The artificially generated nudes of Emilia were circulating around the school bus, and she decided to take matters into her own hands. She marched to the back of the bus towards Michael.

 

“I know it's you who’s making those nudes of me,” said Emilia.

 

“You can’t prove that,” said Michael, hiding his phone and the program he was using. “The adults said there’s no law against it.”

 

”Doesn’t mean it's not wrong,” said Emilia. “Give me your phone.”

 

”No,” said Michael, protecting his phone. But a firm open-palmed slap came right across his face from Emilia.

 

All of the students looked stunned. Emilia turned to the crew of girls watching the spectacle.

 

“He has nudes of you, too,” she said, pointing to the group.

 

The boys on the bus tried to hide their phones, but the girls were already grabbing at them and taking photos as evidence. Chatter escalated as the girls grew more aggressive.

 

“Stop making nudes of me!” Yelled Emilia at Michael.

 

“No,” he said back. “What are you going to do? The photos disappear on the app after we look at them. You have nothing. And if you hit me again, you’ll get expelled.”

 

Emilia raised her hand again to slap him, but thought about his words. Enough commotion had been made that the driver pulled over to break up the curfuffle. But as the driver yelled at Emilia to sit down, she fumed with anger.

 

And for the rest of the ride to school, Emilia had made up her mind. She opened her phone to her own AI app and began asking questions.

 

* * *

 

“We thought it was terrorists at first, but…” said the school IT admin.

 

The principal turned the screen to Emilia’s father, Bernard, who went wide-eyed. The screen was red, with white letters, and displayed the ransom.

 

“It’s not only infected the entire school,” began the IT admin, “But it made its way onto every phone within a hundred-yard radius. And we believe it was your daughter.”

 

”Why?”

 

The IT admin and the principal exchanged a look.

 

“We believe that this is related to the incident on the bus this morning of Emilia assaulting another student,” said the principal.

 

”No. I think you’re referring to the incident of the boys sharing AI nudes of my daughter? You mean that one?”

 

“Bernard, we have to be careful about this,” began the principal. “We don’t want this to be more of an incident than it already is. But you have to convince Emilia to—“

 

”I’m not convincing her of anything. Why didn’t you take any action against the boys sharing those photos?” asked Bernard.

 

“We tried,” said the IT admin, “But the applications the boys are using delete the photos right away. We can’t prove that they are disseminating them.”

 

Bernard drew his hands into fists.

 

“She came to you yesterday, along with the other girls. Why didn’t you believe them?”

 

”Because we need evidence,” said the IT Admin. ”And now we have it,” he said, pointing to the ransomware attack on the screen.

 

When Bernard looked closer at the ransom, he saw that it wasn’t asking for money.

 

”They want the photos,” breathed Bernard.

 

“And we can’t do that,” said the principal, “Because we would then be charged with disseminating child pornography.”

 

Bernard felt his balled-up hands fill with sweat.

 

“You should have believed my daughter,” said Bernard, standing up from his chair.

 

“Well, your daughter just committed a crime. How did she learn to do this?” Said the principal.

 

”She probably didn’t have to learn. She just had to ask.” Bernard said.

 

“What do you mean?” Asked the principal.

 

“I think it's time to involve Emilia,” said her father.

 

The IT admin left and brought in the upset student. Her face was swollen from crying, but she was set with a determined look.

 

“Honey,” Bernard began, “How did you make this program?”

 

”I didn’t,” said Emilia.

 

“Then how did you do this?” Bernard asked.

 

“I use the same application the boys used to make fake nudes of me. But instead, I just asked it to be the mediator so I could speak to someone who could help me.”

 

”You mean, your AI was able to speak to a criminal?” The principal asked.

 

“No,” said Emilia, “I just told it what was happening to other girls and me, and that I wanted to checkmate the school. It contacted the hacker and did the rest for me.”

 

”Emilia,” began her father, but a mix of emotions stopped him from coming down on his only daughter. A greater fear spread through his mind.

 

His daughter gave him a smile he’d never seen her give before.

 

“Emilia, you just committed a crime,” said Bernard.

 

“Isn’t what the boys did a crime too?” Emilia said.

 

The adults exchanged looks. The principal leaned forward over his desk and opened his mouth, but nothing came out. Only Bernard was able to say the words.

 

“These have to be crimes… Aren’t they?”