The Last Network - Chapter 13
God Mode
Clip after clip showed the same thing. None lasted more than 30 seconds, but they all felt like an eternity. Paolo had seen many of them before, but they still made him uncomfortable. The pauses, the stilted interactions, the sheer social awkwardness of the whole thing. So much work had gone into Peared, and this is what it had yielded.
This session summed up everything wrong with the product. A man dropped into an apartment building, his eyes fixating on every imperfection in the place. The empty pizza box, the bunched up dirty socks, the horrible lighting that oozed gloomy depression. It made his skin crawl. Paolo looked over at Evan, studying his face hoping that this man had an insight into their problem. They were running out of time and needed to turn things around quickly. Otherwise, this whole operation would fold. Just another one of the million bad ideas that briefly bloomed, then died in the tech hothouse called California.
“See there, that’s your first problem. People are just appearing in shitty apartments with no idea what to do. You need to give them a mission. The next problem is that you are not establishing who the boss is right from the start. The Eyes need to lead, the Hands need to follow. You are getting these brutal conversations because the Eyes don’t know they have permission to drive. Put me in and watch how it’s done,” Evan said.
Evan Willis was a polymath who lived in the boundaries between black and gray. Burner, behavioral psychologist, pickup artist, investor. He hacked systems, he hacked people. Paolo didn’t like him but could not deny his unique talent. The man could see angles no one else could.
Paolo used him as an asset when he needed to design a solution that was more art than science. Evan carried himself as a pompous techno punk complete with purple hair, Victorian eye glasses, and a black velvet vest. He had a peacock feather pinned to his breast pocket and a white gold chain around his waist. He took his fedora off and put Paolo’s virtual reality unit over his head.
They were operating in God Mode, the administrator version built to manage Peared. It was the backdoor into the system and granted them an incredible about of power. In God Mode, you could see any user’s location, past history, preferences, friends, and saved clips. It let an admin send commands and messages that weren’t available to regular users. It had development modules that weren’t ready yet. In short, it was a playground for testing, manipulation, and voyeurism. Evan’s eyes lit up when he saw all the tricks available to him.
“I want to pair with that one.”
“The woman?” Paolo asked.
“Yes.”
Paolo pulled up the profile of a woman in her early twenties. She lived in Santa Monica just off the Promenade. She had never used Peared before, and all Evan had to go on was a profile pic of a tatted-up mod with cherry red lipstick and rockabilly bangs. Paolo connected the two and watched the monitors in front of him. Evan as the Eyes was on the left. Suzy as the Hands was on the right. They were inside her apartment. The interior was a remnant from the seventies. Yellow Formica counter tops and shag carpeting.
“Grab your bag and put some running shoes on. There’s no time to lose.” Evan directed.
“I wasn’t expecting a guy.”
“I’m alright. I won’t bite. Something tells me you want to be bad. I’ve got a little mission that’s right up your alley. If I go too far, please call me out and I’ll back off. Does that work for you Suzy?”
She nodded. Paolo watched, noting how quickly he had gained her confidence. The door opened, then the two were down the stairs and out onto California Ave.
“When was the last time you stole something?” Evan asked.
“High school.”
“You ever get caught?”
“Once.”
“You miss the rush.”
“Now that you mention it...”
“I can see your heart rate picking up. You’re blinking faster. The idea excites you. I want you to know that I’m a master thief. I started at age eight and I’ve never been caught. If you do as I say, see what I see, and follow my instructions, you’ll be just fine.”
“What are we going after?”
Evan turned his head to the Apple Store across the street. He waited for her eyes to track and center on it, then he pushed the glamour effect from the God Mode which made the door dazzle and for the briefest moment the words ‘TAKE ME’ flashed over her eyes.
“Everything in there is locked down. I won’t be able to.”
“The Genius Bar.”
They walked into the store. Evan looked to the left and to the right. He found the section with the AR glasses. He led Suzy over there.
“Take yours off, try several of these on. Make it seem like you are interested in trading your old glasses for these new ones. After that, put yours back on and walk over to the Genius Bar. When you get there, tell them you have a screw loose and ask to borrow their special little screwdriver. Tighten the screw, then compliment the person next to you on something. Their watch, phone, hair, anything. While you’re doing that, take the screwdriver and put it in the back pocket of your sexy black jeans, then walk on out the store.”
“My sexy black jeans? Do you want me to get caught? Nothing fits in those pockets. I’ll use my bag.”
Evan sat back quietly and watched as Suzy went to work. He didn’t say a word until she had left the store and was back out in the street.
“You are such a badass Suzy.”
“Here I was thinking you were going to get me into some real trouble,” she laughed.
“Who’s to say that I won’t? I got to run now, but some other time? For real, not here. Let me take you out.”
“Give me your number and we’ll see. I don’t know if I should trust myself around you.”
“I don’t trust myself around me. Be seeing you, Suzy.”
Evan took the headset off and tossed it on the couch next to him. Paolo gave him the look all men do after a performance like that. Envy. He liked to explain that it was a skill like anything else. You just need to work at it and lose your fear of failure, but Paolo wasn’t paying him for pickup lessons. He was paying for the psychological keys to the platform.
“There’s three things to making that work. The first is the match. I picked Suzy because her profile pic was the most telling. Her outward appearance indicates a personality type that I am very compatible with. She likes bad boys that pursue her. I’m a bad boy that likes to chase girls. We have a very superficial chemistry. The second is the mission. I gave her a reason to stay in and work with me. The third was the push. I probably didn’t need to, but that moment with the glamour effect and the subliminal messaging sealed the deal. I don’t want to toot my own horn, but the icing on the cake was dialing down the risk. She got the rush of anticipation, but then could follow through because she was stealing a tool and not a $1500 gadget.”
“And you got yourself a date. You ever get sick of your smug self?”
“I haven’t yet, and we’ll see if she messages me. Anyway, you and your pals need to figure out how to turn those three things into automated processes. Get that down and you’ll have that monster you keep talking about.”