HOLOSMARTS
Classification: Universal Wrist-Worn Communication & Identification Device
HoloSmarts are the most ubiquitous personal technology in Argona, worn by citizens across virtually every social class and district. The standard device is a metallic cylindrical band wrapped around the wrist. Its outer edges emit a soft cyan-blue glow, while small, illuminated icons circle the rim, indicating notifications such as messages, incoming calls, account activity, and Mesh updates.
The HoloSmart syncs with the user's neural net, allowing it to function as an extension of the wearer's personal information system rather than merely as a conventional handheld device. Its interface is projected holographically above the wrist and can be manipulated through gestures, including swiping, tapping, and pinching.
Neural-net implantation is a standardized medical process administered at birth, during childhood, or during formal registration, allowing information and notifications to be accessed with minimal physical interaction.
Core Functions
HoloSmarts serve a remarkably broad range of purposes, including:
* Voice and holographic communication
* Personal identification
* Financial transactions
* Mesh access
* Navigation
* Data storage
* Notifications and alerts
* Environmental and object scanning
* Access to authorized civic systems
* Registration and certification verification
Their scanning capabilities can extend beyond ordinary identification. Ratelsi has used a HoloSmart to identify a hidden structural mechanism behind a recessed brick. The device is therefore both a convenience tool and an investigative instrument.
Cura Integration
Authorized systems can use the device to retrieve information associated with a citizen's legal and social standing, including registration information, Arcane Eye status, and MAP certification. This gives the device a distinctly dual nature. To an ordinary citizen, it is a phone, wallet, identification card, scanner, and personal computer compressed into a convenient wristband. To someone attempting to avoid government scrutiny, it can function as a leash.
This becomes particularly apparent when Broco orders his hostages to surrender their HoloSmarts. Taking the devices does more than deprive them of communication. It cuts them off from financial access, personal information, external contact, and potentially their ability to summon assistance. Within Argonian culture, surrendering one's HoloSmart under coercion carries an implicit meaning of submission: the victim has effectively been disconnected from the world beyond the immediate situation.
Class Differences
Although HoloSmarts are nearly universal, their quality is not. Units commonly found in poorer districts such as Altown may be secondhand, damaged, outdated, or operating on older firmware. Wealthier citizens can afford newer models with higher-fidelity holographic projection, expanded storage, stronger encryption, faster processing, and more advanced Mesh integration. The technology therefore embodies one of Argona's recurring contradictions:
Access is universal. Quality is not.
The HoloSmart represents the technological baseline of Argonian society. Above that baseline are rarer luxury devices such as the InterCell.
INTERCELLS
Classification: High-End Handheld Communication & Data Device
InterCells are premium handheld communication devices that occupy a higher social and technological tier than the near-universal HoloSmart. Unlike the wrist-mounted HoloSmart, an InterCell is a handheld, glass-like slab. Its physical design makes it a more deliberate device: rather than passively projecting information from the wrist, the user physically handles the unit when accessing its functions. InterCells provide many of the same fundamental capabilities as HoloSmarts, including communication, information access, and data scanning. Their relative rarity, however, makes them particularly noticeable in social environments where HoloSmarts are the norm.
Social Status
Owning an InterCell can indicate disposable wealth, professional specialization, or simply a preference for higher-end technology. They appear frequently enough among wealthier or technologically inclined individuals to be recognizable, but they remain uncommon compared with HoloSmarts. Their use at locations such as Hexoset also demonstrates that InterCells are not exclusively government or professional equipment. Civilians can own and casually use them, including for ordinary activities such as accessing information about substances or browsing the Mesh.
HoloSmart vs. InterCell
The distinction between the two is therefore less about completely different functionality and more about form, capability, prestige, and convenience. The HoloSmart is Argona's technological default. The InterCell is what you buy when the default isn't enough—or when you want everyone to know it isn't enough.
THE MESH
Classification: Citywide Social & Information Network
The Mesh is Argona's dominant digital communication and social infrastructure. Accessible through devices such as HoloSmarts and InterCells, it functions as a vast interconnected network through which users can interact with social feeds, posts, live footage, personal updates, and other forms of digital information.
The Mesh is more than a social-media platform in the conventional sense. Its ubiquity has made participation in it a form of social legitimacy. Having an active digital presence is considered normal. Having little or no digital footprint can be considered suspicious, demonstrating how deeply Mesh participation has become intertwined with social trust.
The Mesh & Surveillance
The Mesh also creates significant complications for anyone attempting to operate covertly. Unlike private or controlled communications, information uploaded to the Mesh can spread rapidly between users. A public incident can therefore become an information crisis almost immediately. The Hexoset incident demonstrates this particularly well. When witnesses begin recording the spectacle outside the club, the event immediately acquires the potential to become a citywide story.
In Argona, someone with an InterCell might already be recording. Someone else might already be uploading. And once the Mesh gets hold of something, controlling the narrative becomes considerably harder.
Mesh vs. Wing Quills
The existence of the Mesh also explains the continued value of covert communication systems such as Wing Quills. The Mesh is fast, convenient, and socially ubiquitous. It is also exactly the kind of network that people conducting illegal business do not want to leave evidence on.
WING QUILLS
Classification: Covert Communication Device
Wing Quills are specialized communication devices designed to facilitate discreet information transfers while bypassing conventional networks such as the Mesh. The device manifests as a holographic bird carrying a stylus-like "quill" in its beak. Despite its decorative appearance, the Wing Quill is primarily an instrument of secure communication and illicit commerce.
Its defining characteristic is that the transferred information does not rely upon ordinary Mesh communication. Instead, the recipient physically interfaces the projected quill with a compatible device such as a HoloSmart or InterCell, allowing the concealed information to be accessed. The process is specifically designed to minimize the creation of a conventional digital footprint.
Applications
Wing Quills are particularly useful for:
* Black-market transactions
* Covert negotiations
* Anonymous communication
* Transfer of sensitive information
* Illicit purchasing arrangements
* Communications that cannot safely occur through the Mesh
Traore uses a Wing Quill to contact Broco regarding the supposed Exonite purchase. This is strategically important: using an expensive, covert communication method makes the fabricated transaction appear significantly more legitimate.
A person conducting a serious illegal purchase would have every reason to avoid leaving a conventional communication trail. The Wing Quill therefore does more than transmit information. It communicates intent. Possessing one implies that whatever is being discussed is important enough to warrant secrecy.
JOJI
Classification: AI-Assisted Drone & Holographic Intelligence System
Joji, or Joint Operations Juxtaposition Intelligence, is a distributed artificial-intelligence system capable of operating through multiple physical and holographic interfaces throughout Argona.
The technology can manifest primarily in two recognizable forms.
The first is a holographic avatar: a colourful, stylized character capable of conversational interaction, exaggerated expressions, humour, and simulated emotional responses.
The second is a compact spherical drone equipped with a dark display face, luminous rectangular eyes, metallic armour, a translucent visor, and wing-like antennae. These physical units are capable of surveillance, communication, scanning, and tactical support.
Personality & Interface
Joji's most distinctive characteristic is its personality.
Rather than presenting as sterile machinery, Joji units frequently communicate through humour, exaggerated reactions, dramatic expressions, and conversational banter. This makes interaction with the technology feel surprisingly personable. That apparent friendliness is not necessarily indicative of genuine autonomy.
Joji units can function according to artificial intelligence protocols, but they can also be remotely operated or directly interfaced with by human users.
This distinction becomes particularly important with Jeenah Obidiah, Joji's creator.
Jeenah possesses the ability to communicate and operate through specific Joji units, allowing her to use the system as an extension of herself. Her encounter with Ratelsi in The Basin therefore appears, in retrospect, less like an encounter with an annoying advertisement and more like a deliberate intelligence-gathering operation.
Network Architecture
Joji operates through a distributed network in which individual units can exchange information and receive instructions from a larger intelligence infrastructure. Not every Joji unit operating throughout Argona is necessarily being manually controlled by Jeenah at any given moment. The broader network is capable of performing routine functions autonomously, while selected units can be integrated into specialized operations.
This distinction becomes particularly important when considering Joji's relationship with PART and the Cura.
State Integration
Joji was originally developed by Jeenah but eventually became integrated into Cura infrastructure and law-enforcement operations. As a result, Joji technology occupies an unusual position between personal invention, commercial technology, and state infrastructure.
Units have been observed performing functions including:
* Surveillance
* Infrared scanning
* Tactical observation
* Communications relay
* Tracking
* Evidence confirmation
* Crowd control
* Spotlight-net deployment
* Peculiar containment
During security operations, Joji units assist in locating fleeing targets, monitoring combat situations, and coordinating personnel.
The Joji Contradiction
Joji's apparent harmlessness is one of its most significant characteristics. The system's bright appearance, jokes, warmth, and exaggerated personality make it easy to perceive as friendly technology. Yet the same technology can participate in surveillance, tracking, identification, and enforcement.
This contrast is deliberate.
Joji represents one of Argona's most effective forms of technological normalization: The surveillance apparatus does not always look threatening. Sometimes it has pigtails. Sometimes it makes jokes. Sometimes it cries digital tears. And sometimes it is watching you.