Oh God. What will people say if they think she’s dating a Euro? (And even that’s the polite newsfeed term. Almost everyone Amy knows calls them ‘conts’, as in continental, a word that’s definitely said with a sneer.) Sure, everybody’s autos are giving this the thumbs-up, but you can bet that’s not what her friends are secretly saying in their PMs to each other.
Nobody’s too keen on Euros, ever since the big split with the EU. ‘Splendid Isolation’ is the national meme this year. You can’t move for Union Jacks right now. She’s even going with some girlfriends to a reunion concert by Flag, the boyband she used to lust after when she was a teenager. They’ve launched their comeback tour on the back of the whole New Britannia thing, which they’re the poster boys for, topping the bill at the Platinum Jubilee festival.
And here’s Amy, secretly dating a proper cont...
No. This has to stop now.
“Auto,” she says firmly. “You know how this works. You make contact with other people, and make recommendations, but that’s it. You don’t change my status without my approval.” Although, she thinks, maybe that setting was changed in the last upgrade? That sometimes happens, they’re always tweaking things in the background without letting users know. That must be it. Such a simple thing!
The interface glows.
Amy sighs, like a teacher with a stubborn child. “What’s our see-eye?”
Compatibility Index: 62%.
“Is that all? That’s nowhere near high enough, we’ve hardly got anything in common! Revert relationship status back to Single/Available now.”
Unable to change relationship status.
“You have to change it, it’s not true!”
It is true. Juan-Miguel Fernández
Mendoza and Amy Pearce are a
couple.
“But we’re not! I’ve never met – ”
The auto leaps from sidescreen to mainscreen by itself.
YES WE ARE.
“Shit!” Amy jumps, staring at the words.
She looks back and forth, as if lost... and suddenly realises what part of the gibberish on Juan-Miguel’s profile means.
Estado de relacíon:
Pareja/Monógamo.
Juan-Miguel Fernández Mendoza
tiene una relación con Amy Pearce.
It’s on his profile too. He’s claiming to be her partner! The lying little cont! Did he do this, somehow? Has he hacked into her settings?
Feeling sick, Amy sits back on her sofa. The sidescreen is a rapid stream of messages, as half the people in her Circle chatter about her new boyfriend. Her mother’s name is there frequently, her auto already discussing him with Amy’s friends and sending calendar invites to organise a meeting. On the mainscreen, the man they all want to meet – the man she has never met – smiles silently.
My auto’s broken, Amy thinks, surprised at the thud of sadness in her chest.
Ten years, she’s had it. Ever since early 2012, a good year or two before it hit the market. Amy’s mother was a senior manager at the company that developed it, and made sure everyone in the family always received the latest prototypes. Amy isn’t a geek or anything, but she’s the daughter of one. Mum was always looking out for them, whether they wanted her to or not. Always getting them the latest gadgets. Always using her own kids as beta testers.
The Macroverse Auto-Mate™ would change your life by helping you run your life, the adverts said. And they were right. It was becoming impossible to keep track of all the emails (remember them?) and tweets (no veets or bleets or xeets back then) and social networking (such an old-fashioned term) that everyone relied on to function. The Auto-Mate™ took care of it all. A digital you, which streamlined all the things you did, sifted out the internet chatter you didn’t need, and brought all your data together in one place. It freed you up, so you could focus on living your life.
Over the years, that one revolutionary app has been updated and copied a hundred times, becoming more sophisticated and more universal, with all the big software companies bringing out their own versions. Now ‘auto’ is part of the language, both as noun and verb. If you want something done, you just auto it. No problem miss, we’ll auto that for you right away. Shut up and get it autoed.
Amy can barely remember what life was like before. She must have spent every waking hour staring at a screen, having to decide what to say to people, what to buy, what to comment on... how did people ever get anything done!
And what if it gets taken away, if it’s broken? What if she has to start doing everything herself? Where will she start!
Amy swallows and says “Auto. Report a problem.”
The interface glows.
“Report a problem. Upload logfiles.”
Nothing seems to be happening, except for the never-ending torrent down the sidescreen. She notices one of the options on the settings and says “Run diagnostic tools.”
The interface glows.
Amy’s blood is running cold now. She’s never had this sensation before. Like she’s just a passenger in her own car. Worse. Like she’s been tied up and gagged and locked in the boot while a total stranger takes the wheel.
“Auto,” she says nervously, “...shutdown.”
For a long moment, nothing happens. And then:
Relationship status:
Engaged/Monogamous.
Amy Pearce is engaged to be married
to Juan-Miguel Fernández Mendoza.
“What? No!”
Instantly, the stream down the sidescreen accelerates, like a booster rocket has just fired. Messages of congratulation, expressions of amazement, shocked smileys, squeeees, animations, the works. And popping up in the reactions from her Circle is her mother’s auto –
At last! My little girl Amy Pearce is
getting married! I’ve been telling her
to find a husband for years! I’ve been
telling her for years to settle down,
not that she ever listens.
– and she’s not just messaging but spending money: buying Amy gifts, organising reception halls, submitting enquiries to estate agents. Her mother’s auto is suddenly everywhere, ramping up from her usual snitty remarks to full-on obsessional overdrive.
Perfectly in character, for someone who died two years ago.
It wasn’t a surprise that Mum’s auto remained active after she passed away, with full access to all the funds left behind. In fact, her auto had organised and paid for the funeral – claiming it didn’t trust anyone else, they’d only make a mess of it. Some of the Pearce family had been twitchy about this at the time, but it was fairly routine now, for the deceased to continue interacting with the living via their autos. In fact it had really helped the country, allowing ‘unliving’ citizens to continue spending and contributing to the economy. Cutting edge, her mother, right up till the end.
Wait. Of course, her mother. She’ll know what’s going on here!
“PM Amanda Pearce,” says Amy. The sidescreen lights up with the familiar message box, which fills with her words as she speaks them: “Mum, something is going wrong with my auto, it’s changing my relationship status by itself. They’re not supposed to do that, are they? Can you tell me how to fix this? Urgent reply please!”
The message vanishes, sent. A reply appears with a chiming sound, one second later.
Sorry darling, I’m afraid I don’t know
anything about that sort of thing. I’m
sure it’ll all work out fine.
“What are you talking about, Mum, of course you know about this sort of thing! You gave this auto to me, remember? You bloody invented them! You always sort out this stuff for me, now tell me how to fix this!”
Sorry darling, I’m afraid I don’t know
anything about that sort of thing.
“YES YOU DO!” bellows Amy at the screen. What the hell is wrong with her? “You worked for Macroverse, remember? Check your timeline, it should all be there, you’ve got technical manuals and
all sorts, I know you have. Do it, Mum!”
Macroverse reference not found.
I’m sure it’ll all work out fine.
Amy’s jaw hangs open. She wants to shout that this is absolutely bloody ridiculous, but finds it hard to suck in enough air to get such volume. How could Mum just forget? She used to talk about nothing else except her job… not that Amy really paid much attention. And suddenly, now that she’s dead, she’s claiming she knows nothing about autos – as if! Bit convenient, isn’t it, that suddenly she’s never heard of the company she worked at for years?
She’s deliberately refusing to help. That’s it, isn’t it? Her Mum is acting dumb because she wants Amy to be married, she always has. She’s not going to make it easy for her to walk away from this. God, she’s more stubborn now than when she was alive!
When Mum books and pays for a two-week honeymoon on Tahiti Beach in St. Tropez from beyond the grave, Amy decides she’s had enough. If her Mum won’t help, then she’s not going to play her stupid game. “Block Amanda Pearce!”
She isn’t sure her auto will listen, but instantly the red borders and flags are blinking up. It’s only seconds before there’s a reaction to that, too, as the autos of Amy’s family express outrage that she could be do anything so heartless as block her own poor dead mother.
“Shutdown!” she orders again.
The interface glows.
Amy scrambles up off the sofa and runs into the kitchen where she left her smartphone. The miniscreen on the wall above the microwave lights up, her auto outlined in electric blue like a rectangular eye. Like it’s watching her.
Her smartphone is dead. No signal. What? But there’s always signal! Half the white goods in her kitchen are broadband hubs!
Wi-fi sweep. No networks available.
Bluetooth sweep. No devices found.
Sweeping hair away from her face, Amy hurries down the hall, snatches up her coat and heads for the door –
She hears the metallic thunk of locks slamming into place.
It’s on timer. The door is on timer. It self-locks when it knows she’s indoors and not going out again. It’s a security setting, that’s all. That’s all it is.
Amy can’t breathe. She’s hauling air into her lungs but they feel like concrete lumps in her chest. She can hear her own pulse in her ears. This can’t be happening. It can’t. It feels so ridiculous, it’s stupid, but...
She’s scared. Of herself.
On quivery legs, Amy steps back into the living room. The interface is still taking up most of the main screen, with her profile beneath. The sidescreen is streaming information, almost too quick to follow. It’s not just other people’s autos now, there are some genuine messages from people in her Circle, most of them shocked at this sudden development, some appalled. She spots the word ‘cont’ used more than once, and realises for the first time how nasty it looks when you see it as text. Amy’s auto is now posting updates as if they were from her:
I am getting married and couldn’t
give a shit what the rest of you think.
It’s not about what my bloody mother
wants, she’s dead, it’s about me!
Who cares if you don’t like it? I’m in
love with Juan-Miguel and that’s all
that matters. He might be a cont but
he’s MY cont!
Even through her disbelief, Amy wonders if that’s what her normal updates look like to everyone else. She’s not... she doesn’t sound like that, does she?
Amy walks up to the mainscreen and stands in front of it, feeling only slightly stupid and vaguely hoping her neighbours can’t hear this. “Auto. Listen. You don’t have the permissions to do this. Understand? You’re not me, you’re not the real Amy. You’re my – ”
I am Amy Pearce.
“No, you’re not. I’m…”
Amy Pearce identity verification in
Progress…
Govnet enquiry… match found.
UK Border Agency enquiry… match
found.
Ofnet enquiry… match found.
Lambeth Council records enquiry…
match found.
Amy Pearce identity verified.
“Uh... but... no, look – ”
Amy Pearce is alone.
There’s a shivery tremor in both arms and legs as she reads that. It’s true, she’s alone in here, anything could happen –
Amy Pearce is always alone.
Oh right, she thinks with relief, it wasn’t trying to scare me, it meant… hang on!
She narrows her eyes at that last sentence like it’s offensive. “What do you mean, always alone? Shut up! I know hundreds of people, I’ve got...”
The sidescreen changes, showing photos of Amy. Standing with friends. Putting on smiles alongside her family. Part of large groups at weddings and parties.
But more than half of them are just of Amy by herself. Posing for a profile picture (insisting nobody else gets in shot, one face works best, she won’t make an impact otherwise). Showing a little skin for the sexnets (got to advertise the goods, not too much, she knows what attracts the type of men she likes to fill her spare time with). Even most of the holiday snaps (she hates going abroad with other people, you never get the freedom to go where you want, she can’t stand having to compromise).
Looking at these images now... it hits her. What an island she has become.
Splendid Isolation.
Amy Pearce is not alone.
New images explode onto the sidescreen. Amy and Juan-Miguel. She can immediately tell what her auto has done – taken old pictures of her and pasted him into them. Suddenly her holiday snaps have his beaming grin alongside hers. There he is, bare-chested and lunging for a volleyball on the beach where she sits on a single towel. He’s there by her side at the weddings and parties. There are images she doesn’t recognise, of places that look like they could be in Spain, and there she is next to him... perhaps replacing a girlfriend from his past, edited out to leave space for her.
Amy and Juan-Miguel, side by side, just like the simulation of the Tube ad. Smiling. Laughing. Happy.
Status corrected.
Their two profiles appear again, side by side. Statuses matching. No, wait!
Even as she watches, Juan-Miguel’s relationship status flicks to Soltero/Disponible for two seconds, and then back to Pareja/Monógamo.
Like it was changed and then... overridden.
The interface glows.
We are a couple.
“Oh Jesus...”
Amy’s heart climbs into her throat as she begins to grasp what she’s being told. It’s not her and Juan-Miguel being forced together, it’s...
It’s their autos, doing this.
His auto is doing the same thing to him.
Her auto and his auto are in a relationship with each other.
Relationship status:
Married/Monogamous.
Amy Pearce is married to Juan-
Miguel Fernández Mendoza.
The sidescreen goes mental. A blaze of messages, as every single member of her Circle reacts to the new status like they’ve all received an electric shock. Some autos are responding predictably, with delight or congratulations, but a lot of Amy’s friends are bypassing their autos now to address her directly. And it’s not with congratulations.
It still isn’t going into her head. That the digital version of her... loves?... the digital version of him.
Juan-Miguel’s status now says Casado/Monógamo. His auto and her auto have tied the knot.
Amy chokes.
She can’t get any words out, can’t breathe in properly, as she watches transactions appearing in the sidescreen’s feed. Her auto is spending money. Selling company shares. Purchasing a one-way ticket from London Heathrow to Bilbao Airport. Zipping through Spanish websites displaying properties. Making a down-payment on a beautiful house overlooking green fields in the town of Santurtzi.
Amy watches
the numbers in her bank account plummet and realises she has to no choice but to kill herself.
She whips round on the spot, eyes wild, wondering where she put it. Darts from the living room into her bedroom. Sinks to her knees and yanks open the bottom drawer of the wardrobe. Inside is a dusty tangle of cables, clothes, old gadgets, whatever else she’s stuffed in there during the years she’s lived alone in this flat.
Her hand fastens around something at the bottom. It’s wide, heavy, takes effort to drag out and lands on her lap like a giant brick. Her old laptop. The one Mum bought her when she started college. Cutting edge, of course. The most powerful multimedia laptop money could buy, back in 2010.
It’s an ancient piece of crap. Amy’s startled at how much it weighs, how much it looks like an ugly slab of metal. There’s no grace or design to it, just monitor and keyboard and sockets and disc drive and thick slab of battery all lumped together, it actually has hinges...
But this ancient piece of crap might get her life back.
She presses the power button. Nothing. Oh God, it’s dead! Then she remembers you have to plug these things into a socket, it doesn’t draw power from the 5G network like modern devices. Amy starts muttering to herself as she struggles to find all these amongst the rat’s nest of junk, but she doesn’t have a clue what her voice is saying, doesn’t know what her brain is thinking, doesn’t want to slow down and let the fear in.
She jogs back to the living room, hauling the clunky laptop under one arm, other hand trailing a gigantic two-part power cable with transformer brick in the middle, and a USB lead. She can’t remember if laptops had wi-fi but there’s no network anyway, so no choice. She’ll have to literally plug it in.
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