Mindpish

{One instance of adult language, so you know.}

Lars thought of it on the tube of course, though in at least one interview he claimed rather dramatically that the idea just spontaneously exploded from the silence like a microcosmic big bang. A little pretentious maybe, but there was no doubt that in the year following, Strangr had grown exponentially; from his fetid student flat to billions of devices around the globe. Maybe he could be forgiven for a little florid language in his often repeated back-story.

Strangr wasn’t technically anything new, but then neither had been Facebook. Lars just happened to have the right idea at the right time, and the ability to put it into practice before anyone else could place claims on that little niche of innovation-space. The big social networks had tried using the new AR monocles first, but the approach seemed a dead end. There was no need to send a message to anyone standing in front of you, and using the monocles to send messages to people while you were walking about just led to a variety of embarrassments – waving your hands about like Tom Cruise looking for minority reports only works with elbow room and a half, and keyboard-free typing looks even stupider. Lars took the monocle’s capabilities and made an app to fit.

Strangr took your interests and shared data from your online presence and listed them in an anonymous profile, along with a surface-mapped jpeg of your face. One tick of a consent box later and you’re set to go; all of a sudden the bus or train or wherever is filled with hovering tags by your fellow passengers – what they watched last night, where they are at in that book they’re reading, what music they downloaded the other day, etcetera, etcetera. Which is enough for a lot of people;

“Not as good as their last album issit?”

“Poor show from City last night.”

“The bit where Snape killed Dumbledore? I know right!”

But even better, Lars and his fellow undergrads then gave it the ability to compile a list of the best topics for a given group of commuters – within a month the term ‘water cooler moment’ was made obsolete by the carriage conversation and the back of bus gossip sesh.

Social scientists who were still barely skimming the surface of the effects of 00’s social media lauded it as a return to an earlier, more trusting type of human mindset, and politicians eventually chimed in to support this kind of entrepreneurial thinking and ethically positive contribution to the global mental health index.

And predictably, by the end of the year the search was on for the Strangr killer, which would make use of those implants that would be out on the market before long, and would make everything else seem Palaeolithic by comparison.

Lars wasn’t interested in thinking about any of that just yet though. He’d much prefer to be sat in his office running through line after line of cheery little code, but reality had been conspiring against him more and more over the last few weeks.

He grabbed his jacket and attempted to slip out via the canteen fire-escape, but Dave (who had evolved into a kind of interpreter for the legalese the lawyers kept sending them) had already spotted him and was moving to intercept.

“The Zuckerman people have been calling again. They’re ready to block our plug-ins if we don’t meet them tomorrow.”

“They won’t do that. That’s ridiculous.” Lars tried sidestepping past him unsuccessfully.

“Also there’s the woman from the MoD who wants to meet us-“

“Didn’t we tell them no already?”

“That was the FBI Lars, and they didn’t seem happy with that either. Plus there were the journalists again, told them a lot about nothing but they won’t quit it about takeover rumours.”

“Argh.” Lars massaged his temples. “Can you maybe send this to my hotmail address? I can’t parse this stuff sober.”

“You need to get up to speed, we can’t just queue dealing with these people like some kind of devlist. Promise me you’ll read through this tonight before they figure that we have no kind of formal plan and have been winging it from day one.”

“Okay, okay. I’ll call you from home.”

He stormed out down the stairs and headed for the underground, drawing his hood up despite the mild weather. The station was packed, Lars realized that in not doing his usual extra few hours of coding he’d inadvertently left at the peak of rush hour and was about to face the full tidal bore of central London’s commute.

He sidled carefully past conversationalists on the escalators, and half-heartedly apologised as he wedged through the middle of a group debating on what they thought of the new Bond film. All the while internal voices tried to talk over the noise of the commuter’s discussion. The same concerns cycled round the inside of his skull; could the project keep going with just his buddies and a bunch of interns, would Dave take it badly if they brought in a an actual corporate lawyer, should he feel bad for not visiting his family in nearly twelve months, why couldn’t he hold down a normal adult relationship…

Lars fumbled about in his satchel for a packet of aspirin, found it and then realised his water bottle was empty. Breathing in short and shallow gulps he joined the throng as the platform of Londoners pushed onto a train that was already full by the standards of most sane human beings. Four conversations continued around him at point blank range, almost shouting over the racket of the carriage and the tunnel air whipping through the open windows. The ache blossomed into a full blown migrane and he nearly fell over as the train jolted, barely staying kept up by the bodies of the others around him. One man squeezed out through the throng like a fish through a trawler net as they came to a stop, leaving a spare seat that Lars flopped back into before anyone else could beat him to it. He was still suffering under the noise and vainly rubbed his aching temples. He wasn’t even aware of anyone beside him, just ceaseless chatter, but when the elderly woman next to him put a hand on his shoulder he flinched visibly at the unexpected presence of deliberate human contact.

“You all right mi’love?”

Lars nodded,

“M’ fine, thanks.” But his expression was still pained.

“You know,” said the lady, loudly but as if only they could hear “S’all well and good this. But I miss the days when everyone just kept their fucking noisy holes shut.”

For the first time in days, Lars smiled.