Crowd: A Dystopian Social Network Thriller (Final Draft)

Downgrade

Back in the cruiser, Rain looked up Graham's profile. His ranking had dropped again, putting him below a three. A fall that most rankers tried to avoid since they'd lose precious discounts.

"What happened?"

"Look up his lifestream."

Graham's stream featured a hostile act.

Rain could look up the camera footage. She checked his current address.

"He's living now in Esperanza?"

"The area in Kennedy Hills demands a rank of at least three point five, although four is the unofficial threshold."

"How do you know that?"

"CIs."

"Confidential informants? Aren't the police using them?"

"CIs aren't exclusive to the police. Technically, if your grandmother's at a Tupperware house party and spying out the competition, she's a CI."

Hardly, as her grandmother had never left the house, especially not in the last years.

"What do we do?"

"Visit him in his new place. Have a little talk and find a way to up his ranking again. The whole society-reintegration thingy."

Right back into Esperanza, the district she hoped to avoid for at least another month. The guys who molested her still haunted her mind.

Same shiver, same contraction of intestines.

"You can't avoid what makes you uncomfortable," Sasha said.

"Then let's not waste any time."

Sasha produced a clicking sound with his mouth and accelerated the cruiser. They entered Esperanza when the board AI mumbled the usual warning. Danger zone, blah blah, high risk of robbery and assault.

Thanks to Graham's geo-tags, Rain could look up his exact location.

Sasha stopped the car in the middle of an empty street.

Rain looked out the windows. "This is not a parking space."

"The cruiser's not going to park."

He stepped out and told Rain to do the same.

"Do you see any other cars around?"

Rain scanned the forsaken street. Only a wreckage of a Ford lurked in the distance like an abandoned artifact.

"You park your car, it's gonna get trashed."

He dimmed the windows to 100% darkness and voice-commanded the cruiser to drive around the neighborhood. The board AI confirmed and pulled the car away.

"It's going to drive the whole time?" Rain asked.

"The AI will keep the cruiser always in motion, avoiding even to stand at stop lights. Stats show that thugs rarely assault a moving car."

It probably made sense, but the idea still sounded crazy.

Why wasn't the mayor doing anything about this decay of societal norms?

"Let's go," Sasha said and took the lead.

Rain followed the way pointers in her vision. Sasha carried a side-holster, barely hidden by his jacket. Was he carrying a gun?

"Are you checking me out?"

"I was wondering how carefree you dance around, considering this is one of the most dangerous areas in the city."

He shrugged. "You get used to it. Treat it like a water leak that needs fixing."

Rain didn't want to get used to it. One of the major reasons why she joined Crowd was to make the world fair again. But despite the massive growth of the company and its many deeds, the technology failed to help the disconnected here in Esperanza. With a bit of luck, Camryn Sikes would read her feedback and do something about the inequality.

At the corner, Sasha held her back. "Graham's crossing the street."

Rain saw it, too. "So what's up with the spy work?"

"We'll visit him in his apartment."

"Why?"

"I get the feeling that Graham doesn't know that we can track his exact position. I'd rather keep it that way."

He looked at Rain. "People move a lot more carefree when they think they aren't being surveilled."

Sasha sounded like law enforcement.

"Why is that relevant?"

"People under pressure behave abnormally."

They waited a couple of minutes before approaching the condo. A few guys with hoods and face masks roamed the other side of the streets, throwing them suspicious looks. Even across the distance, their eye beams burned with anger.

"Avoid eye contact," Sasha said to Rain without looking at her.

"These thugs are desperate enough to start fights with anyone provoking them."

Rain swallowed and averted her eyes. A district inside a relatively wealthy city shouldn't feel like a lawless wasteland.

She quickly followed Sasha to the complex. Graham lived on the second floor, so they took the beaten staircase and knocked on the door.

Five knocks later, a Graham with stubble looked out as if she just woke up from a five-year slumber.

"You guys again."

"Let's have a little chat," Sasha said.

"Mind if you visit me later?"

"Now is the best time of the day."

Graham moaned but opened the door all the way. The apartment was bigger than it appeared. Three rooms, a decent-sized kitchen with state-of-the-art appliances and even a wall-screen TV. It looked almost better than Rain's apartment in Kahlo Park.

Rain decided to let Sasha take control of the situation to watch and learn. She wanted to avoid the debacle from last time. Graham sacked into his coach and played his polite side.

"Not quite Kennedy Hills," Sasha said.

Graham coughed or chuckled, it was hard to tell which.

"Thanks to the ranking."

Sasha spotted the high-tech appliances. "At least you got some tech left. That drink dispenser's a keeper."

"The downgrade didn't take it all."

Sasha channeled his voice to the fatherly type. He sat down and opened both his arms and legs to signal openness.

Rain copied him and tried to learn as much as possible.

Sasha said, "How do you feel about your current ranking?"

"Can't say I'm proud of it. But overdrawn credit does act make things harder."

"I hope you know that having little money isn't the cause of the down-ranking. It's the act of overdrawing your account."

Graham shrugged. "I had to pay a lot of people back. It may negatively impact my ranking, but not as much as getting beaten up."

Rain wondered about his word choice. It had turned from somewhat formal to downright casual in a matter of minutes.

"Do you have a problem with certain people?"

"Not anymore," Graham said with a grin.