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The coordinates converged on a baseball stadium, empty this fall night. A crowd converged, too.

The crowd numbered in the tens of thousands, verging into six figures. The stadium seated close to fifty thousand, but there was space on the field as well.

The security team on duty that night had a heads-up from management about five minutes before the Hive Mob was audible in the near distance. Five blocks in every direction, you could hear them, marching. Chanting.

“Le-vel 6! Kill on sight! Le-vel 6! Kill on sight!”

The security team was ordered to unlock and roll back the gates. Full cameras in operation, including backup drones. The owners of the stadium had no desire to suffer the wrath of a Hive Mob by keeping the place shut up. They would have lost the battle anyway, their meager security team of rent-a-cops against a hundred-thousand-strong moving bulwark of anger and outrage. Better to open the doors, let everyone in and take lots of pictures in case things got out of hand and people needed to be sued and/or prosecuted later.

The mob was remarkably orderly as it trooped into the stadium. The chant echoed and reechoed through the tunnels leading out to the field, rebounded up and down the ramps, filled with the percussion of two hundred thousand feet.

Cassie and Carson watched livestreaming aerial footage from a local news drone. From overhead, the stadium filled like a spill of water in slow motion, the seats going from home-team navy blue to a motley speckled rainbow. And then the field itself transmogrified from bright, overtended green to a wash of tints.

“You sure this is gonna work?” Carson asked without checking over his shoulder. His fingers were poised above a keyboard.

She wasn’t sure it was going to work, but she was sure it would surprise people. Just like hacking the business channel feed during the president’s interview. There was something only she could do, and it was guaranteed to shake things up.

When the dust settles, sometimes you see new things, her dad had said.

The drone caught a good shot of the stadium’s main jumbo screen, a sleek, curved black glass parenthesis. “Just type what I told you to type,” Cassie said. “My script’ll do the rest.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Let’s do it,” she said.

In the stadium, the big screen flashed once, a burst of white light that stalled the chant of the mob and transformed it into a nearly worshipful mass groan of surprise and awe.

The screen was roughly 245 feet by 73 feet, an area the size of thousands of fifty-inch televisions. It was the biggest of its kind in the world of sports.

And Carson had hacked into it. Cassie could have done it, but she’d been busy figuring out what she was going to say. There was no time to record, so she would have to do it live and absolutely nail it. Anything less than perfection would just make things worse.

One hundred thousand people all turned to look up at the massive screen as it flared to life. Around the country and around the world, untold millions more watched Periscopes and Facebook Lives and BLINQvids streamed from the site.

#HasCassieSurfacedYet? the screen asked. The mob howled. The bloodlust and repudiation made Cassie’s stomach curdle.

The word “NOW” exploded onto the screen. The mob screamed itself raw.

And then:

Cassie McKinney appeared on-screen. Helpfully, in case anyone didn’t already know her face, a chyron read “@CassieMcK39” and “LIVE WEBCAST.”

She sat in front of a haphazardly hung white sheet; a clichéd way to hide clues to her location, and a compelling visual that brought to mind hostages, terrorists, victims. Shot from the waist up, Cassie wore a denim jacket, buttoned halfway, with a green T-shirt underneath. The damage to her hair, hacked into ribbons and patches, was mitigated by a bandana tied around her head. She wore no makeup. A constellation of bruises dotted her left cheek and chin.

Out in the mob, a hush, as more than one person remembered: “Jesus H. Christ. She’s a kid.”

On the screen, Cassie gazed into the camera levelly for several silent, excruciating seconds. Despite her disheveled appearance, her eyes were clear. Focused. Then she licked her raw, chapped lips.

“You know,” she said conversationally, as though speaking to only one person and not the furious crowd of Hivers ready to rend her limb from limb, given the chance. “You know, in retrospect, I guess it was sort of a tasteless joke.”

She shrugged one shoulder.

Then: “Sorry.”

The screen flashed once and then returned to black.

#HiveAlert: #CassieMcKinney just hacked into every billboard in the city. HOW IS THAT BITCH STILL ALIVE? #HiveMob

Omg if you’re wondering if #HasCassieSurfacedYet? look outside your windows.

Breaking news: Level 6 perpetrator #CassieMcKinney has seized control of streaming billboards. “In retrospect it was a tasteless joke,” she says. #HasCassieSurfacedYet?

Y’all Hivers in #CassieMcKinney’s city are terrible at this. Bring the girl down South and we’ll #KillOnSight like the patriots we are. #SouthernersDoItBetter

I mean, she admitted it and apologized. Are we done yet? This whole Cassie thing has gone on wayyyyyyy too long. #DoPeopleReallyStillCareIfCassieHasSurfacedYet?

She barely said sorry. Not buying it. Nooooope. We should still #KillOnSight, right?

Hey @elisa917sunshine, doesn’t #CassieMcKinney kind of look like your fifth-grade class photo in her streaming vid? LOL

BLINQ ALERT: #CassieMcKinney remains at Level 6.

Why is the BLINQ feed reminding us Cassie is a Level sixer? Did they think we’d forget? Fishy.

@Animalsounds20913847 do you know why they just said that? Should we be concerned? #KeepCassieAt6

Guys, rumor has it the govt is going to downgrade #CassieMcKinney, pass it along, they can’t do that. #KeepCassieAt6

Honestly I’m kinda bored by the Cassie story now. Let’s downgrade her Level and move on already. #ImOverIt

I swear if the government cancels her Hive conviction we should riot in the streets. They can’t take this power away from us. #HiveJusticeIsTheBestJustice

The government gave us the power of the Hive. They can take it back. It’s not, like, written into the Bill of Rights or anything. #LawStudent

Weird that #CassieMcKinney looks so much younger in real life than she did in her BLINQ photos. Was someone Photoshopping to make her look older, more guilty? #ThingsThatMakeYouGoHmmmm

Ask yourselves: How does a Level 6 perp evade #TheHive for this long AND manage to hack into government-controlled databases? The is coming from inside the house, #sheeple. Wake up! #HasCassieSurfacedYet?

I seriously cannot believe no one has killed #CassieMcKinney yet, ya girl is like a ninja. Makes me kinda respect her now.

Consider this: What is an apology, anyway? If the regret is there, do we need her to fall on her sword? She said “Sorry.” Is that enough? What else does Cassie McKinney owe us?

Idea: #LeaveCassieAlone since she apologized and, like, that’s what she needed to do, right?

I will chase Cassie McKinney for the rest of my life if she gets downgraded. IT’S NOT FAIR. #PowerToThePeople

Maybe if someone’s been able to outrun a #HiveMob for this long, we should just let her go? Should we #LeaveCassieAlone?

R u kidding me???? One word??? She says ONE WORD & every1 is all #LeaveCassieAlone?

What else do you want her to say? You want her to dissect every word? It was a dumb joke and she said sorry. Get a fucking life. #LeaveCassieAlone

Gotta give it to #CassieMcKinney, she just issued a master apology in less than a dozen words. I know some politicians who should take lessons from her!

That shrug tho! WTF? #Level64Ever

Uh, “that shrug” was like saying, “Yeah, OK, I’ll apologize.” What stream were YOU watching? #LeaveCassieAlone

Can’t believe #CassieMcKinney just hacked into the ad system LOL. Girl’s got bigger balls than POTUS. #TooSoon?

#BLINQReaderPoll4390: Who thinks we should #LeaveCassieAlone? Vote: bl.inq/poll4390

ENTERTAINMENT NEWS ALERT: Level 6 perpetrator #CassieMcKinney spotted with fresh new haircut; issues apology. We’re live with crowd reactions at the top of the hour!

I just voted NO in #BLINQReaderPoll4390, join me: #LeaveCassieAlone? Vote: bl.inq/poll4390

While you’re all distracted by #CassieMcKinney’s apology, remember that POTUS just announced coalition for new drilling in protected Indigenous land in Canada. Sign the petition here: li.nk/pet.itionly754

It’s kinda weird that first we all wanted Cassie alive and then we all wanted her dead and now I have no idea what I want. Someone tell me what I want! #LeaveCassieAlone #KeepCassieAt6

I just voted YES in #BLINQReaderPoll4390, join me: #LeaveCassieAlone? Vote: bl.inq/poll4390

Just catching up on the #CassieMcKinney apology now. Damn, I forgot she’s just a kid. #LeaveCassieAlone

I just voted YES in #BLINQReaderPoll4390, join me: #LeaveCassieAlone? Vote: bl.inq/poll4390

#HiveAlert: Level 1 Justice happening rn over in Capital Park, join me for the fun!

I just voted NO in #BLINQReaderPoll4390, join me: #LeaveCassieAlone? Vote: bl.inq/poll4390

I just voted YES in #BLINQReaderPoll4390, join me: #LeaveCassieAlone? Vote: bl.inq/poll4390

This whole thing is really showing me how weird Hive Justice can be. Anyone else? #IsThisTheWorldWeWantToLiveIn?

Livestream from the White House Press Briefing Room (In Progress)
Dean Hythe, President of the United States:

“I’m not going to answer that question. No. It’s a bad question, very bad. Look back at the beginning. I never said I wanted this girl to die. And now she won’t. I don’t … There’s nothing to talk about. She’s fine. And the baby is doing great, by the way. You notice how no one is asking about my daughter and my grandson? Very suspicious.

“I’m going to bring — get her in here — I’m going to bring Alexandra Pastor up here. And let her explain all of this to you. Because clearly you all need some explaining.”

“Mr. President, as always, it’s such a pleasure to be here, to speak to your great policies and plans for this great nation of ours. Thank you so much.

“Isn’t this an exciting day? We’re witnessing a first: a Hive Justice reversal. We always thought that this might happen, but we never anticipated it would happen in such dramatic fashion.

“Approximately thirty-eight hours ago, Cassie McKinney livestreamed an apology for the actions that led to her assignment of Level 6. We observed a shift in online discourse roughly ten minutes after the apology, which immediately went viral and soon had penetration into most social media streams, including Facebook, Guessom, YouTube and, of course, BLINQ.

“The livestream itself was propagated across multiple platforms, but BLINQ did as it was designed to do and aggregated responses. What was most interesting, we found, was that people who had not originally voted on the initial Cassie McKinney post went back and voted on it after the fact, Liking it as a way of showing acceptance of her apology. Currently, the new Likes have offset enough Condemns that Ms. McKinney is at Level 3, and we project she will bottom out at Level 2 or even Level 1 within the next forty-eight hours.

“Of course, I’m sure you’re wondering, did we anticipate something like this? Is this how Hive Justice is supposed to work? Does this mitigate the effectiveness of Hive Justice? Won’t people simply apologize publicly and beat the rap?

“Well, we believe that the Hive will now take such an idea into account during the initial judgment period. Individuals will Condemn based not just on what was done but also based on their willingness to accept an apology.

“As to whether or not this is how the system was designed: of course it was. Ms. McKinney’s apology went viral fast enough that it triggered an exoneration protocol. Most Hive matters are local and action is swift — there isn’t enough time for a change of heart on the part of the Hive, and so the exoneration protocol never kicks in. This case was different.

“Think of it this way: the initial ramp-up of Condemns was the trial and verdict. Then came the sentencing … and the court was lenient. It’s an imperfect metaphor but one that I’ve found helpful as I think over these events. Or, if you want, think of Cassie McKinney’s new status as probation. Certainly the country will be watching her from now on, and she may not be so lucky next time.

“The motto of BLINQ is Trend Positive! We encourage all of our citizen-users to take that motto to heart. And thirty-eight hours ago, Cassie McKinney gave them the opportunity to do just that.

“We’re witnessing the birth of something unique — not merely an artificial intelligence, but a mass intelligence, one that can do more than simply process information and respond intelligently but that is also developing its own morality.

“Isn’t it amazing?”