake.
The woman at the booth looked like she’d aged in place.
“Purpose of your trip?”
“Returning.” Then, “Lisbon. Research.”
“What kind?”
“Writing. Journalism.”
She actually looked at me.
“Which outlet?”
“My own. A blog.”
Click. Glow. Nothing in her face changed.
“What’s the name?”
I hesitated. Stupid. “The Unfiltered Republic.”
Something shifted. A flicker. A keyword tripwire. Maybe the database sneezed. She hit a few buttons.
“Mr. Rand, step aside. Officer’ll escort you.”
I smiled—nervous habit. More a grimace.
“Is there a problem?”
“Just routine screening.”
“‘Routine’ never calms me.”
A square-jawed agent, Nichols, led me past crowds and into a hallway with no windows. My stomach churned. I hadn’t eaten since Frankfurt. This was supposed to be bagels and a nap. Instead: metal doors and humming silence.
The room looked like a DMV had a nervous breakdown. Fluorescents. Metal table. Two chairs. A one-way mirror that felt like a stare.
Agent Moss walked in. Neatly trimmed beard. Tight posture. The type who quotes 1984 without irony.
“Eliot Rand,” I said. “Writer. Citizen. Taxpayer.”
He didn’t blink. “We’re doing a digital screening.”
“You mean my phone.”
“And your laptop.”
“Warrant?”
“You’re not under arrest.”
“Yet.”
He took them like they were evidence. Gloves, tray, tape. Then left me with the filtered silence of institutions.
I sat, hands folded, pretending not to sweat. Pretending not to replay every post I’d written lately—especially the ones about digital surveillance, ICE’s keyword triggers, or the Fourth Amendment wearing adult diapers at the border.
Hours passed. Moss returned. With company. Grayer. Deeper voice.
“We have some questions.”
“This still part of the routine?”
No reply.
“Anti-American?” “Foreign ties?” “Overthrow the government?”
“This a screening or an inquisition?”
“You’re free to go.”
“But you have my stuff.”
“You’re free to go without it.”
By hour five, I asked for a lawyer.
“You’re not under arrest,” Moss said.
“I still have rights.”
He just looked at me.
“Not here, you don’t.”
Eventually, they moved me again. Smaller room. Colder. I was no longer a person. I was a situation.
Later, another agent came.
“You’ll be held for further processing.”
“For what?”
“Determination.”
Too tired to argue, I followed.
They brought me to The Pen.
Seven others. All backgrounds. All caught between borders and suspicion.
A kid in a Free Palestine shirt made room.
“What’d they get you for?”
“Writing.”
“Classic mistake.”
⸻
The Pen wasn’t listed anywhere. No number. No clocks. No god.
Benches bolted to concrete. A drain in the middle. Institutional gray.
Eight of us. No names at first. Just scans. Inventory.
The kid was Iman. He played drums. Doc scribbled legal notes on napkins. Maria paced like a storm. Jonah whispered crypto mantras. Lana didn’t speak.
“Help doesn’t come here,” Iman told me. “Just extraction or silence.”
Doc claimed the Constitution was a ghost. Said we were haunting it now.
Time had no direction. Lights never dimmed. Meals slid in through a wall like offerings to a quiet monster.
“Why’re you here?” I asked Iman.
“Visited family, in Iran. Got flagged.”
“You think jazz is dangerous?”
He grinned. “If you play it right.”
Jonah cracked eventually—ripped his shirt off, screamed blockchain scripture. They sedated him. Lana cried. Maria scratched tally marks into the bench.
“They don’t tell you when you leave,” she said. “They just call your name like a sandwich order.”
One night, guards came for me.
“This way.”
“Where?”
“Re-education.”
⸻
They didn’t want to kill me.
Too final. Too simple. They wanted ambiguity. The kind that frays you.
They brought me to a carpeted room.
A couch. Plants. Cucumber water.
A man smiled like he’d been programmed to.
“You’ve had a rough time, Eliot.”
“I assume you’re not my lawyer.”
“I’m a comfort officer.”
He offered a folder. Highlighted blog posts. Comments in the margins: “Incendiary.” “Potentially radicalizing.”
“You’re not under arrest,” he said. “But you are influential.”
He slid a contract. A year of silence. No political writing. No encrypted data. No public memory of what happened.
“If you sign, you walk.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Continued assessment.”
I refused.
Back in the Pen, Maria nodded.
“Good,” she said. “They’ll offer again. Then comes the loop.”
“What’s the loop?”
“You’ll see.”
Doc explained: it wasn’t about what we’d done—it was about what we might do. Data-based pre-crime.
“Welcome to the age of maybe.”
————-
It repeated. Daily. Comfort sessions with different faces. Some kind. Some cruel. All rehearsed.
Each time, another detainee vanished.
Maria. Jonah. Lana.
Even Iman, finally.
I stayed.
They offered new deals. New justifications. A job moderating digital speech. I refused.
Back in the Pen, I was alone.
I started writing in secret. Fragments. Receipts. Napkins. Hidden pages.
“This isn’t jail,” I wrote. “It’s a dress rehearsal.”
⸻
One day, the door opened.
“You’re released.”
No reason. No goodbye. Just my stuff, returned like souvenirs from a war I didn’t enlist in.
Airport looked the same. But off. Duller. My inbox was empty.
A single message: “Welcome home. Stay safe. Be mindful.”
I was a ghost. No blog. No profile. No digital past.
The barista at the coffee shop didn’t recognize me.
I saw Lana in a public service video. Talking about “digital responsibility.” Eyes blank. Smile perfect.
At home, I wrote again. On paper.
Ten copies. Dropped in random mailboxes.
Old-school samizdat.
Just enough to prove I was still here.
⸻
A postcard arrived: “The loop ends when you stop walking in circles.”
Then a tail. Young. Sloppy. I handed him a note: “Tell them I’m not performing anymore.”
Later, a letter under my door: “You’re not alone. Keep walking.”
So I do.
In silence. In receipts. In hidden pages.
Because they forgot something.
Not all ghosts vanish.
Some write in the dark.
Chilling situation. The lack of due process. The horrendous conditions of confinement. Innocent human beings. Scary stuff. No guardrails. 😢
We hope that the sheer size and overreach of the State will also be its undoing.