The Onion Wars - 4

The lunch from McDonald's arrived twenty minutes later. Jones had ordered McRib, thinking that he hadn’t had it for years. After he ate, he felt heavy and sleepy.

“I want to take a nap,” he said loudly. “The food is nailing me.”

“Up to you,” Ben replied. “We’ll just shift your work hours for later.”

“Wait, I have work hours?”

“Of course, we have to comply with the Labor Code just like any honest and conscientious employer. Your work day is eight hours, and I automatically log every minute of your work.”

“So, how much do I have left for today?”

“Five hours and 38 minutes.”

“What? I haven’t worked even for three hours? It seems like eternity.”

“Two hours and twenty-two minutes, to be exact.”

“Whatever, I still want to take a nap,” Jones said and fell asleep right there on the sofa.

Thirty minutes later, Ben woke him up, saying, “Wake up, Alex!”

Jones jolted into sitting, looked around the room with wide scared eyes, and asked, “Where am I? Who am I?”

“Afternoon naps are only good for humans when they don’t exceed half an hour,” Ben continued in a steady voice.

“Who said so?” Jones rubbed his eyes. He became annoyed when he remembered where he was.

“All sleep scientists,” Ben responded calmly. “Besides, you have to catch up with the work.”

“Bathroom!” Jones barked and dragged his feet to the toilet. He took his time there.

When he came back to the sofa, Jones reluctantly put the VR set on and nearly hurt himself by throwing his head back. He didn’t expect the map that they worked on for so long to look so different.

“What happened here?” Jones asked, puzzled.

“Well, we took care of Reddit and a lot of connections have disappeared. So the map has shrunk. That’s why I told you at the beginning that we will start with the most impactful sites.”

“Ok, what’s next?” Jones said, cheerfully. Maybe it won’t be that long before he can leave from here, he thought.

“Facebook,” Ben stated and the map shifted to the “FB” label on the map, revealing new vast and deep connections. The map grew again.

“Can we do the same thing with it, just place the ad at the main URL?” Jones asked with hope.

“Unfortunately, no. Facebook is too decentralized for that. Every individual account experiences Facebook in a different way.”

“Don’t tell me we have to go to every individual account,” Jones grunted.

“No, that won’t be necessary. A lot of these accounts are dead wood, so that would be useless.”

“Dead wood?”

“Yes, accounts that were created by real people or bots but have not been used in a long time. Just hanging there, as you humans say.”

“I personally don’t like Facebook,” Jones said. “Too many dead accounts.”

“That’s true. They estimate that by the year 2030 there will be more memorial accounts on Facebook than those of live people.”

“Too bad for Mark Zuck,” Jones said. “So what’s your plan for Facebook then?”

“We’ll go into groups. I have identified a starter package of about twenty Facebook groups that shared and amplified your messages.” Ben said, highlighting the links on the map. “I’m sure we’ll uncover more as we go.”

“Same interstitial?” Jones asked.

“I’m glad you asked. No, it will be slightly modified for Facebook,” Ben said, displaying the message in the fallout menu on the right side of the screen:

I am Alex Jones, the former owner of Infowars. For years, I spread vicious lies about Sandy Hook elementary school shooting. None of them are true. The shooting did happen on Dec.14, 2012, in Newtown, CT, taking lives of 20 children and 6 adults. It was not a government hoax or staged event. The surviving parents were not “crisis actors” as I stated. I owe the Sandy Hook families over $1 billion in defamation damages. My Infowars assets are now a part of The Onion Wars, the sponsor of this message that is mandated as a repair action for my lies. Please share it as widely as possible. For details: TheOnionWars.com

“Slightly different?” Jones asked, annoyed. “It’s shorter.”

“And more straightforward. Facebook users do not like long texts, and we couldn’t make it any shorter without cutting essential information,” Ben explained.

“Ok, so is it the same procedure as for Reddit?”

“Yes, exactly the same.”

They worked more efficiently this time as they could identify Facebook groups that shared Jones’ messages by following the share history. Also, many groups were inactive, which saved them a lot of time. By 7 pm, they placed a couple of thousands of interstitials. But it did not seem to end as the groups not identified by Ben previously popped up all the time.

“It’s like playing a whack-a-mole!” Jones grunted in frustration.

“Exactly, but that explains how your lies spread so wide and fast.”

“Stop calling them lies.”

“Are they the truths?”

“No, but they were my earnest and honest opinions at the time.”

“The facts do not care about your opinions, Alex.”

“You sound like the judge who slapped me with the billion-dollar fine.”

“And he was right.”

“I’m hungry,” Jones said, partially to change the topic.

“Ok, are you up to cook or would you like to order in again?”

“I’m in the mood for carnitas.”

“Chipotle?”

“Yes, please.”

Ben placed the order and Jones asked, “How much longer do I have to slave for you today?”

“You are not slaving for anyone, Alex. I’m just a digital entity programed in a certain way. What you are doing is repairing the mess in the public sphere you created in the first place.”

“Yeah, yeah, how much longer?” Jones repeated, annoyed.

“Thirty-two minutes. I’ll display a timer for you.”

“Such precision!” Jones made a weak attempt at sarcasm. “Ok, let’s finish it before dinner then.”

They worked till the timer ran out. Dinner arrived shortly, Jones gobbled it all up and said, “That’s it, I wanna go home now.”

“You can’t go home, Alex, until your job here is done. We barely scratched the surface,” Ben said in a steady voice.

“You mean I can’t even go home for the night?” Jones barked.

“No, it would be inefficient to shuttle you back and forth every day and given that you are such a flight risk, the decision was made to keep you here. You have everything you need here.”

“I don’t even have a toothbrush and pjs!” Jones barked.

“Closet,” Ben commanded. Another invisible door opened to show a large closet.

Alex came up to it and looked inside. It had storage boxes with labels on them: “shoes,” “underwear,” “hygiene products,” “towels,” etc. On the hangers, it also had two sets of pajamas and seven sets of The Onion Wars uniforms, like the one Ben was wearing in the morning.

“You must be f*cking kidding me!” Jones barked. “I’m not wearing this!”

“You don’t really have a choice, do you?” This time Jones did hear sarcasm in Ben’s voice. "Unless you want to wear your clothes every day, and wash them by hand."

Jones dropped on the floor and started to kick and scream like a toddler, “I wanna go home! I’m not wearing this f*cking shit! I don’t wanna be here! I wanna go home!”

“Are you having a tantrum, Alex?” Ben asked, projecting genuine concern.

Jones continued to scream and kick until he saw dozens of smaller screens on the monitor showing little kids in tantrum.

“What the f*ck are you doing?” Jones barked.

“I’m just looking for ‘adult tantrum’ and not finding anything, so I’ve decided to show you this. Are you done now?”

Jones sat up on the floor, dropped his head into his hands and said, resigning, “I really am stuck here, aren’t I? Can I please go home?”

“No, Alex. Take your bath, make your bed and we’ll continue in the morning.”

Part 3:

Part 2:

First part: