The Likeability Problem by Kirsten Smith

Three months to Election Day

“Mazie Tanner has a real likability issue to contend with,” said the slick, over-Botoxed TV pundit. “Folks just aren’t that into her. Polls show her earning a paltry thirty-two percent if the election were held today. That’s no bueno in a gubernatorial race against Robert ‘Mr. Charisma’ Sturgill, who’s got well over sixty percent. Now, if the lady tried smiling once in a blue moon—”

I pursed my lips and batted away the phone playing the clip, along with the hand that gripped it, belonging to my young perma-hovering media director. 

“Prisha, now is not the time! Jesus. Use your head.”

The girl shrunk back, but only by half a step. 

As I waited to be called to the debate stage, my armpits were creating their own weather system inside my pink silk blouse and black blazer, and I wagged my elbows slightly to get some air flow. I wore black and pink virtually every day as part of my “personal brand.” In our last focus group, both men and women agreed the colors communicated strength, but also hinted at a softer, more motherly side. 

That was key. 

I was a good half decade past my womb’s expiration date, and the only bundles of joy I’d ever yearned for arrived in the mail bearing names like Prada and Gucci. Voters, however, demanded mother + glamazon + military general, so I did my best to deliver on all fronts. Since launching my campaign a year ago, I’d learned fast that politics was a game of utter fakery. 

Daniel wedged himself between Prisha and me. 

“Hey Daniel,” Prisha held up the clip on her phone. “Did you see—”

“I saw it.” He rested a hand lightly on my bum, leaned in and whispered, “Forget about the talking heads, alright? They’re morons, so’s Sturgill. You’ll crush him. Just go out there and do your thing, babe.”

I pulled away. “What did I say about calling me that?”

“Oh,” Daniel frowned. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to sound trashy, dear.”

He’d started using that (indeed trashy) word, “babe,” sometime after our wedding, which was a match made in headline heaven: “Candidate Weds Campaign Manager.” Keep your friends close and your top campaign staff closer, right? We were able to squeeze in a press-attended City Hall ceremony between the large bricks of scheduling that constructed my every day. The whole marriage thing had happened at hurricane speed, but it made strategic sense, and allowed me to check the ‘married’ box. What Daniel brought to the table in our union was an undying belief in me, uncanny political savvy, attentiveness in the sack, and, admittedly, moments of sweetness bestowed like wrapped gifts. I adored those moments, I really did. 

On stage, a burst of patriotic da da DUM da da DAAAA! music blared. 

My heart surged wildly. For reassurance, I gently touched the silicone edge of one of the contact lenses settled over my corneas, then tapped open the Bryson app for the ninetieth time to check that the signal was connecting properly. It was, no glitches so far. Fingers crossed.

The debate moderator began speaking directly at a cluster of news cameras. 

“Welcome, everyone, to this televised debate between our two gubernatorial candidates. Please put your hands together in a warm welcome for your current state Attorney General, Robert Sturgill! And now, let’s please welcome esteemed businesswoman and political newcomer, Mazie Tanner!”

I stepped into a strand of light to the cheers of the gathered crowd. Almost instantly, words began to appear across my vision like a hologram. Good words. The right words. A confident smile brightened my lips as I shook Sturgill’s meaty hand and prepared to eviscerate him like a shark tearing into a seal pup—in a likable way.

* * *

The next morning’s headlines further juiced my poll numbers and donations. Phrases sprinkled across the Internet: “authoritative yet warm,” and “understands the issues and has her facts straight,” and “the kind of gal you might enjoy—if not a beer—at least a nice aged Cabernet with.” 

Alright. I’d take it.

Early, at seven—a Sunday, I rode an elevator alone to the fourth floor executive suite of a stark white building on the outskirts of the city. Everything was still and cavernous. On the way in, I’d swept past several signs that read Bryson Biotech, Inc. in large, angular blue lettering. It was a familiar journey, one I’d made weekly since the start of my campaign, and before that, daily.  

Ben Bryson, the founder, had been the big cheese there until four years ago when he’d passed the CEO reins to me in order to relax into the Chairman of the Board role, and spend more time manhandling pricey golf putters. It was during my tenure, unfortunately, that the state began its rampage of legislation to kick biotech companies in our collective balls. The product we’d spent the past nine years developing (to the tune of almost a quarter billion dollars) was now dangling a few signatures away from a technological wasteland. 

Companies were already vanishing around us, constricted and fined to death.

We needed our product to come to market, we needed to stay funded, or BBI would be next on the execution block. And the country needed our product, too. What the wrist-slappers in charge didn’t get was that this technology was coming, whether America led the way, or global bad guys did. But how do you get through to officials who don’t even understand how their cell phones work? 

In order to save our company, and hell, maybe the entire country—I was hit with two realizations: First, I had to become the government. Second, our product could help me do that.

Ben handed me a steaming cappuccino, fresh from his machine, and leaned against the chic glass desk that used to be mine, towering over me in one of the guest chairs. He raised his mug, stamped with the blue Bryson logo, as if it were a champagne flute.

“To the lady of the hour. Congratulations on a terrific debate, from me and the board. We saw your polls shot up thirteen points.”

I nodded. “Not quite at Sturgill’s numbers yet, but we’re getting there. The product worked like a dream.” 

“No glitches this time?”

“None. It’s learning fast, really impressive.”

“Good. That’s good. Listen Mazie, ah…” Ben rested his mug on the desk, sans coaster, leaving a brown ring. “I believe we can do better.”

“Better? Ben, I just told you, the AI did great. The lines it fed me were killer. I came off like a goddamn FDR-meets-Princess-Di up there. If the product had been functioning at this level a year ago, we wouldn’t be worrying about poll numbers.”  

“That’s the thing, it’s still not reliable enough. The signal between the lenses and the app remains weak. It could glitch at critical moments, and you simply can’t afford that. We can’t afford that. Look, I’ve spoken with the head of Engineering, he says Project Elle is ready for you. Right now. We could do it this week if you can clear your schedule, and you’d be back on your feet feeling perfectly fine within a day or so.” 

I shifted in my chair and let my gaze float out the large wall of windows and pan over the office park buildings surrounding us, twinkling in dewy sunlight. I’d known full well this scenario was on the way, yet now that it was here, the idea jabbed me with icicle daggers. 

“Project Elle…”

I’d hastily greenlit the project as one of my final decisions as CEO before relinquishing control back to Ben. There were plenty of broader uses for this technology, which we could and would develop once I cleared a legal pathway via the government. But, we reasoned, why not use it now for our most pressing obstacle? 

The code name was a play on “L” for “likable,” and “elle” the Spanish word for “she,” as in me. 

For all my skill, brains, and experience as a businesswoman, it was no secret that I possessed a personality one might describe diplomatically as prickly. And undiplomatically as massively bitchy. I honestly couldn’t help it, and I didn’t really care. But voters would care if they got wind of it — I was a serious liability for my own campaign, particularly as a female candidate. 

Fortunately, at Bryson Biotech, we believe there’s almost no issue technology cannot help solve. Including the problem of innate unlikability. 

Project Elle utilized AI trained on the behaviors of previously successful candidates. A small chip inserted into my brain’s cerebellum (which cues motion) would send an unbreakable signal to other centers of my brain, working in concert with the app. Basically, instead of waiting to read and react to words projected across my vision like with the contacts, the signal would be built in, so to speak, and able to produce automatic movements and language that the AI deemed “likable.” 

The signal could be controlled via my phone app, or remotely by Bryson engineers. Once in, however, the chip was designed to stay put for good. 

Harmless. According to our hypothesis.

Ben crossed his thick arms over the fleece vest he always wore, and scrunched his forehead. “Hey. I know what you’re thinking, and don’t worry. No one will ever know the chip is there. Just make sure Daniel doesn’t touch the back of your head until the swelling goes down.”

Daniel knew about the contacts, but he couldn’t know about Project Elle. It was just too sensitive, not to mention completely untested on humans — a fact that would make that sweet man go nuclear in two seconds flat. 

My stomach began to roil sourly.

“Actually, Ben. I’d rather keep using the contacts for now.”

“Uh huh. Well, that’s an extremely poor choice, Mazie. One based on fear, which is very unlike you.”

“I’m not afraid. I just believe I can win without, you know, brain surgery.”

Ben glared at me for a long moment, then like killing a switch, he went poker faced. He stood and went around to the opposite side of the desk, sat in his chair and leaned back, arms still crossed. “You know what I think? I think you don’t want to win. Not really.”

I choked on my cooling cappuccino. “I beg your pardon? I don’t want to win?”

“You’re scared. I can see it in your eyes. You want to blow the election to Sturgill and avoid doing the hard thing, so you can come crawling back here to your little cocoon of safety.”

“Oh, that’s such bullshit. I’ve been working my ass off for you, and this company, and the board, doing everything under the goddamn sun—”

“You’re not doing everything!” 

I stared at him. “I want the contacts. I don’t want the chip.”

He placed his hands flat on the desk. “Then you don’t want to be part of this company.”

“What?”

“And you don’t want our campaign funding. And you want to pay back every last goddamn penny we’ve given you. You want to lose. You want to lose everything.”  

I let my Bryson mug clatter roughly to the desk and strode to the window. A cleaning crew was trickling into the building next door, all matching polo shirts and khakis, carrying supplies. I felt the sting of the anger that had always plagued me. And driven me. 

“Fine.”

“Good choice.”

“You know, Ben, you’re a real asshole.”

“And you, as we all know, are an absolute bitch.” He added, “but a talented one.” 

One month to Election Day

“I mean, of course there are still plenty of haters out there,” Prisha slurred one night, sipping her third gin and tonic opposite me at a sticky table in some po-dunk bar. We’d recently fallen into the habit of drinking together after campaign stops. “But the haters are like tiny little blobs of mud next to the big blue Team Tanner ocean. It’s crazy how much people love you.”

“Aw, thanks, Prish,” I smiled and absently touched the small bump at the base of my skull. The scar was little more than a resilient pimple now.

“No, I’m serious. Like, how did this even happen? You used to be such a…and I’m not trying to say…but you were kind of a—”

“I know. I was.”

“Like, I was scared of you. But now you’re a giant box of puppies. A complete fucking delight.”

“What can I say?” I pulled an olive from the toothpick in my dirty martini and chewed its saltiness. “I became the person I needed to be. Politics is a game of authenticity.”

At first, my campaign staff seemed wary of the new me. Frankly, I was a bit wary of the new me, too. I’d felt a slight buzzing sensation in my head, not unpleasant, when the chip’s AI signal was switched on for the first time. It was like a video game where the avatar looks and sounds like you, even seems to think like you, though you’re never fully in control because you’re always on the game’s terms. 

After a week or two of settling into myself, however, I began to adore my upgraded persona. She was a freaking rockstar! Everybody loved this bitch—er—woman. 

My poll numbers were on par with, or higher than, those of “Mr. Charisma” himself. I was nailing every interview with ever-bigger outlets, right up to Time Magazine, and even made the cover of Harper’s Bazaar, wearing a couture dress in my signature black and pink. So far I’d been on three of TV’s late night shows, which made it rain campaign contributions, some of which were now coming from out of state.

“Girl, you are gonna be the best damn governor ever,” Prisha said, clutching her empty glass to her chest like a trophy. “Sturgill’s gonna get stomped, even Daniel says we can’t lose.”

I knew that view bordered on too rosy. We could still lose. And Daniel knew it, too.

Things between us were the best they’d ever been for a while as my mood improved, I brimmed with smiles, and I quit my incessant yelling. I was shocked by the fact that a happy marriage was truly possible, and that I was in one.

But recently, something felt off. I wondered if Daniel suspected another Bryson interference, since he was aware I’d stopped using the contacts. In the waning hours when the cameras vanished and we were alone together, he’d begun to droop like a withering sunflower. In every way.

I tried not to fret about it. 

The chip made brooding difficult anyway. Like when you’re driving and two competing radio station signals engage in a staticky battle. The positive signal always won out. Sometimes my AI puppeteer was a relief, and I found myself readily surrendering to sunnier thoughts. I almost dreaded the signal being turned off.

Return of the Ice Queen. 

Return of the jobless Ice Queen if we lost the election, and with it, the power to push legislation in a Bryson-friendly direction. Ben would be very, very upset if I turned up empty handed. Especially with so many millions of dollars’ worth of his technology permanently lodged in my head. 

The AI override reliably snapped me back to the task at hand. Just four more weeks to go. I was a Rosie the Riveter poster come to life: We can do it!

Election Day

“Mazie Tanner has done it! I always predicted she’d win,” beamed the over-Botoxed TV pundit. “Look at that thousand-watt smile, will you? She’ll certainly brighten up the governor’s office. And there’s her loving husband and campaign manager by her side. What a power couple. Really gotta feel sorry for Robert Sturgill tonight.” 

I wouldn’t see that clip, provided as always by Prisha, until the victory party. Which I would attend sans my husband.

Flickering confetti mingled with cheers of the supporters before us as Daniel, holding my hand, leaned in and said through a tight grin, “They’ve done something to you. I don’t know what, but I won’t be part of it now that this is all over. Congratulations on your win.”

“Daniel, please,” I replied, smiling wide. “It’s done, I promise. They’re turning it off tonight.”

“And what precisely are they turning off, babe?”

* * *

In a white office park on the cusp of the city, Ben Bryson’s head engineer stepped into his fourth floor office and asked for the go-ahead to cut the signal. Ben replied, eyes glued to a large TV screen thick with smiles and a rainbow snowfall, that the plan had changed. He directed the engineer to keep the signal flowing, and to disable the app.

The man appeared confused. “Sir?”

“Also, going forward, I want you to base the AI training model on me. I’ll email you a few strategies I’d like to see Ms. Tanner embody, to start with.”

“You’re joking…right?”

Ben tore his gaze from the screen. “Politics is a game of influence,” he said simply, before dismissing the engineer back to his own lower floor.   

At least that’s how I would later—briefly—imagine the conversation must have gone, before the AI buffed those thoughts away and replaced them with ones that were, let’s say, a little more likable.

Kirsten A Smith

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay – Brain with multicoloured clouds AI generated bursting out.