Chapter 2 - The Logic of an Eight-Year-Old
Louise didn't look flustered. She unclipped her tray table, pulled out a small container of apple slices, and looked at me with the calm, methodical detachment of a miniature defense attorney who had just won her first high-profile case.
"Just a picture, Mom," Louise said softly, popping an apple slice into her mouth.
"A picture of what?" I pressed, keeping my voice low so the surrounding passengers couldn't eavesdrop. My cheeks were still hot from the earlier humiliation—from the woman yelling about me feeding my starving baby, from the stares of strangers who thought a mother in a commercial airline cabin was committing some kind of public offense.
"A picture of her," Louise said simply.
I blinked, completely thrown off balance. "A picture of her? When did you take a picture of her?"
"When she was yelling at you," Louise replied, her dark eyes flashing with a protective, fierce loyalty that broke my heart a little bit. "Right when she said you should lock yourself in the bathroom like an animal. I turned my tablet camera to portrait mode, zoomed in on her face while she was screaming, and took three bursts."
My jaw dropped. "Louise Marie..."
"And then," Louise continued, unbothered by my maternal warning tone, "I used the sketch filter application we learned in computer class. Then I added the thermal heat-map overlay. And then, right before I sat down next to her, I opened her public social media profile using the airline's inflight Wi-Fi, matched her username from the luggage tag she left sticking out of her designer tote bag, and sent her a direct air-drop message."
I stared at my eight-year-old daughter, wondering for a split second if she had secretly been swapped at birth by a coven of elite cyber-espionage operatives.
"What did the message say, sweetie?" I asked, a nervous knot tightening in my stomach.
May you like
Louise smiled sweetly. "I captioned the thermal sketch of her screaming face with: 'Public service announcement: This is what a lack of basic human empathy looks like at thirty thousand feet. Your followers might want to see how you treat tired mothers.' With a link to her local town gossip group."
Before I could process the sheer, terrifying scale of digital retribution my second-grader had just unleashed, the flight intercom chimed sharply.
