The Match (Wilde, #2)(8)

“Francine’s only child—her son Corey—was murdered in that school shooting in Northbridge last April. Corey was a fifteen-year-old sophomore. Theater kid. Talented musician. He’d been at a rehearsal for the spring concert when the gunman burst in and shot him in the head. There were eighteen kids shot in that rampage, if you remember. Twelve died.” Giraffe stopped and took a breath. “Lion?”

“Yes?”

“Do I need to go into more details about that shooting?”

“I don’t think so, Giraffe,” Chris/Lion said. “We all remember the news stories. Unless someone objects?”

No one did.

“Okay, let me continue,” Giraffe said. Even through the voice-altering app, Chris could hear the quake in Giraffe’s tone. They all used voice-changing technology of one sort or another. Part of the security and anonymity. The Animoji didn’t just cover their faces either—they replaced their entire appearance.

“After burying her only son, Francine fell into a terrible sadness. You can all imagine, of course. Her way out was to channel her grief, try to do something so that other parents wouldn’t have to go through this hell. She became a vocal advocate for gun control laws.”

“Giraffe?”

It was Polar Bear.

“Yes, Bear?”

“Maybe I shouldn’t raise this, but I’m pro Second Amendment. If someone is disagreeing with this woman’s viewpoint, even if she’s a grieving mother—”

Giraffe cut them off with a snap. “That’s not what this is.”

“Okay, I just don’t want to get political in here.”

Chris spoke up. “We all agreed. Our mission is about punishing cruelty and abuse, not politics.”

“This isn’t about politics,” Giraffe insisted. “Someone truly evil is attacking Francine Courter.”

“Go on,” Chris told them.

“Where was I?…Right, she takes up the cause. Naturally, like Bear said, people disagreed with Francine’s viewpoint. She expected that. But what started as tough discourse quickly grew into a sweeping targeted campaign of terror against her. Francine received death threats. She was constantly hounded online by bots and harassed. Her residence was doxxed. She had to move in with her brother’s family. But nothing prepared her for what really got the ball rolling.”

“And that was?”

“A conspiracy wingnut posted a video claiming that the shooting never happened.”

“Seriously?” Kitten said.

“Guess that CCTV footage of kids being slaughtered wasn’t enough proof for these psychos,” Panther added.

“A fake,” Giraffe said. “That was what the conspiracy video claimed. All staged by gun control advocates who want to take away your guns. Francine Courter was a ‘crisis actor,’ whatever that means, and—this is the truly awful part—the video claimed that her son Corey had never even existed.”

“My God. How did they—?”

“Mostly they just made stuff up. Or they manipulated the narrative to the point of incredibility. For example, they found another Francine Courter who lives in Canada and lists herself as childless, and so they have an audio of the narrator calling her on the phone and ‘Francine Courter’ saying she never had a child named Corey and so, of course, no child of hers was shot or killed. Ergo it’s all a hoax.”

“I can’t with these people,” Alpaca said.

“Bad enough to lose a child,” Kitten, who had an English accent, though again that could be from their voice-distortion app, added, “but to then be tormented by these lunatics.”

“Who is dumb enough to believe this stuff?” Polar Bear asked.

“You’d be surprised,” Giraffe said. “Or maybe you wouldn’t be.”

“What else did the conspiracy video show?” Chris asked.

“Nothing that makes sense. They ask weird suggestive questions like, ‘Why are some of the school CCTV videos only in black and white and others in color?’ as if that’s proof it’s all a fake. Then they doctor or make up evidence with photographs. So, for example—and wow, this is just so skeevy—a bot posted a photograph of someone who looks a little like Corey at a Mets game that took place after the shooting. Then they write, ‘Here’s the actor who played Corey Courter in the Northbridge High shooting at a ball game last week!”’ and then others comment stuff like, ‘Wow, this is proof it was all staged, he looks fine to me, it’s a fraud, stupid sheeple, stop believing what the mainstream media tells you, do your own research, Francine Courter is a traitor,’ whatever.”

“Awful as this sounds,” Polar Bear said, “it seems like we are talking about too many people to take meaningful action.”

“That was my worry too,” Giraffe said, “until I dug into the second video.”

“Second video?”

“So the first video posted on YouTube claiming that the shooting was a hoax was created by an account called Bitter Truth. Eventually it was taken down, but as always with these things it was too late. By then, it had over three million views. It was duplicated and spread, you guys all know the drill. But a second video came out under the name Truth de Bitter.”

“Not much of a nom de plume,” Chris said.