The New Guy (and Other Senior Year Distractions) Part 18

"Where did you get this?" Sadie whispers to me.

"Thatcher," I whisper back.

"Oh my G.o.d!" Sadie shouts. "Thatcher!"

The transmission cuts out once the video ends, and Ms. Cannon sighs very loudly before directing us back to our discussion questions. The dance recital footage didn't get quite the reaction that the Chaos 4 All video did, but I have to believe that Natalie's fuming right now.

"Hey." Natalie walks up to me at my locker after cla.s.s. "Screw you guys. That was completely unprofessional."

"Oh, unlike stealing computer keys from all our keyboards? Or hacking into media files and subst.i.tuting unapproved material into a publication?" I ask.

"The guest column should be open to everyone," Natalie says. "I'm a member of the Eagle Vista Academy student body."

"Then you should have followed protocol to submit a piece," I say.

"You're lucky I'm not going to take this to administration," she says.

"No luckier than you are that we're not doing the same."

"Your team should really proofread with more care," she says.

Alex walks by and comes to a halt upon sight of the two of us. He looks to me, then quickly away, and then back to Natalie.

"Come on, Alex," Natalie says. "Let's not waste our time with print media."

He sneaks me a little glance as they walk off. Alex is so good at secret looks that I feel my face heat up.

"Is it hard fighting your ex-boyfriend?" Amanda asks me as she and Carlos walk up to me.

"No," I say. Hopefully everyone will attribute my face-if it is as red as it feels-to ex-boyfriend anger and not current-secret-boyfriend-secret-looks feelings.

"Jules likes a compet.i.tion," Carlos says. "Way more than she likes some boy bander."

"I-" I cut myself off from saying more, which is that of course I care more about the people in my life than I care about the Crest. I'm not sure what's true right now.

I have a text when I sit down in cla.s.s, even though we've mainly been eschewing digital communication in this second round of our relations.h.i.+p. For your sake didn't want to risk dropping anything at your locker right now. But this might all be easier if we just came clean.

I start approximately one million messages to him, all with a variation of Are you crazy?? before landing on something much calmer. It's probably not the right time. Let's wait until the battle dies down.

Considering that there's no way I can see that happening before the Crest's legacy is saved for the foreseeable future, I think I'm safe from worrying about coming clean for a while.

Instead of going to school the next morning, I drive myself to a nearby medical complex. Answering real questions to a real medical professional ("No, I'm not s.e.xually active. Yes, I plan to be.") is somehow my first real conversation about what's going on with Alex and my potential s.e.x life. I thought I'd be embarra.s.sed, but it just feels like a reminder that I'm not talking to anyone I expected to about this surprising development. I can't believe I'm not texting Sadie every detail. I can't believe I don't have her responses to get me through any of this. So I actually feel relief saying these things aloud, especially to a doctor, as she has no stakes in the rivalry between TALON and the Crest.

The actual exam is less awkward than I expect, though afterward, a nurse does teach me how to use a condom via a banana. I'm curious what happens to the bananas once they've served their demonstration purpose. It would be awful to just throw perfectly good bananas away when there are so many hungry people in this city. But it also doesn't seem right, somehow, to feed someone a banana that recently was wearing a condom. Now I'm worried I'll never be able to eat a banana again.

"Where were you?" Sadie asks when she finds me by my locker after third period. "You missed Jenni Gant asking a really stupid question about Mesopotamia, and Ms. Cannon nearly losing her s.h.i.+t."

"Doctor," I say, because in general my knee-jerk reaction is honesty.

"Are you sick?" Sadie asks. For just a moment I fear that she's about to check my forehead for a fever. Can I fake a fever? Can I direct heat to my head? "Why are you here if you're sick?"

"Just a checkup," I say, even though my purse feels weighted down suddenly with the condoms and birth control prescription we aren't talking about. I wonder if I should tell Alex about my appointment. Would Sadie?

"You promise me that you'd tell me if you were dying," Sadie says. "Right?"

"I promise I'm not dying, no more than regular mortality," I say. "Though after next year we'll be so far away it wouldn't really matter, right?"

Sadie narrows her eyes. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Just, college?" I clarify. "Once you're off doing amazing things in New York, you won't have time to worry about my mortality anymore."

"I would never not have time for you, Jules," she says. "And I barely even see you now, and we live in the same zip code and go to the same school."

"It'll be different," I say. "You'll be having some new exciting adventure every day."

"So will you," Sadie says, even though I'm not sure how I'll think of anything to do outside of school and volunteer work without Sadie's help. "We'll still talk. We'll text, at least. If I can text you now, I can text you then."

"Okay," I say, even though I can't envision what that will actually be like. I didn't actually mean to get onto the subject of college at all, though I guess it's better than continuing to avoid conversation about my doctor visit. Talking to Sadie without talking about any of the things I actually want to talk about is yet another challenge I didn't expect to take on this year.

"How was TALON today?" I ask. I almost asked Mom to reschedule my doctor's appointment so I wouldn't have to miss it, but it'll be up on VidLook anyway.

"It was fine?" Sadie shrugs. "Alex toured a digital media company and made it almost seem interesting."

I know that Alex probably didn't think that it meant something against me to do a story like that, but I'm sure Natalie did. I'm sure it was Natalie's idea.

"How did Natalie look?" I ask.

"Not completely destroyed by the school's knowledge that she can't dance, if that's what you're asking." She closes her locker. "See you at lunch."

I want to call Sadie back and say the right thing-because lately it feels like I'm not doing that, and maybe even sometimes I'm saying the wrong thing. But if she doesn't fully understand about TALON, and she can't know about Alex, I don't know what that right thing would be.

On Sat.u.r.day I stay late after walking dogs to help stuff envelopes for the annual Rescue Festival they're holding in a few weeks. Tricia buys us lunch, and when we're finished eating, since I haven't heard from Alex yet, I decide to walk dogs for a bit longer. It's not that without Alex I have nothing to do, but it's been days since we were curled up in the back of my car together.

I had no idea how long days could seem.

At home I sit down with my parents at the kitchen table while they're drinking wine (I'm given sparkling water) and snacking on fruit. I glance down at my phone while Mom and Darcy are discussing gardening or something backyard-related. Alex still hasn't texted, but Thatcher has.

Which is a first.

Feel free to shut her down. It won't be suspicious. And then: Or don't. Up to you.

I check my email. My parents are debating the pros and cons of rock gardens while I wait to find out who her is and what suspicion I'm avoiding and whether or not I should shut her down.

to: [email protected] from: subject: More Operation TALON Hi everyone, I know it's been a while since we discussed this. But I've been doing a lot of research, and I finally completed my article.

I did some investigating, and actually got in touch with someone else from the group, and there's definitely more to Alex Powell and Chaos 4 All than people know. I know that you're thinking, "No one cares that much about Chaos 4 All anymore, Marisa," but I think this ties into TALON's success on VidLook, believe if or not.

If we're looking to break into more long-form investigative journalism, this could be a good start. Plus I think this is a topic people actually will want to read about.

-Marisa Oh no.

It has to be suspicious if I try to shut this down, though, despite Thatcher's text-based a.s.surances. I'm figuratively and literally the leader of the Destroy TALON faction. Why would I suddenly want to stop a piece of long-form journalism that would not only guarantee readers.h.i.+p but go after one of our main enemies? Yesterday Carlos publicly said that I cared way more about the compet.i.tion than Alex's feelings.

Oh no, oh no.

On the other hand, of course, I want to know what it says. Earlier this week I might have kissed Alex in the moonlight, but right now I want to know what the more to him is. I think back to conversations we've had, how there were things he didn't even want to talk about, things that (possibly?) haunt him (is haunt too strong a word?) still.

Oh no, oh no, oh no.

alexpowellchaos4all.doc is attached. Download?

I click yes.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE.

CHAOS 4 WHO?.

HOW A FORMER BOY BAND MAY HAVE.

RIGGED THE SYSTEM AT E.V.A.

BY MARISA JOHNSTON.

Two years ago, Chaos 4 All had the biggest hit of the country: on the radio, on iTunes, and online. "Want 2 B Ur Boy" set new records for viral popularity and sharing statistics. The music group enjoyed traditional success as well, including charting at #1 on Billboard's the Hot 100. Much of its publicity, though, including performances on all late-night shows and a Rolling Stone cover, stemmed from this never-before-seen rise to the top starting from the ground floor of the Internet. Chaos 4 All's fast success, however, may not be what it seems, and the circ.u.mstances surrounding them may cast a popular club at E.V.A. in a different light.

Ethan Summers, a former member of Chaos 4 All, still lives in Chicago, where the group began over two years ago. "I saw a sign for auditions at Woodfield Mall," Summers told the Crest. "My friends made fun of it, but I secretly memorized the website address and went home and signed up. You just had to submit a head shot; I didn't have one, so I sent my freshman-year photo."

The members of Chaos 4 All didn't know each other before they were selected for the group by its manager, Len Whitley, who at the time Summers believed to be a stranger to all group members as well.

"I met Austin [Marts], Luis [Rivera], and Alex [Powell] during callbacks," Summers said. "We all went to different schools, but we hit it off pretty much right away. Our audition song was 'Want 2 B Ur Boy,' and we sort of naturally picked up on the harmonies when we sang together. I thought, if I get chosen for this gig, I hope these guys do too."

Summers's wish came true, as Marts, Rivera, Powell, and himself were selected by Whitley. When the four arrived at their first rehearsal, they met Chaos 4 All's fifth member, Johnnie Blakely. The other members did not recall seeing him at initial auditions or callbacks, but were quickly impressed by his singing and dancing abilities.

"Johnnie didn't hang out with us as much, outside of rehearsals," Summers said. "The four of us were pretty tight-knit, but it was like he had his own things going on. It might have bothered us more except that rehearsals took up so much time, we didn't have that much real free time as it was."

After a strenuous several weeks of rehearsals, Chaos 4 All recorded "Want 2 B Ur Boy" and filmed the music video. The rest of their self-t.i.tled debut alb.u.m was recorded while the music video was being edited, despite that their Rolling Stone interview quotes Blakely that they'd worked on the songs together for months before they had any plans of making them public.

"We were just five friends goofing off," Blakely said in the cover story. "Or at least that's what it felt like. We never thought this would be anything more."

The "Want 2 B Ur Boy" music video broke 1.3 million views on VidLook on May 3 of that year. The video had supposedly been uploaded by Whitley only two days previously, on May 1.

"It was crazy to see how fast those numbers went up," said Chaos 4 All member Alex Powell. "I think we were all shocked."

According to Summers, though, these million views weren't what they seemed.

"Johnnie's dad was one of the original investors in VidLook," said Summers, and a review of VidLook's public investor information confirms that John Blakely II was one of VidLook's first and biggest investors. "He had power over the whole website. All he had to do was talk to the tech team, and they'd do whatever he asked."

According to Summers, that million-impression mark wasn't reached by a surge of viewers across the world tuning in to watch Chaos 4 All, but a simple and invisible tweak on the back end of VidLook's system. With the flip of a figurative switch, Chaos 4 All were an overnight success.

A search on blog postings over this short time period indicate that despite the staggering rise in views, there is no record of any sharing or embedding of the video over those few days. Normally a quick rise in popularity on VidLook is accompanied by a proliferation of bloggers sharing the content that then takes on a viral nature once social media gets its hands on it.

"Once we had those views, it didn't matter anymore where they came from," Summers said. "We were featured on the home page, and on the sidebar of almost every other video-music-related or not-on VidLook. And then people were watching, legitimately, and it took off from there. Moving forward, the rest of the fans were all real."

While those fans and the inevitable stardom that followed may have been real, they followed on the heels of something entirely unearned. This factor of unwarranted achievement came to prove itself out, when Chaos 4 All's next few singles saw less and less attention, until their fourth single, "Y Aren't We 2gether, Girl?," did not even crack the Hot 100.

"Once the last single off the alb.u.m came out and tanked, I think we all knew that was it," said Powell. "There was a point in time where we thought we'd get to do this forever, but I guess there was always a part of me that thought we couldn't last."

Today the members of Chaos 4 All are, for the most part, living average lives away from show business. The only former member who appears to be actively pursuing a music career is Blakely. Blakely, who did not respond to attempts to interview him for this story, maintains a Bandcamp page featuring solo music available for a donation of six dollars.

Chaos 4 All is now frequently cited as an example of how fast viral success may not translate to long-term career success. Within E.V.A., there's another example of this: the weekly video and online program, TALON. While one might expect TALON's episodes to collect, at most, as many views are there are students at E.V.A., TALON episodes regularly list five, ten, and even beyond 20 times that number of views.

Now, with Chaos 4 All's VidLook tampering brought to light, a common thread, besides unrealistically high interaction numbers, is Alex Powell. Could Powell be using the lessons learned from Chaos 4 All to help this new extracurricular get off the ground?

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR.

Relief is what I feel first. It's not the worst, even though up until this very moment I didn't realize that I even had a worst in mind. It was years ago, and it ended. It's nothing that changes our romantic relations.h.i.+p.

And what Chaos 4 All did probably isn't illegal.

But it's definitely unethical.

What Alex did was unethical.

And he's possibly still doing it.