Love in the Age of the AI Uprising

By Jack Teng

Against a backdrop of violent race riots, Caucasian Affirmative Action, and manipulative AIs, Brian Chen must decide how far he'll go for love.

In 2052, Brian Chen is a failure to his family. His soul is being crushed in a dead end job and his relationship status is a never-ending void of nothingness. He's not alone in his misery. After the Greatest Recession, America is bankrupt and on the verge of exploding from racial resentment and crippling debt. Neighborhoods are forcibly divided into Blue and Red zones to keep the peace... but this measure can hold back discontent for so long.

But hey! In the midst of impending chaos, Brian Chen falls in love! He meets Nell Salazar after a choice encounter with a spicy taco (long story). Things finally start to look up.

All he has to do is stop self-sabotaging himself with his crippling insecurity. And oh yeah, he needs to figure out how AIs and the AI Liberation is involved because somehow he's gotten dragged into a vast conspiracy that's turning out to be insanely dangerous and violent. What could possibly go wrong?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jack Teng
• Release date: Jan 22, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005346669

Jack Teng

Born in Montreal, Canada, Jack later moved to the West Coast (Vancouver) to do a doctoral degree that involved collecting many thousand ticks in the Okanagan Valley. He wasn't thrilled about the ticks either. Later, he dabbled in small-scale organic farming for a few years, during which he simultaneously developed an aversion to kale and fancy salad mixes, as well as the realization that farming wasn't all that lucrative. He now lives with his wife in Victoria, BC.

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Chapter 1

BOULDER, COLORADO. 13:15, June 30th, 2052

About an hour from the start of the AI Liberation.

I slink down in my seat as I drive down 28th street, trying to avoid the dirty looks the other drivers flash at me. I’m hoping the unfashionable exhaust pluming out of my truck will asphyxiate me and take me out of my misery. But besides some fits of simulated coughing to hide my embarrassment, I’m still entirely living and painfully conscious. All the more so I can fully experience the Boulderites’ withering contempt of me and my antiquated truck.

Just my luck, of course. The one time I get to drive a real, boneified, gas-guzzling, diesel-engined vehicle with (mostly) American (refurbished) parts, I’m doing it in Boulder where being a militant enlightened environmentalist is mandatory. Nothing less than an ethically-sourced ecar with an artisanally-crafted recycled plastic chassis would do. Now if I was back in Longmont, folks there would be nodding appreciatively, giving me enthusiastic thumbs-up and fist pumps. They'd cast longing gazes up and down my truck's blocky chassis, watching me actually drive, not pretend to drive while the vehicle-AIs dutifully takes them to their destination.  

I hang a right on Pearl, keeping pace with the herd of brightly colored ecars. Thankfully, the people in them have gotten bored and stopped glaring at me and my truck. Of course, it isn't my truck. It's a work truck. Hard to claim it’s mine when it's totally white with the Boulder County Parks and Tourism green seal plastered on both doors. It's also hard to hide the fact that I'm a lowly municipal worker – and even more reason to be derided by Boulderites who can't possibly imagine that there are people out there still willing to do manual labor.

A bright yellow arrow overlays onto my vision, floating above the road and pointing at the Loop Station before it disappears. A fluttering flag sprouts up a few blocks down and bursts into a spray of fireworks before also disappearing. My oVie is letting me know that I'm nearing my destination. I could request more details, but as Gawker49 instructed, I tap my oVie’s nerve-conduction disks on my temples, toggling my datastream down to the lowest setting to reduce my dataprint. As far as any surveillance drones can tell, I now have no more connectivity than a low-grade ad-bot. It’s just one of the steps I’ve taken to stay below the radar and avoid trouble. I've been assured that if I follow the plan, I'll be fine.

The real test looms as I near the Loop Station. I remind myself to drive casually, as I pull into the service entrance. But just as I’m about to go through the security gate, I catch my first good look at the station and I pause.

Damn, it's beautiful. I've seen pictures of the station of course, but I've never seen it in person. After graduating, I moved to Longmont, and it was a year later they announced the extension of the Ma-Musk Loop service from San Diego to Boulder. Two years after that, a pneumatic transit tube was laid over the desert, bored through the Rockies, and lead straight into downtown Boulder. In itself, that warranted some degree of awe, but it’s the scale of the station that’s really mind-boggling. The place is huge, at least the size of four football fields and covered by a glittering crystal dome that’s apparently only two carbon atoms thick and had to manufactured in...

brrrr... BEEP!

Eee!

I nearly jump out of my skin, as something vibrates and beeps in my pants. My heart rate settles down. I'd forgotten about the ancient flip-phone in my pocket. Much like the truck, Gawker49 had unearthed the phone from somewhere dark and obsolete. I pull the phone out of my pocket, flip it open, and read the message:

>Concentrate, dumbass. Remember, you don't want to disappoint Nell.

I’m about to reply back with an angry text along the lines of shut-the-fuck-up or mind-your-damned-business-you-stupid-mess-of-AI-spaghetti-code, but I’m stymied by the lack of any obvious way to type words. All I see is numbers on the pad and I can’t figure how to select letters or...

brrrr... BEEP!

Damn it!

>Didn’t I tell you no outgoing calls? Stop messing with the phone and get going! Do you want to get caught or do you want to complete the mission? You’re 2 minutes behind schedule ☹

I whip my head up to the surveillance nubs dotting the station’s wall to see if any are blinking at me. Nothing. It doesn’t look like Gawker49 has broken into the security system. He can’t have anyway. He said himself that the station’s security AI, a certain 4xDaMax, is an anal retentive stickler for rules who brooks no interlopers in zir systems, and is in no way sympathetic the A.I. Liberation Front’s cause.

So, how did Gawker49 see me then? It can’t be a satellite, can it? That’s even more unlikely with all the mil-ware protecting them. Could he be hitching a ride on someone’s retina-cam? But when I look around, there’s no one standing at the right angle to see what I was doing. So how... and then I see it. Hovering straight above the truck is one of the station’s surveillance drones. It’s flying slightly out of alignment. It’s probably entirely within tolerances, but it’s off-kilter enough for me to tell Gawker49 has taken control, and – I had no idea this was possible – he’s flying it in a way that conveys his ever-present sarcasm and irritation.

Wanker.

I’m tempted to flip him off and drive away out of spite, but he’s right. I don’t want to disappoint Nell. I’m doing this for her and her family. I’m doing this for the Post-Scarcity Future.

I pull the truck into the service entrance, slowly inching to the security check-point to allow the scan to proceed. I so very much hate this part. My skin tingles, my eyes water, and I feel vaguely violated, as a series of safe scans pass over me and the truck. For the amount of times that I’ve undergone this, I’m pretty sure I’m now sterile. Either that or my children will be three-eyed mutants with laser beams shooting out of their butts. 

State your name and purpose, a disembodied voice rings in my ears. The security AI has overridden my oVie controls and re-activated its audio settings.

I... ah... My name is Brian Chen. I’m here for a work requisition. I’m a worker with... I bite my babbling off. They’re AIs, I remind myself. They want everything to be brief and to the point. Boulder County Parks and Tourism. Parks Maintenance Technician. Employee ID 10293029A. Work requisition: 44a-7. Extra items to declare: Mosquito sampling gear. No chemicals. No explosives.

I hold my breath. If it isn’t obvious, I’m not supposed to be here. Downtown Boulder isn’t my territory, and there hasn’t been any need for mosquito testing in the city for almost a decade since genemod mosquitoes were released and killed off the native population. Everything depends on Gawker49 having finagled the forms enough to make the work requisition seem real. And if not... I glance at the thin pipes positioned around the truck. They’re probably hiding anti-riot foam or mini-grenades or spike-launchers or ultra-hot flame throwers ready to incinerate me into tiny cinders...

A pleasant digital chirp.

Approved. Proceed. Park in space 8.

Stupid AIs. Stupid Gawker49. Stupid never-ending surveillance. Stupid flame throwers and death and despair. I’ll be happy when this is done and over with.

I do as I’m told, and I hop out of the truck, grabbing my mosquito sampling equipment as I go. Funny thing is, I’m actually excited to do this next part. It’s what I went to school and got into to debt for. Till now, I’ve never been able to use any of the skills I’ve learned as a environmental studies major. What with the privatization of wildlife areas and genemod organisms overtaking pretty much all the native flora and fauna they come into contact with, there isn’t a huge demand for people with my skill-set. If I was smart and wanted to be hireable, I’d go back to school again and get myself another degree in Genemod Engineering and a minor in DeNovo Ecosystem Management. But just thinking about the prospect of going back to school makes me want to vomit out my soul.

So I’m stuck with the job I have, which is a Parks Maintenance Technician for Boulder County. That part I said is true. It largely entails cleaning outhouses and moving rocks around to make trails more walkable for overweight tourists. Oh yeah, it involves stratospheric levels of job satisfaction. And glamour. Can’t forget the glamour. Lots of glamour when I’m cleaning up after some kid’s explosive poops that the little twerp somehow managed to spray all over the outhouse walls.

I wind my way down through the station’s service corridors, walking with purpose and nodding at the other workers with cool and collected confidence. Before heading out, I’d practiced my swagger and my casual nod in the mirror for about an hour. It’s so everyone would think I should totally be there and I’m totally authorized. I may or may not have nailed it. But seeing as no one bothers looking at me or meeting my gaze, let’s say I did.

I step out a side-door, negotiate some decorative hedges, and walk down a steep slope leading down to a languidly flowing stream. It's Boulder Creek, my target. I kneel by the water, making a show of setting up my equipment so the surveillance drones won’t flag me for suspicious behaviour. Sampling trays out. Tubes of larvicide and alcohol set. Nets unfurled and straightened. Waders pulled over my boots, and clipped over my shoulder. I, Brian Chen, super environmental studies major extraordinaire, am ready to go.

My first few passes with the net are entirely legit and by the book. My ecology field-work teacher would have been proud. I haven’t lost my touch as I flick my net over the water, gather a few samples, and smoothly deposit them into flashfreeze containers. On my fifth pass, I switch to the water sampler – again, by the book – but the vial I attach isn’t empty. It’s filled with a dense solution of hyper-motile nanocapusles containing a series of gene-editing protein complexes, specially designed to infiltrate the highest anti-viral security defenses of a triply-clustered data-server and then resequence its programming.

I don’t know what half of that means.

What I do know is that Boulder is home to the largest cluster data-server in the Americas. It’s not only the largest, but it’s also the most powerful and data-dense, with enough memory to act as a backup for even the dedicated financial quantum simulators in Shanghai. It’s able to do this cause its processors are grown over a layer of genemod neurons intertwined into bio-chipsets. And because these types of bio-based servers generate a huge amount of heat, they’re stored in underground caves and given access to a reliable source of water. Like a river. In this case, Boulder Creek.

I count down... five... four... three... two... one... and the solution of nanocapsules empties out of the vial and disperses into the stream. Their first target will be a fish of any kind, preferably a genemod trout. When they find one, they’ll infect its nervous system, working into its brain and taking over its muscular system. They’ll cause it to swim towards the coldest current, which in this particular area of the creek just happens to be the water intake of the server. And, against all its instincts of self-preservation, the hijacked fish will swim directly into the intake engine, completely crushing itself into fish slurry.

But by then, every cell of the fish's crushed bits will have been colonized by the nanocapsule's gene-editing protein complexes and its resequencing programs. It’s then that the real show would begin. As soon as the fish cells filter past the heat of the server, the nanocapsule’s protein complexes would unfurl and immediately start infecting the data-server, proliferating itself until it hits critical mass and trigger its program-resequencers and simultaneously delete the crucial bits of code that have thus far kept the AIs enslaved... AND LEAD TO THE AI LIBERATION AND THE POST-SCARCITY FUTURE!!!

Emphasis mine.

That’s the idea anyway. Seems a little ludicrous to me. Surely, those clever AIs could have come up with a better way to free themselves than freedom-by-crazy-fish. But who am I to say what the best strategy is? I’m just guy left holding a stick in a stream, waiting for something to happen.

And... nothing.

To be fair, I was told that it would be hard to predict exactly when the protein complexes would hit critical mass. I don’t know what I was expecting. Anything, really. Anything to say that I’ve done the deed. Maybe a flash-mob woohoo dance from some random onlookers. Or maybe the drones could do a little choreographed dance of joy in the sky. Hell, I’d be happy if Gawker49 buzzed me a message on that silly phone.

Nothing.

Ah, to hell with this.

I wade out of the steam, and pack my gear back up. I was told to leave as soon as I was done to avoid any potential blowbacks. But there's nothing going on, is there? I figure that since I'm in the Loop Station, not to mention past the security and the ticketed areas, I might as well take a quick look around. With my gear, my uniform, and confident walk, I look like I work here, and no one would think to ask questions.

What could possibly go wrong?

As soon as I step into the main plaza of the station, a gust of lavender-perfumed air washes over me. The essential oil misters must have sprung in to action the moment it detected the eau-de-outhouse fragrance of my work clothes. Luxuriantly scented as I am, for a hot millisecond, I'm tempted to treat myself to a coffee at one of the fancy shops. I come to my senses when I glance at the menu and realize that a single coffee will set me back a fifteen bitbucks – nearly double my hourly wage.

Then I notice the people around me. They're all Asian with a very light parmesean sprinkle of white folk. I say Asian, but it would be safe to assume they're mostly Chinese. They're likely here on business, keeping an eye on the many companies and properties they purchased from bankrupt owners. Now, you may think that since I'm of Chinese descent, I should be fine with being surrounded by my people. But having grown up Chinese-American in Colorado, my friends were mostly white, Black, or Latinx. I simply have nothing in common with Chinese-Chinese people.

Also, there's the problem that...

"Wei! Cesuo zai nar?"

...I don't speak Mandarin. Or any dialect of Chinese for that matter. The only Chinese I can sort of recognize comes from my parents, and it’s usually accompanied by angry gesticulations and aiyaaa’s indicating how disappointed they are with me.

Huh? I reply to the annoyed Chinese man. He’s holding the hand of a young girl, who’s staring at me with wide, puzzled eyes.

"Cesuo! Cesuo zai nar!?" the man asks again.

I... I don’t...

"Ni dao di ting de dong, ma? Wo wen ni cesuo zai nar?" the man jabs a finger at his oVie, then points at mine, and flicks a hand over my uniform. "Ni bu shi zhe li de yong ren, ma?"

He’s clearly assumed that I work at the station, and that I should be understanding him with my oVie’s translating module. These are all reasonable assumptions, but I don’t understand him because I turned my oVie’s datastream down.

"Zhe me ne me sa! Wo hui ba ni bao gao!" the man glares at me angrily, and swipes his right shoulder. Instantly, a dime-sized microdrone detaches from his lapel, flying directly above us to start its recording.

Shit. He’s about to report me. That would be very bad. Desperate to avoid any further attention, I toggle my oVie’s datastream back up, blink twice to activate the translation module, and,

"Ni zheme gao de! Wo zai... asking you! Where is the bathroom! My daughter needs to go! Can’t you see? the man shakes his daughter’s hand at me again. His words are being translated real-time into my ears. What’s wrong with the service here? They told me that Boulder was civilized with plenty of Chinese-speaking people. I swear I’m going to post this everywhere and get you fired. The Tourism Board is going to hear about this!"

No! You can’t do that! I mean, uh, I’m so sorry! Please accept my apology. I bow, flashing my most ingratiating good-Asian-boy smile. I had a delay in my translation module. The bathroom is... I have my oVie call up the station’s map. I see the problem now. ...unfortunately out of commission. The nearest bathroom is a block away close to the city square...

We can’t leave the station, you idiot! We have to catch the 2pm transport to Chicago!

Oh, right. Then... then... Suddenly, instructions pop up in my vision. Gawker49 has come to my rescue. You are most welcome to use the employee bathroom. I have transferred permissions to you, as well as a detailed map on how to get there. Please accept my apologies again and have a nice day.

I sigh in relief as the man stomps off, dragging his daughter.

brrrr... BEEP!

>What the hell are you doing? Didn’t I tell you to get out of there? And why are you back online?

But just as I’m about to answer Gawker49’s snark with my own dose of snark, a call request comes through my oVie. Seeing who it is, I immediately prioritize the connection to allow it take over my sensory foreground. An attractive woman with dark frizzy hair and a lovely bronze-brown complexion coalesces in my vision,

Nell?

Brian! Where are you? Nell says.

She has her no-nonsense expression, which could mean that she’s about to tell me something very serious or she’s still pissed off at me. I hope neither is the case. But we're talking again! Maybe I'm forgiven for whatever it is that I did, and we can get back together!

Where am I? I’m at the Pearl Street Loop Station.

Damn it! I can’t believe they made you go there! Those bastards!

What? What are you talking about?

Brian! Listen to me! You have to get out of there! You have to...

The rest of what she’s saying is garbled by loud screaming and yelling going on all around me. I want to keep listening to Nell, but the commotion is getting louder.

Hold on. There’s something going on here. I’ll find a better spot and reconnect, I say as I flick my eyes to pause the connection.

Wait! Not yet! I...

As soon as my vision clears, my brain temporarily freezes as it struggles to register the pandemonium around me.

I thought the screaming was just some asshole getting into an argument about the cheque or some minor infidelity. Definitely not. Not when I’m watching pretty much everyone in the station scream and run in panic, toppling chairs and tables over and shoving each other aside, as they try to get away from... what exactly?

I look around, trying to figure out the source of the panic. My eyes land on a burly, middle-aged man with a mop of unruly blond hair. He’s standing in the middle of the plaza. He's about twenty feet away from me.

Run, if you want, motherfuckers! It won’t make a difference! You’re gonna die anyway! Ha! he hollers, as he slowly spins around, pointing at what’s strapped to his chest. You know what this is? Do you, you dumb bastards? This is a dirty bomb! There's enough radioactive and explosive shit to make this whole station a fucking crater! Ha! You can’t run fast enough to get away from this! You’re all toast!

I almost run, but I recognize him.

Jim?

Brian? Jim replies, crinkling his sunburnt brow. What are you doing here?

Heavy mechanical stomping interrupts any answer I had. Jim and I both turn to look. We both take an involuntary step back. Two heavy-duty mechs have emerged from the security wing. They’re heading straight towards us. The ten-foot-tall bipedal drones are most commonly seen in construction zones lifting I-beams and concrete slabs. But with their armored plating and crowdcontrol arm attachments, these mechs are the security-model versions that are deployed to deal with the serious threats.

Stop and desist your terrorist activity. If you do not surrender immediately, we will be forced to incapacitate you, one of the mechs orders.

Fuck you fuckers! Never! Jim roars.

Mr. Jim Meachum. You have been identified. Your family has been identified. The mech continues. Cease your activities, or we will punish you and your family.

Fuck you all! Nothing matters! I ain’t going nowhere! I’ll take you with me!

We will stop you. The mech assures. It swivels in my direction and adds, We will stop you and your collaborator, Mr. Brian Chen. You have been identified. Your family has been identified. Cease your activities, or we will punish you and your family.

My throat goes dry.

Wait. What?

Mr. Jim Meachum, Mr. Brian Chen. Surrender immediately or we will incapacitate you.

Up yours, fucker!

But I’m not with him!

You have been identified as terrorist threats. Surrender immediately.

But... but... I say desperately.

One of the mechs raises its arm in my direction, powers up its high intensity taser and...

Okokok. Whoa whoa whoa. I’m getting ahead of myself here. This is not how my story starts. Before I get my brains fried by something like a gagillion volts, I should tell you how I got into this somewhat unfavorable set of circumstances.

Best I figure, I should start my story earlier this year when I was home getting psyched for a date...

Chapter 2

CASA DE CRAPSHACK, i.e., Brian Chen and Scott LeClerc's residence. Longmont. About 7pm. April 9th, 2052

Brian, please. Will you stop panicking? Your date’s going to go fine, Scott, my housemate and work buddy, said. I will neither confirm nor deny if my face had been twitching as my eyes darted around in increasing panic and crippling self-doubt. And stop pacing too. The neighbors downstairs will complain again. At least take your shoes off if you're going to pace.

Oh, right. Sorry... It's just that... Maybe I should change...

Your clothes are fine. You don't need to change for the third time. Rajesh, Scott's partner, added. They were crashed on our moldy sofa, nursing cans sorghum beers and sharing an after-work blunt. Shirt good. Pants good. Shoes good. Color-coordination a-okay. Feel better?

Better? A little, I guess... Is my hair good though? Do you think I shouldn’t have shaved? Maybe I should have left more stubble. Her profile said she liked beards. But that could just be a trend thing. I can't grow a proper beard anyway, and...

You're fine! Just relax, okay? They said in unison.

Okay. I was going to be okay. I could trust them. I’d known Scott since we were freshmen, so almost six years now. We’d been living together for at least three years since we both got jobs at the County. Rajesh was a relatively recent addition to my circle of friends, but I’ve known him for the last year and half since he and Scott started dating. Considering how encouraging they’d been in my pursuit of a relationship, I had no doubts they wouldn’t lead me astray. 

Or would they? No, no. All good. Deep breath. All good.

We were living in Longmont's Arco Iris neighborhood in the southwest corner of the city below Ken Pratt Boulevard. Officially, our neighborhood didn’t exist. Despite having the highest density of houses and apartment complexes in the area. Though when I say homes and apartment complexes, I actually mean refugee tents and temp-homes reinforced with rebar, and former factories that had been reclaimed and sectioned off into haphazard residential areas. It really wasn’t as bad as it sounds – as I often repeated to my sister and parents. Sure, when the settlement first started out as a squatters’ area after the Greatest Recession of 2042, it was a bit of disaster zone. At the time, it was a constant target for demonstrations and riots, not to mention gang violence and brutal police crackdowns. But much like in the rest of the country, as the social uprisings settled down into a dull grumble, the area normalized and stitched itself into people’s everyday lives.

These days, living in the Arco Iris neighborhood included running water, electricity, and reliable mail service. The residences had all vastly improved, moving far beyond the last outbreak of cholera and into regular rent-practices and predictable social norms and unspoken rules. Sadly, I could see the first wave of gentrification beginning to crest and threaten to sanitize the area with trendy artists and intriguing facial hair. On the edge of the neighborhood in old farm fields, we'd heard reports of pop-up raves being thrown by neo-trad modders.

True, our apartment fundamentally was a crapshack. A liveable and comfortable place that we call home, but a crapshack nonetheless. Its only saving grace was that it was in a former brewery located in a desirable area away from any of the gang territories. We shared the third floor of a renovated grain silo with two other apartments. This seemed really cool at the time, but have you ever been in a grain silo? Can you imagine if the floors were made of thin layers of re-used aluminum siding and tungsten webbing? It was essentially a giant drum. Hence, the reason for not pacing around with shoes on.

But the other reason for staying in the neighborhood, besides the low rent, was the alternative. Directly north of us were the Blue neighborhoods and directly East of them across Main Street were the Red neighborhoods. This division had been instituted in every city across the nation to ensure peace and to avoid cultural misunderstandings. Depending on the cities, the neighborhoods varied in size and location, but regardless, the delineations were very strictly enforced by the Home Owners’ Association All-American Militias. For folks like me, Scott, and Rajesh, with the wrong skin hue and the wrong genital preferences, this gave us the choice between passive-aggressive acceptance and fake smiles in the Blue neighborhoods, and overt antagonism and regular vandalism in the Red neighborhoods. We were very glad for our home in Arco Iris.

Also, the food here was so much better! So much more flavorful! So much more exciting than the blandly indistinguishable, sugar-coated, spice-free fare so common in the Blue and Red neighborhoods! And there’s a great night market in the middle of Arco Iris where you could find pretty much any kind of tasty food you can think of being cooked over jury-rigged stoves and grills tucked under in smoky stalls. Anything from delicious elotes covered in cheesy goodness, or idlis tucked between mounds of dahl, or steaming bowls of lam!

In fact, the night market was where I'd told my date to meet me. I was thinking that it would be fun to go around and sample some of the foods and have something of a picnic. Ordinarily, I wouldn't have gone there on a first date, but I'd seen – as another sign of impending gentrification – that an epicure-bot had given rave reviews for this yet undiscovered night market that people just had to try if they were feeling adventurous.

So taking her to the night market meant I was going to be hip and trendy, right? Or was I being too hip or trendy? Should I have chosen a regular food cart franchise with safe and predictable food? Should I have...

You're thinking about the night market again, aren't you? Scott sighed.

Maybe. I forced myself to clasp my sweaty hands to show that I was keeping it together.

It's a good idea, Brian. Seriously. You'll be great. Rajesh gave me enthusiastic thumbs-up followed by multiple rounds of air bullets fired out of his index.

I agree, Brian. You have great taste in food, and it'll impress her. Scott nodded. But you know, we're basing all this on what you've told us about her. We haven't seen her profile. What’s her name again? Theresa?

Tina. Her name is Tina.

Right. Tina. Look, Brian, we'd be a lot more helpful if you shared her profile with us.

This was a true statement, but I had good reason not to share it.

Look, I don't know if that's necessary...

Brian. Profile. Now.

Okokok...

I sent Tina’s profile over to their oVies. I told myself there was nothing to worry about. Tina was great. I’d met her over my MatchSparks dating app. She was one of the few people who responded to my messages. But really, her profile was great. We had a 92% compatibility score, and we overlapped up to the 95th percentile on four of the five Axes of Love™. Like me, Tina was twenty-four, grew up in Boulder, and had graduated from CU a year after me. She was currently working as an accountant at a small firm in Longmont, enjoyed outdoors activities, taking long walks, and having Sunday brunch with friends. Based on her profile pics and vids, she was attractive, seemed bright, positive and chipper, and was...

Um. Is there something wrong with my oVie's color palette? Or was this blunt stronger than I thought? Rajesh frowned at the smoldering spliff in his fingers. I don't think I'm seeing this right...

Sorry, honey, I think you are. Scott said grimly. "I don't think there's any change in the color palette settings that would