By the bar, three boys and a girl sat at a table loaded with drinks. All four had variations of the same haircut, styled to show off the receivers they wore as ornament: the boys cropped close on the right side of the skull, longer on top, and swept over to the left; the girl with a buzz undercut, her hair adorned with an assortment of clips that lifted it up and away from her face, her receiver full-stopping a line of earrings. Cassie shook her head at the sight. There was no rule to say you could only wear your receiver in the privacy of your own home, but it was common sense to be careful. Before you could sign up to Make-Believe, there were certain criteria you had to fulfil: income, prospects, mental health, criminal records. The technology was still aspirational, and scarcity created demand. If these kids wore their receivers beyond a small safe zone round the university hub, they were asking to get robbed.
‘Yeah, and then she woke up …’ said one of the boys, in a voice that carried – a shortcut to an in-joke – and they all brayed with laughter. Cassie felt her jaw clench. This lot, their whole lives would be made up of shortcuts and in-jokes. She was looking, in fact, at the effectiveness of her own Make-Believe marketing strategy. They’d be signed up for Basic accounts at the moment, but a year or two after graduation they’d be Platinum, guaranteed. Wealthy kids with excellent prospects, plenty of time on their hands. An instinctive acceptance of biotechnological modification. And young enough not to worry about risk – not that there was anything to worry about, the technology had been tested and tested and tested, was proven to be safe, all of that – but still, people did worry. Just, not the young. Young rich men, in particular, knew they were immortal: I mean come on, you’re telling me I’m going to fucking die one day? Dude, I don’t think so. So they wore their receivers as status displays – because of her. Inside, her own success and failure were twisted together into a tough, prickly rope.
She had trained herself not to go there in her thoughts. She noticed the receivers, of course, that couldn’t be helped: the girl wearing the latest release, which no doubt boasted all kinds of new modifications; one of the lads sporting a first generation, over two years old and technologically dated, but showing what an early adopter he’d been. Cassie even allowed herself to speculate about their users, how they would translate into stats once their Make-Believe experiences were categorised and sub-categorised. The way the girl had let her shoulder strap slip, leaning back in her seat with one arm raised, hand at the back of her neck. Sex, of course. Exhibitionism? Multiple partners? Unknown partner/s? Cassie broke her down into percentages. Perhaps all three of her drinking companions would feature, unknowing, when she next connected, while her real-world reputation remained spotless.
Just a guess. But then, it was never much more than a guess, even with the stats in front of you. Not that she’d ever said so, while she was at Imagen. The data was gold: to the companies that bought it, to Imagen’s profitability analysis. It was hyped as the closest thing to mind-reading, but really it was more like scanning someone’s music library, or their book collection – you could identify broad preferences, forms and genres; you could speculate about the personality of someone who read nothing but noir crime fiction and listened to early blues, decide he might want to buy a Cadillac. What you couldn’t know was the meaning. The feeling. That the music reminded him of a lost lover: that it made him feel sad, and that he enjoyed his sadness. That, rather than wanting to be Philip Marlowe, he wanted to be the dame. Her own categories, for instance, might promise revelation. Flight: velocity / thrill-seeking. Self-image: strength, increased; attractiveness, increased. Sex: known partner/s; consensual / unknown partner/s; thrill-seeking; consensual. Transformation: gender, f-m; animal … and so on. But ‘known partner/s; consensual’ said nothing of Alan. Of Alan then, and now; of what had drawn her to Make-Believe, hooked her there, made it impossible to leave.
She caught herself. That was the point at which she should think about something else. The week’s deadlines. What was left in her fridge. Whether she could afford to pick up milk and bread on the way home as well as meeting her next debt repayment. Today, though, was different. Today the receivers, their users, her own Make-Believe, were harder to ignore. Because of last night, with Lewis. How she’d let herself remember.
It struck her now that, all this time, she’d been staying silent from shock as much as fear: shock at everything they’d been able to do to her.
Outside, she crossed the university square to where she’d left her bike. As she passed through the shadow of the Bray Tower, her screen buzzed an alert. Lewis, she thought, with a bump of adrenaline – but the message was from her old colleague, Harrie: Hey, how’s things? Let’s meet up soon?
She would answer later. For now, she was eager to put some space between herself and the tower. It might have been the shade that was making her shiver – or it might have been the coincidence: because hadn’t she been with Harrie, the one time they’d seen the inside of the Bray building? A departmental tour of Imagen’s research and development sites. The highlight, a guided tour of the Bray Tower led by the woman behind the Make-Believe technology – Professor Morgan herself.
Cassie stared at the top floor where Morgan’s office lay, till the sun climbing over the roof flared and forced her to look away. Bray Tower was the one place she never flyered. The way she’d arranged it there was no need; Nicol did the rounds every now and then. It made sense that way. He belonged there, in the domain of maths and science, could wander at will without raising suspicion. Unlike her, he wasn’t risking anything when he walked through those sliding doors.
She kept her back to the tower as she unlocked her bike. Yes, it might have been shock that had silenced her till now. And perhaps that shock was wearing off. But that didn’t mean she should stop being afraid.
MARKETING REVIEW: VR PROFILING DELIVERS REAL RETURNS FOR LUXURY BRANDS
When UK biotech start-up Imagen Research launched the first truly immersive, individually generated virtual reality, its world of Make-Believe promised to transform consumer profiling and data analytics. So what has been the impact of virtual reality profiling in the high net worth market?
Though Imagen was initially formed to develop the commercial potential of VR in healthcare, the company transferred its research focus at an early stage to the more immediately profitable goal of entertainment VR – and for brands that have long used neuromarketing and aspiration analysis tools to establish meaningful customer relationships, the imaginative data captured by Imagen was hailed as an industry game-changer.
‘The unique thing about Make-Believe from a marketing perspective is that it enables brands to understand consumers on a completely different level,’ explains Sarah Westland, director of brand vision at Imagen. ‘It allows our clients to tap in directly to the aspirations of potential customers. And since currently 60 per cent of our Basic subscribers and almost three quarters of our Platinum subscribers are classified as high net worth individuals, or potential HNW individuals, this model offers an extremely effective way to reach a cash-rich, recession-proof market.’
The precise method used by Imagen to extrapolate meaningful data from unstructured virtual experiences is a closely guarded secret: all the company will reveal is that biological data generated by individuals during their immersive experience is translated to digital data by the specially programmed biomolecules that deliver the user’s VR experience. This data is picked up by the user’s electronic receiver, encoded as digital packets and transmitted via the 6G network to Imagen’s central servers, where it is grouped together with existing data for machine and human analysis.
According to Westland, the resultant VR profiling can supply an aspirational throughline that enables brands to target campaigns effectively across media channels and new platforms. ‘Traditional methods of data gathering and analysis can lead to campaigns that are insufficiently personalised, but with VR profiling as part of the mix, brands can make individual aspirational connections and maintain those conne
ctions across the whole media spectrum. For example, a Platinum subscriber based in London might choose to unwind in Make-Believe by speeding along the West Australian coast in a luxury sports car. So the client to whom we supply this data can extrapolate that for this individual, relaxation is linked to speed, action, adrenaline and to a certain setting, and they can personalise their marketing message accordingly.’
Imagen’s VR profiling has proved popular with luxury brands; Westland confirms that their clients include major suppliers in wine, art, travel, property, private aviation and high-end retail. So are these brands seeing worthwhile ROI?
Michael Roscoe, head of marketing and ecommerce at JLP Opes, is positive about the added value created by VR profiling. ‘Data has become super-abundant, but insights from that data that can improve profitability are tough to generate. Integrating VR data with our existing CRM systems means we can individually target HNW consumers with relevant content that meets their needs. What we’re gaining is a more rounded view of our customers that’s enabling us to create intimate and memorable customer relationships and constantly reposition our brand via personalised communications. Ultimately our offering has become more direct, more agile and more responsive, and we have seen that reflected in our ROI.’
Until now Make-Believe has been available exclusively in the UK, but Imagen is poised to expand overseas. The technology has recently been licensed for use in Japan, Korea and several other south-east Asian countries, and a US licensing application is pending. The company aims to sign up international luxury brands alongside its domestic clients, and as subscriber numbers increase at home and abroad the data sets will become correspondingly wide, allowing meaningful analysis of broader aspirational trends to complement personal profiling.
And what of the rumours that Imagen is developing a social capacity for Make-Believe – enabling users to share and collaborate on their VR experiences? For marketeers, it’s an exciting possibility. Westland will neither confirm nor deny that such a ‘collaborative mode’ is on the cards. ‘We’re aware it’s something people would love to see – subscribers as well as clients. Make-Believe is the product of over a decade of research and development and hundreds of millions of pounds of investment, and any significant addition to functionality would be similarly resource-intensive.’ For now, then, it remains a tantalising – but distant – prospect.
CHAPTER FIVE
It looked like her neighbours had thrown a party. The evidence was all over the scrubby lawn: empty Tennent’s cans winked in the sun; someone had brought out a couple of dining chairs, then forgotten to take them in again. A leather jacket lay abandoned, still wet from last night’s rain, and a square of flattened grass showed where a speaker must have squatted. From the looks of things, last night had been a good time to be somewhere else.
Inside, the stairwell reeked of stale beer and damp concrete. Cassie navigated the dregs that had leaked from a discarded can, stepped over a congealed chunk of pizza, a fast-food tray smeared with red sauce, a trail of cigarette ends. As she climbed the stairs to her flat, a background voice grew more distinct – a fast-talking DJ, local radio turned up loud. When she unlocked her front door and closed it behind her, the voice followed her in, seeping along with the smell of fried food through the thin skin of plaster and studwork that separated her thirteen square metres of space from her neighbour’s.
With its permanent gloom, her room barely dimmed when she pulled down the blind on the single mean window. She was eager to get out of yesterday’s knickers, wished now she’d showered at Lewis’s place. Somehow in the morning she’d felt shy in a way she hadn’t the night before, and taking a shower had seemed too intimate – but it would have been clean, and private. In her dressing gown, towel under her arm, she carried her toilet bag down the hall, bolted the door to the shared bathroom and spent a full minute skooshing stray hairs down the plug before she could force herself under the spray.
Usually she would wear whatever clothes came first to hand; now, for some reason, she found herself thinking twice about her choice, tugging tops and skirts halfway off the rail, holding them out to check for a match or a clash. In the end, annoyed at herself, she closed her eyes and grabbed something at random – black trousers, and a Thin Lizzy T-shirt that must once have been her dad’s. At any rate, it wasn’t one that Alan had chosen for her. Those she kept separate, folded away in a drawer of their own. Her sixteenth birthday; the first one he gave her – the classic Sonic Youth shirt. Neither she nor Alan had heard the album, but the black-and-white 60s couple was the coolest thing Cassie had ever seen: the woman with her cigarette raised to her lips, the man with his arm draped round her shoulders, both of them sealed, expressionless, behind the solid black of their shades. I stole my sister’s boyfriend, began the hand-written text alongside the picture. Within a week we killed my parents and hit the road. She’d worn it to school, under her regulation shirt, and the bold black lines had ghosted through thin polyester, making her teachers frown. Against the spirit of the rules if not the letter, the deputy head had told her – but he couldn’t get her for having the wrong spirit, and he knew it. Later, Alan did the same with a shirt she’d found for him on a market stall – designed and made in China. The slogan read HAPPY EVERYDAYS GREAT on the front, and SMILE & KEEEP on the back. The deputy head had pulled him aside for the same talking-to. Cheerfully, Alan had disagreed: this one broke the letter of the rules, surely? The rules of the English language. That had been his first detention.
No reason now to hide pictures and slogans beneath a bland outer layer – but she did it still. Sometimes it felt like a connection, something shared with him, though he couldn’t possibly know. Sometimes it felt like a message to herself. She’d lost the Sonic Youth shirt years ago, but she still had HAPPY EVERYDAYS. The message was faded, only just legible: SMILE & KEEEP.
From the pocket of her discarded jacket, she took the dog-eared memorial card and propped it on the chest of drawers. In loving memory of. The thing to do now was to get in touch – to let Alan know she’d be coming to the memorial, that she was there for him. She had the number for Valerie’s old landline; it was just possible she might reach him there.
But first – the plant. She should water it, before she forgot. Her concentration, these days, her memory, wasn’t all it could be, and it was important to keep the plant alive. Schefflera was the name on the label, but it was an umbrella plant. At least, there had been one at home, and that’s what her mum had called it, though it didn’t look like an umbrella, more a profusion of drooping hands. Hers was growing well now; she’d been taking good care of it. Dust had begun to settle thinly on its dark leaves, so Cassie took her sleeve in her fist and wiped them clean, one by one, careful not to crease them.
When the leaves were shining and the soil nicely damp, Cassie settled cross-legged in the space beneath the platform bed, between the clothes rail and the chest of drawers. She held her screen, tried the phrases in her head, and then out loud. I’m so sorry – I was so sorry to hear – I’m sorry about your mum … Coughed once, to clear the gruffness from her voice, and made the call.
The ring had a scratched, echoing quality, like a sound that was distant in time as well as space. She imagined the phone where it had always lived, on the low table in the hall, ringing into an empty house. When it went to voicemail, she listened to Valerie’s message all the way through before she hung up. It felt like a tiny act of respect, of remembrance, not to cut her off halfway through.
Six steps took her to the kitchenette; she made herself a mug of tea, saving the bag for a second cup later on. She rolled a skinny cigarette, and smoked it out the window while she waited for the tea to cool.
There was another number she could try. It was there in her contacts: Raphael House. And she’d call it in a heartbeat – if it meant they could talk the way they used to. If it meant she could talk to the real him.
He had always talked so easily, like it was as simple, as obvious as breathing. Ha
d arrived oblivious or unimpressed by the school’s social hierarchy. Everyone said he’d moved from the Borders, but if they’d said he came from another planet she would have believed it. She’d seen it go either way, with new students. As a body, the year would decide: in-crowd or outcast – and once you were tagged there was no shifting it. Alan was lucky. Skilled on the pitch, so boys wanted to be him. Nice enough looking for girls to fancy him. For Cassie to fancy him. He shone. Red-gold hair curling over his collar, into pale blue eyes. A mouth she wanted to press, to trace with her forefinger. He should have been a grade-A arsehole, should have strutted into the fourth year and settled right into his throne: top boy. But he fucked it for himself, not knowing, not caring. It was like he hadn’t seen that there were trenches, there were sandbags and barbed wire. Hadn’t realised there were folk who you spoke to, and then the rest of them. He was an idiot who hadn’t known any better than to speak to Cassie. He was a perfect idiot.
Her hand, poised to press call, was stiff, like the blood in her veins had thickened and slowed. When her screen buzzed with a volley of ads, it felt like a reprieve. Science textbooks at unbeatable prices! Impartial financial advice … Fresh food delivered fast … She put the screen face down on the windowsill beside her, lifted her mug. Hesitated.
A speck of black, vibrating on the surface. A tea leaf, escaped from the bag. A tea leaf with legs, sculling. Cockroach. Tiny, new-hatched. Boiled, but still alive. Of course: because they didn’t die. Roaches never died. She got up, arm outstretched, walked calmly over to the sink and poured the tea away – and as she turned the taps on full, she realised her mistake. She should have thrown it out the window instead – thrown it as far as she could. Now the creature was deep inside, and way beyond her reach. In the wet black, it could grow. Breed. Multiply. In a month’s time it could climb back up, head of an insect army, squeezing its meaty body through the plughole.
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