Blogbuster: A Sci-Fi Thriller

by Mars Dorian

  “I’m officially broke now,” she said to him.

  “And with today’s disaster, I’ve scared off every potential sponsor. Only pyromaniacs would be interested in investing now.”

  Whatever.

  The assistant sat down next to Violet, put her legs on his lap and massaged them. Good boy.

  “At least you have a record high on views. And you should read the comments, your community is on fire, pun intended.”

  Violet almost smiled.

  “How many?”

  “You’ve just broken the ten million viewership mark.”

  “That is slicko. I told you special effects make all the difference. Audiences expect more nowadays.”

  She purred like her cat when X found the sweet spot on her foot.

  “Now if I could only find a way to make money from that. Vlogging is so damn hard to monetize.”

  The assistant smiled.

  “Well, maybe not. Have you heard about Roman Stax’ announcement?”

  Violet shook her head. Roman Stax, yes, she heard of the guy. Who hadn’t? Multi-millionaire CEO of Stax Media, one of the biggest media companies on the web.

  “What about him?”

  The assistant moved her feet aside and opened a new browser window on his eScroll.

  “He’s looking for famous vloggers to participate in his new online show. The winner can become Stax Media’s new Head of Online Content.”

  He gazed over at Violet.

  “Maybe you should consider it.”

  Violet squinted her eyes and yawned.

  “Does that mean I have to work for someone else?”

  The assistant grinned.

  “Well, the position is initially for one year. And the offer is pretty tempting, to say the least.”

  Violet turned to him with half-open eyes. Interesting offer? It sounded like one of these stupid game shows. And what was the reward again? Head of Online Content for Stax Media? Hyped position and low pay, that’s what it sounded like. Probably not even enough prize money to pay the models that were suing her. But X’s smile lingered. He showed her the pay on the screen. Violet almost fell from her couch.

  “Impossible.”

  Except it wasn’t.

  9

  During the ride, Violet scanned through a few more messages. After the disaster of the day, she needed something to crank up her confidence, something soothing for her defeated soul. It didn’t take long. Amongst the hate and I-sue-you emails, she found this message from a user called GearedTowardsViolet. He, and judging by the voice of the message, it must have been a ‘he’, wrote :

  Violet. You don’t know me, but I know you, at least that’s how it feels for me. For the past three and a half years I’ve been a subscriber to your channel. I enjoy your personality, as well as your edutaining rants about techwear fashion and creation. I don’t have much light in my life these days, but whenever I see a new video from you in my stream, my heart bumps harder. Butterflies rocked out of my stomach and my fingers shiver as they hover over the ‘luv’ button.

  You’re one of the few shines that make my existence worthwhile.

  And it pains me to see that a lot of people out there don’t appreciate you.

  I just saw your latest fashion show and cringed when the model blamed you for her inability to carry your techwear. Believe me, if I was there with you, I would have smacked some serious sense into her. She had no, no, no right to treat you like that, it was disgusting.

  Please don’t let this day destroy your passion. You’re a bright light illuminating an ocean of mediocrity. It’s filled with sharks and deep sea fishes that want to take a bite at you, but don’t let them. Bite back. Twice as hard if you have to.

  P.S.

  I’ve attached the screenshot of a thousand credit donation I made to you. I know it isn’t much, but I’m in a tight financial situation myself, and that’s all I can spare.

  P.S.S.

  You are incredible, the way you are. Incredible with capital I.

  P.S.S.S.

  I will watch all of your upcoming videos and ‘luv’ them all. I will personally start a witch hunt against everyone who dares to bring you down. Our kind has to stick together.

  Violet paused to let the words from GearedTowardsViolet settle. Although she appreciated the fan support from GearedTowardsViolet, the tone of the message put her off. There was an underlying flavor that didn’t please her. Maybe the commitment to comment-crush her enemies? She wouldn’t mind a witch hunt against that model. In a way, she asked for it. Making a fuzz out of a buzz. Grrrr. Violet turned back to her inbox and saw the confirmation mail. Indeed, she received a thousand credit donation from GearedTowardsViolet. She remembered having a support button on her website, but so far, no one had ever used it, except for this guy. Wow, talking about true fan engagement. It was good to see she had peeps on her side, peeps who rooted for her. And with the soothing sound of the electric car riding at sixty-five kilometers, she closed her eyes and dreamed of a Violet world.

  10

  Click. Print. Gun.

  “This is going to be our best one ever.”

  Trigger was in the house. He wiped his hands and took a long breath. He wanted to play it cool, but under his layer of thick skin, his cells buzzed like spitfires.

  “Looking good, T, the lower receiver is almost good to go,” Nick said.

  He held his eScroll straight at Trigger.

  “Yes, looking good indeed,” he said.

  Trigger stood in front of the 3D printer, listened to the humming sound of the mighty machine. Fzzz, vmmm, noises that dripped like melliferous honey into Trigger’s ears. He watched the printing a thousand times and could anticipate every part of process, just by listening to the different tunes of the technology. A win-win connection between man and machine.

  Fzz, vrrrm, zmmm.

  Trigger turned toward the printer’s thirty-two inch screen. Touched the display to make the real-time printing menu pop up. A digital blueprint of the AR-15 rifle and its printed parts appeared.

  Upper receiver.

  Lower receiver.

  Barrel casing.

  Barrel.

  Magazine.

  Butt.

  Grip.

  Printing time in total : twelve hours, forty-five minutes. Trigger whistled. Not too long ago, it would have taken a couple of weeks to 3D print these parts. But now, half a day sufficed. Technology, Trigger wanted to make love to it today. But before that would occur, he wanted to take his new baby out for a test shoot.

  Seventy-five seconds later, he was able to.

  The 3D printer finished the process. The hatch slid sideways and revealed a shiny new lower receiver part, the last puzzle to his highly customizable AR-15 rifle. Trigger’s eyes opened up. He felt like a child awaiting Christmas morning. Nick recorded every bit of it — his facial reaction, the humming of the 3D printer, and the revelation of course.

  “Are you filming this in 3D?” Trigger said.

  Nick formed his lips into a ‘mmm’ sound, because d’uh, he didn’t spend two and a half thousand credits on his eScroll if it came with a crappy 4K cam.

  No way.

  Trigger held the lower receiver. Thousands of fans tuned in.

  “What do you say, folks, is it pretty, or is it PRETTY?”

  In the blink of an ADD eye, his real-time community unleashed a comment volley.

  “Pretty as pretty can be.”

  “A damn fine dame.”

  “Boom, your baby brings me the bromance, Trigger.”

  And a hundred more comments that Trigger couldn’t read now, because damn, he was shaking from excitement. Like, shaky shaky.

  He turned around, stared into Nick’s eScroll and blasted out the biggest smile.

  “The best presents in the world are the ones you print yourself.”

  “Amen,” Nick said and captured a close-up shot of Trigger taking the lower receiver and putting it to the other AR parts. They were stretched out on
the table plate, ready for speed assembly. Trigger wiped his hands and assembled the pieces together like a magic puzzle that couldn’t wait to fit into the greater whole. Click, clack, clank. He did it a hundred times, and with the new stick-ready components, it worked faster than ever.

  Gotta luv ze technology.

  “Let’s see what this baby can do.”

  Trigger took the self-printed AR rifle outside while Nick followed him with the record mode still on.

  They left the ranch house, moved into the light of the late afternoon sun. It was a bright day for a tight prey. Trigger walked around the backyard and onto the range. It was almost a thousand meters in length, perfect for any target practice. What a great idea to set up the printing facility next to the range, far away from the city’s crowded districts.

  No pestering neighbors saying,

  “Hey ya gun jerk, stop making all that racket. Not everyone can sleep to the noise of bullet shots.”

  No government officials to get in the way,

  “Excuse me, sir. Can I see your license again?”

  Just him, the baby, Nick, and a loyal community of thousands of gun lovers.

  “Ready, guys?”

  The word ‘Yes’ appeared as a hundred eighty-five people flooded the screen in a flurry of comments. Trigger imagined them sitting in front of their screens all over the world, their eyes burned onto the pixel display, waiting for him to unleash the fireworks.

  Ready when you are.

  He put on his Anti-Impact hearing protectors, 3D printed, of course, and motioned Nick to do the same. Trigger held up the AR rifle and took aim at his self-made troll puppet, located about four hundred fifty-three meters down range. Trigger glanced at Nick’s eScroll which was wrapped around his arm.

  “In case you don’t know me, my name is Trigger, and today, on this sun-soaked range, I’m going to test model 2.0 of my DIY redesigned AR-15 rifle. This time, I’m going to use corrosive 5.45 × 39mm rounds.”

  Nick nodded. Smiley faces and other emoticons appeared on the video blog page. The world was watching, at least the part that mattered to him. Trigger pulled, um, the trigger.

  His 3D printed baby went ratatatatatatatata. The AR rifle shook and spit bullets across the field. They shredded the troll puppet, sending shards through the air like confetti.

  Ratatatatatatatatatata.

  Nick filmed everything. He knew how to position himself to capture Trigger’s best shooting angle.

  Ratatatatatata.

  The advanced resolution was going look stellar during live video broadcasting. Even awesomer, once the video was filmed, the boys were able to upload an extra slowmo version that would expose every detail up close. An extra gungasm for the premium subscribers that followed Trigger’s video blog since day one.

  Ratatatatatata.

  Over a hundred shots later, Trigger got into flow. Maybe this time, he was going to break a new record. But then he slammed in a new mag, pulled the trigger and felt the AR-15 cranking out an odd noise. A burned plastic smell elicited from the rifle. The overheated barrel bowed down like a penis losing its juice. The lower receiver ejected like a safety pod, the magazine melted into the grip, and Trigger sighed as the rifle dissolved into its separate parts. They crumbled to the ground as smoke blew into the air.

  Dicked up.

  It was fun while it blasted.

  Trigger knelt down, picked up the battered parts from the ground and showed them to Nick, who was busy zooming in for the dirty details.

  “Rest in pieces, oh sweet DIY AR-15. Your short life will be remembered.”

  Dozens of sad emoticons popped up on the live comment stream.

  “Oh man, so sorry, Trigger.”

  “I really thought you’re going to reach three hundred rounds today.”

  “Your effort will not be in vain.”

  Trigger smiled as he read through the flurry of comments. What a caring community, considering they were mostly males with more testosterone than the hulk brigade.

  “Don’t fret, guys. We almost reached two hundred shots today. Way better than the hundred rounds with version 1.0, remember?”

  Oh, they remembered. It was only two and a half months ago.

  “Today two hundred, next month three, guys. Always leveling up in life. Besides, look at the bright side. At least I don’t need to clean it.”

  He waved his live community goodbye, did his trademark salute. Over and out, my Trigger-happy friends.”

  Nick smiled and stopped the recording. Trigger shook his hands.

  “Thanks for filming, man.”

  “Hey, no probs. It was an honor to be with you today. Next month, we’re going to crack five hundred rounds before burning up the plastic.”

  “For sure.”

  They left the range and went back inside the house. In the living room, Trigger put on some classic eighties rock, opened the freezer, took out two chilled Hefeweizen with a dash of lemonade, poured them into glasses, handed one over to Nick. He walked towards the thirty-two inch screen and uploaded the gun footage taken at the range earlier. It was time to slowmo the material.

  In the middle of the work, a noise went beep beep on Trigger’s eScroll. Special alert sound he set up for VIM’s — Very Important Messages. Trigger checked his device and saw his confirmation mail for the Blogbuster show. Speed-read through the usual yadda yadda till he saw his invitation for the actual event.

  The person in charge called him, shared the details.

  Trigger nodded, smiled.

  Thanks again, he told the female voice over the encrypted channel. He smiled his biggest one, showing all of his teeth. He did it. Final contestant with seven rival vloggers. Yes sir. Reason enough to give a bro hug to smiling Nick.

  The mission was well on track.

  11

  Bam woke up and opened his eyes.

  Blackness made way for a room filled with white walls and metal beds. An antiseptic scent penetrated Bam’s nostrils. Tasted like medicine and alcohol mixed with sugar. Somehow yummy and yucky at the same time. He could get used to it. But he didn’t want to.

  Because, hospital hate.

  Bam looked at his surrounding and discovered dozens of machines attached to his arms. They looked similar to those sci-fi thrillers where the government experimented with human test objects. Except this wasn’t a secret underground lab, this was the Social State Hospital. He’d been here before, too many times. Snippets of memories flashed back.

  Stunt — check.

  Drone — check.

  Crash on the ground and blood dripping from his abs? Triple-check. And now? Bam moved up his bed, stretched his back. He didn’t feel like a million credits, but he was alive. They patched him up. Ok.

  Knock, knock on the door, the doctor stepped in.

  “Good afternoon.”

  Afternoon? Bam turned towards the covered windows. They sealed off the sun, no light could come in or get out. What time was it?

  “How do you feel?” doc said.

  Bam inspected him. Chocolate cream skin and thick black hair, looked Indian, carried the voice of a fatherly storyteller. Made Bam want to lull back into lala land.

  “Still breathing,” he said.

  The doc pushed the silver glasses atop his hawk nose.

  “Indeed you are.”

  He jotted something down on his datapad display and checked some stats. Wiped menus and zoomed into graphs.

  “According to the paramedics, you crashed into a drone, is that correct?”

  Bam nodded. Unfortunately. The doc raised an eyebrow.

  “In midair?”

  “It’s a long story, doc. The short version is I’m a popular vlogger, I do stunts for a living.”

  “What’s a vlogger?”

  “A video blogger. You know, the ones who shoot share-worthy videos and attract massive online audiences?”

  The doc nodded, looked as if he heard about it for the first time. Bam sighed. Even in these times, people seemed cluele
ss about web-created careers. But whatever, the doc wasn’t supposed to be a web geek, he was supposed help Bam get back on his feet, asap.

  “So, what’s the verdict?”

  The doc looked up from his datapad.

  “The bad thing is the splitters shred through your liver and damaged it beyond repair. The good thing is we bio-printed you a new one.”

  “Bio-printed?”

  “We extracted cells from your body and replicated the human tissue. It’s as good as new. Actually, better.”

  He smiled.

  “So if you battered your liver with heavy amounts of alcohol in the past, you could start from scratch. Not that I’m encouraging you to.”

  Doc told him about broken metal pieces in the stomach. Intricate details about which drone splitter pierced which part of his body. Bam covered his ears and said, blah blah. For someone used to crashing, he got a weak stomach for bloody specifics.

  “Drop the details, doc. Now what?”

  “Well, I’d advise you to stay in the hospital for at least one more week. But then you should feel fine to go back home.”

  “That’s it?”

  The doc smiled.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You just told me how devastating my injuries were. Told me every gory detail and now I’m good to go?”

  “One word, son, bio-printing and nanomedicine.”

  Here was that word again. Bam should circle it and pray for it, twenty-four seven. Nano, the new love of his life. Nano, the savor from science. Doc went on.

  “But I advice you to change the content of your videos. I know kids nowadays crave people doing dangerous and inherently stupid actions that can have deadly outcomes, but we’re talking about your health here.”

  Pause.

  “There’s only so much nanomedicine can do. You shouldn’t push your luck, and more importantly, you shouldn’t push your health. You only have this life for now.”

  Bam nodded, let the statement enter his left ear and leave through the right. The doc was filled with good intentions, but he didn’t know how the web world worked. Didn’t know how far you had to venture to attract attention nowadays. Especially if your financial future depended on it.