

***

### In Regards to the Queen

Pete Campie

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2011 Pete Campie

***

In her dreams the world is created

Her thoughts fuel our existence

We are nothing without her

She is our queen

"Guys, you've got to check this out, see if you can watch it without falling in love, her videos are amazing!" ^Attached^QueenBee.file 6:22PM

"That's amazing! She's beautiful!" 6:24PM

"You've got to be kidding, I'm so tired of seeing this stuff on the site, remember when we did cool stuff? We need the people who hacked Brown's e-mail back here, you know they won't even stop by anymore? They say we're a bunch of amateurs." 6:24PM

"Who cares what those faggots think? I love the Queen! All hail!" 6:25PM

"As if you even know those people, shut up, that's why the site is great, we're all anonymous, that's the point." 6:26PM

"I wouldn't mind getting less anonymous with her!" 6:26PM

"Boring, saw this yesterday when it first got posted." 6:27PM

"No, I totally do know the guys who hacked Brown's e-mail, the feds are lookin' at the wrong people, the real ones got away scot-free" 6:28PM

"This is going to be the next of our great conquests, we're going to take this bitch down." 6:28PM

"You're crazy, why would we waste our time on this? She's barely even interesting. We just need to get back to other things." 6:31PM

"Guys have you looked at the main page? Look at how many people are talking about this girl! She's trending on search engines too." 6:32PM

"Do you think she knows any of this is going on? Did she post these herself?" 6:33PM

"It's a little early to be getting documentation but every indication is that she didn't post them herself, it's not like she mentions us in the video or anything." 6:34PM

"She's just another camwhore looking for attention, I guarantee she posted these all over herself." 6:36PM

"She talked about an anime website, not ours, it's not like she'd just post this everywhere, why would people be interested in it?" 6:37PM

/thread

***

Somewhere in the western United States.

"Capto! Yeah, you, get over here!"

It was not an uncommon tone; I'd heard it many times before with varying effects. I was either going to be doing the lead story tonight or I'd made a mistake on the air and was going to have to correct it, dangerous for a media man such as myself.

"Capto, everyone's gone for the weekend, I know you're not married so guess what you get to do? You get to drive all the way to St. Helena for a story." My boss was not a compassionate man but today he was in top form.

"That's 4 hours away!" I protested.

"Then if I were you, I'd start driving. " He grunted back, not amused.

"By the time I get there it will be 10 o'clock. I won't even get to beg for an upgrade at 'The-Station-Won't-Spring-For-a-Hotel-Without-Cockroaches Inn." I responded drily, knowing full well that any further protests would result in the following retort from him.

"Tough shit, you don't work for me, you work for the station, and they do not care."

"Fine, what is so earth-shatteringly important in St. Helena that you need me to spend all weekend there for five minutes of air-time on television?" I was tired, it was six at night on a Friday and I actually had a date tonight, or rather, I would have had one.

"You get to play Private Eye, isn't that fun? Something happened on the Internet. Go talk to the geeks in research, they're excited about it." As he said this, he let out a groan not unlike that of an old machine whose replacement had arrived and was firing up for one last go-round before its true obsolescence had to sink in.

I walked into my rarely used and, so, very pristine office. I glanced fondly at the pictures of my idols I'd hung on the wall on the first day that I'd been given a real journalist job. All the greats, or at least, the ones that were great in my mind were there-Cronkite, Rather, Sawyer-the bulwarks of journalism. Snapped back to reality by my boss passing my office and staring at me disapprovingly, I reached under the desk and removed my small overnight bag (which used to be my gym bag, the only difference being that now it held clean clothes and a disposable razor).

As I walked the long corridor and down the flight of stairs to where the researchers worked, I noticed how empty all the offices were. It had been a long time since I'd been at work this late. Recently I'd been gliding through my assignments, mostly the usual hodgepodge of convenience store hold-ups, a few suicides and one story on people who would swear (in front of a TV camera) that someone was snatching dogs in my neighborhood. I swear to god, I'm not making that last one up; my boss was punishing me for showing up late after a long night of drinking.

I finally arrived at the research department and walked in. Now stereotypes are an ugly thing and we all know that, but my boss, while being calloused, was a straight shooter, and the workers in the research departments were all either unpaid interns from the local state university, or they were people who really enjoyed finding information and spending their free time on the internet.

I approached my favorite research geek, Greg, and as he turned around, his face lit up

"Capto! I'm so excited for you, man! You really get to do it! We've all been fighting over who gets to give you the news but you and me are tight, I get to tell you!" He was a slight, awkwardly proportioned man. His head always seemed a bit too big for the rest of his body. "Brilliant in finding stories but unfit for camera-time." as my boss would say.

"Okay stud, ready for your big scoop?" He usually prefaced a boring, run-of-the-mill story with that line, but today he was all smiles and seemed to be genuinely interested.

"I suppose so, hit me with it," I replied, barely listening.

"All right then. I don't take you for someone who is up on Internet culture, correct?" He looked at me, waiting for a response until I finally nodded. "Okay, so you cretins typically think in that broad, pre-1990s framework that information on the Internet comes from many different sources and finds its way to your e-mail inbox through word of mouth, am I right?" He was practically squealing with delight at his superiority.

"Yes, I suppose you're right, I hadn't given it much thought." On that count I was telling the truth. Very little of my day went into curiosities as to how the new media functioned.

"Well that's where you're wrong. There are only four or five websites that truly control Internet culture." I looked at him quizzically, silently asking him what in the hell Internet 'culture' was. He seemed to understand my bewildered look.

"You know the funny videos that your meathead buddies FWD you? How about the paradoxical pictures of nonsense or those e-mails that got hacked and showed that Senator Brown was having an affair? Yes? Well, that's the Internet culture at its best; you'll now see it at its cruelest. But back to my point, you see there are only a handful of websites that truly control the culture and they're all going crazy about QueenBee right now. And the best part is, she's local!"

"I'm sorry, Queen-what?" I was now convinced that I was about to be fired and this assignment was the humiliation that was to come first.

"QueenBee, dude! " He replied, eyes wide. With that he pointed my head towards his computer and pulled up a window. It was a video of a girl staring straight into the camera. She seemed rather unassuming, short blonde hair, heavy make-up and she was talking incredibly fast. The machine-gun tip tap of her rather shrill voice seemed to engulf the office, nothing else was happening and for a moment I was hypnotized. The video rolled on, minute after minute of a high school sophomore talking about her trials and tribulations, seeming to address certain people by their online handles, telling her friends how much she loved them, and throwing up faux-gang signs in the way the "ironic" crowd does.

"The boss is trying to crush my spirit, isn't he?" My sarcasm cutting into the video, I felt a little bad because Greg seemed hypnotized by her bizarre comments.

He looked up at me scornfully and said, "No man, this is where it gets X-Files, ok, because her videos have been all over the Web for the past two days, and I mean everywhere! People hate her, people love her, but the freaky shit is, no one knows who she is. The only thing we know is that she lives in St. Helena. People keep claiming to know her personally or something, but nothing ever comes of it. The scary part is, there are some people who really do know her, and they hate her guts, so she won't get back online for fear of getting her house attacked or something if these people tell everyone who she really is. I heard a rumor that she's completely underground now, that you won't even be able to find her because her parents are crazy religious or something and they found out how famous she is and they're going to lock her in a basement or something." His speech was becoming incoherent; he was too damned excited for his own good.

I scanned the room, looking for someone who would back me up while I called the boss down to tell him that this was insane, that I was looking for a girl with a webcam instead of something actually newsworthy. Unfortunately, all the research workers were staring reverently at Greg while he regaled me with this story of death threats and a teenage girl on the run from the Internet.

He continued on, "So yeah man, you get to meet QueenBee, if you can even find her. My source down in St. Helena is keeping quiet about this shit, says he doesn't know anything at all about it, but I think he's just lying. Hey! Maybe he's the one blackmailing her!"

"Yeah, okay Greg, I get it. I'm going to leave now, four hours to go and nothing to do when I get there except buy a large bottle of Thunderbird and drink like I'm homeless," I responded quickly, not giving him a chance to continue with the inane conspiracy theories.

I thought I'd quelled his excitement but apparently, that was not the case, "Yeah man, this is James Bond shit! You get to go in and look for someone with no name! Possible violence, fame, fortune if you find her, it's all there! It's like a crazy version of North by Northwest, you kind of look like Cary Grant anyway."

"Any ideas as to where to look? I mean, St. Helena is a pretty broad direction for me to head, you're going to need to give me more than simply a city, Greg." I hoped the Station's research money had gone to something useful.

"Talk to Thomas, at the computer repair shop down on 23rd Street. Him and I? We're tight. I told him you'd be coming over in the morning." And with that darling nugget of quasi-help from Greg, I jogged out of the research room and subsequently out of the building.

As I approached my car I realized I'd completely forgotten to bring a toothbrush, I kept one safely stashed in my desk, in case I forgot to brush before I left home in the morning. Frustrated, I got into my car and started it up. It revved to life reluctantly, groaning and screeching as the engine warmed up. I could still hear my father telling me how I should have taken better care of the car, shouldn't have let it fall into such disrepair like it currently was. He'd always had a quick answer to any question you posed to him, he was used to being the one who was asking the questions.

James Capto, my father, had been a newsman himself, that was back when the station was number one in the ratings. I was 16 when he was named anchor, just three months before he died. Ten years later, I was still thinking about it, wondering if he'd be proud of me spending the weekend chasing the ghost of a basement-dwelling teenager whose head had a price, a price set by other basement-dwelling teens. I continued to muse and decided that if a price was to be put on one's head, it would probably be best for people who value their anonymity and have never caused any real damage to be doing the pricing. Perhaps I was just jealous, I mused. I, while trying to be uninterested in her hypnotizing demeanor had snuck a look at her video's hit count, over 300,000. "That's twice the population of Mt. Bravad, twice as many people saw her as could have possibly seen me the last time I was on television." It was a depressing thought. Needing a distraction, I pulled out my stack of CDs, they'd been collecting dust as people had increasingly pushed me to abandon such an outdated medium, I'd until now resisted, considering all the memories that came with the discs, I'd found it half full of my father's music when I inherited the car and had since filled it with newer music, just to keep the balance.

***

"This is fucking absurd, we need information and we're not getting any, what happened to our old information gathering power?" 8:43PM

"No one knows her, man, what can we do?" 8:44PM

"You all would think that, idiots." 8:46PM

"She's gone underground, there's no way we're going to find her, who do you think leaked the video?" 8:48PM

"She must have leaked it. Who else would do it?"8:48PM

"Think about it, man. There's no way she dropped that link to us, someone probably just found it." 8:50PM

"You're full of shit, that girl wants to be just as famous as we're going to make her." 8:51PM

"Oh listen here, tough guy thinks we have the power to do something. What are we going to change? What will we accomplish?" 8:52PM

"Whatever we try to accomplish, we'll need a good whipping boy, can't have any legal backlash coming here." 8:55PM

"It's already everywhere, there will be no need for us to blame another site when we find her, they're all talking about her, we'll actually be lower on the suspect list for once." 8:56PM

"Do you all wonder why no one can find any of her documents? Why no one's been able to dig a thing up on this girl, despite our well known powers with information? Want to really know what's going on?" 8:58PM

"Oh, you've got the answer, huh? Why don't you just share it with us so we can all be so lucky as to be enlightened by your "answers." 8:59PM

"Yeah, tell us what you've got to tell us then, swami." 9:01PM

"You see that, guys? That's what I thought, he's got nothing, just making another ploy to get us to bite." 9:04PM

"Maybe what you've all failed to consider is that there may be more at work here than you thought, have you noticed how whenever she makes these videos she's looking up and to her left? That's really common in one other kind of video, can you take a guess what kind I'm talking about? Think back to the last hostage video you saw, remember how obvious it was that the hostage was reading from a script? Why did you think this? Why was it so obvious to you, even without the context? It's because that's a classic tell, she's reading from a script. This was all an elaborate set-up that went wrong, she's into drama, if you didn't know, and this was simply another character she was playing." 9:05PM

"That doesn't give us any answers as to why there's no information on her, we can find information on anyone." 9:07PM

"The answer to that question, I'm afraid, is a bit harder to come by. Luckily, you've dropped into the right Queenbee thread because I have the answer to that as well. You wonder why the documents have not been uncovered yet, but that's not the right thing to ask, you need to ask who has them and why aren't they sharing? Believe me, people have her information, we're just all in agreement that giving it to the likes of you would be like giving a coyote an infant." 9:11PM

"That's what you thought, didn't you? You thought we were all in agreement and that you could come here bragging about what you have, what we don't have, well guess what, bitch, not all of your members are in agreement. You should listen to what your people say before you go claiming to represent them, we took no such vote so guess what, the seven of us who actually want to get famous from this are going to take your moment, watch this: Ashley Katairen, South Davis Street, St. Helena. <= Now just watch it explode, fuckers, 'cause my other six buddies are taking this to six other sites, who knows how famous she'll be now!" 9:12PM

"Oh shit, watch it blow up now, I can't wait for the fallout from this, I bet it'll be even better than when ZNN called us terrorists, who's tired of the hubbub about this cyberbullying anyway? She's clearly asking for it, regardless, I'll be there soon, Queenie, don't you worry, I'm only four hours away from there." 9:14PM

"Motherfucker...you think you'll just take all our hard work and toss it away? You thought you seven, you'd just ignore the nine of us working hard to keep these degenerates from causing World War Three over some camwhore that will lead to the complete destruction of this site? You're history, man." 9:16PM

"Unlikely, I'm surfing behind seven proxxies, completely anonymous. None of you morons had my, or any of my comrades' real names, good luck trying to track us down." 9:17PM

"We found a high school girl with the data we found on her profile pictures, do you really think we won't be able to find you?" 9:20PM

"You think I'm afraid of you and your tiny little army of hackers? You fucks couldn't scare me with a gun to my face, come out here and kick my ass, 'cause I'll be heading in the same direction, towards that little hottie, anyone going to try stopping me? Bright orange convertible, I'll be flying down the highway, too chickenshit? Check out my blog, where I'll be detailing all the 'events' of my trip to St. Helena (Wink, Nod)" 9:24PM

"What happened, man? You just decide she didn't deserve her privacy any more? She suddenly had brought this upon herself? I thought we'd agreed on this, we didn't need fame for this because we'd remain anonymous, like it was originally intended. Coming in, trying to make a name for yourself, nice tough guy act, I must say, she's helpless and you're on the attack, hope you're proud of yourself." 9:27PM

"Typical, I couldn't expect for more from you scum I suppose." 9:29PM

/thread

***

The tires squealed as I drove down the highway. It was the interstate and even though it was a Friday night it seemed eerily empty. By day this was one of the busiest interstates in the state but by night it seemed serene, almost peaceful but not quite. The occasional semi-driver would blast past my tiny Corolla, flipping me the bird for not driving fast enough for his taste.

I was still in need of a distraction so I pulled into a small gas station. Its luminescent light was still flickering, but the windows inside were barred up. "Couldn't have anyone stealing $24 dollars from the cash register." I thought. "What a dump."

The door creaked open as I entered, and I heard the familiar sound of a door alert sound off. Looking around the room I noticed very little. There were the trademark cases of beer sitting idly about, the few stale candy bars they'd had for ten years without selling were lined up on the racks like little soldiers, waiting to be called into duty.

I looked behind the desk to the television, it was playing an old re-run of the Andy Griffith show, but the attendant was not paying attention. He was staring at his cell phone, furiously typing away and occasionally grinning, as though someone had just told him a hilarious joke. He finally looked up and acknowledged me with a grunt.

"What can I help you with? You lost? Need directions?" He asked. I didn't have an answer for that. I'd been trying to quit smoking but it seemed that this time I really needed one.

"No directions, I know where I'm going. Just let me get a pack of Pall Malls." I replied, defeated. It had been a week since I'd had a smoke. Looks like that's another "life-improving" exercise down the drain. "How far is it to St. Helena from here?" I asked, more intent on making conversation than getting directions.

"Oh, I don't know, I'd say about an hour, what're you going there for?" He replied, his voice was gravelly though he only looked to be in his late 20s. I pulled the first cigarette out of the pack and lit it, deciding to take a longer break than I'd originally intended.

"News story, something's going on there." I said in the midst of a long exhale, spitting out the smoke with a relaxing hate.

"Well no shit! Something's always happening there. What is it that out of town media will show up?"

"It's something you'll just have to watch, oh wait, you might not get my channel." I said, defeated at the apparent loss of a potential viewer.

"Well that's no worries, in the past couple of years all of the television stations have started live online streams of all their news broadcasts. Let me just get your business card and I can watch it online."

I handed him the card, which contained the station's web address. It was something that I'd never noticed, I'd never been to the station's website, though apparently my reports were featured on it. I suddenly felt very old and out of touch with the way the world truly worked.

I started to walk towards the car. It was another weekend night where I had to work, in the beginning it had irritated me but lately I'd just gotten used to it. See that's the bad part about being a workaholic, you can't quit work and still have a functional life. I felt like someone who was addicted to dope, the worst part was that they'd become rather accustomed to sending me on the longest trips that they had, knowing I was usually glad to have the distraction.

The car sputtered to life after giving a terrible grinding sound, it was too old at fifteen years to be of much use. I had been hoping to get a promotion and have the money to buy a new one, but the way that this assignment was going it seemed like the next stop for this car was dropping me off at the unemployment office. I flicked on the radio, an hour outside of St. Helena and I should be able to pick up a few stations on the AM dial, no more of these country radio stations, I wanted to hear some news. After finally finding a signal that was coming in well, I sat back, lit up a cigarette and listened to the radio drone on.

"Yes, Mr. Jim, AM 1220's favorite voice on the news now has a live feed on his website. That's right, you can now see where Mr. Jim is at any time, day or night, even if you can't get to a radio!"

My phone began to ring, I checked the caller ID, hoping it wasn't someone from work calling to remind me that I had to do this interview wearing a cowboy hat or something else equally ridiculous, the call was coming from a private number.

"This is Capto, Channel Seven News, Speak."

"You're heading the wrong way, you'll get off at the next exit if you really want the truth on this Queen broad." The voice was deep, almost unnaturally deep and sounded like it had been rehearsed.

"Who is this?" I responded quickly, noticing the signs for the aforementioned exit, a small town I'd never heard of called Jefferson City. The exit was creeping up on me, 1 mile, ½ mile, decision time was coming.

"Not important, take your first two lefts and then your third right inside Jefferson City, wait outside the gas station." **Click** The phone call ended and I found myself on an off-ramp, hoping this story would have a quicker conclusion than I'd anticipated.

Drifting through the sparse late-night traffic I surveyed the town, it was small, one of those which had been bigger before the interstate had made it just a side note between major cities. A few of the buildings were abandoned but mostly the businesses were the same array of small insurance outfits and general stores that always seem to thrive in these towns regardless of economic conditions or the factories moving to the big cities. Pulling up to the gas station, I looked around hoping to see whoever had called me, it was no use, most of the lights were off.

He approached noiselessly and pulled on the door handle, I'd kept it locked for this reason, to see with whom I was dealing. I saw on the other side of the glass a thin frame with a hooded sweatshirt two sizes too big stretched over it, the hood covered his face but he looked to be quite young, not more than seventeen. He was wearing dark, nondescript jeans with black sneakers. I clicked the door unlock button and let him into the car.

"You're pushin' your luck, TV boy. Now do you want the truth on the Queen or not?" I could see more of his face now; he was certainly young with red hair and a splotchy beard beginning to creep over his face. His look was purposefully cold, he was working hard to reveal no emotion to me, or perhaps he simply had me tuned out as I could see the outline of headphones through his hood and after he got in I could hear the faint sound of whatever music he'd been playing.

I reached into my jacket pocket to flick on the voice recorder and covered it by saying "I wouldn't be here if I didn't, spill."

"Well on that front you're shit out of luck, word travels fast nowadays, they said you'd be rolling through here looking for a story but I'm here to tell you that there is no story, the girl you're looking for, Queenbee is not the same girl that you're going to find in St. Helena. They look kind of the same, but they're different people."

"And how do you know all this?"

"Because I know the real one, she lives three states away, I just recently moved here, believe me, the real one has no idea what a stir she's caused, her name is Katie."

"So you just show up out of the woodwork to tell me that my boss and research assistant are sending me on a wild goose chase?" I was skeptical of anyone professing to save me time in investigating by just telling what happened. "You know, I may not be up on all this Internet shit, but don't think I can't smell a con, you call me out of the blue and just happen to be willing to tell me that the real focus of my story happens to be somewhere far enough away that I can't get there in a reasonable time frame. I bet you'd be pretty willing to tell me where this 'real one' lives, wouldn't you?"

He reeled a bit, stuttering before regaining his composure: "I will tell you where the real one lives, you can believe me or not but you'll be wasting your time in St. Helena, that girl won't have any idea what you're talking about, guaranteed. I'll call you in ten minutes with her actual location." I saw his hand dart out, grabbing the handle and lifting himself out of the car in one swift motion. He slammed the door shut and disappeared back into the fast approaching darkness as the gas station he'd sent me to was closing down for the night, now I was alone to ponder the implications of what he'd said.

I began to backtrack, trying to remember the exact combination of turns that had brought me here. I knew that I'd passed through quite a large residential district, but could not for the life of me find my way out of the admittedly small business district. Turning sharply to the right I continued to try finding my way to the interstate, I saw the phone begin to ring again, and it was a private number. I pushed Answer. It sounded a little like television static on the other line but as I listened closer it sounded more like hissing, someone was not happy.  
**Click** I hung up the phone, these distractions were getting me nowhere, I pulled back onto the highway, only a couple more hours to St. Helena.

Welcome to the Hotel California...

My ringer began to go off again, it was Greg.

"Good to hear from you, tech boy, you won't believe what someone just claimed to have pulled off."

"What happened?'  
"You'd be so proud of me, you remember last week when I asked you how you get answers when people aren't open to the questions?"

"I do" I replied, unsure as to whether I actually did remember or not.

"You said the best person to get the answers is one who can ask the questions, just make sure they're asking your questions, correct?"

"That's what I said, where's this going Greg?"

"The people who are really close to the Queen have their own message board, I managed to stalk one of their less dedicated members until I had enough dirt to 'convince' her to give her account to me, she said they'd probably catch on if she wasn't posting for a while so I only have access for so long."

"Still not seeing a point, Greg."

"The point is, someone just dropped your name, bragging that your story wouldn't be a problem because they'd just sent you one hundred eighty miles in the opposite direction, please tell me you haven't changed your destination."

"That would make sense..." I said, things becoming clearer. "He gave me some story about how they'd identified the wrong girl and that the real one was somewhere else, he promised to give me the 'real' location but never called back. You might have less time than you thought, buddy, let's hope that doesn't mean they've caught up to what you're doing."

"Not possible, Cap, it's only been a few hours since she stopped posting, something else must have spooked him." He responded, sounding morose at having been blamed for the change in circumstances.

In the moment of silence as Greg continued to sulk, before I brought him back to more important issues I began to wonder why I was doing this, was this job really worth having conversations that sound ripped from a cheap detective novel? Truly, this was not a job fit for a newsman such as myself; this was a job for some tech correspondent who followed this stuff for a sound bite, it was not real news.

"Greg, listen to me, do you think this is even right, man? Morally, I mean, I know we're only doing our jobs but perhaps we shouldn't be doing this, she is awfully young." I began to protest; I could almost hear the indignation that was surely creeping over his face with his response.

"Are you joking? This is fascinating! It's what the people want! This is blowing up, Capto, and you're in the middle of it, so make the best of your situation instead of bitching about why you're in it."

"That's a cop-out, Greg, It's ridiculous to even say something like that, I can change my situation by not doing this story." I was talking so fast I barely noticed the quickly approaching headlights, pulling closer and closer as I forgot to apply the brakes, dropping the phone I slammed on the pedal, screeching the car to a stop.

I looked at what people had slowed down to see; three people were stumbling out of a car, which had veered off the road, colliding with a telephone pole. The driver, a small woman in her late 20s was obviously drunk and had not recognized yet that she was in serious trouble, the traffic dispersed around the scene as the few cars who'd slowed down pulled away, leaving only my car, I was too fixated on the scene unfolding.

Looking down I saw my phone, inevitably Greg was freaking on the other end and I wondered where our conversation could have taken us. It was a short lived contemplation as I saw my hand extending to the passenger side door, opening it and indicating her and her companions to get in.

They slowly approached my car and the woman looked in scornfully, as her head begin to swing as she struggled to see clearly. I could see her weigh the options, get in a car with a stranger or get in the backseat of a cruiser with shackles.

"Believe me, honey" I started. "You don't want to be here when the cops show up." I finally reached down to pick up the phone; I could still faintly hear Greg yelling into the phone, I clicked it closed, ending the discussion. She apprehensively touched the door handle and pulled it open. She was joined by two companions, two men of about the same age whose most distinctive characteristic was their shockingly similar mannerisms, at least when they were intoxicated, which they all were, of course.

"Thanks for pickin' us up, man." One of the two in the back seat, I'm not sure which one, started to slowly drawl out his words "We' headed for St. Helena"

"Then I'd say you folks are in luck." I said, faintly hearing sirens approaching the accident scene, which we were now safely away from and on our way to find a queen.

***

Three Months Earlier

It was my birthday! I was finally sixteen and thank god, I was only two years from being a full-fledged adult. I walked to the small living room table and sat down. I started to think about all the things I would do when I was finally out on my own. My thoughts were interrupted by a voice.

"There she is! The birthday girl! Come here, Ashley, give me a hug!" My mom was a short woman, like me, but unlike me, she rarely wore make-up, and because of this, her age was beginning to show with wrinkles overtaking her once fair skin.

"Thank you, mom." I said politely, privately hoping that she'd gotten me a computer like I'd asked for.

"You're sixteen...I can't believe it, my baby's almost a legal adult..." Her voice trailed off. In her signature style that she'd given to me, she brought it right back up and continued, "Want your birthday present? I bet you do, I bet you just couldn't sleep last night thinking about it!"

She handed the box to me; I tore the wrapping off and ripped through the tape holding the box together. Whether you're sixteen or six, it's always fun to unwrap a gift. Sure enough, it was a laptop.

"Oh my god, mom, thank you! I'm so happy! I love you!" I said, though it wasn't even speech, my words were coming out fast, almost to the point of squealing.

"My straight-A girl needs something she can do her homework on!" She said, hoping that was why I'd wanted it.

"Yeah! Yeah I do! You know what else I could do? I can also get online now, and make videos, now I'm connected to the whole world!"

I turned on the computer and hooked up the Internet cable that my mom had included in the box. When it was finished booting up I turned on the webcam that was included on the top of the screen. "This will be my first video! I'm QueenBee, and I love you all, mm, maybe I should get something to drink or, oh have you seen the new Transformers movie? It was so awesome..."

The video was short, only a few minutes long, I finished mentioning my friends' names and uploaded it.

***

The alarm clock sounded like one of those retro models that were always getting smashed with large hammers in old cartoons. "7:30 AM, too early for a weekend," I thought, still hung-over from the six or seven dirty martinis I'd instructed room service to charge to the account that was paying for the hotel stay.

I prepared the packet of instant coffee I'd been provided with. Grateful to the hotel for giving me my next move, I looked for the phone book that should be lying next to the "How did we do? We'd like to know!" card. I finally found it, sitting unassumingly on top of the Bible presumably given to the hotel by the Gideons. I looked up the number for a computer repair shop on 23rd Street and called it.

"Hello, Thomas?" I said, putting on my best deep voice to sound more distinguished.

"Who wants to know?" The voice was crackly, the phone in the hotel had to be over ten years old.

"Wayne Capto, I'm a friend of Greg's, he said you might be able to help me."

"Oh I might be able to, we'll see how it goes. Where are you?" He was talking a little like a villain in a James Bond movie.

"The hotel on 19th Street, is it all right if I go over to your shop now?"

"Yeah, that's fine, come on over. Oh and pay no attention to the window dressings, we're renovating." His words were promptly followed by the click of the phone being returned to the receiver.

Sulking over the fact that I'd have to walk, I dressed slowly and meandered down the street. Even for a Saturday morning with a hangover, it seemed unnecessarily busy on the street, it was an average-looking street lined with small specialty shops with mostly average-looking people filing in and out, most of them carrying shopping bags which weighed one side of them down, giving everyone's gaze an otherworldly slant.

The repair shop was a decrepit-looking place with cracked windows and a rapidly deteriorating front step, as the concrete began to crack and recede back into the earth. The only thing new or even close to new was the coat of paint that presumably covered up the advertisement proclaiming the building's previous life. It seemed to infect the side of the redbrick building with small rivulets of paint that had slid down from where they were supposed to have been contained. Beyond that, the building was in disrepair. "A broken down computer shop in a broken down part of town. How very fitting," I thought, hoping Thomas would have no information for me.

"Mr. Capto?" a voice said from across the room as the dinging bell hanging above the door betrayed my presence. I approached the counter, a harder task than it would seem, broken down computer monitors littering the floor of the shop, all in a different stage of disrepair. I evaluated the man before me before I began with the usual pleasantries. He was a short, Greek-looking man, with tight black curls falling in and out of his faded Sacramento Kings baseball cap.

"Mr. Capto was my father, I go by Cap. Can I take you for Thomas?" I said, done with my evaluation and reasonably convinced he was who I expected him to be.

"I am Thomas. Interesting name you've got there, Wayne Capto," he replied a little warily, as though I was using an alias. I chuckled at the thought, as if I'd use an alias when interviewing a bunch of basement-dwelling kids.

"I suppose so, but that's why they put me on TV. Seems that focus groups respond well to reporters with unusual names. Can we bypass this? Greg said you were the one to ask in St. Helena about this QueenBee rumor." I had no time for his nonsense, and was hoping to just get in and get out so I could make it back home on Sunday.

His reaction didn't to seem to bear much resemblance to Greg's in this matter. He almost looked uninterested, tired of hearing about this girl. He started slowly, as though he was reading lines from a script. "Yes, Queenbee. It seems she mentioned the county where she lived and just today, in the 35 minutes I've been open, I've already had two other people come in here asking where she lives. The short answer is: I don't know. The longer answer is: I've seen her here before, with her mother. They were quite a pair. Typical career-oriented woman if you know what you mean. The girl was acting too calmly bored to notice anything and her mom went off on me for about ten minutes, something about one of my guys screwing up her directions when they fixed her computer. The customer's always right? What a load of shit."

He enjoyed the sound of his own voice, it was quite obvious with the way he continued to yammer on and on without really getting to any point. I was going to have to interrupt him, but the hard part was that I hadn't been listening as he continued to talk, something about his boss being on his ass for messing up the woman's computer. "...so yeah, I saw her, wasn't very impressed. It wasn't until Greg called me that I remembered that I'd actually seen her." He finally finished.

"Well, do you have an invoice from the mother? Something I could use to maybe locate this girl?" I was exasperated; usually people were thrilled to be talking to someone who can put them on television, such as myself, even if I am new at the job.

"Oh...yeah, I've got the invoice, only problem is, when I was filing it I was also eating some pizza, and you know how sometimes when you're eating pizza you get grease on your fingers? Well I accidentally smeared the numbers of her house, so I just have a street for you." He was excited now; maybe he'd finally noticed my polo shirt that boasted "TV Seven News, We Get It Right the First Time."

I took a look at the invoice that he produced. It didn't look like he'd merely smeared grease on it; it looked like he'd used the paper to clean the deep fryer. I stared intently at the page for a while, finally making out the address. "Ok, somewhere on South Davis St.?" I finally said, triumphantly.

"Appears to be, man, sorry I couldn't be much help to you, like I said, pizza gets messy. But anyway, if you need anything else, here's my card. Give me a call and again, I'm sorry." He wasn't sorry, he just didn't care-not that I blamed him, this was to be a boring story, even for the crack news team at Channel Seven.

I was walking out of the depressing looking store when I noticed that instead of hanging venetian blinds, they'd taken the day's newspaper and hung it up over the windows. It gave off an eerie glow as rays of sunlight poked through it and landed on the floor, giving the broken down computer monitors resting there an alien look. I hadn't noticed it when I came in, but this was far more of a questionable place than I'd thought. Privately I wondered if this Thomas fellow looked a little too clean cut, maybe he was moving weight on the side. That would be a story! "Reporter goes down into town to find an Internet celebrity and instead exposes large heroin distributor." As I looked back to take a final look, Thomas gave me a knowing smile, as if to tell me that he'd be glad to help me, but to kindly get the hell out of his store.

***

"She's in the way, we need to stop talking about this and just ignore it." 10:34AM

"But we looove her! She's our queen, guys!" 10:36AM

"I'm with him, she's like our angel, why are you guys so angry about this? I think she's cute " 10:36AM

"She is cute! And I can't stop watching her videos!" 10:36AM

"Who's in the area? And has a handgun? We just need to deal with this the old fashioned way." 10:37AM

"Get rid of her, I'm tired of seeing her stupid fucking face anyway." 10:37AM

"Can't we just go back to talking about religion, politics, America vs. Europe, anything? I'm so tired of talking about this, it really doesn't matter at all, let's talk about deviant sex, celebrities, please?!" 10:40AM

"Leave her alone! She didn't do anything to you people! And besides, I love her, she's so sweet, she's exactly what could melt the ice cold heart of the internet, we've all collectively fallen in love and I think it's great." 10:41AM

"Ohhh ho, the knight in shining armor shows up, loser." 10:41AM

"Faggot" 10:42AM

"I can't believe you're all so obsessed with this, can't we talk about anything else? Honestly, we need to get back to talking about more relevant things than who she is and where she lives, we already know anyway, no matter what you think about what happened last night, and if you don't know, don't ask here, you have to admit, that Ashley girl looks an awful lot like the Queen, just look at the pictures and imagine the dark lighting and all that makeup." 10:44AM

"You're probably one of those who thinks he's going to help her, he's going to be the one to save this damsel in distress. You losers are all the same; I bet you've never even talked to a girl offline. I'm telling you, she doesn't live in St. Helena, I've never seen her there anyway, maybe this fellow last night who brought this apparently enlightening news was working counter to his stated goals. Think about it, to throw you off the real girl? " 10:45AM

"He's full of shit! I went to school with her; she used to hang out at a coffee shop that I worked at for a while. I think I might still have her e-mail address." 10:47AM

"You need to find that e-mail address! We could get our hack team in there and find out more about her!" 10:48AM

***

/thread

South Davis Street was on the other side of town. I walked to the side of the street and hailed a cab. As I was walking towards the stopped taxi, I heard the familiar refrain of Hotel California ringing in my ears, it was my cell phone, and from the look of things, it had been ringing for a while. The call ID said Greg, fantastic, probably hoping for an update from the road. How very interesting it will be when finds out that I was currently chasing a ghost and was no closer to finding Queenbee than I had been back at the office.

"Yeah, Greg, what's up?"

"Cap, this shit just got real, I've been watching a few of the biggest boards on the 'net and one has already picked up on this girl, in a big way." He was gasping, as though he'd been running. This was obviously just surprise though, considering that I've known Greg for three years and had never seen him run before.

"Yeah, real, that sounds incredibly real. Anything I should know? Or moreover, anything that can help me find this girl?" I replied, vaguely muttering to the cabdriver where I wanted to go.

"Well the biggest one just crashed. It looks like she was the subject of almost half of the threads there. Before it went down it seemed like half of the people wanted her head on a stick and the other half wanted to put a ring on her finger." Greg was so excited, no surprise that he would be in the latter half.

"That's not all, man." He continued, still sounding breathless. "Seems that a ton of people now claim to have her personal information. Or at least, they say they hacked all of her accounts."

"Her accounts? What in the hell, people have multiple e-mail addresses now?" My naivety to this subject matter continued to grow more and more apparent.

"No man, the video website account, her social platform accounts, they're all down, sorry but this is as much help as I can give you, I couldn't even tell you if she's still online or if she's gone totally underground right now." He told me, sounding rather sad, as though he'd hoped that the conversation could continue.

With his relevant information clearly expended, I ended the call and began to look at my surroundings. We were passing out of the urban areas of town and beginning to enter the suburbs. It wasn't so much typical Americana here as typical suburbanite sprawl. There were the usual SUV's, young parents with children and of course, the smell of construction materials, it was pungent and hung in the air like the occasional football, thrown from father to son in a modern rite of passage. The neighborhood felt like its inhabitants looked, up-and-coming and fully embracing the smell of change that hung in the air like the ever-present clouds of sawdust. "...Always houses being built in the suburbs, not that you can tell them apart anyway." I thought, for a moment flashing back to my own suburban upbringing. It didn't seem that I'd grown up in a way that was unlike this Queenbee girl, but there was something very unusual about this webcam generation, it was like they almost thought differently than we'd been raised to, this girl had what they all, and I myself to some extent, desired more than anything, she was seen and she was discussed.

"This would be your stop, South Davis." The cabdriver had the same tone of voice as my boss, that same impatient barking that sounded like a movie stereotype of a drill sergeant, even when he was about to get paid. I handed him a twenty and told him to keep the change, the tip I'd left him was miserly, $1.34. "Serves him right for being such a prick." I thought.

It was then that I realized for the second time that I had no way to find this girl, maybe I'd knock on a few doors, but I didn't even know her name. I sat down on one of the benches that littered the street, relics still left from a time gone by when more people walked to their destinations. I read the inscription emblazoned onto the wood. It was an "In Memoriam" plaque and apparently the money for the bench had been donated by the estate of someone long deceased. Not long into reading this, I became aware of how truly tired I was and consequently discovered how comfortable the bench was. It felt a bit strange to be lying down here, but it would do better than being under a tree. After turning off my phone for a short passage of time I drifted off to sleep.

Three days earlier

"...And I'd like to say hiiiiii to Tyler, I love you! All right guys that's it for me, unless you want me to keep talking to you, oh my god wouldn't that be cool? If you could talk to me while I was making my videos! That would be amazing" It had only been two months but I kept getting comments, and most of the people who were commenting on my videos weren't even talking about what I'd said! It was a little creepy how much they all seemed to like me so I logged on to the site where I'd originally uploaded my videos to try and see if maybe people were playing a prank on me.

It wouldn't let me sign in! It said that my password was incorrect. I tried again with an older password. Again, it was no good. "Lost your password? Let us e-mail it to you." The page seemed to talk directly to me, so I clicked on the link and looked at the e-mail address they were prepared to send it to. It wasn't even my e-mail address. Why on earth would I ever choose an e-mail address like wedonotforgive@freemail.com? I tried to remember which e-mail address I'd used three months ago when setting up my account. After five minutes I'd finally remembered and decided to check the messages on it. It was such an old address, I hadn't used it in months so there was only one message in the Inbox, it was only two lines long and read: "You will pay for the havoc you have wreaked. We do not forgive." It was from the same e-mail address that seemed to have hacked my video accounts. There was a picture attached of what appeared to be a male figure, it was done in what looked like the same way my videos had been made, with only the face and a bit of the upper body visible. The figure was wearing a Ronald Reagan mask and was holding a picture of me that he'd printed off the computer. He was holding a gun to the picture's head. The picture was captioned: "I know where you live, they don't...yet. Never. Post. Again.

***

"Welcome to the Hotel California..."

My cell phone vibrated out of my pocket and fell to the street, giving me a start not 30 minutes after drifting to sleep on a bench like a homeless person, the damned thing had again awoken me.

"Yeah?" I said, groggily.

"Cap? I might have something for you." It was Greg again, not breathless this time, but with a tone that said he thought this was earth-shattering news.

"Well that's good, it seems that napping on a bench was not the best way to find her."

"Ok Cap, here's what you do, wait, where are you?" He said.

"South Davis St. the um, the 100 block."

"Looking that up, ok, look down several blocks, do you see a Skateboard park? It should be right at the intersection of Davis and 45th." "Amazing," I thought, "Greg was giving me directions from 200 miles away, this technology thing may actually be a help to me yet."

"Yeah, what does this Skate Park do for me?" I replied, hoping this was an elaborate prank and that there were two plane tickets to Hawaii at the park.

"She's been seen there a bunch of times, man! I don't know, fucking ask around, be a journalist. What the hell do they pay you for anyway?"

"You know sometimes, I don't know what they pay me for, not for chasing down teenagers who have weaseled their way into a little false fame." And with that remark I hung up the phone and started down the street.

I approached what had to be the Skate Park, it was nothing much, just a few small ramps surrounded by high chain-link fences with a gate that could presumably be locked if necessary, it sat at an intersection controlled by a traffic light, situated between major cross streets it was right in the middle, sitting across from an abandoned basketball court complete with chain nets hanging lazily in the sun and catching shadows from tennis shoes knotted together and strung from power lines.

I walked straight through the open gate and surveyed what was in front of me. The inside view was not vastly different from the outside, there were a few teenagers with long hair, clad mostly in tight jeans and oversized sneakers, they looked cartoonish skating around with a radio blaring old grunge tunes and even fewer teenage girls sitting off to the side, watching the skaters and talking, occasionally breaking out in giggles.

I walked up to the kid that seemed to be the least involved with his friends, he was standing off to one side, clearly trying to hide the cigarette that he was holding by covering it with his hand. He couldn't have been older than thirteen, with long greasy hair that was slung over his eyes, which looked brown to me but were mostly hidden behind dark black eyeliner which was smudging as he sweat. As I approached him, he kept his back to me, continuing to pretend not to notice.

"Hi I'm..." He pre-empted my introduction by whipping his long fan of hair around in a turning motion where I noticed him push the cigarette to the back of his hand and drop it behind his back, extinguishing it with a swift step backward. "I'm not holdin' man, I swear. No drugs on me, officer, see?" With that he pulled out his jeans pockets to reveal a middle school ID.

"I'm not a cop, I promise, take a look at the shirt," I pointed towards my chest, "See? I'm a reporter, Channel Seven out of Mt. Bravad."

"All right, what do you want? What are you here for, man?" He said,

"I'm looking for someone who goes by the name of Queenbee, heard of her?" I said.

"You're a little old to have followed her from somewhere online" he started, but upon taking another look at my polo his tune changed: "Oh shit man, my sister's going to be on the news. Yeah, I know where she is; you know the coffee shop three blocks west of here? Go there, that's where she makes all her videos, I bet she's even there now. " He finished, breathing heavily now and obviously excited about his newfound celebrity status. "That's something I could use in my report, I could say that she takes everyone's breath away. Yeah, the boss would love that, it's succinct and sounds clever." I thought as I began to walk in the direction he'd indicated, realizing that I was hoping to find a high school girl that was giving people fits of anger from hundreds of miles away.

"Yeah, let me get a coffee, black." This was such a suburban coffee shop; it was all the worst parts of the ones in the cities. Poorly lit, it almost reminded me of a romantic smoky bar. A television tucked into the corner of the next room was showing the 24-hour news cycle, something about a Presidential cover-up but no one was watching, they were engulfed in their laptops and Internet phones, reading the news faster as it breaks in real-time, the tone of the commentator on the television seemed to echo his obsoleteness as he talked slowly, trying to stretch content into the time he was allotted.

I began to scan the room for this girl, the patrons within seemed to be mostly soccer moms having their espresso shot to keep the energy level high and college students poring over their textbooks while they sipped coffee. I walked towards the back of the room, where it seemed that everyone who had a computer was sitting.

There she was, huddled over a small laptop in the furthest corner of the room. I approached her table and sat down.

"Let me see inside your bag." She said, finally noticing me and giving me immediate suspicion.

She was small, with fair skin and a small face, though it was heavily made up with thick black streaks around her eyes. She looked like she dressed mostly from thrift stores, but in the ironic, middle class way. Her Beatles t-shirt sleeves rode up on the sides of her arms and I could see an amateurish tattoo with rough lines and faded parts, it was in the shape of a heart.

"My bag? Why?" I said, suddenly jerked back to reality and a little off-put by how she'd reacted.

"To make sure there's no Reagan mask in there." She replied matter-of-factly. Upon rooting through my small messenger bag and finding no manners of hiding one's identity she looked up. "Ok, you're not one of them. Who are you?"

"Wayne Capto, Channel Seven News out of Mt. Bravad. We are doing a report on you and your ongoing saga." I said, faking bravado in the first part, as if she cared where I was from.

"Yeah, well, I can't help you. Don't know who you're looking for but it ain't me, I'm certainly not noteworthy-hey! Have you been on TV before? I love the news, isn't it just great? Wait, I think I have seen you before! I stayed in Mt. Bravad once, great town, right? It's like, like, so exciting! There's always something happening and um, oh, what are you drinking? Can I have some? I love coffee!" She probably would have continued with this constant stream of words had I not handed her my coffee. It was a meaningless gesture, however because after taking a sip she continued right on.

"Ew, black coffee? Who drinks black coffee, I mean, besides my father. But like I said, you're not looking for me, I'm not noteworthy but hey! Maybe you're looking for someone who looks exactly like me, maybe I have a clone...or an evil twin!" This was definitely the girl I was looking for, her voice escalated as she became more and more excited, with her words eventually spilling out with great speed, eventually reaching the point where her words were incomprehensible as they came out in one big blur. She pushed her straight blonde hair out of her eyes as she awaited my response.

"Actually I'm pretty sure you are who I'm looking for. Does the name QueenBee sound familiar?" I asked her, knowing the answer.

"No, never heard of anyone named QueenBee, but you know I have heard of you, sometimes my mom watches the news from Mt. Bravad, she grew up there, I heard her mention your name once, said you were weird, covered something about a dog serial killer?" Of course, I go four hours away and have to interview the one person that saw the worst segment of my life.

I realized that I wasn't getting anywhere with this girl so I furiously tapped out a text message to Greg. "What does a Reagan mask signify?" It said, and I just prayed that I could keep her busy until he got around to responding.

Meanwhile, she just kept right on talking. "So really, I'm meeting the dog serial killer reporter, my mom is going to laugh so hard!" It was strange, whenever she said something with strong emphasis she'd add a consonant sound to the end of her words, it was usually just adding to the sound that was already there, it was subtle but it gave her speech a unique intonation.

Greg must have been sitting by the phone, because she wasn't even onto her next frenetic subject before he texted back, though his response was broken into two parts. "It's what people from the Internet wear, you know, anonymously. If someone there is wearing one and you've met her, I'd get out. " Several seconds later. "Did you meet her? Is she just like she was online?!" The second one I would have to ignore, I'd retell the story later. I had bigger problems to worry about right now, like finding a way to cut her off, because she was already on to her next random subject that she felt the need to inform me about.

"So let me ask you one question, then I won't bother you any more. If you aren't who I'm looking for, why did you mention a mask? It's not like I would be robbing a convenience store and you'd be worried about that." I said, realizing that this was the longest she'd gone without talking the entire time I'd been there.

"Well, um..." She started, it was a pause that I'd heard a few times previously, you see, after a long enough time, reporters tend to get a sense of when people are lying-or at least looking for a more palatable answer than the truth.

"Fine, you've got me. But don't call me QueenBee, that was something I came up with a long time ago and I'd like to shake that whole handle entirely. I'm Ashley, nice to meet you. If you want to really hear my story, come back here at 9:30, that's half an hour before closing time, there won't be anyone here so I can really tell you what's happened."

***

As I walked out of the coffee shop and into the blinding sunlight, I realized that I'd actually been put on hold by a 16 year old. The first few notes of Hotel California came running through my phone again and to my own non-surprise, it was Greg, inevitably hoping that something had changed or that now I would be ready to reprise him of the situation.

"Cap! Did you really meet her? Is she as sexy in real life as she is on her videos?" Yep, it certainly was Greg, back to his creepy-but-in-an-amusing-way self.

"Greg, she's 16, you're twenty one years old man. But yes, I did meet her, and I couldn't comment on how sexy she was, but it was definitely QueenBee, her voice couldn't be mistaken by anyone, not that it's possible to follow what she's saying anyway. She's probably buying crank from that Thomas guy you sent me to." I said, trying to bring him back to earth and perhaps start to plant the seeds to advance my theory.

"Oh man, wouldn't that be sexy? We could call her the Ice Queen then, but anyway, I actually had a more important reason for calling." Greg's voice was returning back to normal, not that it ever sounded truly normal. "Ok, so people are really getting pissed about this, I'm seeing over two hundred videos responding to her, most of them involving people offering to put a ring on her finger and take her somewhere where the age-of-consent laws are more lax."

I was tired of this, I knew that people were in love with her, it wasn't surprising news, according to what I'd been told by Greg in the past, every few weeks there was a new person who got this famous overnight, their stars tended to burn fast and then they were back to obscurity, like it should be.

"Ok Greg, I'm not hearing anything that you haven't told me before. I thought you had new info." I said, trying to hear better, my phone's reception was not as good as it could have been.

He continued on, he sounded a little bit annoyed with my apathy. "Didn't I say I'd produce something good for you? I didn't mention the 400 videos that also respond to her but vow to find out where she lives, go to her house, cut her throat and post pictures online, they're saying she's a cancer that is ruining the internet." I couldn't even cut in now-he was in his element. "So that's what you're racing, because I've seen this before, if they get her information she will go underground, never post anything again, and that would be a true tragedy." It suddenly struck me that this, not space, was the final frontier, there are no regulations, no cops to prevent you from speeding on the internet, on here, at least, human nature could be as free and depraved as it wanted to be. Maybe we all got so tired of doing the crazy shit that picking on little girls sounded like a good idea, or at least, an interesting idea.

"It might be a tragedy for you, but this girl seems to despise her fame. It sounds like she wants out." I replied.

"Well you'd want out too if you had half of the Internet calling for your death. She's a celebrity and just can't handle it. Try to convince her to come back and make more videos! Tell her we all love her and that she defines what the Internet should be!" Greg was beginning to lose his credibility with me; this lack of compassion was uncharacteristic of him.

"Yeah, I'm sure when she's hiding from half the world she'll be sure to put amusing people on video sites really high on the priority list," I said sarcastically.

With that he hung up, presumably offended and probably not going to be much use to me in the future.

I continued to walk and wonder what to do with the several hours I had to kill until I was to go back and get the real story from Ashley. I stared down at the sidewalk as I unsurely walked back towards the heart of the city. I passed the bench on which I'd napped earlier and decided to take another break. It felt different than it had this morning. Was I really starting to give a shit about this girl? She got herself into this after all. But a part of me just kept reliving how confused she'd looked when I'd told her that she was a news story and that I'd like to interview her. We all like attention, but she was getting the worst kind, the kind of exposure that can be dangerous.

***

Four days ago, on the other side of St. Helena.

"Ethan! Get in here, kiddo, I need to ask you a question." I yelled at my little brother, hoping to bring him charging through the living room like he did so often, usually without me asking him to.

Right on time he came crashing in, flanked by our dog Porker who came in sliding on the hardwood floor, his toenails scratching behind him giving both my brother and Porker a bit of a drum roll to enter the living room behind. He looked at me questioning, what could I have to interrupt this most important time? He was supposed to be studying but it wasn't like I was about to rat him out. I pointed my computer monitor at him and turned up the speakers bringing the shrill voice to everyone's attention.

"Didn't you say this girl was in your history class last semester? Had some royalty complex?" I jabbed my index finger towards the screen.

"Yep! That's Ashley, we call her the quarterback of the hot girls, get it, Queen Bee? Q..B...?" His voice trailed off, I could tell he'd been hoping to elicit a laugh with that response. "Why are you watching a video of her talking? Didn't I tell you how hard it is to understand her in class? There's no way this is going to make sense..." He was continuing to talk but had not yet noticed that he wasn't saying anything, I'd flicked the speakers off again and he appeared to be in a trance, watching her rhythmically move back and forth as she talked. I was staring at him and he eventually came back to paying attention, blushing a bit.

"Same reaction I had" I said, "Bad situation, a man could say."

"So what, Steve? Some dumb girl has too much time on her hands, what difference does it make to you? You're in college now, don't you have better things to do?"

"Community college, like Dad loves to remind me, is not the same as regular college." I responded, beginning to tune him out. I pulled up her video again, reading through the comments. They were generally all the same, promising eternal love and devotion, I decided to add my own nugget of wisdom: "Sixteen will get you twenty, boys, keep that in mind when you're typing."

As he walked out of the shop I was still hiding behind my laptop's screen, hoping no one had heard what he'd been talking about. My newfound fame was not that of someone who'd gone to Hollywood and had been picked up for a guest spot on a sitcom, it had gone straight through the honeymoon period and I'd just picked up all the stalkers on the way.

Looking back at the screen all I could see was my face staring back at me, I was looking at one of my videos. The hit count was so large that I couldn't even believe it, could people really have looked at this video 600,000 times? It was ridiculous.

I was staring at my video, watching it over and over, trying to understand what made people so crazy about me when I heard a voice run over the crackle of my headphones.

"You want a free refill?" It said

I looked up and there was a barista, staring at me, bored. I realized that the guy who'd called himself Capto had left his empty coffee cup at my table. What the hell, it was free, why not. I handed her the cup, which had been facing away from me, clearly not something that I'd paid for, she looked at me scornfully, as though she hoped I'd reject the offer.

Upon receiving my complimentary cup of coffee I went back to staring at the screen. My account had been locked out for a few hours but it was back now. People were now subscribing to my videos faster than I'd even thought possible, it would have been funny had some of the comments not been so downright scary. They said things alluding to me now being the queen of the Internet generation. I suppose I'd always hoped to be included in lists with Bob Dylan, but now those hours of practice on the guitar just seemed like wasted time.

I didn't know what exactly to do now. Most of my accounts were back up, but a few were not. My social platforms were completely down, either from volume of traffic to them or from someone getting my password. Who knows? I started clicking around and found a video entitled "Dear QueenBee." Watching the video I was confused, it was a middle-aged man talking to me in an agitated tone of voice. He was telling me that I was screwing up his Internet experience and to please never make a video again...I'd seen him before, and the refrain was not new either.

For a moment I thought about what I'd told that reporter. Was I really prepared to give a TV crew my life story? Was I really prepared to let the world know exactly what was going on inside of my head? It was too much to think about at the moment, the caffeine was kicking in and I was all ready to make my grand exit from the online stage.

"Hi everyone! This is QueenBee! Now I know there are a lot of questions that need to be asked right now. I'll try to get to them one by one. First, am I going away? Probably! I don't like stalkers, and that's what I've gotten! By the way, do you think the words stalk and skulk are related somehow? I bet they are, they kind of mean the same thing...hey! Why don't we start using the word 'skulk' more? That would be fun! It would be like a little inside joke between all of us and no one else would get it! That would be fun. But on to the next question! I had someone ask me to marry them...more like a lot of people! But really, no thank you. But I do love all of you! Thank you so much for defending me..."

I did not know what would become of this. Within moments of finishing my video and posting it online there were hundreds of comments and several videos responding to what I'd said.

"You will die, QueenBee, you've messed with the wrong people. The wrong people." Said a voice emanating from a shadowed figure, only the dark outline of his Reagan mask was visible. He let shine a reflection into the camera, it was glinting off the knife he held low by his side, a subdued threat but unsettling nonetheless.

I stared at the video, it was only 15 seconds long but it seemed like an eternity when that reflection came out. Suddenly everything in the room was gone, the earthy smell of coffee was history, and the slow hum of keyboards being tapped vigorously was now nonexistent. I stared and I was afraid, there were people with knives and they wanted me to stop making videos online for my friends.

I felt a small tear hanging near the top of my nose and I realized that somewhere, I'd crossed a line. Something I'd done had been too much, maybe I was too cheerful, or maybe this was bad luck, someone had found my video and thought it was funny.

***

"Hey. Newsman. You want a story?" I had drifted off to sleep again, this time it was a voice that woke me up.

"Depends on what the story's about." I said, furiously turning around trying to find the source of the voice.

"How about a girl that's so stupid, she can't even hide effectively?" He replied, and with that, I realized who was talking, it all made sense. It was a figure walking towards me wearing a Reagan mask. I realized that Thomas had said I wasn't the only one looking for QueenBee. Though to be fair, this figure wasn't terribly intimidating, and it was utterly unclear why he was wearing the mask, all I'd have to do was take it off him.

"You know, I don't think that would make a very good news story, why don't you run along home?" I said, wondering if he had any more people. He had planned this well, walking in from the west so the setting sun would obscure all but the most basic details about him, only his shadowy silhouette was clear through the blinding sunlight.

"Well you should at least hear our side of the story. Give you a nice...balanced look at this very delicate, very important issue." He seemed to smirk, even with his hidden face he knew that I'd have to listen to him if I wanted a better story.

"Fine. Sit down and tell me your side." I said, not even bothering to flick on my voice recorder.

He sat, pulling out a cell phone and beginning to tap on the screen, sending out a text message or something as I began to think of other things. My mysterious interviewee starting to talk snapped me back to reality.

"Back before she was famous, everything was well in the Internet. By that I mean up until four days ago. Everyone was getting along, well, as much as they can. But then someone found this video. It didn't seem like it would even get replies when they posted it. It was a simple challenge, watch the video and don't get pissed off. Some of us could beat the challenge...most of us fell in love. I was not one of those who fell in love, but I wasn't pissed off until she became the main topic of debate."

This was insanity. I had always imagined that my most important story would be reporting from some war-torn battlefield deep in Africa, or perhaps on a natural disaster that had affected a few thousand people. But I was actually getting something that affected ten times more people, albeit in more of an emotional and less of a tragic way. This was my big story, and I was going to give it some real gusto. He continued to tell me what he knew.

"You see, the Internet culture is just that, it's a culture, there are rules and if those rules are not abided by, the culture ceases to be. She is not part of it, she'll never be a part of the culture." He was speaking, but not making a lot of sense. If you asked me, if someone was this important then they were a part of the culture and to deny that would be just silly.

"But so many people are saying that she defines the culture, what of that? If she doesn't define it what makes her so special?" I asked.

"She defines what those 13 year olds want the culture to be. They want to tone the uncensored, raw insanity of the culture down; do you know what you can get away with on those message boards? We've caused massive mayhem all over the world but the best thing they can think of to do with that power is focus on a cute girl with a webcam, and that's just stupid." Come to think of it, he actually sounded a bit older than I'd thought at first, maybe in his early twenties.

"She came onto the scene and it was just mayhem. We like mayhem and chaos to be thrown at other places, not at us. We've never been rocked this hard by something that a bunch of fucking kids that did not understand the rules forced on us. It's not really her fault, she was just too cute for any of them to resist, now most of it is just people who think it's funny but some of us don't, she did more than start a civil war on our favorite websites, she stuck her tongue out at us, taunting us"

"So let me ask you a question, there, Reagan. Are you one of the people who claim to have her personal information?" I knew this answer, but I'd like to see how he responded.

"Of course I have her personal information, I live in this town, it's not that big of a place, news gets around eventually. How do you think we've managed to keep her from resurfacing? I assume you've got someone telling you that she got her accounts hacked or something. Well she did, but that's not how people got her personal information. Shit, who puts that on the web in the first place? No. I am the person who has her information, no one else, just me." He seemed finished, and a little excited to be telling someone about his grandeur. Even if that grandeur was cloaked under a mask.

"What're you going to do with that information?" I said, hoping he had a human side.

"Not a damned thing." He laughed as he continued, "I'm not going to do a fucking thing, but this is a big city, just because I don't see any point to ruining her life doesn't mean that someone else who's encountered her won't see it differently. Personally I think this is the culmination of the Internet culture falling on its ass, and I'm just about tired of it. I thought this would bring back some semblance of the old days, when people got screwed over and we got called terrorists by the media."

"It hasn't brought the old days back? You seem to be terrorizing someone quite well." I quizzically asked.

"We're terrorizing a 16-year old anime fan who likes eyeliner. It's really not that exciting. If she had actually done something to deserve all this then I might find it more interesting. But as it is, I'm tired of dealing with it, she's old news as far as I'm concerned and I'm going to treat her as such" He was growing bored and began to slump over, the mask began to slip off revealing a patchy beard growing in red on his chin he spoke like someone much past his years, maybe Internet time makes you age faster.

"Well I suppose that's your prerogative, not to take any action, probably a good decision as well. Thanks for the other side of this story; though it's not really the other side, it's just a different side. Seems like everybody's got their own opinion about this stuff." I said, standing up as it seemed that the conversation had taken it's natural end.

I walked away, and as I did, I looked back to see him still sitting there, still wearing that Reagan mask, presumably until I'd gotten out of sight. He looked a bit forlorn, as though he'd tipped his hand in a poker game too early.

***

I walked, unsure of my destination. The street seemed endless as I continued to pass small boutiques and art shops where suburbia meets the city. Occasionally I would yawn and mistaking my hand for an attempt to flag them down, a taxi driver would see me and pull over to my side of the road. I always knew that they were cursing me under their breath when I told them that I didn't need a ride-that I was just yawning, but I didn't care. I had more on my mind than trivial things.

I finally stopped walking when I saw the St. Helena public library. It was time to find some better background information on Ashley. "After all," as I sometimes imagined one of my photos of Cronkite saying, usually in my father's voice, "a good reporter is always prepared." It was time to answer some questions of my own and prepare some for her.

The library was rather sleepy; it was a Saturday night after all. I sat down at an open computer terminal and was greeted with a "Sign In Please" prompt. Frustrated because I didn't have a library card, I walked over to the librarian and asked if she could let me slide on one of the computers.

"You see I'm a reporter, and I'm doing a story about something on the Internet which is happening here, so if you could see yourself to helping me out and logging me in, I'd really appreciate it."

She looked at me for a moment, as though she was considering it. Then I thought about myself, I probably looked haggard as hell, the carefully applied gel in my short hair was all but gone, and I had five o'clock shadow creeping onto my face. By god I looked like the ghost of reporters past. To be fair, however, she wasn't much better. She looked like the stereotype of a librarian. A woman in her early 60s with short hair and coke-bottle glasses, I'd always thought that the people who wore those looked like owls, though she looked friendly, with kind eyes but holding a watchful gaze over me.

"You're talking about Ashley, aren't you? That's what the report is about, isn't it?" She finally replied, sadly looking at the ground and shaking her head. "Before you ask, yes, I know her. She's been coming here ever since she could walk. First it was with her mother, but when she was older, she'd come in here after school and read until we had to close down. Such a smart girl always read the strangest books though; when she got older she got more into comic books. You know, the ones from Japan that you read backwards?" I nodded, as though I knew what these mysterious comic books were. "Haven't seen her in a while, but I suppose that's what you're doing your report on."

"Yes, she's the subject of my report. How did you guess?" I asked.

"Well everyone's seen her online, she's made quite a name for herself. There was even a little bit of chatter about her doing an interview with one of the biggest names in Internet reporting, which I suppose is you." She continued, laughing, "On her video share site of course, but I never believe it. Not Ashley, she was too smart to get caught up in the stupidity of a thousand anonymous voices whispering sweet nothings in her ear."

With that, she walked to the nearest computer terminal and typed in her password, once the page was booted up she vacated the chair and made a motion towards it with her hand.

"Can you do me a favor?" She asked.

I nodded, knowing exactly what she was about to ask.

"Please don't ruin this girl's life by putting her name and face on television just so your station can make a few quick dollars off the ratings. You know how quickly these things die. She will be old news in three days, I'm just asking you to drop this whole story, I'll be surprised if she even feels safe enough to go outside of her house by the time this ordeal is over." She concluded with a lone tear escaping the clutches of her eye.

I stared; this was not what I'd expected. I'd been anticipating her asking me to give her a little airtime, maybe be able to ask for money to be donated to the library, I was not used to seeing someone really looking out for the best interest of this girl. I looked at the floor, knowing that I could never deliver on this favor. She was asking something of me that I simply could not do. "I have an ethical obligation to report the facts as I found them." I justified, the ramifications were not my problem.

Seeing my cowardice at the face of her request, she quietly retreated behind the librarians' table and picked up a book. Though as I sat down to the computer, I could still see her peeking over the top of the book, she was looking to see if I'd changed my mind. A search engine was brought up. I typed in "QueenBee" into it and ran the search.

The hits were staggering. 400,000 and she hadn't even been famous for a week. I stared at the first link that showed up. I was brought to a message board. Though to call it a message board would be an incredible understatement. This was a QueenBee board, or so it seemed. Her picture was everywhere, and things seemed frenetic. I saw a link for a "live chat" with the posters on the site. This seemed like a good way to pick up more information so I clicked the link.

This was nothing like a typical chat room, no one was known by any sort of name, instead they were all given the same handle: "Anon"

"No man, fuck that chick, she's ruining our good name. No true Anon would ever fall victim to something this stupid." One person wrote, incredulously. It seemed that I was a guest to this club, so I would simply watch the drama unfurl.

"That's just because you're ignorant. She's a goddess, she's giving us something that the web has been missing." Another "Anon" shot back, easily setting himself up for what came next.

"Has the web been missing the annoying lately? Because if you're here, we can get rid of her." There was no way to know who exactly was talking. It was a conglomerate hive mind, completely anonymous and growing more and more excited by the moment.

I exited the chat room, knowing full well that if I had started asking questions, it would have been a short while until they realized that I was not one of them and became agitated. "It's always better to leave than to be thrown out," my father had once said after quitting his job before they could fire him for coming in drunk three days in a row.

On returning to my original search I became aware that the librarian from before was now standing over my shoulder, staring down at my computer screen.

"Okay, listen." She said, suddenly bearing a newfound passion. "If you're going to exploit that little girl so you can get a new car, you'd better give a fair story. You aren't one of those tabloid reporters who grabs at the first piece of gossip that he finds, are you?"

I looked up, surprised that she even had the energy to make a speech such as that at her age. I hurriedly stood up, feigning offense.

"I most certainly am not. I'm not interested in some tabloid story, only what's really happening because this story is simply too fascinating to pass up." I wasn't really upset, I felt sorry for all the people involved in this mess.

"I may not be able to request more of you, but this isn't just about your report, or even the facts. Because you and I both know that there is something a little bit more important than the bare facts here. This is a story that will make your career, and you don't care who has to pay for this rise to the top." It sounded like a Perry Mason speech; she was really in righteous indignation top form.

I was done feigning offense, this time I was actually offended. Though to be fair, it was nothing I had not heard before, newsmen were not the most admired members of society, most people put our moral compasses right above trial lawyers and slightly below Congressmen. But with that, I was tired of doing this research that really got me nowhere, I was now only an hour away from my arranged meeting with Ashley, and I felt like I should prepare some questions to avoid freezing up and wasting time.

It was six blocks to the coffee shop from the library. I now had thirty minutes to walk those six blocks. Starting to trudge along, I spotted another fellow wearing a Reagan mask; he was sitting on a sewer drain, holding an internet-phone. I approached slowly; making sure it wasn't the same Anonymous man that I'd talked to before.

"What're you lookin' at, tool?"

"Another Anonymous that wants to be famous?" I asked, hoping to bait him.

"Heard about your little report. If you think I'm gonna give you a sound byte you are sorely mistaken. I'm loyal to the end." His words reeked of whiskey, though by the cracks in his voice he couldn't have been more than 20 years old.

"Ok, you don't want to talk to me, that's fine. Just answer me one question. Why are you drunk sitting here on a sewer drain on a Saturday night?"

"I'm about to get famous!" It was a familiar refrain from a drunk; unwarranted feelings of self-importance were like a disease to alcoholics.

As I walked away from the kid, I noticed that he wasn't carrying anything else. "Must have gotten drunk at home." I thought. The librarian's words were still fresh in my mind walking away from this pathetic sight. If she could see the antics Ashley's videos had caused she probably would not have believed it herself.

"Wait, I got one thing to say to the media." He called after me.

"Yeah? What's that?"

"Your time is over, we've changed this world while you sit on the sidelines reporting on something that began, ran its course and ended days ago, you think you're covering breaking news right now? This shit is as good as over."

"Oh really? How do you figure?"

"If everyone's doing their job right, her websites should still be down, and she should be getting the message that she's not wanted within the hour." Putting on a fake air of importance he looked back to the screen and started typing, inevitably updating his buddies online as to the status of their operation.

My phone was ringing again, I was only two blocks from the coffee shop with fifteen minutes to spare, so I slowed my brisk walk and ducked into an alley to take the phone call.

"Capto? You lunatic! What in the hell is wrong with you?" It was Greg and he was clearly unhappy with something more than how we'd ended our last conversation. "You antagonized one of them? Really? Are you not getting it or are you just an idiot? You cannot antagonize these people. Guess what! The guy who you talked to? Yeah, he recognized you" My call waiting started to beep. "Your contact info is now all over the web. Have you gotten any phone calls yet?" The answer to that question seemed apparent.

"I suppose that my call waiting beeping isn't the escort you hired for me then, is it?" I said, knowing that I'd now have to change my phone number and e-mail address. "All right Greg, thanks for the heads up, I'll go talk to my fans now." I hit the button and the other call came through.

"Are you trying to get with our queen? We do not appreciate that." It was a disguised voice, he was probably talking through a hollowed out two liter bottle filled with newspaper.

"We? Who are we? This is just you, isn't it? A sad little boy from the suburbs, tired of getting pushed around on the playground and wanting to feel power again." I said and hung up.

Walking towards the coffee shop, I stared at the suburban sprawl once again. It had a certain post-modern appeal, in that much like its teenage residents, it forced irony upon the onlooker. The streets were not named in the urban fashion but had hip nature-themed names, "Meadow Wood Street," "Stone Creek Avenue" and the like. To think, I lived on a street so blandly named 16th.

My phone started to ring again and I looked at the caller ID, it was from a private number. I clicked the ignore button and forgot about it. However no sooner did I press ignore than it began to ring again. Then I noticed that my text message indicator was blinking, but when trying to get to the inbox, I could not, it kept reloading every second, my storage for messages literally closed up and quit after two minutes of a steady stream of text messages. I finally turned the phone off, realizing that there was nothing I could do and the calls would probably continue all night.

It was only one more block to where I was supposed to meet Ashley when I felt a hand softly touch my shoulder. It was a terrifying touch, soft enough that had I not been spinning with paranoia I would have ignored. I whipped around, holding back a cocked fist ready for whoever wanted my attention.

She withdrew, pulling her frail arms back to her body and covering her face, silently begging me not to hit her. It was Ashley, at least, I thought it was, her appearance had changed since I talked to her last. Her makeup was gone, she had put on a plain white t-shirt and her hair was hidden beneath a black bandana. She was less of a ball of energy now, the fierce intensity that had so radiated from her eyes earlier was gone, and she was now calm, acting cautiously. It was then I remembered something my father had always said. He said, "You don't even have to talk to people, Wayne, all you have to do is look into their eyes, there's nothing dishonest in a person's eyes." In an instant, I could see what she was feeling. Alone, confused, certainly scared.

"What the hell are you doing in an alley? Weren't we supposed to meet at that coffee shop?" I asked, dropping my fist and looking around suspiciously.

"I think someone knew me there. Can we just walk while you do this interview?" She said. I had not noticed it before but she very rarely looked me in the eye when she was talking, usually focusing downward in a melancholic stare.

We began to walk quietly down the street, the air was heavy with humidity and the hum of the occasional passing car gave the imitation of a movie's score. She was walking slowly, her feet dragging on the ground with her platinum blonde hair falling out of the bandana and slumping lazily against her neck. I quietly waited for what would happen next, it was part of my training to know when to keep my mouth shut, when a person was trying to speak but couldn't get the pain out of their throat.

"Before we start let me ask you a question." She had a bit of the old glint back in her eyes, as though she was definitely up to something. "Describe in the most optimistic way possible, what you do for a living."

"I...uh" I started "I suppose I search for truth, and I explain the truth to people." She smiled at my response and began to nod.

"Yes, you find the truth, but what makes you so different than all these guys in masks that want to marry or kill me? They're searching for the truth too."

I was a little stunned, unsure of what I should say in the situation. "I'm not here by choice, and I don't want to make it harder on you than it is, but people want to know about you! I can give them the truth." Imploring her, it did not feel good.

"It's not enough any more, it's not enough to be cognizant of the truth, you yourself are going to have to do something, if you really want to help me." She delivered her punch line with sincerity, pulling on my emotions. I didn't know how I'd feel...maybe I'd just decide later, get the story now, I began to rationalize because at least now I'd know the story and be able to make a better decision on how to handle it. Or so I thought.

"What do you want to know about me?" She asked

"I just want to know who you are and what has made you so famous."

"Who I am? How would I know that? I'm still a kid. I'm from here, I've never been out of the state, my mom works at a bank and my dad is a marketing executive at some business. Quite a welcome this is for a queen. They either want to kill you or they want to fuck you, kind of says something about people, doesn't it?" Her cheerfulness was gone, the rapid-fire succession of her answers was no more and she was speaking deliberately now.

"I suppose this is a stupid question, but did you mean to get famous?" I realized that my voice recorder was not on, and struggled to find it in my bag. I looked at her as I pulled it out of my bag, and immediately returned it. This conversation didn't need to be repeated.

"Did I want to be famous? Who would choose fame like this? I get all the parts of fame that aren't fun, people following me, stalkers, no money and no real fans which I can imagine are the only good parts of being famous. If you could even call it that, queen of the Internet kids, quite a title. I'm not exactly Jay-Z. Besides, these 'fans' are ruining my life, my home phone number is on the Internet-it doesn't stop ringing...ever. So far we've just ignored it, but my mom says that she's going to take my laptop if it doesn't stop." Her walking had become slower, and her voice was getting quieter with each passing step.

Suddenly I heard a beeping. She looked startled and reached into her brown messenger bag, producing a cell phone.

"It's for emergencies, only my parents and my brother have this number, they got it for me because my normal cell phone is always dead, I guess my texting drains the battery. Something must be wrong." She stared at the caller ID.

"What?"

"I don't know this number, it's from a different area code." She slowly opened the phone and put the call on speakerphone.

"Queenbee?" It was a voice, disguised the same way that the one who'd called me had been. "Your time is up"

"How did you get this number? I don't use this number. My time is up? Your time is up." She shut the phone and threw it to me, the frustration with her situation apparent.

"So I assume that since you're all plugged in to the buzz now that you know what will be happening tomorrow?" She was kind of asking, clearly looking for a way to avoid talking about the call that had just transpired. However, I was unaware of any happenings tomorrow.

She took my shaking head to be an invitation for a story, "Tomorrow is the day, they'll be coming here."

"Who will be?"

"My...fans." She said, slowly.

Her phone began to ring again, and she scanned the caller ID, perking up when she saw a familiar name, she answered the call and put it on speakerphone, it would seem that I was to be a witness to the insanity now.

"Ashley? It's Mitchell, well..." She looked over to me and whispered:

"A girl from my class, a friend."

"Well...you see, the thing is, I kind of know what's happening to you, I feel a little responsible..." The girl continued, she was speaking through tears and stopped occasionally to sob, Ashley remained stone-faced, I tried to comfort her by putting my hand on her shoulder.

"What did you do?" She asked the girl on the phone.

"Well you see there was this boy...and he said he'd really liked my blog and...I'm sorry..." She continued to cry, unable to finish her sentence. "He just wanted information about you, he kept asking me, I only told him a little bit! Showed you that picture of you and I together in front of your house, and somehow he just figured out your address I think."

I covered one end of the phone and whispered "Your fans, they have a leader."

"I swear, I really didn't mean to, Ashley, I'm so sorry..." Her voice faded out and Ashley closed the phone, still absorbing what had been said. She looked around, as though scanning for unfriendly people and I saw her face change. She had been turned to survival mode, putting away her grief for now and only concerned with avoiding the notoriety that she'd found herself thrust into.

"It's time to spread the disinformation." She started. "This interview is over, but you can help if you want."

***

Thirty-four hours later

"...she'd had death threats, wedding proposals," I was on autopilot again, speaking in a monologue tone as I droned on "I was unable to locate or even find word of the now-infamous Queenbee, as she'd been referred to on the internet. There had been some information given as to her location being in St. Helena, where I was dispatched to; however, upon arriving and trying to run down information on her I continuously came up empty handed and ultimately was informed by a source that she had lived here, but only for a while and was now living somewhere else, the source would not say where she currently lives."

"Well I think that is absolute bullshit, Capto. What was your research assistant so god damned excited about all day for the past week about then? He looks like you seriously let him down with that report." The boss said, casting an eye towards Greg who sat in the corner, upset that I had not told him about this ahead of time.

"What can I say? The sources I had didn't know anything." I winked at Greg; to be honest I'd simply forgotten to tell him in the rush of getting back home. They hadn't even let me unpack anything or even go home before I told them what I'd found out in search of the girl. He slyly smiled, catching the signal and hoping that I'd tell him what really happened, before quickly reverting to a frown in case anyone would see.

"We'll discuss this later, get out of here." With that, I was dismissed, probably so he could fume and consider firing me. I walked out of the office and down the stairs, leading out to the street. Greg was following quickly behind me, hoping that now would be the time that I would reveal to him why on earth I'd ruined such a great story that probably would have gotten us both some much-appreciated recognition and maybe a little ill-gotten fame.

We walked a few blocks east, until the TV station was nowhere to be seen, I walked inside of a small deli with free Wi-Fi, soon, Greg appeared behind me, he looked different now, he was patient, inquisitive, and actually seemed ready to listen instead of simply talking.

I ordered a sandwich, and sat down with it, pulling out my laptop to show Greg what I was about to tell him. It would probably need to have as much impact as I could give it. Hopefully his love of this girl could be used for the proposal I was about to suggest.

"Greg, it's time for us to really get something going, do you want to be the stuff of legends? These are the good ol' days for the internet, it's the wild west out there, anonymous stalking and threatening will be banned and prosecuted soon, but I have an idea that can make us go down in this generation's history books, we're going to turn the tables on them."

"You're burying the story so we can get Internet famous instead? They would have tried to shut down the station website if you'd have done the story, that's what I was trying to tell you before you gave the report! I was hoping you'd have the good sense to not go after these guys with your real name."

"Well that came into consideration too, I suppose, I was more kind of concerned that someone would go after her and I didn't want to be the one who gave that girl up for the masses to eat alive. Do you want to hear what she wants us to do?"

"I can't believe it, Wayne Capto, you've actually softened in your old age, helping a girl you hardly know above your career."

"Yeah well keep your fucking mouth shut about it, can't be having that get out" I said, what difference could it make now?

"Oh but yes, I definitely want to know what we 're going to do, I hope it's something I can help with."

"Oh it certainly is, we're going to have some fun with these boys. We're just going to bring them right to our own back yard for something of a presentation. And then what's going to happen, again?" I said, indicating towards my screen, Greg had not noticed that I'd brought up a video chat.

"It's going to be the stuff of legends." She finished.

Greg's eyes got wide as he realized the level of internet celebrity that was in the room telling him the plan. I continued to laugh as he sat shocked that he was privy to this.

"In one day, we go right back in there and she's going to make a video bringing them all here, and then we can get the last laugh."

"Where are you going to send them?"

"I thought the mall would be entertaining..." I began

"No," Ashley cut in, "My aunt has a house in Mt. Bravad, she never lives there though, send them there, it's isolated and it'll make a great video."

"I like it already." Greg said "What do we need to do?"

"You'll see." I said.

"Let's hear it guys, reaction to the new video." 4:45PM

"Click on that one!" Greg said.

"What about the other identical ones all over the site, Greg?" I replied, clicking anyway. I hit "Reply" and began to type, the campaign was on and it was time to show Greg what we'd be doing.

"We're organizing a team to meet at the Queen's house, 1337 Locust Street. In Mt. Bravad, we're bringing a peace offering to her and hoping that she'll make an appearance like she alluded to. Who is with us?" 4:48PM

"This is stupid, with all the activity these days who could trust it?" 4:49PM Came the first reply, mere moments after we posted in response.

"I'm only twenty miles away from Mt. Bravad, I'll be there (bringing presents) you guys!" 4:49PM Came the second, I could see Greg's face light up as he began to realize exactly how quickly we could get people to act ridiculous.

"Don't forget," I told him, "They'll mostly be wearing masks, so think of some fun things we could do with that, I refreshed the page again, scanning down the row of comments.

"I'll be there, who's down for burning down the Queen's house?!" 4:51PM Came the next comment, followed by several people referring to it, saying that they'd be there carrying gasoline or matches to help achieve the goal.

"Guys we have to be kind to the queen, she never asked for this and we only know where she lived because someone tricked her friend! She never did anything to us and we need to give her privacy!" 4:52PM I pointed this out to Greg.

"He'll be there, I guarantee it." I said, and began to reply to it. "Part of this is discrediting anyone who's against the meeting in general." I continued.

"Look who's not down to ride, we'll be out having an epic Queen summit and you can stay indoors then, just keep trying to ruin the fun for everyone. Who else is with us? Bring flowers and don't forget to kneel, you faggots." 4:53PM I hit reply and sat back to wait, Greg had brought out his computer and began to do the same thing on a different website, of course the topic there was the same as where I was. I hit the refresh button and looked around, it was getting late in the sandwich shop and I was on my fourth cup of coffee, the least they'd let you buy and still sit around. I took another look at the page full of replies to what I'd said.

"She must die, everyone who's coming with a crowbar say aye." 4:55PM Came the next short one, there were a lot of replies like this, telling people to prepare for the epic battle that was coming. I chuckled a bit to myself, knowing that as tough as they talked, these kids would likely do nothing when it came to real life encounters as they had earlier when speaking to me.

"We're with you! I've got four people who can't wait to meet Ashley, we're bringing her a tiara." 4:56PM Was the next one, the level of weirdness just kept going up as the topic got more and more popular, with people referring to my comment in the affirmative numbering hundreds. Though there were a few holdouts who insisted that the girl did not in fact, live where we were saying she did but somewhere else, as though they too, may have been spreading disinformation for their own purposes.

"I never asked you, Cap." Greg looked at me. "What are we going to do when they all get there and they realize that she's not there?"

"We'll be waiting with a camera on top of the house, we're going to tape what they do and post it later." Ashley cut in again "Don't worry, Greg, when these guys have gotten called out into the real world before, the consequences have always been hilarious, they have no idea what they would do without the anonymity, believe me, hilarity will ensue, besides, I'll be there and we haven't even really met yet!"

"Watch it," I said to Greg, laughing, "I know you're only twenty one bud but she's still too young for you." He shoved me, I was making fun of his little crush and he didn't like it. But he liked being included so his smile was never too far. "Time to hang it up for the night, we'll pick it up first thing tomorrow morning now that I'm on unpaid leave." I said, still laughing.

We were alone now, Greg had left for the night, undoubtedly thrilled about the plan she'd thought up, I stood to congratulate her but noticed she was sitting quietly, no longer jubilant or speaking rapidly.

"You've got a plan, a good plan," I began, unsure of what to say.

"Is it really? Is any of this really worth it?" She started, obviously distraught. "I never asked for any of this, I'm not a celebrity, I'm America's girl next door, they all want just a little look, just one peek for the camera, and they're all insane and probably dangerous, I'm not even sure this is safe."

"They're powerless without their anonymity, you of all people know that." I said, hopelessly trying to assuage her legitimate fears. I squirmed in my chair, knowing that her position was really much worse than she was letting on. "Besides, this is the fame generation, who doesn't want to be known?"

"Not like this." She said, grasping for her words, "Fame is only fun if it's for something you've done, I haven't done anything but they're obsessed anyway, I never asked for this like real celebrities have."

"Did you really want to be left alone?" I felt I had to ask. She looked a little surprised that I'd actually asked and twisted up her nose as though the question was repugnant in and of itself.

"I really did, I want to be a teenager, man, not their queen, but that's something that I'll have to live with now, there's nothing I can do except live in this world they've created, and the thing they most want from their queen is only an appearance, I suppose it's a small price to pay, your privacy." She added, speaking as though she didn't believe the words as they spilled out of her mouth, they were only there to reassure me that the plan was still in motion.

***

Three days later, the day of the Queen's Summit.

"Nothing like the crisp air when you're high up in the sky, eh my man?" I said, elbowing Greg as we sat atop a suburban house in the middle of the familiar sprawl of houses and small yards, chain link fences and middle-aged men with beer guts mowing their small front lawns. None of them could see us though, we were actually at the top of a fairly tall house, the girl had chosen our location well, giving us plenty of sight lines to watch the masses show up.

"Did you think to call the cops to tell them that there may be some crazy shit happening here soon?" He said, looking out the other direction as I, looking at the maze of cross streets where a few kids not more than ten years old carried baseball bats on their bikes as they rode in the mid summer heat.

"Hasn't even crossed my mind, you know I am recording so maybe you could be a little more positive about what we're about to accomplish here? You need to consider an attitude adjustment and just wait until the girl gets here, she's bringing the sign she made, will that cheer you up?"

He lit up like the first time he'd mentioned all this to me, knowing that his dream of meeting an Internet celebrity would come true soon. He saw her before I did, climbing up the side of the house as she threw up the sign she'd made. He carefully moved over to where she was climbing up to reach down and help her up. She was dressed elegantly now, with long white pants and a flowing, bright purple shirt, covered closely by a large faux-gold necklace.

"Glad to see both of you, let's hope we get a good turnout today!" She said as Greg pointed the camera towards her, that was his job today, to hold the camera while I sat back and watched., occasionally providing commentary." Look at that! It looks like we already have a group of them coming! They're all wearing the masks! Every last one of them is dressed in black, too, it's a little creepy, you guys even have to admit it!" She was talking fast again in true enjoyment of the situation she'd created. "They look weird! I wonder what most of them are really hoping is going happen here! It seems so silly to think about..."

The group approached the house that we were sitting on top of, we were safely hidden behind a corner, watching and taping what they'd do, the group was about six strong but aside from that, they were all unidentifiable, walking in a crowd like some bizarre street gang. I could see that none of them were carrying weapons, only phones and cameras; I reached over and touched Greg on the arm, getting his attention.

"See I told you they wouldn't come armed, none of them are confrontational people, it's why they make threats on the Internet."

He reached into his pocket, regretting the day he'd bet me that the first to show would be carrying something that we'd have to go down and grab so they couldn't cause problems. There were more coming and some were bringing flowers, I could see a few of their faces, they had not all come anonymously, some had actually showed up with their real faces. "Even better" I started, "Point the camera towards their faces!" I said, indicating where I meant.

The few whose faces I could see simply looked like regular teenagers, average kids wearing shorts and t-shirts, some of them carried flowers and I even a few holding tiaras. I Looked to Ashley and began:

"You never know what this will bring but it looks like we got lucky, ready for some fun?" She looked back to me and began to unroll the large sign she'd made with poster board. She pointed it towards the gathered crowd of onlookers, some of which had started to try opening the door, which of course we'd locked.

"You all have been trolled by the best" said the sign. I whistled loudly, grabbing everyone's attention and they looked up at the sight before them, she'd slipped on a tiara covered in red rhinestones and was simply smiling at the crowd assembled before her.

She blew kisses at her fans and I began to narrate for the video "In regards to the Queen..."

***

Stage Settings

-One Laptop computer (with webcam)

-Computer sits on a small desk with office chair.

-Larger table (with legs) directly behind desk and chair, in view of the webcam.

Characters:

-Linsee - 15-16 year old girl, often found sitting at this desk in front of the laptop.

-Voices - Anonymous, nameless, legion, coming out of the computer.

Open, Linsee at desk, waving into webcam, projections onto a screen denoting "Viewers: 193"

Male Voice: Fine, if you won't show tits then you're going to have to do something else.

Linsee: Fine!

Male Voice 2: The table leg!

Female Voice: Yeah! Rub against the leg if you want to really be famous!

Male Voice: Good idea! The leg of the table it is, unless you're too afraid to do this, I mean, we can go watch some other feed.

Linsee dejectedly steps down off the chair and sits with her knees on the floor, still typing on the computer, hoping for some other way. Viewer count increases to 245

Male Voice 3: What are you waiting for? Get to it!

Linsee: Are you going to upload it? You'd better upload it!

Male Voice: I already told you, we'll upload it as soon as you do something interesting.

Female Voice 2: Too afraid to do this?

Linsee: I'm...I'm not scared, you'd just better upload it because I want this show to be for the whole internet not just you guys.

Male Voice 2: Start taking your clothes off or do something else to maintain our interest.

Linsee slowly starts rubbing against the table leg, slowly at first but getting into it. She looks longingly into the camera. Continues to rhythmically rub against the table leg throughout the scene. Voter count begins to drop, slowly at first but quickly as nothing develops.

Male Voice: There you go, girl, good job. What do you want?

Linsee: (panting) I...I want to be humiliated!

Male Voice 2: Damn right you do! What else do you want!

Linsee: I..want people to see this! Oh god...

Female Voice: Take those clothes off, bitch! Get naked if you want to be famous!

Male Voice 3: Do it!

Linsee: No.

Male Voice: It'll be better for the upload if you do.

Linsee: Is it online yet?

Male Voice 2: No.

Linsee: Damn it, put it up! I want this on the internet! (Screeching) I want people to see this!

Male Voice 3: Then get naked

Linsee: (angrily) No!

Female voice: You won't get famous this way; you have to be completely naked.

Male Voice: Oh, keep going with that girl, it'll work just fine.

Viewer count continues to dwindle, dropping eventually to 2 and staying there. Linsee looks to the projection as she continues to thrust against the table in a futile effort to capture their attention, as she realizes that there will be no more upticks in her viewership she drops her head to the floor, weeping.

Male Voice: It's online.

/scene

###

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