This is already the fifth week of #FollowTheWriter! I hope you guys are enjoying all the stories as much as I am.
The super-duper quick recap:
"FollowTheWriter is a Writing Prompt Challenge. Every week, contestants continue the story of last weeks winner." (Original Post)
Let's jump right in. This weeks winner is:
@arkadiyCongratulations! Will open source be able to save the world? ;)
I'm sorry that it's a less than the previous weeks. The interest in this contest seems to decrease. If it doesn't pick up by next week, I'll start with some new story seeds. :)
As always:
I will choose the story I like best, together with 
The winner will receive the SBD from this post.
Example: if this post reaches a $50 payout, then 25 SBD will go to the winner. (Actually, it's a bit less because 25% goes to curation rewards.)
So if you like this contest, please consider upvoting and resteeming to grow the prizepool for the winner :)
Best of luck everyone! I look forward to your entries. Let's have some fun writing.
If you have any questions, leave them in the comments.
#FollowTheWriter Contest: Week 1 - Week2 - Week 3 - Week 4 - Week 5
Shady Transaction
Cold. The rain's pouring down. You didn't even want to be hear in the first place, but it's not like you have a choice. Finally, the man arrives. 'Can I see it?' you ask. "Show me you're able to pay first, 2 Bitcoins."
@mariebauwensGive me a moment, trying to find my words.
Been a long night.
It all began 17 years ago, 2238. Seems like a lifetime ago. ELKON they called it. Promised it would replace the need for food. Just one little pill. Invention of the century. Food shortages were as common as polluted air back then.
So, eh, sorry, I’m a little out of breath.
Yeah, in the beginning.
For a while, everything was great. No more need for food, who could be against that? Seems like the greatest invention of all time, doesn’t it? That’s what we thought. Took two years. Hallucinations, it happens you know. Nobody suspected it with ELKON. But when the looney bins started filling up…
And there were other side effects too. Memory loss, convulsions. Some just went plain old crazy. Going back to eating food though, no way. Food production was way down, but even then, people wouldn’t have traded their daily dose for gold if you asked them to.
Always told them not to touch it. To stay away from that poison. They would listen, couldn’t really. Called me crazy, a lunatic. Well, this crazy lunatic just managed to buy one of the last pure doses of ELKON. Gonna save all of humanity! Or maybe I’ll feed it to my cat. Who knows… I’m crazy, right?
@flaminghedge"No, you're not crazy," Cheshire purred as I scratched the back of his neck, "But I'll stick with mice, thanks."
I nodded in agreement. Wise choice. Well, I guess that just leaves the first option. I scratched Cheshire a little more aggressively. Ready to save the world?
"The world kind of sucks, but I'm bored, so I'll watch," he meowed as he leaped onto the counter and curled up into a ball.
Not exactly the kind of motivation I needed, but Cheshire had brought me two fat rodents this week, so I couldn't complain.
I reached into a large brown box on the dirty basement floor and began extracting pieces of my chemistry set. A rat's nest of tubes began to form over the various beakers as I assembled my experiment for the third time that week. Once everything was in place, I wheeled over the tanks containing various compounds and began the tedious process of balancing chemical reactions.
Hours passed. Cheshire fell asleep, woke up, got bored, and then went out to hunt. By the time he came back with a couple of plump shrews, I was nearly finished.
Cheshire dropped one of the shrews at my feet before wolfing his down in one bite. He hopped back up onto the counter and began cleaning his paws.
Thanks, Cheshire.
The last measurement came out perfect. We were ready to give this another shot.
"'Bout time," Cheshire growled.
I gave him an exasperated look. These things take patience. I removed the small vial of ELKON from its metal case and used a syringe to extract 5 cc of the clear fluid. I emptied the syringe into the appropriate tube and turned up the Bunsen burner.
Now we wait.
"Great. More waiting," Cheshire hissed. "Hey are you going to eat that?"
I bent down, picked up the shrew, and tossed it into my mouth. This one was pretty good.
"Glad you like it," Cheshire purred as he began to clean his ears. I scratched his back absentmindedly as I waited.
After a few minutes, I bent down to check on my experiment. Little crystals had begun to form.
Cheshire picked up on my sudden excitement, "No way! It worked?"
After a few more minutes, I turned off the Bunsen burner and emptied the crystals into a Petri dish. I placed a small one on a slide and fed it into the little slot on my compact compound analyzer.
After a couple of seconds, the analyzer beeped and I removed the slide. It was a perfect match.
I stood there for a moment with disbelief.
"Not to be rude, but I didn't think you'd actually pull it off" Purred Cheshire as he stared at the petri dish, eyes wide.
After multiple failed attempts to duplicate the compound in ELKON, I managed to finally do it with the last pure dosage.
"The power to restore the faith of humanity is my my hands! I'm going to save the world with the crystals I grew from my basement!" I exclaimed, hands up in the air as if I won the lottery.
"Okay okay--" Cheshire scoffed, bringing me back to reality, "Nice going, Walter White. But how are you planning to distribute this ELKON 2.0 to restore your beloved mankind?"
I took a step back from the table. Cheshire did have a point. How was I going to convince the world that what I had was going to fill their craving for food and restore their mental capacity?
I had the solution to the worlds problem and no one knew but my cat and I.
"If this doesnt work out, I could teach you to hunt rodents. We'd make a good team."
"Shh Cheshire, I'm trying to think" I motioned him to shoo off for a few moments as I started to pace the lengths of the musty basement. It was time to plot.
@arkadiyThere were many ways in which I could start distributing ELKON 2.0. I could, of course, go from house to house giving out the substance to anyone and everyone. But then again, does absolutely everyone deserve to survive? In the end, it would take me more than a thousand lifetimes to distribute ELKON 2.0 to everyone still standing on this planet.
I remember that once (very long ago) there was a certain philosophy for creating new technologies, which soon took the shape of life for many people altogether. That philosophy, of course, is "open source".
People used to share their ideas, their work, all in hopes of someone else picking up that information and expanding on its principles, making it better, improving it, or at least using it for a certain good.
Those were great principles, but they existed in the world with internet, the good days when everyone was interconnected by the screens of their computers. Nowadays, these devices are simply useless as they're all disconnected. The only things people use them for is making calculations or keeping notes. That is, of course, only if you have a solar panel since the power grid was destroyed many years ago. You gotta be greatly thankful to your grandparents if that is the case!
Finally, a solution hit me with a baseball bat. I will write easy to follow documentation on a single page and print it on thousands of pieces of paper. I know that my neighbor has a solar panel, he must have a working printer! Each of these papers will have a note that asks for the receiver to find a scanner and scan that page, only to pass on the instruction sheets to everyone who they know, who doesn't own a copy already.
Sun starts looking over the horizon, I run out of my house to talk to my neighbor Cornwall.
This will work, this has to work, this will definitely work!
What will you write? Maybe your story will end up in the #FollowTheWriter chain!
Best of luck everyone! I look forward to your entries. Let's have some fun writing.
If you have any questions, leave them in the comments.
#FollowTheWriter Contest: Week 1 - Week2 - Week 3 - Week 4 - Week 5
