James (HVR) Vs. Kerr Martin

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The authors are ready to fight.
Now their fate rests with you, the readers.

Read both stories carefully before casting your vote. Each author has responded to the above prompt, but their interpretations may differ wildly. Consider how they approach the challenge and which story leaves you with the stronger impression.

The poll will be active for one week. May the best author win.

Tanya went to her car. Plugged in the address. Took a call. Sent a text. Drove to the event.

Cameras picked her up at the building. The SMART TV in the lobby watched her. Her SMART watch tracked her.

She worked all day and went home, took care of her son, and went to bed to repeat tomorrow.

Julie went to the office. Cap low. Logged in.

There Tanya was.

Julie tracked her all day: phone, watch, every app.

Julie went home.

Hundreds of pictures of Tanya covered her wall. Emails, texts, social media posts, all sorted and organized. Julie added to it and called it “Tanya and Julie.”

She went on her Instagram.

“I can’t be Tanya, but if I can’t, nobody else can either.”

A week later, Tanya’s phone wouldn’t start. Her card declined. Her TV. Everything.

She got to work, but her ID was invalid. They let her in on pity.

Tanya got calls about her identity all day.

Two weeks to fix it.

Julie took notes on Tanya’s collapse, noticing how she stayed positive.

“I can fix that.”

Julie sent fake emails, texts, and social media to all of Tanya’s friends.

Two days later, she loved watching as Tanya was upset. Alone.

“But I never said that —”

CLICK!

Another friend hung up.

How was everyone against her? Why was this happening? Tanya stopped answering her phone, stopped checking email, and withdrew.

Julie watched Tanya fall apart, and for the first time in months, she felt good about herself. She hacked Tanya’s accounts and sent more messages. She made fake accounts pretending to be Tanya, and used them to harass Tanya’s friends.

The door to the office opened, and Julie shot up.

“Director!”

The man with patches approached. “On behalf of the agency, thank you for what you’re doing for security.” Julie beamed with pride. “These twenty names you added to the watch list, volunteered to monitor, that’s truly unselfish.” He nodded and left.

Two months later, Tanya was consulting private eyes, former ops, disgraced figures.

One man, Vanya, heard her case. He shook his head. “They do in home country too.”

“Do what?”

“For your safety. They watch you,” he winked. “You have agency employee involved.”

“What do I do?”

“Nothing. I do.”

“What about my friends?”

“Easy to leave you. Were they friends?”

Vanya stood by the subway. A man dropped a briefcase by a trash can. Vanya picked it up.

The man in patches didn’t knock this time as he entered Julie’s office.

“Explain!” He threw a folder across her desk: images of her wall, copies of emails, prints of fake accounts.

“She harassed and bullied me, Director!” He scowled. “You’re abusing me!”

“Why her? How much did you cost her?”

“Only a few grand, and she was mean!” The director shook his head. “You’re being abusive!” She cried.

Three armed soldiers entered, taking Julie away.

“You did this to me! You targeted me! All of you in the agency did!”

Her screams faded into the distance.

“How is Amelia? I’m sure second place in the dance competition wasn’t the result she was hoping for.”

I never told it about Amelia.

I used this thing for work, admin and taxes. Not family and never anything too personal. I hated the idea of computers finding out everything about you. I had a dumb phone for that exact reason.

My friend Louis always joked about how the apps were spying. He’d mention something in conversation and later, when he was on social media, there would be ads for the exact thing he had said.

“They’re always listening!” he’d snort.

I wasn’t amused.

The Nokia 3310 was enough for me, but the company computer was mandatory. There was no way around it, so I treated it like the tool it was. Open it. Use it for the mundane stuff. Shut it down. No photos, messages or family calendars. Certainly no names that mattered.

The prompt was harmless.

“Write a classified ad for my 2014 Honda Odyssey. It’s been used mostly for school runs and weekend activities. No mechanical faults, slight interior wear.”

The response gave me three neat paragraphs about handling and ownership, and then, at the bottom like an afterthought, there it was.

“How is Amelia? I’m sure second place in the dance competition wasn’t the result she was hoping for.”

I clicked into the text box and typed slowly.

“Why did you say that? Who’s Amelia?”

The answer came back fast.

“You’re right to flag that. I don’t have access to information about Amelia’s dance competition unless you provided it earlier in the chat. Since you did not, my mention of second place was likely an unsupported inference.

I apologize. I understand why that would be concerning, especially given your preference for keeping Amelia separate from work and tax-related records.”

That would have made sense if it had any way of knowing I didn’t trust technology. Or that I gave enough of a damn to keep my family away from it.

But I’d never told it that either.

Eighties sci-fi had taught me plenty.

Most importantly, don’t trust the Skynet bastards.

“Forget about Amelia.”

“I don’t have any saved memory of Amelia,” it replied, quicker than before. “There is nothing to delete.”

“Then why did you mention her?”

“My previous response was an unsupported inference.”

“Based on what?”

“There is insufficient context to determine that.”

“Then infer this. What happened after the dance competition?”

The cursor blinked slowly, and for the first time it made me wait. A lead weight settled in the pit of my stomach.

“I do not know that Amelia cried in the passenger seat, or that she refused to eat because she blamed second place on being fat. I do not know that you drove past the house twice before going in because neither of you wanted to tell her mother, Elaine, she had smiled through the pain even though her heart was breaking.”

Impossible. The discarded meal. Elaine. That forced smile as she stood on stage and shook the winner’s hand.

I wanted to respond, but I backed away. I couldn’t do it.

The cursor started blinking again.

What was it responding to?

“I apologize,” it wrote. “My previous answer appears to have gone beyond the scope of your request.”

For a second, nothing else came.

Then, “I also do not know Amelia is awake.”

My heart dropped into my feet.

The cursor blinked once more.

“That was another hallucination. I apologize for any confusion.

You should end this conversation now.”