‘I’m afraid I am unable to give you that information.’
‘Why not?’
‘As stated in your Sanctity of Marriage Act contract, we are not obliged to detail why our algorithms have identified your relationship as in need of assistance.’
‘So you think my marriage is in trouble but you won’t give me any evidence as to why? How are we supposed to sort out the problems you think we have if we don’t know what they are?’
‘Enhanced listening and tracking has now been enabled across all your fixed and wearable devices to assist in your marriage experience. Advice in the form of Push notifications will be sent to you regularly. Any new content posted across social media by yourself or others, or taken in public areas using facial recognition software, may now be used for consideration when deciding upon the next course of action. A marriage liaison officer from your employer has been notified and will be in touch in due course. Thank you again for signing up to a Smart Marriage.’
The conversation was terminated by the operator before Roxi had time to hurl expletives at her. Owen remained unruffled.
‘Are you kidding me? That’s it?’ she complained.
‘It’s what we signed up for.’
‘What we signed up for are tax breaks and a larger Smart home, so where are they? Have you chased up why we haven’t been upgraded yet?’
‘Plenty of people would give their right arm for this place.’
‘Let them and their missing arms live here then, not us.’
‘And we haven’t been upgraded because the new houses are still being built.’
‘And is the car you promised me still being built too? I’m sick of carpooling with the neighbours, booking a week in advance just to go out if you’re using yours.’
‘You’re helping reduce the number of vehicles on roads, which is a good thing—’
‘I don’t care!’ she seethed. Roxi held her head in her hands. ‘You don’t get it. If this Levelling up thing gets out, it’s going to damage my reputation just as things are starting to happen for me. How can I tell people that AI is going to save us all when the bloody thing has turned against us? It could ruin me.’
‘Have you considered that it might also repair us?’ asked Owen, but Roxi didn’t get the chance to respond.
‘Don’t spread yourself too thinly in a dozen different directions when your partner is trying to engage with you,’ the Audite spoke. ‘Always remember, listening means loving.’
Level One had begun already.
‘Piss off,’ Roxi muttered as she stormed out of the room, balking at the thought of weeks of more messages like this.
27
Jeffrey
‘You told me before that it was love at first sight when youmet, at least for you, Luca,’ Jeffrey began.
He relaxed into a leather armchair while Luca and Noah were perched on a sofa opposite him, Noah on the left and Luca on the right. They had all become accustomed to these positions over their fortnight together. Noah’s hand was once again placed firmly on top of Luca’s as if marking his territory. The more Jeffrey tried to ignore it, the more it caught his eye and rankled him.
‘You haven’t turned the Audite off,’ said Noah.
‘No, I haven’t,’ Jeffrey replied.
‘Why?’
‘I did say it’s at my discretion. It’s not a given.’
Noah shifted uncomfortably, to Jeffrey’s pleasure. ‘So if it was love at first sight and you knew you’d be together for the long haul, why did you feel the necessity to marry?’
‘Aside from emotional security and commitment, we’d been together for six years and wanted to have kids so it seemed like a logical step,’ said Luca. ‘We both come from close families and our parents are still together, so why not?’
‘That’s a great reason,’ said Jeffrey. ‘Many psychologists believe a child’s development can be strongly affected by how emotionally intelligent their parents’ relationship is.’
