by Diane Duane
“Well, never mind,” he said. “Other people on campus will need to see this—Joss and his team in particular—and we’ll have notes for you within a few days. Meanwhile, you’ve got questions for me—” He waved her over to one of a pair of lounge chairs off to one side of the desk.
They sat down. She had a long list, but no set order in which to ask them, so now she picked the one that kept coming up for her and which other interviewers had never seemed to find a decent answer for. “What’s the attraction?” she said after a moment. “What makes Omnitopia work for so many people on so many levels?”
Dev leaned back. “It’s the question everybody tends to answer for themselves, once they’ve been in,” he said. “Not to push it back on you, but what’s appealed to you when you’ve gone in-game?”
“Well,” she said, “I haven’t really been in except in the public exploratory spaces—”
“Oh, no,” Dev said. “You haven’t played?”
“Uh, no, I’ve been talking to people mostly—”
“So come on in with me!” Dev said. “I’ve got a little free time this afternoon.”
She gave him an amused look. “You have free time?”
He shrugged. “It was an accident,” Dev said. “I finished up some work early. But also, my PA always schedules me too long for lunch.” He produced a sly look. “Frank has this idea that I need less stress.”
This at least Delia understood. “You strike me more as the kind of person who thrives on it.”
Dev laughed. “Don’t put that in the article,” he said. “You’ll give my staff ideas. But we’ll go in, have a walk around.” He got up.
Delia stood up in considerable bemusement: a guided tour through Omnitopia itself, rather than just its corporate bricks- and-mortar, was something that had never occurred to her might happen. “What’s your preference?” Dev said. “Do you like fully virtual options—the complete sensory immersion experience? Or would you rather keep your distance and get in via keyboard or flat input?”
“Well—” Delia said. “You must have a lot of really nice virtual around here—”
From off to one side, a soft chiming sound began. Dev glanced over at his desk: Delia followed the glance and saw that the dark glass was pulsing with soft blue light. “Oh, no,” Dev said, “I told them to hold my calls—”
He went over to the desk, touched its surface. “Yes?”
Delia couldn’t hear anything happening at the other end of the communication. Bone conduction? she wondered. Or something weirder? There was no way to tell.
She watched Dev’s expression. It was neutral for a moment, then crinkled down into an annoyed scowl. “Well,” he said, “I guess there’s nothing we can do about that, is there. Okay, what’s his timetable look like?”
Another pause. “All right,” Dev said, “let’s do it that way. I’ll call you back shortly. Right. Thanks.”
He straightened up and sighed, then turned back to Delia. “I’m really sorry about this,” Dev said, “but I’ve had something come up that requires my attention, and the spare time I thought I had has just evaporated. The story of my life for the next couple of days.” He let out an annoyed sigh. “Would you mind if we reschedule this walkabout? Tomorrow, let’s say. I’ll see that we get it done next time.”
“Of course,” Delia said. Then she added, “You’re supposed to do that every day, aren’t you? Visit one Macrocosm or another.”
Dev nodded. “My universe,” he said. “Or universes. I’d be remiss if I didn’t keep an eye on things.”
“I didn’t mean just in the supervisory or workability sense,” Delia said, as they started to walk out toward the atrium again. “There are all these stories in the newsfeeds . . . rumors about how Dev Himself walks through his creation in disguise, rewarding the good and punishing the wicked.”
“Mostly the wicked wind up punishing themselves,” Dev said. “They know our game has a positively skewed ethics structure . . .”
Delia chuckled. “Another of those great pieces of gamespeak,” she said. “Like ‘negative satisfaction.’ ”
Dev shrugged. “That’s one piece of language we need. At the end of the day, it’s all about player satisfaction. Everybody has to win . . . or lose in some way that makes sense to them. They don’t win, I don’t win . . . or, more to the point, my staff don’t win.”
“It’s interesting to hear you put it that way,” Delia said, “since one of the complaints from some of your players is that winning, as such, is impossible. That all they can do is keep playing, and paying you for the privilege of allowing them to play their butts off for little statistically managed minimum feedback rewards, because the game doesn’t have any real planned ending.” She smiled. “Because if it did, you’d stop making money.”
“Well,” Dev said, as they strolled back out to the gallery ramp again, “if it were true that Omnitopia didn’t have an ending, I’d hardly confess that to you.” He smiled back, but there was an edge on it. “And if we did have an ending, that’s also information I wouldn’t be eager to hand to Time as an exclusive when with one phone call I could schedule a press conference that would have every major news outlet on Earth camped out on my front lawn within four hours. But if you’ll turn around for a second—”
She did. He looked back across that level of the main office suite with her, then up and down the atrium. “How many people would you say work in here?”
Delia shook her head. “I read the numbers earlier, but I confess I don’t remember at the moment. Five . . . maybe six hundred?”
“Six hundred eighteen, this week,” Dev said. “It’s close enough to ten percent of the workforce on campus here. They, and the forty thousand-odd other people I employ around the world, and their families, and their health plans, and their mortgages, would probably be somewhat upset if Omnitopia stopped making money. Don’t you think?”
“I didn’t mean—”
“I’m sure you didn’t,” Dev said. “It may surprise you to know that I sign off on every hire. Sooner or later—sometimes later, because as you see my schedule gets crazed without warning—I meet everybody who works for me. If for me there’s a game that never ends, and that I intend to win at all costs, it’s the game of keeping this company successful enough that my people have work for as long as they want it. Because there’ve been times when I didn’t have any, and let me tell you, when you don’t have work and you want it, you don’t feel much like playing any game at all. All our other players are contributing to a context in which we can all feel like playing. And I’m committed to making sure the players do at least as well out of the situation as my employees. Believe me, they’ll have nothing to complain about as the new game unfolds. And that’s only partly because I have my own ethics skew, which I dislike seeing impugned.”
After a moment Delia nodded. “Sorry,” she said. “What time do you want to do this walkthrough?”
Dev rubbed his eyes for a moment, thinking. Just for that second, something showed through that Delia hadn’t yet seen in him: weariness. But a flash later it was gone. “Could we say tomorrow about two? You can go on with doing your background research for the rest of the day, seeing the people you need to see. I have your cell phone number. I’ll text you tomorrow morning to confirm the timing, and then send somebody a little before two to find you and pick you up in a flivver. That be okay?”
“Fine. Thanks, Mr. Logan.”
He turned away, then paused, cocked an eyebrow at her. “Even if I half suspect you’re preparing to do a hatchet job on me,” he said, “you can call me Dev.”
Delia nodded, smiled. “That’s something else I keep meaning to ask you about,” she said. “The name. Short for . . . ?”
“Dev,” he said.
“That’s what the driver’s license says,” she said. “But the birth certificate?”
“You planning to apply for a passport in my name?” Dev said, and grinned.
She shrugged, gave him a little w
ave, and walked down the stairs, heading for the doors to the courtyard.
Dev watched her go, then turned back to make his way again toward his local desk. Around him, this level’s soft buzz was just a little louder than usual. It would be much louder this time tomorrow, Dev was sure. And the day after tomorrow. But right now, the future thirty-six hours hence seemed like an eternity away. Got plenty of trouble to deal with first . . .
At the desk he paused just for a moment to flip the Time magazine folder cover open and looked once more at the dummy cover. It was a restatement of the cover he’d done for Rolling Stone a couple of years back, in late ’13—which itself could be considered a comment. That cover had been a full-length portrait of a tall, lean, sandy-haired, open-collared, jeans-wearing kind of guy leaning against a white support that faded into a white background: a cover more about the person than the supposed phenomenon. The Dev in that picture looked like a guy you could imagine mowing his own lawn, or maybe even yours. The pose in the picture on this Time dummy cover was similar, but it was a head-to-waist shot, the clothes a little more formal—a business shirt with the collar unbuttoned rather than the polo shirt of the older photo shoot. The expression was more intense—the formerly-trademark glasses were missing, dumped since Dev had finally let Mirabel talk him into the laser surgery (and since Dev had finished scrutinizing to his own satisfaction the results of the long-term effects in the medical journals). The Omnitopia logo loomed large in the background, superimposed over a faded image of the Omnitopia City campus. The message seemed to be: here’s a guy who’s become a force to be reckoned with. Or it could also be: here’s a guy who’s sold out to the big buck and is in the process of forgetting his roots. Now, as Dev looked at the new Time dummy, he grimaced to himself, remembering how slickly the high-powered photographer they’d brought in for the shoot—admittedly one of the great names—had maneuvered him out of all the available polos and into the shirt. And I let him. Well, we still have approval on this cover. I can always pitch some kind of fit or find some kind of fault, and insist that I want another shoot. But then they’ll just find some kind of way to imply that I’m a publicity-crazed, hypercontrolling prima donna. . . .
Dev flipped the folder shut and looked around. As he did he saw tall gangly Frank come out of his own nearby satellite office and head toward him. Dev went to meet him. “Did Tau find you just now?”
“He sure did. Looks like the big trouble’s starting.”
“So I gather. He wants us to deal with our substructure business before we go help the boys stomp on the naughtiness in progress.”
“A little happy-violence time, huh, Boss?”
“I’d be happier if we didn’t need the violence,” Dev said, “but I need to be part of the action, because damn it, nobody screws with my worlds without me personally taking a big old kick at their butts.” He scowled. “Anyway, I’ve rescheduled Miss Harrington for two o’clock tomorrow: let’s make sure that happens this time, okay? Last thing we want is for Time to think we’re yanking their chain. Besides it just being rude to keep shuffling her around.”
Frank nodded. “Got some notes from Cleolinda for you on the meeting this morning,” he said.
“She’s greased lightning, that one,” Dev said. “I’ll call her after Tau and I finish up. Anything else?”
“Only things that can wait until after Tau,” Frank said. He looked down at the little tablet computer he carried with him everywhere. “The PR people say they need to talk to you. Something about the timings on the European rollout.”
Dev groaned and clutched his head. “What? Not again! Frank, we have to stop having this conversation! The rollout is going to be simultaneous, worldwide, it has always been planned to be this way from day one, and I refuse to jiggle the timings just because they’re getting some more indirect heat from whoever’s running the Sky satellites in Europe this year! It’s our heat they have to worry about. Let Mr. Sky Junior buy his own ad time! Because God knows we pay him enough for ours. And tell Joss he needs to be using a bigger hammer for the European PR guys! Or no, don’t tell him, I’ll tell him myself. And then them. Schedule it.”
Frank nodded, made a note. Then he looked up. “The Time lady being a little adversarial, Boss?”
Dev raised his eyebrows. “Does it show?” He let out a breath. “Don’t think I’m gonna win much in the hearts-and-minds department with her. Time wants an in-depth interview, and they don’t really want to cast me as an out-and-out villain . . . but they won’t mind suggesting there are shadows around the edges of my profile.” Dev shrugged. “Not something I can spend any time worrying about right now. I’ll get online and see Tau.” Frank was giving him a look. “What?”
“You still haven’t been seen eating anything,” Frank said. “And it’s gonna get worse these next few days. You’ve got to take a little more time, eat a normal meal at least once a day, relax a little more while you do it—”
“It’s Frank’s mouth that’s working but I hear the voice of the Queen of Omnitopia coming out of it,” Dev said, reaching out to take a look at the tablet. “I will get a damn sandwich, all right?”
“Which access will you be using?”
“My upstairs office.”
“A BLT on brown bread will be on your desk in five minutes,” Frank said. “Put it in your mouth. The webcams will be running.”
Dev started reading the tablet again: Frank reached out and took it away from him. “Then come back when you’re done. I’ll have Joss line up the Euro PR people for you to shoot down.”
Dev sighed. “Powerless,” he said. “Here I am, the eighth richest man in the world, and I have no control over my own fate.”
“Seventh,” said Frank, jotting something on the tablet.
“What?”
“Forbes reranked you this morning,” Frank said, putting his stylus away. “The Indian steel guy at number six took a bath in the commodities markets last month. He’s eighth now.”
Dev shook his head. Some of his staff took what Dev considered an unnatural pleasure in his ranking, as if he was some kind of spectator sport. “Fine,” Dev said. “Tell everybody I said ‘Let joy be unrestrained. ’ Hey, get crazy, send out for confetti. We done?”
“For now.”
“Good. Got a few things to deal with then Tau and I will go hunting. I’m off limits to everybody but the attack team then.”
“Noted.”
Dev waved and headed toward the atrium gallery: there was a private side access just before it to the family levels of the Castle, where he could make his way the long way through to his office with a hug for Lolo on the way. Behind him, Frank said, “Oh, Boss?”
Dev turned. “What?”
“She ask you about the name?”
Dev rolled his eyes.
Frank grinned, pumped the air with one fist. “Yes!” He turned and walked off. “I win five bucks. See you when you’re done.”
Rik was sitting in his online space’s little dingy office, trying to get caught up on the mail before he headed in to take yet another run at ironing out the problems with the structure inside his Microcosm. The mail in the window hanging beside the old scuffed mahogany desk was yet another of a tall stack of e-mails from Microcosm Management that he’d been working his way through, none of which had brought him much closer to understanding what had gone wrong with his own ’cosm. Though this one might be it . . .
He sighed, waving at the window and scrolling down the body of the message. “—reports of various service outages in newly-set up Microcosms. We want to assure our new Levelers that the system is being carefully examined to determine the cause of the outages and malfunctions so that we can make sure they don’t recur. We’d appreciate it if you’d contact us and describe in detail the problems you experienced with your ’cosm so that we can incorporate your data into a system-wide diagnostic matrix . . .”
Rik leaned back in his creaky chair and stretched, wondering whether the cheerful language actually mean
t that Microcosm Management didn’t know what was going on either. “In detail, huh,” he said. Well, they were going to get more than they bargained for from him, at least in the negative sense, because he was sure now of about eighty things that weren’t the problem—
A shadow fell across the frosted glass of the office door, lifted a hand to knock. “Come on in,” Rik said.
The door creaked open, the frosted glass in the door rattling a little as always. A second later Angela came strolling in, dressed in pale blue sweats and lightly dotted with grass clippings—she’d apparently been out in the backyard, gardening. She gazed around with mild interest. “This place could use a good cleaning,” she said. “Look at those windows!”
“It’s not Mrs. Busby’s week to come in,” Rik said, getting up and pushing the screen away.
“Week?” Angela said, looking at him a little cockeyed. “And just who is Mrs. Busby?”
“The cleaning lady,” Rik said. “This is 1945. Men don’t clean up after themselves in 1945. Especially hard-bitten detective types.”
The look Angela threw him was heavily ironic as she ran a finger over the top of the green-painted filing cabinet and brought up some serious dust. “Well,” she said, “you’ve got this part of the fantasy down pat.” She dusted her hands off. “But this wasn’t what you were going to show me.”
Rik shook his head, grinning. “No,” he said, and got up. “Check these out.”
He snapped his fingers. At the preprogrammed audio cue, the system dressed this virtual version of him in the new robes he’d picked up from Lal. Quilted velvet whispered and tissue-of-orichalc gleamed in the buzzing pink neon from the movie house across the street as Rik spun once so that Angela could take it all in—the divided surcoat, the fabulous embroidery bespelled to glow in the gloom or smoke of the battlefield, the tailoring. “Nice, huh?”
