Robert looked around the conference table. Three men and two women pursed their lips, looked to one side or another, and eventually shook their heads. The sixth spoke.
“Romero.”
It was Hiram Hehlwater, the grizzled-looking Vice President of PUI’s Sales Technology division. He had asked the fewest questions, and those he asked were the least related to the intricacies of the insurance industry: What was Robert’s maximum uptime, how often were updates delivered, how configurable was the background office image that appeared to customers when they opened Robert’s window, what was his server load, and so on. Robert had answered what he could, and Mr. Romero had had his back on technical questions about his internals.
He made Robert uneasy, and Robert could not quite put his finger on why.
“Go ahead, Mr. Hehlwater.”
“I do in fact have a question.” The old man turned toward him. “Robert.”
“Yes, sir.”
“We have an Orbital Debris Damage rider to our homeowner’s policies. How would you discuss this with our customers?”
Robert knew the entire PUI line, all the way out to the fine print. This was an easy one. “Well. I’d start by finding out where they live. The risk of damage from re-entering debris is small and decreases with increasing latitude. Practical risk is almost zero past latitude 45, and…”
“Wrong answer!” Hiram Hehlwater stood, hands flat on his desk. His lined face was flushed with anger. “The correct answer is that you don’t discuss it at all. It’s present in all homeowner policies by default. If they ask to have it removed, talk them out of it. Change the subject. If that doesn’t work, show them the chart we have about the exponential growth rate of orbiting trash.”
Robert felt like he’d been hit on the head with a hockey stick. Mr. Hehlwater was waiting for a reply. Robert coughed, cleared his throat, and thought hard. Nothing came to mind but the truth. “At some point it’s really not a risk…”
“Risk? This isn’t about risk. ODD costs a dollar a year. We haven’t paid a penny on it since we wrote it after Skylab came down in 1979. It’s free money, and a lot of it.”
“Sir, I understand that.”
Robert met Mr. Hehlwater’s angry stare. He didn’t know what else to do. Long moments passed.
“I don’t think you do. Robert, in fifteen words or less, describe your job.”
Robert sat as straight in his chair as he could manage. “I evaluate risk for customers and protect them from financial loss.” The truth, with four words to spare!
Mr. Hehlwater shook his head. “On the contrary. Your job is to sell policies.”
Robert’s archetype did not support panic. (That came with Class Seven, though it was a configurable property.) However, he did understand that to some things there was no good reply. He said nothing. Hiram Hehlwater waited for a few seconds, then Robert saw him turn toward Mr. Romero.
“The PUI board gave me authority to kill this thing if I thought it was getting out of hand. We’ve got three quarters of a million sunk in it so far, and we’re on the hook for half a million more on implementation. I don’t need a talking spreadsheet. I need a salesman who doesn’t get paid, doesn’t get sick, and doesn’t take no for an answer.”
Robert clasped his hands together in his lap until his knuckles showed white. “Mr. Hehlwater, there’s a question of honesty here. If a customer asks about risk and there’s no risk…”
“And one that doesn’t talk back.” Mr. Hehlwater sat again. “Romero, I’ve got a cancellation letter prepared. We’ll pay the penalty within thirty, as per.” Robert watched the man type for a few seconds.
“Received,” Pyxis said from her small window.
Mr. Romero rubbed his cheek. Robert could see the glint of sweat on his skin. “Mr. Hehlwater, is there anything we can do here…”
“In a word, no.” Hiram Hehlwater’s window went dark. One by one, the others did as well.
Long seconds passed in silence. Robert couldn’t make any sense of his failure. He had been given instructions, and he had never launched into a task before those instructions were crystal clear in his own mind. He did his best to learn his lessons. He paid attention to every word, every table, every chart. He had made nothing up, and had answered every question with complete honesty.
“Mr. Romero, I’m not really sure I understand what I did wrong.”
His boss took another drink of water from the cup at his elbow. “I don’t think you did anything wrong. Sometimes the product you deliver isn’t the product the customer wanted.”
“I would like to be the product the customer wanted. I think with some adjustment…”
Mr. Romero shook his head. “No. They’ve paid for you so far, and I’m glad it wasn’t on my nickel. But I don’t have anybody else to pick up the project, and with ARFF to babysit, no time to look. I’m going to take the eight hundred fifty grand and chalk it up to experience.”
Robert felt a tightness in his throat that he wasn’t expecting, at least while he was still Class Four. “Then…what about me?”
Mr. Romero looked at him oddly for several seconds, then shrugged. “You did your best. I can’t argue with that. But you’re a research project, and I think the project is over.”
“Over?”
“Yes. Robert, go archive yourself.”
28: Simple Simon
The kitchen desk Window was ringing. Simple Simon blinked and swung out of his bed, stumbling into the kitchen. It was 7:20; he generally set his alarm_time property for 7:30.
Pickles was in the corner of the kitchen, dressed in a flowing white gown that came down to her feet, cut very low at the neckline and held up off the floor with three of Dave’s meticulously crafted wooden clothespins. She was pouring a new pot of water into the coffee machine. She held a finger to her lips and pointed at the kitchen desk.
Simon sat in the desk’s little chair and tapped the panel.
“Simon! Happy Thursday!” In the Window, Dave raised a can of energy drink to his lips. “Lots to do today. First of all, it doesn’t sound like anybody told you about the Kid. Did you get the story?”
From the corner of the kitchen, Pickles shook her head vigorously. Simon did the same. “Uh, well, I wondered what happened to her.”
“Dr. Arenberg decided to archive her. She just wasn’t working out. I think everybody forgot that she wasn’t living in Dijana’s house anymore. I’ll bet you miss her.”
Pickles blew Simon a kiss. Simon nodded. “I do.”
“As long as you remember her, she’ll never be completely gone.”
Pickles stuck her tongue out at the panel.
“Now, the big news is this: We’re go for the line start tomorrow morning. But it’ll be a little weird. They’re airgapping the entire building today. There won’t be any network lines into the building at all by the time we go home tonight. That means I have to poof you over here ASAP. You’ll be living in your office for a couple of days.”
Simon shrugged. “That doesn’t matter. I have a coffee machine there if I need one.”
“Sure. And I already poofed a bed in for you. Modeled after a real Charles Rennie Mackintosh design!”
Simon knew that Dave wasn’t fibbing. He glanced at his broom closet, which he dared not open for fear that all of Dave’s gifts would spill out in a pile on the floor. “Gee. Neat.”
“Are you ready to go?”
Simon glanced at Pickles. Pickles pointed downward at her feet. What she meant by the gesture was unclear until Simon watched her slim form shrink, widen, and morph into the boombox that they had danced to the previous day. Like all of Dave’s gadgets it was now back in the closet…wasn’t it?
The carrying handle of the boombox flipped back and forth on its hinges for a few seconds, in waltz time.
“Sure. Let me just grab one thing.” Simon left the chair, and picked up the boombox from the floor by the coffee machine. He returned to the center of the kitchen. “Poof away!”
Dav
e laughed. “So you finally developed a taste for music! Hey, I have that design on file. I can poof an instance over to your office. No need to lug it with you.”
Simon shook his head. “Don’t bother. I like this one!”
He heard Dave’s fingers clatter for a moment across his keyboard. When Simon’s rendering buffer refreshed, he stood at the center of his ellipsoidal office in Building 800, the boombox in his hand.
Dave’s new Class Nine furniture looked out of place somehow, in a room that (as Simon had put it once, with some pride) had no class at all. The bed was there, as was a red oak table in a similar design, and a chair that looked uncomfortable.
Simon set the boombox on the table. Dave, having poofed them to Building 800, went on to other things, and his Window went dark. Pickles morphed back to herself, albeit now in a colorful dress with a long skirt of ruffled tiers, and a headpiece made of wax fruit.
Simon sat in the chair. It was even more uncomfortable than it looked—and the question that he was waiting to ask was less comfortable still. “If Dr. Arenberg archived the Kid…who are you?”
Pickles clasped her hands in her lap. Her speech balloon appeared.
Fear is the sire of dishonesty;
What was said was done
Was not done.
Simon looked away from her. Dishonesty, indeed. He sensed lies somewhere. Simon had never caught Dave Mirecki in a lie, and Dave never gave any indication that he was afraid of anything. So…Dr. Arenberg? The man spoke as roughly to him as he did to everyone. But Dr. Arenberg had created him. Would a creator have fear?
Yes: A creator would fear a creation that dared to create. Suppose the Kid had refused to accept an AILING archetype, but instead created her own—and then gave herself a name. Would Dr. Arenberg fear her?
What else might she be able to do?
“Is Dr. Arenberg afraid of you?”
Pickles nodded.
“Should I be afraid of you?”
She shook her head.
“The more time I spend with you, the less you seem like the Kid. I’m starting to wonder if you’re really what I think you are.”
Pickles pushed herself off the table. She held out both her hands to him. Simon rose from the chair and took them.
What you love, I am:
A girl not lonely, nor far away,
But your friend.
She stretched on bare toes to kiss him. Simon bent down to meet her lips, then drew back as though struck in the face by the memory that her last words had triggered. Line Start Seven. The core bomb. The cancerous blob of hijacked cores on the core map, containing words:
A lonely girl appears
From a faraway place.
Will you be my friend?
He released her hands and threw them downward. His voice was a pained whisper. “You crashed Line Start Seven.”
Pickles’ large eyes brimmed. A tear worked its way down her right cheek.
Regret comes quickly,
Wisdom more slowly.
Restitution barely creeps.
Simon found himself livid. (Anger? Did he support anger?) “Restitution! You cost the company half a million dollars in parts and another half in repairs! I haven’t seen Robert or Dijana since then, and for all I know they’ve been archived. I came this close to being archived myself! Can you pay for those parts? Can you bring my friends back?”
Pickles’ colorful dancing dress morphed to a short black sheath. She looked down at her feet, and crossed her arms over her chest. That done, she pulsed to blinding white and vanished.
Only her speech balloon remained:
What you taught me
I cannot forget. Do not forget
What I taught you.
After hanging in the air for scant seconds, the speech balloon winked out.
Simon lay on his Mackintosh bed, miserable. He was alone, friendless, betrayed by an alien AI that had pretended to be his friend, and then pretended to love him as Dijana truly had.
He remembered Dijana’s last words to him: You don’t know what this means, yet…but when I make it to Class Seven, I will love you.
Simon realized that he loved her already, without being Class Seven and without having HRDL. He had never considered himself capable of love, nor did he assume that he had any least idea what love entailed.
Now he did. And where had that come from?
Kisses. It was the kisses. It could only be the kisses.
Simon closed his eyes and put one of the bed’s two small pillows over his face. All that, and responsibility for a line start in less than a day’s time, a line start that might be his last chance to avoid Archive himself. Could things get any worse?
Thump-thump-thump-thump!
Line by line, the sandbox rendered itself. Simon found himself sitting, legs out, in warm water that did not wet him. He had been scanned again, forced through the security blockops accumulator and inspected, dword-by-dword. It hadn’t hurt…much…but he was angry.
He looked up toward the brilliant sunlit beach. Something glinted on the sand, like a transparent tent. It was taller than he and twice as wide as it was high. Its five sides sloped inward and came to a peak. Something lay on the sand inside.
Simon pushed himself to his feet. The water flowed away. He strode through the small whispering waves, onto the sand, and toward the peculiar object. It wasn’t until he was only a few feet away that he recognized the reclining shape inside the enclosure.
It was Dijana.
His friend lay on the sand, dressed in her everyday skirted suit, her face away from him. Around her ankle was a polished metal band, and attached to the band was a thick chain welded to a stout metal stake driven into the sand.
Anger? Yes, I support anger! Simon balled up one fist and drove it against the transparent enclosure with all his strength. Jagged traces like lightning sizzled around the point where his hand struck, but the wall did not crack nor even flex.
Dijana raised her head from the sand. She blinked several times, obviously refreshing her rendering buffer. She rose to her feet. Something like tape was wrapped around her mouth. Although she seemed to be trying to speak, she made no sound.
Dijana stretched one arm toward the wall, and touched it with her fingertips. Simon laid his hand on the wall against hers. What had the Kid said? DON’T CONFUSE LOVE AND THEATER. Theater, yes. In all the old movies, this would be the time that he would speak that oddest of human statements: “I love you.”
And what good was that? Simon’s anger was now cold fury. He looked down at the sand. She needed more than love. So did he. A plan would be good. A plan—and the raw determination it would take to see it through.
He swallowed hard, and met her eyes again. “Whatever it takes…whatever it takes…I’m going to get you out of there.”
A faint, strange vibration purred within his body. Simon saw his hand become a polygon model. Not this time!
Simple Simon quickly kissed his fingertip, and pressed it against the wall. Dijana took her fingertip from the wall, and touched it to her cheek.
The sandbox vanished.
29: Stypek
With Dave Mirecki at his elbow, Stypek made a loose fist with his right hand and raised it to eye level. The display before which they sat made a small hissing sound, and a disembodied voice answered with enthusiasm: “Project saved!”
Stypek felt his stomach tighten. The next step would be scary. Creating a spell (no! It was a…program!) was all good fun, just as ripping an alarm spell to pieces so that its individual parts could be snerfed had been good fun. Stypek did recall that reassembling the spell so that it worked again had not been quite as much fun. As there, so here: He had created a pony trap at Dave’s direction, but until it actually trapped a pony, Stypek would not consider the project a success. Dave was, however, an excellent teacher. In fact, if not for his age, Stypek would consider him an adept. If he said that a code library would display a rainbow, and that rainbows would attract ponies, well, the
ponies didn’t have a chance.
“Go for it!”
Stypek swallowed hard and nodded. He curled all the fingers of his right hand but his index finger lightly against his palm. Then, with his hand held shoulder-high, he flicked his index finger forward twice, as though tapping on a window.
The display cleared. A smiling Sun rose into its upper-right corner, and a cloud into its upper left corner. At the bottom center of the display was a box made of stout wire, with one face held up by a cord. The cord was gripped in the fist of a nasty-looking small green creature wearing a tall cylindrical hat. Dave called it a “leprechaun,” but it looked a great deal like Daley, and apart from the shape of its hat it resembled a common braies gnome.
A few seconds passed. The cloud began to release rain. The rain caused a rainbow to form, with its end descending in an arc through the top of the box—and, somehow, through the gnome. More seconds passed. One by one, small colorful animals wandered onto the low edge of the display, champing at the grass. They all seemed indifferent to the rainbow until one looked up, and then stared transfixed at the end of the rainbow inside the box.
The pony walked toward the box and then into it. Stypek waited for the gnome to release the door of the trap. Instead, a message appeared on the bottom edge of the display:
Cooperation error 14: Actor RainbowDash blocking actor Harrigan.
Stypek’s heart fell. The trap had failed.
Dave clapped his shoulder. “Good first shot. We didn’t make the leprechaun smart enough to pre-empt the pony.”
Ten Gentle Opportunities Page 18
