Early Access Extract
The PING app wasn’t a luxury for Leo; it was a prosthetic. At fifteen, the world was still a
clamour of confusing social cues. For my boy, the Nuance Gauge was a silencer. It turned the
roar of human passion into a simple binary: Green was safe, Red was a warning. It had
seemed like such a blessing when the PING app first launched.
The Personal Inter-Conscious Nuance Gauge is an application that lets users know when
others are thinking about them. If only it had remained that simple…
The silence of our terraced house served as a sanctuary, but the external world was a
different matter. He sat in the passenger seat of my Volvo, his thumb poised over the glass of
his phone, watching the Nuance Gauge shimmer as we pulled away from the kerb.
THE COUNT: 3
THE GAUGE: 100% Green
At home, Leo was safe. The three greens were me, his father at the office, and likely his
grandmother in Devon. To Leo, who was on the spectrum and found the shifting geometry of
human faces impossible to decode, these emerald icons were his “all-clear.”
“Green means they’re happy, Mum,” he spoke quietly, his eyes never leaving the screen.
“I don’t have to guess.”
I sipped my rapidly cooling coffee, the steam dampening my face while I navigated the
morning traffic. I tried to share his faith in the app. To know your child was being thought of
with affection was a gift, but as we turned onto the main road toward St. Jude’s, I began to
realise that for Leo, PING was becoming a cage.
As the school gates loomed, PING vibrated—a low, pulsing thrum against Leo’s palm.
THE COUNT: 12
THE GAUGE: 60% Green | 40% Red
The first shards of red bled into the display. In the app, red was “Fear,” but for a
fifteen-year-old walking into a den of teenagers, it was the indicator for the darker spectrum:
judgment, mockery, and the cold, sharp bite of being “other.”
“Someone’s looking,” Leo muttered, his posture stiffening.
“It’s just the playground, Leo. Everyone’s busy with their own day.”
The Count blinked again. As I pulled into the drop-off zone, the numbers didn’t climb;
they rose with a predatory speed.
THE COUNT: 28
THE GAUGE: 15% Green | 85% Red
The green was being swallowed, the emerald retreating before a tsunami of scarlet. It
wasn’t just one person anymore. It seemed a group had turned their gaze toward the car, their
thoughts narrowing to a single point. To them, Leo was the “weird kid.” To PING, that
collective judgment was a bio-signature of pure, arterial Red.
Leo’s breathing became a series of short, sharp hitches. “They’re thinking about the
assembly, Mum. They’re thinking about the noise I made yesterday. It’s all Red. It’s too
much.”
The red on the gauge didn’t just grow; it bled. It turned a shade of scarlet so dark it was
almost black. The “Conscious Footprint” of the school was a tangible burden, pressing
against the car windows.
“That’s enough,” I snapped, my own heart beating a wild rhythm within my chest. I
didn’t care about the attendance officer or the ‘Standard’ expectations of the school board. I
saw the terror in my son’s eyes, reflected in the blood-light of his screen.
I slammed the car into reverse. “We’re going home.”
As we raced away, the count began to drop. The red receded. As Leo slumped back into
his seat, he didn’t put the phone away. He continued to gaze at the blank screen, waiting for
the next icon.
“I need to know who it is, Mum,” he said, his vocal tone worryingly calm. “I need the
upgrade. I need the names.”