Overview
Ben Etxina is the narrator and central character of Scenebux. He is a twenty-five-year-old Idaho Basque former software engineer who lives in San Francisco, writes commercial erotic fiction under the pen name Melrose Milan, and tries to maintain a no-screen recovery practice after compulsive screen and VR pornography use.
Ben’s self-description emphasizes a slight, “twink” build and wire-framed Matsuda glasses.
Ben’s attempt to escape his old online life repeatedly fails because the fictional systems around him are organized through phones, forums, social scenes, and hidden patronage. His search for the source of scenebux takes him through the T4 Fund, Syndicate Deutschland, Enward Capital, and finally Carl Froht’s circle.
Background
Ben grew up in Idaho, attended SF State, and works at Keybowl before abandoning screen-based work. At the beginning of the novel he lives with Chloe, his girlfriend of six years, in a rent-controlled San Francisco duplex. Their relationship is already strained by money, Ben’s dependence on her, and his suspicion that she is sexually involved with Bick Preppen.
Ben supports himself through erotic fiction packaged by Margot Buxam and connected to Sultry Succubus. He writes works including Tropical Triple Tryst and previously published Riding the Centaur under the Melrose Milan name.
Role in Scenebux
Ben meets Lin Jiao at Coconut Woman and becomes involved in a conflict with Wigland, a biker associated with the East Bay Vintage German Motorcycle Enthusiast Association. After damaging Wigland’s motorcycle, Ben contacts Max Pacifica and travels to Little Saint Demeter, where Max explains T4, preclassical AI, and Aeschylus puzzles before dying in a fall.
Ben then travels with Jacaranda Rosenbaum-Josselewicz to Amsterdam, Berlin, and New York. He meets J.P. Makanga and Syndicate Deutschland at L-Base, leaves their planned attack on an AI data center, and later solves an Aeschylus puzzle that points him to the Young Realists in New York.
In Dubai, Gabriel Findhom accuses Ben of destroying Monarcha and frames him with hidden drugs at the airport. Ben escapes with help from Jessie Belle and Avo Mardkara, then follows Easton Cannonade’s lead to Hung Lo, where Mac Amoolish is killed before explaining The Filter.
Ben returns to San Francisco, learns from Merrick Glowee that Carl Froht is the T4 founder, and reconnects sexually with Lin Jiao at Edgelands. At Aigai House, Froht reveals that Lin supplied Ben’s genetic material for sequencing and that The Filter is a targeted sterility project. Ben pretends loyalty in order to survive.
Final Status
Ben writes his account as an insurance policy against Froht, mails a warning about The Filter to Glowee, and begins a phone-minimized hike along the California coast. He is last seen on a coastal promontory as Wigland approaches him from a vintage motorcycle.