The Last Network - Chapter 8
Travel Together
Rabbit huddled with Em Nichols in a wooden hut in the back corner of the office. She pulled her fine red hair into a ponytail and rolled up her denim sleeves. “Veni, Vidi, Vici” was tattooed on her wrist. It was as much a warning as an ethos. Every season brought her a new product launch, a bigger challenge, and another notch in her CV. So far, she had crushed them all.
They sat on creaky toadstools while LED lights cycled from pink to blue then back again. A trickling stream projected on the floor, and imaginary songbirds perched in the rafters. The decor was Disney meets cyberpunk. Every few minutes the stream glitched then briefly disappeared. A slightly yeasty smell came from a pile of beer-soaked stuffies in the corner. ImmerCast tradition was that each new hire dunked a stuffed animal in beer, then wrung it into their mouth.
Rabbit’s Yosemite Sam was on top of the pile.
This was Immercast’s imagination hut. These guys could code, but they had serious limitations as creative beings. Rabbit wanted to tear it down and replace it with a normal conference room. The only thing stopping him was the team’s misplaced love for the abomination. They had taken solace under its roof too many times to let it go.
“I didn’t realize you were such a big deal,” Rabbit said.
“Am I? Who’s been talking about me?” Em asked, opening her notebook to a pink tab labeled P for Peared.
“Kendra Godfrey.”
“Right, Kendra. The Queen of Machines.”
“Not a fan?”
“Let’s get started on Peared, shall we?”
Rabbit took the hint and moved it along. Em was Ka$ia’s friend. Over the years, she’d done special projects for Smash House. She was Rabbit’s favorite creative. Em figured out how her client’s mind worked and made sure her pitches were tailored to their thinking. Rabbit for instance, needed to be built from the bottom up. Language and concepts came first. Visuals only at the end after he understood the meaning of everything underneath.
“So, I’ve been given the demo and spent some time fooling round with the product. I like it. There’s a lot we can do here Rabbit. First things first though, we need to invent some terminology,” Em said, flicking the notebook pages until she found one filled with crossed out words in neat penmanship.
“Terminology?”
“Yeah, definitions and labels. ‘Surros’ isn’t going to cut it out in the real world.”
“Why not?”
“A surrogate is disposable, powerless, and temporary. It’s a dehumanizing term that shows a real lack of respect. ‘Hey who wants to be a surro today? Head on out in the cold and let some fat ass boss you around.’ Does that sound good to you Rabbit?”
“When you put it that way.”
“Positioning is everything. Surros are out. Hands and Eyes are in.”
“Hands and Eyes?”
“Yup. Hands are the doers. Eyes are the seers. Together they share a Consciousness which makes them a Pair. Learn it, remember it, and believe it with every fiber of your being.”
“It sounds good. Hands and Eyes share a Consciousness. Together they form a Pair.” Rabbit said.
“Good, I’m glad you like it because it feeds into our new tagline...Travel Together with Peared.”
“Travel Together with Peared.”
Rabbit paused and looked up into the rafters. Em watched as he began talking to himself, mouthing the words. Hands, Eyes, Pairs. Consciousness. Travel Together. He was stepping into her words like a new pair of shoes. They didn’t seem like much, but Rabbit knew—he knew that millions of people would be saying these words, over and over, day after day. They needed to be comfortable, but they needed to be sturdy. He liked the way they sounded. They felt like terms that had always existed, as if Peared lived in an alternate universe and just crossed over.
“Travel Together with Peared,” he repeated out loud. “Hands, Eyes, Pairs, Consciousness. Yes, they work well together. I like it, a lot.”
“Thank you, but you need to recognize one thing above all Rabbit—Peared is a very dangerous product. It’s a control platform. All of our positioning needs to defuse that imbalance. People need to think of each other as equal and willing participants. Otherwise no one is going to want to be a Hand and those that do will be treated like slaves. These terms, this language, it’s designed to give Hands permission to drop their guard and let the Eyes control them. If you don’t have permission and the perception of equality, this doesn’t work.”
“Hence Travel Together.”
“Exactly. The next step is to dial down the perceived power of Peared. We need to treat it like a toy until people are used to it. FriendZone started as a way to see what your friends did on their weekends, now it’s being used to swing elections. If you told people where it would end up, do you think they’d have given it that much information?”
“No.”
“Right. There’s a whole playbook here Rabbit. Consumer internet is the seduction of soft power disguised as frictionless convenience.”
“That’s a little above my comprehension Em, but I’ll take your word for it. Love the language, the terminology, and the thinking. Any chance you got something I can see?” Rabbit leaned in.
“Not yet. I wanted to make sure you were with me before I went much further. Give me a week or two, I’ll have my designers get some looks ready.”
“Sounds good. You talk to Ka$ia lately?”
“I checked in with her before taking this job. Needed to make sure there wasn’t any issue with us working together.”
“And?”
“I’m here, aren’t I? You could have handled it better, but she understood. At least that’s what she told me.” Em closed her notebook and slipped it inside her bag.
“I’ll reach out to her when I get a chance.”
“You should. We all need friends, Rabbit.”