CHAPTER 20

THE RUSH TO JUDGMENT

CLAUDIA

To this day, nobody’s ever come forward to admit they were the “MaxAssassin” and “FreeRangeMartyr” avatars who killed everybody at the rally.

But it was obviously Xander and James.

JAMES

That’s ridiculous! As leader of the Free Range Education movement, I’m against violence in ALL its forms.

But this is the kind of tragedy you get when you force sixth graders to sit at their desks for eight hours a day.

So even though I believe the killers should be brought to justice, I also think we need to address the root causes of this violence.

XANDER

Gotta get with dat Free Range program, y’all! Put yo’ X by da X to get rid o’ dem desks and chairs!

And peep this, yo: if you gonna be a straight punk and dump the X-Man as yo’ running mate? WATCH YO’ BACK! ’Cause you gonna get got.

REESE

It was totally Xander and James. I have the screenshots to prove it.

CLAUDIA

If you knew it was Xander and James, why did your campaign manager blame it all on me?

REESE

Uhhhmmmm… No comment?

KALISHA

All I did was make sure Sophie had the facts. And the facts were that there’d been a terrible tragedy… on a server run by YOUR campaign manager… that just happened to benefit YOUR campaign.

SOPHIE

And to be fair, Claudia—you and Akash DID have a history of killing Reese on that Planet Amigo thing. ^{Ed. Note: again, VERY long story (which you can read about in The Tapper Twins Go to War)}

CLAUDIA

When Sophie called for an interview and basically accused me and Akash of planning the whole massacre, I pretty much lost it. EVERYTHING I was mad at her about just came barfing out.

And then everything SHE was mad at ME for came barfing out of HER. ^{Ed. Note: even though most of it was v. unfair}

SOPHIE

It was pretty ugly. I don’t want to get into details—

CLAUDIA

I don’t, either.

SOPHIE

But yeah. It was a lot of drama.

It really seemed like it cleared the air, though. Like, I heard where you were coming from. And you heard where I was coming from.

CLAUDIA

When Sophie’s report on the massacre showed up in the Chronicle the next morning, it still didn’t seem completely fair. But at least it wasn’t a total hit job on me. And it seemed like Sophie was finally figuring out she couldn’t trust Kalisha.

MASSACRE IN METAWORLD!

6th grade Treasurer Esper’s Avatar, 6 Others Slaughtered At Online Rally

by Sophie Koh, special correspondent

Tragedy struck last night’s online rally for the Reese Tapper-Max Esper sixth grade election ticket as masked avatars with battle-axes attacked the avatars of Mr. Esper and half a dozen members of the audience.

All seven avatars were reported dead and will have to be replaced if their owners want to keep playing MetaWorld, according to people with knowledge of the situation. ^{Ed. Note: Sophie does not play video games (so totally clueless re. MetaWorld)}

The identities of the two attackers are still unknown. Late last night, a group calling itself The Popular Front For Free Range Education emailed the Chronicle to claim credit for the massacre.

However, it is unclear whether this is a real group that actually exists.

Kalisha Hendricks, manager of the Tapper campaign, tried to blame Mr. Tapper’s chief rival, current sixth grade president Claudia Tapper, for the online violence.

“This senseless tragedy took place on the ‘Planet Amigo’ server, which is owned by Claudia’s campaign manager,” she said, referring to eighth grader Akash Gupta. “Coincidence? I don’t think so.” ^{Ed. Note: INSANELY CHEAP SHOT}

But Mr. Gupta dismissed this claim, stating that he had spent the night writing an English paper. “I haven’t even logged on since Friday,” he said.

He also explained that Planet Amigo is a “Conquest mode” server on which players compete in “deathmatches.” According to Mr. Gupta, “If you spend more than ten minutes on Planet Amigo, and you DON’T die a horrible death? YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG.”

Sources familiar with Planet Amigo confirmed that this is probably true.

It is still unclear what impact the massacre will have on Friday’s election. But the issue is sure to be raised during Wednesday’s first-ever candidate debate ^{Ed. Note: SHOULD HAVE BEEN ITS OWN ARTICLE} , which will be held after school in room 432 (Mr. McDonald’s classroom).

CLAUDIA

Even though I had nothing to do with the attack, I was seriously hoping it’d mess up Reese’s chances of winning over the Nerdy Boys.

But when Akash polled them, it turned out the massacre actually HELPED Reese.

AKASH

All it did was make the Nerdy Boys realize how much cooler Conquest mode is than Society mode. Like, within 24 hours, they were all hacking each other to pieces in Planet Amigo deathmatches.

DAVE CHANG, Nerdy Boy/MetaWorld player

Conquest mode’s SO much more fun! Even when my avatar was getting cut in half at that rally, I was thinking, “This is WAY cooler than Society mode.”

And when I started playing deathmatches, Reese gave me this awesome suit of titanium armor! So I decided to vote for him.

AKASH

The polling numbers were bleak. After the MetaWorld rally, we lost all but one of the Nerdy Boys. Which put Reese in the lead by exactly three votes.

CLAUDIA

By then, it was Tuesday night. And the election was scheduled for Friday. So if I was going to turn things around, it pretty much HAD to be at Wednesday’s debate.

KALISHA

It’s true. At that point, the debate was your only hope.

That’s why I told Reese not to show up for it.