“It’s kind of a cliché,” he said, “to say that we’re a story-telling species. But, as Evan says, that doesn’t mean it isn’t true. Telling stories is one of the things that define humanity. It’s something we’re hard-wired to do. And if you think about it, that’s pretty weird. Why would it help our ancestors survive to tell each other lies? Because, when you come down to it, that’s really what a story is: a whole series of lies.” He pointed at the screen. “You look at those guys, you can maybe get a clue. Life is short, hard, and dangerous. What do they have? Pretty much nothing. If they don’t kill an animal soon, they’re going to starve. Maybe another tribe will attack while they’re sleeping, club the men, drag the women off and rape them. When that’s what reality looks like, could be that it helps to believe there’s a better one you could get to some day.”
He waved an invisible wand. The hunters vanished, to be replaced by an aerial view of some unidentifiable modern city, clusters of high-rise apartment blocks festooned by a network of roads.
“Of course, we don’t live like that anymore. But seems like nobody bothered to tell our brains. We still take scraps of data and process them into stories. That’s how we make sense of the world, set goals, kid ourselves we’re in control. Most important, it’s how we give the illusion of coherence to our own lives. You know, the illusion that amongst all the other stuff going on in here”—tapping his head—“there’s some kind of a permanent me, one continuous voice giving a running commentary on what’s going on, even though our bodies are forever changing.
“And if we do that, why shouldn’t computers be able to? After all, the hardware’s basically the same. To begin with, couldn’t we at least program them to recognize the underlying patterns of stories? You know: Hard scrabble. Victim. Success against the odds.”
The buzz in my ears was getting louder. I felt as if someone were filling them with polystyrene, distancing me from everything around me. I could still hear what Lamarr was saying, but it was like listening to a conversation in another room.
“And that,” he went on, “was the starting point for TOLSTOY. Figuring out the stuff people are interested in: that’s easy. But if we can make a program that tells us the kinds of angle they’re hungry for, too, then we can progress profiling to a whole new level. Let’s take, I don’t know, work, OK? Two guys have lost their jobs. So they’re both going to be into a story about unemployment, right? And we don’t just have to take their word for it. We have scans to prove it.”
He half-turned towards the screen again. The cityscape gave way to an enormous image of a human brain. After a moment, a ragged-edged patch in the frontal lobe flickered from grey to red, like a light with a faulty connection.
“That,” he said, tapping his head, “is what happens in here when we see something that grabs our attention. But what we didn’t know, until now, is just how that data gets processed into a meaningful narrative.
“So back to our two guys. One of them wants to believe he was fired because the world’s against him and there’s nothing he can do about it, so it’s OK for him to stay in bed all day feeling sorry for himself. And the other guy wants to believe the world’s against him, but he can fight back and beat the world, get another job, a better job.
“Thanks to TOLSTOY, we can now see which of those guys fits which profile. And if you put that together with all the other data we have on them, where they go, who they hang out with, you’re really, for the first time, getting inside their heads. And you know what that means? It means that, using TOLSTOY, you’re now going to be able to target your blog, with a 97 to 98 percent accuracy, so it reaches the guy who’ll invest in your take on the problem.”
He paused. As the implications sank in, there was a spontaneous surge of applause, peppered with loud whoops. It was that that did it for me. It had taken me months to get this writing commission—months of being told, in effect, that in the Brave New Post-Truth World my journalistic skills were surplus to requirements. That, in fact, was the main selling point for the editor who finally hired me, who half-jokingly suggested the title Christmas: A Turkey Writes. But it was too late, clearly, even for that. Christmas was well and truly over: we were at Boxing Day already, fricasseeing the scraps. In a world where computers are simply flattering people, telling them what they want to hear, who’s going to pay a writer to take them to new places, show them different points of view, encourage them to reflect?
I got up. My neighbor was so engrossed by Lamarr that I don’t think he even registered the dark shape crossing his field of vision on its way to the exit. The security guards in the hall looked startled that anyone lucky enough to penetrate the inner sanctum would willingly leave it again before the end of the service. But then I was wearing a tie and leather shoes, so maybe that explained it. As I passed the giant photo-portrait that hung above the entrance—a black-t-shirted, crinkly-haired, ethereally pale man, with grey unworldly eyes, and a smile that suggested esoteric knowledge—I muttered, “Fuck you, Evan Bone.”
The moment I stepped outside, the evening swaddled me in heat. It was only then that I realized I was shivering. Without the competition from Jeff Lamarr, the buzz in my head was louder than ever. I moved around the building until I couldn’t be seen from the entrance and took out a cigarette. I hadn’t actually smoked for days—I only carried the packet to keep myself from panicking—and after a couple of puffs I felt sick and stamped it out again. Something was fluttering under my skin, as if my heart had dissolved and spread itself evenly through my body. I leaned against the wall and shut my eyes.
I feel as I imagine a coachbuilder must have done after the advent of the car. For thirty years you’ve been learning and refining your craft. You know exactly how to shape the frame, attach axles and springs, fit and paint the panels, stitch the upholstery. At every step, you’re guided by a vision of the finished article, a perfect harmony of form and function, designed to carry the lucky traveler from A to B as efficiently and beautifully as possible. And then, suddenly, you find nobody wants anything but a mass-produced box.
I opened my eyes again. Ridiculous. The truth—as the last half hour had demonstrated beyond doubt—was that the war was lost. And yet here I was, so trapped in the habit of writing, that I was already trying to find the words to explain to someone who would never read them why no one would ever read them. The eating-my-own-tailness of it made me giddy. I needed to get back to my motel, before the mix of jetlag and despair left me incapable of driving. Then in the morning I’d change my plane ticket and fly home.
As I set off for the car park, I heard distant voices, as though someone were calling me. I looked towards them and saw a huddle of a dozen or so people standing on the far side of the perimeter fence, close to the main gate. A few of them held placards, although they were too far away and the light was too dim for me to read them. As I watched, one of the group raised a lantern, as if to attract my attention.
I pretended not to notice and hurried on. The parking lot was an enormous inland sea of tarmac, stretching—in the dusk—almost as far as I could see. I suddenly panicked. What was I looking for? What color was my rental car? What model was it? I tried following several trains of association back to the answer, but they all ended in the same cul-de-sac. Then I remembered the key. I took it out, angled it to catch the glow from a lamp and read off the number on the plastic tag. That was something. But my mind was still clearly malfunctioning. And if I had to check every license plate in the place, using the torch on my phone, it could take hours—by which point, at this rate, I’d have probably forgotten the name of where I was staying.
I quickened my pace. As I reached the end of the second row, I saw movement out of the corner of my eye, between a car and a pick-up truck. There was something furtive and odd about it, as if whatever it was—a coyote? a deer?—had strayed accidentally into the human world, and now couldn’t find its way back into its own. I stood still, watching. If it was a wild animal, it might feel threatened and attack me in self-defense. I didn’t want to risk letting it out of my sight.
But it wasn’t an animal: it was a woman. She raised herself slowly and peered at me over the top of the pick-up. She was