He was standing around trying to look engaged and semi-listening to Ada and Carrot make endless small talk, when the tannoy system cracked into life, emitting a howl like a rusty grate being scraped by a dozen saw blades. It echoed out over the crowded balcony to roll around the rafters and swan dive onto the main crowd below. People clutched at their heads, covered their ears. A couple of people dropped glasses of wine or water. From below, a smattering of screams filtered back up to them. A man in a pale yellow suit tossed a half-empty wine glass over the railing as he sauntered towards the doors.
Carrot looked up and cocked an eyebrow, expectation sparkling in his eyes, “Time to go in, I believe.”
They joined the loose crowds of people ambling towards the back of the wide balcony. As people passed through, and the crowd thinned out, he could see a pair of matte charcoal double doors flanked by two pressed attendants with bayonette smiles, in carmine and white uniforms, standing by pale desks stacked with paraphernalia.
Carrot went first, followed by Ada. As he moved with the crowd, trying not to step on the heels of the woman in front of him, the guy who’d been leaning on the rail pushed ahead of him. He bristled, opened his mouth to chew the man out, and then reconsidered making a scene. Biting his tongue, he looked for Ada, but couldn’t see her anymore. As he reached the door, an attendant pressed a thin steel tablet and a heavy prospectus with a dappled matte cover into his hands, fish-hook smile splitting her features. He tapped briefly at the screen, but it didn’t respond. He turned it over in his hands but couldn’t see a power button. With a shrug, he hurried to catch up towards Ada and Carrot.
The auditorium was wide, rows of red seats were arranged in a soft arcs tracing a gentle stagger towards a high stage on which a thin black podium stood at the right side. They made their way like overfed seagulls in the dim half-light filtering from above, down the small narrow steps and squeezed between seats. They stepped like drunken cats through a tangle of legs, “sorry, thank you, sorry, sorry, can I…? Thanks, sorry, thanks….,” ‘navigated a slalom of polite collisions, squinted at seat numbers. Pale light washed out from the stage and fought against the ambient dimness enshrouding the audience. Above them a balcony moved with indefinite figures.
After the escalator, the manicured audience were decidedly less elegant. Sumptuous fabrics and dry-cleaned business wear sagged from ragged tears, ornamental buttons were conspicuous by their absence, and unruly strips of material dangled like unceremonious drunks. Smeared makeup accented bruised faces, broken nails tipped bloodied fingers, expensive haircuts slumped in disarray. Caleb clambered across distressed wealth, apologising as he went and then stepped on a woman’s foot. She demanded to know whether he was drunk or blind. He waved her off, she hissed an insult after him as he stumbled over someone’s else’s legs. Behind him, Carrot and Ada seemed to provoke less ire.
Ahead of him a man in a double-breasted navy blazer and slick gelled hair entered the row from the opposite side. They paused and eyed each other in the dark over the legs of a woman in a black dress. Caleb leaned to the left. The man leaned to the left. Then he reached up and brushed at his hair. Caleb leaned right. He also leaned right. They coughed at each other. The man motioned for him to back up. Caleb looked behind him, Ada and Carrot frowned at him and there was most of the row behind them. More people were catching up. He turned back, jerked his head at the man, who scowled.
“Move back,” he told the man.
“Me? Why should I move back? You move back.”
“Look behind me. I can’t.”
“Why should I care? You’re in my way.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yes.”
“You want to have the same argument everyone behind me?”
The woman in the black sighed and interrupted, “Gentlemen, if you must have a dick-measuring contest then kindly have something worth paying attention to. Failing that, please don’t do it over my lap.”
The man in the navy blazer snarled and sat down next to her. He slashed his hand across his chest, motioning them past. With another sigh, Caleb clambered over the final few seats. In the isle, he stood and looked about himself, slightly disoriented. People pushed past, Ada hissed for him to move. He came back to himself with start and moved in the direction of the stage.
Row 11, seat 59. He realised he was at the opposite end of the row from Ada. Carrot sat next to her, which seemed convenient. He wondered if bothering to find his assigned seat was actually worth it. He considered getting up and going over,, but when he looked again someone had sat down on the other side of her. Around him the static of polite conversation fizzed in the air; beneath it, a dull excitement.
An oil slick you could take to meet your mother slid onto the stage and surveyed the crowd with a crooked cocksure smile, like a pickup artist moonlighting as a zen master. The crowd hushed. The exhibition of dishevelled attendees stood at distinct odds with the refined figure adorning the stage. Chuckling under his breath, Caleb sat and shook his head. Edwin was the last person he’d expected to see.
“People are not having enough children,” Edwin announced. The silence that followed could have gone for a third-trimester ultrasound. “The replacement rate is far below the equation-recommended line, and it is projected to continue trending downwards.” As openings went, it was direct, Caleb supposed. Someone coughed. The strained atmosphere of people digging in to grit their teeth through something uncomfortable, rolled over the audience. Edwin was unfazed.
“We’re consulting with many of the major stock-controlling organisations. They have implemented a range of systems to attempt to tackle this problem, including: Organisational donation discounts; lump sum payments amounting up to six months of an average salary, on the registration of a second child, with further payments on subsequent children. They’ve tried bonuses associated with maternal and paternal status; perk options related to maternal and paternal status; the ability to earn permanent contractual time into their standard work arrangements, which is offered by some organisations – very generous, I’m sure you’ll agree. We’ve even seen protracted marketing campaigns emphasising the importance of family life, having children, and the civic duty of upholding the replacement rate. All of which failed to achieve the intended result.
As there are no longer any nation states, one cannot leverage nationalism and stir up jingoistic sentiment against a prefabricated enemy. But now all out war serves no purpose, it merely serves to deprive companies of utility, value-generating resources, and units of production.”
A narrow man wrapped in a tight grey blazer arrived late, and attempted to sidle inconspicuously into the seat beside him. He failed. The people he squeezed past hissed at him, their scowls followed him through the dark. Caleb suppressed a smile, and then frowned. He wasn’t the only person who had opted for overpowering cologne. This newcomer smelled like a tub full of bath salts. The scent pricked at his eyeballs. He bit down a sudden wave of wild hostility, and imagined that everyone else he’d stood near tonight had experienced a similar level of venom.
“Back in the days of nation states, governments and institutions worked together to leverage a population’s basic tendency toward tribalism and groupthink. Sociological research taught us that we are all susceptible to herd behaviours, and organisations utilised this glitch in the human psyche to commercial ends. They artificially seeded and amplified talking points and cultural trends, enhancing nationalistic and jingoistic sentiment, in the effort to have the workers produce more workers ‘for the good of the nation’.”
Caleb shifted in his seat. It wasn’t tall enough in the back and quite narrow, and he worried about jostling the people either side of him if he moved his arms too quickly. Every now and then he tried to shift without bothering anyone, but he couldn’t quite get comfortable. So he sat trying to move as little as possible, listening to Edwin, and ignoring the mild discomfort.
“Now some have suggested women just go back to being domestic-focussed entities, but as many of the more astute have pointed out, we can’t do that without more or less cutting the economy in half. As we’re not interested in crippling the entire market,” he paused to allow a ripple of laughter to pass through the crowd. “Naturally, we need a more realistic solution.”
He couldn’t help but admire Edwin’s oratory skills. He presented with the easy-going confidence of a consummate professional, casually avoiding the sleazy, desperate undertone of the used-car salesman. In the spotlight, Edwin paused, took a few deliberate paces to the left hand end of the stage and turned to the crowd as the screen flared to life behind him. A deep blue minimalist interpretation of a stylised Vitruvian Woman was emblazoned on a plain white background, the accentuated curve of the belly becoming a focal point.
“We call it the Incubatrix.”
The screen behind Edwin flickered into life. It now contained a new graphic, similarly stylised and minimalistic in deep blue lines. He stared, trying to parse it, but all he got was a sort of general impression. The abstracted diagram suggested a strange amalgamation of an open womb and the Rod of Asclepius entwined and bound with some kind of heavy electrical cable.
He looked down at the dull data slate in his lap and then at the dappled matte prospectus beneath it. He picked it up and opened it, scanning the contents to give him some better context. He ran his fingers across the glossy, sleek cover. Contained in its own binder, of expensive dappled plastic, the presentation spoke for itself. Neat rows of small sans serif font evoked an impression of marching lawyers. He’d envisioned any accompanying paraphernalia as light and brief, the same throwaway promotional material that arrives with all business events. What he’d ended up with was comprehensive and dense. It commanded respect.
He was rapidly gaining the impression that he had plunged into deeper water than he’d imagined. He looked up from the prospectus at the people around him, then over at Ada and Carrot, but they all seemed unconcerned. They watched Edwin. Had they taken something away that he hadn’t? Had he missed something? He imagined a torrent of sophisticated questions afterwards, stumbling over a poorly worded deflection, losing the respect of everyone here. And with the loss of respect, the loss of connections. With the loss of connections, the loss of potential job opportunities. A resumption of courier work. Intermittent homelessness. In his minds eye, the ladder slipped from beneath his feet. He plunged, falling between the slats of a boardwalk while the faceless members of an endless crowd shouldered their way past each other on their way to wherever. Whether they noticed him or not, they didn’t care. They receded from view above him. Edwin went on.
“Let’s begin with production speed. Currently, our process is incredibly inefficient. By and large, women will only produce one child at a time over a 10-month period. We aim to cut that right down. To start with, we’re aiming to halve that time. Once we have achieved that, we’ll halve it again.
We’ve been thinking about labour: The average length of a labour is 12-14 hours for a first child, 7 hours for following labours. That simply isn’t good enough. The questions we asked were simple: How can you speed that up? Can you modify a human body in order to facilitate reliable and efficient throughput? Through research and investment into surgical and anatomical advancement and enhancement, we aim to halve the total time for a labour, while maintaining an acceptable average mortality rate.
What is a man? That question has been asked countless times across countless centuries, but nobody has provided an answer. Until now. I’ll tell you what a man is! A man is a modular fertilisation apparati. Self-contained production chains. And we’re offering men the opportunity to take that production chain to the next level, with long-term hardware scalability, providing our men with the essential competitive advantage.”
He was the farthest thing from an expert, but it seemed strange how there were no photographs. No videos. Not even a 3D render. Just a series of strange blue icons looming over the audience behind Edwin. It seemed to fly in the face of common sense. It didn’t look like a scam, but he was far past the simple tells of spotting street hustlers. He figured that maybe scams had more money behind them on the upper levels, that if they didn’t look so grand, nobody would believe them. He was out of his depth and he didn’t like it.
“In terms of production speed, we’re thinking about ejaculation time. The average copulation comprises 100-500 thrusts over a duration of 3-7 minutes. That is far too long. We looked at those numbers and knew that we could make sex more efficient. We’re developing pharmaceuticals with a view to reach a goal that we have dubbed one-one-one. What does that Stand for? It stands for one thrust, one ejaculation, one fertilisation.
And then we have the problem of the refractory period and the release of neurochemicals associated with connection and sleep post ejaculation, such as oxytocin and melatonin. This does not align with our goals, and so we are looking at means to counteract this drag on labour productivity. So with this in mind, we are carrying out more research into inhibitors and steroids.
We have teams in our research division examining each of these problems right now, experimenting with a range of solutions on the bleeding edge of technological progress including surgical, pharmaceutical and multi-disciplinary research. The results so far have been extremely promising.”
In the prospectus, pages expanded on projected costs, pipelines, logistics, profit margins under different circumstances, competition, and a short chapter on theoretical game theory analysis concerning plans for their position in the emerging market. It was punctuated with an array of bar graphs, line graphs and flow charts, and tables. When outlining the research itself, the content was less technical. The mathematical graphs and charts were replaced, more often than not, with the signature sleek minimalist diagrams, all pastel colours and soft edges. The unstructured mess of biology abstracted into a catwalk of corporate symbolism. He looked for fine print or footnotes accompanying these sections, but found nothing.
“So that’s an initial look at production speed. But we’re also looking at the volume of production. This has proven to be an especially complex area, with a lot of potential paths and additional considerations for development. However, what we are focussing on right now, is the following:
For the women, we’re looking at capacity expansion as a side-chain expansion to product throughput multiplication. Most pregnancies result in the output of just one child. As a return on investment, we’re not happy with this.” He paused, and then flicked out a hand, palm up in a gesture somewhere between a card dealer and a karate chop. “We’d like to see a 2:1 ratio of input to output, at least, and so we’re working on optimising the probability of multi-unit production. However, as I’m sure you’re all aware, we have scalability issues in the form of the carrying capacity bottleneck.”
He resumed his confident amble across the stage, “We are looking into ways of developing capacity expansion, which in itself entails a number of other concerns, chief amongst them is containment viability. As you scale up throughput, you need to scale up the resilience of your facilities – unit production is not a static process, and as you well know, it induces a great amount of strain on the apparatus at just a standard 1:1 input-output configuration. As we move towards reliably creating a ratio of 2:1, 3:1 and more, it is absolutely critical that our proto-unit containment apparati are equipped to deal with that workload. Without that foundational consideration successfully actioned, there’s no room for growth and scalability.”
“Now with respect to the inputs, we see a series of significant pipeline detriments in our logistics chain:” he raised his arm, bent at the elbow, and with his thumb and forefingers in line with his brow. “Testes produce 200–300 million spermatozoa per day. These translate to between 50 and 100 million viable sperm per day. A healthy apparatus can release 80–300 million sperm per yield.” He emphasised each point with an abrupt snap of his fingers. “The result is that stakeholders have to work around an incredibly unreliable and erratic production chain that is sufficient for one optimal use per 24-hour cycle, and thereafter suffers from a significant yield degradation per use. That is one production line impeding the entire manufacturing process.” He turned to the audience and jabbed his index finger at the air, “That is unacceptable.” He resumed walking again, “So what are we going to do? We are going to align biological capacities and upscale organic synergies. That, ladies and gentlemen, is what we’re going to do.”
This was greeted with a short burst of animated applause. Caleb looked down the isle towards Carrot and Ada, and grimaced. It was difficult to see them in the gloom, but they had their heads together. They would distract the people around them. What could they have to talk about that couldn’t wait in the first place? He thought he saw her shoulders shaking. What was she laughing at? Carrot hadn’t struck him as a joker. Charismatic, sure, but not especially funny. What was he telling her?
Edwin paused at the far left hand of the stage, brought his hands together in a light contemplative clasp at his stomach, pivoted and began a casual amble back across the stage. “So how do we make synergise our production line and maximise efficiency?” he asked, throwing his hands out, palm up. “Well, we’ll start with conversion rate,” he stared, bringing his hand back together with a soft clap. “Again, over the long term we’re aiming for a 1:1:1 ratio of material to end-product. Our initial steps aim to to about 3:2:1, but we don’t want to stop there.” he paused, rested on his back foot and faced the audience, “What we want to do, is maximise efficiency as far as possible,” he stated, tracing an arc through the air with an authoritative wave of the hand, like God summoning a rainbow. “After we’ve done that, we’ll need to ramp up raw material production, while maintaining that throughput efficiency. As we increase production, we’ll need to increase storage capacity, and so we’re looking into the efficacy of bulk storage vs multiplicative system chaining. We’re leaning towards multiplicative system chaining as this synergises with production scaling and better aligns with our growth ambitions. Although we may begin testing a hybrid system in the future, depending on what our data tells us.”
Caleb looked over at Carrot and Ada again. They had their attention on the stage. Perhaps Carrot hadn’t made her laugh. She had always been ambitious. Who wasn’t? Here was another rung. A man with resources and clout. A man who could get you places. If you could impress him. Long ago, he’d first met Paul, they’d been sitting in a cafe, next to a couple who seemed to be on a date. Paul had been telling him about something in the news – how an unidentified PMC group had attacked Circular Capital headquarters, and the rumour was that VKA Group were behind it. Beside them, an bland-looking guy had leaned over, interrupting Paul, and asked him to lower his voice a bit. He hadn’t been rude about it, but it seemed to irritate Paul because Paul’s response had been to stand, pick the man’s coffee off the table and slowly spit into it, staring the poor bastard down all the while. The three of them had stared at Paul, who calmly set the coffee back on the table and then stood there. Seconds eroded. The guy did nothing. Paul turned and swaggered towards the door. Caleb remembered taking in the faces of the couple, thinking about apologising, and then blundered out of the door after Paul. They hadn’t deserved that. But when he’d caught up with Paul, he’d cackled loudly, throwing his head back as if it were the funniest thing he’d seen all week.
Edwin stabbed the air with a defiant finger, “This!” he proclaimed, “This is just the start.” There is a great deal more to do and we are working incredibly hard, but given the data we’ve produced so far, we’re predicting great things. We at the Incubatrix Project, will give birth to the future. Thank you.”
The crowd stood and, in their strangely restrained manner, offered a thunderous applause, slapping their palms together as if the sound alone could manifest a stock price parabola. A handful of excitable people forget themselves and gave yips and whoops. Caleb couldn’t muster their enthusiasm, but he clapped along anyway, feeling like a child at a school assembly. It seemed like the thing to do. He glanced over to Carrot and Ada. Carrot was offering hearty applause, nodding as he did so. Ada did not clap. She nodded, but the movements were slow and contemplative.
Edwin held his hands up for silence, smiling with parental patience as the room settled, “I will now be taking questions. “
The data pad Caleb had been given at the door abruptly lit up with a soft blue glow. A chart of the auditorium loaded up, his seat highlighted in bright green. Row 11, seat 59.
“Let’s start near the front. Row 8, seat 43.”
A functionary walked around and handed a thick heavy-headed microphone with a large navy muffler emblazoned with the Gilded Cage’s gold-barred logo, to a thin blonde man in a dark suit with striking yellow accents. “Hi, Victor Park here. This sounds fascinating. I’m at Wilson & Carlyle Media, can you talk us through some of your advertising campaigns?”
“Glad you could make it, Victor. Sure. Broadly, our current client base is all private investors and venture capital, fund raising rounds, etc., I can’t speak to a finalised marketing campaign. We project this to last for the short-term. Nevertheless, long term we do intend to open the process to the wider commercial market, forecasting strong revenue growth if early privatised product capitalization proves to be successful.
We intend to start with B2B and then test the cost-effectiveness of B2C and we are workshopping early prototype material for both. At this stage there is still a lot of data to be collected and modelled. We anticipate that public product vs bespoke services, and we’re developing a range of sophisticated data-based branding and targeted demography-influenced marketing strategies, leveraging our analytics and data brokers to influence consumer sentiment into successful conversion.”
“Thank you.”
“No, thank you. Next question, please. Let’s take one from Row 5, seat 7.”
A short woman in a pastel green gown pinstriped with white LEDs stood. “I’m Elenor Hwang, I’m with Cybersphere Analytics.”
“Welcome, Elenor.”
“Thank you. Fascinating talk. Do you have partnerships with reputable data brokers?”
“We do.”
“Can you reveal who they are?”
“Unfortunately, not at this stage. Next question, please.” he checked his pad “Let’s have one further towards the back, there… row 36, seat 23”
The man next to him turned his head, Caleb caught his glare out of the corner of his eye and became aware of himself drumming impatiently on the armrest.
“Cassandra Wolff. Velvet Solutions. Strategy division,” announced a tall woman facing the stage with a casual unaffected rigidity. “Why invest in biology in the first place? Why not invest research into robotics, artificial intelligence, and machine learning?”
“The simple fact is that the technology, while available, simply isn’t ubiquitous enough, and this not cost-effective.”
“I would disagree. The performance outweighs the cost.”
Caleb opened his prospectus at a random page. The top half of the left-hand page was taken up by a bar graph in shades of blue. The right-hand page featured one big landscape-oriented table. He stared at the pages and gained nothing from them.
“In specific, bespoke circumstances, perhaps. On a broader basis, not so much. We have run the numbers and made proposals on both fronts to our investors. Their response, with relative unanimity, has favoured the biological approach first. After all,” he chuckled, “we wouldn’t want another Cradle Solutions, I’m sure you’d agree.” A foam of polite laughter rippled through the audience.
The woman made a disgruntled noise in her throat, “Would you eventually want to remove the human element altogether?”
“That is a potential long-term goal. It would theoretically make sense from one perspective. From a foundational perspective, the upfront investment of a fully technological approach, simply does not offer enough of a return on investment for our shareholders. In part because, from a technological standpoint, we cannot mimic the unit production process accurately enough with machines alone. Everyone who has tried to move that needle in the past has met with a series of incredibly costly walls. We need to look at the production facilities that already work, and study them to the point where we understand that process down to the nuts and bolts, and only then can we start to look at 1:1 artificial reproductions. Unfortunately, we are not at a stage where we can do this, and there is simply no way that we will get there anytime soon.”
Someone else got up somewhere and fumbled with the microphone. “Lilian Arkwright here, representing Cypher Financial. “I’m sure this is in the documentation, but could you provide more detail on your plans for how this research is projected to interact with market verticals and economies of scale?” Her elegant tan-toned suit was accented with a subtle red angular pattern that flickered under the lights.
“At the current stage of development, we’re not focussed on that as a priority, but we are building with scalability in mind. We are aiming to refine our processes and equipment into a modular framework. When we have that in place, we can begin a manufacturing side chain, allowing us to expand existing facilities and create new operations on demand. From there, it is a matter contracting and expansion – same as every business.”
“A question from row 14, seat 38.”
He had flipped to a different page of the prospectus. This one also featured a bar graph. Again, he wasn’t sure what it related to. It seemed like he should have gleaned some meaning from them, a series of pastel-coloured rectangles within a larger rectangle, through sheer willpower alone. How long had he been staring at his prospectus and flipping through it at random? He wondered if he just looked weird. He flicked his eyes to the right to see if anybody was watching. He caught the person side-eying him, face set into a half-frown, lips drawn into a thin line. He closed the prospectus and set it on his lap.
A tall man in a tailored charcoal suit, wearing a pair of sleek rectangular glasses stood and swept the microphone up from the hand of the functionary. “Ethan Reed from Bell Cybernetics,” he announced. “Have there been any side effects or challenges with your research?”
“Of course. Every project at this scale will run into challenges along the way. For example, our work with male production efficiency has created minor physical side effects, such as a significant increase in hair growth and a proliferation in cases of acne. More significantly, cases of testosterone spikes have provided a wealth of data on behaviour and uninhibited interactions. From the extra data collected from these unanticipated challenges, we have a series of secondary and tertiary projects that we are workshopping. I can’t talk about these in too much detail, but I am very excited for the future. One of the more interesting side effects of learning to calibrate chemical regulation, was the reduction and inoperability of production line equipment, which we hadn’t anticipated. That, more than anything, is our priority target for bug squashing. Next question, please.”
A copper-haired woman heading towards middle age in a flowing red dress took the mic. “Who is going to raise all of these production units?”
He answered like a playboy addressing a spilled drink, “That is not our concern.”
“But you’re producing them.”
“Correct. We are the first step in a larger emergent logistical pipeline. We know that the invisible hand of the market creates incentives for further private enterprise to fill in the gaps, so that is what we are projecting. Last question, please. First row, seat 8. What do you have for me?”
Caleb became aware that he’d been scratching at the armrest beneath his fingers this time and stopped. He gingerly lifted his hand and tried for an inconspicuous glance at the armrest. He was relieved to find that he hadn’t done any damage.
A short broad man stood and rolled his shoulders under a heavy blazer, “Good evening. How will outsourcing work with your project?”
“We are not projecting a desire to outsource our services. Unless the process becomes ubiquitous across an emergent industry and, ultimately, indistinguishable from potential future competitors, we would not seek to move our operations outside of our control. The good thing for us is that we don’t have any competitors.” A ripple of soft laughter passed through the crowd. “You come to Vertical Carbon because this is a bespoke service that nobody else is offering.”
“Unfortunately that is all we have time for this evening, ladies and gentlemen. I hope you enjoyed this introduction and are interested in investing in us in the future. You can review, in your prospecti, the details of each of our ongoing research projects.”
Edwin beamed as the audience offered enthusiastic applause, bowed, and then sauntered backstage. The low hum of polite conversation faded back into the room and people started to shuffle towards the exits. Caleb wondered what backstage looked like.
Ada, her brows knitted into a tight frown, was discussing something with Carrot. As Caleb approached they turned and brightened together.
‘Well, what did you think?’ asked the Carrot.
Caleb smiled back, nodded his head, ‘It was certainly something.’
“Interesting, though” nodded Ada.
He hefted his prospectus.
“I bet you’re glad you made it up here now,” said Carrot looking to Ada then him.
Ada nodded, “yes, I’m glad I did.”
Outside, the brightness of the wide balcony was jarring, and he squinted against the light until his eyes adjusted. People trailed out and clustered into small circles, continuing conversations or starting new ones, the polite drone punctuated by advert-perfect laughter reinstated itself over them.
“I was surprised to see Edwin was presenting it,” Caleb commented.
Both Ada and the Carrot looked surprised, “You know Edwin?”
“I wouldn’t say I know him,” he answered, screwing his face up, “but I am acquainted.”
“How did that come about?”
“I did some work for him.”
“Some work?”
“I take it you do know him?”
“Come now, there’s no need to be coy. That’s quite the person to work for. A lot of connections to say the least. What did you do?”
“You know him.”
Carrot nodded and tried to look understanding. His face reconfigured itself into a picture of respectful reserve, but the set of his brows betrayed a lingering sense of disappointment. Instead, he laughed. “That’s very interesting.” He paused, “And yes.” He nodded to himself stared into the middle distance, distracted. Ada frowned at the two of them. Carrot turned to Ada, “can we talk together for a minute, please? I have a private matter I’d like to discuss with you.”
Ada nodded, brightening, “Yes, of course!”
Carrot looked at Caleb, “you don’t mind, do you?”
Caleb waved them on, “Go ahead.”
He watched them disappear into the crowd and then tried to look occupied. On a digital board on the wall behind them, a pyramid hovered above a set of recursive stairs. “Catering partially sponsored by 3D-F. For people whose desk is a treadmill.” There was a tear in the carpet. He toed it absent mindedly. Then he remembered where he was, stopped and looked around for somewhere to get a drink. Nowhere seemed apparent, so he wandered away from the crowd in search of another bar. A well-lit hallway led to some elevators, there were a series of wood-panelled double doors with small rectangular windows, leading to empty rooms bleached white by the overhead strip lights.
The hallway led him through a couple of right angles, back to the balcony. Empty handed, he looked for Carrot and Ada but they weren’t around. What was he waiting for? He thought about leaving. Heading back to the pod, having a drink and forgetting this ridiculous place. He had no business being surrounded by these high-status people. As he re-entered the crowd the acid wash of a dozen conflicting statement-making perfumes and colognes rolled over him. He figured he should enjoy whatever money remained to him and submit to the sad crumble. It was amazing how you could get used to it while you were stuck in it for a while. He could see himself as disparate flakes of ash, inevitably filtering back down, falling through the cracks, back to the bottom. Where he belonged. He suppressed a cough with effort, making a strangled choking sound, instead. Someone glanced at him, either concerned or perhaps just pleased to have a distraction from their surroundings.
How long was he expected to wait before it was acceptable to look at his phone? He didn’t know. How many of the people around him would he see again? Probably none. Even if he committed some manner of faux pas, it wouldn’t matter. He took his phone out. Jeremy from ‘QuaterFourBreaker’ had messaged him to tell him that he could still claim huge amounts of capital as a loan for his business. He didn’t know who Jeremy was, had never heard of QuaterFourBreaker before, and didn’t own a business. Jeremy probably didn’t exist.
“So how did you like the presentation?” asked someone behind him as he watched them retreat through the crowd.
He turned, and found himself facing the man who’d made it up the escalator ahead of him. “Interesting.”
“That’s all?”
“I wasn’t sure what to expect. It wasn’t that. I’ll need some time to look over the material. How about you?”
The man mirrored him, held his prospectus up in acknowledgement, “I’m in. I’m going to get in on the ground floor – you should too.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“This is next gen stuff. Sounds promising. You’re not excited by that?”
“you’re not worried by the lack of images or video?”
The man looked at him like he’d just proposed public anal. “What? What are you talking about? No, I’m not 5 years old. I don’t need a picture book.”
“Not my point. There wasn’t a single real bit of evidence that anything was where he said it was.”
“Of course there’s evidence.” He opened the prospectus and jabbed a finger at a scatter graph. “What do you call this?”
“A graph.”
“And?”
“And I want more than graphs. I want to see the people, I want to see the machinery. I want to hear about the process.”
The man flipped through the pages and pointed at something that was pretending to be a diagram, “What about this?”
“It’s useless.”
“It’s medical research – you can’t show investors the gory details. They don’t need to see photographs and videos and diagrams of surgery. What are you, a psycho?”
Caleb folded his arms.
“Secondly, there could be competitors here. He can’t just go around giving out information like that. You don’t know who could be waiting to steal that stuff.”
Caleb said nothing.
The man gave a sharp derisive bark, “I suppose if you want to look at it that way. Personally, I take the ‘no risk, no reward’ view.”
Caleb shrugged. They stood in awkward silence. The man seemed to want him to say something. He didn’t know what so he didn’t bother. The man excused himself and walked away.
He walked to the top of the escalator and stood staring down it. He couldn’t put his finger on Carrot. He didn’t even know his name. Some kind of big shot, that much was obvious. What was he involved in? Did it matter? Ada was cosy with him already. Who knew what they were yapping about. If Carrot was offering her something, any chance of him offering Caleb something was nil. He sighed and looked at the prospectus in his hand and considered leaving it on a seat somewhere, or throw it away on the way back to the pods. He hadn’t really gained anything from the evening as far as he could tell. Well, what had he expected? Nothing. What had changed? Nothing. So why the sour puss act? No reason. So, he told himself, he should knock it off. There would be other events and other opportunities. More crowds. More escalators. In the meantime he had cash for a while. There was no need to be dramatic. Someone coughed behind him. He started. Twisted. Five people stood behind him, looking a mixture of concerned and confused. The man in the lead gestured for him to go down the escalator. Caleb turned. Turned back and hurried past them, staring at the carpet, ignoring their stares until he was sure they’d descended.
“I’m excited for the rollout of our new campaign,” Carrot was saying to Ada as they emerged from the crowd behind him. “We’re trying to change the public perception that facial recognition is an infringement on privacy. It’s an ongoing debate, but we think that with enough investment, we can convince people that biometric tracking can be a benefit to their lives on a day to day basis..”
“Tough sell. What’s your angle?”
“The same sell as every sell: convenience. You’re buying a watch. Now a watch is not something you can buy without due consideration. There’s a lot that a watch says about a person and its important to think about that before you make a decision.”
“I’d never really considered that,” Caleb said.
“It’s true,” Ada said.
Carrot clapped his hand together. “Good. Now let’s say that working through all of the options, considering your price point, features, reading the reviews, narrowing the pool, and making that final decision – that’s going to take a few hours minimum. It’s hassle, it’s a distraction, you’ve got work to do. Who has that time? Nobody. Now what if we have data on you as a consumer, and we can link your biometric profile to your consumer profile, and we see that you are looking for a watch. Well now we already know, at a baseline, your job, your income, the location of your home and your employer. From there the algorithm extrapolates a basic projected price point, a demographic aesthetic based on your colleagues, your industry, and your economic bracket.” He turned from Ada to Caleb and back again, beaming at them. “After we’ve got a broad profile, the algorithm sorts through your prior purchasing history compares your personal data profile against the standard comparable consumer metric to establish how much a deviation from the norm you are likely to be, and then compare and contrast data points. And then we automatically narrow and sort your options. You don’t need to sort through a million watches anymore, we’ve got an entire consumer psychology-mapped profile that can effectively choose for you. Instantly, you’ve got hours of work back.”
“I don’t think people like having their decisions made for them.”
“No?”
“No.”
“That’s a common sentiment, Caleb – and one that deserves respect. Autonomy is important. But when we crunch the numbers the data doesn’t agree. Transactions are up, retail experience satisfaction is up, customer loyalty actually rises when consumer choices are informed by AI-informed biometric systems. Even when the customers don’t know they’re being offered items based on algorithmic profiling.”
He looked down at his prospectus and then up again, “I guess there isn’t much I can say. The evidence would seem to speak for itself.”
“Precisely!”
Ada shrugged, “The gap between the self-perception and the reality of consumer psychology is notoriously vast, and subject to ongoing research.” She slapped her open hand with the prospectus, “A project I worked on years ago looked at a similar phenomenon. The human ego does a surprising amount of the decision making, but very little thinking.”
“ok, but now you’ve got to convince consumers that they don’t know their own minds.”
“They don’t.”
Caleb snorted, “Sure, but try telling them that.”
“That’s the brilliant thing, Caleb – we don’t have to.” Carrot grinned, “As long as the consumer has a choice – any choice – they don’t care. They feel as if they are in control, their egos remain undisturbed, and most of all they get what they want. And because they get what they want, they keep transacting. Everyone wins.”
Again, he found he couldn’t offer any real response to this. Carrot continued outlining the broad ideas behind the marketing campaign. They were working with an agency of some description and a third company he couldn’t remember the function of 5 minutes after he’d been told. There was a broader trend of vigilante camera destruction they were unhappy with. Not because it was effective, but more because they needed to repeatedly come up with solutions and retaliatory measures, and that ate into the bottom line. They figured if they could make enough of a deterrent, then they could do enough damage to public morale to discourage dissent and retaliation.
Some way into this meandering conversation, Carrot unexpectedly turned to him. ‘Caleb, come with me a few minutes – I’d like to speak in private.”
He tried not to look surprised. If Carrot noticed, he didn’t let it show. He flicked his eyes to Ada, who also looked taken aback, but resumed an air of professional detachment a second later.
“Sure.” he said, trying to modulate his voice, to sound unconcerned as his mind leapt into fifth gear trying to work out what the new game was, what Carrot wanted, and how to profit from it.
He followed Carrot back down the bland semi-circular hallway, past the one-way lifts and into an empty function room. A small raised dais with a narrow grey-brown podium. He followed him over to the wide window running from wall to wall, unsure of what to expect. Carrot turned to him.
“I like you, Caleb. More than Ada, in fact. That’s why I pulled you over here.”
Caleb instinctively froze his face. Eagerness now would cause problems. “Ok, sure. What’s up?”
“I have some projects in the works and I’ve been looking for some appropriate people to introduce to my broader landscape, so to speak.”
“Right. Ok. Can I help you?”
Well, now, that’s a good question. One I’m trying to answer. Have you ever worked in tech or data or surveillance?”
“No. I have to admit, I haven’t.”
“That surprises me. But you look like a perceptive sort. Not much gets by you, I think.” He winked, “Well, you’ll like this then. I’d like to invite you to my yacht.”
“You own a yacht?”
“I’m hosting a social – nothing formal, but I think you’d like it. You should come.”
“You own a yacht?”
“It’s nothing too special, but it works for me.”
“Well, yeah – I’ll be there. Thank you.” He threw words out of his mouth without considering them. “I’ve never been on a yacht before.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
Carrot smiled at him like a magazine cover, “Well, then – come to mine.”
Caleb opened his mouth, closed it. Tried to think of an appropriate answer, but Carrot spoke first, “Look, I haven’t invited Ada, so don’t mention this in front of her, ok?”
“Oh, right – yeah, I get it.”
They exchanged details. Carrot’s name was Eric Waxweiler. He was a board member for a VKA Group-owned tech company. His phone was a wide sleek black slate. It didn’t look too much different from any other phone he’d seen before. There were a couple of bits that jutted out of the back, the designers had tried to make them slide comfortably into the overall body shape of the phone, but the smoothing effect just made the thing look partially melted. Caleb wondered if one of these strange jutting outcrops was a VKA scanner. “We should head back to Ada, but I’ll see you there.”
“You bet.”
Back on the balcony, people had started to drift back down to the ground floor. The chattering figures moving towards the lifts, some still making half-hearted attempts to hide rips in clothing or comb blood out of dishevelled and torn hair. He wanted to follow them. To be anywhere but there. The lights were too bright, the place was too clean, he’d run out of enthusiasm for making haphazard scrambles in the direction of networking. Ada and Eric were still yapping. He considered leaving. Would that reflect poorly on him? Would Eric consider it rude? Who was he? He had a yacht. Who needed explanations when you had a yacht? Caleb turned towards the lifts and then turned again and sidled over the rails again and looked up towards the ceiling. Above them a separate balcony ringed the top of the building. It was empty. He decided Eric would probably find his disappearance unfriendly. He decided to stick around, at least until Eric left.
“Hey, what’s that up there?” he asked.
“Up where?”
“The balcony.”
“Oh, that.” Eric chuckled. “Yes, I couldn’t say. Another balcony, I suppose. I’ve never been up there as a matter of fact. I think I looked for a way up, once, but never found one. I’ve never seen anybody up there.”
There was no escalator, so presumably it had a lift. If so, nobody was using it. A private lift? A private balcony? What kind of kind of people needed exclusive access to a balcony at the top of a glass events centre?
He looked down into the crowd below, the buzz of their polite conversation drifting up to him and mingling with the hum their own polite conversations. He could pick out people from here, a woman who looked happy, a man who had stormed over to a wall and was having an animated argument over a phone, a collection of nodding men and women listening to someone hold forth on this or that. Grand ideas or strings of banality? It didn’t matter. When he looked up again, Edwin was looking down at their balcony and their crowd. He didn’t seem to notice Caleb, and that suited Caleb fine. He looked around him. Nearby, a woman was beaming at someone, a man had detached from the crowd and was yelling into a phone, and small clusters of people with fixed smiles talked and nodded and talked and nodded. He found himself staring at a blank piece of wall panelling as if it contained the secret to eternal youth and he was trying to commit it to memory. Beside him Ada and Carrot were still having some kind of conversation. So he didn’t have to look up at the balcony again, he re-joined them.
‘Have you been to The Pavilion? Fantastic restaurant. Some of the finest veal I’ve ever eaten.”
“Am I doing enough exercise?” Ada examined her nails, “I’ve missed my gym appointment for this.”
“I could do with a drink…” Caleb said, watching a leggy brunette strut past with her face buried in her phone.
“But perhaps I’m not after veal this evening. What am I after?”
“Alex has been texting me, I’ve told him I’ll be at our next session, but he’s right; we set our progress back like this.”
“I need to hit milestones two and three inside of forty days.”
“Where’s the nearest bar around here, anyway?”
“Well, a great many things. Money, primarily.”
“I mean, it’s technically all the same to him – he just wants the money, but I always meet my end of a contract.”
“And do they serve anything reasonable?”
“But I’m getting ahead of myself, we’re talking about the basic foundation of life: food. What should I eat?”
“On the other hand, what do I want?”
“On that point, I haven’t hit my steps today, which is unacceptable – although I did double the number yesterday.”
“More to the point where should I eat? Oceanicus? Trident?”
“Still, this isn’t a ‘carry over’ deal. You meet your targets or you fuck off.”
“Any decent beers on? I’m not fussed. The again, after a place like this, maybe something a bit more upmarket?”
“Both good candidates in their own right. Where was that place that had the exquisite béchamel? Mortons?”
“I won’t be able to eat breakfast tomorrow, which will throw off my caloric schedule.”
“Maybe some wine… White? Red?”
“Perhaps a table at Seasons? No, not seasons. Especially not mid-week. That fucking parasite Hallman had a table at Seasons last week.”
“Oh, hell – I’ll balance it out with a protein shake and a kale smoothie. I’ll have to run the numbers. “
“Maybe a whisky. Second thoughts, too much. I’ll just stick to beer.”
“I do not want to be seen eating anywhere that that idiot would boast about.”
Caleb looked back to the balcony again. Edwin was gone. He listened to Ada and Carrot talk past each other and then excused himself, and headed towards the lifts. Neither of them answered him.
Words and Chaos 
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