Crowd: A Dystopian Social Network Thriller (Final Draft)

Put a leash on you

"Have you convinced Taylor to work for you, ordering him to clean your shelves and your office, among other things?"

His head reddened. Nervousness tinged his words. "Why would you say that?"

"Please answer the question, prof," Sasha said with the dominant voice of an alpha male.

Piper shifted around his chair and broke the eye contact. "I offered Taylor to work with me. It was a means to improve our relationship."

A vast understatement.

Rain's fingers fisted. "Taylor's been emotionally unsettled about his ranking lately. You've abused that situation for your personal gain, making him work for you for free."

"No, I—"

Sasha fired his statement. "Promising students to increase their ranking goes against our terms of conditions, Professor. You don't have the influence or right to level up anyone's ranking."

The prof swallowed. Someone of his caliber wasn't used getting shouted at. Rain enjoyed it, probably more than she should have. "You've been ordering Taylor around, doing your menial work and call that mentoring. It's not how it works."

Piper cleared his throat. "Taylor was struggling. I was just encouraging him to become more useful."

"You can't promise anyone to increase ranking, especially not with your influence."

"I didn't promise anything."

"You didn't tell him that helping you would increase his ranking?"

He narrowed his eyes. His thin lips revolted. "Of course not."

Rain grinned from the inside as she played the audio sample.

Piper's voice sounded in the playback. "—help me out every day and your ranking will increase. Before you know it, you'll be back in the higher threes again."

Piper crumbled in his chair. The little color left on his face vanished. "Where did you get that from?"

"Doesn't matter. What matters is that you've abused your power."

Sasha's chest moved forward. He probably wanted to intervene but Rain wanted to own this conversation.

This was her moment.

"Be very careful, Professor. If I tell the school board that you manipulate students for personal gain, you will face a whole new set of problems."

Rain wanted to tell him she'd personally down-rank him, even though she couldn't. But did Piper know that? As far as he was concerned, she was an official Crowd advisor with authority. She wanted to make him believe she was capable of anything.

It worked.

Ashley Piper melted in front of her. "I didn't want to hurt him. I thought I was helping him."

"You made that excuse before. It didn't work the first time."

He tried to push himself up. "I...was wrong. I shouldn't have done it, I'm truly sorry."

He wasn't.

He expressed no sign of concern, only fear about his own reputation.

"What are you going to change now?"

"I'm not going to ask him to work for me."

His shoulders contracted. Piper wiped his arms and scratched.

Rain decided to leave him in the uncertainty before she released the tension. "I'm going to make a note in your file. Consider this your first strike."

Piper released sweat pearls as if he wanted to win the national championship of perspiration.

Rain stood up and shook his sweaty hand. Squeezed a bit harder than she should have and was about to leave the office when Piper's cranky voice stuttered again. "Is that going to affect my ranking? I mean, technically, I have done nothing illegal. Taylor agreed to work for me."

Rain threw him a glance and channeled all her rage through her eyes. If looks could kill, hers would have turned Piper into a puddle of meat particles. Piper swallowed hard and that was all she needed to know.

Back outside, Sasha whistled as they crossed the green-grassed campus. "You're a beast. For a sec, I thought about putting a leash on you."

"Piper's a well-respected professor enjoying power and respect. He shouldn't have abused it."

"You are really concerned about Taylor."

She stopped on the grass. "Aren't you?"

"For other reasons. But then again I never dated someone who looked like him."

Sasha knew.

Of course, he did. Rain's Crowd Profile collected all of her past updates, including her ex-boyfriends. "That was a long time ago."

Sasha disarmed his voice. "Never get too close to our cases. Strong emotions cloud your objective judgment." He slid into the driver seat and eyed her like a teacher. "Now tell me what went wrong in the office."

"What do you mean?"

"You know exactly what I mean."

Rain sighed. She closed her eyes and rewound the conversation with Piper. "I was too impulsive. I let my emotions get in the way. I walked in with a bias when I should have been calm and objective."

"Go on."

Rain swallowed. The next answer lingered on her tongue but she feared to expose herself. After all, everything she said and did was being evaluated.

Sasha's demanding eyes burned on her. "I'm not gonna bite your head off, Rain."

Rain's emotional barrier dropped. "I felt a bit of schadenfreude when I made Piper look like a fool."

"Just a bit?"

"Maybe more than I should have."

"Self-reflection is a wonderful thing, isn't it?"

"Will that impact my score?"

Sasha started the cruiser and steered out the parking lot.

"I guess we'll find out."