So what was that about a new icon?

You have some time to kill so you open up your phone again then see a new icon. Oh, right, you think. I saw that earlier.

It’s just a black circle with a red AMA on it. You definitely don’t remember installing anything like that. You disable your cellular and wireless signals and cautiously open it.

You see a standard app launching screen

Welcome to the Affection Multiplier App.

The words soon disappear and the screen goes black. Immediately a window pops up.

This is a gift. Please enjoy it!

It stays there for a few seconds then disappears and another one pops up.

We recommend reading through the glossary.

Read it? YES/NO

You raise your eyebrows. Well, aint that something? You think. Let’s see what this is all about. You figure you may as well. You tap yes.

Welcome. The Gift of the Affection Multiplier allows your relationships with people to build five times faster. It is an always-present gift, and will affect every aspect of your social life from now on. The Affection Multiplier App is a useful resource to check the progress of your relationships with people through the use of an intuitive scoring system. As your relationships improve, you earn points that you can use for various bonus features.

You skim the rest. It basically says that everyone’s affection for you can essentially be measured between -100 and 100 with negative obviously being bad, zero being absolutely neutral, and positive being, well, positive. In addition, relationships with a score of over 50 is very good and 100 means they’re your loyal companions and once it hits 100, it will not drop unless you do something incredibly stupid. It leaves it up to your imagination what that could be but you can guess. You’re not that socially dumb.

Right?

It continues on to say that it will track the scores of everyone you know and you only have to interact with someone after receiving the app to begin.

You frown at that. You know you noticed it when you called Tammy but…how long before that did it get on your phone? You’re not sure.

The last thing you notice is it doesn’t explicitly say so but implies that every major milestone will have bonus rewards of some kind. Kind of like leveling up in a game?? you guess. It also says that while its algorithm set up some initial categories for you, you can re-categorize the people however you want.

You get to the end of the glossary and another window pops up.

You are not connected to the internet. While it is not required for affection tracking, for best overall results an internet connection is recommended. Continue without internet? Yes/No

You tap the “Yes” button.

Offline mode enabled. OK

You tap again.

You see three icons on the screen. There’s the usual settings gear icon. There’s also an icon with a dark silhouette of a head and shoulders. That’s the Profile, you’re pretty sure. The last one is obviously folders. You tap on what you think is Profile.

Yep, it’s your profile. The first thing you see is your face.

But not just your face - it’s your face with the bus as the background. It’s literally you right at that moment and not just what your phone’s camera could have captured. You have to admit to being somewhat creeped out at that especially because it’s updating in real-time - you tested by moving your head back and forth and the image copied you.

Below that are two rows:

Personal Information +

Physical Information +

You grunt to yourself and back out of the profile, figuring you can explore it more later. You want to check out the folders so you click on that.

You see a menu with these options:

Superiors

Co-Workers

Friends

Family

You shrug and click on Superiors - maybe you’ll find out why you didn’t get promoted?

You see:

Helen Joy Hansen

Penelope Kayla Jones

Huh. You guess that means the app appeared on your phone either before or during the meeting.

You never knew that Mrs. Hansen’s name was Helen. As for her middle name of Joy - what a laugh. You’ve never seen her with so much as a sincere smile on her face. Not that you see her all that often.

You wonder what else it will tell you about her. You tap on her name and a window comes up. It has a picture of her sitting at her desk. You glance at your watch and see that it is only six - she’s probably still at work. Under that has some information:

Name: Helen Joy Hansen

Personal Information +

Affection Information +

Physical Information +

You tap on the + symbol next to Personal Information and see:

Personal Information -

• Age: 45
• Gender: Female
• Marriage Status: Widowed
• Children: 2

Interesting. You suppose that maybe her widowed status is why she is so dour? You tap on the + symbol next to Affection Information and see:

Affection Information -

• Affection: 4

Well, shit, you think. If this app is to be believed, you likely never had a chance at that promotion given that the owner doesn’t like you very much. At least it’s not negative.

You decide you don’t care about her physical information right now. Deciding to see what else you can tap on, you tap on the + symbol next to Personal Information again and then tap on the 2 next to Children to see if any more information appears.