Leigh Ann and Grieving_Dad12 began exchanging messages using Wickr, an encrypted messaging service. Their bond was instant. Her friend, who she met on the darknet, shared two of her greatest passions: their country and gun control. And also like Leigh Ann, Grieving_Dad12 had lost someone—his only daughter, who’d been born with a muscular disorder that had left her paralyzed from the waist down and been killed in a school shooting years before. On that sunny day, he dropped her off at school like always, and in a few short hours, Grieving_Dad12 lost his very reason for breathing.
Although they kept conversations mostly to broad ideologies, Leigh Ann—or 4Ava as she was called on the darknet—had learned a bit about her new best friend. He was a software developer, independently wealthy. Leigh Ann was not only moved by his dedication to his daughter’s memory but also by his productivity. He wasn’t just going to talk about the relentless gun violence in schools and other safe zones; he was going to do something. The vision they’d collectively arrived at was that they needed to change the thinking of the gun lobby. Talk, talk, talk, what they needed was some action, something to open their eyes.
They need to really feel this, Grieving_Dad12 said. This is war and there will be casualties. And it’s got to start at the top. And after months of philosophizing, they came to one conclusion and it was certain: the bastards had to pay.
@4Ava don’t you think that if a child of NFA leadership was to be the victim in a school shooting, perhaps then the forces behind the gun lobby might feel what so many others have felt? the senselessness of loss?
Her answer, an unequivocal, unspeakable YES. Who couldn’t? Who wouldn’t change their mind when one of their own was a victim?
Leigh Ann made it her day’s work to familiarize herself with the organization and its leaders. She learned that the NFA president himself had twins—a daughter and a son who were fifteen years old. Details of his private life, due to security threats, were hard to discover, but with the help of Grieving_Dad12’s software skills, they learned that although the twins attended an elite private boarding school in New Hampshire, the twins, Frank Jr. and Coleen Henryson, were signed up for the Fairfax Band Camp, a summer program focused on music hosted at a public school in Northern Virginia—Fairfax Middle School. And as fate would have it, Fairfax Middle School was just across town from where Leigh Ann lived and seethed.
Though she’d been marginally mentally ill her whole life, Leigh Ann didn’t realize just how ill she had become. She knew she was depressed. She rarely left the house, relishing hours at her desktop, chatting with Grieving_Dad12. That could not be healthy. Crying all day long could not be healthy. Her fits of anger were not healthy. She knew all of that, but the more time passed, the less she cared about her own health. What parts of her mind were sound were shrouded in an angry fog, and she could think of nothing but executing the plan.
It’s pure karmic justice, she wrote to him one night. We will do this. Whatever the cost.
Let’s do it together, Grieving_Dad12 said. If you support me through this, I can execute. We can gain access to the school by posing as parents … the girl plays cello, the son plays percussion. I can get my hands on the band camp schedule.
A sudden thought occurred to Leigh Ann, gripping her with fear. But you can’t die, she typed furiously. You have other children. You need to be with them. I’m going alone.
@4Ava I can’t let you go alone.
It has to be this way, she typed back. With you helping me, Ava’s life will finally have meant something. Mine would have meaning. Our pain will be felt by those who caused it. This is my destiny. Let me fulfill it.
If this is what you want, I’ll support you. You are an angel.
Leigh Ann powered off her computer and climbed into her unmade bed for the first time in days. She fell sound asleep.
After studying the calendar, a date was chosen. That day, there would only be twelve campers in total, so collateral damage would be minimized. Security would be at its lightest, and chances of success highest.
Leigh Ann had received the guns in a series of packages and instructions for how to assemble them. She’d gone to the thrift store and purchased an old wheelchair, which would serve as a central part of her cover, hopefully aiding her entrance into a school run by friendly Southern folk. And though he didn’t say it, she knew the wheelchair was also a tribute to Grieving_Dad12’s daughter, the one with the muscular disease who was slain on that somber Florida day.
Leading up to the date, she took the gun to the range in the early mornings and practiced shooting until after lunch. She was not necessarily athletic, but since she knew she might have to run, kneel, and fire, she began a modest workout routine—running laps around her suburban neighborhood outside D.C. and doing a few push-ups and crunches beside her bed while she watched the nightly news. She almost felt happy—she was going to change the world.
It was 10 p.m. one night and Leigh Ann paced from living room to kitchen, disassembling and reassembling the M4. CNN was playing in her dingy kitchen, as it did all day and night, the sound of human voices commenting on current events, the only thing to keep the house from utter loneliness.
Leigh Ann looked out the kitchen window. The wind blew through the green trees. A hint of summer storm in the air. She thought about opening it to freshen the kitchen, but she suddenly felt sluggish. Maybe she was hungry. She set down the M4, grabbed a cold slice of pizza from the fridge, and put it in the toaster oven on broil.
They had been hyping the evening’s interview all day. The host, Indra McCall, was discussing Encyte and the upsurge in attacks across the United States with a special guest, Secretary of Defense Elaine Becker.
Leigh Ann almost shut the TV off. She was so sick of hearing about Encyte, but she was curious to hear what the secretary of defense would say.
“He’s making a point…” the SecDef said. “He picks big issues and uses them as mirrors to hold in the face of society—violent gaming, technology, drug addiction—then he takes it a step further. He builds a trap that we walk into. We spring the trap, inciting a chain of events that results in the horrific act. He makes us the change agent of his will. Or that’s his intent. He’s trying to make us feel like we’re the change agent. The truth is, he’s manipulating everything. We’re just pushing a button, pulling the trigger of his gun.”
Leigh Ann listened, leaning in closer to the small TV set.
“You mention change and change agent,” the host said. “Is that his goal? To change the world?”
“I believe he thinks so. Of course, all terrorists have an ideology.”
“How do you know that’s his intent?” Indra asked.
“He tells us so. His messages tell us his thinking, about gaming, for example—the reality that exists within the virtual world. Or his reference to dominion in the Book of Genesis. It’s very pedagogical.”
“Pedagogical, interesting,” Indra said. “Can you define that … umm … for the audience?”
“It means teaching, you dummy,” Leigh Ann said to the TV.
“Intending to teach,” the SecDef said, “his notes feel scholastic in nature. Like a teacher, he wants us to consider the lesson and find the answer. Also like a teacher, he wants us to do the act—to pull the trigger. He sits back and observes us acting. Like a test, a game. But in the end, like all terrorists, he thinks he has a point and will create change.”
“Can you explain this trigger mechanism a little further for our guests?”
“Sure. He’s trying to incite violence, but he makes us the trigger. A kid playing a video game unknowingly kills fifty-three people when he thinks they’re not real. Encyte did not run over those people, the player did. A number of people launch drones near airports. And those drones are steered into planes. Encyte didn’t launch a single drone. A drug-addicted son of a Big Pharma CEO lights a fire to get high, not knowing he’s lit the spark that will burn a huge portion of California. Again, Encyte did not light the match. And here’s another example: we strongly believe Encyte is behind the SoHo Sneaker Riot of last year.”
“How did you make that connection?”
“In the case of the SoHo Sneaker Riot, teens were led to an event where there was a shortage of shoes and a surplus of angry customers. But the basement was artificially suffused with hormones and pheromones that made the crowd more prone to violence and agitation. He didn’t leave a note, but the riot fits his MO.”
The host nodded. “I know the Department of Defense and the FBI are trying to solve this. But what can we, as average citizens, do?”
“We should all be vigilant. Be aware. Encyte often uses the web—the dark web—to engage his triggers, so we should be mindful of strangers online who want us to do something … out of the ordinary.”
Leigh Ann stood frozen in her kitchen. Blinking at the TV. Could it be? Her mind was struggling to process when an alarm blared through the house. Smoke poured from the forgotten pizza in the toaster. She pulled out the pan, and forgetting a rag, threw it in the sink, running the hissing pizza—and her burning fingers—under the water.
She opened a window. A cool, wet breeze fanned the smoke until the alarm stopped. She leaned out and drew in the fresh air. With every breath, her mind cleared a little bit. And then she glanced over at the kitchen counter where the M4 lay on its side, a magazine loaded into the breech, trigger gleaming.