were willing to take on Jordi’s tasks a little more meaningfully. Managing to sneak past campus security, Silvestro Di Maria, an Italian national always happy to take online talk of destruction from the hypothetical into the real world, found himself in front of the CIS power grid with a crowbar. Somewhere else in the world, Charles Reiber, armed with a computer and a team of fellow misogynist hackers more than happy to watch a teenage girl fail, took aim at local cell towers.
* * *
Students noticed the Wi-Fi’s failure first.
Those still inside classrooms started feeling the stifling heat when the fans died out, those damn window slits doing nothing to keep them cool. They looked up from their disobedient phones, starting to sweat, despite the rain outside. Oh, well, they thought, cell data it would be.
But their phones showed spinning wheels, trying to connect but failing. Mrs. Wu smacked the side of her computer, trying to coax it back into internet range, a move no one had attempted in around twenty years. She looked out at her classroom, scanning for which one of the students was to blame.
Outside, reporters huddled beneath umbrellas took note of the network issues, then trained their sights on the building, cupping their hands around their eyes as they pressed their faces up to the glass. They noticed the lights were off, noticed a handful of kids plugged into outlets jiggling the wires and trying to coax the power back, as if it were just a naughty pet that had run away.
It’d been a busy morning for the reporters, exciting, all things considered. They’d liked this story back when it had started and when it had been assigned to more senior correspondents. They were glad it was them who got to provide occasional updates the past few days, when interest had waned. So it was them to whom the job had fallen back when the injury happened. At first they only had Zaira Jacobson’s post to go off of, but they were sent to the school, anyway, to stand in the rain and wait.
Then the dramatic turn: the painkillers arriving. It was the smoke that pointed to the fire: someone actually was hurt. They looked at each other for only the briefest of moments, amazed they were here for it. Then they looked back into the school. The doors hadn’t opened (a disappointment, sure, but somewhere in there, a relief, too, that the story would continue). After that the flurry of posts and messages from the students to keep up with, a treasure trove of activity to sort through in search of something good, something other reporters might miss. They felt, for those few hours, the way movies depicted journalists. This was the story-sleuthing they’d dreamed of back in school.
Now this. The internet gone. The lights out. The police scanners picking up. The reporters smiled while they watched the school, then tapped on the glass, trying to get the attention of the closest kid. “Hey,” they yelled through the window, angling their voices toward those damn little slits. “What’s going on?”
* * *
“Jordi fucking Marcos,” Peejay said. “This is his doing.” The pashmina slipped a little farther down Peejay’s shoulders. He had seen Jordi smirking from the second floor, and known right away, even before he saw the email that had come moments before the signal went down.
Hey, Peejay. Great job hosting that party no one went to. Is that why you’re hiding under that stupid scarf all day? The shame? Or are you just ashamed to be on the same side as that asshole Marisa? Anyway, nice email. Too bad it’s not gonna make a difference soon.
The other Protectors looked longingly down at their phones, feeling, like so many others at school, suddenly useless. They stole a glance at the list of demands (except for Marisa, who did not glance but rather stared at the list as if it were a love letter fluttering away in the wind, some necessary document she’d have no chance of recovering), wondering how they could do anything about the uncrossed items without access to the outside world.
“It could just be temporary,” Kenji said. “I sometimes get bad service in here.” They all turned to look at him. CIS famously had the best reception in town.
“The phone company will at least fix the network soon, right?” Celeste said, trying to remain hopeful.
“Sure,” Marisa said. “But when?” She was scrolling through her phone, grimacing, though it was unclear if it was