The System

by Gemma Malley

  ‘That’s why people follow you,’ Milo had explained. ‘Because they want to feel like they’re part of things, that they’re involved, even if they live thousands of miles away. You owe them. Keep it upbeat.’

  Keep it upbeat. Frankie smiled as she left her building and walked down the narrow Paris street. As she walked, she saw her image on several screens outside cafés, outside shops, drawing people in: you can watch Frankie while you shop! While you eat! People stepped aside as she walked towards them; some lifted their hands in greeting, high-fiving her as she walked past.

  And all of them looked so excited to see her, so happy. Milo had been so right. She couldn’t believe how much things had changed since she’d met him. Back then she’d just been a blogger, covering politics one day and fashion the next, going wherever her curiosity took her. Her writing style was confident, inviting and humorous; she had a few thousand regular readers and her pieces were often forwarded on. But nothing more. Nothing like this. Then Milo had taken her under his wing, taught her how to work it, put her on the Infotec ‘We’re Watching’ page, made sure she was at every party, every event, and her Watcher numbers had started to rise. And Frankie had messaged them all, responded to them, name-checked them whenever she could, just like Milo had told her to. That’s when she’d been promoted on the ‘Top Ten New Faces to Watch’ Infomercial that had accompanied the launch of the latest chip. That’s when her numbers had really gone up. No, that was an understatement. That’s when her Watcher numbers had gone through the roof.

  She was on Honore Road, formerly Rue Honore. That’s back when there were loads of languages, when communication between people was hampered by governments desperate to divide and rule, determined to stop any kind of world peace because peace didn’t bring them power, peace didn’t make them any money. Frankie shuddered at the thought. Her father, before he died, used to tell her about Paris in the old days, about the poverty, the anger, the in-fighting after Europe fell apart. Infotec had chosen Paris to be its centre because of its culture, its beauty and its location, but also because it knew that they would be welcoming. Not like the Americans, or the Chinese, who expected Infotec to be grateful to them, who put restrictions on them, made things difficult. Paris knew a good thing when it saw it; knew that this was the chance it needed to get up off its knees. Infotec could have chosen any European city; they were all in the same boat. And so Paris bent over backwards, agreeing to all of Infotec’s demands and requests because it needed the jobs, needed the money; because its people were grateful. And they still were, he used to say, raising a glass of wine to the ‘I’ that was hologrammed onto the wall in their living room. ‘Merci,’ he would grin before taking a gulp of Bordeaux.

  The café she was going to was on the corner; as she walked towards it she passed a group of girls busy preening in front of a street camera, performing a little dance, apparently in a bid to improve their Watcher numbers. When they saw her, they stared open-mouthed, hostility and awe both visible on their faces. She ignored them and walked on; like Milo often told her, other people’s jealousy really wasn’t her issue. As she approached the café, she could see that someone had hastily erected a ‘Café Honore welcomes Frankie!’ sign and that a group of people were hovering outside waiting for her. She smiled, waving at them. ‘Hey, I’ve got a welcoming committee. How nice!’ she said, the words immediately appearing in front of each of her followers, courtesy of some new software that she was trialling for Infotec. The group of people cheered.

  ‘Have a coffee on me,’ one of her followers messaged immediately. ‘I’m thinking of you over in hot Kentucky!’

  ‘Will do!’ Frankie said, before several thousand more messages appeared. She couldn’t answer them all; couldn’t even scratch the surface. But she always commented on the first one or two she received, always replied like they were old friends. And in many ways they were; they knew everything about her. She just knew nothing about them. Nothing except the messages, the constant dialogue right in front of her eyes.

  ‘Oh my God! It’s her! Frankie! Over here! Over here!’ The screams rose in pitch as she walked towards the cluster, mostly girls, as always, all desperate to be caught on camera with her; the image would be sent to everyone they knew in the desperate hope that it would be circulated more widely, that they would attract a few more Watchers. Some were very young, some were maybe a year or two younger than her; a few were in their twenties, thirties.

  ‘It’s me!’ She smiled, gave a little self-deprecating shrug. ‘I can’t believe you’re all here already! So great to see you all!’

  Immediately another stream of messages and status updates swam in front of her. She high-fived as many of the group as possible then made her way into the café, where a table was waiting for her.

  ‘So, what shall I have?’ she mused out loud. Immediately several million suggestions appeared. She considered a few of them, then picked up the menu. A waiter hovered over her.

  ‘I think …’ she said, hesitating for a second, ‘that I’ll have eggs over a bagel and a coffee. Thanks, Paul. Great suggestion!’

  It was a trick she’d learnt from Milo, to scan quickly, zoom in on one comment, memorise the name, the exact suggestion. It made her millions of followers feel like it could be them, that they were really in this together. Made her one of them. It had felt cynical the first time she’d done it; she’d felt uncomfortable. She knew what it was like to look up to people, to watch them, to want to be like them, and she wanted to be able to get back to people properly, answer their questions, thank them for their nice comments. But it was impossible with these numbers; Milo was right, as always. And his technique worked; people felt like she was really listening to everything they said, so maybe it was okay that she was just performing a little trick, the same way Milo had taught her how to make her eyes all shiny and sparkly when she was on camera. ‘Tricks of the trade,’ he’d told her with a little shrug. ‘Welcome to being famous.’

  The food took a few minutes to arrive; all around her people were updating their status, mentioning her, taking photographs of her or purposefully moving close to her so that the café’s surveillance cameras could pick them up with her, beaming their image across the globe and updating their status simultaneously.

  She saw a waiter walk past her towards the corner of the café, where a man was sitting hunched over a coffee. The waiter leant down, pointed to the cameras; the man ignored him. Frankie frowned as she watched the waiter shrug and point to his watch. He had missed the fifteen-minute deadline; at least she assumed he had. You didn’t have to say much, didn’t have to do anything much at all. But you had to update every fifteen minutes unless you were in direct sight of a camera or unless your bed sensors could verify that you were asleep. Most computers could be set to auto-update; in most places you just had to look up at a camera to update. If you were at home, you just needed to install a camera and be clocked by it every fifteen minutes. Worst case, you had to stop what you were doing for a few seconds to write a quick update for your Watchers: ‘I’m in the café’. ‘I’m in the park’. It really wasn’t that hard; most people updated way more frequently to keep their Watchers interested, and for those who didn’t, it was totally worth the small inconvenience. It meant everyone knew where you were, what you were doing; it meant that there were no secrets, meant that everything was out on the table. It was a small price to pay for world peace, for a world free of crime, free of pain. If people knew you were sad, they could cheer you up; if they knew you were hungry, they could feed you.

  The man had been drinking; Frankie could tell from the way he was lurching slightly. Like her uncle used to when he’d been on the beers. He hadn’t liked the modern world either; unlike his brother, he had found it terrifying, intrusive. He’d insisted on speaking French until the day he died and had regularly missed updating his status, in spite of the threats, in spite of his wife’s pleading. Some people just can’t adapt, Milo had said dismissively when she’d told him about i
t. Some people don’t want progress.

  The waiter stepped back; moments later the café doors opened and two men appeared in grey suits, a large ‘I’ emblazoned on their lapels, the same ‘I’ that everyone else wore on their palms where their communication portals were embedded. They walked towards the man, who seemed not even to see them. They stepped behind him, lifted him up, hooked an arm each under his shoulders.

  And then, not sure why she was doing it, Frankie found herself standing up, rushing towards him. ‘Hi!’ she said. ‘Hi, I’m sorry I didn’t see you there.’

  She looked at the men with a rueful smile. ‘Sorry, it’s my fault he didn’t update. I told him to wait for me. Look, we’ll do it now!’

  ‘Mais …’ the man began in French, his expression one of incomprehension. ‘Mais …’

  She stepped forwards quickly, turned around so that she was next to him. Then she held up her palm. ‘Say hello to my friend everyone,’ she winked, then turned to the Infotec men, a big smile on her face. ‘Now let me get you all a coffee for the inconvenience.’

  They looked at her hesitantly, then shrugged. Immediately the waiter appeared with coffee to go; no café wanted Infotec Inforcers sitting at their tables scaring everyone off. The men took their coffees, took one last look at the drunk man, who Frankie was now holding up, her arm clenched around his waist, then left.

  Frankie put the man back on his chair.

  ‘Qu’est ce que vous faisez?’ he was saying, but his words were drowned out by Frankie’s shouts to the people around the café; a ‘Hey, how are you?’ here, a ‘OMG I love that top,’ there. She deposited him on a chair, then sat down opposite him, trying to look relaxed, normal.

  ‘Don’t forget to update again in fifteen minutes,’ she said brightly.

  He stared at her, blue watery eyes seeming to look right through her. Then he shrugged. ‘They want to know what I’m doing, let them take me,’ he muttered, his accent thick; then he reverted back to French, a language that she knew from her uncle’s emotional outbursts, from her parents’ arguments when they hadn’t wanted her to understand. ‘They can go screw themselves. All of them.’

  ‘You don’t mean that,’ Frankie said, laughing theatrically, looking around to check that no one had heard him. ‘You’re so funny.’

  ‘Am I? I don’t feel funny.’

  He flopped back against the back of his chair. Frankie leant over, closed her hand so that no one could hear. ‘Sober up,’ she hissed. ‘Back home you’ve probably got someone who loves you. So love them back. Update your status. Every fifteen minutes. If I can do it, you can do it. Okay?’

  Her father had never got over seeing his brother taken away by the Inforcers, never to return. Her cousins and their mother had left soon after; the shame had driven them away, her own mother explained sadly. Infotec had offered them the chance of a new life in Madrid, and they had taken it. Two weeks later, Frankie’s own father was diagnosed with a heart condition and died soon afterwards.

  The man’s eyes widened; he looked genuinely surprised. ‘Mais …’ he said, but Frankie moved closer.

  ‘No buts,’ she said. ‘No excuses, no making out like it’s not your fault. Drinking is your fault. Go home, or I’ll make sure the Infotec Inforcers get you next time, understand?’

  The man looked at her belligerently. Then he drank his coffee in one, stood up and staggered out of the restaurant. Home to his wife and children, Frankie found herself hoping. Children who wouldn’t be left without a father, like she was.

  She felt a tickle and opened her palm again. ‘Hey gorgeous.’ A face appeared in front of her, a special border around the image denoting a personal contact.

  ‘Milo!’ She started; found herself walking quickly back to her table, her forehead suddenly covered in a thin veil of sweat. He wouldn’t have seen what had just happened; it was out of the café camera’s reach, otherwise the man’s status would have been updated automatically. And even if he had seen, it was okay. She hadn’t done anything wrong. And Milo was her boyfriend. He loved her. He just happened to be the head of Infotec’s Paris division.

  ‘How’s my hot girl?’

  Frankie reddened. She still hadn’t entirely got used to holding all her very personal conversations in front of so many people, but that was the price for being so popular.

  ‘I’m good. How’re you?’

  His image appeared on the larger screens; someone, somewhere had realised who she was talking to. Or maybe Milo had told the mainframe himself. Immediately a thousand messages appeared in front of her: ‘He’s so dreamy!’ ‘Oh, Frankie, so happy for you,’ ‘Wowzer, I love that guy. If I didn’t love you so much too I might go after him myself!’

  She blinked, looked back at the image in front of her eyes, a bonus of trialing Infotec’s latest software – a bonus of having Milo as her boyfriend. ‘So I was hoping to take you out to dinner tonight,’ he said. ‘Somewhere special. What do you think? Can you squeeze me in?’

  She raised an eyebrow. ‘I think I can probably manage to fit you in after the prize-giving at the Ritz,’ she said with a wink. ‘Does 8.30 p.m. sound okay?’

  Words in front of her eyes. ‘Somewhere special – he’s going to propose!’ ‘Hey Frankie, he’s got it bad,’ ‘I hear wedding bells!’ She did her best to ignore them, but managed a little smile for the camera.

  ‘Great, I’ll pick you up outside the Ritz.’

  He mouthed a kiss then disappeared, but she saw a message left behind, a private message just for her eyes: ‘I love you. Can’t wait to see you later.’

  She smiled secretively, pleased for a second that the cameras didn’t have to see everything.

  She ate quickly, drained her coffee, then thanked the staff, waved her hand over the payment machine, added a generous tip – essential now that she had so many followers, but expensive – then walked out onto the road again, down towards the Info Palace, then across into Louvre Street and finally into the Library on Rivoli Road, where she quickly updated her status before shutting down her communication portal. ‘Out of respect to people trying to study,’ she explained to her disappointed followers. ‘Back in 15 minutes!’

  7

  The Library was where Frankie worked, where she wrote, researched, where many of the City’s bloggers came to work, to see each other, to compare notes. Blogging was a dying art; they all knew that. Images were far more popular than words and reader numbers were dwindling. But still the bloggers came, to think, to write, to rant. A lot of the time they wrote blogs on the sad implications of the demise of the blog, ever-diminishing circles that were chock full of irony, but written anyway. And Frankie knew why. She didn’t need to write a blog anymore; the income she received for it was peanuts, utterly inconsequential. But she’d never give it up.

  Milo didn’t get it at all, could not see why she would spend so much time writing stuff that no one read when she could be out and about gathering more Watchers. The problem with the Library, he’d say with a shrug, was that there were no cameras there. She could still update her status, but if she wasn’t visible, people would switch off, would watch someone else. Words didn’t matter anymore; people wanted visual stories, not boring text. And she owed her Watchers, after all. They needed her.

  He was right, of course he was. But there had to be a balance. Frankie hadn’t decided to be a blogger because she’d thought it would bring her fame and fortune. She’d done it because she’d always done it, because it was her way of pausing the world, of figuring out what she thought about stuff. She’d started when she was a teenager and had got enough people reading it to make it vaguely financially viable. Now there was no need for her to do it, but she just couldn’t give it up. It was as though the blog kept her on the ground; without it, she was afraid she might just blow away with the wind.

  Plus it meant she got to hang out at the Library most days, and if she was completely honest, she rather enjoyed a few hours out of the glare of being watched; being like she used to be, ano
nymous, a person known for what she wrote rather than for what she looked like, what she did, the minutia of her day. It still amazed her how many comments she got from complete strangers following her decision to have cereal for breakfast or a chicken sandwich for her lunch. Until recently, such comments had come only from her friends and family – or, rather, her extended network of friends-of-friends and acquaintances built up over her life. Fifteen hundred or so Watchers; respectable by most standards.

  Now, though, it was something else; now she had followers in America, in China, Africa, the Middle East. Now she was a role model; a beacon of the new world, inspiring and engaging people everywhere. And she loved it; loved the knowledge that she was making people happy, that they were rooting for her, that in some way she was giving their lives meaning. Because, as Milo had pointed out, not everyone lived in Paris; if you lived in a village in the middle of nowhere, reading about the life of someone in the metropolis would help you to feel connected, part of the whole. But it was still a little overwhelming. Still a bit terrifying sometimes when someone from Kazakhstan commented on the toothpaste she was using.

  So Frankie’s balance was that in the mornings she worked. In the afternoon, she’d be out and about, shopping, partying, going to launches, whatever; being visible. But from nine to one, she got to focus on her blog. Her blog that barely anyone read. Her blog that was, according to Milo, utterly pointless.

  She walked in through the grand entrance, past the download terrace and through to the work bank, where fifty or so people sat, typing furiously onto keyboards, hologram screens in front of them. The room was silent, one of the few places such a thing was possible; no audio or visual updates were allowed.

  She sat down in front of a screen, then opened a hologram keyboard by opening her hands and choosing a tab button.

  ‘You made it, then.’