Crowd: A Dystopian Social Network Thriller (Final Draft)

Stunbolt

Rain clutched the stunbolt underneath her jacket but kept the same pace. If she started running, she'd mark herself a victim. Act like prey, and you'll attract the predator.

Benjamin waited for her on the other side, right in front of the door to his block.

Finally.

She hugged him and kissed his cheeks. "Good to see."

"Mmm."

His arms cocooned around her. "Who's that?"

Rain followed his eye direction. Sasha remained in his cruiser, hawking across the distance.

"That's my partner."

"You never told me you had one."

"Everyone at my department works in pairs."

Sasha saluted her inside the cruiser and rolled away from the line of sight, but the damage was caused. Benjamin's ego had taken a dent.

"What's his name?"

"Benjamin."

"Like me?"

"No, I—can we just go up? My stomach's a super-massive black hole."

Benjamin's stern grimace relaxed. "I'm not sure my pasta's gonna fill it."

Inside the hallway, Rain headed straight for the elevator.

"We should walk," Benjamin said and pointed toward the emergency floor.

"But you live on the fifth floor."

"We'll get some exercise."

Was that some passive-aggressive revenge because she rode with another guy? No, Benjamin wasn't going to be that paranoid.

Rain hailed the elevator and heard Benjamin's loud sigh to her right. When the doors parted, a stench reeking of piss wafted at her. Blood stains smeared the walls of the elevator. Some green-brownish puree towered near the left corner as if an alien had puked out its remains.

"Told you," Benjamin said.

"What happened?"

"Do you really want to know?"

No. If a picture told a thousand words, this view produced two thousand nightmares.

"Why is nobody cleaning it up?"

"Welcome to Esperanza."

Rain decided to let the topic slide. After a hard working day, she hated to waste her precious leisure time on social-economical issues.

She followed Benjamin into the stairways and prepared for the long march upwards. Even here, the air smelled of used oxygen and cigarettes, which was an improvement over whatever substance seeded in the elevator.

No wonder Rain had hesitated to join Benjamin back home. How was he even able to live under these dire circumstances?

When they reached the fifth floor, Benjamin opened the door to the floor, all ancient gentleman style. "Out of breath?"

"We have a gym at my working place."

Benjamin nodded and ushered her into his corridor. Just as smelly as the staircase. Rain looked over her shoulder and spotted two guys with hoods pulled over their heads, standing too close to each other and exchanging little-wrapped packages.

"Whatcha looking at?" the left guy asked across the hallway. A piece of cloth wrapped his mouth and muffled his words.

Benjamin put his arm around Rain and forced her to look up straight as they neared his door. "Never directly look at folks around here. They're a bit sensitive."

Benjamin unlocked his door with a classic card swipe. A warm scent of lime and lemon welcomed her. The two-room apartment flashed her iris with a beautiful and minimalist design. White paint with a dash of ocean blue covered the walls. Extractable closets functioned as shelves and could be pushed back. Benjamin had used the minimal space to its maximum use.

"I had no idea you were into Feng Shui."

"It's actually called Maker's Minimalism."

A tiny paradise carved out in the pits of hell.

An old flatscreen hung onto the wall and switched on.

"Need a little time to cook the pasta," Benjamin said and headed toward the tiny kitchen space embedded into the corner. "Make yourself at home."

He spoke with a sing-song, which meant his mood had recovered.

Rain walked straight to the windows and glanced outside. Antennas and weird make-shift installations littered the nearby rooftops. Some naked guys with full-body tattoos suntanned or grilled meat, polluting the air with billows of smoke. Far, far away, the sirens of metro police cars squealed. A few shots echoed through the nearby streets.

Rain couldn't believe she was still in the same city.

Benjamin's voice hailed from the kitchen corner. "A bit different from Kahlo Park, eh?"

Different by one hundred eighty degrees. Kahlo Park was green, safe and boring. The perfect place for couples and old people.

"Oh, I've achieved the unimaginable—I made you go silent."

Rain failed to find a diplomatic answer. She simply mmm'd and turned back to the naked tattoo guys on the lower roofs. One turned a steak and looked up at her with a boyish grin. He waved his free hand, which caught the attention of his buddies. Now five guys looked up across the distance, waving back at her, their coated teeth reflecting the sunlight.

Say hello to the hood.

Rain swallowed and pulled back from the window. She didn't want to generalize—maybe they were nice guys who worked hard at home, but something about their behavior made her body twitch.

Tattoos plus guns never made for a good combo.

Rain sacked down on the coach and remote-switched on the flatscreen. She picked a private news channel which wasn't affiliated with Crowd and stumbled upon a tech event held in the metro area.

"Totally forgot—today's the CaliTech Con."

Benjamin shrugged, like, who cares.

Certainly not him, but Rain had been obsessing about tech innovation since the day she joined Crowd. She changed channels and looked for some high-quality distraction.

Eden Yung, a popular tech reporter covering technology for Bloomer News, interviewed the Fleet auto-car CEO Srinivas Patel live on stage. Unfortunately, the conversation ended already. The sharply-dressed CEO waved the crowd goodbye but lacked his usual finesse. Something must have sapped his life force, because he dragged his body away from the stage like a shot survivor.

Eden stood up and faced the audience. "Wasn't that revealing?"

Some folks in the crowd shouted back. "Go easy, girl."

Some woman said, "You shredded the guy."

Eden grinned back. "But he's a big boy billionaire. I'm sure he can take some damage."

Some folks chuckled. Rain had to admit the reporter was sassy but in an energetic, fun way. Plus, she knew how to woo a crowd. The energy flamed high.

"Now to my special guest," Eden said. "He's probably the most controversial CEO of recent times, making him the perfect person for our next Hard Tech Talk. He started his first company when he was only eleven and became a multi-millionaire long before he founded Crowd, the social credit network platform that ranks and cranks."

Rain wiped her hands and flicked a glance at Benjamin prepping the food. "Camryn Sikes is on."

"Yoohoo," he said with the passion of a sloth.

Rain observed the wall-screen with fire and couldn't wait for the man himself.