Crowd: A Dystopian Social Network Thriller (Final Draft)

Collision

Camryn's auto-limo cruises through downtown's nightlife scene. He dug night cruises, but traffic trumped at this time, and lots of intoxicated idiots waddled around like zombies. Unsurprisingly, most of them weren't logged into Crowd, probably fearing their reckless behavior would lower their score.

Morons, all of them.

And yet, they couldn't drop Camryn's mood. The deal with Fleet was riding along nicely. He had almost admired the service, its effectiveness compared to the state-run transit failure. A hive mind of autonomous vehicles counted as the next step of public transport evolution.

Camryn checked the Fleet presence via his AR vision and grinned.

Soon.

A virtual K-pop artist bounced in addictive beats while Camryn opened his priority inbox and scanned through feedback messages. Camryn had received over five thousand messages this week, but thankfully, the algorithm sifted through them and picked only the most valuable. The higher the Crowd rank of the feedback giver, the higher the chance of their feedback ending up in Camryn's inbox. Fair.

One message popped out, penned by a special advisor.

Name: Rain Cruzada

Age: 23

Crowd score: 3.91

Class: disconnected/working/middle/upper/one-Percent

Occupation: Rookie special advisor

Her voice recording played. "I've noticed that most members of the Crowd community are either middle or upper-middle class. Maybe the platform can be more inclusive for the less fortunate, you know, folks from the disconnected class." She paused. "Maybe there's a better way to include even those who don't even hold a job."

Camryn scanned her profile. Rain was a recent graduate of his own college, nurtured a good ranking of 3.91 and boasted an impeccable lifestream.

She had participated in hundreds of Crowd-sponsored events, held private pro-Crowd sessions at home and was an avid science fiction reader. According to the profile, her favorite book was Leto The Liberator, an interesting choice.

A smidge of pride overcame Camryn as he saw his success personified. Judging by Rain's profile, she counted as the prime example of his ideal citizen: hard-working, law-abiding, social and eager to improve the lives of her fellow citizens. If only he could clone her, heh, maybe in a decade or two.

Nevertheless, Rain Cruzada had criticized Crowd, so he looked up the demographics of millions of Crowdees in the metro area and rearranged their data sorted by income and education. Cruzada's argument about neglecting the poor was simplistic, but her assumption wasn't wrong. Over seventy-four percent of the members belonged to the middle or upper-middle class. It was a good metric for profit since they all paid using his Crowd profile, which nested his company one percent of every transaction. If Crowd only provided value for those already fortuned, his grand vision would fail like all the thousand other promises made by his money-obsessed peers. No, he couldn't dwell on his success.

He scribbled down some notes in the air which his sketchbook function transformed into sentences. He simply needed to find a better motivator for the less fortunate to sign up. Maybe an initial boost of their ranking or some monetary incentives. He pondered some possibilities when Lory called him via the priority channel. "I hope you remember Jane's gala party today."

"What?"

"Jane LeFlor. CEO of FreshFood."

"I know who she is."

Camryn checked his calendar and realized he had missed updating the appointment. That's why Lory called. His human backup machine.

"When is it?"

"It has already started about eleven minutes ago. You're still on the guest list."

And he needed to go. FreshFood owned a vertical farm in the city, automizing the production of local vegetables and selling it via their supermarkets under the same brand label. The CEO was a self-obsessed blowhard who loved lecturing others, but Camryn could still find common ground.

"I'm on it," he said to Lory and cut the connection.

Over twenty new appointments handled today and he missed the one matters the most. A human foible.

He addressed his board AI. "Plot the fastest route to the FreshFood headquarters."

"The fastest route will lead through Sunset Market, bordering Esperanza."

A hotzone bursting with gang activity, but Camryn needed to arrive before the CEO held her speech. Besides, his auto-limo used bulletproof windows. A few gangbangers with Uzis could only dent his electric beauty.

"Do it."

Camryn dimmed the windows to darkness. He needed to get into the right mindset and couldn't be distracted by rundown streets and potential attackers lurking around the battered boardwalks.

He played orchestral music with a Japanese chorus and practiced his upcoming greeting. Jane had likely seen the disastrous Eden Yung interview and would rub the failure into Camryn's face. He needed to learn how to present himself, and his ideas, in public without collapsing like a sweating virgin who hadn't scored yet.

"I'm sorry to interrupt again," the AI said.

"I'm preparing."

"Incoming vehicles closing in at one hundred and twenty-one miles per hour."

The target pointers traveled on the window displays.

"What is going on?"

"Illegal street racing."

"Pull back, pull back."

The auto-limo steered around, trying to avoid the main lane, but the speed of the incoming vehicles thundered along the empty lanes.

"Get the fuck out of here."

A customized Firebird whooshed by the rear and honked.

"Move faster," Camryn said.

"The speed limit is—"

"Fuck the limit. Get me out."

In the left corner of his eyes, a souped-up Viper stormed toward his position. The incoming vroom sounded like a motorized demon with a desire to crash.

The auto-limo's motion sensors beeped.

<<< Warning. Collision imminent >>>

Camryn wanted to open the door and jump out the moving car. Instead, he cowered in a fetus position and hoped the technology would save him.

<<<collision>>>

White liquid sprayed from the interior nozzles. The substance engulfed Camryn like a protective mother made out of foam. The Collision Cream swallowed the impact energy.

Fzzzzzzz.

The board AI's message muffled through the sticky substance.

"Express Ambulance notified."