NOVEL NEXT 291: Finger On The Trigger
"You haven't had a crab cake sandwich 'til you've eaten the Pit's," HC declared, putting his order in the digital display.
Paddy nodded, "Girls, will you share one with me? We can get desert too, but I can't resist the Pit's crab cakes and home made sweet potato chips."
We nodded and Rhoda put in her desert and drink order, "I can't wait to try those fried banana fritters with cinnamon ice cream," I moaned. "It sounds perfect with the Tripel."
"Oh, you'll love it," Paddy encouraged, "everything here is amazing."
We were in an outdoor seating area unlike anything I'd ever experienced. Heading away from the coast, we'd gone into a part of town that I could only describe as "swampy," and the scenery around me was like something from a story book.
Wooden, ramshackle buildings were surrounded by tall, droopy trees dripping moss and looking like hairy old men keeping watch. The sandy ground beneath us left grit on my sandaled feet, and the damp air felt heavy and closed in.
All around us were those wooden shack-like buildings; little shops for ice cream, t-shirts, and ocean-themed gifts. Fairy lights hung from low porches, and wooden walkways connected the buildings of the small shopping center. The whole set-up made for an enchanting evening, and felt like it'd been created for us and what we were about to do.
"So, you've already figured out that someone is copying chats from one server to another?" HC asked.
I nodded, "And sending me bogus DM previews. And writing Purple Road Reviews. It isn't just Discord, HC."
His eyes bugged, "WHAT? Oh, I gotta see this. They've fucked themselves up the ass so hard they'll never recover."
"Do you think Zoe's part of it, HC? Is everything fake? Flopper has to be real, right? Are they making up fake books?"
"I don't know yet, Sam. That's what we need to figure out—"
"Here, I'll show you everything we've discovered so far," Rhoda opened her notes and went through it all with HC.
"So, we know some of the reviews have been copied," HC concluded. "Let's go over it from the beginning, and I'll add everything I can think of too. Hold on a minute, Sam, in the very start, you did a review for DeBagg, right? Honestly, the way Zoe's server is, it seems like everyone's an NPC. NightLover's always 'AAAAAAAAASSS' and BlackPesc with the feckin' this feck that."
"I-was-an-NPC-in-my-past-life GayPirate," I chimed in.
HC chuckled, "Exactly! They were so dammed predictable it should've been a clue, but it was so funny. I barely even thought about it."
"So, DeBagg's book, Minus Aster . . ." I pulled out my pad and started searching across the stream. At first there wasn't much, so I pulled up the book on Purple Road and copied the first paragraph and searched for that instead.
"Woooooahhhh. HC, look at this." There were five stream sites with the book fully published, some of them audio format.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
"Dammit. So, who's the pirate and who's legit? Are any of them?" he wondered, noshing his giant crab cake sandwich.
I'd already polished off the portion Paddy'd shared with me, and I had to admit, it was amazing. Barely any breading; mostly crab meat in a rich, flavorful patty, delicately fried.
"And that's not all. Here's a paperback used edition of Minus Astrid, different spelling. And guess when it was published? 2840. Nineteen years ago!" I announced.
"Damn, then probably all of those stream versions are faked under a slightly different title. See what you can find on Flopper, Sam," HC instructed.
Nothing suspicious came up.
"Okay," I started, "we know that some books on Purple Road are pirated, and some reviews are copied under different usernames. Then there's Discord convos being repeated across servers with the usernames changed. And empty DM previews. But. But—"
I broke off, taking a deep breath. I barely wanted to acknowledge it, much less say it out loud.
"How did— how did smack_pans know to say— Oh, dammit! I don't wanna say this! 'You're mine, always were, always will be?' How would it know those exact words would put me in a state?"
HC rubbed his chin, "mine . . always will be." Then he snapped his fingers. "Yes! We search those words."
His fingers went flying over the touch screen.
"Bingo! It's a quote from a movie six years ago, Sam," he said, flipping the pad around so I could see.
I read it aloud, "Final Seduction. Ben Farr plays a stalker in this psychological thriller to end all thrillers."
"I remember that!" Rhoda cried. "It was huge!"
I nodded. "The timing fits. I never knew— oh god." Ice ran down my spine. Could someone actually use a quote from a movie like that on purpose?
I looked at Rhoda, "She said it over and over. Jolene. And the other night. All this time. It was a movie line?"
HC pointed, "On the nose. How perfect! It was probably random chance that those very words were the ones that would tip you over the edge, but bots could be throwing them out all over the place. It's like how they're copying my song or re-using book reviews. They're parroting lines. Repeating them over and over, and all it takes is the perfect moment."
"Maybe you ignore it for a few weeks, or are too distracted to even notice. But then, one day, something's already under your skin and WHAM! They've got you with a phrase that's just random chance, but it sneaks in and stabs you between the ribs."
I rubbed my face. "God, I feel so stupid. It was like— like, I dunno. Someone was watching everything about my life, and then my name showed up. What a fucking, fucking, cluster fuck of fucks! HC! Why? Why the fuck? What the fucking fucks of fuck is this all for?"
All three of them were laughing at my ridiculous nonsensical curses. "Why, HC? What is the point of all of this? Where's the financial gain? Does this hurt you in some way? Is someone making money off it?"
He shook his head, "I don't understand it yet, Sam. I think the why will make sense the more we see the what. What do you mean about empty DM previews?"
"On my pad. It's a setting so you can see—"
"I know about that, but what do you mean 'empty?'"
"It kept telling me there was a DM. Like from B or smack_pans, and when I opened the app, there was no DM." I winced. "The worst one was from CoralineAsIs."
His face fell flat, and his voice was soft and matter of fact. "What did it say?"
"One word: Sam?"
The flat face turned cold and blank. Then his eyes blinked, and his shoulders shrugged. His features relaxed. "I'm sorry Sam—"
"It's not your fault, HC."
He shook his head, "No, it's not, but I can still regret that you and Cora are caught up in it. They obviously saw your name in my DMs. Then they reproduced that pretending to be Cora, a dear friend of mine and Paddy's. You're two innocent girls—"
I scoffed, "I'm a grown-ass woman, HC—"
"Until you're fifty, you're children, so suck it up, and get over it."
I laughed, "This is ridiculous."
"So, nothing has changed. It's just spoken aloud instead of text scrolling across my screen. Fantastic. Let's switch gears and figure out how we're taking these fuckers down. Are we all agreed?" he asked, looking around the table
Four heads nodded over desert plates, and we shoveled sweet delights into our pie holes and polished them off with another round of beers before we left the Pit behind, plan ready and fingers on the trigger.
