The Echo Chamber

by Rhett J Evans

  It was a fatal mistake. At least a digitally fatal mistake. Diana had taught Cat how to bend the rules here—how to change the physics of Sharebox around her so that avatars that normally would have survived a building being dropped on their heads without a scratch were now vanishing into a permanent deletion status. Sure, they’ll just go and create another account, but all their posts, their videos, all the purchases for fancy avatar clothes and Sharebox vanities like homes and cars, and their relationships were wiped out. It was a digital death only, but maybe it would give those souls time to get some fresh air and reflect.

  Once the collapse started, it was easy for Cat to contort entire streets and neighborhoods into rubble. The rampage swept through the city, leaving neither a street light nor a single avatar besides hers still standing. The rendering of all that calamity choked the famously flawless graphic engine of Sharebox, and much of the destruction was visible in halting displays that strained the endless army of servers dedicated to providing the city’s computing power. Then all the carnage on the ground began to melt away, and soon Cat was left in a space that was nothing but infinite blue light. Giant letters appeared over the empty landscape.

  Error

  There was an emoticon next to it of a smiley face with its tongue out.

  And that was the end of the Patriot Palace.

  But it wasn’t Cat’s last stop. Somewhere in Sharebox, Kyle Liu was running around doing the same thing, along with a few of his friends from the online resistance movement. In fact, there was a full squad of co-conspirators moving from News City to News City, between toxic gaming communities and white nationalist chat groups. All those places that preached hate that Silicon Valley refused to shine a light on, that well-intentioned people ignored because of their baseless optimism that the best of humanity would rise to the top, because they thought it fairest to be neutral in the face of festering darkness, those were the places Cat and Kyle were going today. And by the end of the day, they will have destroyed dozens of those havens and all the people inside who frequent them.

  The darkness could return, of course. They could rebuild their accounts and their private lounges eventually and spew their drivel again. But for a few days at least, these people would have to live in a world without an echo chamber, without a place where their small worldviews and bigotry were relentlessly reinforced and validated. And maybe that would be enough for some of them. Maybe that would be enough to wake some of them up.

  Cat looked out over the blue desert of the Palace, and she crossed her arms as a small smile twitched at the corner of her mouth.

  Now this was a satisfying job, she thought.

  Then she moved on to another target.

  Darnell encouraged Arlo to power on the giant flat screen TV in the office that ran live feed from activity in Sharebox. Then the four of them watched user-submitted footage of collapsing skyscrapers and roads and sidewalks being torn from the earth and people screaming and vaporizing as their avatars were caught hopelessly in a melee that materialized out of thin air. The totality of the deletion, the sight of the Patriot Palace stripped down to an empty Error message left Devon breathless. There was no magic recovery wizard, no archived copy that could simply be invoked for all that data and digital investment. It was gone.

  “Goddamnit,” he muttered, unable to find his next words but jabbing a finger at Charlotte and Darnell anyway. “Goddamnit.”

  “It’s a bad day for you, that’s for sure,” said Charlotte. “People are going to be angry with you about this. But it could be much worse. A report that you’re the saboteur of the Nutrino Mixer, that it was all a ruse to spark a backlash against people you dislike, that you’re at the center of so much misery.… Well, that would dovetail quite tidily on the heels of a massive Sharebox outage. Because we’ve estimated that if we keep deleting so many structures and avatars, eventually the entire system will crash.”

  “What do you want from me?” Devon blurted out, laying his quivering palms on the table. “Is this just about Michael?”

  “Release him to us now, and we’ll hold the report about you being responsible for the Mixer sterilization for two more days. Maybe it’s enough time for you to find some hole at the end of the world to bury yourself in.”

  “Tsk, tsk,” Arlo interjected himself, shaking his head in a gesture of mock sympathy. “Given what time it is, your friend, Michael or Orion or whatever, might not even be alive anymore. You see, he’s undergoing a little operation right now, and the procedure we signed him up for was quite risky. Your friend has a piece of Sharesquare Industries property attached to his brain. It was our right to have that item returned to us. The doctors are probably pulling it out of his head right now.”

  Charlotte stood up in her seat, her nostrils flaring, her green eyes ablaze.

  “I’ll make the call to stop it, I’ll make the call!” Devon exclaimed with his hands raised in the air just as he began reaching for his desktop phone. “I was told by the surgeons that a fatal outcome was unlikely for the operation.”

  “You don’t understand,” Charlotte growled, her chest heaving and her fists clenched. “If that device is removed, it’s a fatal outcome for everyone. That implant can’t be reused. Orion and that chip are our only hope—”

  Darnell waved a warning hand at her, and the significance of the gesture was not lost on Arlo. He stepped forward and laid his thumb on Devon’s receiver and kept it there.

  “What are you doing, you idiot?” Devon spat at his nephew, the corded phone emitting a dead buzz in his hand.

  “Don’t you see the way they’re talking about the prisoner and that thing in his head?” Arlo’s lips quivered with excitement. “I was right, Uncle. There’s something in there that’s important. Something that can change the world.”

  “I don’t care about your bullsh—”

  “You’re really going to give these criminals everything they want, aren’t you?” Arlo’s eyes were wide and gleaming as he rounded the table on his uncle. Devon’s face was flushing a deep red, and spittle was visible on his lips.

  “I’m not going to prison, you fool, if I can avoid it by giving them a washed-up former-employee-turned-hacker. Can’t you see they have us cornered? Now let go of the damn phone.”

  Arlo released his thumb’s hold on the receiver, nodding politely and assuming his plastered smile in a gesture of submissiveness. As Devon began punching in numbers to talk to the medical lab office, the young man slid quietly behind the CEO’s chair. Reaching into his coat, he produced a long, glittering hunting knife, and before Charlotte and Darnell could take notice and utter a warning, Arlo plunged the blade into his uncle’s neck.

  Arlo didn’t really know what he was doing. He’d never stabbed someone before. So he didn’t kill his target particularly quickly. Devon reached up from his chair and clawed at Arlo’s face with his chubby fingers as the younger man withdrew his knife and slashed several more times, opening new wounds in his neck until the eyes in Devon’s head began to bulge and his words were a string of gurgled nonsense.

  After a moment of sheer shock passed, Darnell sprang from his chair and dove across the table. He grabbed a hold of Arlo by his shoulders and flung the bloody assailant across the room and onto the floor. Charlotte, after recovering herself, made to run for the door to call for security.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” shouted Arlo, sitting on the rug in the center of the room, his sleeves and face doused with blood.

  Devon spilled from his chair, his eyes lolling in his skull. He landed with a thud onto his back, unmoving, his mouth agape, blood pooling around him. He went still, and there was no mistaking he was dead.

  “You see,” said Arlo, slowly rising to his knees. “There are no cameras in here.” He motioned to the bare corners of the ceiling. “For a man who enjoyed spying on everyone’s information, Mister Zimmer was quite private himself.”

>   Charlotte stopped in her tracks and turned around. Darnell rose with balled fists and took a step towards Arlo.

  “We’re going to have a new story here now,” said Arlo, tapping his chin theatrically and striking a thoughtful prose. “Instead of ‘Hacker activists attack Sharebox and expose CEO’s wrongdoing,’ we’ll just change the headline to ‘Hacker activists attack Sharebox and murder the CEO for revenge.’”

  Arlo paced the floor then, tapping the knife in his hands. “Yes, I think that will do quite nicely. That should help convince the board of directors that what they really need is some strong leadership. No more games. No more playing gentle with you Hollywood elites, you ghetto scum and your faggot friends.”

  “You’re insane,” Charlotte breathed out the words, look-ing horrified.

  “I’m a visionary,” replied Arlo with a shrug. “My uncle was part of the old guard, and it is long since been time for something new. This, the tragic murder of the CEO of America’s most beloved pasttime, if that isn’t the beginning of a new revolution, a final push to reclaim this country, then I don’t know what is.”

  He laughed.

  “If we bring security in, they’ll see you with the knife,” Darnell argued, his body shaking with rage. “Forensics will see the truth.”

  “I own the security, you idiot. And they all desperately need those jobs. Tough times in this economy. Do you think it would even be hard to frame you? The word of a couple radical fugitives with a grudge to settle against the word of the murdered CEO’s own nephew? Give me a break, Sergeant Holmes. They’ll all be calling for your heads before the old man’s body arrives at the morgue. I can see your reasoning power is as razor thin as ever.”

  “Maybe we just kill you too, then,” Darnell shot back.

  Arlo sauntered slowly over towards the desk and reached for the desktop phone, eyeing Darnell and waving his knife menacingly.

  “I don’t think you have in it you, sergeant.”

  Arlo raised the phone to his ear.

  “Darling, you there?” he said to the secretary on the other line.

  But before he could ask for security, the room went dark. Every light and screen abruptly flickered out, and the phone went dead.

  Diana spoke into a small earpiece in both Charlotte and Darnell’s ears.

  “I’ve shut down all power to the building except the elevators. There’s a medical lab on the twenty-second floor. That’s probably where Orion is.”

  “Goddamnit,” hissed Arlo, tossing aside the useless phone. “More of your tricks? No matter.” He started marching for the door. Then a fire alarm rang overhead.

  Darnell leapt behind Arlo and tackled the wiry man to the ground. Through the fall, Arlo’s fingers remained clenched around the knife handle, but Darnell exerted himself to pin both of his enemy’s wrists to the ground.

  “Go, Charlotte,” the sergeant barked at her. “Go find Orion and then get out of here. It’s the only thing that matters.”

  The movie star hesitated, but only for the briefest of moments. She didn’t want to leave Darnell like this, but she knew he was right. So she gave him a nod, then turned and dashed out the door back to the lobby, slamming it shut behind her.

  “It looks like it’s just me and you again, old friend,” Arlo smiled from underneath Darnell. “Destiny seems to keep bringing us together.”

  Darnell had only a moment to take in the blood-splattered ghoulish sight of his opponent before the Nazi pivoted his hips and threw him off balance like a bucking bronco. Arlo rolled away on the carpet, the dagger upright in his hands, and he rose to his knees with an animal-like quickness. Darnell was never much of a boxer, though he had learned the basics in the Army. He got to his feet and raised his fists in front of him, hoping he could land a blow decisively before Arlo’s knife found its mark.

  The two men stood apart for the shortest of moments. Over the protests of the building alarm, there was a polite knock on the door from the receptionist.

  “Everything alright in there, Mister Zimmer?”

  The men ignored her. Then they charged.

  Darnell came in heavy with a set of jabs and straights that mostly went over his opponent’s head. Arlo dipped and dodged, and his knife plunged forward in a flurry of rapid movements aimed at Darnell’s ribs and neck. Three slashes landed before the former Army sergeant managed to land a bruising blow, and the two men staggered a couple steps back after the confrontation to recover their breath and regain their footing.

  Then they collided again. This time Darnell was too cautious, becoming fearful of the knife’s tip, which had rendered searing gashes in his side. He tried to land a punch with his long arms extended, keeping his torso out of reach, but Arlo saw through this maneuver. He ducked under the wild swings and drew himself close. Then he kicked at Darnell’s left knee, the one with the limp, which caused the air to rush out of the man’s lungs. He plunged his dagger upwards at Darnell’s ribs and landed two more strikes.

  The wounded man stumbled backwards and clutched at the cuts on his body, feeling the warm blood running through his fingers. He wanted to howl, but he suppressed the sound, and the noise escaped him like a whimper.

  “You’re a brave man, Sergeant Holmes,” Arlo said calmly, flicking his knife back and forth like a toying cat. “They’ll remember you for that. They’ll remember you for being stupid too. Just another dumb street thug—that’s what they’ll say. You can’t trust any of them. Violence and self-destruction are in their nature. They’re animals.”

  Darnell knew he was losing the fight, so he decided to take a defensive tactic. When Arlo rushed forward with his knife a third time—looking wide eyed, vicious and too eager to land a killing strike—Darnell feinted backwards, and Arlo’s momentum propelled him one step farther than he intended.

  Grabbing a hold of his outstretched wrist, Darnell forced his foe to fall with him, striking Devon’s desk first, and then sliding towards the ground in a violent strain of limb against limb. They hit the carpet together, and the knife was wrenched upright, pointed at the ceiling and its bearer, who crashed upon it disastrously.

  Gasping in agony, Arlo rolled off of Darnell and his body writhed on the floor, the hilt of the knife protruding from his belly.

  Darnell was covered in sweat from exertion and blood, and he rose shakily from the ground. He could hear knocking again from the receptionist outside. She was trying the door handle too, but through sheer luck or some wizardry of Diana, it remained locked.

  He spied a glass door leading to a small patio on the side of the office, which sported a miniature garden and a golf putting green. And next to it was a white structure designated as an entrance to an emergency exit stairwell.

  Arlo made to get up, to prevent his quarry from escaping, but the wound in his belly kept him firmly on the ground.

  “You can run, sergeant,” he seethed through his gritted teeth. “You’ve scored a victory for the day. But it won’t be enough. You’ll see. This is our country now.”

  Darnell looked down at the crumpled shape of the man he hated so much, and he felt no pity for the bleeding man.

  “The world is going to forget you,” Darnell said. “It may take some time. Maybe generations. But eventually your legacy will be nothing but ash.”

  Darnell turned away and stumbled outside to the patio, leaving behind bloodied handprints on a clean glass window. Holding his breath, he pushed on the emergency exit door handle, and relief coursed through him as it gave way and revealed a set of fluorescent-lit stairs heading downwards.

  “Diana, are you there? Can you help guide me out of this building?”

  “Of course, Sergeant Holmes.”

  No one is coming to rescue you, Charlie.

  That’s what her father had said. The fake father.

  She hadn’t known what it meant at the time, but the words came back to her now.


  No one is coming to rescue you.

  If she didn’t make it back to Orion before his implant was removed, no one would be able to rescue her and everyone else caught in the momentum of this declining world. There would be no more time loops, no more campaigns to undo all the terrors that have and will presumably still unfold. No magic tool to wipe away all that pain and suffering.

  Charlotte darted out of the grim scene of Devon’s office, terrified for Darnell but feeling convicted that nothing else mattered but Orion. The receptionist was sitting at her desk looking frazzled by the building alarms. The security that had escorted Charlotte and Darnell to the floor had disappeared, presumably as part of fire alarm protocol.

  So the movie star ran.

  She reached the elevators, which were still functioning. Or at least, they were functioning for her. Being friends with Diana, it was sometimes hard to separate blind luck from whatever small technical wonders the AI was wielding on Charlotte’s behalf.

  The elevator reached the twenty-second floor without interruption, and the doors opened on the sight of a sea of irritated employees shuffling slowly to crammed emergency stairwells.

  “Another stupid drill?” someone muttered.

  A few looked quizzically at the functioning elevators when Charlotte appeared, but most passed by without bothering to look at her face, which was good because she just realized she left her sunglasses behind. She was utterly exposed now, one of the most recognizable human beings in the world walking around the headquarters of the company she famously helped hack. But no one seemed to notice her in the hustle and jostle that accompanies a building evacuation. At least not yet.

  She darted down a hallway, elbowing her way past a small crowd of employees and whispering polite apologies as she did so. A sign pointed her to a medical lab wing with opaque glass doors which opened as she approached—no doubt another marvel of Diana’s.