Panic Button

Seventeen

Jo regained consciousness with a start and clutched at her chest, imagining the electrodes were still there discharging their hot white pain into her.

She lurched forward into a clumsy seated position. The plane felt like it was tilting slightly, but she could not be sure if it was an after-effect of the taser. She blinked, trying to clear the mental fog that was clouding her eyes, but not wanting to see.

Carnage was all around her — a mess of body parts and luggage. Spilled blood was daubed across the surfaces of the once-plush private jet. Dave’s corpse was just visible in the crew prep area. Close by lay Gwen, who had helped drag Dave to his resting place beneath the curtain. Gwen, whose neck she had snapped during the struggle. Max’s body lay slumped in the spot where he had taken his last agonized breath. Max, whom she had poisoned at the behest of their unseen host.

I’m a murderer,

she thought bitterly, and this must be Hell.

She clambered to her feet, clutching at her pounding head with the flat of her hand.

Swooning from the effects of standing up too soon, she stumbled back into her seat. Her computer touch screen flickered madly along with the rhythm of the atmospheric conditions outside the plane. Jo could see herself reflected in the monitor, a silhouette fading in and out between the tides of digital noise. She felt like a ghost, trapped in the aftermath of an air crash, dead passengers all around her. Maybe she would drift like this for all eternity when the plane came down, a ghost in a broken machine.

The monitor flickered again and a vague image appeared, blanking out her reflection.

Coming and going through the digital interference, the image looked like it was trying to break through. Jo sat forward, peering closer at the screen — there.

The phantom image broke through again, clearer this time. It showed a bedroom, walls covered in posters of teenage pin-ups and Emo bands. She had seen this before — but where?

The heavy cloud in her brain began to lift as she tried hard to remember. As she searched her thoughts, Jo saw the image sharpen suddenly, freeze, then begin to rewind at speed. The image froze again and Jo realised she was looking at webcam footage. A pretty teenaged girl was sitting in front of the glow of a computer screen, the poster-filled bedroom wall behind her — that girl, where on earth had she seen her before?

Alligator’s solemn voice boomed above the hum of the jet engines — a funereal concert.

“I want you to watch this video again — before you die.”

The footage started playing, and Jo watched the girl typing at her keyboard.

Her despondent face was stained black with eye makeup as tears rolled down her cheeks. Occasionally, the girl stopped typing and glanced up at her screen, reading something there.

“I thought one of you might have remembered. Some guilt addressed, but that is clearly too much to ask of your kind.”

A little window popped up over the footage of the girl, words appearing as if they were being typed out in real time. Jo recognised it as an All2gethr chat window, the same kind she’d used herself countless times — she knew this. She’d seen this.

The footage fast-forwarded, froze then played again. The young girl looked more withdrawn, slumped back in her computer chair with an open bottle of vodka in front of her. She had a plastic medicine container in her hand. Prescription pills. She started to down the pills, singly at first, and then in little handfuls, swigging them back with gulps of neat vodka — Jo remembered.

“She… committed suicide. Online, on her webcam.”

“Lucy Turner, aged fifteen.” There was a waver in Alligator’s voice, a hint of emotion. “You were there, all of you. Online. Watching as it happened. You all saw fit to pass comment. Gwen, with her sermonising, only made it worse…”

Jo watched as more text appeared in the All2gethr chat window next to a thumbnail image of Gwen’s face — her avatar:

‘Not even God can forgive you if you do this. Where will you spend eternity? You’ll burn in Hell.’

“…Holier than thou, a hypocrite hiding behind her religion.”

Jo recalled the awful image of Gwen’s sister being burned alive. Alligator’s vengeance upon her had been absolute and without mercy. The main cabin shook and rattled. Jo grabbed hold of the seat’s armrests as Alligator’s voice continued over the increasing sound of the engines.

“Dave embittered the pill, goaded her onwards.”

Next to Dave’s avatar, more text appeared in the chat window:

‘Another sad attention-seeking trip to casualty and a stomach pump.

Do it right or not at all. Hang yerself and be sure love!’

“And, when Dave saw fit to post it on, his friend Rory just had to comment. That boy had a big mouth. He’s much quieter now…”

Jo remembered the look in Rory’s eyes, just seconds before the camera-killer had pulled the shotgun trigger. On-screen, she saw Rory’s cruel taunts being typed into the chat window:

‘Dumb bitch! If I were as ugly as you I’d probably do the same. LOL!’

The plane bucked like a bronco and Jo glanced out the window. Storm clouds swirled around the flashing lights of the plane, looking like smoke and hellfire.

“And then there was Max, posting it across dozens of sites. Tap, tap, tap. Such busy hands.”

Next to Mike’s avatar, the words, his death warrant:

‘OMG! Emo girl tops herself. Goodbye cruel world!’

Jo shook her head. Whatever anyone had done on this plane, or on the ground, Max was an exception.

“You didn’t kill ‘Max’ though did you? You killed the wrong guy you fucking freak!”

Silence crackled over the speakers. She was right and he knew it.

Then, Alligator spoke again, softly and clearly. “No Jo. You killed the wrong guy.”

Unable to help herself, she glanced over at Max’s body. His last tortured gasp echoed in her ears. What did you do to me? She could see his dying face mouthing the word. Murderer. She bowed her head under the weight of her anger, guilt — and her fear of what may come.

“Don’t worry, I’ll catch up with the real Max soon enough. He’ll suffer too.”

Alligator’s tone was becoming casual again, like he was merely making polite chitchat with her.

“Now, where were we? Oh yes, Alan thought it was all very funny…”

‘Cheer up retard! ROFL!’ appeared in the chat box next to Alan’s avatar.

Jo remembered the gloved assailant, beating Alan and pushing him to his death below the office-building stairwell. She remembered the gloved hand, spraying the letters ‘ROFL’ across Alan’s chest, as he lay there broken and bleeding. Murderer. Max’s death rattle voice echoed in her aching brain. Let the punishment fit the crime.

Jo watched, distressed, as young Lucy gulped back more handfuls of pills. That poor girl — what she’d had to endure. Tears flooded from the girl’s eyes. She was blinded by despair.

“They were all implicit. But you, Jo — do you remember what you did?”

Jo fell silent, recalling that night. She could almost smell the memory of the booze, the wine bottles standing open next to her computer monitor in her darkened bedroom. Sophie had been at Dawn’s, sleeping over so that Jo Scott — ‘World’s Best Mum’ according to the mug on her dressing table — could get shit-faced and chat with people on All2gethr until she passed out.

“You just watched. You like watching, don’t you Jo?”

She felt sick.

She’d watched little Lucy Turner committing suicide live via webcam with the same eyes that were shedding tears for her now. Unsympathetic, drunken eyes. The eyes of a murderer.

“I was drunk… I…”

“Your excuse for everything!” Alligator’s fury made the speakers tremble. “Your excuse for getting pregnant! Your sad pathetic excuse for a life! You’re a mother yourself but you still sat and watched my little girl die! You don’t deserve to have a daughter!”

His words cut deep. Tears streamed down Jo’s face as she remembered the dark months before rehab. She had been a lousy, inconstant excuse for a mother.

“Not one of you called the authorities. Not one of you reached out to push the panic button. All of you are guilty and your punishments both just and fitting.”

But he was wrong. Jo had gotten herself some help. Cleaned up her act. Dawn had been so proud of her. And Sophie loved her. She flinched at the memory of the video showing Sophie in that filthy cell. Her stomach flipped as she remembered tearing away the black plastic bag from Dawn’s dead face. Fresh anger ignited like a flame in Jo — whatever she had done, or not done, she had paid her dues.

“We’re all guilty? Screw you. You killed my mother! The pilot’s family! Pitched us all against each other for your own sick amusement! And what about all the innocent people at All2gethr?”

“Some people were an unfortunate necessity… But All2gethr?” Alligator spat, “They are as guilty as the rest of you. They swept my Lucy’s case under the carpet. We will destroy their servers, their archives and their people. They will become nothing. And the World will watch their bitter end. They’ll wish they had paid attention then.”

Jo cried out as the plane plummeted again, a pure fear reflex. Buffeted by the storm, the jet tilted, correcting its course. This was it; the end was coming for her. It had all been building up to this, the winner’s email, the champagne reception, the lies and the bloodshed — all because of one man’s insane desire for revenge.

“The world will watch?” she said, “No one will give a shit about your reasons, your ‘master plan’… Nobody is even going to know!”

“Wrong again Jo. I’m generating the ultimate viral video, of which you are the star.”

Suddenly, Jo was looking at herself on the touch screen monitor. She looked bedraggled and bloodstained as she peered at the screen. The beady little webcam eye, embedded into the monitor’s housing like a dark jewel, had been watching her all along.

“Of course, anything that implies my part in all this will be removed before the World enjoys watching you die over and over and over again.”

Alligator’s face reappeared on her screen, black slit eyes regarding her like she was a piece of meat on the end of a hook.

“An eye for an eye my dear.”