Page 99 of What Happened to Lucy Vale
@spinn_doctor:we did absolutely nothing to Lucy Vale
@spinn_doctor:we are innocent bystanders
@spinn_doctor:to a tragic devolution of power dynamics that have absolutely nothing to do with us
@mememeup:right, exactly
@spinn_doctor:thank you
@mememeup:no, I mean, this is exactly why @ktcakes888 is taking a step back
Discord was different once Alex Spinnaker took on the sole moderator role. At least, it was quiet of conversation, more of a monologue. Spinnaker went on frequent long-winded rants, changed themes and channels with obsessive frequency, and often cluttered the open channel with coding tips none of us could use. A paranoid tone prevailed. Conversation bubbled up and fizzled out as if depressed by the heavy atmosphere. We frequently woke to ominous warnings about everything from an institutional shortage of Dr. Pepper to the imminent collapse of civilization. We silenced notifications to avoid spam: links to articles about Russian trolls, government cover-ups, and bacterialoutbreaks in national salad bars. Every time we signed on, we had to dodge a litter of Spinnaker crazy. In the end, it was easier to disengage.
Week by week, we shed subscribers.
We lost Skyler Matthews only a few days after Alex Spinnaker became moderator. Skyler’s podcast had been on hiatus since January, when the news of Lucy Vale’s allegations had paralyzed us. It hadn’t helped that, shortly before then, a cabal of Jalliscoe haters had tracked down Skyler’s YouTube channel and started flagging her en masse for violating YouTube’s terms of service under the pretense that she’d been distributing fake news.
Skyler originally railed against the bullying, refusing to be cowed. She wrote impassioned Tumblr posts about the dangers confronting United States journalists and celebrating the value of free speech.
But that was before Ryan Hawthorne’s New Year’s Eve party and its fallout swallowed our lives. After, Skyler’s attitude was fitful. Uncertain. We perceived flickers of doubt. It was as if all the time she’d spent researching our most insistent critics had turned her slowly in their direction, confusing her, leaving her mired in doubt. She was distrustful of the Investigative Committee’s bias. She was the one who’d pointed out that Mrs. Steeler-Cox was its only woman and that several other appointees had signed on to support the new Jay Steeler Legacy Pavilion, helping push the project past the town board, in opposition to Rachel Vale and a small community of dissenters.
Skyler had doubts, she told us, that Lucy Vale had gotten a fair trial. We pointed out that Lucy Vale hadn’t been on trial at all.
Then Skyler said we were either dumb or in denial. It was harsh and unexpected criticism, especially from Skyler, to whose podcasting efforts we’d been critical. Meeks suggested that Skyler was PMSing. Skyler called Meeks the “walking embodiment of toxic masculinity.” Meeks replied that comments like that were the reason so many people hated feminists.
Skyler said that our server had gone to hell and she was out.
Our numbers continued to dwindle. We dropped to thirty. Then twenty. Then twelve.
We sensed the end of an era.
In a way, it was a blessing when Lucy returned to torch our mascot a few weeks later.
Two
It was late March when the alarm pierced our third-period classrooms, pitched lower and more urgent to signify the lockdown. The sound crawled up our spinal cords and touched off immediate thoughts of death. The automated message that spat through the loudspeakers instructed us to observe lockdown procedures and report to safe zones immediately.
We’d practiced lockdowns before—but never like this, never without warning, never with our teachers ghostlike and shaking as they locked the doors, drew the blinds, and shunted us away from the windows. We suffocated with fear. We imagined blood-slicked hallways, a vengeful classmate prowling the halls with his dad’s AK-47.
We assumed it was a gun.
We assumed it was a him.
None of us were thinking of Lucy Vale. We listened for gunshots and startled at the report of distant locks clicking into place. We heard the panicked drumbeat of sneakers in the hallway as other students rushed for safety from the cafeteria and the SLD Tutoring Center. We touched our crosses and confessed our sins. We gripped hands and phones.
We were herded into closets, huddled like cattle for the slaughter, breathing the must of stale breath. We sent texts to our parents. We cursed the spotty service in our various hiding places—the art closet, the boiler room.
We really had to pee.
Minutes eked by. The hum of our nerves began to idle with boredom.
For the first time in weeks, our Discord server began sparking with conversation.Does anyone know anything? Can anyone hear anything? So typical of admin to go silent during a lockdown. Cowards.
Our hearts leapt when we saw @ktcakes888, @skyediva, and @kash_money asking for permission to rejoin the server. The alert electrified us into sudden herd activity, like the touch of a cattle prod. We crouched over our phones in locked classrooms. We ignored the imminence of death. We stood strong in the face of a nameless terror who might be prowling the grounds with an AK-47, looking to take revenge for some nameless infraction or indifference.
We fired off messages to Spinnaker.Akash wants in. Let Akash into the server.
As usual Spinnaker was truculent, even during lockdown.
