3. Jaxson
3
Jaxson
F or someone who’s of no importance, this Dr. Cult, whoever they are, has a substantial online following. One hundred thousand subscribers in just six months on YouTube and counting. Five hundred thousand followers across all social medias. With thousands of posts and mentions along with millions of views across all their social media, they’re far from someone of no importance. With people as outspoken and persistent as them, all it would take is the right scandal, during the right time, while everyone was somehow paying attention.
While I have a lot of things to say about the way my father is stuck in the stone age when it comes to the operations of the Sovereignty, he does have one thing right. Obscurity.
It’s both a boon and a detriment.
The Sovereignty’s obscurity and people not knowing exactly what it’s about protects it from too much critique. The fact that no one pays my father and his delusions any attention is what allows us to operate in the open while still staying in the shadows.
On the other hand, we’re so obscure, we’re little more than a funny meme now. Something hardly anyone knows about or talks about. But in order to keep what little power my father has managed to keep under his reign after the scandal of his predecessors, people need to take us seriously.
People need to talk about us. Especially with visitors and conversions down. Something my father doesn’t seem to care about. He’s so convinced in his delusions that it’s only a matter of time before he’s proven right and people will flock to our altars to join the Sovereignty’s cause and empty their pockets into our coffers.
With that in mind, I take a few hours to listen to a few episodes of the Dr. Cult podcast. He’s well-spoken. Great at asking just the right questions to get the most interesting stories out his subjects. Great at inserting his own anecdotes into the conversation and comparing their upbringing to other cult and high-demand religion survivors. Knowledgeable about current events and obscure historical facts. He also surprises me by not having a totally hard line stance against organized religion. His issue is harm.
It gets even more interesting the few times he speaks to guests who have “left” the Sovereignty. Interesting because he never gets anyone who’s truly knowledgeable about it. Just people who were there for a few months, thought it was weird, and then didn’t go back. Not anyone who spent the better part of their life there. Not anyone one who had gained any true power in the Sovereignty. The Sovereignty makes sure any of those people keep quiet. But it still surprises me just what this Dr. Cult is able to extrapolate from what little information they’re given.
In the grand scheme of things, my father is right. “Dr. Cult” is of little importance as far as the Sovereignty is concerned. He knows nothing truly important or unique, the things he thinks he knows are speculation, and the things he gets right through speculation are simply things true of most of the cults he talks about on his show.
Still. I can’t help but be curious.
Even hiding behind anonymity, it takes a truly brave person to speak out openly against these type of groups. Before I know it, I’m sending him a personal email, asking if he’d want to interview me. I technically should have sent it through my assistant. But she’s loyal to my father. Maybe even one of his secret conduits. Either way, she was given to me to keep an eye on me the same way my father and his lackeys keep an eye on everyone in his family. It wouldn’t do for him to know that I’m disobeying what may as well have been a direct order to everyone at the dinner table three nights ago.
It's just thirty minutes later that I get a response: Can we video chat?
Are you available now? I reply back to the email.
Yes, comes the response. I’ll send you an invite.
I open the next email on my laptop. An encrypted video call link. Whoever this Dr. Cult is, he’s paranoid. Or maybe just cautious. Either way, it’s smart.
When I get into the call, Dr. Cult is already on the call though his camera is off.
“Going to make me talk to a black screen?” I ask while starting to run a program to track their IP address. “How do I know you are who you say you are? ”
“You got on my website and contacted me with my public contact information. More than likely, I’m exactly who I say I am. You’re the one who needs to verify who they are.”
He has one of those fairly ambiguous voices through the speaker that makes me believe they’re using some kind of voice modulator or they just have a gender-neutral voice. I’m inclined to believe it’s the former. Voice modulators have gotten much more advanced in recent years.
“Calling me a liar before we even get to know each other?” I ask
“Everyone’s a liar at some point.”
“Even you?”
“You’ve got thirty seconds before I end this call and block your email,” he snaps.
“As if a blocked email would stop me if I really wanted to get to you. You’re aware of the Sovereignty’s reputation.”
“If you are who you say you are. Ten seconds.”
There’s nothing to be gained here by not doing as requested, so I click my camera on.
“Well, fuck,” he mutters. “You really are Jaxson Devine.”
“Now that we’ve ascertained that, can I see your face now?” I ask, checking the program tracking the IP address. It’s taking longer than it normally would. Which means Dr. Cult isn’t just using some VPN that they got off a sponsored YouTube video. Which also means they didn’t just start a podcast on cults for shits and giggles because they thought it was interesting. They know how dangerous things can be if they poke at the right hornet’s nest for too long.
The camera clicks on .
Normally, people don’t look like much through a computer screen. They look flattened and distorted by the digital image without lights or propping the camera up at the right angle to capture their image in the most flattering light. But the beautiful woman that shows up on my screen clearly doesn’t need the effort. She just opened her laptop and got on screen like she wasn’t expecting me to contact her. Yet, with no preparation, she’s striking.
I don’t know what I expected. But certainly it wasn’t this woman. I didn’t expect a woman at all. Let alone her long jet-black hair with dark purple streaks throughout pulled into a messy bun, a lock falling out the back and over her shoulder in a perfect lose ringlet curl at the end. Her pretty dark almond-shaped eyes that stare at me warily. Her pouty red lips despite the stern expression on her face. Not red lips because of lipstick, but naturally vermillion red lips. Like the ones described in Snow White. Snow White is actually an apt description of her.
I couldn’t tear my eyes from her if I wanted.
Consumed by the urgent need to hear her speak again, I demand, “And can I have a name? Your real name?”
“Just call me Cult.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“You think I’m going to tell you my real name? If you want that, you’ll have to work for it. And it’s going to take a lot more than that program you’re running to try to get my IP address,” she says.
Looks like I’m going to keep calling her Snow White.
“So, now that you believe I am who I say I am, this interview,” I say .
“Just because you are who you said you were doesn’t mean I’m agreeing to an interview,” she says.
“You can’t tell me you’re not interested. Your episodes on the Sovereignty are severely lacking on inside information. Who better to get it from than the son of the current Oracle himself?”
“Not sure your bullshit Sovereignty propaganda would be any better than what little I have or what’s not already available on your mission site or the hours of lectures from your father,” Snow White says dryly. “Not to mention I really don’t want that on my platform.”
“And why is that?”
“Ever heard of the Overton Window?”
I have. Actually. I studied it extensively when making my plans for how I would expand the Sovereignty’s power once I’m Oracle.
So I suggest, “How about this? You hear what I have to say and then you decide for yourself.”
“To what end?”
“Pardon?”
“What’s the point of all this? There’s nothing you can say to me that’s not just going to make the Sovereignty look worse or better than anything it has done over the years. So why so insistent? What do you get out of this?” Snow White asks.
It’s a fair question. My father was right. She’s no threat to the Sovereignty. She doesn’t have enough information to be a threat. If I wanted to do an interview, there are plenty of fools with bigger and more susceptible audiences than Snow White. Already, this is more time and effort than it’s likely going to be worth in the end .
But my father’s still out of town and won’t be back in the city for a few weeks because of his California college campus tour, and with him is his entire entourage. That is to say, all the people who would have normally kept me busy aren’t here, and none of my spies on my father’s security team have come back with anything particularly interesting that I should know.
I’m bored, mentally under stimulated, and have nothing better to do. So why not?
At least, that’s how I rationalize it in my head. Really, I just want to know if Snow White is as striking and captivating in person as she is through a computer screen. I want her to be in the same room with me.
“What can I say,” I finally answer. “You’re not what I expected. You intrigue me.”
“Intrigue you? How?”
“Well, for starters that my program still hasn’t gotten past your encryptions and VPN to get your IP address. You’re good.”
It’s not a lie. All this time and I still have no clue where she’s streaming from. And I know my program is good. Abner set this up. He’s a computer genius. He even worked for the government for a while under my father’s orders before being sent to LA to run an altar.
“I know,” she says with a cocky grin.
I smirk back. She thinks she’s untouchable.
“How about this? Come to Chicago. I’ll pay your way. Put you up in the Peninsula for this weekend. We’ll spend a day together. On the record,” I add. Because otherwise this feels too much like asking for a date and not the business it’s supposed to be.
“And then?”
“And then you can judge me and the Sovereignty as you see fit,” I say with a shrug.
Snow White doesn’t immediately answer. She just purses those pretty red lips. Moves the piece of curly black hair out her face that has come lose during our conversation. Stares at me with those captivating almond-shaped eyes. Frankly, she could take the rest of eternity to answer me, and I wouldn’t care so long as I could continue to lose myself in her.
Besides, she doesn’t need to answer me. Not anymore. Her silence is answer enough and tells me something about her. She’s curious. She doesn’t like not knowing the answer and would never pass up an opportunity not to get it.
I tap my fingers on my desk and make plans for her travel arrangements while she pretends to ponder my over my offer.
I bite back a smile.
Intriguing indeed.