Snowdenesque Entity meets with Human-Rights Activists

Snowden watches curiously as his Russian handler enters commands on a control pad.

Shereme­tye­vo Tran­sit Zone—A wraith­like be­ing of pasty re­sem­blance to for­mer C.I.A. an­a­lyst Ed­ward Snow­den ap­peared briefly Fri­day be­fore a skep­ti­cal gath­er­ing of hu­man rights ac­tivists, most of whom had long aban­doned be­lief in the 30 year-old traitor’s ex­is­tence.

“Самотестирование завершено успешно,” the Snow­de­nesque pres­ence as­sured at­ten­dees. “Я жду входа.” After ex­press­ing a de­sire for po­lit­i­cal asy­lum, prefer­ably in a lo­ca­tion reach­able by some means of trav­el, it pro­ceed­ed to wax lyri­cal in praise of host coun­try Rus­sia’s prin­ci­pled stand on hu­man rights, at which point it was hasti­ly turned off.

Ed­ward Snow­den is want­ed by the Unit­ed States on a va­ri­ety of vague charges. His half-im­mi­grat­ed pres­ence re­mains trapped in metapo­lit­i­cal lim­bo with­in a nar­row re­gion of Shereme­tye­vo In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port, un­der the watch­ful eye of Rus­sia’s Fed­er­al Se­cu­ri­ty Ser­vice.

Fri­day’s hasti­ly-ar­ranged meet­ing com­menced at 5 p.m. Shereme­tye­vo Tran­sit Area Time and last­ed ap­prox­i­mate­ly 43 min­utes. Mem­bers of the press and news me­dia were barred from the event, thus en­sur­ing it world­wide at­ten­tion.