Madison

Madison slipped the last letter into place, each word selected for precision and economy, sentences cobbled together with a touch of poetic license depending on what was left on the table. “Only missing three vowels,” she said as she tapped the wooden block with the ink-stained mallet and stood back. Nothing left to do. Besides to do it. She stood silently.     

The iPAL on the table vibrated and a smiling mermaid HOLO shimmered to life and with a flick of her tail, sent pixelated drops of seawater into the air. Madison nodded to the HOLO and her friend’s face appeared, even more, enthusiastic than her HOLO.

“This isn’t a good time, Poppy.” She took a slow step to her right and then another while maintaining eye contact with Poppy. She had forgotten to put her iPAL on do-not-disturb.  

“Madison, it does it all! I’ve already,” she locked on to Madison’s eyes, “you haven’t done it, have you?” Madison’s stomach tightened and she looked away long enough to give Poppy her answer.

Madison was certain the answer to whatever Poppy was asking was no, but she couldn’t afford a drawn-out conversation. But Poppy didn’t understand “no” in the best of times and certainly wouldn’t understand no today.

“Poppy, you know I depend on you to guide me through these things.”

“I can come over,” she hesitated and her Holo image spun around. “Where are you, anyway?”

“Not a good time,” Madison stammered. 

“What say we meet tonight for a bite and catch up? You can show me everything.”

They had grown up together, Poppy the popular and Madison the… well, nothing exciting rhymed with Madison, so they called her Madly. She pretended it was about a boy. Madly in love. But it wasn’t. Not with a boy, but with books. There were boys, but never the right one. With Poppy, they were all the right ones. Poppy kept score, and while Madison’s score resembled a soccer match, Poppy’s soured into the basketball range. 

“Where’s Gutenberg?”

“What?”

For a woman who didn’t notice anything that wasn’t a man or on an iPAL, she picked a bad time to become an investigative reporter. 

“It’s a city in Germany.”

“You’re in Germany?”

“I’ll see you at dinner.”

* * *

Madison arrived early and took a table in a corner where she could inconspicuously people watch. The restaurant was scattered with islands of huddled tribes – at least that is what Madison called them - their faces aglow like kids telling ghost stories around a campfire. It was the latest thing in group dating. Madison didn’t get it, if she was going to stare into somebody’s eyes, it wouldn’t be a HOLO.     

A table of twenty-somethings erupted in celebration, one man stood and raised a fist. Somebody just got humbled she thought.

Her eyes wandered across the room and landed on an unfaded rectangular patch on the wall; a vestige from a time not so long ago. Like a fossilized footprint in the rock, a hint of what it was like in the past. She pictured these same people, staring at that space and celebrating touchdowns or goals or whatever people watched to escape their dreary lives. 

Her iPAL glowed with a welcoming HOLO spinning into a dramatic entrance. She refused to make eye contact with the cheerful bearded-man HOLO who raised the stakes with a glimmer in his eye, a tilted head and a crooked encouraging smile. The smile morphed into disappointment and the HOLO faded.  

Her iPAL chimed - Mozart Symphony 25 - and Madison knew Poppy was running late before her HOLO had a chance to soften the news with Poppy’s pleading face asking for forgiveness. 

“POPPY,” Madison said knowing that her enthusiasm fell short of Poppy’s expectations for the evening’s lecture on whatever it was that Madison wasn’t experiencing.  

“I’m almost there… order me a pomegranate martini,” she said, Madison envied her. Poppy drank to be seen drinking. Tonight, Madison expected to drink for effect. 

The bearded one arose once more and asked, “One pomegranate martini, and the usual?” Madison didn’t have a usual and if she did she didn’t need some damn machine telling her what she wanted.

An eyebrow raised in encouragement and then a wink, “Okay hold on! I’ll have a Tito’s and lime.” He nodded his approval. “Wait.” A humble nod. “Bring me a shot of Patronne.” A broad smile rose from the disheveled beard. “Wait! First, bring me the shot. Quickly. Then bring the drinks.” He flashed a conspiratorial smile and spun into the iPAL like a genie into a bottle.  

Another table erupted in celebration... or uprising? 

A flash of movement from her side caught her attention and she turned to see tequila shot on the table and the server turning away. She emptied it smoothly and handed the glass back to the server as he glanced back, like a baton in a relay race. She was ready for the next leg of the race.

A rush of tequila-warmth flowed to the tips of her toes and fingers and surged back to her brain like the tide. She closed her eyes for a moment and when she opened them it was all clear. The people had become the players. Or, maybe the played. Both. She reached for her drink but there was none.

Madison was always the one on the outside looking in, and outside was getting lonely. Like being in prison and not attaching yourself to a gang. A chuckle escaped and the bearded one popped up like a question mark but disappeared quickly after making eye-contact.   

The server startled her with round two, or at least round two for her. Maybe a little vodka would help her prepare for the Poppy onslaught. Poppy-slaught, she let out a little tequila snicker.   

Poppy appeared at her side, like a HOLO friend, she reached down and gave her a smooch on her cheek. Poppy rubbed the smudge with her thumb. 

“You ordered?”

“I’m capable. One of the first things I learned.”

She giggled, “I don’t doubt you. I just didn’t think that clay tablet of yours talked to anyone else.”

“I…”

“You live in an Echo Chamber. The only voice you hear is the one bouncing around in here,” she knocked Madison on the head hard enough to make her wonder if she was kidding.

Poppy picked up her martini and pressed the rim of the glass to her lips, looking over the glass allowing the vodka to well up against her mouth; Madison assumed some past across her lips.

Poppy’s iPAL buzzed and a mermaid spun into view with a cheerful smile and shake of its tail fin. Poppy looked at Madison, “Sorry, I need to take this.” She stood and turned from Madison. Probably ordering shoes. Madison took the interruption as a form of punishment. 

Poppy turned around - a new woman. “You see, the system works! My DOCBOT just pinged my iPAL telling me that my blood pressure was unusually high,” she threw an exaggerated look at Madison and started laughing. 

Madison couldn’t help but join in with her contagious laughter, but slipped in, “You know that I know you were buying shoes.”

“You don’t buy shoes. My HOLO fools their HOLO into thinking I’m poor. It’s a process. I just tell my HOLO and then, YAY, I get the shoes. I’m not really complicit in the negotiations.” Poppy’s vocabulary grew around Madison and vodka.

HOLO’s across the restaurant flashed to the synchronized hum of “Fanfare For The Common Man”, the well-known theme song for HoLoCo. The room buzzed like a bumped beehive. A HOLO logo rotated above Poppy’s iPAL with their filched company seal and slogan flashing: E PLURIBUS UNUM. The room brightened with HOLO light - with the lone exception of the iPAL in front of Madison. Poppy was staring at it with a look of horror. At least Madison hoped that it was horror and not disdain.   

“Good evening, Citizens.” The renowned HoLoCo President appeared and his gaze met Poppy’s eyes and Madison risked a glance around the room - each HOLO was focused intensely on the person in front of it. There was a dramatic pause as the HOLOs established eye contact. 

“Tonight, we have reached a revolutionary milestone in our mutual efforts to unite our people and move on from the caustic and dividing world left to us from the remnants of the Media Wars. Your government tried to fill in, as governments hopelessly and helplessly do, but you can’t legislate civility, you can’t mandate well-mannered social debate or control freedom of speech. No. Only the people can, social interaction has risen to a new level of sophistication and it must become a living and growing cultural being. It must become the soul of our society.”

Madison looked across the room and shuddered at the rapt attention of the I-ZOMBIES; she rested a hand on her lowered head; everyone knew that zombies didn’t pay attention to you if you acted like a zombie. 

The President continued, “E PLURIBUS UNUM… Out Of Many, One. Over ten years ago, the convergence of cryptocurrency and A. I. gave birth to the HOLO platform. We open-sourced it so that everyone could contribute to its ascendency as the platform that would unite the people of the world.” Madison thought she still had that original model.

“Tonight, I am pleased to announce that HoLoCo has finalized our one platform out of many, and, AND, we are turning over the source code to you: the people.” 

“The iPAL platform can now become your one view to the world. I call it TAO.” The letters rotated above each iPal. He turned to a camera to his right and the people watching shifted like a breeze through aspens, “Trust. Authorization. Ownership. No single person, no corporate giant, and no government can provide this. Only the people can!”      

Madison went cold as the room erupted in disharmony of cheers and obscenities that escalated in more imaginative obscenities, some in anger, some celebratory, but a common language. If F-bombs exploded, all of them would be dead. 

The President hesitated, went off script, as if he could feel the unease of the room, “Now, don’t misunderstand me. This is your platform, your Life, and there will be no government or corporate interference in the organic growth of the iPAL. There will be no governance of the iPAL, no mandatory compliance; there will be no interference from your government.” He paused, “No, this is YOUR personal assistant for YOUR Life, to help you manage your life, your health, your relationships, your finances, your daily activities, and much more.” His eyes shifted subtly to the right and Madison thought she saw a glimmer of a smile, or maybe relief. 

The President droned on, or read on, but Madison was watching the mesmerized faces absorbed into the light of the President’s HOLO. Her body sagged under the weight of an unbearable sadness as she turned to see Poppy leaning in towards the HOLO, eating up the President’s every word. Sitting next to her best friend in a room full of people, she had never felt so alone.

Or exposed. She forced herself to sit back and ease the kinetic energy-fuelled, instinct to bolt. 

The bearded man rose from her iPAL and pointed to her glass. She flashed two fingers and he saluted briskly, “See, I know how to use these things. At least for what is important in life,” she said softly.

From the corner of her eye, Madison saw a man fall backward in his chair. There was a wide-eyed man standing over him, face twisted in satisfaction, holding an empty beer glass. Others stood, assessing the situation without commitment. 

Then the HOLO’s sprung up like a clan of meerkats sensing an approaching jackal. Angry HOLO’s. Inciting HOLO’s. All organizing a counter-attack.     

“What’s going on,” Madison looked at Poppy’s iPAL. 

“What?” Poppy looked at Madison with a look of confusion.   

Poppy glanced right and then left, then her eyes landed on Madison’s hibernating iPAL. Her face was a wax museum replicate of a Poppy Johansson. A pale frozen version of the vibrant alive Poppy. 

“Poppy?”

“Uh, sorry,” she said, her face extended like she was stretching closer to the light, desperately seeking clarity from the HOLO. She looked up, a far away look, “I don’t understand.”

Poppy looked at Madison, her eyes focused on the horizon. “Wildfire…”

“Poppy, wha…”

“Wildfire. The new upgrade is supposed to prevent it,” Poppy looked around and then back to Madison.  

Their drinks arrived amongst the cacophony of voices, a human and HOLO mix; Madison couldn’t differentiate one from another. 

She tried to listen to the cacophony of voices around her and make sense of it all. At the next table, a comedian was ostracized for off-color iPAL humor. The group at the table barked instructions to their HOLO’s striking back. Apparently, he had recently abused his wife as well and others called for banishment. 

Madison tried to follow it on Poppy’s iPal but it was moving too fast. One victim’s punishment gave rise to attacks on the punishers. It was like an old west bar fight scene without beer mugs crashing skulls or people thrown over tables. It was Tribal. Social Mobs. All of it conducted by HOLO’s whispering to their masters like a futuristic board game. But who was whispering to the HOLO’s?   

A calm came over the room, like the eye of the storm, and Madison waited for what might come next. 

HOLO’s dimmed and retreated to the safety of their iPal homes. The genies returning to their bottles. Confusion reigned as social warriors looked from their table to others, searching for a battleground, but they only found blank gazes staring back. 

A hum vibrated throughout the room as HOLO’s returned. HOLO’s checked for drink orders. Some patrons agreed to another round despite having a drink in front of them like it was more than a request. Conversation returned. One table erupted in laughter. Madison thought she saw somebody shopping online. 

Madison looked to Poppy. Poppy’s drink remained untouched and her seat was empty. Madison searched the room for her, but she was gone.  

* * *

Madison lowered her foot slowly, holding the rail. She had forgotten to leave a light on. Right? She didn’t leave one on? The apartment was new, and she wasn’t accustomed to coming or going. Her hand felt along the wall and found the switch. 

The air in the basement heavy, like moisture, had seeped into the room from the gutters replacing the oxygen as it moved on to more cheerful locales. It was just as suffocating returning as it was leaving, but its lack of comfort was a necessary trade-off for its anonymity. 

She had christened her machine, unabashedly, Gutenberg. It was simple, mechanical, but with a limited capacity for content. Maybe that was good.  In a world of HOLO’s screaming for attention, all with a greater emotional range than their masters could muster themselves, one needed an angle to be heard. Or, in this case, be seen. Historically, it had worked for a little-known monk in the fifteen-hundreds, and later by the founding fathers like Franklin, Madison, and Jefferson. She shrank from the comparison and could only hope that the medium would be as unique today in its antiquity as it was then in its leading-edge technology.  

Ambiance aside, the room was Madly, at least to her. Not the draft let in by the small rectangular windows at street level. Not the cold grey walls. But the books. Stacked on an old board and cinder blocks. The single framed painting of Mark Twain regaling an audience of Franklin laughing, Madison contemplating, Hamilton ready with a witty retort and Hemmingway shaking his head, in awe or disagreement. Maybe both. The books, the painting…and the machine, all bought at offline flea markets. No iPAL’s allowed. They were the modern equivalent of a prohibition-era speakeasy.

It was time. 

The type galley was set, wedged in with her hand made quoins, and wrenched tightly together. What she couldn’t find at the flea markets, she fabricated. What she couldn’t find in a third hand, dog-eared user manuals, she made up. She smiled: this was all fabricated and made-up. At least, that’s what people would say. 

It was rustic, held together with hope and duct tape, and even though the block letters looked like she was reading it in a mirror, it looked like tangible truth to her. Not cheap electronic words that were typed without thought of true meaning or consequences. Launched with a consequence-free keystroke. She stepped back for one last look:   

“Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become more corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.” (Benjamin Franklin)

WE THE PEOPLE… It’s hard to imagine the social structure that brought forth those words, but I can imagine that in some way, it was not unlike our world today. A government struggling to define its role. A people divided. Factions fighting against each other, fuelling tribalism, fomenting hate of anyone unlike themselves and their worldview.   

Today, only We The People, can stop the downward spiral left by the vacuum of the Media Wars. The media corporations killed each other off and the people stepped in with the promise of fairness, equality, and a level playing field. We The People failed.    

The iPAL platform claims to be a reflection of the people, so our actions must change to help educate the machine. We must become We The Virtuous -, not We The Vicious. Mob justice is no justice. 

The machine has learned from us. If it can learn from us, will it learn to judge us? If so, it is up to us to set a better example. Today, we are in a wretched situation. Only y_u can chang_ th_t.   

“I go on this great republican principle: that the people will have virtue and intelligence to select men of virtue and intelligence… If… not, we are in a wretched situation.” (James Madison)

It was a start.

Madison reread the instructions on the canister of ink, for the tenth time, and pushed down on the safety cap and twisted it open. The fragrance was a perfumed offering, an incense, that carried her prayers and sent a chill through her. She was doing this. 

Her iPAL vibrated and Poppy’s HOLO appeared. Hands clasped in front of her, a pleading look, or a warning, before her HOLO scattered into pixels and her face dissolved into the air. 

Madison’s iPAL went dark.    

There was a pop, somewhere outside, and the lights went out, leaving a dust-illuminating shaft of light from the small basement window. The beam of light too high to reach, like a medieval cell, where the sole source of light, warmth, and hope was purposefully just beyond reach.

She lifted press, removed the sheet, and set it aside. Reflexively, she placed another sheet of paper in the feeder and looked up at the square of light.