Artania could sense the stares stabbing her from all directions. She pretended not to notice them, looking directly forward, even though people could not see her eyes. She switched off the transparency of her augmented-reality glasses, so all the others could see was the black, curved glass hugging the upper half of her face. She stayed straight, perhaps a bit too tense, on the grippy surface of her electric hoverboard, commanding it to move forward by a deliberate tilt of her feet.
The hoverboard was the reason people were staring at her. It was a relic of the past – one of the early versions of the electric mobility devices that exploded in popularity about a decade ago and that were hopelessly obsolete now, in 2034. Here, on a cobbled street of Montmartre, among a dense crowd filled with the most advanced personal transportation contraptions imaginable, Artania’s board was as out-of-place as a horse carriage in a showroom full of luxury concept cars.
Paris was the point of convergence of the new avant-gardists, who were extremely attuned to the latest developments in technology and art. The history has come full circle in Montmartre, which once again, as in the end of the XIX century, has become home to the revolutionaries of the art world.
Coming here took all the courage Artania could muster. Her dream, and the reason for coming to Paris, was to join the famously secretive Bureau for Art and Technology Affairs – an arm of the INTERPOL that dealt with art-related crimes. She didn’t really have a plan of how to do it. As everyone else, she knew that the Bureau’s headquarters were in Paris, and that she couldn’t apply on her own initiative. Hopefully, they would approach her if they thought that she had what it took to work for them. It was also a common perception, perhaps cultivated by the Bureau itself, that what they demanded of their recruits was a rare blend of analytical and artistic skills, some would even say, talent. One had to assume that all the Bureau’s agents also had above-average athletic abilities, but that was an easily satisfied requirement – there were many young men and women, who could hit hard and run fast. Presumably, the Bureau would teach them to shoot straight too. Such was the image of an elite warrior of the New Renaissance era, and to become one was what Artania wanted most of all.
Getting recruited by the Bureau was Artania’s all-consuming goal. She dedicated the last decade of her twenty-two years to forging herself into the image of the Bureau’s agent, which she created in her imagination. The bar that she set for herself was high. Considering that she didn’t know where the real bar was, aiming high was a reasonable idea. She decided that she would have to establish herself as a leading force in both the art and the tech worlds. In fact, she would have to be so undeniably strong in these spheres that nobody, including the Bureau, would be able to ignore her.
The tech part was relatively easy. Artania always knew that any mathematical puzzle or a piece of code would eventually unravel if she kept patiently turning it in her mind and poking at it from different directions, never releasing from the firm grip of logic.
Art was trickier. She did have true passion for it from the earliest years, and through countless hours of doodling, painting, taking photos with various cameras and experimenting with graphics software, she developed some formidable skills. But who was to say if she had real talent? Sure, parents, friends and teachers always praised her as an artist, but she mostly dismissed their praise, attributing it to kindness. In order to be noticed by the Bureau, she would need to truly embody the artistic power. She needed to have style. And style wasn’t possible to acquire by hours of hacking, as one would do with a piece of computer code or a golf swing. It was even less possible to fake it.
And Artania did feel like a fake right now. She was obviously failing the test. She was not fitting in with this techno-artistic elite.
*
The crowd was filled with the latest tech, mostly gadgets for creating images, holograms and for interacting with virtual reality. There was also abundance of electric skateboards, motorized footwear and scooters. The reason that the contemptuous glances at Artania’s hoverboard did not escalate into open mockery was the impressively large and tough-looking backpack on her back. Purpose-built for carrying video gear, the bag was clearly state-of-the-art, and one could reasonably assume that it contained state-of-the-art equipment. Artania’s clothes, backpack, as well as her virtual ID that was visible to anyone with an augmented-reality eyewear (probably everyone in the crowd) did not contain any indication that she was affiliated with a large design firm. While she certainly didn’t look like a high-flying Parisian artist or agent, that didn’t mean that she couldn’t turn out to be a pro.
“You see, these provincial dilettantes, who come to concur the big city – they are hardly better than amateurs. It’s a pity, really. They watch a few clickbait videos on the Net and think they are the new van Gogh. The truth is, they don’t have resources even to buy decent gear. And the gear is practically all that matters these days.”
There was a pause.
“See this girl, for example,” continued the calm women’s voice. “One look at the contraption she is riding on, and you can figure her entire résumé.”
“This device would be even curios if it wouldn’t be so sad,” added the woman. “I’d offer to buy it from her to display with other antiques in my studio, but this would probably deprive her of her only means of transport.”
Artania heard this monologue in crystal-clear, digitally-enhanced sound through her active headphones, which were barely visible in her ears and could be mistaken for minimalistic jewelry. She blushed, but continued staring forward. The woman’s words echoed her fear: she was a fake, she had no business being here. She heard her pulse in her ears.
Gradually, on the back of Artania’s mind, another thought began to stir. It was something her mother told her after a long hug, before Artania boarded a supersonic flight to Paris: “Don’t let anyone tell you what you are worth as a person. You’ve worked very hard. You have great skills and a great heart. Nobody can take that away from you.”
An orange arrow in the corner of her head-up display indicated the direction, from which the women’s remark came from. There was no pretending that she didn’t hear it.
Artania pressed on her right heel, simultaneously pushing her left toes down, abruptly spinning her hoverboard towards the woman’s voice and flicking the transparency of her glasses on with a wrist gesture. She found herself staring, point-blank, at a tall, brown-haired woman in her thirties. The lady was casually resting her elbow on the handlebars of the latest-model German self-balancing scooter. Besides the beautiful machine, Artania noticed that she had only a single piece of tech. It was a thin, transparent tablet computer, which the lady carried on a metallic chord slung over one shoulder, like a handbag. The tablet looked understated. It had several tiny camera lenses located along the edges, and its screen was displaying a slowly-rotating abstract 3D model that matched the colour of the woman’s eyes and that of her long, floating jacket. The tablet was a truly impressive device, which Artania immediately noticed – an organically grown computer, likely with enormous computational power for its size.
Artania’s sudden pirouette and piercing stare apparently had no effect on the woman, who continued talking to her companion, a slim young man in a leather outfit, straddling an electric motorbike. The man had his helmet on, and the upper half of his face was covered by a black visor.
“This kind of board was all the rage years ago, before the AI. I am surprised the battery is still working,” – the lady pointed on Artania’s board with her eyes.
“Excuse me, I couldn’t help overhearing that you were making fun of me behind my back,” – Artania’s voice was slightly high with indignation.
“Curious, isn’t it, that people don’t get what it takes to compete in the tech world these days,” continued the lady.
Artania’s head-up display showed that her heart rate increased. She felt insulted, but strangely, the self-doubt that was consuming her moments ago was gone. She was confident that the woman was wrong. Artania did know the importance of high-tech tools in her trade. And she was confident that the gear she had in her backpack could give the woman’s fancy tablet a run for its money. She inched even closer on her board.
“Madame, why do you think you can make fun of me and make assumptions of my tech literacy?”
The woman turned to look directly at Artania and said, after a pause: “I wasn’t making fun of you, young lady. I was making fun of the board you are riding on.” She released Artania from her gaze and turned again to her companion.
Artania stepped off the board, pulled one arm from the strap and swung the backpack to the front of her body. Holding it horizontally across her chest, she touched the quick-access panel. It flashed her monogram, “A”, as an indication that her biometrics were recognized. The zipper illuminated around the perimeter and opened with a muted beep. She pulled out a thin rectangular box made of chitin, which immediately transformed in her hands. The organic exo-skeleton retracted, revealing a sensor of a lensless camera. Artania’s fingers reflexively found the shutter button.
“Would you like me to take your friend’s portrait? You can compare it with the pictures you take with your tablet and decide if it might be overdue for an upgrade.”
The woman’s eyes scanned Artania’s camera, slightly worried look momentarily flashing across her face.
The thin man leaned slightly toward her and said in a low tone: “Madame, I will take my leave now, before people start taking photos of us.” With that, he put his hands on the handlebars of the bike, which came to life with a low hum of the powerful electric motor.
The woman nodded and turned to Artania.
“I can see that you’ve just arrived here and are eager to make a name for yourself. But because you apparently don’t know who I am, I’ll give you a piece of advice: spend some time studying the field you are planning to enter before barging in.”
The woman stepped onto her scooter, which immediately whisked her away through the crowd, leaning nimbly into the turns.
*
Artania remained there for moment. She felt good for standing up for herself, but her self-doubt was starting to flood back. “She is probably right,” Artania thought. “What was I thinking – coming here to joint the Bureau, without knowing even whom to talk to and what to say? Besides, it all might be coming down to having the latest gadgets and computing power after all. With the AIs capable of writing code and generating art, who really needs humans anymore?”
She slowly folded the camera back into its shell and stowed it into the backpack, closing it with a touch of her finger. The bag beeped, flashed her initial again, and Artania swung it back over her shoulders.
She didn’t notice that a sheet of paper slid out of the backpack and landed on the cobbled sidewalk.
Artania picked up her heavy, nearly-discharged hoverboard under her arm and started walking down the hill. She wasn’t going to give up that easily. Tomorrow will be another day that might bring better luck.
*
As Artania was rounding the corner of the narrow street, a middle-aged man with closely-cropped gray hair and rimless AR glasses stepped out of the crowed and picked up the sheet dropped by Artania.
It was a pen-and-ink sketch of Parisian rooftops that Artania made on the first evening of her arrival as a part of her daily practice to hone her observation and drafting skills.
The man looked at the sketch for a long time. The pattern of the ink lines led his eyes into the page. Subtle details in the treatment of perspective – deliberate deviations from the strict rules of nature – made him subconsciously aware that it was not an AI-generated image. The composition reminded him of the compressed perspective effect of old-school telephoto lenses. Despite the startling boldness of the composition and the roughness of the penwork, the image was incredibly balanced. It was imbued with the inner strength that difficult to define, but which was undeniable. It was the same kind of boldness that he just witnessed in the girl, who confronted the leader of the largest international art crime organization – the woman he has been tracking.
The man turned the paper over and back, looking for the signature, and finally found the initials concealed among the pen strokes at the bottom of the image: “AO”. Not much, but not a problem – he will find her. The man smiled. It turned out to be a good day after all. This young lady couldn’t have left him with a better résumé even if she wanted to. She was just the right type that he was looking for: good eye, sharp technique, knowledge of the craft,.. and something else that was difficult to put into words, but that was shouting from the paper he held in his hand. Talent.
The man pulled a thin folder from his leather shoulder bag and carefully slipped the sketch into it. He sealed the folder with a gesture of his index finger. It beeped, indicating the lock activation, and its cover briefly flashed a logo consisting of a globe, scales, olive branches and a sword, with the text below in pale blue letters: “Bureau for Art and Technology Affairs”.
