Beacon Street, usually filled with college kids looking to get drunk, laid, or both, had been transformed into a war zone. Tippi navigated her orange Prius C through the overturned couches, derailed MBTA trains, burning cars, and swirls of airborne garbage, while David clung to the passenger seat. They swerved around a man who was staring at his phone while taking a shit in the middle of the street.
Gunshots rang through the air. Tippi stepped on the gas.
Tippi shook her head. "I knew it. I knew it! This app would be the end of the world."
"Look out!" David shouted.
Tippi jerked the car to the side, barely missing a couple having sex in the middle of the road.
"Holy lord," Tippi said. "It really is the end." She glanced at David; he was sending a text to Mitch. "Call him again."
"I just did. It went straight through."
"Then try him again!" Tippi shouted.
"Okay! Okay!" David barked as he dialed. He dialed and put the phone to his ear.
Several rocks flew at the Prius' windshield, sending spiderweb cracks across the center. Tippi floored it, glancing over her shoulder as a group of teenage boys and girls hurled more rocks, denting the Prius' rear bumper.
"Damn it!" David said. "Voicemail again."
"Can't they just shut off the app?" Tippi said.
"You'd freaking think."
***
Two armored trucks escorted Professor Mearsteen's Tesla Model S through the military blockade outside of the iThink Corp. Building. Soldiers in body armor threw tear gas grenades at crazed people on the other side of the barricade, sending them running.
Mearsteen ran into the server room, fuming. "What the hell happened, Boyd?" she yelled, then bumped into something heavy dangling from the ceiling.
When she realized what it was, she shrieked.
In front of her, Professor Boyd hung from a noose made of computer wires and cables. His eyes bugged out, and the tear streaks running down his cheeks were still fresh. A handwritten note was pinned to his chest: "I'm sorry."
***
Mitch slept face-down in his bed, snoring. Rachel sat on the edge, in her blouse and underwear.
She picked up her phone and left the room.
She walked into the kitchen and poured a glass of water. She sipped it, reading her phone as she drank. The iThink brain spun, and flashed a message.
She paused, mid-sip. She looked at the set of Wüsthof knives in a block on the counter next to her.
Rachel grabbed a nine-inch steel knife from the block.
***
Tippi's Prius pulled outside of Mitch's apartment building. The building's facade was covered in splatters of wet garbage, and broken glass peppered the ground.
Tippi and David leapt out of her car and ran towards his apartment. The front door was wide open, the lock broken. As they neared it, rocks smashed Tippi's rear windshield, spraying glass on the back seat. She screamed.
They ran inside.
***
Mitch twitched in his sleep, smiling. Rachel opened his bedroom door, casting a silhouette on the bed: the rectangular shape of her phone in one hand, and the long, pointed shadow of the knife in her other.
She approached the bed, her bare feet treading lightly on the floor, not waking Mitch. The glow from her phone's screen shone on her face, casting soft, jagged shadows on her wild eyes. The phone read, "Stab him. STAB HIM! BEFORE HE GETS YOU!"
She lunged at Mitch, nudging the bed as she did. Mitch jolted awake and saw her.
"Hey Rache, what the-"
He rolled out of the way, just as the knife plunged into the pillow where his head had been a split-second before. Mitch leapt out of the other side of the bed.
Rachel snarled at him, brandishing the knife in front of her face. She looked at her phone, which read, "GET HIM!"
Mitch looked at her phone, then the knife. "What the fuck is-"
Rachel jumped on the bed and swung the knife; Mitch dodged to the side, but the blade sliced his left ear, straight down the middle.
He screamed.
***
David and Tippi heard Mitch's scream from the hallway outside his apartment. David pounded on the apartment door and yelled, "Mitch! Open up!"
They heard crashes and muffled yells from inside.
"Mitch!" Tippi shouted.
"That's it," David said. "I'm breaking down the door." He backed up and threw his left shoulder into the door.
The door didn't move; David recoiled and grabbed his left shoulder, wincing. "Fuck!"
Tippi pushed him out of the way. "Stand back, idiot." She kicked the doorknob, and the door flew open. They rushed inside and ran towards the commotion in Mitch's bedroom.
Mitch's dresser was overturned, and his clothes had spilled all over the floor. Deep slashes criss-crossed his mattress, exposing puffs of foam. On the floor, Rachel sat on top of Mitch.
"Rachel! Don't do this!" Mitch screamed.
She stared at her phone, raised the knife over her head, and plunged it towards Mitch's heart. As it neared his chest, Mitch saw a blur of dyed orange hair and Converse All-Stars tackle Rachel from the side, knocking her off of him and onto the floor.
"Tippi!" he exclaimed.
"Bitch!" Tippi yelled, as she pinned Rachel to the ground and knocked the knife from her hand. Tippi slapped her in the face as Rachel thrashed underneath her like a wild animal.
"Get off me!" Rachel yelled. "Mitch is dangerous! He must be stopped!"
Tippi grabbed Rachel's phone and yanked it from her claw-like grip. Tippi threw the phone against the wall, where the screen shattered and turned off.
Rachel's eyes returned to normal. She looked at the chaos around her and stopped struggling. She saw the blood running from Mitch's sliced ear and began to cry.
"Oh, Mitch," Rachel said. "Oh, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean it."
"Like hell you didn't!" Tippi yelled.
"I swear, it's true."
"Don't lie to me, you little-"
"Tippi," Mitch said from the ground next to her. Tippi stopped and looked at him. "It's okay. It's over."
***
Mitch and Tippi sat on the couch in Mitch's living room; he was wrapped in a blanket, and a large bandage was taped to his ear. Rachel sat in the chair next to them, dressed in her clothes. The TV was on.
Chris Hayes sat at the MSNBC desk, and said: "Ladies and gentlemen, it seems that the worst is over. The iThink app has been turned off."
The room exhaled.
"I have on the phone with me Professor Ingrid Mearsteen, creator of the iThink app," Chris continued. A photo of her appeared on the screen, from her cover of People magazine.
"Hi Chris, thank you for having me on," Mearsteen said in a warbly voice. "Yes, the problem has been fixed. The app is offline."
"Professor, what can you tell me about the source of the problem?"
"A bug in the last update. I can't really say more at this time. We will be doing a full investigation with the FBI."
Mitch looked at his phone. His finger hovered over the iThink icon.
Tippi grabbed his hand. "Don't touch that."
Mitch moved her hand away. "It's okay." He pressed the icon. Everyone held their breath.
A message appeared on the screen: "iThink is temporarily out of service." Everyone breathed a sigh of relief.
"All over the world, forces are restoring order," Chris Hayes said. MSNBC cut to footage of tanks rolling down the streets of Paris; SWAT teams in riot gear arresting people in New York City; legions of police corralling protesters in Moscow, Madrid, Cairo, Rio de Janeiro, and dozens of other cities and towns across the globe. "Please, shelter in place till the local authorities tell you it's safe."
Rachel said to Mitch, "Can I talk to you?"
Mitch nodded, and they went into the kitchen. David and Tippi could not hear their conversation, but they gave each other worried glances.
They heard the door open, then close. Mitch walked back into the room, alone.
Tippi stood up and pointed a finger at him. "I can't believe you're just letting her go! Call the cops!"
"I'm kind of with Tippi on this," David said. "If I hadn't broken down the door, she would have-"
Tippi coughed and looked at David.
"Guys, guys, I get it," Mitch said, putting his hands out gently. "I feel terrible about this, but I was on that stupid app, too. It could have been me swinging the knife. I just got so caught up in it. She's a sweet girl. Now that she's not on iThink, she'll be fine. I'll be fine. We all will."
Tippi paused. Then nodded. "Okay, Mitch," she said.
"Thank you," he replied.
The three of them walked to the window and watched Rachel walk up the street. Her pace was slow. She took her phone from her coat and the glow filled her face as she scrolled on its cracked screen.
"Til the next big app comes around," Tippi said.
David laughed a little, "Then it might just be the end of the world."
"No more phones or apps for me." Mitch took his phone and smashed it on the ground.
Tippi laughed. "Yeah, right."