A Lost Art

June 2043.

The City of London.

Mike was tense, because he didn’t have very much work to do today. And these days, that meant assuming you’d soon lose your job.

“You’ll be there tonight, right?” It was made worse by his colleague’s incessant, inane questions. “It’s two for one tacos tonight.”

“Of course,” Mike said. “As always.”

Jason nodded expectantly. And then he lingered.

Mike cleared his throat, gesturing toward his computer.

“Ah okay,” Jason said. “Right, see you tonight.”

His workload had, in fact, dropped quite significantly since lunch. It had most days in the past few weeks. It was welcome at first—who doesn’t like a bit of downtime on the company dime—but that had since shifted to a listlessness and finally to a welling panic. It wouldn’t be lost on the company that so much of Mike’s, and apparently Jason’s, time was being spent on so many things other than graphic design. “If it’s a lost art, we’ve found it” he muttered to himself, parroting one of the company’s many go-to lines when closing a deal. “People can always tell something was made by a machine,” he’d had to hear his manager say dozens of times. He straightened up the various bits on his desk and looked back at the clock, thinking about half price tacos.

The walk out of the office usually lifted him out of these funks. The chipper nods to his colleagues, the line of people already headed for the lifts, the literal “hall of fame” where their many past triumphs hung. While HumanTouch was technically a recent addition to the graphic design landscape, they claimed a pedigree going back hundreds of years, to a once-legendary, now-forgotten advertising agency. The owners felt this lent an extra oomph to their pitches, and thus lined the walls with prints of some of their more famous work. Of course, literally no one at the company had worked on any of these, but British firms loved making dubious claims to lineage, so it wasn’t met with much scepticism and was seen as expected or even charming.

Being in the middle of London they had a lot of after-work options, and being creatures of habit, they always chose the same one. A shabby-chic bar just a few minutes’ walk had essentially become their private pub every Thursday for the past couple years. They’d sort-of inherited it when the last group of corporate regulars were advised by their management that they weren’t allowed to hang out there anymore.

“Too big a risk they said. Imagine, drinking here being a risk?” The bartender was happy to tell this story as often as you liked. “Too many reporters. Too many protesters. I didn’t make ‘em all wear their work badges when they’d come in. They did that to brag, I think. Anyway, their company built ‘em a bar right in the office.”

Jason nursed his pint and shook his head. “Shame. Bet they can’t pour a Guinness for shit in there. Company bar. Imagine having the money for it, anyway.”

The bartender shook his head in return. “As if they have bartenders at all. Just the machines, push a button, pours it for you.”

Mike grimaced. He stood at the bar empty-handed, staring at nothing in particular.

“You with us, Mike?” Jason smacked him on the shoulder. “Did they send you all the work I was apparently too shit to do?”

“I’m just worried,” Mike said as he gestured to the taps. “We’ve not had much work through either this week. Me, or anyone around me. You can see us all milling around the kitchen by 2:30, fuck all to do.” A pint slammed down on the bar in front of him.

“Suck it up mate, at least you’ve got a job.” The bartender nodded up toward the television, to some ongoing story the BBC had been covering wall-to-wall all day. Some major firm had just announced another 45,000 redundancies. The UK Government claimed to be absolutely livid, but admitted that given recent legislation, there was nothing to be done. The whole story was given an odd tone by the lilt in the presenter’s voice and the warm smile on their face. This wasn’t their fault, of course — human news presenters had started being phased out last month on the BBC — but hopefully some producer had noticed and would correct the tone to be appropriately sombre before the story went out again.

Or maybe they’d all just gotten so used to it that it really was better to be amused than angry.

Jason, per usual, tried to cheer everyone up. “So? So? How’d it go?” He patted Mike on the back and looked around at everyone. “My man’s been back on the apps, yeah?” Mike grimaced and stared even harder at the TV, hoping this might be about him, rather than involving him. No such luck, though. He felt the expectant eyes of his co-workers, all ready for gossip and relieved not to be asked to speak.

“Honestly, I’ve not gotten a single date. From any of them. Just chat, chat, chat. It’s good banter, but they’ve just never got time. Dating in the city, you know. Everyone’s busy.”

Jason shook his head. “Let’s see it, come on, let’s see what we’re working with.” Knowing there was no way around it, Mike willingly entered the hell that would ensue, unlocking his phone and handing it to Jason.

“I do like her,” he said as he pointed out one match in particular, a woman named Gemma. “I’ve mostly been focused on her.” Jason leaned in, studying the situation. He tapped and swiped. A smile crept across his face.

“Michael. I dare not tell our assembled colleagues what I’ve seen here.” He put his arm around Mike, any warmth tempered by the severe public embarrassment sure to come next. “Mike,” he whispered. “This is not a real person.”

Mike chuckled awkwardly. “No, heh, no, first of all, no. It says verified on the profile. And when we chat it says it’s a real person. And we talk for hours, we talked all night practically the other night.”

Jason sucked air through his teeth then pursed his lips. He scrolled through that night’s conversations, a proper slalom through arts, culture, favourite Indian places in Central, favourite cocktail bars in Shoreditch (a trick, as they both hate it there), far too many forced quotes from a book they both like, and finally a failed attempt to make plans — with a gentle assurance that Mike should try again next week. “Mike, this isn’t her. Listen. I’m not saying there’s no Gemma, you just haven’t made it past her bot.”

“But it tells you if it’s the, um, bot. Agent. Right?” Mike timidly sipped his pint between sentences. “It literally says right at the top there.” Jason turned him away from their other colleagues for a bit of privacy.

“That’s so easy to get around,” Jason said with severe disappointment, almost pity. “Everyone gets around that. Takes two minutes. Mate, we’ve gotta work on this. I can’t have you sitting around alone every night chatting with some girl’s chat bot.”

Mike sipped his drink in defeat as Jason scrolled past several chats that all ended in some semblance of the same way, snapping his fingers and pointing when he’d spot “another one.” All different messages of course, but a recognisable pattern to them, and all saying the same thing — let’s not meet up, but let’s keep chatting. This was the way it worked now, Jason explained. The dating apps all let you have a sort of virtual agent that chats on your behalf, and if the person on the other end ticks enough of the right boxes, it lets them through to the “you.” It knows your schedule, so it can even set up the date. You, as the suitor, know you’ve been properly vetted. And they get back loads of free time, with dates populating their calendar on a regular basis.

Mike’s stomach went sour. He met his ex-wife Elizabeth at a cocktail bar in Cambridge while he was up there doing some courses at the university. Like some sort of Neanderthal. And Elizabeth would’ve chosen now to sneer, mock and rant about the very notion. He felt a twinge as he pictured her and his mood went through the floor. And vulnerability wasn’t something he was comfortable showing in front of the lads. He muttered something about needing the toilet, then slipped out the pub and down the street to the Underground station.

HumanTouch had a four-day work week, so now he just found himself at home with nothing on until Monday. Usually he’d appreciate more time to himself, but now he felt off. He almost wished he had work tomorrow, just to get him out of the house and away from his own thoughts.

He poured himself a double whisky, his mind spinning like a top. Intrusive thoughts weren’t the only reason he wanted to go to work, right? He liked what he did. He was proud of it, and of the company. As much as it was a gimmick he also appreciated where the owners were coming from: refusing to use AI, having people on staff like himself who actually drew, designed, laid out graphics. Advertisements, book covers, leaflets, they had to be one of the only places left in the city where a human did any of this unassisted.

Collapsing into the sofa he thought more about book covers, having spent his morning making one. For yet another book by some rabble-rousers railing against the scourge of automation. It made him roll his eyes, every time, but he knew what they wanted. And of course, they couldn’t possibly use an AI-generated cover for such a book. He made advertisements too, but half of them were for protests, or rallies, marches from Trafalgar Square to Downing Street, angry about the latest employment reforms or jobs programmes. And the flyers and leaflets, to be handed out at said protests, rallies and marches.

Now it occurred to Mike that his working hours were spent drawing up bullshit for delusional people who couldn’t get their heads around a changing world. Elizabeth must’ve wished on a monkey’s paw. He hoped something tragic had befallen her as a result.

The next morning Mike popped awake suddenly, having forgotten any sort of alarm. The flat was drenched in sun and Mike was drenched in sweat. It was quarter past 10 in the morning. Drool ran down his creased, stubbled face. Presumably none of this was what the inventor of the 4-day work week had in mind. He should be up early doing some sort of life admin, getting breakfast, pursuing a passion, or just not being hungover.

A half-dozen messages had come through on Linkup, though. Now that he’d been told, he could easily see there was a pattern to them. Clearly all automatically generated. They’d all arrived in a seemingly-organic way, but the first one was at exactly 8 a.m. Unbelievable. Staggered to appear they were real. Jason had ruined dating apps for him. He made a mental note to look for videos or something that might help him get better at getting past these virtual agents and to the real person underneath. He couldn’t give up this easily. This was how it worked now. The new normal.

He stared around his flat, which was an absolute tip, and wished he had a hobby. He lived a pretty small life, and his “chores” such as they were surely didn’t take an extra day to handle. He’d have all this picked up in an hour. If he wanted. Which he didn’t. Without letting himself spiral too much, this line of thinking usually led him to walk. And today was no different.

On days like this he enjoyed walking the “capital C City,” as in the City of London. A square mile of banks, bars, barristers and almost no housing whatsoever. It had always been a ghost town on weekends, but with the move to 4-day weeks at so many firms, combined with the ‘streamlining’ of staff pretty much everywhere, it was a beautiful place to just walk around and think. Massive, glittering glass towers, lined with relatively ancient architecture, all weirdly empty, frozen in time, the set of some dystopian thriller.

And so he walked. Down the Strand, past the Cheshire Cheese, all the blue plaques noting the birthplaces of forgotten artists, or benches where some guitar player sat. Past towering brutalist blocks, past millions of pounds worth of vacant offices and shops. He avoided the encampment around the old Mansion House Station by dodging down an alley. He picked his way through police barriers near Covent Garden. A normal person might grab their phone and look up why Covent Garden was closed now. But he ignored it and found himself instead meandering toward Trafalgar Square.

The sounds of the protest drums and the megaphones, the growing din of the crowd, will either pique your curiosity or send you briskly toward the nearest Tube stop, depending on what kind of London day you’re looking to have. And Mike couldn’t really help himself today. His legs took him right to the trailing edge of a rally.

Before he could find any signage accessible enough for him to understand the cause, someone was thrusting a leaflet into his hand. She looked him square in the eye and said something or other. He took off his headphones. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Did you register? We have a sign making station just over here—” Her voice was practised but with an awkward edge to it.

“Oh, I’m not, I’m just browsing,” he stammered like a person might when they’ve been walking for four hours. She laughed and nodded, pivoting back to sorta-face the stage and sorta-watch for more new arrivals. He looked down at the leaflet in his hand and stared. It looked familiar...

URGENT! RALLY TO STOP MAGENTA! DEMAND OUR GOVERNMENT HOLD THEM TO ACCOUNT! TRAFALGAR SQUARE TO DOWNING STREET — RALLY 1400, MARCH 1500

It had that retro Shepherd Fairy pop art styling, with the Trafalgar Square monument silhouetted, some crowds, a fist, and the Magenta logo. It wasn’t the most inspiring design, but it worked. “Oh.” He moved his thumb from the corner and saw his tiny initials hidden in the background. “Hey, I designed this,” he said to nobody. The girl who’d greeted him fairly assumed that was for her.

“You what?”

“Oh, I designed this flyer. I mean, just for my work. I draw flyers.” He flashed an eye-bugged grimace and raised the flyer. She gave him a knowing nod.

“Ohhhhh, you’re at HumanTouch. A load of you have already come through, mostly toward the front I think.”

“Not sure what you mean?”

“Uh huh.” She laughed, but he must’ve looked quite confused, because she straightened right up. “Oh, you’re serious. I just assumed you knew, dude! Magenta acquired HumanTouch, first thing this morning.”

He felt a wave of numbness wash over him. Surely he didn’t just learn this news from a stranger on the street. “I didn’t work today. I’m on a four-day week.”

She turned her phone toward him, showing the news story, a pitying look on her face. “I think you’re on a no day week, dude.” He looked at her phone, an older model with a blurry screen and a crack down the middle. His eyes kept scanning the device itself, not looking at what she was actually trying to show him. His legs felt like rubber.

Phones. His had been on silent, and he had definitely felt some notifications earlier, but hadn’t checked them. He looked around, patting his pocket, feeling that his phone was still in there. The drums from the protest sounded so loud.

He rubbed his hands up and down his thighs, feeling the texture of the denim.

The girl continued trying to get his attention. He wasn’t sure what she wanted, so he just did his best to smile and nod at her. The denim, he kept thinking, and kept rubbing his hands across it, but then worried he looked quite odd.

He looked around sharply, all around. He felt the girl’s hands on his shoulders, but he still went hard to ground.

He couldn’t catch his breath.

His heart raced, pounded.

He pushed his hands across the cobblestone.

The crowd was impossibly loud, and he couldn’t catch his breath.