“This is true,” I admit, stretching in my chair. “Shoot me a text when the video is up, so I can post about it without having to watch the damn thing.”
“Without—”
I cut her off. “I’m not about to relive my own destruction all over again and listen to those toolbags talk about me like that twice over. Just...find a way to make this waking nightmare look good?”
“Deal.”
Rebekah signs off, her little video window going blank, and I spin in my computer chair for a couple of rotations, looking around my room, coming back to reality. Rocketing back, even. While all that chaos was going on in the virtual world, in literal digital space, I was just here. In my room. My tiny room, with my bare furniture and lackluster...well, everything.
I pull my smartphone out of my pocket, another sponsored gadget that’s way nicer than anything I’d be able to afford—one of the few things I’ve allowed myself to keep—and load up my email. The new watch sponsorship offer is in there, and an absolutely mind-boggling number of interview requests regarding what just happened literally five minutes ago. Polygon. Engadget. Giant Bomb. The list goes on. And my social media notifications are insane—the ones I allow myself to be emailed, anyway. Direct message alerts and the like. People sending love, people sending support, people sending—
I stop scrolling, staring at one email subject that stands out among the rest.
Rebekah Cole
FWD: Sponsorship opportunity with Samsung
8:30 p.m.
The Vox Populi
This is just the beginning...
8:28 p.m.
H. Siddiqui
Sponsoring a new VR set?
8:12 p.m.
Polygon Digest
PlayStation Deals This Week & More
7:43 p.m.
ManaPunk Newsletter
Sign up for the open beta of Knights...
7:40 p.m.
The trolls. That clan. They emailed me.
I think about deleting it. That’s been our strategy since Rebekah and I first started streaming last year. Any contact with trolls was always filtered through her. She even has access to my personal inbox to avoid situations like this one. I should just leave it there for her to tackle later, or better yet, delete the email myself so she has one less thing to deal with.
But their clan name. I know what it means.
The Vox Populi.
The popular opinion.
Man. Fuck these guys.
I give it a click.
This is just the beginning...[INBOX]
The Vox Populi [[[email protected]> (15minutesago)
to me
We cannot be stopped. Strike us down, and more will rise. Report us, ban us, and more will take our place.
People like you have no place in our world. This isn’t about gender or race. It’s actually about talent in the streaming community, and you’re taking up space for those far more deserving.
Leave. You aren’t welcome here.
The Vox Populi
That line. That fucking “actually” line. That makes me scowl at it even more. It isn’t about gender or race, huh? That’s enough to tell me that it is about that. It’s the “I’m not racist but—” of passive-aggressive conversation.
There’s an attachment, too. The file’s named Warning.jpg. Gmail’s usual scan for viruses comes up blank, and when the small thumbnail loads up in the window, it looks...strangely familiar. My heart races as I click it.
It opens.
And I see a photograph of my apartment building.
My breath catches in my throat. How?
How could this have happened?
I’ve been so careful. I never use my real last name. The location and hometown on my social media accounts is “The Internet.” My personal accounts are just that—personal. My Facebook, Instagram...all locked down to just my real friends, few that there are, and family.
My heart is pounding so hard that I can feel it in my temples, thrumming in my ears.
I inhale sharply, bolt to the window in my living room, and cautiously peer out the blinds, just a crack through the thin, cheap plastic. It takes me a minute to remember the picture in the email was of my building in the daytime, and right now, the sun is gone.
They’d already been here.
And who knows when.
I hustle back to my desk and close out the email, placing my hands on the surface. I take a deep breath, several of them, trying to calm down. Anxiety churns through me, the muscles in my back tensing up.
They aren’t saying it directly, but this is a threat. A doxing threat. To reveal where I live. To set me up to be attacked. To be stalked. To be harassed in person. It’s one of those moments when you can’t say, “It’s just the Internet,” and wait for it to go away. A viral tweet that people share, a photo that gets too much attention...