Sy-ca-more.”
The news cameras panned back to Amos from the queue and a reporter held a microphone under his mouth to pick up his voice amidst the supportive roars. “There it is!” he yelled, no louder than necessary. “The people have spoken, and hope is stronger than fear.”
By the time the police arrived the queue had swelled. It was difficult to judge from ground-level, but the helicopter pictures of citizens congregating on Liberty Street in response to Amos’s spirited appeal showed the extent of his success and encouraged even more viewers to turn out for freedom. Those pictures would play across the country and the wider world throughout the day, cementing Sycamore’s position at the centre of everyone’s attention.
The store opened some 40 minutes late and the efficient seeding process began. There were eight doctors in eight booths, each working as quickly as they could. 24 consumers could be processed per minute — slightly less if they also required UltraLenses. A well-staffed counter ran around the store’s perimeter to handle payment and registration with minimal fuss; with over 60 service points, the store was designed for a day like this. Consumers received a numbered ticket to hand to their seeder and the seeder input the code to a tiny screen on their needle before proceeding.
Kurt watched the process with interest. There was beauty in its simplicity. Walk in, squeeze wrist, extend fingers. Seeded. One ear, other ear, have a nice day. Next please.
The Seeds for he and Amos had been pre-prepared so weren’t a true reflection of how the system operated. It was obvious now that consumers were being assigned a numerical code which was then linked to The Seed so that their personal data was loaded from the get-go. All they were asked for was their name and social security number. Sycamore already had a database on everyone; the code just told The Seed whose data to sync.
Minion only worked with social media data and not everyone was online. There had to be government cooperation. Kurt asked Amos whether his suspicions to that effect were well-founded and Amos told him that they were. “Yes there’s a database and yes we’re using it,” he said. “But without Minion’s algorithm, the data we’d be working with is nothing more than what you’d find on the chip inside a passport. Anyway, have you seen the queue from the sky?”
Kurt hadn’t, so Amos took him through a staff-only door and turned on an old-fashioned TV. It had six channels. The launch was on every one. Always a big story, suddenly The Seed was the only story.
Despite the rapidity of seeding, the queue continued to grow. By 10.30 it coiled around the city’s streets like a serpent, more hydra than snake. The aerial pictures were breathtaking but there was still no way of knowing how many people were outside. Kurt estimated that around 10,000 could be seeded before 6pm but there had to be double that on the street. Though Amos ensured him there was “a Seed for everyone,” time constraints meant that demand was going to outstrip supply for the day. As if The Seed needed a further publicity boost, it would appear scarce and difficult to obtain.
The protest; the queues; the limited launch; the brilliance of the concept… Kurt, Amos and Minion had danced for rain and brought forth a perfect storm.
The reporter for the station Amos and Kurt had tuned in to was walking the queue and interviewing its more interesting-looking members. There were babies in pushchairs and old men in wheelchairs, workers and lovers and hipsters and mothers. Everyone had their own reason for being there. The reporter moved towards the head of the queue, where people had obviously been waiting longest and hence would be most rabid in their anticipation. He settled at a teenage boy who looked a little like Julian.
“What are you most looking forward to with The Seed that’s brought you out so early this morning?” the reporter asked
The news cameras panned back to Amos from the queue and a reporter held a microphone under his mouth to pick up his voice amidst the supportive roars. “There it is!” he yelled, no louder than necessary. “The people have spoken, and hope is stronger than fear.”
By the time the police arrived the queue had swelled. It was difficult to judge from ground-level, but the helicopter pictures of citizens congregating on Liberty Street in response to Amos’s spirited appeal showed the extent of his success and encouraged even more viewers to turn out for freedom. Those pictures would play across the country and the wider world throughout the day, cementing Sycamore’s position at the centre of everyone’s attention.
The store opened some 40 minutes late and the efficient seeding process began. There were eight doctors in eight booths, each working as quickly as they could. 24 consumers could be processed per minute — slightly less if they also required UltraLenses. A well-staffed counter ran around the store’s perimeter to handle payment and registration with minimal fuss; with over 60 service points, the store was designed for a day like this. Consumers received a numbered ticket to hand to their seeder and the seeder input the code to a tiny screen on their needle before proceeding.
Kurt watched the process with interest. There was beauty in its simplicity. Walk in, squeeze wrist, extend fingers. Seeded. One ear, other ear, have a nice day. Next please.
The Seeds for he and Amos had been pre-prepared so weren’t a true reflection of how the system operated. It was obvious now that consumers were being assigned a numerical code which was then linked to The Seed so that their personal data was loaded from the get-go. All they were asked for was their name and social security number. Sycamore already had a database on everyone; the code just told The Seed whose data to sync.
Minion only worked with social media data and not everyone was online. There had to be government cooperation. Kurt asked Amos whether his suspicions to that effect were well-founded and Amos told him that they were. “Yes there’s a database and yes we’re using it,” he said. “But without Minion’s algorithm, the data we’d be working with is nothing more than what you’d find on the chip inside a passport. Anyway, have you seen the queue from the sky?”
Kurt hadn’t, so Amos took him through a staff-only door and turned on an old-fashioned TV. It had six channels. The launch was on every one. Always a big story, suddenly The Seed was the only story.
Despite the rapidity of seeding, the queue continued to grow. By 10.30 it coiled around the city’s streets like a serpent, more hydra than snake. The aerial pictures were breathtaking but there was still no way of knowing how many people were outside. Kurt estimated that around 10,000 could be seeded before 6pm but there had to be double that on the street. Though Amos ensured him there was “a Seed for everyone,” time constraints meant that demand was going to outstrip supply for the day. As if The Seed needed a further publicity boost, it would appear scarce and difficult to obtain.
The protest; the queues; the limited launch; the brilliance of the concept… Kurt, Amos and Minion had danced for rain and brought forth a perfect storm.
The reporter for the station Amos and Kurt had tuned in to was walking the queue and interviewing its more interesting-looking members. There were babies in pushchairs and old men in wheelchairs, workers and lovers and hipsters and mothers. Everyone had their own reason for being there. The reporter moved towards the head of the queue, where people had obviously been waiting longest and hence would be most rabid in their anticipation. He settled at a teenage boy who looked a little like Julian.
“What are you most looking forward to with The Seed that’s brought you out so early this morning?” the reporter asked
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