The Cookie Monster

by Vernor Vinge

"I don’t know, Victor! Why do you think I’m risking my job to find out?"

  Victor laughed. "Don’t worry about losing the job, Dixie Mae. Heh. There’s no way it could have lasted even through the summer." He gave his usual superior-knowledge grin.

  "You’re an idiot, Victor. Doing customer support right will be a billion dollar winner."

  "Oh, maybe ... if you’re on the right side of it." He paused as if wondering what to tell her.

  "But for you, look: support costs money. Long ago, the Public Spoke about how much they were willing to pay." He paused, like he was trying to put together a story that she could understand.

  "Yeah ... and even if you’re right, your vision of the project is doomed. You know why?"

  Dixie Mae didn’t reply. His reason would be something about the crappy quality of the people who had been hired.

  Sure enough, Victor continued: "I’ll tell you why. And this is the surprise kink that’s going to make my articles for the Bruin really shine: Maybe LotsaTech has its corporate heart in the right place. That would be surprising considering how they brutalized Microsoft. But maybe they’ve let this bizarre idealism go too far. Heh. For anything long-term, they’ve picked the wrong employees."

  Dixie Mae kept her cool. "We took all sorts of psych tests. You don’t think Professor Reich knows what he’s doing?"

  "Oh, I bet he knows what he’s doing. But what if LotsaTech isn’t using his results? Look at us.

  There are some–such as yours truly–who are way over-educated. I’m closing in on a master’s degree in journalism; it’s clear I won’t be around for long. Then there’s people like Don and Ulysse.

  They have the right level of education for customer support, but they’re too smart. Yes, Ulysse talks about doing this job so well that her talent is recognized, and she is a diligent sort. But I’ll bet that even she couldn’t last a summer. As for some of the others ... well, may I be frank, Dixie Mae?"

  What saved him from a fist in the face was that Dixie Mae had never managed to be really angry about more than one thing at once. "Please do be frank, Victor."

  "You talk the same game plan as Ulysse–but I’ll bet your multiphasic shows you have the steadiness of mercury fulminate. Without this interesting email from Mr. Lusting, you might be good for a week, but sooner or later you’d run into something so infuriating that direct action was required–and you’d be bang out on your rear."

  Dixie Mae pretended to mull this over. "Well, yes," she said. "After all, you’re still going to be here next week, right?"

  He laughed. "I rest my case. But seriously, Dixie Mae, this is what I mean about the personnel situation here. We have a bunch of bright and motivated people, but their motivations are all over the map, and most of their enthusiasm can’t be sustained for any realistic span of time. Heh. So I guess the only rational explanation–and frankly, I don’t think it would work–is that LotsaTech figures ..."

  He droned on with some theory about how LotsaTech was just looking for some quick publicity and a demonstration that high-quality customer support could win back customers in a big way. Then after they flushed all these unreliable new hires, they could throttle back into something cheaper for the long term.

  But Dixie Mae’s attention was far away. On her left was the familiar view of Los Angeles. To her right, the ridgeline was just a few hundred yards away. From the crest you could probably see down into the valley, even pick out streets in Tarzana. Someday, it would be nice to go back there, maybe prove to Dad that she could keep her temper and make something of herself. All my life, I’ve been screwing up like today. But that letter from "Lusting" was like finding a burglar in your bedroom. The guy knew too much about her that he shouldn’t have known, and he had mocked her background and her family. Dixie Mae had grown up in Southern California, but she’d been born in Georgia–and she was proud of her roots. Maybe Daddy never realized that, since she was running around rebelling most of the time. He and Mom always said she’d eventually settle down. But then she fell in love with the wrong kind of person–and it was her folks who’d gone ballistic. Words Were Spoken. And even though things hadn’t worked out with her new love, there was no way she could go back. By then Mom had died. Now, I swear I’m not going back to Daddy till I can show I’ve made something of myself.

  So why was she throwing away her best job in ages? She slowed to a stop, and just stood there in the middle of the walkway; common sense had finally gotten to the brakes. But they had walked almost all the way to 0999. Much of the building was hidden behind twisty junipers, but you could see down a short flight of stairs to the ground level entrance.

  We should go back. She pulled the "Lusting" email out of her pocket and glared at it for a second.

  Later. You can follow up on this later. She read the mail again. The letters blurred behind tears of rage, and she dithered in the hot summer sunlight.

  Victor made an impatient noise. "Let’s go, kiddo." He pushed a chocolate bar into her hand. "Get your blood sugar out of the basement."

  They went down the concrete steps to B0999’s entrance. Just a quick look, Dixie Mae had decided.

  Beneath the trees and the overhang, all was cool and shady. They peered through the ground floor windows, into empty rooms. Victor pushed open the door. The layout looked about the same as in their own building, except that B0999 wasn’t really finished: There was the smell of Carpenter Nail in the air, and the lights and wireless nodes sat naked on the walls.

  The place was occupied. She could hear people talking up on the main floor, what was cubicle-city back in B0994. She took a quick hop up the stairs, peeked in–no cubicles here. As a result, the place looked cavernous. Six or eight tables had been pushed together in the middle of the room. A

  dozen people looked up at their entrance.

  "Aha!" boomed one of them. "More warm bodies. Welcome, welcome!"

  They walked toward the tables. Don and Ulysse had worried about violating corporate rules and project secrecy. They needn’t have bothered. These people looked almost like squatters. Three of them had their legs propped up on the tables. Junk food and soda cans littered the tables.

  "Programmers?" Dixie Mae muttered to Victor.

  "Heh. No, these look more like ... graduate students."

  The loud one had red hair snatched back in a pony tail. He gave Dixie Mae a broad grin. "We’ve got a couple of extra display flats. Grab some seating." He jerked a thumb toward the wall and a stack of folding chairs. "With you two, we may actually be able to finish today!"

  Dixie Mae looked uncertainly at the display and keyboard that he had just lit up. "But what–"

  "Cognitive Science 301. The final exam. A hundred dollars a question, but we have 107 bluebooks to grade, and Gerry asked mainly essay questions."

  Victor laughed. "You’re getting a hundred dollars for each bluebook?"

  "For each question in each bluebook, man. But don’t tell. I think Gerry is funding this out of money that LotsaTech thinks he’s spending on research." He waved at the nearly empty room, in this nearly completed building.

  Dixie Mae leaned down to look at the display, the white letters on a blue background. It was a standard bluebook, just like at Valley Community College. Only here the questions were complete nonsense, such as:

  7. Compare and contrast cognitive dissonance in operant conditioning with Minsky-Loeve attention maintenance. Outline an algorithm for constructing the associated isomorphism.

  "So," said Dixie Mae, "what’s cognitive science?"

  The grin disappeared from the other’s face. "Oh, Christ. You’re not here to help with the grading?"

  Dixie Mae shook her head. Victor said, "It shouldn’t be too hard. I’ve had some grad courses in psych."

  The redhead did not look encouraged. "Does anyone know this guy?"

  "I do," said a girl at the far end of all the tables. "That’s Victor Smaley. He’s a journalism grad, and not very good at that."

  Victor looked across the
tables. "Hey, Mouse! How ya doing?"

  The redhead looked beseechingly at the ceiling. "I do not need these distractions!" His gaze came down to the visitors. "Will you two just please go away?"

  "No way," said Dixie Mae. "I came here for a reason. Someone–probably someone here in Building

  0999–is messing with our work in Customer Support. I’m going to find out who." And give them some free dental work.

  "Look. If we don’t finish grading the exam today, Gerry Reich’s going to make us come back tomorrow and–"

  "I don’t think that’s true, Graham," said a guy sitting across the table. "Prof. Reich’s whole point was that we should not feel time pressure. This is an experiment, comparing time-bounded grading with complete individualization."

  "Yes!" said Graham the redhead. "That’s exactly why Reich would lie about it. ‘Take it easy, make good money,’ he says. But I’ll bet that if we don’t finish today, he’ll screw us into losing the weekend."

  He glared at Dixie Mae. She glared back. Graham was going to find out just what stubborn and willful really meant. There was a moment of silence and then–

  "I’ll talk to them, Graham." It was the woman at the far end of the tables.

  "Argh. Okay, but not here!"

  "Sure, we’ll go out on the porch." She beckoned Dixie Mae and Victor to follow her out the side door.

  "And hey," called Graham as they walked out, "don’t take all day, Ellen. We need you here."

  The porch on 0999 had a bigger junk-food machine than back at Customer Support. Dixie Mae didn’t think that made up for no cafeteria, but Ellen Garcia didn’t seem to mind. "We’re only going to be here this one day. I’m not coming back on Saturday."

  Dixie Mae bought herself a sandwich and soda and they all sat down on some beat-up lawn furniture.

  "So what do you want to know?" said Ellen.

  "See, Mouse, we’re following up on the weirdest–"

  Ellen waved Victor silent, her expression pretty much the same as all Victor’s female acquaintances. She looked expectantly at Dixie Mae.

  "Well, my name is Dixie Mae Leigh. This morning we got this email at our customer support address.

  It looks like a fake. And there are things about it that–" she handed over the hard copy.

  Ellen’s gaze scanned down. "Kind of fishy dates," she said to herself. Then she stopped, seeing the "To:" header. She glanced up at Dixie Mae. "Yeah, this is abuse. I used to see this kind of thing when I was a Teaching Assistant. Some guy would start hitting on a girl in my class." She eyed Victor speculatively.

  "Why does everybody suspect me?" he said.

  "You should be proud, Victor. You have such a reliable reputation." She shrugged. "But actually, this isn’t quite your style." She read on. "The rest is smirky lascivious, but otherwise it doesn’t mean anything to me."

  "It means a lot to me," said Dixie Mae. "This guy is talking about things that nobody should know."

  "Oh?" She went back to the beginning and stared at the printout some more. "I don’t know about secrets in the message body, but one of my hobbies is rfc9822 headers. You’re right that this is all scammed up. The message number and ident strings are too long; I think they may carry added content."

  She handed back the email. "There’s not much more I can tell you. If you want to give me a copy, I could crunch on those header strings over the weekend."

  "Oh... . Okay, thanks." It was more solid help than anyone had offered so far, but–"Look Ellen, the main thing I was hoping for was some clues here in Building 0999. The letter pointed me here.

  I run into ... abusers sometimes, myself. I don’t let them get away with it! I’d bet money that whoever this is, he’s one of those graders." And he’s probably laughing at us right now.

  Ellen thought a second and then shook her head. "I’m sorry, Dixie Mae. I know these people pretty well. Some of them are a little strange, but they’re not bent like this. Besides, we didn’t know we’d be here till yesterday afternoon. And today we haven’t had time for mischief."

  "Okay," Dixie Mae forced a smile. "I appreciate your help." She would give Ellen a copy of the letter and go back to Customer Support, just slightly better off than if she had behaved sensibly in the first place.

  Dixie Mae started to get up, but Victor leaned forward and set his notepad on the table between them. "That email had to come from somewhere. Has anyone here been acting strange, Mousy?"

  Ellen glared at him, and after a second he said, "I mean ‘Ellen.’ You know I’m just trying to help out Dixie Mae here. Oh yeah, and maybe get a good story for the Bruin."

  Ellen shrugged. "Graham told you; we’re grading on the side for Gerry Reich."

  "Huh." Victor leaned back. "Ever since I’ve been at UCLA, Reich has had a reputation for being an operator. He’s got big government contracts and all this consulting at LotsaTech. He tries to come across as a one-man supergenius, but actually it’s just money, um, buying lots and lots of peons.

  So what do you think he’s up to?"

  Ellen shrugged. "Technically, I bet Gerry is misusing his contacts with LotsaTech. But I doubt if they care; they really like him." She brightened. "And I approve of what Prof. Reich is doing with this grading project. When I was a TA, I wished there was some way that I could make a day-long project out of reading each student’s exam. That was an impossible wish; there was just never enough time. But with his contacts here at LotsaTech, Gerry Reich has come close to doing it. He’s paying some pretty sharp grad students very good money to grade and comment on every single essay question. Time is no object, he’s telling us. The students in these classes are going to get really great feedback."

  "This guy Reich keeps popping up," said Dixie Mae. "He was behind the testing program that selected Victor and me and the others for customer support."

  "Well, Victor’s right about him. Reich is a manipulator. I know he’s been running tests all this week. He grabbed all of Olson Hall for the operation. We didn’t know what it was for until afterwards. He nailed Graham and the rest of our gang for this one-day grading job. It looks like he has all sorts of projects."

  "Yeah, we took our tests at Olson Hall, too." There had been a small up-front payment, and hints of job prospects... . And Dixie Mae had ended up with maybe the best job offer she’d ever had.

  "But we did that last week."

  "It can’t be the same place. Olson Hall is a gym."

  "Yes, that’s what it looked like to me."

  "It was used for the NCAA eliminations last week."

  Victor reached for his notepad. "Whatever. We gotta be going, Mouse."

  "Don’t ‘Mouse’ me, Victor! The NCAA elims were the week of 4 June. I did Gerry’s questionnaire yesterday, which was Thursday, 14 June."

  "I’m sorry, Ellen," said Dixie Mae. "Yesterday was Thursday, but it was the 21st of June."

  Victor made a calming gesture. "It’s not a big deal."

  Ellen frowned, but suddenly she wasn’t arguing. She glanced at her watch. "Let’s see your notepad, Victor. What date does it say?"

  "It says, June ... huh. It says June 15."

  Dixie Mae looked at her own watch. The digits were so precise, and a week wrong: Fri Jun 15

  12:31:18 PDT 2012. "Ellen, I looked at my watch before we walked over here. It said June 22nd."

  Ellen leaned on the table and took a close look at Victor’s notepad. "I’ll bet it did. But both your watch and the notepad get their time off the building utilities. Here you’re getting set by our local clock–and you’re getting the truth."

  Now Dixie Mae was getting mad. "Look, Ellen. Whatever the time service says, I would not have made up a whole extra week of my life." All those product-familiarization classes.

  "No, you wouldn’t." Ellen brought her heels back on the edge of her chair. For a long moment, she didn’t say anything, just stared through the haze at the city below.

  Finally she said: "You know, Victor, you should be pleased."

  "
Why is that?" suspiciously.

  "You may have stumbled into a real, world-class news story. Tell me. During this extra week of life you’ve enjoyed, how often have you used your phone?"

  Dixie Mae said, "Not at all. Mr. Johnson–he’s our instructor–said that we’re deadzoned till we get through the first week."

  Ellen nodded. "So I guess they didn’t expect the scam to last more than a week. See, we are not deadzoned here. LotsaTech has a pretty broad embargo on web access, but I made a couple of phone calls this morning."

  Victor gave her a sharp look. "So where do you think the extra week came from?"

  Ellen hesitated. "I think Gerry Reich has gone beyond where the UCLA human subjects committee would ever let him go. You guys probably spent one night in drugged sleep, being pumped chock full of LotsaTech product trivia."

  "Oh! You mean ... Just-in-Time Training?" Victor tapped away at his notepad. "I thought that was years away."

  "It is if you play by the FDA’s rules. But there are meds and treatments that can speed up learning. Just read the journals and you’ll see that in another year or two, they’ll be a scandal as big as sports drugs ever were. I think Gerry has just jumped the gun with something that is very, very effective. You have no side-effects. You have all sorts of new, specialized knowledge–even if it’s about a throwaway topic. And apparently you have detailed memories of life experience that never happened."

  Dixie Mae thought back over the last week. There had been no strangeness about her experience at Olson Hall: the exams, the job interview. True, the johns were fantastically clean–like a hospital, now that she thought about it. She had only visited them once, right after she accepted the job offer. And then she had ... done what? Taken a bus directly out to LotsaTech ...

  without even going back to her apartment? After that, everything was clear again. She could remember jokes in the Voxalot classes. She could remember meals, and late night talks with Ulysse about what they might do with this great opportunity. "It’s brainwashing," she finally said.

  Ellen nodded. "It looks like Gerry has gone way, way too far on this one."

  "And he’s stupid, too. Our team is going to a party tonight, downtown. All of a sudden, there’ll be sixteen people who’ll know what’s been done to them. We’ll be mad as–" Dixie Mae noticed Ellen’s pitying look.