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The break room at CIA headquarters in Langley looks like an old folks home. Senior agents shuffle down the halls using the walls for stability. The bathrooms smell like muscle rub and denture adhesive. And the water fountains are littered with bone density pills.
It wasn't always like this. Young bright-eyed recruits, fresh out of college with skinny black ties and slicked back hair, used to bounce around this place like rubber balls just waiting for their chance to save the world.
The problem is Facebook, Google, and Instagram. It's our unending loneliness. It's our addiction to Twitter, Snapchat and TikTok. It's the fact that everyone on the planet has at least one social media profile, full of friends, likes, shares and tags. All identifiable, all traceable, ways to blow a cover.
It started with Generation X.
The recruitment pool necessary to replace retiring agents began to evaporate around the time broadband replaced dialup. Despite all the promises the high-speed internet connection didn't solve famine in North Korea or tribal genocide in the Congo. It just made downloading porn and uploading selfies easier.
By the time Myspace came around things began to look bleak.
What once required a team of counter-espionage experts in giant headphones to determine if an agent had been compromised can now be done with a profile pic and a smart phone. In 2002, during Operation Latex, a freshman field agent was executed by an Al Qaeda operative who'd identified him using a free-trial version of a facial recognition app. It was a Plenty Of Fish profile that cost him his life.
By the late 90's recruiters were forced from the fertile fields of college dormitories to the bleachers of high school football games in the hopes of identifying recruits before their mugs were plastered all over social media .
OPERATION EARLY BIRD
—OPERATIONAL MEMO— (Southeast sector):
APPROVED RECRUITMENT SITES: Palm Bay, Melbourne, & Eau Gallie high schools
GRADES: 11-12
CONTACT LEVEL: 4
Back then you could still cobble together enough kids for a decent operational field team.
And then we crossed the Rubicon. Exponential growth rate. That's how the analysts described the social media boom of the early 2000s. We couldn't keep up. It felt like overnight we were in junior high schools installing undercover agents as guidance counselors and gym coaches.
—OPERATIONAL MEMO— (update):
POLICY: Observe and document subject's behavioral patterns for use in statistical analysis for predictive selection of ideal recruits.
APPROVED RECRUITMENT SITES: Liberty, Stone, & Southwest junior high schools
GRADES: 7-9
CONTACT LEVEL: 3
APPROVED INSTALLATIONS: Custodial, Maintenance, Landscaping, Cafeteria Attendant, Athletic Instructor.
Still, it wasn't enough.
The problem, was that statistical analysis of behavioral patterns of subjects under the age of 18 are entirely unreliable in laymen's terms, even when we did identify potential agents before their facial signatures were on the internet, we were shit at picking the kids who would actually make decent, or even competent, agents. None of those initial recruits of Operation Early Bird made it past the second phase recruitment.
There were murmurings of massive budgets cuts throughout the agency. We floated every idea we could think of to keep the Field Agent Division from being sent out to pasture. Someone suggested we outsource. Even as late as 2005 there were still a few Third World countries with social media participation rate under 50%. But the brass wouldn't budge on protocol. We could recruit as many foreign-born assets as we wanted, but actual agents had to be U.S. citizens.
The idea of scrubbing was floated around. A receptionist down in payroll "volunteered" to have her entire social media presence erased—to see if it was even possible. It wasn't. Even after the techs wiped every account, the tags and mentions from distant relatives and casual acquaintances were just too much—not to mention the free floating copies of driver's license photos, photocopies of ID verification for insurance purposes, even a long lost mugshot from Daytona Spring Break '92 were all accessible to your basic hacker in under 20 minutes.
The last successfully recruited field agents graduated in 2001. I was in that class. The agency has since pushed the minimum age of retirement eligibility to 65.
It didn't take long for the rest of the world to catch on to our network of aging spies. One of our domestic analysts intercepted intel suggesting the major terror networks as well as drug cartels had begun implementing procedures aimed at exploiting this weakness. The Zetas forbid any newly established communications with anyone over the age of 35; The Islamic State now requires up-to-date photographs of all associates of the caliphate to run against social media platforms; and the Taliban have apparently adapted their interrogation techniques to include pop culture trivia, including celebrity dating status and Gen Z terminology. It was alleged that a man on the Syrian border was beheaded after failing to produce Kesha's middle name on command. He wasn't one of ours—or any foreign power for that matter. It turns out that no one knows Kesha's middle name.
In the summer of 2015 the DOJ gave us six months to come up with a viable recruitment plan for the Agency's field division or the entire program would be dissolved. We were informed that our duties would be taken over by those cross dressers over at the FBI.
If necessity is the mother of invention, then oblivion is the father of long shots.
OPERATION CHAPERONE
—OPERATIONAL MEMO— (Southeast sector)
DIRECTIVE: Abandon predictive behavioral patterns in young adults. Replace with directed curbing of behavior in adolescents.
APPROVED RECRUITMENT SITES: Marshal, Sea Park, & Christa McAuliffe elementary schools.
GRADES: kindergarten-3rd grade.
CONTACT LEVEL: 2
The analysts finally came up with a concrete solution. The real problem—they said—wasn’t that we were recruiting too young, it's that we weren't recruiting young enough. And we shouldn't be predicting behavioral patterns in teenagers, we should be creating them in children.
Still, there were kinks to work out. Like, how do you pick out which snot-nosed kid would be the most charming killing machine with a predisposition for linguistics during a game of Duck-Duck-Goose?
They gave us identifiers to look for.
—OPERATIONAL MEMO— (update):
....locate ideal subjects for potential behavioral curbing based on shoelace knots. Seek out exceptionally tight knots. They suggest parental assistance, denotes dependency. Avoid loose fitting knots, denotes independent and self reliance.
I parked the van across the street with a direct line of sight to the playground. The stakeout, it's why every kid wants to be a secret agent. While the rest of the world went high-tech, we went old school. A lone agent in a conversion van, a carton of cigarettes, a thermos, a pair of binoculars, and a yellow notepad. Just the essentials.
I was arrested within the hour. Suspicion of trespassing and predatory behavior. The charges eventually went away. And I agreed remain at least 500 ft away from school property.
You ever seen those websites that identify the sexual predators in your neighborhood with little red dots? You'd be surprise how many of those dots were CIA agents on a surveillance detail.
—OPERATIONAL MEMO— Update!!! Abandon indirect observation.
NEW CONTACT LEVEL: 1 (direct observation)
We moved into the unskilled positions first, they're the eyes of the school. Within a year we had agents in every department: cafeteria, maintenance, grounds crew, athletics, secretaries, administration, guidance counselors, we even had a few teachers on staff.
75% of public school employees now work for DOJ in some capacity. CIA, FBI, DHS, ICE. Of course the Agency will deny any link between the decline in test scores and literary to Operation Chaperone.
—OPERATIONAL MEMO—
...seek out potential recruits, neat in appearance, carrying sack lunches.
Sometimes I think the handlers fucking with us, sitting in some dark room, throwing darts at descriptions of school kids so they have something different to put in the next operational memo.
—OPERATIONAL MEMO—
...sack lunches suggest codependency and a developed ability to barter.
The Agency was looking for kids with attentive, overbearing, parents—not a good upbringing. They expected us to tell the difference.
—OPERATIONAL MEMO—
...a subtle mistrust of parental units should be cultivated while simultaneously preserving the ability for the subject to work in concert with said parental units when it serves the mission.
The memo makes no suggestions as to how to do this.
The remaining field agents are in so deep we rarely meet face to face with anyone from the Agency. We are islands unto ourselves—or at least I am. Absolutely everything is done through sporadic operational memos and quarterly briefings. Basic Protocol.
I've never met my handler. Never even talked to him or her on the phone. Sometimes I wonder if there is a handler. Or if this is just a sophisticated, yet ill calibrated, computer program that spits out memos and stores my quarterly briefs for future blackmailing purposes.
—OPERATIONAL MEMO— (update):
Disqualify potential recruits with sack lunches. Disqualify potential recruits who kiss their parents goodbye. Disqualify potential recruits who raise their hand to answer more than 25% of in-class questions.
I renewed my Sam's Club membership last week. Hard to believe another year has passed.
—OPERATIONAL MEMO—
Seek out potential recruits who commit thefts without detection. Plant items (money, candy, matches) to entice desired behavior.
I'm up for the head maintenance position at Marshall elementary. If I get it I'll have my own company vehicle—not to mention a nice bump in pay.
—OPERATIONAL MEMO—
Submit quarterly brief. Include top 3 potential recruits.
At this point I'm just going through the motions.
—QUARTERLY MEMO—(Field Agent, Outgoing):
The ever-changing criteria for curability makes for difficult recruitment of potential subjects. Plus the Vice Principal here is a creep. He's always rubbing my shoulders and asking me out for drinks.
Top 3 potentials:
1. Timothy Schafer (checks numerous boxes): a competent thief, no siblings, averse reaction to outward affection, capable flautist.
2. Jenny Grimes: comes from a broken home, impressive manipulation skills, proficient at math, excels at athletics without parental support.
3. Amy Fontaine: Amy is more of a placeholder to fill out the 3 potential criteria. She picks her nose incessantly. She consumes more than 25% of her nasal refuse—which as you know is well above the current operational memo's acceptable amount. She comes from a great home and cries at the slightest insult. She can keep a secret however. She watched Jeffrey Adkins steal a pack of bait cigarettes and refused to give him up in the face of bribery or self preservation. For this alone she makes the list.
—OPERATIONAL MEMO— (update):
...current grooming patterns fail to produce potential recruits at a sustainable rate for continued operations.
That doesn't sound good. I wonder if the agency knows about my work phone. They'd probably kill me if they knew I had a Tinder profile.
—OPERATIONAL MEMO—
...immediate change to grooming guidelines: the sole qualifying trait for the recruitment and behavioral curbing program is the absence of notoriety-seeking behavior in potential recruits. Any potential recruit observed rejecting attention, accolades, credit, and/or praise is to be immediately submitted to operational case handler for consideration.
I never bothered responding to that last operational memo. It's been well over a year now and the world hasn't fallen to ash. I thought about packing up and disappearing into the night while I had the chance—but for what, so I could spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder? I ended up getting the head maintenance gig at Marshall. I got a brand-new Dodge Ram out of the deal. I picked up a set laser drilled floor mats from Sam's Club yesterday. I finally deleted my Tinder profile a week ago. I decided to sign up for Christian Mingle. I'm finally looking for something a little more serious, plus #WWJD is trending on Twitter.