1st 5 Pages March Workshop - Grigorova Rev 1

Name: Lily Grigorova

Genre: Young Adult Contemporary

Title: Pan’s Island

Pan /pæn/ - proper noun

1. Greek Mythology: a god of flocks and herds, typically represented with horns, ears, and legs of a goat on a man’s body. His sudden appearance was supposed to cause terror similar to that of a frightened and stampeding herd, and the word panic is derived from his name.

2. Urban legend: an international underground activist group, notorious for its elusiveness and ruthlessness. Claims involvement in the 2018 hack of the three major social networks, the downfall of Botswana’s diamond industry, and the publishing of Donald J. Trump’s private WhatsApp communication. The group’s popularity inspired the web TV variety show Hack ‘em!.

Chapter 1

City of Sofia, Bulgaria

Thursday, June 13, 2019

21:40

This was it. A year’s worth of work for our most complex creation yet. It was going live in five minutes and I couldn’t seem to stop my hands from shaking. I slid my fingers around the loudspeaker in my pocket. It had a smooth, round shape, soothing to rub and squeeze. I started walking past the planters of boxwood forming the perimeter of Parliament Square and pretended to look at my phone in my other hand. I breathed in and out.

Focus! Imagine the result: the censure they wouldn’t be able to ignore. Every morning, when those sleazy politicians came to work, they would be greeted by our masterpiece. When my uncle came to work, he would see it. A smile broke onto my face. I pretended it was about something I saw on my phone.

There was a CCTV camera on the side of the Parliament Building. I angled my body slightly to the left and let my hair fall over my shoulder to curtain off my face. A single police car idled near the entrance of the InterContinental across the square. I stopped when the monument of the Tsar Liberator stood between the cops’ line of sight and me. I stumbled toward the nearest planter, sneaked my hand out of my pocket and dropped the loudspeaker at the base of the boxwood.

That was the last one.

I glanced at my phone. 21:43. Two minutes till we went live. My hair still a curtain between the CCTV camera and my face, I ambled toward the cobbled sidewalk which divided Parliament Square from Kliment Ohridski Garden. My mouth was dry. My heartbeat out of control. I couldn’t wait to see it. The message I was going to send to my Pan contact started writing itself in my mind. It had to sound self-satisfied, yet blasé. After this job, they would be begging me to work with them.

I leaned against a tree trunk on the edge of Kliment Ohridski Garden. The Parliament Building sparkled white and imposing in the summer night, bathed in the illumination of dozens of floodlights.

21:46. Come on. Come on.

I imagined Alex right now: typing, checking and rechecking his program, the twins crowding him, giving him useless advice and urging him to hurry. Alex would run a final check and then, finally, he’d press Enter.

Color flooded the white imposing façade across from me. For a second I was breathless with awe. Cartooned pigs gamboled across the building’s front, talked on cell phones, passed legislation, ate meatballs, and smoked cigars. There were speech bubbles, mock fights, money passing under the table. The stars of the cartoon resembled prominent political figures, including my uncle: the fattest of them all.

It was perfect, just as I’d imagined it: the colors saturated and distinct; the projection didn’t pixelate or freeze. I glanced at the roof of the InterConti, where our projectors were hidden beneath the hoods of webcams. Perfect alignment; the projection streamed in synchronization.

The sound of laughter broke through my awed observation. Several groups of people had paused on their way across the square to enjoy the projection, laughing and filming with their phones. I grinned and did the same.

Uncle’s pig avatar shook its fat ass at the audience, twerking and producing dollar-shaped farts. I laughed with everyone else. He’d be so pissed! His beady little eyes would retreat and become mean glints. He’d probably fire someone. Nothing you can do, uncle!

The first run of the cartoon ended with my personal contribution in large black letters: These hogs speak for you. Don’t laugh! Vote!

Then it hit me: something was missing. I stopped filming and dialed Alex’s number.

“There’s no sound,” I hissed in the receiver.

The loudspeakers I’d spent the last fifteen minutes surreptitiously planting around the building were silent.

“Raya, what are you still doing there?” Alex hissed back.

“Check the audio!” I raised my voice.

“Raya!”

“Check it!”

“Audio’s green,” he snapped.

“I’m standing right there,” I growled, “There’s no sound.”

I waited on the line as Alex checked the program. I’d made sure to place the speakers carefully on the ground and not throw them, I’d made sure they were all charged and set to transmit. So it had to be a software issue, especially because all four weren’t working.

Pigs’ grunting filled the square. It was so realistic, some of the spectators looked around in shock. I chuckled.

“Sorry,” Alex’s voice in my ear, “my bad. Now come already.”

“Be right there,” I answered.

The grunting raised it to a whole new level. The crowd of spectators went wild, laughing out loud and clapping. I joined in the applause, a ridiculous grin splitting my face.

The two cops had crawled out of their patrol car and were trying to disperse the crowd. I raised my phone to make a video with sound. I had about five minutes until Sofia Police Department started cordoning off the square and writing down people’s info for investigation. Just enough time to show off our work to the Pan.

I logged into the Pan’s darkweb chat room. Its background filled my phone screen: a mercurial gray with the Pan’s dragonfly logo shimmering in the middle. A chat window opened. I paused, my thumbs hovering over the keyboard. I didn’t want to sound childish. Polite and confident, that’s what I had to aim for.

I typed:

user416 A8i5w9: Dear Pan

I giggled. This formal opening was going to get his attention.

user416 A8i5w9: How are you? How is life in the underworld?

I pressed Enter and waited. As usual, he responded within a minute. A thrill went through my chest at the sight of the three dots that indicated typing next to his Admin tag.

Admin: Sunny

I grinned. A quick glance around the square assured me SPD’s lamest were still scratching their heads, so I bent back to my phone.

user416 A8i5w9: Sending greetings from Sofia

I uploaded the video I’d just made and waited. Ten seconds later, the response flashed on my screen.

Admin: I see. Very imaginative

Imaginative? It was frickin’ genius! I looked up to behold the glory of our piggish cartoon on the face of Bulgarian politics. Then I stooped back over my phone.

user416 A8i5w9: When you say imaginative, you mean the best damn thing you seen this year?

Admin: I mean good enough for a bunch of kids with nothing better to do.

My jaw dropped. This job was the paragon of what we did. It mocked the corrupt political class in their faces and was bound to make the news cycle. The Pan should applaud its freshness and audacity and thank their lucky stars a genius like me wanted to join them.