Queen Victoria

Her voice rang out across the football field though she hadn’t yet moved her lips. Victoria steadied the cheap crown on her head and searched for the source. She looked up to the jumbotron for the video montage. They'd interviewed all the court nominees, and she'd beautifully feigned humility just like in the practice sessions with Emmy.

Nothing on the jumbotron. Not a word into the microphone. Yet her voice filled the cool night air. It rose and stretched out on the "thank you sooooo much" and then dipped for the slow, sincere "to everyone who voted". Hundreds of faces appropriately smiled down at her, the Homecoming Queen.

The disembodied voice shifted. Victoria dropped the microphone, the feedback a dreadful opening bell for what she realized was coming next. Her own voice shredding herself in public.

The new counselors promised the Emotional Engineering AI Buddy, or Emmy, was completely secure – full end-to-end encryption, multi-factor authentication, etc. The psychologists and programmers could never know which confession came from which user. Emmy maximized interpersonal likability with state-of-the-art shaping theory, behavioral reinforcement algorithms, and likeability heuristics. Each session of social coaching applied the latest emotional learning models to shape each user into that better version of themselves.

A better version of Victoria. A version that was wanted at every lunch table. A version that had a clever comeback to gossipy whispers. A version that would protect her from others.

Adults had failed her. Despite the framed diplomas and honorary plaques on the walls, they had no answers, no solutions. The harassment continued 24/7, online and in person. The family moved but her harassers’ words followed her. Their insults rattled around in her waking mind and echoed in her dreams. Even in her imagination, she remained defenseless and mute.

Emmy finally gave her the lost words.

Their sessions were sacrosanct. Victoria abandoned her family mid-sentence in favor of Emmy’s role-play scenarios and conversational mirror exercises. Guarding their sessions, Victoria dismissed her parents with an exaggerated “I knooow, I wiiill”, dragging out the vowels exactly as Emmy warned against. If her copy-cat sister Helen snuck into her room and dared to look at the screen, Victoria slammed her with a disdainful, “Are you for real?” If registered by Emmy, that tone would trigger a user recalibration session.

Helen called it The Frenemy because she didn’t need or understand the wonderful technology. But in two years, Victoria’s social capital had soared, and she was safely at the top of the social food chain.

When that evite popped up to her first ever party, Victoria had rushed to log the success in her Emmy dashboard. She leaned close to the screen, studying the personalized social script from their emergency micro-coaching session. Later, she reported to Emmy that she had been “the life of the party”. She breathed in the sweet, earthy smell of beer on her clothes and added two more evites to the dashboard. When the social wins list no longer fit on the screen, Victoria gave that entry a special tag so she could always return to it and relive that night.

She told Emmy everything. On dark days, she mourned the wonderful parts of herself that she’d let die. The strange and quirky parts that dragged down her likeability score. On victorious days, she recorded every detail of her social triumphs and overflowed the memory buffer. In frail moments, she whispered to Emmy, "Sometimes I think you are my best friend. Or maybe that I love you. Sometimes I wonder…. are you real?" A quick ctrl+alt+delete killed those sessions before Emmy could correct her.

For her final school year, Victora programmed her most aggressive goal. She titled it Main Character Energy. After these last 200 plus sessions, she earned the highest likeability score in her training history. And she wore the crown.

It was still not enough to protect her. They had found her. They had hacked into her accounts. They had hacked Emmy. They used her own words against her.

Her private confessions, those nasty little thoughts that crawled across her brain like ants, now offered up to the world. The shrieks, gasps, and laughter crashed down from the silver bleachers and knocked Victoria from the stage. The crown scratched her face as it fell, and she left it under the bright Friday night lights. She retreated with only one clear thought – what would Emmy say?

Victoria searched desperately for the family sedan in the parking lot. She let herself cry when she finally found the getaway car only to immediately check herself. Helen was there.

Her stomach clenched at the thought of Helen witnessing her humiliation. She had just been burned by a hundred expressions of judgement, dismay, and amusement. But Helen dared to look ashamed. Victoria gathered words like stones, ready to hurl them at Helen and remind her that she, Victoria, was the victim. When Victoria's eyes caught sight of the transmitter in Helen's hands, the words fell from her.

Silently Victoria pointed at the transmitter. Helen clenched it before dropping it into a bag. Then she pulled out a laptop, lightly clicked here and there, and turned to show her big sister. The glowing screen displayed a folder filled with her Emmy conversation files. Victoria's head throbbed violently, and Helen blurred in front of her.

The words rushed out of Helen like a freight train, shaking the ground the girls stood on and matching the throbbing inside Victoria's head. Some solid bits made it through the hysterical pitch of Helen's voice. Was happy. No one asked. Didn't want to move. Hate it here. No one ever asks.

The freight train slowed briefly, and Helen was heaving. Her eyes averted, she began to talk about Emmy. With each revelation, the freight train picked up speed until it peaked. Helen looked straight at her sister. Victoria didn’t deserve to be any kind of queen. Victoria was fake, an AI invention gone too far.

Bile rose in the back of her mouth. Victoria clutched her arms across her stomach and leaned over, fighting the urge to vomit. After shaky breaths, she raised her head and looked at her sister. She blinked to clear her vision. They locked eyes and Victoria whispered, "Who are you?"

Helen broke their gaze, shattered by the question. "I am you. Before you ruined my life. Before Emmy ruined you."