An Excerpt and A Freebie

Zero Visibility Possible

Last year I published my first novel, Zero Visibility Possible, a short dystopic satire about how disinformation works - from the cynical political uses of public trauma to flooding the zone with conspiracy theories and the erosion of agreed-upon reality. It’s a process I and many people in my profession have witnessed up close. I am thinking more about disinformation right now, as it’s been so so effective: You and your lying eyes might think you saw Trump and Vance disrespecting Zelensky but they’ll tell you to “watch the whole video” and see how he disrespected them. Most MAGAs won’t bother to rewind and watch the whole thing, if they do, they might literally see something different than you, like the famous blue or gold dress.

Below, an excerpt from my book, a chapter in which I show how a nominal truth-teller of a dying media franchise might just finally give in to one of the purveyors of the bullshit. If you like it, I hope you’ll buy the whole book. It’s short scathing and funny. Don’t just take it from me: Rick Wilson calls it “brilliant, dark, witty and obsessively readable” and Greg Olear calls it “a stick of dynamite of a debut novel.”

If you really like this newsletter and want to listen to my voice reading the book, I will gift an Audible version to the first 45 people who become paying subscribers to the Freakshow (it costs less than a Starbucks caramel latte and a half-bag of almonds a month).

CHAPTER 17

WHAT A LOT OF PEOPLE ARE TALKING ABOUT

Washington, D.C. 9 p.m. Tuesday

Around 9 p.m., Preston Silver’s second scoop on the administration reaction to the #vegasshooting went up on the Newsmag site. Silver had cobbled it together with a new interview with another White House insider, even more inside than Ferenc Folkus.

This one was more than happy to be named in the story.

Harrison Benson. Benson was the now-legendary “disruptor” communications strategist. In his 1980s preppy costume of three polo shirts, a button down oxford, khakis belted with a duck belt, and sailing shoes, the aging boy wonder of the extreme right had, with unlimited millions from one of the most eccentric billionaires in New York, weaponized cheap social media ad tech, famously coining the phrase “flood the zone with shit” for spreading misinformation, conspiracy theories and outright lies to confuse gullible Americans, thereby getting credit for The Boss’s upset election.

Benson had spent years skulking in media purgatory, growing more resentful as big name reporters refused to take him seriously and Hollywood ignored his self-financed films about the Morality of Capitalism and wisdom of Ronald Reagan. He had burned through three wives (two having filed domestic violence charges in their divorce papers). Each of those experiences had increased his conviction with respect to restoring women to their natural handmaiden role.

Men, yeah, white men, were victims too. Oh yes. They just didn’t cry and tattle to the Nanny State.

Silver and Benson had a cordial relationship that dated to the beginning of the campaign. Then, the old rules were still in place, and Silver thought it possible that he might write another book about the election — of the first female president. Silver had pulled together an early story about Benson, the Rebel on the Right. That made him an OG in a growing Benson fan club. Now, Benson had an adulatory following among some of the top male - nominally liberal - journalists in Washington and New York. They trekked to his DC office where he entertained with cases of Scotch, Cuban cigars while they recorded his exegeses on revolutions, Machiavelli, Lenin, populist uprisings and smashing the administrative state.

Benson was finally living his dream, which was to be respected - no, feared - by the crowd that had sneered at him. Sixty-five and paunchy, getting the last laugh. Better late than never, he was a global brand. A Milanese industrialist had even funded a think tank under his name headquartered in the family’s castello, on the Italian/Austrian border. From that redoubt, where heirs to the fascists and Nazis had never really given up hope, Benson enjoyed a long season of alto Adige wine and feasting and strategizing with the global right. When he reappeared in Washington, he had grown out his aging surfer-dude locks Euro-style, wore them brushed back and shoulder length, like a blonde Claude Levi-Strauss.

When Vera first Slacked him about Lola’s latest request, Silver was inclined to blow it off. He disdained Vera and Lola equally. In practice, though, it felt pretty good to get such a public pat on the back, and to watch his reader numbers tick upward, into the high six figures. Almost a million shares … . None of his books had sold more than 20,000 copies. The networks behind the election itself, nodes that profited off apparently insatiable desire among millions for proof of a global cabal, had been alerted to his little piece. It was reasonable to think Harrison Benson himself had seen it and would be happy to add his thoughts to the developing story - or, Silver corrected himself - narrative.

Silver checked the time. He had several hours before he was going to meet his date, the impossibly hot Georgetown professor with the rich father. He needed a shower and a shave - matters lately overlooked - but he could take care of the grooming in a jiffy. He didn’t have much hair to comb. He’d have to fish out a clean and pressed shirt … somewhere in the closet there had to be a full dry cleaning bag, although he couldn’t remember the last time he had brought his shirts in.

He opened the phone and scrolled down to Benson’s contact card. The guy now had six active numbers with LA, DC, Maryland and Virginia area codes, plus an international number. A lotta phones. Silver also had Benson’s protonmail address, for Benson intended to avoid the nanny state’s records preservation act.

Silver decided to start with the DC number. He was slightly shocked when Benson picked right up, after a ring.

“Brother Silver, how’s life my man?”

“Uh, hey, good. No complaints here.”

“I see the Deep State got into your headquarters today. What’s that all about?”

Silver had a nanosecond to react. Share rumors, or play dumb.

“I don’t really know. Not a good look, but I’m sure they’ll sort it out.”

“I hear it’s about crypto.”

“Don’t know anything about it.”

“OKaaaay. … Well what can I do for you and the dying legacy media brand today? You’ve got life support on the line here.”

The Mid-Atlantic bray, the frat boy laugh. Silver checked his irritation. Sucking it up and forging ahead, primary tools of the newsgathering trade.

“I’m just looking for your take on the Vegas shooting. I talked to Ferenc this morning and -“

“Stop right there! I saw your piece. I’m happy to assist. You’re on the right track. The others seem to be missing it.”

“Missing what?”

Silver was fiddling with his phone, trying to start the recording app. Benson waited, he knew exactly what was up. Beep, the recording started.

“Missing what?” Silver said again. “Talk to me.”

“Oh, where to start? The Masonic theory? I’m not saying I agree with this, but maybe, bear with me, okay? Ever since 9/11 there’s been this theory about the history and symbolism of two pillars falling. Two towers undeniably, that is Masons. So, some people say, 9/11 was engineered by the global elite - which as you know, are Masons, historically anti-Christian, anti-church. This is Egyptian Book of the Dead stuff, right? So, 9/11 was a sign, a Masonic Satanic symbol aimed at raising the underworld.”

Silver groaned reflexively. Benson chuckled.

“I’m not saying I agree. Just sharing what I hear, a lot. No accident this Vegas shooting was staged beside the Luxor casino resort, the great glass pyramid, right next to two shafts of light. Folks are saying it’s all part of some crazy plot to bring about the actual end of the world. The final solution. Fear, control.”

Staged. Silver could not tell whether Benson was serious or not. Flooding the zone with shit. He muted his skepticism.

“Well …. I hadn’t heard about that. … ”

“No you wouldn’t. I wouldn’t expect you to. But that’s because, my man, you are not reading the signs. You are not taking seriously the actual activities of blood-drinking, baby-eating, elite pedo-libs. You are still writing the script for the wall of illusion, blue pill reality, dude. I’m not saying I believe any of it, myself. I’m just sharing with you what a lot of people are talking about and do believe. You know, our deplorables.”

Silver knew from blue pills. He appreciated the reminder, because he would want to pop one in his jacket pocket for tonight. He wrote down BLUE PILL on a fresh page of notebook and tore it off, laid it in the middle of the kitchen table, shoving away empty takeout boxes to clear a space around it. This was important.

He also knew The Matrix. And Pizzagate. Benson was winding him up on that.

“Ok, Masonic world domination is maybe obvious to the red-pilled crowd and that’s great, but umm, it will take a little more time than I have to track that down. Can you give me something I can use tonight? Like, what does Harrison Benson really think about the Vegas shooting?”

“Well, I’m hearing it was a false flag and that they’ve deployed the crisis actors again. Like, the victims weren’t really victims but paid actors. Employed by George Soros. Some kind of globalist psy op. Like, there’s this guy Donald McMann from British Columbia -from Canada -“ Benson sneered the word - “who supposedly caught a bullet in the back of his head that only grazed his skull and knocked him down. He’s giving interviews, describing how happy he and his girlfriend are to be alive and how fortunate they feel. Well, go to his Facebook page now and check the comments thread. Pull it up, I’ll wait.”

Silver booted up Facebook and searched for Donald McMann of British Columbia. Immediately, a long thread of vile, misspelled comments accusing the couple and their families of being liars.

“Obviously a TERRIBLE CRISIS ACTOR,” wrote one woman calling herself Veronica. “HE’S SCAMMING THE PUBLIC. ... This was a government set up.”

“YOUR [sic] A LIAR AND FILTHY PIECE OF CRAP,” wrote another named Karen.

“You’ll pay on the other side,” said a user named Mitch.

The thread went on for hundreds of lines.

“LYING BASTARD … “scumbag govt actor,” and “fuckin FRAUD.”

A Facebooker called TheRealAlexa had posted “I hope someone comes after you and literally beats the living fuck outa you.”

Gold.

Silver was already cutting and pasting when Benson weighed back in. “You see it? Ok, there’s at least a million people who agree with them. Maybe more like 50 million. We have the data. These people are legion, my man. You can’t keep ignoring them.”

“Uhh, yeah, ok. How do you know that these Facebook posters are even real people? Russian bots … ”

“How do you even know the supposed victims are real people? Were you there? And even if you were there, could you prove to me that that was real blood and those were real bullets?”

“Oh come on, man, facts are facts. Some things are verifiable - ”

“Uh - let me stop you right there. That’s what you don’t get. See, what you call facts don’t matter anymore. They haven’t for quite a while actually, that happened when you weren’t looking. The fog of war crept up around you, man. Information psy-ops is 21st Century warfare. You should see what deep fakes technology can do. The Speaker of the House is fucking a horse on a livestream and you won’t be able to tell the difference. Go, look. I dare you!”

The fog of war. Twenty-first Century spy-ops. Silver marveled not for the first time at how this crowd’s messaging moved in lockstep. Like they had some “words of the day” or a topic rundown emailed to them every morning.

Whatever. Silver arranged the horrendous comments thread into a story file. He hated to admit it but this crypto-neo-Nazi with his European philosophe haircut, recent recipient of tens of millions of dollars in untraceable dark money now probably stashed in Turks & Caicos, money which came along with probably a whole lot of fresh tail - was right. The clickbait that Lola demanded lived or died in the virtual world of social media, crawling with influencers trolls and bots that could amplify or crush his byline, no, his career. “Reported for racist harassment,” was tattooed on his reputation.

And he wasn’t going to forget it.

It took Preston Silver barely 20 minutes to file a new story with Harrison Benson’s speculations about the Deep State conspiracy and its crisis actors and the global Masonic long game against Christians and capitalism.

Headline: “White House strategist won’t discount rumors about #vegasshooting: Benson sees ‘Masonic conspiracy,’ globalists and Deep State.”

He hit send, then went to take his first shower in a week. He still had half an hour to locate a fresh shirt and Uber himself over to the bar at the Four Seasons in Georgetown.

Plenty time.

EXCERPTED FROM ZERO VISIBILITY POSSIBLE by Nina Burleigh

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