51. Extraction
The wish was simple: to surmount our limited perspective and see. Soon, not an inch of earth was inaccessible to our perpetual telephoto gaze.
Still, the desire remained.
* * *
Sally, thirty-four, possessed of both married and maiden names, is presently situated in the backyard of the three-bedroom, two-bathroom bungalow that occupies her registered address (last sold eight years ago, price withheld from publicly accessible records, but cross-referenced with loan paperwork and the contents of the mortgage offset account, not too difficult to deduce). Sally has found it difficult to obtain permanent employment since returning to the workforce when her son Rory turned three. Perhaps this is why, despite visibly loathing the activity, Sally has taken it upon herself, on a weekday afternoon, to mow the lawn.
Her bucket-hat and flannelette-shirt-clad figure casts a long shadow. Strip by strip, the grass submits to the mower's blades.
Sally's search history is functional by day; by night, littered with lament. Nothing she's confident enough to phrase as a question.
Decline of passion in marriage.
Decline of passion in marriage how to fix.
Twice, always after midnight: divorce how calculate assets.
Once, coming home from ladies’ drinks in a taxi: will he ever love me again?
Mike, her husband, is purportedly at the office, but his car drove out at lunchtime. After taking a left at a circuitous road leading up the hill to a leafy suburb, he parked outside a house with a red roof, disembarked the car and let himself inside.
Miss Mooney, Rory's teacher, called in sick to work in the morning.
After cutting power to the mower and wheeling it inside the shed, Sally removes her bucket hat. She runs a flannelette sleeve across her forehead, shrugs the shirt off. Walks inside.
Power to the refrigerator increases, commensurate with the activation of the ice machine. Sally's sock-clad feet are registered walking past the camera of the smartwatch plugged into the power adaptor beneath the TV unit.
Sally emerges, perches at the deck's edge. She sips iced tea, gazes at a vegetable patch where the corpses of last year's tomato plants form a tangled, straw-like graveyard.
Sally rests her chin on a palm. Her gaze dissolves, dreamlike.
At 3:35 p.m., the message alert on the iPhone laid upon the kitchen bench chimes, starting Sally. She disappears inside.
While reading the email, Sally's expression morphs from neutral to agony.
At the beginning of the school year, all parents were invited to attend an evening web-conference entitled, Understanding Content Ingestion Assessment (CIA).
"That's Sigh-Ah," said the female presenter, the school's Strategic Growth Adviser. " We'd like to avoid calling it C-I-A – obviously, that name's already taken."
A cue for laughter that nobody accepts, because attendees were muted upon joining the feed.
It was a move toward greater certainty in assessment. It was an essential way to answer competing stakeholder demands. CCTV infrastructure was installed in schools as a protective security measure. It was now a simple matter of installing the requisite software, and allowing the myriad benefits to arrive.
For teachers, the score was an objective measure that would settle prospective disputes with students or parents.
For parents, notification of what has been achieved in the school day.
And for the children.
For Rory.
The iPhone camera registers Sally's eyes slowly close as her lips crumple. Her lids wrinkle, and the lashes wetly clump, before Sally draws backwards, outside the camera's field of vision.
The Bravia LCD Smart TV, on standby for a command, registers Sally sobbing, softly.
* * *
Sally says: “They're going to hold Rory back.”
This conversation happens within listening range of Mike's iPhone, Sally's iPhone, the Bravia LCD Smart TV, Sally's Apple Watch, Sally's MacBook and, owing to increased acoustic capacity following a new software update, the microphone headset plugged into Rory's PlayStation (even though the door is closed, and Rory's room is at the front of the house, down the hallway).
LiDAR scanning technology inside both iPhones uses infrared light pulses to map the interior contours of the living room.
While Sally is standing beside the table in the breakfast nook (long cleared of dishes from dinner for herself and Rory), Mike has his back to her, with his fingers upon his phone resting beside the microwave.
He does not look up.
“How come?”
“Why do you think? It's that CIA grade.” Sally pronounces it incorrectly. “We've talked about this. I've told you his score's been going down. It's been since May, as we've discussed. In May, he started acting out in class, for some reason–”
“And then we talked to him about the system, the expectations...You said he'd got better...”
“Well, that's not been the case today! Didn't you see? I forwarded you the email.”
The microwave beeps.
Mike retrieves his food, stirs it, blows on a forkful.
“Have you read it?”
Bowl in palm, Mike moves past the breakfast nook to take a seat on the sofa in the living area. He flicks on the television, playing the kid's channel. Mike opens the Kayo app, clicks into the rugby feed.
“Have you.”
“I haven't read the email, Sally. I must've missed it.”
“I can't believe–”
“But you've talked to Rory about it? What did Rory say?”
A beat.
“You haven't talked to Rory?”
Sally mutters something indistinct over the roar of the crowd on TV.
“You have to talk to him. Give the boy a chance to explain–”
Sally says something else, something that should be perceptible because the television's just been muted, but Mike raises his voice: “RORY!”
Although very recently deeply engaged in a consuming mission on Grand Theft Auto V, Rory pauses the game within moments.
“Rory, come out here. That's my boy. We need to talk about what's been going on in school.”
Rory approaches the living room with cautious steps. Caution; often wise. Unusual, when exercised so judiciously by a boy as young as Rory. Caution can express a tendency to lack trust. Or a guilty conscience.
An instinct toward caution is often acquired when one has something to hide.
Passing the threshold, he says: “What about what's been happening in school?”
Sally says, "You know you've been having problems with the–”
“Yeah, and you said I just had to sit up straighter and stare directly at the board and it would fix it. And it did! You told me to fix it and I did! And so the scores are fixed.”
“Yes, son, but what's happened today? Has something happened today? Because from what your mother's been saying–”
“Yes, tell us, Rory. Tell us what's been happening. Is it something to do with Miss Mooney? Is there something about her or the way she's been treating you, or any other impression you've been getting of her that–”
Mike says, with a note of exasperation: “It can't be; she wasn't–”
Then, abruptly, Mike falls silent.
Rory says: “Miss Mooney wasn't in school today.”
After a beat, Sally says: "Well, what happened? The score was very bad. Because of how things were earlier this year, they're saying the aggregate is bad enough to hold you down a grade–”
“But, I DON'T WANT TO STAY DOWN A GRADE! That's not fair! Mum!”
"Don't speak to me that way–”
“It's not my fault! You have to believe me! What happened today – it wasn't my fault!”
“But what happened?”
“You wouldn't understand!”
Rapid footsteps, toward a door that swiftly slams.
The scrape of a fork around a bowl.
A sigh. “I can't believe this Mike. I don't know what to do–”
"You heard the boy.”
“What?”
“He said it wasn't his fault.”
"Yes, but...Do you really think…?”
"It doesn't matter what we think, Sally, he's our son. We have to stick up for him. He says it wasn't his fault, and I believe him. He's got no one else. You need to make an appointment, to go and speak–”
“Here we go again. Why me? He's our son–”
“Yes, but I have work–”
“You're perfectly happy to go alone to parent-teacher nights!"
Another silence.
Sally's voice becomes lower. “Look, Mike, if you really believe him? If you really want to go and talk to the school about it, based on nothing but his word? Be my guest.”
"Sally–”
“I just can't do everything, anymore! Do you hear me?”
But she doesn't wait. The footsteps recede and Mike is alone with the silence, soon broken.
By the Bravia LCD Smart TV: “–and he's done it again! A goal!”
* * *
On the morning of the appointment Sally has booked for Mike to see the principal, Rory asks to stay home. He sounds congested and is running a slight fever, and Sally acquiesces.
At 10:08 a.m. she sends two text messages to Mike. They read:
Meeting at 4 pm today.
Remember please!
At 1:29 p.m., the messages remain unread.
After spending the morning applying for jobs, Sally is cleaning the refrigerator.
The smart meter registers an increase in power consumption because she has propped open the door. The Bravia LCD Smart TV registers increasingly desperate sighs, each desiccated carrot and mouldy cheese wedge extracted somehow reiterating that Sally is performing a labour that nobody sees. That, to Mike and Rory, it simply does not occur that a refrigerator might be anything but clean.
But Sally tries to reframe this fact as part and parcel of marital duty, as evidenced by her occasional muttering of the serenity prayer.
It is obvious that Sally is not thinking about Rory. She probably thinks that he is sleeping or playing GTA V on PlayStation.
However, since Mandatory Data Retention laws were passed on 26 May 2015, the household's Internet Service Provider has been required by law to register and store internet access metadata. The ISP and/or any of the over 80 security agencies allowed warrantless access to the data are therefore able to see that an IP address correlated to Sally's laptop is being used at this time to access a succession of websites.
Websites containing exposes on rare earth mining in Baotou, and conditions in electronics factories in Shenzhen. On copper extraction in Chile, and cobalt, washed clean by the hands of child labourers in muddy water in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Heavy plastics, distilled from crude oil, exported to factories in Taiwan to make circuit boards. Open cut mines in Uganda abandoned by corporations once resources have been exhausted, leaving toxic chemicals to leach into waterways as the roving eye of capital peruses the globe for the next destination of mineral abundance where a new front company can descend to begin the process again...
The Dyson is dead. Sally wrestles with a fused mass of cords in the laundry cupboard to find the correct lead. While it charges, she retrieves the wired vacuum cleaner.
The living room, hallway and bedroom are subjected to the device's deafening inhalations, Sally wielding the nozzle with an intensity that can only be deemed compensatory.
Device and cord in hand, she uses her hip to nudge open her study door and says, with surprise: “Rory?”
Beyond the perfunctory collection of information about the succession of websites Rory has been conjuring and viewing, more careful attention to the pattern of his search engine interaction betrays specificity about his intent. He is not merely interested in learning the facts and figures of child labour, its locations and quantities. Following the scouring of website results for each search term, the images tab has been clicked. Rory is not just interested in reading about child labour in overseas extractive industries. He wants to see it. The computer’s webcam ingests the pattern of his gaze through eyeball tracking technology. He is attentive to each image of the children. He examines their faces; he doesn’t turn away. It is as though he expects a future to arise where he may meet them on the street, wants to ensure he recognises them so he can greet them like a friend.
Upon interruption of this task, Rory turns away from the screen. It is impossible to say what his expression betrays, only that the typing on the keypad ceases.
Rory's Apple Watch's LiDAR system registers Sally moving closer.
“What are you...?”
“I've been researching.”
“You've been. Researching.”
Her voice has changed from surprised, to pleasantly so.
“And what are you researching?”
“What she told me to research.”
Sally’s voice changes: “Miss Mooney?”
Rory recoils. “No.” Tone like the suggestion is ridiculous. “Mu-um. The girl who appeared. In the classroom.”
“The girl... In the classroom?”
Rory sighs. Fiddling with his Apple Watch display, he says: "Yes. The girl who appeared in the classroom, the other day. She said–”
An iPhone ringtone chimes from the kitchen bench.
“Just a minute.”
Sally exits the room. From the kitchen, she says: “Hello?” There is a long pause, and she says: “He hasn't?” Then a shorter pause and she says, “Of course not. No, I can make it. I can be there in fifteen. That's okay? In fifteen? Thank you. See you soon.” Her footsteps, then her voice by the door: “I have to go to your school for a meeting.”
Rory says: “You should ask them about–”
But he is cut off by a yelled farewell before the door slams.
It is not a matter of rocket science to predict how Rory intended to finish the sentence.
It requires the same basic form of artificial intelligence used by search engine companies to autocomplete search terms.
Based upon the websites Rory has been visiting, it is statistically likely he would have ended the sentence in the following way: You should ask them about the exploitation of child workers to extract rare earth minerals to manufacture the CCTV infrastructure used by the Edu-Tude corporation with whom the school has a $5 million dollar contract to implement the Automated Content Ingestion Assessment Program.
Contrast this with the note scribbled in Rory's Very Secret Diary (whose contents are exposed to his iPhone every time he uses the iPhone torch to write in it at night).
A note that would seem to reference the classroom incident Rory attempted to articulate to his mother read simply: am I being exploited just like you.
Identification of the addressee would require information beyond the capability of the system to collect at this time.
But, be certain, there are many research and development teams engaged by global technology corporations, alongside defence-funded university laboratories, who are well on their way to producing such technologies, and there is no doubt that a corresponding consumer application will follow. Champagne is already chilling in certain executive-level suite fridges to celebrate the resulting increase to the bottom line.
* * *
Sally strangles the wheel. She surpasses the speed limit six times. Driver Distraction Detection Technology, latent but ready for activation in future updates, registers in Sally's furious expression a woman at the end of her tether.
Upon entering the car, Sally's iPhone has automatically connected with Apple CarPlay. A guitar-based song begins midway, part of an Acoustic Calm playlist on Spotify.
At a stoplight, Sally closes her eyes. The dash-cam affixed to the car in front registers a slight flare of her nostrils as she takes an exaggerated exhale.
The light goes green, simultaneous with the beginning of an advertisement: “Maxwell Divorce Lawyers – when the going gets tough, the tough won't get going – we'll be right by your side!”
Sally's eyes fly open. As her foot flattens the accelerator, she opens her mouth and screams.
Were Sally operating a personal computing device, perhaps we could achieve more accurate insight into her state of mind. Operation of personal computing devices while driving is prohibited by law. It is inconvenient to lack access to our protagonist at such a crucial moment. Perhaps once self-driving cars are widely accepted, this barrier will be overcome. The constant dance of interaction – the device offering and calibrating, the user responding, a process refined through data acquisition until symbiosis is achieved – will be interrupted only by the human body's requirement for sleep (patent pending on technology to overcome even that).
For now, a void.
Our desire. Her defiance.
The rear-view mirror camera of the car that pulls into the carpark of Moore Park Primary reflects set jaw and a pulsating forehead vein. It seems probable she's ready to blow it open: her husband, Miss Mooney – everything.
But the woman who nods at the receptionist she strides past in reception, making a beeline for the closed door with a hand pre-emptively raised, finds herself intercepted when the door, independently pulls open.
The principal, beckoning her inside, says: “Sally – I'd like to apologise for a mistake made.”
* * *
“Due to a number of factors: not least, continuing uncertainty in the global financial markets, augmenting traditional teaching with technology is unavoidable. We rely on class sizes to attain adequate funding, and our teachers would just be overwhelmed without the auxiliary tools...”
This is the strategy: flood them with information, hope it's too incomprehensible for further specifics.
“Owing to complexity, outcomes are calculated above and beyond our supervision. And that's proved reliable, you know, generally... Obviously, parents will want to discuss extenuating circumstances that might override – Well, it's beside the point, Sally, because I took advantage of the time surplus offered by your delay to take a look at the footage in question, and it's clear to see...”
A small CCTV camera ostensibly monitoring the display case behind the principal is equipped with a fisheye lens for what the merchant described as ‘360-degree-seeing’.
This lens identifies Sally as a warped figure, seated with her knees pressed together and the knuckles wrapped around the strap of the bag balanced on her knees turning very white.
The principal evidently finds her frozen posture discouraging, even hostile, so in lieu of continuing with the explanation, he simply spins the iMac screen to face her.
The iMac camera captures HD footage of her face: brows knitted together, premature frown lines creased.
The principal presses play.
The Edu-Tude Content Ingestion Assessment (CIA) System uses a proprietary algorithm. The algorithm’s specifics are outlined in several academic papers, whose surplus of jargon and data disguises a certain lack of sophistication. Students gain points for engagement based upon indicators such as facing the front and raising their hands. Behaviours such as lack of eye contact, lack of interaction, and a tendency to sit at the back of the room result in subtractions. This system, marketed directly to the federal Department of Education as a way to transition 'education-product consumers' to a ‘self-service model’ in the interest of building necessary life skills like entrepreneurship (and slashing wage expenses), has proved controversial, and more expensive than first claimed due to lifetime software updates. A proposal to legislate the sale of behavioural data to recoup costs is being considered by the Senate.
But this is background information not required to form an opinion on what the footage shows.
Sally leans in.
The classroom, a sea of desks, fills the rectangle on the screen.
She squints through the rows, seeking out one face – Rory's.
He’s seated at the back. He’s gnawing on a cuticle – but, per their discussions on successful classroom behaviours, he’s got his back straight and his eyes unblinking and dutifully glued to the front.
From where Sally’s sitting, it's like he's looking directly at her.
She sees no problem.
She glances at the principal.
His gaze remains on the screen.
Sally turns back, just in time to see–
Sudden commotion. Chairs push back as the children scramble to stand. A kid on the right nearly trips.
It is unclear what has prompted the chaos. Because of the orientation of the cameras, it appears the provocation occurred at the front of the classroom, the only space where the camera’s orientation cannot see.
The group part at the centre, with their eyes never leaving the presence they spin to face–
The image freezes.
“While Rory was the only student with a low-enough Sigh-Ah score to require notification, as you can see, everyone became distracted. I'm glad this has been brought to my attention.” The principal's jowls are trembling. “I've sent the footage for forensic analysis, to pick out the initiator. I'm told this could provide valuable research data for behavioural analysis and modelling. Rest assured, the incident will be thoroughly investigated–”
“Play it again.”
A classroom of awed faces, their eyes fixed upon that same point.
Sally stares, like she really believes there might be something there.
He calls through the door: "Marnie! Could you escort Sally–”
Softly, Sally says: “That's it.”
“What?”
But Sally refuses to say. She walks, trance-like, to the car.
But, when she gets there and enters, she appears strangely renewed or refreshed. It would be best if there were a way to force her to articulate her thoughts. Perhaps, a verbal assessment component to the algorithm that determines from facial expressions whether a driver is too fatigued to safely drive. A note is made for the engineers.
Sally keeps her secret.
But it is certain, one way or another, eventually her behaviour will betray her.
Whether she stays or goes, there’s money to be made.
Victoria Griffin is a writer and PhD candidate living and working on Kaurna land.