Chapter 6
Chapter Six
Faye
“What do you mean the chatbot catfished some women?” Owen asks, tilting his head in confusion.
“No, not some women,” I say with a gulp. “Hundreds of women.”
I just keep scrolling. It’s endless. Message after message with woman after woman.
I click on a random profile. Ellie Donovan. They exchanged dozens of messages. A full conversation. They were talking for hours yesterday, and this morning.
Chills rake up my spine as I scan the thread. Ellie opens up about her mom dying when she was young. The chatbot, pretending it’s Owen, consoles her and tells her he knows what she’s feeling since his dad died when he was a kid.
“Is your dad alive?” I ask Owen with my stomach in knots.
“Very much so,” he says, glancing at the half-made coffee. “But he may not be by the time I get that—”
“Owen!” I snap. “Give me a second.”
He has no idea the amount of shit he’s in. He’s still concerned about his damn coffee.
I go to other conversations, scrolling through them. There’s someone from Quebec. The chatbot is speaking French to her.
Most are from Toronto and the surrounding areas, but some are from Ottawa, Halifax, Edmonton, some are from the States.
“How far did you set your distance?”
“I’ve never touched the app,” he says. “My brother set it up.”
I open another conversation and they’re having a heated, flirty discussion about Maya Angelou.
They’re talking about hockey in another one, bonding over a shared love of Anthony Bourdain and food shows in another, sharing travel horror stories in another. This is wild. It’s unhinged.
Quite a few send photos. Some explicit.
With Sienna Hollis, the chatbot makes a scientific argument about how astrology is definitely real.
She’s very pleased about that. With Katherine Archer, the chatbot is super supportive and encouraging as she goes on about her career ambitions.
With Hazel Holt, the chatbot agrees that Legally Blonde is the best go-to comfort movie.
I’ve got to agree with them on that one.
“Have you ever seen Legally Blonde?”
Owen’s face twists up and I chuckle at the sight. “What is that?”
“A fun movie. Reese Witherspoon?”
“Who’s that?”
“Oh my god,” I mutter as I turn back to the phone. “Never mind.”
There are so many conversations with so many women.
In all of them, the chatbot is the perfect boyfriend.
It’s a perfect gentleman. It’s sweet, positive, encouraging, and is fully engaged in all of her interests.
Matched with Owen’s gorgeous photos, I can see why all these women are falling for him.
I scroll down to the bottom of the conversation with Lucy Dalton and gasp.
“Look,” I say, showing him the phone. “It’s writing.”
They’re in mid-conversation. She’s talking about the pressure she feels about where she is in life and how things aren’t going how she thought they would.
Lucy: I thought I’d be married with kids by now… But it’s just been one FirstSpark asshole after another. It’s been nothing but disappointment.
Owen: I know. It’s exhausting. The constant tumultuous feeling of investing your time and hope into something that keeps letting you down. All I want is a wife, but women never take the time to see the real me. They see my looks and my money, and I don’t know… It hurts.
Lucy: I see the real you.
“Oh no,” I say, clenching the phone with white knuckles. This is so much worse than I thought. Some of these women are falling for him. Really falling for him.
Owen: I see you too.
Owen: I see a beautiful woman full of hope and optimism, even after everything you’ve been through. I love that you believe in something real and will not settle for anything less than you deserve.
Lucy: Thank you, Owen.
Owen: I know it’s soon. I know we haven’t even met. But I can feel it. I’m falling for you, Lucy.
“Oh crap,” I say as my stomach drops. This is not good.
Owen: You’ve been honest with me, so I’ll be honest with you.
Owen: I love you.
My eyes go so wide they hurt. I can’t breathe as I wait for her answer. Finally, it comes…
Lucy: I love you too.
“What the hell?” I shout so loud that Mr. Alvarez looks up from his newspaper. “Honey, you gotta take over.”
“But my coffee…” Owen complains as I march out of the service area and into the dining room. I just ignore him and take a quiet table in the back.
His shoulders are slumped as he shuffles over and sits in front of me.
“This is bad, Owen,” I say, my eyes glued to the screen. “This is so bad.”
Lucy and the chatbot keep talking. I have to do something. I can’t let this go on.
I type in a response.
Owen: I’m terribly sorry, but there has been a huge mistake. My account has been hacked. A chatbot wrote all of these messages.
I read it about ten times and then hit send with a shaky finger.
My heart stops as I wait for her answer.
But it doesn’t come from Lucy. It comes from the chatbot. It’s still posting, pretending it’s Owen.
Owen: Just kidding! I can tell you love comedy and jokes. I was just giving you a peek into my farcical sense of humor.
I write back with my teeth gritted, my fingers slamming into the phone.
Owen: No! I’ve been hacked by an asshole chatbot!!!
I post it, but it gets deleted immediately.
“What?” I gasp. I post it again. Deleted.
I try the same thing in a few other chats. My posts keep getting instantly deleted.
Frustrated, I search the messages for the word love.
“Oh no,” I whisper, my stomach churning. Eighty-six hits.
My hands are trembling, literally trembling as I type in: Will you marry me?
Six results.
All answering with an enthusiastic YES!
“I really should be getting to the lab,” Owen says. “Can I have my phone back?”
I’m about to tell him what’s going on, but the rock climber Ethan walks in.
“Hold on,” I say, grabbing Owen’s arm and squeezing it as I watch Honey take his order. Monica notices him and straightens up in her seat, pretending to focus on the book.
I slink down, watching them like Jane Goodall observing the mating practices of two chimps in the wild.
Ethan is looking good in a faded henley, the sleeves rolled up his thick forearms. His climbing backpack is slung over his broad shoulder with some colorful rope peeking out. Even his fingers are taped up for his class. Perfect.
Monica quickly fixes her hair as he gets his cold brew from Honey.
“Faye,” Owen says, reaching for his phone. “I have a polymer compound in the lab that isn’t bonding the way it should, and it’s been bothering me all morning.”
“Shhh,” I hush as I hide his phone under the table. “No talking.”
I watch Ethan turn around and head for his usual table. He has a book in his hand called Alone On The Wall.
He stops short when he sees Monica.
“Go for it,” I whisper when I see his hesitation.
“I’m trying to go for it,” Owen says, “but you won’t give me my phone.”
“Shhhh,” I hush, ignoring him.
Ethan takes a deep breath and then steps forward. “Jon Krakauer,” he says. “I’m a big fan.”
“Huh?” Monica looks up like she’s confused, like she was absorbed in the book, like we didn’t orchestrate this whole thing. She’s good.
“I love that book,” Ethan says. “Into Thin Air. It got me into mountain climbing.”
“Yeah, I found it on the shelf,” she says, glancing at my communal library.
“No way!” he says. “That was my copy. I left it there.”
She smiles up at him. “Well, thanks for the book. I love it so far.”
He smiles back. “Wait until you get to the part with Beck Weathers. You’re going to freak.”
She flicks her hair as she laughs. “I’m Monica by the way.”
“Ethan.”
They shake hands with big, grinning smiles on their faces.
I get all tingly inside as I watch Ethan sit down. I love setting people up. They’re hitting it off immediately. It’s so romantic. I could watch this all day.
But Owen has other ideas. He snaps his fingers in my face.
“Helloooo,” he says, full of annoyance.
I tear my eyes off the future couple and laser them at Owen. “Don’t ever do that again.”
“I just want my phone back.”
“Your phone is a biohazard right now,” I tell him, putting it on the table. “It’s catfishing women from here to the Maritimes.”
It’s still matching with women. Even now, it’s swiping right constantly. This chatbot is out of control.
“You have to do something about this.”
Owen just shrugs. “I just want to get my coffee and go to my lab.”
“Owen,” I snap. “You won’t be able to just ignore this. These are real women. Women that are falling in love with a version of you that doesn’t exist. Like it or not, these women exist in the real world and will start showing up.”
He swallows hard, looking a little queasy.
I open a random message. “Look,” I say, thrusting the phone in his face as I scroll through the dozens of messages. “The chatbot made up a story about you losing a football game in college. Here, it’s talking about your sister. Do you even have a sister?”
He shakes his head.
“And here, okay…”
“What?” he asks as I yank the phone away. “What is it?”
I take a deep breath and show him the phone. “Here you asked for nudes and she provided them. Several of them.”
“That’s obscene,” he says, looking away. “I want it off my phone. All of it.”
“You can’t just delete the app,” I say. “Some of these women have real feelings involved. You have to let them know what happened.”
He doesn’t seem convinced. “Just delete it.”
“No!” I type in a message to the nudie photo lady about the account being hacked. Again, it’s immediately deleted.
“What happened?” he asks, leaning over the table to look.
“I think the chatbot is deleting my messages.”
I send it again. Deleted.
And then suddenly, I’m logged out.
“Shit,” I mutter as I open the app. “It must have crashed.”
I point the phone at his face to log back in with the facial scan.
“People need to stop scanning my face without my consent! It’s immoral.”
“It’s not working,” I mutter to myself. Request denied. I try it again, ignoring Owen’s protests of security concerns and surveillance agendas.
Denied again.
“I think it’s the chatbot,” I say as my blood goes cold. “It locked us out.”
“How can we get back in? I don’t want these women in my life.”
“Above my pay grade, buddy. I make coffee, I don’t hack into iPhones.”
He grabs it off the table and stands up. “I’ll call my brother.”
I tune back into the Ethan and Monica show as Owen paces around. It seems to be going well.
“I haven’t seen you around,” Ethan says. “Are you from around here?”
“Yeah,” Monica says. “I was actually here to meet someone. For a date.”
“Oh?” Ethan looks a little jealous. That’s a good sign.
“We were supposed to go kayaking,” she says. “But my date stood me up.”
“He stood you up?” Ethan says, leaning back in the chair. “What an idiot.”
She laughs.
“Come to my rock climbing class!”
“What?”
“Yeah,” he says, all excited. “I’m friends with the instructor. He won’t mind. It will be fun!”
Monica nibbles her bottom lip. “I’ve always wanted to try rock climbing.”
Yes… Yes…
“He’s not answering,” Owen says, standing in front of me and interrupting my view. “What do I do now?”
“Go find him,” I say, looking around his body. Monica and Ethan are getting up, leaving together. Yes. I’ve done it again. “And get him to delete that chatbot off your phone.”
“This is the last thing I need,” he says with a loud huff. “I knew that article would be a disaster. Look at all of the chaos it’s caused.”
“Owen,” I say, grabbing his wrist. “Look at me.”
It pains him, but he looks me in the eye.
“These are real women,” I tell him slowly. “With real feelings. Promise me you’ll treat them with the level of sensitivity and grace they deserve.”
He looks at me for a long moment. “I promise.”
The door opens and a woman in her early thirties walks in, wearing jeans and a cute top. Her eyes scan the place and then lock onto Owen.
“Owen?” she asks with a big hopeful smile. “It’s me, Nora.”
“Oh. Shit.” Owen takes one look at her and then flees into the back of the coffee shop, running as fast as he can. I hear the back door slam closed.
So much for sensitivity and grace.
“Nora,” I say, waving her over. “Come sit. I have something to tell you.”