The room goes black, the lights shutting off with an audible snap. Several people in the audience gasp, and the darkness is broken by the glow of multiple cell phones. People hold them up, little lights in the black, and as the footage starts, hundreds of smartphones are set to record.
This is going to be all over the Internet, and I’m thrilled that I actually get to be here for it.
Music swells, epic and intense, a symphony. The projector screen shows a boundless ocean, surprisingly empty except for little fish flitting back and forth. Some kind of horn sounds in the musical score, deep and ominous, and a vessel courses into view.
A voice-over booms, deep and dramatic, as the shadowy outline of a submerged vessel begins to materialize.
“In an ocean where—”
The lights flicker back on.
The audience buzzes with voices, several people shouting in protest as Thad fusses with the remote on the stage. I look to D1V, who’s craning her neck toward the projector screen, just as confused as everyone else is.
“Sorry!” Thad shouts, holding his hands up, trying to calm the audience down. “Let me just—”
Snap!
The lights are off again.
There’s a brief sound of celebration from the audience, but it dies quickly. Almost instantly. And I immediately see why.
The screen. It’s gone black.
With the exception of two letters in the middle of it, a white line slicing down between them.
V | P
The Vox Populi.
They’re here.
“Boo!” a voice shouts from somewhere nearby. A shadowy figure stands up across the aisle.
“The Vox Populi will rise!” screams someone else near the front of the room.
“Someone get the lights!” Thad yells from the stage.
“Boo!” another voice chimes in, louder. A guy behind me. I turn around, and in the little bit of light shining in from the outside near the walls, I see Rebekah shove him. I stand up, wanting to rush toward her, but suddenly there’s a massive chorus of booing, echoing from all around the hall. And a strange... I don’t know, a rustling sound, coming from everywhere around me. Like someone fussing with a backpack or a jacket, only times several dozen.
After what feels like forever, there’s another loud snap.
The lights crack back on.
It’s easy to spot what the rustling was now. Multiple guys around the room are sporting bright white shirts with a black V | P logo right in the middle, matching the one on the screen.
They’re everywhere. They were here the entire time. Just hidden among the audience.
Yet as scary as that is, it takes everything in me not to laugh at the fact that all these guys took their shirts off and changed while the lights were out.
It feels...ridiculous. And sad.
Several guys around me get to their feet and start to take slow, meaningful steps forward. My heart pounds in my chest, a sense of urgency mixed with fear coursing through me. Are they going to come for me? Or are they heading toward the stage?
I take my badge and tuck it inside my shirt, hiding my name. I don’t know how D1V does it up there, on display for everyone. I try to steel myself, to find some strength for her, and I reach down and grab the plastic poster tube.
Behind me, I can barely make out that one security guard, the man who was on his phone, but I see him grab the guy tussling with Rebekah and throw him out of the hall.
A masked face appears on the projector screen, still easily visible even with the lights on.
WE ARE THE VOX POPULI.
There’s a roar of cheering scattered throughout the crowd.
WE WILL NOT BE SILENCED.
And suddenly, it’s complete pandemonium.
Security guards seem to erupt out of nowhere, shoving their way through the swelling crowd to the stage, where they form ranks around the panelists. The army of dudes surges toward them, all looking enraged at...what? What is it about a girl being popular on the Internet that pisses them off so much?
Some of the Vox Populi who were behind me shove by, and I look at the floor for a moment, afraid they might see me. Somehow recognize me.
When my eyes flit back up, D1V is still standing on the stage, resolute, serving up a powerful glare.
She’s so brave. My God.
“We are here to have a civil conversation,” Thad says angrily into the microphone. “If you cannot be respectful, we will have to ask you to leave, or remove you by force.”
“She should leave!” one of them shouts. “There are better streamers in the community. She’s taking up space. She’s taking ad money from those who deserve it!”
“And who are you?!” D1V roars, snatching a microphone from off the table, feedback thundering after her voice. “Who are you to say that?”
It’s the first time I’ve heard her voice in person. She’s fierce, enraged, inspiring. It takes everything in me not to be knocked back onto my chair.
A number of women in the audience cheer loudly around me. The chorus of shouting grows louder and louder, the boos of the trolls battling with the cheering. D1V tosses the microphone aside and is yelling at someone in the crowd, while the Vox Populi surge against the security guards. All the while, the girls in the front who are there to support D1V shout back at them.
Then someone throws a bottle.
It smashes against the stage, and I hear it shatter across the hard surface. One guy next to D1V—the Shiftcore Games dude—puts himself in front of her. The girls standing in the front grab at the Vox Populi members, and a few of them charge up onto the stage, gathering around D1V.
D1V lunges away from the girls and the game developer, scooping the microphone up again.
“Now!” she yells. “Now! It’s happening! It’s happening!”
What...who is she shouting for?
It’s happening?
The emergency exits off to the side of the hall suddenly burst open, and a flood of police officers descends upon the Vox Populi hard and fast. There’s shouting and protesting as they’re surrounded, and the rest of the audience explodes into chaos when one of the trolls is hit with a Taser, his loud scream piercing the hall.
The surge of people in the hall is horrifying, and I scramble toward the middle of my row, trying to avoid getting trampled. Other attendees push and shove their way down the narrow aisles between the folding chairs, some just kicking the chairs aside, scrambling over the metal. They’re falling over one another, hurtling for the door, and the floor around me is littered with comics and tote bags and posters.
I push my way through to the other side of all the chairs, knocking over a bunch as I flee from everyone pummeling their way toward the exit. The aisle opposite is mostly clear, and I weave in and out of people, making my way up front.