Katie Williams - Tell the Machine Goodnight

The Borough Press

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers 2018

Copyright © Katie Williams 2018

Cover design by Andrew Davies/HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

Jacket imagery by Andrew Davies. Bee images © Shutterstock.com

Katie Williams asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008265038

Ebook Edition © June 2018 ISBN: 9780008265052

Version: 2018-05-30

For Uly and Fia

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

1. THE HAPPINESS MACHINE

2. MEANS, MOTIVE, OPPORTUNITY

3. BROTHERLY LOVE

4. SUCH A NICE AND POLITE YOUNG MAN

5. MIDAS

6. ORIGIN STORY

7. SCREAMER

8. BODY PARTS

9. THE FURNITURE IS FAMILIAR

10. TELL THE MACHINE GOODNIGHT

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Also by Katie Williams

About the Publisher

The machine said the man should eat tangerines. It listed two other recommendations as well, so three in total. A modest number, Pearl assured the man as she read out the list that had appeared on the screen before her: one, he should eat tangerines on a regular basis; two, he should work at a desk that received morning light; three, he should amputate the uppermost section of his right index finger.

The man—in his early thirties, by Pearl’s guess, and pinkish around the eyes and nose in the way of white rabbits or rats—lifted his right hand before his face with wonder. Up came his left, too, and he used its palm to press experimentally on the top of his right index finger, the finger in question. Is he going to cry? Pearl wondered. Sometimes people cried when they heard their recommendations. The conference room they’d put her in had glass walls, open to the workpods on the other side. There was a switch on the wall to fog the glass, though; Pearl could flick it if the man started to cry.

“I know that last one seems a bit out of left field,” she said.

“Right field, you mean,” the man—Pearl glanced at her list for his name, one Melvin Waxler—joked, his lips drawing up to reveal overlong front teeth. Rabbitier still. “Get it?” He waved his hand. “Right hand. Right field.”

Pearl smiled obligingly, but Mr. Waxler had eyes only for his finger. He pressed its tip once more.

“A modest recommendation,” Pearl said, “compared to some others I’ve seen.”

“Oh sure, I know that,” Waxler said. “My downstairs neighbor sat for your machine once. It told him to cease all contact with his brother.” He pressed on the finger again. “He and his brother didn’t argue or anything. Had a good relationship actually, or so my neighbor said. Supportive. Brotherly.” Pressed it. “But he did it. Cut the guy off. Stopped talking to him, full stop.” Pressed it. “And it worked. He says he’s happier now. Says he didn’t have a clue his brother was making him un happy. His twin brother. Identical even. If I’m remembering.” Clenched the hand into a fist. “But it turned out he was. Unhappy, that is. And the machine knew it, too.”

“The recommendations can seem strange at first,” Pearl began her spiel, memorized from the manual, “but we must keep in mind the Apricity machine uses a sophisticated metric, taking into account factors of which we’re not consciously aware. The proof is borne out in the numbers. The Apricity system boasts a nearly one hundred percent approval rating. Ninety-nine point nine seven percent.”

“And the point three percent?” The index finger popped up from Waxler’s fist. It just wouldn’t stay down.

“Aberrations.”

Pearl allowed herself a glance at Mr. Waxler’s fingertip, which appeared no different from the others on his hand but was its own aberration, according to Apricity. She imagined the fingertip popping off his hand like a cork from a bottle. When Pearl looked up again, she found that Waxler’s gaze had shifted from his finger to her face. The two of them shared the small smile of strangers.

“You know what?” Waxler bent and straightened his finger. “I’ve never liked it much. This particular finger. It got slammed in a door when I was little, and ever since …” His lip drew up, revealing his teeth again, almost a wince.

“It pains you?”

“It doesn’t hurt. It just feels … like it doesn’t belong.”

Pearl tapped a few commands into her screen and read what came back. “The surgical procedure carries minimal risk of infection and zero risk of mortality. Recovery time is negligible, a week, no more. And with a copy of your Apricity report—there, I’ve just sent that to you, HR, and your listed physician—your employer has agreed to cover all relevant costs.”

Waxler’s lip slid back down. “Hm. No reason not to then.”

“No. No reason.”

He thought a moment more. Pearl waited, careful to keep her expression neutral until he nodded the go-ahead. When he did, she tapped in the last command and, with a small burst of satisfaction, crossed his name off her list. Melvin Waxler. Done.

“I’ve also recommended that your workpod be reassigned to the eastern side of the building,” she said, “near a window.”

“Thank you. That’ll be nice.”

Pearl finished with the last prompt question, the one that would close the session and inch her closer to her quarterly bonus. “Mr. Waxler, would you say that you anticipate Apricity’s recommendations will improve your overall life satisfaction?” This phrasing was from the updated training manual. The question used to be Will Apricity make you happier? but Legal had decided that the word happier was problematic.

“Seems like it could,” Waxler said. “The finger thing might lower my typing speed.” He shrugged. “But then there’s more to life than typing speed.”