The Mailstrom

Lithograph

The Mailstrom is a search engine in the World of Year Zero designed to evesdrop on messages contained in the Consolidated Mail System.

Discovery

The Mailstrom was found on a lithograph given at the listening party to those who pre ordered Year Zero (open the image in the highest resolution possible and look at the top left corner).

Website Content

Following a link in the main page leads to this page which provides the premise that the Mailstrom is a brute force means of evesdropping on communication that goes through Consolidated, the sole system of email service available to Americans in the near future of Year Zero.

On this page we can find the following example login info:

wreckage: gallows
shard: Y3RG7J

Link

This is a page discussing informants and a possible link to Trinity Episcopalian (http://www.trinitychurch.us/), it is unknown if there is another website hidden in the meaning of this email communication at this time.

At the Minneapolis Listening Party, some buttons were given out. Four buttons have been reported to date, containing another wreckage/shard retrieved from The Mailstrom. The following combination was found on two of them:

wreckage: gasoline
shard: UUu891

Link

This is a thread between a mother and representatives at the Bureau of Morality regarding access to her child.

the background text is from Nickel and Dimed:On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich

"Mostly out of laziness, I decide to start my low-wage life in the town nearest to where I actually live, Key West, Florida, which with a population of about 25,000 is elbowing its way up to the status of a genuine city. The downside of familiarity, I soon realize, is that it's not easy to go from being a consumer,thoughtlessly throwing money around in exchange for groceries and movies and gas, to being a worker in the very same place. I am terrified, especially at the beginning, of being recognized by some friendly business owner or erstwhile neighbor and having to stammer out some explanation of my project. happily, though, my fears turn out to be entirely unwarranted: during a month of poverty and toil, no one recognizes my face or my name, which goes unnoticed and for the most part unuttered. In this parallel universe where my father never got out of the mines and I never got through college, I am "baby," "honey," "blondie," and, most commonly, "girl."

Those who attended the San Diego listening party obtained three more codes. There were two buttons that matched each other:

wreckage: tumbrel
shard: AD44Us

Link

This is apparently spam or junk mail. One program advertised is CitizenKing Max, which helps people boost their citizen points, which are needed in order to have an "Administration-approved character." The next program discussed is called ChildAssist, which is approved by the US Bureau of Morality, and it helps parents improve their child-rearing score.

After each program is advertised, something called the NeroMod GX, is discussed. This devise can be used to modify any Nerochip of the third, fourth or fifth-C generation. Also it says that the NeroMod GX is the most preferred modification device by most celebrities and heads of state, implying that all citizens have the Nerochip. As a sales pitch, any citizen that purchases one of the programs advertised gets a free NeroMod GX.

the background text is from Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

"Son, after I'm gone I want you to keep up the good fight. I never told you, but our life is a war and I have been a traitor all my born days, a spy in the enemy's country ever since I give up my gun back in the Reconstruction. Live with your head in the lion's mouth. I want you to overcome 'em with yeses, undermine 'em with grins, agree 'em to death and destruction, let 'em swoller you till they vomit or bust wide open."

Chicago listening party attendees received buttons that contained the following codes:

wreckage: wretched
shard: Ypq2QQ

Link

This is a letter of confessional from a soldier to a pastor. The soldier talks about his station in the Middle East and his growing aggravation with his surrounding and himself. Soldiers are given pills to keep them "hopped up." The author goes on to tell of how a boy, apparently working for the enemy, reported their position with a hidden GPS unit on his bike, so the soldier shot him. Yet he didn't shoot him, the pills did. Pills are creating a loss of free-will.

Also, this e-mail leads us to believe that other terrorist attacks (or climate phenomena) has caused the abandoning of other US cities like Detroit, New Orleans and St. Louis. Also, Yüksekova is a province in Turkey, and Urmia is a district and city in northern Iran.

the background text is from Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau.

"I HEARTILY ACCEPT the motto, — "That government is best which governs least"; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically."

Dallas attendees received buttons that matched to the following code:

wreckage: fratricide
shard: 774HZx

Link

This is a letter sent out to a group of people. Perhaps most notably is the reference to Stonewall. The Stonewall riots were a series of violent conflicts between New York City police officers and groups of gay and transgendered people that began on June 28, 1969, and lasted several days. Also called the Stonewall Rebellion or simply Stonewall, the clash was a watershed for the worldwide gay rights movement, as gay and transgendered people had never before acted together in such large numbers to forcibly resist police. This rebelious and perhaps now illegal community in Year Zero is indicated by abbreviations of names and a note to have the e-mail deleted as soon as it is read. The sender, Dorothy, gives information about a future meeting that will be held at Stonewall. Dorothy then speaks about to members of the organization C.U., who has just been arrested, and S.K., who's father is in the hospital from dehydration and has had his citizenship account "re-established". Dorothy or "Friends of Dorothy" is also commonly referenced to the gay icon Judy Garland in "The Wizard of Oz," further indicating involvement with the LGBT community. Perhaps Dorothy is also in reference to Dorothy Richardson, the first writer to publish an English-language novel using what was to become known as the stream-of-consciousness technique. This technique was also used by writers of the beat generation such as Jack Kerouac, who had close relations with Allen Ginsberg. Her thirteen novel sequence Pilgrimage is one of the great 20th century works of modernist and feminist literature in English. This is followed by a quote from the bible Matthew 5:44. The letter also includes the declaration, "God is the God of all."

Direct quote of Matthew 5:44 (King James Version): But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.

(source obtained from here.)

wreckage: wetwork
shard: c276e4

Link

This is a response to a question by an unknown individual from an unknown individual. The page lists ways to absorb liquids into the body without ingesting parepin. Methods included are: collect rainwater, drink milk, avoid icecubes, and drink only mexican beer.

the background text is from A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess.

"He was in the land all right, well away, in orbit, and I knew what it was like, having tried it like everybody else had done, but at this time I'd got to thinking it was a cowardly sort of a beschch, O my brothers. You'd lay there after you'd drunk the old moloko..."

wreckage: bitter
shard: BGtg57

Link

This is an advertisement to hunt the last black bear from a company or organization called Omega Man, to someone with the name Bob. It is stated in the advertisement that to become an Omega Man you must kill the last remaining animal of a species, so far there have been Omega Men of Lynx, Snow Leopards, and Orangutangs.

The film "The Omega Man" stars Charlton Heston who is a member of the national rifle association.

The broken text in the background of this shard is "A Seperate Peace" by John Knowles

"...I felt fear's echo, and along with that I felt the unhinged, uncontrollable joy which had been its accompaniment and opposite face, joy which had broken out sometimes in those days like Northern Lights across black sky..."

wreckage: slander
shard: Yr4893

Link

This is a message from a Mindy Abington to a substitute teacher explaining how students are to write a summary about an incident involving a chinese child who died from staying up for 5 days at a backdoor cyber cafe. This is possibly a reference to this or many of the other instances of deaths caused by excessive gaming.

the broken text in the background is from Hiroshima by John Hersey "AT EXACTLY fifteen minutes past eight in the morning, on August 6,1945, Japanese time, at the moment when the atomic bomb flashed above Hiroshima, Miss Toshiko Sasaki, a clerk in the personnel department of the East Asia Tin Works, had just sat down at her place in the plant office and was turning her head to speak to the girl at the next desk..."

wreckage: flense
shard: E5PPvv

Link

This is an e-mail between Brent Trunks, BoM, Director Federal District 45 and Kimberley Tellalian, BoM, Director Federal District. BoM being Bureau of Morality. It entails a series of messages exchanged between Dale Hajdik, BoM, Federal District 45 and Kathleen Novak discussing a fellow student of Kathleen's that is suspected of subversion. The entire event comes to a head when Kathleen, sends her fellow student and ex-boyfriend, Heath Duncan Sandleben, to boot camp (as most young subversive citizens are). As a result she attempts suicide at the school they attend.

wreckage: pliers
shard: Ji3p09

Link

This is a letter from Blake Bessarion of the Denver Animal Society discussing the mauling of Misha Delmore. Bessarion is discussing that the mauling of a 6-year-old child was caused by the systematic abuse of these animals on a large scale by the government. Dangerous dogs not allowed to be owned by citizens are used frequently by the government, including the dog that mauled Misha (it was let loose by police).

The broken text in the background of this shard is "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien

"First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross carried letters from a girl named Martha, a junior at Mount Sebastian College in New Jersey. They were not love letters, but Lieutenant Cross was hoping, so he kept them folded in plastic at the bottom of his rucksack."

wreckage: corrida
shard: MKs742 

Link

This is a letter from someone with the moniker: WildSpirit85. It talks about the presence not being a sign of the end of the world, but of a new beginning.

The broken text in the background is taken from the play "Equus" by Peter Shaffer. "There is now, in my mouth, this sharp chain. And it never comes out"

Hindu teachings typically end with the words Om shanti shanti shanti as an invocation of peace, and the mantra is also used to conclude some Buddhist devotional ceremonies. Source

wreckage: atropine
shard: gH319x

Link

This is an advertisement for Green Bay. Present-day Green Bay is cold, but in the world of Year Zero, the climate is warm enough to be a viable spring break destination.

wreckage: venom
shard: D3i8Na

Link

This entry is an email from someone with the screen name of HarareMedic to Dr. Hunger Lazarini. The message is about what seems to be a shipment of human organs, and what is implied to contain children's organs due to the writer discussing him contacting orphanages that many have provided good products. Also the writer of the email tells Dr. Hunger Lazarini to not contact him by phone ever again unless it is for an extreme emergency, and to be discreet due to the AU investigators. Apparently the price of these 'products' is high.

wreckage: sickle
shard: nnqa49

Link

Note: Not work safe images contained within. This appears to be a future-version of a classic ad for penile enlargement, complete with mostly-naked female model to entice the reader, and unlike other mailstrom mails, it contains a return address, [1]. It ends with the cryptic message, "Reply with your interest in the subject line. Safe & discreet." Reading the first letters of each line of the mail reveals the true meaning of this mail: "nerochip extraction". Putting that as the subject line in a mail to the address gets the following reply:

If this is one of Willie’s friends or clients, Willie is in prison. I guess it was just more important to him to look after you than it was to take care of me & anna-marie. I hope you think it was worth it. I’m still waiting for the Glorious Resistance to send me a box of diapers and some baby food and job that pays more than minimum wage. Oh—right. Those jobs are for people who AREN’T married to dissidents.

If you reply to the email without "nerochip extraction" in the subject line you receive this message: "Sales of PENETRATOR XL have been discontinued pending litigation.".

wreckage: spore
shard: pQw2pP

Link

The email comes from an insurance company explaining to a father that his child’s medical condition and necessary surgery is not covered, although the child’s brain condition was the result of negligent arsenic disposal on the part of a now-dissolved company. Because the company is no longer in existence, the Limited Liability Law passed by Congress states that the child’s condition is now considered “An Act of God.” Acts of God are not covered under the insurance program.

The hidden text in the background appears to be an excerpt from Noam Chomsky's The Fate of an Honest Intellectual.

He's now living in a little apartment somewhere in New York City, and he's a part-time social worker working with teenage drop-outs. Very promising scholar—if he'd done what he was told, he would have gone on and right now he'd be a professor somewhere at some big university. Instead he's working part-time with disturbed teenaged kids for a couple thousand dollars a year. That's a lot better than a death squad, it's true—it's a whole lot better than a death squad. But those are the techniques of control that are around.

wreckage: infarction
shard: 6k961g

Link

This email shows an order confirmation for an online bookstore called Safe Choice. According to the store name and the fact that the books are USBM approved, this looks like a government controlled online bookstore.

wreckage: needle
shard: jP411R

Link

This email shows an advertisment from the Belize government about how American citizens can have their freedom in Belize. The email is classified as SPAM, but this is probably a result of the government controlled email system.

wreckage: widow
shard: vC99iT

Link

This email is sent probably to the government by a news reporter. It's a forward of an email from someone who lives in Syria and it criticizes the USA and how they kill from afar and occupied countries like Iraq. He also says that if they kill his daughter, he'll become a suicide bomber.

wreckage: belladonna
shard: 3Mz3tU

Link

Apparently found trough brute force.

This email shows an email conversation between a daughter and a father. The father is going to work late and they'll have to dine alone. Apparently, her brother should've attented a vigil at school, but he didn't warn his father before so he was unable to show up.

Then two suits come up to get them but they don't open the door and call their aunt. Then the police and two more people show up, and their aunt shows up at the same time. The two suits followed their aunt but she warned the cops who were there too, and in the middle of the confusion, she runs with the kids to their house.

In the middle of the conversation, the daughter also says that this is probably not about the son missing the vigil, but about some "secret stuff" and sending people to New Zealand (probably something their father is involved with).

It's also worth noticing, that the time from the father responses never change and stays always at 1:38 PM.

The hidden text appears to be an excerpt from the Tony Kushner play, "Angels in America."

I see the universe, Joe, as a kind of sandstorm in outer space with winds of mega-hurricane velocity, but instead of grains of sand it's shards and splinters of glass.

wreckage: parasite
shard: tP366K

Link

Wreckage was found through brute force.

This is an email from a teenage girl who has just had a nerochip implanted at the request of her mother, regarding having a henna tattoo that frames the nerochip. The writer of the email also states that her father ordered her to wash it off because he didn't want anything "A-Rab" in his house. The e-mail also references 'nerochip earrings' as seen at the Oscars.

Text hidden text from the background reads:

I had miscalculated with Luce. I thought after talking to me he would decide that I was normal and leave me alone. But I was beginning to understand something about normality. Normality wasn’t normal. It couldn’t be. If normality were normal, everyone would leave it alone. They could sit back and let normality manifest itself. But people - especially doctors - had doubts about normality. They weren’t sure normality was up to the job. And so they felt inclined to give it a boost.

This is taken from the 2003 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel "Middlesex" by Jeffrey Eugenides. (Tracked down, coincidentally, via a document on Trent University webspace... [2])

wreckage: necrotic
shard: blE34c

Link.

This is an email from someone to his girlfriend, telling her that he has to leave and that she should forget about him. The writer of the email also mentions that two years ago his brother disappeared. The email vaguely implies that the writer is somewhat involved in the resistance.

wreckage: cleaver
shard: I682fg

This page, found here, discusses the mass sighting of the presence which ensued a panic at the Daytona race track. The TV broadcasts were edited, but the author has a picture of the real event.

Text excerpt from the background: "As he turned to take the ball, a dam burst against the side of his head and a hand grenade shattered his stomach."

This is a quote from the Chocolate War by Robert Cormeir.

• Picture is actually a photoshoped version of a picture of Dover's International Speedway (The Monster Mile) from the Dover Speedway website ticket section, section 112-116, not from Daytona in the future.

Buttons

At the Year Zero listening parties, buttons have become available that have codes for either the wreckage or the shard. Here is the complete list of buttons. New finds are highlighted in grey. Wreckages requiring pairing with another piece of data are highlighted in red.

Link	Button Detail	Wreckage	Shard
[3]	Sample from information page / Sample from information page	gallows	Y3RG7J
[4]	Robot Head (wreckage) / Molotov Cocktail held by robot (shard)	gasoline	UUu891
[5]	AIR Flag (white on green) / Bird like figure	sickle	Nnqa49
[6]	Found through brute force / SPEAK TRUTH (red on black)	cleaver	I682fg
[7]	YOU HAVE A VOICE (white on green)	spore	pQw2pP
[8]	YOU WILL BE HEARD (black on white) / AIR Flag (white on red)	bitter	BGtg57
[9]	ART IS RESISTANCE + AIR flags (black on red) / ART IS RESISTANCE (red on black)	slander	Yr4893
[10]	ART IS RESISTANCE (white on black) / ART IS RESISTANCE (white on red)	flense	E5PPvv
[11]	Found through brute force / Police Baton	necrotic	blE34c
[12]	Angel's Hand with Sickle (wreckage) / Angel (shard)	wretched	Ypq2QQ
[13]	Purple guy in the center of the mural	tumbrel	AD44Us
[14]	Found through brute force / Speakergun held by robot (from AIR site background image)	parasite	tP366K
[15]	AIR Flag (white on black)	widow	vC99iT
[16]	AIR Flag (red on white) / You will be heard. (white on black)	infarction	6k961G
[17]	AIR Flag (red on black) / AIR Flag (white on grey)	fratricide	774HZx
[18]	AIR Flag (grey on white) / AIR Flag (black on red)	wetwork	c276E4
[19]	AIR Flag (white on blue) / AIR Flag (blue on white)	pliers	Ji3p09
[20]	Pig cop (from billboard) / Chip held by crying angel (from billboard)	atropine	gH319x
[21]	AIR Flag (black on white) / AIR Flag (white on black)	needle	jP411R
[22]	Background from artisresistance.com / Background for artisresistance.com number 2	venom	D3i8Na
[23]	Hand with bottle (from billboard) / AIR Flag on back of dude (from billboard)	corrida	MKs742
	AIR Flags (orange on black)	regret	not seen
	Art is Witness (white on red)	cleansing	not seen
[24]	Found through bruteforce / Man in headlock (from billboard)	belladonna	3Mz3tU
[25]	Found on Year Zero CD cover	scorpion	4rTL21

Hidden Numbers

24.1.1 on the main page.

Image File Names

The file names for the images that comprise the body of each e-mail message appear to be random numbers, but are in fact written in "leet-speak" with names appropriate to the subject of the e-mail (for example, the first image in the "fratricide" e-mail is named "fr4_7ri_cid3_01.jpg").

Confirmed image files associated with unfound e-mails:

sickle - 5ick13_01.jpg, 5ick13_02.jpg, 5ick13_03.jpg

spore - 5p0r3_01.jpg, 5p0r3_02.jpg, 5p0r3_03.jpg

regret - r3gr3t_01.jpg, r3gr3t_02.jpg, r3gr3t_03.jpg

This theory bends in some emails, however, since the filename doesn't match the wreckage name.

bitter - l457814ck834r_04.jpg, read as "lastblackbear".

Hidden Text

A quote from the beginning of 1984 by George Orwell composes the broken text.

"It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. Winston Smith, his chin nuzzled into his breast in an effort to escape the vile wind, slipped quickly through the glass doors of Victory Mansions, though not quickly enough to prevent a swirl of gritty dust from entering along with him."