Protection down to artificial intelligence, it didn’t help. First of all, a lot of the same sites showed up. I guess modern home-security apparatus has a substantial AI component, homeless people benefit by communicating with AIs, the band has a song called ‘Artie’s Fishing Intelligence.’ ”
“Maybe we should fire our search engine optimization guys too.”
“Charis,” he said, “I don’t have any reason to like or trust you. But I need to figure some things out.”
She wiped her wide forehead with a bandanna. “Let’s get some food. You may be a weenie, but you’ve earned it.”
“Gee, thanks.”
The office space was as bleak as the exterior: a couple of gray partitions that looked like they came from an Air Force base circa 1960, metal desks and heavy filing cabinets ditto, a Ridgid Tool calendar from three years before, showing a woman in a yellow bikini posing with a pipe wrench, and a wall sign that said SOCIAL PROTECTION: DELAYING THE SINGULARITY SINCE 2005. Coffee rings patterned the top of the minifridge in the food area. She tossed two frozen burritos into the microwave.
“You don’t have to tell me that the office could use a little sprucing up. In movies your basic organizational HQ has gleaming $200 per-square-foot office space, with Herman Miller furniture and a carpet that requires weekly cleaning, not a toxic-oil-soaked square of asphalt with a cinder-block shed on it. What can I say? The donations aren’t exactly rolling in.”
There was no sign that anyone else used the office, though there were three desks, two of which had fast-food containers in their wastebaskets.
“I looked you up, too.” Charis shook crumbs off a paper plate and dropped Bernal’s burrito on it. “That was hard luck, getting blown up like that. Since it’s exactly that kind of thing that gives us a bad name, I’d like to hear your story.”
“What’s earned you a story?”
“Tell it to me, and I’ll tell you exactly why I’m so pissed off at this entire Hesketh deal. Then, having established why this is all a crock of shit, we’ll go our separate ways and never see each other again. There should be a couple of packets of hot sauce in the basket there . . . careful, that’s duck sauce, or some damn thing. And old too. Toss it.”
_______
“Two years ago I went to get the mail for my office. I was doing PhD work, data analysis. A project about cardiac outcomes that was getting canceled for public relations reasons, and I was searching around for another topic. There were a bunch of packages there: books, manuscripts, all kinds of things. There was ... I don’t know ... a leak, something. A pipe, I think. There had been some kind of exhibit in the front hall, promoting something or other. Diversity, ecological awareness, open enrollment for health plans. I don’t remember, but someone had shoved all the big mail over into a corner, right under the drip from the pipe. The addresses were all smeared. I hauled the stuff in.”
Charis just sat next to him and listened.
“I was expecting a book on fake Minoan relics. Pulling a signal out of noise is .. . was .. . part of what I did. I’d read that many things we think of as coming from ancient Crete were actually forgeries made to reassure ourselves that Arthur Evans’s Knossos was the real deal. Edwardian design with bare breasts, clearly the best of all worlds. I was eager to see how archeologists distinguished the signal from the noise. So I didn’t look at the label carefully and opened the package. I clearly had my own problems with signal and noise. It detonated. Semtex.”
“My God.” She looked at him. “It’s amazing. I think whatever happened to you yesterday did worse damage. I mean, before that decoy exploded.”
“Cast-iron doggie doorstop. Another story. But, yeah. I came out of it pretty well. Good plastic surgery. I get headaches sometimes. All my fingers work.”
“If it had been Caspar Nordhoff,
“Maybe we should fire our search engine optimization guys too.”
“Charis,” he said, “I don’t have any reason to like or trust you. But I need to figure some things out.”
She wiped her wide forehead with a bandanna. “Let’s get some food. You may be a weenie, but you’ve earned it.”
“Gee, thanks.”
The office space was as bleak as the exterior: a couple of gray partitions that looked like they came from an Air Force base circa 1960, metal desks and heavy filing cabinets ditto, a Ridgid Tool calendar from three years before, showing a woman in a yellow bikini posing with a pipe wrench, and a wall sign that said SOCIAL PROTECTION: DELAYING THE SINGULARITY SINCE 2005. Coffee rings patterned the top of the minifridge in the food area. She tossed two frozen burritos into the microwave.
“You don’t have to tell me that the office could use a little sprucing up. In movies your basic organizational HQ has gleaming $200 per-square-foot office space, with Herman Miller furniture and a carpet that requires weekly cleaning, not a toxic-oil-soaked square of asphalt with a cinder-block shed on it. What can I say? The donations aren’t exactly rolling in.”
There was no sign that anyone else used the office, though there were three desks, two of which had fast-food containers in their wastebaskets.
“I looked you up, too.” Charis shook crumbs off a paper plate and dropped Bernal’s burrito on it. “That was hard luck, getting blown up like that. Since it’s exactly that kind of thing that gives us a bad name, I’d like to hear your story.”
“What’s earned you a story?”
“Tell it to me, and I’ll tell you exactly why I’m so pissed off at this entire Hesketh deal. Then, having established why this is all a crock of shit, we’ll go our separate ways and never see each other again. There should be a couple of packets of hot sauce in the basket there . . . careful, that’s duck sauce, or some damn thing. And old too. Toss it.”
_______
“Two years ago I went to get the mail for my office. I was doing PhD work, data analysis. A project about cardiac outcomes that was getting canceled for public relations reasons, and I was searching around for another topic. There were a bunch of packages there: books, manuscripts, all kinds of things. There was ... I don’t know ... a leak, something. A pipe, I think. There had been some kind of exhibit in the front hall, promoting something or other. Diversity, ecological awareness, open enrollment for health plans. I don’t remember, but someone had shoved all the big mail over into a corner, right under the drip from the pipe. The addresses were all smeared. I hauled the stuff in.”
Charis just sat next to him and listened.
“I was expecting a book on fake Minoan relics. Pulling a signal out of noise is .. . was .. . part of what I did. I’d read that many things we think of as coming from ancient Crete were actually forgeries made to reassure ourselves that Arthur Evans’s Knossos was the real deal. Edwardian design with bare breasts, clearly the best of all worlds. I was eager to see how archeologists distinguished the signal from the noise. So I didn’t look at the label carefully and opened the package. I clearly had my own problems with signal and noise. It detonated. Semtex.”
“My God.” She looked at him. “It’s amazing. I think whatever happened to you yesterday did worse damage. I mean, before that decoy exploded.”
“Cast-iron doggie doorstop. Another story. But, yeah. I came out of it pretty well. Good plastic surgery. I get headaches sometimes. All my fingers work.”
“If it had been Caspar Nordhoff,
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