Caspar D. Luckinbill, What Are You Going to Do?
By Nick Wolven, first published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction
In a New York City of the near future, a middle-aged suit finds his life upturned when online terrorists accuse him of humanitarian crimes in front of everyone he knows.
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Caspar D. Luckinbill walks to his job at a recognition software company in New York City when his phone wails with the screams of a torture victim. A voice on the phone accuses Luckinbill of supporting the government regime that tortured men like the one just heard. Luckinbill has no idea what that's about; he continues on his way to work. At work, he's confronted with like-minded content. Every screen he passes by, every electronic device in the company, is co-opted with similar accusations and horrific scenes and sounds of atrocities. Caspar asks his friend, Armando, to help him; Armando says that there is nothing he can do. Caspar is the victim of mediaterrorism, a crime that nobody, minus its perpetrators, can stop. The images and sounds follow Caspar everywhere. He loses his job, friends, and wife because nobody can stand to be near him, hearing those terrible sounds all day long. His wife accuses him of seeing and hearing those atrocities and doing nothing about them. Caspar realizes he must take action. Caspar becomes the face of the international mediaterrorism movement. He creates a non-profit, publishes a book, and produces documentaries. He receives donations from all over the world, which he gives to his mediaterrorists. Finally, he is freed from the images and noises of his so-called crimes, and he does good in the world.
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