DM4 #1

@Bradl refreshes the screen again, clicks 'mentions' - no change, back to 'timeline'. A hashtag game is going but it is well over an hour old, so he'd have to check the previous entries to see if anyone had got there first... it was now twenty minutes since he'd replied to @Deity1 - the heavyweight had made a brilliant joke but @Bradl had a flash of inspiration and, for once, thought it worth elaborating on the original. As the minutes ticked by, @Bradl regretted the impulse - @Deity1 had never replied before and it looked increasingly unlikely he'd see fit to do so now.
An hour later, with 'mentions' still unchanged, @Bradl again considers unfollowing the @Deity1 but only for a second. Back to 'timeline' and @Journey2 [one of @Bradl's first followees and followers] seems to be locked in a conversation with @Deity1. Opening the tweet history..... sure enough, the two have been arguing for thirty minutes with links to sites, blogs and other conversations too. Trying to read between these lines, @Bradl concludes that one is accusing the other of some kind of literary theft - a tweet, the bones of an article, a domain - it is difficult to tell as the stream continues...

Asleep at the computer again.

The next day there is a new message. A DM from @Deity1. "@Bradl Thank you for your interest, it is appreciated. Would you meet me at the following address this evening at 6pm? I know you can make it."

A square building of grey concrete, some of the windows blocked crudely with wooden panels. Only two rooms seem to be windowed and lit. No security entrance formalities - porch and foyer door open. The apartment is on the third floor, the same floor as the light. The door to 3A opens automatically as @Bradl approaches. The room is square, the centre of the room is a square space surrounded by a linked square of desks. There are twenty chairs at the desks. @Deity is recognisable from his avatar, but that likeness must be twenty five or even thirty years old - on show now is a withered frame hunched over a set of apparatus. Opposite there appears to be an exact double.... until closer inspection reveals a female dressed identically. In seventeen of the other eighteen chairs sit children, identical children, exactly like their....parents? They stare into computer screens. This isn't the room with the light, or the windows - the screens provide the only illumination.

"@Bradl, thank you for getting here. A cup of tea, just how you like it - milk and two sugars. You follow me, yes? You also follow @Journey2. You are aware that we have differences of opinion?"
"I saw something..."
"We know what you've seen. @Journey2 tried to send you a Direct Message - he wanted your assistance regarding our little argument. You see, we used something of his, one of my little ones stole some information, we did not credit @Journey2 and this rightly irked your friend. It seems your Twitter history can prove that we were not first to the information - you replied to @Journey2 and so are a witness. The little one has been punished, it should not happen again but the damage has been done and this damage has to be limited for a greater good, you understand?"
"What do you wa...
"You do not possess a mobile telephone. You live at least one hour from this building. An hour is a long time on Twitter. Your account has been hacked, @Journey2's account has also been hacked. Over the last hour or so, the two of you have been locked in a fierce argument about tweet theft, joke theft, Twitter rules, Twitter laws, quite a spectacle. It has been made obvious to your respective followers that you are unlikely to be breaking bread anytime soon.."
"But what do you want from me?"
"To be here now. Your friend @Journey2 is safely enclosed in another room, there he will stay, and so will you. We will close your accounts. Your followers will assume you have tired of Twitter, you may be mourned on-line for a day or so but life goes on..
"But what about life, we exist beyond Twitter - after a while someone is going to notice I'm not at work..
"The doors to this building are now locked. There was an extra something in your tea and in a moment you will be asleep, when you wake you will be alone in the adjoining room with the deceased @Journey2. It will be obvious from your final tweets why you killed him."