Andrei’s father shouted some more.
They stayed in a hotel and Andrei met them the next morning for brunch. By then they were somewhat calmer. They had taken in the points he had made about the revenue Fishbowll was already earning, and the amounts he had been offered for the business had had time to sink in. He brought them back to La Calle Court and introduced them to Kevin and Ben and Chris and the two programmers who lived at the house. By this time, his parents had sufficiently relaxed to have a conversation with them. Kevin asked about Moscow in the nineties and Andrei’s father, over a beer, told a few anecdotes that scared the hell out of everyone. Then his mother lined them up, programmers included, and for the rest of the afternoon she had the full half-dozen of them cleaning the house. By the time Andrei’s parents left that evening to go back to Boston, they seemed to have accepted the inevitable. Andrei had assured them he’d get a leave of absence.
Kevin was planning to get a leave of absence as well. Ben, on the other hand, was intending to go back to Stanford for the fall quarter. He sensed that a leave of absence would probably turn into permanent absence, and he wanted his degree. He still wanted to stay involved with Fishbowll and he talked to Andrei about how they could make that work. He would put less time into Fishbowll and then see if he wanted to come back full time when the year was over.
Chris thought it was a good idea when Ben told him about his plan one night. They were lounging on a pair of deckchairs with a couple of beers, watching two friends of one of the programmers playing ping pong on a table someone had brought into the yard. Inside, an all-hands wheelspin was under way. Since neither Chris nor Ben were involved in the prodigious bouts of coding that went on in the living room, they had found themselves hanging out quite a lot over the summer. They had conversations about psychology and spirituality. Ben saw spirituality as the fulfilment of a psychological need. Chris saw it as a doorway into a deeper dimension of the mind.
Chris liked Ben and enjoyed their conversations, but didn’t think Ben contributed as much to Fishbowll as Andrei thought he did. The analysis he did on the data could have been done by a statistical programmer for a relative pittance of a salary, and probably better and quicker than Ben did it. Ditto for the management of press enquiries by a trained PR person. Dealing with the National Security Letters that arrived regularly from the FBI was the job of a legal person, if only Fishbowll had one. But Andrei seemed to need Ben around, to have long, philosophical conversations with him about Fishbowll and its place in the world, as if Ben were some kind of muse. Privately, Chris doubted that whatever Andrei got out of that was worth 9 per cent of the company.
‘At least Stanford will take me back,’ said Ben. ‘I’m not so sure about Kevin.’
‘Why not?’ said Chris.
‘No, I’m kidding. They will – or they would, as long as they don’t find out about what he’s been doing.’
‘What’s the issue?’
‘Didn’t you hear about our disciplinary scrape? It was back in October.’ Ben stopped for a moment. October. That had been pre-Fishbowll. It seemed like an eternity ago, yet it wasn’t even a year. ‘We … well, Kevin has this thing about making up personalities when he goes on networking sites on the net.’
‘You mean he goes anonymously?’
‘No, he makes up, like, whole personalities. Men, women, whatever.’
‘Seriously?’ said Chris.
‘Oh, it’s serious. He concocts photos to make home pages and creates this whole life for them. It takes serious work. This isn’t just a matter of making up a user name. It’s a work of art.’
Chris turned and looked into the living room. Four desks were pushed together and around them sat six guys at screens. Kevin was beside Andrei, eyes down, headphones on.
‘Is this some kind of sexual thing?’
Ben grinned. ‘You’re asking a psychologist, Chris. What isn’t?’
‘So … what …?’
‘No, it’s not sexual. Not overtly. It’s just a thing he does. He’d say it’s a way of losing inhibition and allowing your mind to really express itself, a kind of fuller Deep Connectedness, if you will. Anyway, there was this guy called Dan Cooley in our dorm …’ Ben paused. ‘You sure no one’s told you about this?’
‘No one.’
‘Well, there was this guy called Dan Cooley, and Kevin – and I, incidentally – did a kind of experiment. I’m a little ashamed of it, actually, but I don’t think it worries Kevin at all.’ Somewhat sheepishly, Ben told Chris about the Cooley affair and its denouement. ‘He bought a pair of Adidas sneakers and they charged us with violating Stanford’s Fundamental Standard. That’s Stanford’s Bill of Rights. It’s about two lines long and you can make it cover anything you want. Anyway, Kevin said I had nothing to do with it. He took a bullet for me.’
‘You were lucky.’
‘Absolutely. He’s definitely a good guy. We don’t agree on everything – in fact, we don’t agree on a lot of things – but … you know. Anyway, they gave him probation and counselling and they gave me a caution. Needless to say, everything he’s been doing at Fishbowll has been a violation of his probation.’
‘Which was?’
‘You’re not going to believe this.’ Ben paused for effect. ‘Not to access social networking sites for twelve months!’
Chris grinned. ‘Dude! That is bad!’
‘He can’t help himself. He does the same thing on Fishbowll. He admitted two personalities to us. I’m sure he’s got more.’
Chris glanced at Kevin again. Kevin was gazing with intense concentration at his screen in the living room. ‘Andrei says he’s a Stakhanovite.’
‘He absolutely is. He’s the most Stakhanovite guy I’ve ever met. So anyway, this thing he does, with the personalities, we had a big discussion about whether Kevin should or shouldn’t be doing it on Fishbowll. He put forward an argument about rights and control and the liberating effect of personality adoption on Deep Connectedness. Very libertarian, which is typical Kevin.’
‘And Andrei?’
‘Andrei bought it. I personally would prefer to see us trying to discourage pseudonymity, but Andrei’s view is that it’s legitimate. And if it’s legitimate, our role is neither to encourage or discourage. I mean, I think, as officers of the company, we shouldn’t be doing it ourselves. But to Andrei, if we accept it’s legitimate, and if we accept that we can’t control it and can’t prevent it, then it would be hypocritical to say that we can’t do it. Consistency is very important to Andrei. He doesn’t let emotion overrule rationality. He’s a deductionist. If he has a principle, he applies it everywhere, no matter how much it hurts.’
Chris sucked on his beer and swallowed thoughtfully. ‘Kevin’s a libertarian, you say?’
Ben nodded.
‘What is Andrei’s philosophy, do you think? Apart from deductionism.’
‘I wouldn’t say deductionism’s a philosophy. It’s a methodology.’
‘So what’s his philosophy?’
Ben thought about it. ‘You know, that’s hard to say. I don’t think Andrei has a philosophy per se. He measures things by efficiency. That’s his yardstick of better or worse. If two conditions have equal measures of efficiency, he’s neutral between them.’
‘So he’s OK if someone kills someone else as long as they do it efficiently?’
‘No, I’m not saying that. The basics are obvious. He’s a good guy. He’s a very good guy. He’s got a morality. But when it comes to the more discretionary questions – I’m not talking about murder or theft – then it’s efficiency. Efficiency is his measure. For example, he was opposed to letting advertising on Fishbowll. We had a lot of discussion about it. He didn’t want to turn into a Mike Sweetman or whatever. I mean, we had long discussions. But in the end, we decided we had no choice. So now we’ve accepted advertising. And what happens? He is totally focused on making the advertising better, totally focused on making it more efficient, both from the perspective of the user and from
our perspective. And when you seeing him doing that, the way he does it … the focus, the clarity …’ Ben shook his head. ‘It’s an awesome sight. And the thing is, it’s not about the money. It’s absolutely not. Have you seen our revenue numbers?’
Chris shook his head. Normally, as an investor, that was the first thing he would have asked to see. But, funnily enough, he never had. It just hadn’t seemed relevant.
‘They’re awesome. I mean, totally awesome. What Andrei and Kevin have done with the advertising just blows your mind. Ed Standish says we’re running at three, four times what he would have expected. But I swear to you, I don’t think Andrei’s even aware of that. And when he decides to do something that generates even more revenue, it’s not because he thinks, I can extract more money here, it’s because he’s thinking, I can make this better, this can be more efficient. And you know what? That gets us more revenue. It’s like this magic formula. It’s totally win-win.’
‘And you don’t think,’ said Chris sceptically, ‘at the back of his mind, somewhere, there’s this little voice saying, “OK, but we can earn some more money out of this as well”?’
‘I don’t,’ said Ben. ‘I really don’t think so. I think he’s thinking about efficiency.’
Chris took another mouthful of beer, considering what Ben had said. ‘So if that’s Andrei’s yardstick, efficiency, what about not making the world worse? You can do things efficiently that will make the world worse.’
‘Sure. He doesn’t want to do that. That’s a serious thing with him. If he thinks something’s going to make the world worse, he’s not going to do it, no matter how efficiently. But I don’t think he’s got a clear yardstick for what makes the world better or worse. That’s just gut, whereas for him efficiency is quantifiable, so it’s that much more concrete.’ Ben shrugged. ‘But you know, when it comes to the big moral stuff, what makes the world better or worse, that’s all any of us have, really. We dress it up in all kinds of ways – religion, humanism, whatever – but in reality it’s just gut. That’s the yardstick. It’s what you learn at your mother’s knee.’
Chris was silent. He watched the ping-pong game. The ball went back and forth over the net. ‘I haven’t had much to do with Kevin,’ he said eventually.
‘He’s a little … he was a little funny about you buying into the company.’
‘I guessed that. You know, I didn’t ask to buy in. Andrei asked me.’
‘Doesn’t matter to me one way or the other. Do we need someone who knows about running a business? Hell, yes. Is that worth five per cent of the business? I’m guessing it is, whoever’s idea it was.’
‘But Kevin doesn’t think so?’
‘I really don’t know what he thinks now. We haven’t talked about it in a while.’
‘What does he do with these personalities he constructs?’
‘Just chat, I guess. Clearly, he gets something out of masquerading behind these facades.’ Ben laughed. ‘If I ever need a subject for a doctoral thesis …’
Chris looked at the living room. Kevin hadn’t moved. He was still fixed in front of his computer, staring at the screen. Chris felt there was something weird in what he had been told, as if he had just heard that Kevin liked wearing his girlfriend’s panties. Not that it was odd to go online anonymously or under a pseudonym – but to make up a whole personality with the kind of detail Ben had mentioned was somewhat more than that.
But there was something that appealed to him about it as well, something that spoke to Chris’s spiritual side. He could see that there could be something liberating, potentially empowering about leaving behind who you were and immersing yourself in the mind and body of another being that you had created. All native cultures have mind-opening ceremonies that take the participants out of themselves and lift them into another realm, and Chris had experienced them first hand on three different continents. There was something about what Kevin was doing that reminded him of that, albeit Kevin was doing it in a radically different way. Maybe, he thought, this was a digital-age version of the rites that every culture had produced in every age since the dawn of time.
‘You said he concocts photos?’ said Chris.
Ben nodded. ‘You should see the work he does. It’s amazing. He uses Facemaker or Photox or one of those programs, depending on what he’s trying to do. But he’s improved them. He’s created functionalities that would blow your mind.’
‘Awesome.’
‘He did a Cooley, too. Got some guy to switch from buying one brand of wetsuit to another. Kevin – or Tonya, I should say, who was this South African woman Kevin invented who liked to swim with sharks – told him he’d show a big packet.’
Chris laughed.
‘What can I tell you? The guy went out and bought it.’
Chris’s laughter stopped. ‘Seriously?’
‘Seriously. I think it’s a terrible thing to do, but that’s Kevin.’
‘And does he still go online as Tonya?’
‘I don’t think so. The guy with the big packet wanted to talk to her so he made her disappear. I guess we’ve still got him – or her – in our archive. Nothing ever goes away, does it?’
‘No, nothing,’ murmured Chris. He gazed at Kevin for a moment longer, then turned back and picked up a fresh beer. He put it to his mouth, again watching the ping-pong ball going back and forth across the table. Click, clack … An idea was lodging itself in Chris Hamer’s mind as he let the glass of the bottle linger against his lips. ‘I wonder which brand of wet suit that guy’s buying now.’
18
KEVIN’S PREDILECTION FOR impersonation played on Chris’s mind. He couldn’t decide whether it was brilliantly subversive or disgustingly childish. Probably both, as the most subversive things often were. Primitive cultures always had trickster gods and heroes, lovable scallywags who illuminate through prank. Chris thought of the myths and stories he had heard from Aboriginal Australians only months before.
A few days later, when Ben had gone to Stanford to arrange something about his upcoming return to the university, Chris suggested to Andrei and Kevin that they go to Yao’s.
Lopez took their orders and they soon settled into their usual meals. Andrei got the fried prawn and chicken noodles, Chris had the kung pao chicken and Kevin the Vietnamese rice noodles.
‘So tell me about Tonya,’ Chris opened.
Kevin looked up at him. ‘Who told you about Tonya?’
‘Ben.’
‘Well, it’s nothing. She’s gone.’ Kevin dug into his noodles in a way that suggested he wasn’t going to say anything else.
Chris glanced at Andrei, who was putting a forkful of chicken in his mouth.
‘Ben said you guys had quite an argument about it,’ said Chris, still trying to open the subject.
Kevin shrugged. ‘Dude, we have arguments about all kinds of things. It’s healthy.’
‘I’m interested to hear the points.’
Kevin was silent.
‘We can’t stop people doing it,’ said Andrei.
‘That doesn’t mean you should encourage it.’
‘It’s not an argument about what we can and can’t stop,’ said Kevin impatiently. ‘Look, why do we have to tell you about this? It happened before you came. We had a discussion, we agreed on a policy. I don’t see why we have to put the case to you like you’re some kind of judge.’
‘I’m not judging anything. I’m just interested.’
‘Whatever.’
There was silence.
‘Why do you say it’s not an argument about what you can stop?’ said Chris. ‘I would have thought that’s exactly what it is.’
Kevin sighed. He shook his head for a moment, then looked at Chris. ‘It’s a philosophical argument, Chris. OK? If people choose to behave like that in cyberspace, who are we to stop them? Who are we to say it’s wrong? Cyberspace isn’t physical space. Different space – different rules.’
‘I thought the idea behind Fishbowll was Deep Connectedness be
tween people.’
‘And what if pseudonymity facilitates that?’ riposted Kevin. ‘You get more Deep Connectedness.’
‘False Deep Connectedness.’
‘Why? What’s false about it? What would be false would be to try to force someone to do things in a way that you prescribe. They won’t do it. Therefore you’ll have less Deep Connectedness.’
‘So it’s better to have more Deep Connectedness, if some of it’s false, than less Deep Connectedness, if it’s all true?’
‘I don’t see the distinction,’ said Kevin. ‘Dude, I told you, I don’t think there’s such a thing as this false Deep Connectedness you talk about. That’s a false dichotomy. It’s your construct and I dispute it. The connection between me, as Tonya, and the other shark swimmers, if you want an example, was real. I was interested in shark swimming, I learned, I contributed, I developed, and maybe I helped them develop. Where’s the falsity?’
‘You had to make Tonya disappear.’
‘Because someone wanted to take that personality from the cyber world – where she existed – into the physical world. Is that my fault? It’s like taking a fish out of water. We have two worlds on this planet, water and air, and very few creatures can live in both of them. Well, in human cultures, we now have two worlds as well, the physical and the cyber. Some people are amphibians. Some choose not to be.’
‘I’m not sure I buy the analogy.’
Kevin stabbed at his noodles. ‘I’m not trying to sell it to you.’
‘What do you think, Andrei?’ said Chris.
‘Dude, we had the conversation!’ Noodles flew out of Kevin’s mouth. ‘This was before you. It doesn’t concern you. We had the conversation and we decided what we were doing. We’re not reopening it.’
Chris waited a moment. ‘Andrei?’
Fishbowl Page 15
