by Luke Tredget
‘And the most beautiful thing about the algorithm’, says Raymond, his mouth stretched into its permanent smile, ‘is that it learns. Each couple that reaches commitment feeds a new template of compatibility back into the system, which helps make future matches more accurate, which then feed the system again, in a benign cycle of learning and improvement.’ He explains how the algorithm gathers millions of indicators of people’s KAPO (knowledge, attitudes, practices, opinions) which give the most accurate reading of a person’s ‘true personality’; as he says this the vast screen behind him shows a scrolling series of millions of dots and dashes, a codification of someone’s character. Next he explains the meaning of the word ‘kismet’ and how the technology will never be used to interrupt the normal flow of people’s lives – on the contrary, since Kismet has access to people’s routines, it will be able to spot anyone who is obsessively trying to make matches – ‘fishing’, he calls it – and intervene.
‘We are not here to play God,’ he says, wrapping up. ‘Only to help people find the love that’s right there in front of them.’
The video finishes and Anna sits back, scans her eyes around. She looks up at the TVs showing rolling news and half expects to see Raymond’s face there as well, but it isn’t. Kismet does appear on the big board though, twice, both stories that Anna is already familiar with. In one, Raymond is defending accusations of hypocrisy, since he hasn’t used the Love Test technology with his wife of twenty years. The second is the guy in Austria who is making a legal challenge for Kismet to release the data that makes up his profile, saying that the aggregation of his online behaviour ‘belongs to him’. Raymond hasn’t deigned to comment on this story, and it is an unnamed Kismet spokesperson who brushes aside the argument, saying that to release people’s profiles would be to gift the algorithm to their Silicon Valley competitors and that, more importantly, their data policy is clearly explained in the Ts and Cs. This talk of data makes her think of what Geoff 81 said about the pipe, and she remembers her Twitter account and suitcase project, and goes to have a look at it. She is surprised to find that other people have been looking at it too. She has 67 followers already, and twelve retweets. One of them, @DeepBlue1977, says the use of voce instead of tu for the second person singular suggests African rather than Brazilian Portuguese. Another, @Victoria_Applepie, says there was a massive flood in Mozambique at the date of the newspaper clipping, and that perhaps they were an aid worker?
Anna sits back, amazed. People are actually helping her; the pipe is working. She can almost feel her photos and words spreading through the internet, reaching more people, filtering along pipe after pipe, slowly covering the world. She writes a personal message of thanks to every new follower who has taken part, and then searches for ‘internet all the data the pipe’ but nothing relevant comes up. She wonders if her searching for the pipe might be detectable to one of the mathematicians paid to look at the pipe, and what they would think, to know that someone is thinking of them while they sit there looking at the endless deluge of data. The thought makes her smile, and she has a sudden, powerful urge to express this idea out loud, to Geoff, thinking that he would almost certainly reply with a ready-made speech of his own. At that precise moment her phone rings within her bag, and for a panicked moment she thinks it must be him. But then she remembers that she deleted him, and when she retrieves her phone she sees the freckled, bespectacled face of Zahra.
‘Drink after work?’ says Zahra, as Anna walks across the clearing to the landing.
‘Can’t, I’m slammed.’
‘Just quickly? I want to speak to you about your birthday.’
‘You’re speaking to me now.’
Anna leans her elbows into the sunken window frame at the end of the landing; she is surprised to see the tops of umbrellas floating along the alleyway below, since it doesn’t appear to be raining.
‘So you’ve made a decision,’ says Zahra, eventually. ‘The boat is off?’
‘Yes. The boat is off.’
‘And the dinner party is on?’
‘Yes,’ says Anna, a trace of irritation in her voice. ‘The dinner party is on.’
Zahra makes such a big sigh it sounds like she is blowing down the phone.
‘This is great, Anna. I’m really pleased for you.’ She says more things like this, sounding puffed up with a delight that Anna feels is excessive, even suspicious.
‘So you didn’t match with anyone else?’
‘No. Well, there was one guy. It was nothing.’
‘What score?’
‘Like, 65 or 66. I don’t even remember. It was nothing. You were right – my profile was screwed up.’
‘Of course I was right. I’ve been telling you from the start, Pete is great.’
The familiar old jealousy flares within Anna, and she wonders if it is possible that Zahra’s enthusiasm and encouragement should make her concerned. Though maybe this idea is completely irrational. She isn’t sure, and just thinking about it makes her head hurt; all she wants is to get off the phone.
‘Yep, you were right about everything. Even the weather. Look: we couldn’t take a boat out in the rain.’
‘Is it raining? It’s hard to tell from the tenth floor.’
‘Rain is actually hard to see,’ says Anna, though she is learning this herself at the same time as saying it. ‘You can see where it lands, and the things it hits, but when you actually try and look at the rain itself, it’s hard.’
Zahra laughs and says she sounds like a fridge magnet. Then she asks Anna to meet tomorrow instead, and Anna says maybe. After hanging up she continues standing with her elbows on the window ledge, looking through the glass. Eventually she decides that yes, you can see the rain – it is like a faint reverberation in the air, a transparent shifting that hovers on the brink of perceptibility, as if the air itself is being rustled.
Tuesday
Anna is alone in a wine bar on the Strand, sitting at a high, narrow table beside a floor-to-ceiling glass wall that makes her feel she is in a tank. On the other side of the window, homebound office workers are struggling against the confusing weather; a fine misty drizzle is falling, which is simultaneously heavy and light, while the air is mild to the point of being warm, almost tropical. Some commuters are responding with raincoats and umbrellas, some with a folded newspaper raised above them; most are simply walking with their heads lowered, resigned to getting wet.
Her phone is on the table in front of her, and with fingers that feel strangely hollow she sends a message to Pete saying she’s meeting Zahra for a quick drink. Then she looks again through the glass, and the sight of a tall, dark-haired, suited man on the far pavement causes electricity to branch through her.
But it isn’t him, and her startled nerves relax. The strength of her reaction is alarming, and she reminds herself that her being here is of no consequence, that she doesn’t have to be here at all. It is less than an hour since he called her at work – thus proving that he could still call, despite her deleting him – and asked blithely if she was ‘hungry, thirsty or both’. She isn’t sure why she agreed. She supposes it would be good to thank him for the encouragement with the suitcase project, though that hardly feels like a reason. In fact, the sensible thing would be to get up and walk out. Just as this thought is about to be translated into action, she sees another dark-haired man hurrying along the far pavement, and this time it is him, her 81. He jogs to make the final beeps of a pedestrian crossing, disappears from view for a moment, then reappears in the centre of the bar, where he stops and casts his eyes about. She gives him a little wave and he approaches.
‘Hello, Anna,’ he says, planting himself at the end of her table, hands on hips. He is wearing a grey business suit that is much sharper than what he wore on the South Bank, but is still tweedy, vintage-looking.
‘Hello, Geoff.’ She pivots on her stool to face him and they smile at each other.
‘Nice suit.’
‘Thanks. It’s my lucky suit.’<
br />
‘Oh yeah? You think something good will happen if you wear it?’
‘Of course. Though, in this instance, the good thing has already happened.’
They continue smiling at each other, but neither extends a physical greeting. She feels a pang of regret about her appearance, since once again she hasn’t had the chance to choose her outfit; she is wearing a heavy-knit burgundy jumper, her unwashed hair is tied up, and on her feet are the oafish boots. Nevertheless, his bright blue eyes still seem to appraise her with interest, even excitement. His long, rectangular face is beaded with moisture, either from exertion or the rain, which he wipes away with his hand. There is something ridiculous about how handsome he is.
‘You can sit down, if you like?’ she says.
‘Maybe,’ he says, and she realises his smile is fixed. ‘If you’d like me to.’
‘What do you mean?’
There is a pause, then he says: ‘You deleted me. On the app.’
‘Oh.’ Anna can feel herself blush. ‘You can see that?’
‘Your name, Anna 81, became faded in my list of contacts. I found out that means you deleted me.’
‘Sorry.’ Anna looks at her hands twisted together in her lap. It is embarrassing, but seems a good opportunity to come clean. ‘It was nothing personal, it was just—’
‘Please, don’t apologise. It should be me apologising. I was advised not to call, but then … something made me think you didn’t mean it.’
‘What made you think that?’
‘My little finger,’ he says, holding up a pinkie, as if it is his source of intuition. Finally he sits down on the other side of the table, barely wide enough for two plates. The white sky and vast windows are filling the bar with an even, pale light that casts no shadows, and Anna notices that his irises aren’t simply blue, as she’d thought, but are flecked with yellow around the pupils, like the flares during a solar eclipse. They continue gazing like this, until Geoff does something surprising: he leans forwards and kisses her cheek. Anna is stunned; they have already been together for several minutes, and the kiss, outside its ritual place, feels shockingly intimate. She laughs awkwardly and feels her face flush again, and it’s a relief when the waiter arrives with a menu, which Geoff scans before saying something in French. She takes the menu and finds the bottle he ordered, the Chassagne-Montrachet, for £220.
‘We’re celebrating,’ he says, as she gawps at the price. ‘We’ve had good news on the project.’
‘Your secret investigation?’
He nods and looks away from her, squinting at the glass wall beside them.
‘What does that mean? You’ve had a breakthrough? You’ve cracked the code?’ She says this with a light scorn that he doesn’t acknowledge.
‘I wouldn’t go that far. But it’s a promising development.’
‘And it’s still a secret?’
‘More than ever, I’m afraid. It’s a sensitive time.’
‘Is it to do with the pipe you were talking about?’
He looks back at her and smiles, and she senses it is.
‘I really can’t say.’
‘You’ve tapped into it somehow, haven’t you?’
‘Wait and see.’
‘That means I’m right,’ she says, cheekily, and he shakes his head and tuts, his expression further confirming that she’s on to something. The waiter returns with the bottle in a bucket of ice and two glasses which, after giving Geoff a taste, he fills.
‘Congratulations, I guess,’ she says, raising her glass. ‘Let’s drink to mysterious achievements. To boys and their toys.’
‘No. Let’s drink to success. To the feeling, rather than the specific prize. I’ve always found it tastes the same, no matter what you’ve achieved. It’s like the world is on your side, like it wants to be your friend. Cheers.’
They chink glasses and a flurry of personal successes – passing her second driving test, opening her A-level results, being offered the initial internship at the website – flit through Anna’s mind, before she sips the chill, biting wine. She holds up the glass and expects to see splinters of ice floating in the yellow liquid, then takes a second, bigger gulp.
‘I’m celebrating as well, actually,’ she says, taking her phone from her bag. She tells him that she finally started her suitcase project at the weekend, and brings up her key stats on Twitter: in the last day her number of followers has jumped to 179, the number of retweets to 44, and over a dozen posts are now using the #ahardcase hashtag. She shows him a picture of the newspaper clipping and says that it has been identified as coming from a Mozambique title, Canal de Maputo, and that on 17 February 2013, the date on the clipping, the country was severely flooded, and full of foreign aid workers.
‘During the flood there were only a few flights to Heathrow a week, apparently,’ she says, flicking her screen in search of the relevant comment. ‘According to one guy, BAA have a database of all passengers for a certain period of time.’
‘This is a good start,’ he says, with a measured tone. ‘Forgive me for being slow. But why are you celebrating?’
‘Because I’m doing it. Because it’s working.’
‘Come on, now. You’ve barely started. Less than two hundred followers?’
‘It’s good for it to be small, it means I can speak to and thank each follower individually. Besides, what did you expect?’
‘I expect this to be big. Really big. I’m not joking. I think you can actually find him. You just need to take it to the next level.’
‘How do I do that?’
‘The problem is a credibility gap. You need to gather more supporters. You have to like people who can then follow you. Celebrities. Journalists. You have to really invest time in it. Treat it like a full-time job.’ It’s surprising that he knows so much about Twitter.
‘I’ve got a full-time job already.’
‘Oh, yes, that,’ he says, scornfully. ‘But this is real journalism. And it won’t come without any sacrifices.’
‘Sacrifices, yes. But not earning any money? You know, my job isn’t that bad. I have quite a lot of wriggle room. And besides, how will I eat?’
‘Lots of freelance journalists start out like this. You would get noticed, then start to get offered jobs. Of course it can pay.’
‘I imagine those freelance journalists didn’t have mortgage repayments to keep up.’
Geoff looks out the window again and then peers at Anna with his long fingers pressed to his lips, as if assessing how much he can trust her.
‘You know, there is something you could do,’ he says, angling across the narrow table. ‘Something I could help with. A shortcut, so to speak.’ He tells her there is a method for gathering extra followers, a way of exploiting a loophole in Twitter’s back end, that lots of people use. ‘They call it mopping up,’ he says. ‘We could bump you up to one thousand, two thousand followers in a few minutes.’ He clicks his fingers.
‘You mean creating fake accounts?’
‘God, no. Something much better than that. These are real people, only they won’t know they’re following you.’ He seems excited, and has a mischievous gleam in his eyes.
‘This sounds very dodgy. Is it to do with your pipe thing again?’
‘Technically speaking, everything is to do with the pipe. But the point is it isn’t cheating. Lots of people do it, to take their work to the next level. And you owe it to yourself to do the same.’
Anna asks again what the hell it is, exactly, but Geoff says he doesn’t want to go into the details, and changes the subject successfully by saying he is fond of Mozambique, even though he was once kidnapped there. Anna requests the full story and he begins telling her, in a surprisingly jaunty way, about when he worked for a newspaper in Malawi back in the nineties – the Lilongwe Herald – that wasn’t published daily or weekly, but when it was ready. The whole operation was floored for a month by the printer breaking down, and Geoff spent the time hitch-hiking through neighbouring Mozambique, a
iming to learn to surf on the way. In one town on the coast he was looking for a lift, and a young guy in startling platform shoes joined him in a bar where he was drinking a Coke, and said he could find him a lift in the morning and a bed for the night. He bought Geoff another Coke, and another, and called his friends and they all surrounded him in the bar and insisted on calling him John.
‘Each time they bought me a new Coke they promised it would be the last, and that after I drank it they would sort me out with the room and the lift. Eventually I suspected something wasn’t right, and politely tried to leave. But they pushed me back into the booth, told me to finish my Coke. This went on for hours, until two or three in the morning. Then they finally took me out, said they were leading me to the bus station where they would get me a lift. But instead they just took me to another bar, and ordered me a Coke.
‘I must have drunk twenty Coca-Colas. In the end they made a mistake and let me go to the toilet, and I climbed out the window and ran for it.’
‘I’m not sure that classes as being kidnapped.’
‘Seriously, they were terrifying. They all had these platform shoes. They were like an African Clockwork Orange. I even left my bag. But no, I suppose it was nothing. I’ve had much worse scrapes.’
He tells her equally colourful stories about when he was on a rowing boat at night on a lake in Kashmir, stoned out of his mind, and drifted into Pakistani territory, and found himself under a spotlight with twenty border guards on a patrol boat pointing guns at him. Or the time in Paraguay when he was arrested and accused of being a spy, but was released following an intervention from a hairdresser whom he’d given a large tip to. His hands move around as he speaks, and Anna becomes transfixed by his long sculptured fingers as they swoop and dip. She looks up from his hands and in the delicately etched creases around his eyes sees evidence of experience rather than age. He has lived. This occurs to her with the weight of revelation, and she feels a swirling in her stomach, as if the liquid it contains is being stirred. She thinks maybe the wine is getting to her, but even as she thinks this she takes another sip, and then Geoff refills her empty glass.
