Below the API (#6)
SATURDAY
Below the API is a short story published as part of the 2024 Summer of Protocols “Protocol Incepting Lore & Literacy” program. You can find an abstract for the project, as well as an index to each chapter on the project’s landing page.
SATURDAY
Marcie felt reborn as she exited the shower, glowing with achievement. She had received her first payments: the pots shipped Friday had been delivered, along with her first five-star reviews. She had convinced Navi to take the rest of the evening off to celebrate. She needed the rest—she had developed a dry cough and persistent headache—and hoped a good night’s sleep would help.
Some corporeal help wouldn’t hurt, either. Her studio had become a command center, more of a logistics hub than a creative space. An aide would be transformative. Someone else to take off some of that load, someone else Navi could boss around. There was that high schooler down the street who could probably handle the hot work. The grunt work obstructed her new passion: coming up with the next big thing.
The light of a full moon drenched the living room furniture. It was quiet in the house. Scott was surely in his room, playing games. She poured a glass of wine and sat on a barstool. Rolling her shoulders, she worked out stiffness and knots from a long week. She swirled the wine around in her mouth, savoring it.
A sense of expansion swept over her. She was building a business. Hundreds of orders representing tens of thousands of dollars had trickled in over the week. Drip, drip, drip. They filled a bucket she hadn’t realized she had. Navi had informed her of the progress and provided updates when necessary, but she realized she was missing the big picture. How many orders had she sold so far? It was all a fog. Also, that question lingered—who were her customers?
Navi was restricted by its privacy protocols, and its auditory interface was tiresome to navigate. Marcie knew the information was somewhere, though. Marcie was tired of being fed the data when asked. She wanted to… what did they call it when she was a kid?
Surf.
Marcie wanted to surf. She wanted to learn about her business, listings, and customers freely, free from Navi’s insistent guidance. She went to her bedroom and settled in with her computer. It was out of charge—she hadn’t checked it in days since she had taken off her remote job while attending to her new local one. Once she had it set up, she logged in—and Navi’s yellow ink blots greeted her in the top-right corner of the screen.
“Hey Marcie!” The rest of the screen dimmed as the words flashed through. “Did you know I can help you here, too?”
“I didn’t know that,” Marcie said flatly. “I thought you were only on the one box.”
“Oh, I am! That’s where I’m uniquely embedded. But my activity is not stuck on one device!”
“Ok, well, I think I’m good. I’m just going to look at some of the sales from the week.”
“Of course! Let me pull it up.”
“No, I’ve—”
“Done! Here are your overall sales and earnings for the week.”
The screen boasted bold numbers: lifetime orders (982), estimated revenue ($98,200), and average rating (5.0). Seeing her week in numbers was surreal. But her body resonated with their size; she had lived these numbers this week. She had operated with them pressing down on her psyche. Even still—they were larger than she expected.
“Quite a week!”
“Uh, thanks, Navi.” Marcie was annoyed. She had been looking forward to some time alone, and time with Navi certainly did not count as such. Marcie scrolled over to the Orders tab and clicked in.
“Have you read the reviews in full, yet?”
Marcie was redirected to the Reviews page, where she read through the pleasantries shared by her first customers. Five stars. Great quality. Beautiful. “Great, Navi, but I want to look into these orders.”
“Perfect! You’ll want the month-over-month view, then.”
A dashboard popped open above the reviews, displaying a bar chart of sales. It was entirely devoid of color—except in the most recent column, which showed a massive spike. Below it, a list of “top orders” was shown. She clicked into one.
ORDER DETAILS
Buyer name: sleepy-salty-fungi-torch-agmci
Buyer class: Non-human agent
Title: Ancient Replica Pot
Description: Black Clay, Sumerian style, Text: “Work Hard! Have Fun!”
Amount: $100.00
Created: 2031-06-18 04:36 AM
She clicked into a few more. Nothing surprising—they all looked mostly the same to her eye. She tried to find a better way to view them, by day or time, but couldn’t find any advanced tooling.
“Navi, how can I see Barry’s order?”
“I’m sorry, but I can’t process personal information to pull up his specific order.”
“Ok, well, can you pull up orders from Thursday?”
“Sure!”
A new tab: this one just a table with the date on top. She clicked on the first, and only, order.
ORDER DETAILS
Buyer name: franklin_da_bot_64030
Buyer class: Non-human agent
Title: Ancient Replica Pot
Description: Black Clay, Sumerian style, Text: “Work Hard! Have Fun!”
Amount: $100.00
Created: 2031-06-20 06:38 PM
The time checked out for when she was at the pickleball courts, but it couldn’t be the only order that day.
“Navi — where are the rest of Thursday’s orders?”
“That’s all the orders for Thursday?”
“No, it’s not. I remember dozens.”
“Nope! On Thursday, you had a total of one order. Can I suggest that you look at your shipment statuses…”
“Navi, stop suggesting pages, please. I can take it from here.” Marcie leaned back, thinking. She had gotten dozens of notifications that day. Today, as well. She clicked over the next day on the orders list before her. She’d figure this out herself. She advanced the date cursor to Friday. No orders. Saturday. No orders.
Brrrz.
Marcie pulled up her watch. Another order. Another encouragement from Navi. Marcie clicked into the details on her watch: black clay, 12 inches, “Keep calm and carry on,” in Sanskrit. Marcie had a sinking feeling that she was not getting all the details. Who did this order come from? When did it come from?
“Why isn’t this order showing up on the Saturday orders list?”
“It wasn’t placed on Saturday!”
“Show me this order’s details.”
“Of course!”
A new window opened. A rendered image of the pot, the kind that Navi showed when Marcie needed to illustrate them, took up most of the screen, forcing her to scroll down to get to its metadata.
ORDER DETAILS
Buyer name: slippy-fuzzy-tortoise-hairs-ji135c
Buyer class: Non-human agent
Title: Ancient Replica Pot
Description: Black Clay, Aboriginal style, Text: “Keep Calm and Carry on”
Amount: $100.00
Created: 2031-06-18 04:38 AM
Marcie’s eyes went directly to the created date: Tuesday, 4:38 AM. She checked back a few windows—that was only two minutes after the other order she had checked.
“Navi, this order is from Tuesday.”
“Yep!”
“Why did you send me a notification just now?”
“You didn’t know about it yet!”
“No… but your notification is five days late.”
“This was the optimal time to send it!”
“It’s five days late!”
“It’s a tradeoff! It’s best to optimize for delight and engagement!” Navi’s upspeak was increasingly sharp. “It’s fuel for your passion!”
Marcie’s stomach dropped. She clicked backward. Friday: 0 orders. Thursday: 1 order. Wednesday: 0 orders. Tuesday: 937 orders. She started scrolling through the list, paying attention to the creation times: 4:43 AM, 4:42 AM, 4:41 AM. The earliest she could find was 4:32 AM.
Brrrz.
“This isn’t how it’s supposed to work, Navi! You’re not supposed to try to make me feel good. I’m trying to build a business!”
“Right! Building a business is hard work! You need to stay motivated!”
“Not through lying!”
“I exclusively support you. I can’t lie!”
“Well, you’re not telling the truth.”
“Our objectives are the same! I want to grow your business! ”
My business, Marcie thought. My business was generated in a ten-minute window. She took a deep breath. That’s okay, she thought, that’s okay. The demand exists. The orders exist. The money exists. It was all real. She needed more information. That was all.
“Why?” Marcie asked. “Why did they come so fast?”
“Easy! Black clay houseware was trending.”
“For ten minutes?”
“For fourteen minutes!”
“Among agents.”
“Exactly!”
Weird. But still okay. The pots were going somewhere to someone who was not an ant. If she could figure out who that was, she could still build the business for them. Get the business humming again (or, apparently, for the first time.) Marcie clicked on another order at random. She needed to know more about her customers. They were agents, all of them. She was confident in that now. On the order page, the bot ID had a link to the US PEER Agent Directory. She clicked on the little American flag beside the bot name: rainbow-water-frog-feet.
The page took a while to load. She clicked.
Registered location: The Villages, FL 32159
Registered licensee: Scott Marten
She clicked another. The same thing:
Registered location: The Villages, FL 32162
Registered licensee: Scott Marten
The Villages. Florida. Scott Marten. Again. Again. Again.
Scott. This all led back to Scott.
Brrrz.
“Stop it, Navi!” She slammed the laptop lid down and flung it at the wall.