Crowd: A Dystopian Social Network Thriller (Final Draft)

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Rain threw her clothes on the ground and took a steam shower. She cooked soothing ginger-lychee tea and crawled into her extractable wall-bed. She wanted to spend the rest of the day watching dumb movies to distract her mind, but ParPar materialized in her augmented vision. The interactive mascot stretched its digital lips. "Time for your review, Rain Cruzada."

Rain sighed, which the AI hopefully couldn't read. ParPar's timing was terrible. He tended to show up during her worst mood swings.

"Being part of Crowd means you act as a role model. Here are a couple of recommendations."

Rain pulled the bed sheet to her neck and prepared for the lectures.

"Listening to your experienced partner is important. S/he knows more about the job than you do. Please refrain from arguments that only please your ego."

"I was just sharing my point."

"See? You're arguing right now, which doesn't provide any value."

"Next," Rain said and sounded more peeved than intended.

"Your blood pressure has also been higher for the past four days. Distress during work can decrease your performance and thus negatively impact the people you're trying to help. Fellow Crowdies need you in an excellent emotional state. Do you understand?"

"Yes, but—"

"Good. If you need help with lowering your stress levels, please access Crowd's relaxation tutorials. Remember—a calm Crowdy is a caring Crowdy."

"Got it," Rain said.

"Do you understand? Please answer with 'yes' or 'now' and/or use full sentences."

"Yes, I understand."

"Good. Next. As a Special Advisor, your language impacts your community both in positive and negative ways. Irritating words violate your fellow citizens, especially those with lower standing. Please refrain from using irritating language. If you want to learn more about the topic, look up the Code of Conduct in the Crowd policy for Civil Speech. Would you like to learn more about the impact of irritating words and Civil Speech? Please answer clearly, using 'yes' or 'no'."

She had heard that exact phrasing before. But unlike last time, Rain ditched her excuses. She simply said, "Yes, I understand." in the same robotic tone as ParPar, which seemed to please her, him, it, or whatever the thing identified as.

"That concludes our review. Thanks for your cooperation and please ponder your actions."

The second ParPar vanished from her augmented vision, Rain activated released a satisfactory sigh and switched on her entertainment feeds. She wanted to watch some classic mindless distraction from decades ago. Some of her favorites were missing from the streaming library, which was strange. Maybe their licenses had run out.

Rain scanned through the remaining selection and picked a dark comedy series about two amoral vice principals causing mischief at their high school. A red warning label floated under the summary:

This series features questionable morals and ambiguous use of male entitlement. Here at Crowd, we aim for harmonic content that inspires and improves our lives. That's why this series will be deleted from our library in 3 days and 42 minutes.

If you want to watch something positive, please check out the following recommendations:

Better Together

Modern Family

Green Hope

Her future

Voices from a Vegan Planet

The Power of Crowd

...

Rain overflew the six suggestions and moaned at every one of them. Sugar-coated entertainment with heavy-handed messages, except maybe for the 'The Power of Crowd' documentary, but Rain wanted to watch fiction.

A dark comedy.

A bit of amoral action, something different from her work. She wouldn't tell anyone, of course. Some of her darker desires and guilty pleasures were better kept in private where they couldn't be judged.

Rain tiptoed to her mini-fridge, grabbed an eighty-five percent dark cocoa milk drink and six cookies with ginger stripes. She dimmed her wall-windows and decided to binge-watch the two seasons of the vice principals before they were purged from Crowd's streaming library.

***Author's note***

If you like the development of the story, I'd appreciate a vote. This helps new readers on Wattpad find out about 'Crowd'. Thank you and happy reading. The next chapters will up the ante.