The Brodesian Conspiracy
J. Schultz
Scene #1 – A hot summer’s Thursday in early June 2031 President Natalia Smith checked her talking points while gulping an espresso, took a deep breath and entered one of the meetings that filled her day in grinding fashion in Washington, DC. This time she was worried; the fallout over the alleged Tui Massacre in Cordova kept growing, even without a shred of proof that it actually happened. It was a perfect setup: no witnesses, no bodies but likely-faked photos suppos- edly showed what happened. She was amazed that people believed it at all. Then it dawned on her that they didn’t need to actually believe it; they
espresso...” “
just needed something to be angry about. Anger was too easy to stoke. Using that narrow lens, “truth” was not the focus, and it never would be. And whose truth would it be anyway? She had already addressed the nation to
President Natalia Smith checked her talking points while gulping an
get ahead of it, but her opponents, especially on social media, were ramping up a vicious campaign that traced back to her main rival, Jhonno Cruz. Cruz had run against her and gained a sizable portion of the vote. However, he fell just short of victory, which meant he had plenty to grumble about along with a developed base to spread his caustic opinion wider until it hurt Smith. Scene #2 – Later that same hot day The MicroLED monitor mounted high on the wall trumpeted BBC’s version of events in embattled Cordova, an island nation somewhere in the distant Pacific Ocean. Cordova was very far away from America’s suburban heartland where an upper-middle class cul-de-sac’d McMan- sion in a well-manicured neighborhood went about its day. 17-year-old digital native Brody Whitcomb grabbed food from the kitchen, ignoring
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