Story code: ST-000013
Part 2: Viral Reality
The man with the microphone motioned for the cameraman to follow, and they began walking purposefully toward her closed driver-side window.
Chloe instinctively slammed her palm down on the door lock button, even though she knew all four doors were already secured. The heavy, mechanical clunk of the mechanisms engaging offered no real comfort against the encroaching lens. The reporter-a man in a sharp blue suit with perfectly styled hair-tapped his bare knuckles against the driver’s side glass. The boom operator positioned the gray foam microphone inches from the roof of her sedan, angling it down to catch any muffled sound she might make.
“Chloe! Chloe, can we get a statement?” the reporter shouted, his voice easily penetrating the thin safety glass. “Care to explain why a sociology professor was filmed attacking a senior citizen?”
Her breath fogged the cold window. *Attacking?* The word echoed in her mind, completely detached from reality. She stared through the glass at the glowing red recording light of the camera, finally piecing together the twisted narrative they had constructed from the cropped protest video.
Yesterday afternoon, an elderly counter-protester had stumbled backward off the plaza curb, dropping his thick aluminum cane. The crowd had surged forward, completely oblivious to the man on the ground. Chloe had thrown herself into the gap, grabbing the discarded metal cane and hoisting it up to keep it from being trampled, using her other hand to brace her weight against the pushing bodies so the old man could get his bearings. The video had stripped away the fallen man, the curb, and the surging crowd, leaving only a tight, silent loop of Chloe stepping forward with a metal club raised high. Her teeth were bared in an expression of intense physical strain that the internet had seamlessly rebranded as pure, violent rage.
“Are you aware the man you threatened is a disabled veteran?” the reporter yelled, leaning closer, pressing his palm flat against her window. “Did the administration fire you, Chloe? Is that why you were locked out just now?”
She pressed her back against the headrest, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird. If she rolled down the window to explain, they would only capture a hysterical, defensive soundbite. They didn’t want the truth; they wanted content.
Behind the reporter, another vehicle pulled into the lot, tires squealing sharply against the cold asphalt. A rusty red pickup truck jerked to a halt at a severe angle, blocking the next row of parking spaces. A teenager in a heavy winter coat jumped out of the passenger side, instantly raising his smartphone in front of his face. He wasn’t a journalist; he was just someone who had seen her location posted online.
“That’s her!” the teenager shouted, sprinting across the pavement. “She’s still here!”
Chloe checked her rearview mirror. The black SUV was still parked diagonally behind her bumper, cutting off her only path in reverse. The reporter pounded on the glass again, harder this time, his professional demeanor slipping into aggressive entitlement. The teenager reached the front of her sedan, completely ignoring the professional news crew, and began live-streaming himself standing in front of her hood, pointing excitedly at her terrified face behind the windshield.
Another car turned into the lot. Then a fourth. The digital mob was rapidly bleeding into the physical world, drawn by the viral coordinates of her workplace.
She had to get out. Right now.
Chloe grabbed the gear shift and threw it into drive. She gripped the leather steering wheel, her knuckles turning bone-white. The only way out was forward, over the raised concrete curb and through the college’s manicured landscaping median. She slammed her foot down on the accelerator.
The sedan’s engine roared, protesting the sudden flood of gas. The heavy front tires slammed into the concrete curb with a violently jarring thud. The front of the car pitched upward, throwing Chloe hard against her seatbelt. The teenager by the hood shrieked, scrambling backward onto the asphalt to avoid the rising bumper. The reporter jumped away from the door, his polished shoes slipping on the icy pavement as he dragged the microphone operator with him.
The sedan’s undercarriage scraped sickeningly against the concrete, a horrific sound of tearing metal and dragging exhaust pipes. Chloe kept her foot pinned to the floor. The car surged over the obstruction, plunging into the thick juniper bushes of the median. Branches snapped and whipped against the windshield, scattering dirt and bark across the hood. She bounced violently over the far edge of the median, the front tires slamming back down onto the adjacent access road.
She didn’t stop. She jerked the wheel to the right, aligning the car with the exit lane, and sped toward the main boulevard, leaving the bewildered reporter and the growing crowd of live-streamers shrinking in her rearview mirror. Her hands shook so violently she could barely maintain her grip on the steering wheel. She needed to get back to her apartment, pack a bag, and drive to her sister’s house three states away. She could figure out legal representation and defamation suits from there.
Her phone, resting upside-down in the cup holder, began to vibrate intensely, a continuous, unbroken buzz that rattled the plastic console.
She reached down and flipped it over, glancing at the screen while keeping one eye on the traffic light ahead. It wasn’t a social media notification. It was a text message from Mrs. Gable, the sweet elderly woman who lived across the hall from her apartment.
*Chloe dear, do not come home,* the message read. *There are angry people in the lobby asking for your apartment number. A man with a megaphone is in the courtyard. I deadbolted my door. Please be safe.*
Chloe slammed on the brakes as the traffic light turned red. The tires skidded slightly on the morning dew. The safety of her apartment was gone. Her workplace had locked her out. The entire city was hunting for the woman with the raised metal cane. She stared at the endless stream of brake lights stretching down the boulevard, completely cut off from every safe harbor she knew, as a new notification popped up-a photo taken mere seconds ago, showing her gray sedan with its scraped front bumper, accompanied by a caption broadcasting her current license plate to millions.