Don't Read the Comments

by Eric Smith

  “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.

  When I finally reach the stage, panting and clutching my poster tube, the girls in D1V’s Angst Armada are gathered around her. The Vox Populi have been dragged from the room, and one of the police officers is talking with Thad—a woman with thick black hair and a dark blazer. A detective, maybe? The two remaining panelists, looking a bit shaky, each take a moment to say something to D1V as they get ready to leave, and she bows her head gratefully at them.

  I start to unscrew the top of my poster tube. It’s now or never.

  “Hey. Hey!” shouts one of the security guards. He’s a bit younger than the rest, looks like he might even be a gamer. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m a friend,” I protest, looking up at the stage. D1V is wiping tears from her face, thick lines of black trickling down her cheeks.

  “Prove it,” he challenges.

  My heart races, and I feel flush all over. “I—”

  “Hey! Hey, YouTube!” he shouts up at D1V. I glare at him. YouTube? Really? “You know this guy?”

  D1V glances down at me, but not before scowling at the security guard who called her “YouTube.” Her piercing bright green eyes seem darker now, with the smeared makeup around her eyes. She blinks, looking confused for a moment, then shakes her head.

  “Alright, buddy, let’s go,” the security guard says, shuffling me along.

  “Wait, wait!” I say, reaching into the tube I’ve been carrying around with me all morning.

  “Slowly!” he barks, putting a hand up.

  “Come on, I don’t have—” I huff, not wanting to say something stupid, and pull the first sheet of paper out from inside the tube. I unfurl it. It’s cut out in a speech bubble, with text inside.

  I hold it up, the text facing D1V and the stage.

  “D1V!” I shout. “You always say ‘don’t read the comments.’”

  She looks down at me again, perplexed.

  “Read these.”

  25

  DIVYA

  A boy is standing in the middle of a dissipating riot, holding up a sign.

  It’s like a scene from Love Actually, a movie my mom makes me watch with her every December. Except a small militia of undercover police officers just busted up a giant ring of online trolls, cyber stalkers, and sexist harassers, so this isn’t exactly a moment for surprise romantics.

  But there he is, with a sign.

  “Your videos inspire me to try and be a livestreamer one day! My mom says when I’m old enough to have an account, she’ll help me. She says you’re a good role model.”

  The boy drops the sign, which flutters to the floor and curls back up into a tube shape as he awkwardly pulls another one out for me to see.

  “I don’t have a lot of friends at school, but when I’m with the Armada, and watching you on the livestream, I feel like I have a community.”

  He does it again. The paper flapping to the floor, the next one unspooling loudly.

  “I know you’re having a hard time right now, but you should know that you’re an inspiration to us geek girls everywhere.”

  He drops the third sign and digs into the tube, trying to pull out another. But it looks like it’s stuck. He looks from the tube to me, the tube to me...and tosses the plastic thing over his shoulder. It hangs in back of him, looking for all the world like a sword.

  He’s far from the stage, so it’s hard to make him out.

  But it’s in the way he’s looking at me.

  In his awkward movements.

  The over-the-top, unnecessary kindness.

  And I instinctively know it’s him.

  “It’s okay, girls,” I say to the Armada standing around me, their hair an array of colors, their faces hard and angry as they stare at the boy. I push gently away from them, their hands leaving my arms and shoulders. I hop off the stage and nudge some of the fallen chairs aside, nodding at the convention’s security guards as I pass them.

  Until he’s right in front of me.

  “I thought you’d be taller,” I say, trying to hide my grin.

  “You changed your hair,” he replies, not hiding his. He reaches out, but quickly stops, pulling his hands back. “Sorry. Can... Can I?”

  I can’t even speak.

  Instead, I reach out to grab his shaking hands.

  And in that moment, he becomes real. Out of the headset and into my life.

  “Those signs were really dumb.” I smile as he squeezes my hands in his. “Aaron.”

  “I know.” He grins again. “I thought you might run into trouble. I was just going to hold them up in the back for you. So you wouldn’t forget who you are. What you mean to people.”

  He pauses and swallows hard, suddenly looking shy.

  “I didn’t want you to forget...what you mean to me.”

  Oh, my heart. This boy.

  How could I possibly forget?

  I’m overwhelmed. Between the Vox Populi showing up, and now him, I am a sea of emotions.

  I look over at the police officers, who are taking statements from some of my Armada girls. Detective Watts is there, her arms crossed, watching everything and speaking into what looks like a small recorder. She’s got her eye on me and Aaron, and her watchful gaze is so welcome in this moment.

  “I wonder if it’s only going to get worse now,” I say, turning back to him. “Once this hits the news, someone e
lse will take their place. I saw everyone out here, with their phones recording. There must be a hundred videos online already.”

  “Maybe,” he says. “But more people will be afraid to do that now. And more people will stand up. Right? I mean, they have to. Look at all this.”

  He looks around, surveying the hall. And I see it, too. The chaos. Stuff everywhere. Chairs all over the place. The result of frightened people.

  But then there’s the Armada.

  My girls on the stage, and the handful that are trickling back into the auditorium.

  I see them, with their wild, brightly colored hair, hairstyles that clearly weren’t meant to just match me—since no one saw me like this before today—but to match my commander, Rebekah. She strolls over with them, leading a few dozen girls and a couple of boys.

  “So...we sold out of the pins.” Rebekah gestures at the crew following her. “They cleaned out what I had left on me.” I see her patches and buttons already stuck and pinned on outfits and bags and belts. “At least we have that.”

  She glares at Aaron.

  “So, this is him?” she asks me.

  “This is him,” I say with a small smile. Aaron gives her a little salute and a crooked grin.

  “Hmm. I’m not impressed.” She brushes by us, onto the stage, where she starts passing out some remaining patches to the girls up there. Aaron turns to me and laughs.

  “She likes you,” I say, grinning.

  The door to the hall bursts open with a loud bang, and a familiar-looking guy storms in. I can’t seem to place him, but he immediately sets his eyes on Aaron.

  “You!” he shouts, hurrying over. He grabs Aaron, pulling him away, holding him by the collar of his T-shirt. “Where is it? Where the fuck is it?”

  “Whoa, whoa!” Two of the police officers jump off the stage and seize the man, who I now recognize as Jason, the ManaPunk games guy. I’ve seen him in plenty of articles, his style and look distinctive enough.

  “What’s going on here?” one of the officers asks.

  “This guy stole a development computer out of my booth,” Jason says, pointing accusingly at Aaron. “With a demo of a game on it that belongs to me.”

  “Is this true?” the officer asks. One of the convention security guards meanders over, saying something into his walkie-talkie.

  “Well, yes, most of it,” Aaron says, looking over at me with a shrug. “He had material in the game that he hadn’t paid for, created by me and my friend, with no plans to pay us for it. He had no right to showcase it, so we took it.”

  A few people hustle over, their phones out and recording. I notice their press badges and catch glimpses of the websites they’re here for. Polygon. Kotaku. Giant Bomb. Some of the outlets who have covered me in the past. I wonder what sort of piece they’re going to write up about what just unraveled, or what’s already online. What they tweeted, what videos and photos they posted.

  And what they’re about to make of this situation.

  “I...” Jason looks from Aaron to the officer to me, and then at those press badges, as if one of us is going to magically understand his stance on whatever is happening. “Look, it’s a bit of a misunderstanding, really.” He’s talking more to the press people than he is to anyone else, and I can see it. “How about, um, how about you keep that computer, and we call it even?”

  He stares pleadingly at Aaron, who looks completely taken aback. I am, too, honestly. Those things are expensive as hell. But I’m guessing whatever bad press he’s fearing right now outweighs the cost of that PC.

  “Um. Are you serious?” Aaron asks.

  “Yes. Totally.” Jason nods jerkily. “And I’ll take the writing and art out.” He glances at the press people. “It’s just—It’s not what it looks like.”

  The journalists glance at one another, and I can practically see this guy’s career going up in flames right in front of me.

  “Sure,” Aaron says cheerfully. “Done.”

  “Good, good.” Jason brushes himself off, hands shaking. “We’re not working together ever again, though. Don’t call me.”

  “Fine by me,” Aaron retorts.

  Jason mutters something under his breath, glancing at the cop and Aaron, then storms off out of the hall. The reporters hustle back to the edge of the room, their eyes set on their phones as they type away. A few of them follow after Jason, and I wonder what kind of follow-up questions this guy is about to get hammered with.

  “Hey!” an angry, deep voice shouts.

  I turn to see an older guy storming toward us.

  “You can’t silence the Vox Populi!” he snarls.

  Aaron moves to shield me from the man, and the guy takes a swing at him. Aaron’s plastic poster tube clatters to the ground. My heart pounds as Aaron moves to strike back, two of the police officers bounding back over, but I push Aaron aside, reach down, and swing the poster tube up in an arc at the man’s head.

  It connects with the most satisfying thunk I’ve ever heard in my life.

  He goes down hard, his body clattering against the folding chairs, and the security guards and police officers quickly surround him.

  Aaron looks back at me and smiles.

  “That was amazing,” he says, a little breathless.

  “I know.” I smile, lifting one shoulder in a half shrug.

  “Hey, I’ve got an idea,” he says hesitantly, reaching out to give my hand a squeeze.

  “Me, too,” I whisper, dropping the poster tube.

  I don’t let him kiss me, though.

  I kiss him.

  Reclaim the Sun: Chat Application

  D1V: Guess who?

  AARON: New chat application, who dis?

  D1V: Oh, hah hah hah.

  AARON: Welcome back.

  D1V: How was the trip back to Philadelphia?

  AARON: Not bad.

  AARON: Ryan says hi. He’s currently trying to put the computer on eBay.

  D1V: Wow, can you even do that?

  AARON: I think so, but it keeps getting taken down. Not a good enough rank or something.

  AARON: Hopefully his dad will do it? I dunno.

  AARON: How are you?

  D1V: Still shook-up. Got my social account access back.

  D1V: But I don’t know.

  D1V: I’m not sure I really want any of it anymore.

  AARON: I hear you, but isn’t that letting them win?

  D1V: Maybe. I’m torn. I might just get off of it altogether.

  AARON: Makes sense, I guess? Whatever you’re comfortable with.

  D1V: Oh my God, this is the part where you ask for my phone number.

  AARON: Oh.

  AARON: OH.

  D1V: Too late.

  D1V: Goodbye forever.

  D1V: I hope you have beautiful children someday.

  AARON: Nooooooo.

  D1V: [D1V has signed off]

  D1V: ... Okay, ready? Write it down.

  26

  AARON

  After clearing the hard drive, Ryan’s dad put Jason’s ManaPunk computer up on his eBay account with Buy It Now at $5,000, and even at that price, the bidding started almost immediately. In the end, we wound up netting a glorious $6,000.

  It wasn’t nearly as much as Jason had always promised us, but my half will certainly help buy some books on coding and the software I’ll need to create my own games. Maybe I can even build a little website, work on a tiny studio my last year of high school? I could get some of the software at a discount on Humble, maybe? Steam?

  I’ve got time. And this time, I’ll definitely own my story.

  AARON: So.

  AARON: Would it be weird if I like, came to visit?

  D1V: Am I still saved as D1V in your phone?

  AARON: No...

  D1V: You can’t
see me, but I’m making a face.

  AARON: I’ll fix it right away, promise.

  DIVYA: And as for the other question, I don’t think so?

  DIVYA: Would it be weird for you?

  AARON: No. Not really.

  AARON: I’d like to...you know, maybe go on a...

  AARON: You know, like a date.

  AARON: A date type of thing.

  DIVYA: Wow, I am swept off my feet. Like, clean off.

  AARON: Good, good. I was rehearsing that for hours.

  DIVYA: I can tell.

  DIVYA: Also the answer is yes.

  DIVYA: If you bring me flowers though, I will slay you.

  27

  DIVYA

  “Streaming for fun isn’t as...well, fun as it was before,” Rebekah grumbles.

  “Come on, be happy for me,” I whine into the phone, even though I know she is. Mom’s last class is paid for, and I’ve got enough to register for two courses at County, plus some funds leftover after selling some of my gear. With no plans to return to streaming professionally, I traded in my gaming PC and curved monitor for something smaller.

  I pet my new little laptop, which can run most modern games—barely. I have to turn the graphics down. But I don’t mind.

  “I am, I am.” She chuckles. “And your little pal Maggs is doing great, running the channel now. Way to pass the torch.”

  I smile. I knew Maggs would be perfect.

  “When are we gonna get online next?” she asks. “The feeds are exploding, and I’m out of patches again in the shop. You might not be the leader in the Armada anymore, but you’re still a figurehead.”

  “So I’m your queen?” I ask innocently.

  “Stop it.”

  I pause for a moment. “Beks,” I say at last. “I need some time. I think you do, too.”

  “I know, you’re right,” she relents. “But can we try for once a week? A lot of my friends who play World of Warcraft, they at least do weekly raids.”

  “That I think I can manage.” I smile.

  The doorbell rings, and I smile harder.

  “Still on to go flea marketing for vintage games tomorrow?” I ask.