The VibesBand Marriage
This is Day 6 of the “Twelve Days of Sci-Fi”. You’ll get a free story each day. You can also get a discount on sci-fi stories for next year.
"Here's your coffee, husband," Naomi said as Santiago finished his morning stretches.
They looked out the window as the sun rose, shining brightly through their apartment on the 73rd floor of the Cassiopeia Tower in Philadelphia.
"Thank you, wife," he replied with a warm smile. "And here's a gift for you."
It was their first anniversary.
Santiago watched eagerly as Naomi unwrapped her gift. He was usually a serious person, a systems architect who believed you could solve anything as long as you had enough data to make an informed decision. As such, his dark hair was always neatly combed and his shirt perfectly smooth.
Naomi took the box, slim and hard, crafted from recycled asteroid polymers. Inside lay a brilliant crystal ring with a band made from platinum. The entire object shimmered brilliantly against the light of the sunrise.
"Santiago, it's beautiful," she murmured as she slipped it on her finger.
"It's the VibesBand," he noted.
"It feels warm."
"It's affective monitoring. Once you connect it with your phone, you'll get all kinds of data! It uses highly sensitive galvanic skin response sensors, capillary blood flow analysis, and temperature fluctuation detection. And it uses an onboard neural network to map your precise emotion in real-time."
Naomi simply smiled at his enthusiasm. She didn't quite know why one needed all of that, but she appreciated the aesthetic of the object. As it settled against her skin, the crystal on top of the ring started to glow, turning into a warm rose-gold hue which pulsed with a gentle, steady rhythm.
"Oh," she said, entranced by the light.
"Now pair it with your phone."
She tapped the phone against the ring and immediately the two devices synchronized. A web app loaded showing a clean, elegant interface with a table of data:
Subject: Naomi Dalton
Primary Emotion: Joy (96% confidence)
Secondary: Romantic Affection (85% confidence)
Biometric Coherence: High
Top Neurotransmitters: Elevated Serotonin, Oxytocin
"See?" he said triumphantly. "It knows. Just like I do."
He reached out and took her hand. The rose-gold light of the ring grew even brighter as he rubbed her palm. The ring was a physical manifestation of her love. Naomi leaned into him, resting her head on his shoulder as the city glistened below.
Two months later, on a Saturday morning, the light shined through the windows once again. Santiago was watching the automated watering system spraying their herbs in their kitchen's vertical garden.
"Naomi, did you reroute the nutrient solution for the basil yesterday? It doesn't seem like it's grown any overnight. It seems like the manual override was set."
She came out of the bedroom wearing a soft silk robe. She hadn't slept well overnight due to stress about a long day of work the previous day, and she looked a little confused by his question.
"Oh, the plant watering? Yeah," she shrugged vaguely. "It looked a little anemic, so I figured I would just double the usual amount."
"The automated schedule is carefully calibrated," he said critically. "You shouldn't be intervening manually. If there's a problem with the automation, then you should fix the automation."
Naomi frowned. The basil seemed so small, but it felt like it was a microcosm of something bigger.
"Well I'm sorry, it looked like it needed something more. Sometimes you can just tell."
"Subjective assessment can be prone to error. The sensors provide objective feedback."
"Right. Well, I'll keep that in mind next time," she apologized. "I was hoping that we could visit the Draco Museum today. They have a new zero-gravity art exhibit."
As she spoke, the VibesBand flickered for a moment to a pale, cool lilac. The shift was almost imperceptible, and unnoticed by Santiago's continued focus on the plants.
"The Draco? Interesting. I'll pull the transport schedules."
"Okay," she managed a small smile. "Let me go get changed and we can go."
As they passed through their second year of marriage, the VibesBand had become a familiar companion. They were at a community potluck on the roof of the Cassiopeia Tower one weekend. The space had been carefully cultivated space with bright flowers and water harvesters working quietly to make their home sustainable.
Several of Naomi's neighbors were there too, professional artists who had exhibits all around town. They were sharing a new psychogeography exhibit they had just attended. Naomi listened with growing curiosity.
"Oh Naomi, your ring is glowing with a light purple. That shade must mean you're really enjoying the conversation with friends," Santiago interrupted.
Naomi's smile tightened. The color on the ring shifted to a distinct teal. She knew, from experience, that color meant "frustration". The feeling lingered.
After the party, back in their apartment, Santiago brought up that event again.
"The VibesBand had registered significant levels of frustration when you were in the biodome. Your galvanic skin response was elevated for nearly an hour. That means unresolved cognitive dissonance. Were you upset by the artists you were talking to?"
"They were my friends," Naomi said, turning away as the ring turned teal once again. "I was having a good time talking to them."
Until you came over and embarrassed me, she neglected to say. The ring now felt like a tiny, ever-present judge. The data was being used to analyze her like a patient rather than enhance her understanding.
"Huh, then what was the cause of the change?"
"Never mind. I'm going to bed early. I'm tired," she murmured.
Several months later, Philadelphia was celebrating the summer solstice. In celebration, the city lights dimmed at dusk and everyone could see the fireflies glowing in the parks below.
Naomi sat on the sofa and watched the lights dancing below. "It's beautiful tonight, isn't it? So quiet. It makes you feel connected to the world, you know? Remember that little place we went to in Chinatown, the one with the bioluminescent moss? We should go back sometime."
Her recollection, her attempt to talk to him, hung in the empty air. Santiago was fixated on some sort of project schematics on his tablet which resembled a new ceiling-hanging planter. The faint light of the tablet reflected in his eyes. The VibesBand on her hand shifted to a muted, smokey blue. It pulsed faintly with a mix of melancholy and resentment.
"Yeah, that sounds good," he said, not really listening to her. "This new planting system, if adopted city-wide, could reduce total water usage by ten percent. It'd be quite a feat of engineering."
Naomi looked down at her ring. The smokey blue felt like a secret she was keeping, even from herself. He was present, yet entirely absent. The silence stretched on, with only the fireflies to keep her company.
Eight months after, as the city turned shades of yellow and red, the subtle blues on the VibesBand had turned much closer to a persistent gray. He noticed it sometimes, remarking it simply as "neutral". He believed it just represented a simple baseline. He had become deeply immersed in a new city-wide open data project to improve water usage and further promote sustainability. Many of his evenings were spent in his home office, a minimalist space filled with monitors displaying assorted graphs.
One evening, as she walked past it, she didn't see the usual graphs. Instead, it showed multi-colored graphs and timelines. She immediately recognized it as her VibesBand data. Weeks of it. He seemed to be meticulously correlating her emotional output against their shared calendar, the weather, and even pollen counts.
A silent shiver ran down her spine. She didn't feel like a partner. She was some sort of object designed to be optimized and controlled. She watched for a moment in the doorway as he zoomed in on a period and labeled it "sustained low engagement metrics". Saying nothing, she walked away.
"Naomi?" he called out, his voice distant. "I was just analyzing the data from your VibesBand. I notice a dip in positivity during my crunch periods on the water project. Maybe I should schedule some regular relationship days so we can optimize your contentment levels?"
He didn't register her silence nor the bedroom door closing. She looked down at the opaque gray, indicating apathy and detachment.
Their third anniversary came and went almost entirely unremarked. Naomi had taken to reading books in the evening. She would go down to the first floor library and get real, physical books. Their crisp pages felt so natural, so human, it felt so much better than the glowing screens which otherwise dominated her life. She would sit propped against a pile of pillows. The VibesBand on her hand was usually a pale, translucent white now. It was an emotion Santiago often called "quiescent".
Santiago went through his usual nightly routine, looking over the bedside console where the VibesBand daily summary was displayed. He frowned. While the ring seemed fine most of the day, a more detailed analysis showed a paradox.
Subject: Naomi Dalton
Primary Emotion: Neutral (77% confidence)
Pulse: Signs of stress
"Honey, the VibesBand flagged something," he started in a patronizing tone.
"Yes?" she looked up from her book, her voice tinged with annoyance.
"Well, it says your surface emotional state is calm, but it's also detecting some high sign of stress. It's like you're suppressing something. Is everything actually okay?"
Naomi lowered her book and looked up with a placid, almost serene, smile.
"I'm just tired," she said neutrally. "The ring can't know everything. I think I'll go to bed."
She placed the book down and turned off the reading lamp. As the room dimmed, the pale white of the VibesBand was clearly visible. Santiago looked back at the unsettling report and he didn't know if he could figure out the puzzle lying within the data.
Naomi sat on the patio, under a rainbow lights. She looked out at the cityscape as Santiago placed dinner on the table. He put a lot of time into it. After all, it was now the eve of their fourth anniversary. She wore a plain violet dress, while the VibesBand on her finger was pearl white.
"The hydroponic tomatoes have been growing particularly well," he offered, placing some salad on her plate.
"They are," she gave him a polite smile. "You always did have a talent for optimizing them. Hey, do you remember that tiny cafe in the Old Quarter, with the mismatched chairs and the double-shot coffee? The one where we first talked about moving in together?"
"The Quark Cafe," he recalled. "I don't remember our conversation, but I do remember how terrible the coffee was. And how bad their air filtration was."
There was a sweetness in her words, a flicker perhaps of caring. Was the data wrong? He subtly pulled up her emotions data and checked the latest telemetry.
Subject: Naomi Dalton
Primary Emotion: Nostalgia (85% confidence)
Secondary: Melancholy (71% confidence)
Relational Binding: Weak
Relational State: Critical -- Non-recoverable
"Non-recoverable". The phrase filled him with a deep sense of dread. The machine was giving a prognosis on his marriage. He put his phone down on the table slowly as it settled in his mind. He stared at her ring, which seemed not to care at all.
"When we went to the Quark Cafe, we were so different. Or maybe we were just younger," he said, feeling emotions wash over him.
Naomi met his gaze. For the first time in months, she didn't wear a mask of indifference. He just saw a deep well of sorrow that matched his own.
"We were. We built something together. For a time."
"The data..."
He stopped. Why bring it up now? It was pointless. He had to stop seeing her as an optimization problem but as the woman he had loved. It was clear she hadn't felt the same.
"The ring is quite definitive," he remarked. "It suggests an endpoint."
There was a long silence, one both familiar yet uncomfortable. Naomi slowly slipped the VibesBand off her finger and placed it on the finger between them. The sensor, no longer detecting a living person, slowly dimmed its soft white light.
"Some things can't be rewritten, can they? Sometimes a math problem has no solution."
"We tried," he said, feeling an ache in his chest.
"We did, in our own ways."
The data-driven conclusion seemed clear now, even as the data offered no help in fixing it. Perhaps it was too late now.
He just gave her a heavy nod. There was nothing he could say; no words were necessary.
They stared out at the city lights, a whole world out there with many opportunities for each of their futures. The VibesBand had been designed to bridge understanding, and it did, in that it guided them to the only possible future they had.