Killing You Softly by Lucy Carver

Author:Lucy Carver [Carver, Lucy]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
Tags: Juvenile Fiction, General, School & Education, Mysteries & Detective Stories
ISBN: 9781447248057
Google: Q4vEAwAAQBAJ
Amazon: B00L43SKMW
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
Published: 2014-07-02T23:00:00+00:00

Connie was with Jack when I went back to the technology centre to find him. She’d commandeered his attention as only she can and switched him from his training video to her social networking.

I was feeling exhausted after my session with Ripley and not ready for Facebooking or Tweeting. I almost turned back but Jack spotted me and used me to scramble free of Connie’s web.

‘She’s showing me an app on her phone,’ he explained. ‘It makes short videos which you can post on to Twitter.’

‘It means you can share a video version of any big moment in your life,’ Connie enthused, aiming her phone at me. ‘Births, marriages, deaths – you open up your app, point your phone and shoot.’

‘Don’t film me,’ I protested.

‘Chill, Alyssa. Look – you press your screen to start filming and lift it to stop. Press again then lift, and so on. Then you post it on to your feed. And voila!’

‘OK, that’s cool, Connie.’

‘Say it again – this time like you mean it.’

‘I do – I mean it. Digital technology is amazing. But I don’t tweet so it’s not for me.’

‘Don’t tweet?’ she echoed with a shocked look.

Seeing me wilt under pressure from Connie, Jack stepped in. ‘Actually, why don’t you post the video of Alyssa on to my phone?’

‘No way – I look a wreck!’ I wailed.

‘You never look a wreck,’ Jack grinned, and he kissed me in front of Connie.

‘Jeez, you two – get a room,’ she grumbled, posting the chopped-up footage of me shielding myself from her lens for all Jack’s followers to see. ‘Take a look at some of the others. Here’s one of Harry Styles getting ready for a concert – that has fifty thousand followers. And here’s a video of you, Jack – you’re lifting weights. Two hundred and five followers. Don’t suppose you know who sneaked that in. Oops, here’s one saying “check out how drunk this girl is” – not nice.’

‘You see,’ I said to justify my non-participation, ‘that’s the issue with apps like this – it’s the privacy thing.’

‘I guess it can get a little nasty,’ Connie admitted, her enthusiasm starting to wane as she came across more content she didn’t like. ‘Up-skirt shots like this and girls staggering out of clubs to be sick in the gutter.’ She frowned then backtracked and replayed the last piece of footage. ‘Is this for real?’ she asked.

Drawn in by her shocked tone, Jack and I looked over her shoulder. There was a prefacing note containing five short words that were already branded on my brain – ‘Catch me if you can’ – then a brief long-distance shot of a girl in uniform walking in the dark. Cut. Next sequence of the girl’s face smiling, close up. Cut. The same girl’s expression changes. Eyes widen, pupils dilate, she opens her mouth to scream. Cut. Final sequence – the girl lies curled up on the back seat of a car. Mouth taped, hands tied behind her back with what looks like cable from a phone charger cutting into her flesh.

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