The Lawless One and the End of Time

by Lonnie Pacelli

  HoloSpecs II released on February 1, 2045 along with 20 new fashion choices. As with HoloSpecs I, HoloMate management offered a free exchange program for old glasses. Subscriber growth was now at 200,000 users per month, but the company had yet to show a profitable quarter, creating more angst between the investors, Vincent, the management team, and Caleb. The investor’s ceaseless requests for status on HoloSpecs progress, questions on how much Caleb was spending on new features, and second-guessing who was working on the project continued to grate on his nerves. Caleb wanted the investors out, and some of the investors wanted out as well. Caleb had been working with a wealthy angel investor, introduced by Paul, who believed in HoloMate’s future and was willing to finance a buyout of HoloMate’s current investors. He just needed to find the right time to get them to exercise their buyout. That time came in the form of a HoloSpecs III demo.

  Demo Gremlins

  2045

  H oloSpecs III was slated for release on October 1, 2045. Skin-sensing was the capability which would catapult HoloMate into superstar status. Customers wanted it, and the investors needed it to stay in the game. In September, Vincent asked Caleb to prepare a demo of the skin-sensing capability included in HoloSpecs III. Caleb was more than happy to oblige. One week before the October launch, Caleb went to an investor meeting in the same conference room at Pagnozzi’s office where Caleb and Paul had first demonstrated the HoloMate prototype. Caleb entered the room; all the investors and Vincent were already sitting at the table, anxious to see the long-awaited HoloSpecs III. The tension in the room was already high, as evidenced by the quiet demeanor of the investors. Vincent kicked things off.

  “Thanks for coming in.” Even though Vincent was one of the investors, he rightly felt an accountability to his colleagues for HoloMate. A drop of nervous perspiration ran down the side of his face.

  “Caleb is going to demo the skin-sensing capability in HoloSpecs III. As you know, the first attempt didn’t go well, and we had to disable the feature. Caleb and team have been working hard to get it right. Caleb, you’re up.”

  “Thanks, Vincent.” Caleb displayed an air of confidence as spoke. “I’m happy to show you the progress we’ve made on skin-sensing and what our subscribers will be able to do using the capability.” Caleb took two pairs of HoloSpecs III from his backpack. “Vincent, would you go into the conference room next door, put the specs on, and enter HoloRoom AQT-224?” Vincent didn’t realize he was going to be part of the demo, but the show was on and he was now part of it.

  “Sure.” Vincent said. He took the specs from Caleb and went into the conference room next door. He put the specs on and went into HoloRoom AQT-224 like Caleb asked. Caleb put his specs on and paired them to the conference room projector. Everyone in the conference room was now able to see Caleb’s and Vincent’s hologram at the center of the conference table.

  “Can you see and hear me, Vincent?” Caleb asked.

  “Yes. The lenses and conduction are working great!” Vincent talked up capabilities released in HoloSpecs I and II to help reassure the investors those capabilities still worked.

  “OK.” Caleb continued, “I’m going to do something. Tell me what you feel.” Caleb’s hologram reached out to Vincent’s to rub his arm.

  “I feel you rubbing my arm.” Vincent said.

  “Great!” Caleb looked around the conference room. The stoic looks on the investor’s faces was enough for Caleb to know they weren’t impressed.

  “OK, now I’m going to do something else.” Caleb’s hologram approached Vincent’s and lightly stepped on his foot.

  “I don’t feel anything.” Vincent’s voice softened as he gave the disappointing news.

  “Let me try a little harder.” Caleb stepped with more force.

  “Nothing.”

  “OK, one more time.” Caleb lifted his hologram foot and came down hard on Vincent’s foot.

  “I felt a punch on my left arm.” Vincent said as he grabbed his arm.

  “The demo gremlins are out today!” Caleb tried to make light of the demo fiasco. “Vincent, reboot the specs and let’s try again.”

  Vincent removed the specs, his hologram disappearing from the middle of the conference room table. Caleb looked around the room to expressionless faces while waiting for Vincent’s hologram to reappear. After a minute, Vincent’s hologram reappeared, then Caleb went through the same foot-stomping steps again. Same result.

  “This worked thousands of times in testing.” Caleb said. The shock of the failed demo was evident by the anxious shuffling of some of the investors.

  “Vincent, can you come back in the conference room?” Pagnozzi said. Vincent came back in, with a few more drops of perspiration on his forehead.

  “Release is in a week, and this piece of crap doesn’t work!” Pagnozzi was irate, alternating glares between Vincent and Caleb. “Now what?”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Pagnozzi.” Caleb said. “I’ll figure it out.”

  “Yes, you will. Caleb, we need to talk among ourselves. You can leave now.” Pagnozzi’s blood was boiling over the disastrous demo. Caleb left as quickly as he could, knowing Vincent was going to get his butt kicked.

  “Vincent, this is bad,” Pagnozzi said after the door closed behind Caleb. “How could you let this happen?”

  “He’d demo’d this dozens of times before with no issues. He just practiced it yesterday with me. I don’t know what happened.”

  “I’ll tell you what happened, it’s an unreliable POS,” Pagnozzi said. “We’ve got to talk about whether we want to stay involved in this or shut it down.”

  Pagnozzi had already taken the pulse of the investors before the failed demo. Most of them wanted out. They just needed a reasonable offer to recoup losses. Vincent was disappointed, but as an investor, understood the issue. They decided to delay the release and get out either by selling or shutting it down.

  After leaving Pagnozzi’s office, Caleb walked to Villa Comunale. He sat on a park bench next to the Enrico Pessina statue. “I think it worked,” he said to himself.

  Caleb knew his investors were already nervous about HoloMate. They just needed a catastrophic event to prompt them to action. Caleb rigged Vincent’s HoloSpecs III glasses to register faulty skin-sensing signals for the demo, knowing it would panic the investors. Now he could approach Vincent and Pagnozzi with an offer to buy their 70 percent. Caleb sent Vincent a message asking if he could meet with him and Pagnozzi. They met the next morning in Pagnozzi’s conference room.

  “Mr. Pagnozzi, I feel horrible about the failed demo. I just don’t know what happened.” Caleb was convincing in his lying.

  “Caleb, we already have jittery investors, and your performance yesterday only made things worse.”

  “I know,” Caleb continued. “I still believe in HoloMate and understand I let you down. I own the problems here and I need to fix them. I want to keep going, even if that means buying out your 70 percent.”

  “How would you do that, Caleb?”

  “My cousin introduced me to someone who’d loan me the money to buy you out.”

  “How much would he loan you?” Pagnozzi asked.

  “30 million hera.”

  Pagnozzi pursed his lips and slightly nodded his head. He and his partners had invested 15 million hera, but because they were so skeptical of the skin-sensing technology, they didn’t see enough upside to continue. “Let me talk to the partners.” Pagnozzi said.

  It didn’t take long for Pagnozzi and his partners to take the deal. Caleb secured the 30 million hera loan and paid the investors. After the deal closed, Caleb announced to the rest of the management team that he now owned 100 percent of the company, that he would now be CEO, and Vincent and Pagnozzi were gone. He offered each of the management team members a stake in the company, provided they would stay for four years, which they all accepted. Caleb then miraculously “fixed” the skin-sensing technology and released HoloSpecs III three months later than planned to feed the illusion there was
actually a problem with the specs.

  HoloSpecs III ushered in subscriber growth of over a billion subscribers per year. As fashion trends emerged, new HoloSpecs appeared to complement wearers’ fashion choices. Caleb knew the real profit wasn’t in the glasses, it was in the HoloFriend fees. The glasses were the gateway drug to getting people hooked on the service, so he did all he could to get HoloSpecs in the hands of everyone, everywhere. HoloRooms changed how people socialized. Weddings, birthday parties, and company meetings were popular HoloRoom events. Some subscribers became professional HoloFriends, renting out their friendship by the hour to lonely subscribers looking for someone to talk to. HoloFriends had ratings and reviews for how good of a “friend” they were. Those with higher ratings and positive reviews commanded more hera per hour. VIPs could rent themselves out to show up in a HoloRoom and entertain, speak, or just socialize with invited guests. Once their paid time was up, the VIP would turn off his HoloSpecs then disappear from the HoloRoom. A VIP could visit any number of HoloRooms, all from the comfort of his own home. They loved it and didn’t mind forking over half of their fee to HoloMate.

  The skin-sensing capability created new opportunities for service providers to reach customers. Doctors used HoloRooms for routine examinations. Dance studios held lessons in HoloRooms. Subscribers went on HoloDates together as a safe means of getting to know someone before meeting face-to-face. The innovation also had a darker side. Pornography, prostitution, and pedophilia all found their way into HoloRooms, dubbed DarkRooms by subscribers. Caleb hid behind the cloak of protecting privacy to absolve HoloMate of any DarkRoom responsibility. Besides, they were making a ton of money from DarkRooms, so why cut off a huge revenue generator? Even if they did try to police activity, how could they do so across ethnarchies? Each ethnarchy had its own laws, with some very permissive and others much more restrictive. HoloFriends could be from anywhere in the world, meeting up as computer-generated holograms, so it wasn’t actual people who were engaging in activity, even though sight, sound and touch was experienced by the HoloFriends. Because of filthy activity and HoloMate’s turning a blind eye, many spoke out against DarkRooms, one of its most vocal being Bert Winn.

  James Trevor

  2045

  A fter they married, Bert and Laura lived in a one-bedroom apartment for three years, diligently saving down-payment money each month from Bert’s professor salary and Laura’s primary school math teacher salary. The home-buying process was one of the most stressful things either had experienced. Deciding on a home, where to live, what they needed, and what they were willing to concede was all so overwhelming. Making things worse, their real estate agent was not aware of how to work with people on the autism spectrum. His method of rapid-fire questions was well-intended but to Bert and Laura it was difficult to handle. Then there was the agent’s lack of organization. He would call Bert and Laura telling them they needed to go look at an apartment immediately, wreaking havoc on their well-planned daily schedule. To neurotypicals, his behavior would have been tolerable; but to people on the spectrum, it was paralyzing. Bert and Laura were recounting their experience with Bert’s parents while there for a Sunday dinner.

  “How’s the apartment search going?” Bert’s mother asked.

  Laura let Bert give his assessment while she twisted her spaghetti around her fork, using her tablespoon to keep the spaghetti from slipping off the tines.

  “Frustrating!” Bert blurted. He knew Laura felt the same way. “He asks so many questions so quickly we don’t have time to process what he’s asking. He springs things on us. He’s not organized. He wants us to make decisions too fast. We’re overwhelmed.”

  Laura balanced the feedback. “He’s a nice guy and he wants to please us, it’s just difficult for us to work with him.”

  Bert nodded his head in agreement as he stabbed a link of mild sausage in the serving dish and put it on his plate.

  Hayley totally got it. She had helped Bert countless times with feeling overwhelmed and understood their feelings about the real estate agent. Hayley knew just how to talk with Bert to help him cope. It typically started with affirming his feelings.

  “Bert, I can see why you feel overwhelmed with all of the randomness. It can be very frustrating. I get overwhelmed with randomness too.”

  Bert accepted being affirmed, “Yes, it is.” He said.

  Laura nodded, feeling affirmed as well by Hayley’s ability to relate to how she was feeling.

  “What do you think would help?” Hayley asked.

  “If he wrote out his questions, then we could discuss them and respond back without the pressure of having to answer him on the spot.”

  “Yep, and how about him springing things on you?”

  “I think if we set time aside in our schedule each day just to work with the agent and let him know we would be available at those times, it wouldn’t disrupt our routine.”

  Laura liked where the discussion was going. “If we could get him to work with us on writing down questions and blocking out time in our schedule, that would help a lot. I’m still feeling overwhelmed with how we make the decision on what to buy.”

  Bert had an idea. “Let’s make a chart with the things that are important to us, then for each apartment we see, let’s write out how it meets our needs. We can then look at the chart and see what we like and don’t like about each apartment.”

  Hayley picked up her fork, twirled some spaghetti, and put it in her mouth. Ryan gave Hayley a warm smile, acknowledging her job well done. He never connected with Bert like Hayley did, something he regretted.

  Things got much better with the real estate agent after Bert and Laura put their strategies in place. They ended up buying a flat north of Villa Comunale and moved in July 2045. It was perfect for them. They wanted something small and easy to maintain, but with separate spaces where each could go to be alone. It was big enough to let them start a family. They painstakingly planned out the move from their current apartment, even sketching out for every room where each piece of furniture would go. They both took a week off from their teaching jobs after the apartment closed so they could take their time moving everything over. Both Bert’s and Laura’s parents helped them with their move when asked, otherwise Bert and Laura did it all on their own.

  Bert and Laura lived in their apartment three years before their son was born. While Laura was pregnant, they used a coach who specialized in helping people with autism become parents. Their coach helped them adapt to their new routine, which would be filled with randomness for the foreseeable future. This was a massive leap for Bert and Laura. Since birth, both of their parents worked hard to achieve and sustain structure in their lives. Now, a miniature version of them was going to ensure their life was anything but structured. Bert and Laura’s coach worked with them on what to expect as new parents and to work together to give each some structured down time they both so badly needed. As with everything else in Bert and Laura’s life, they had to work together to ensure expectations were clear of each other.

  On June 24, 2048, James Trevor Winn was born. Bert was in the birthing room with Laura, and the proud grandparents were right outside the room in the hallway, anxiously awaiting the new arrival. At 2:44 p.m. Bert opened the birthing room door with his brand-new son in his hands. Hayley and Ryan looked at James’ reddish skin, dark hair, and dark brown eyes that opened and closed ever so slightly as if fighting sleep. There were happy tears as they celebrated yet another milestone that they wondered if they would ever see, their 32-year-old son becoming a father.

  JT, the nickname Bert gave him during a 2 a.m. feeding, was a typical newborn. Awake at all hours of the evening, with bouts of fussiness and slivers of peace and quiet. Bert and Laura decided that Laura would quit her job to be JT’s primary caretaker, and Bert would stop teaching night courses so he could take over some of the evening duties. The Winns adjusted every bit as well as neurotypical parents to their new normal.

  By JT’s first birthday, he wa
s showing some early signs that he was on the spectrum. He wasn’t smiling, there was no back-and-forth sharing of sounds, no babbling, no mimicking gestures. Bert and Laura were concerned, not because of JT’s being on the spectrum, but of how others would treat him. They both had experienced difficult childhoods. Neither of them was ever invited to play with other kids or go to birthday parties. Neither had been to a school dance. Both were teased by other kids because they were different. Both were bullied. Bert had Paul as his only friend, Laura didn’t have any friends. Bert and Laura talked a lot through their courtship and marriage about how difficult it was growing up with autism. Their greatest concern was having a child on the spectrum who would be treated the same way they were when growing up.

  At 18 months, JT only said “Ma” and “Da,” avoided eye contact, and didn’t like to be hugged. He, like his father, loved puzzles and would sit for hours doing the same puzzle over and over again. He had a limited menu, his favorites being spaghetti with butter, mozzarella string cheese, and peanut butter on ciabatta bread cut into triangles. His was tested and their suspicions confirmed, JT was on the spectrum. Bert and Laura feared their son would be treated like they were growing up. They wanted not only JT, but other people on the spectrum, to be accepted and embraced for their uniqueness. The would dedicate the rest of their lives to making that happen.

  HoloBlogs

  2050

  N aples University, where Bert was now a full professor, had started using HoloMate to hold classes in HoloRooms. Bert was asked to be part of a pilot program with three other professors to evaluate HoloMate and its effectiveness in teaching college classes via hologram. While the adjustment was difficult at first, Bert adapted to new way of teaching and actually enjoyed it. He could teach a class from his classroom, his office at NU, or his alone room at home. He loved that he could turn off skin-sensing on his HoloSpecs, which meant that his hologram could touch and be touched by other HoloFriends, but he wouldn’t feel the touch sensation. If the noise was too loud in the HoloRoom, he could adjust the volume on his HoloSpecs to a comfortable level. HoloSpecs were sensory-friendly, purely by accident.