"I just don't get it," Fede said.
Art tried to keep the exasperation out of his voice. "It's simple," he said. "It's like a car radio with a fast-forward button. You drive around on the MassPike, and your car automatically peers with nearby vehicles. It grabs the current song on someone else's stereo and streamloads it. You listen to it. If you don't hit the fast-forward button, the car starts grabbing everything it can from the peer, all the music on the stereo, and cues it up for continued play. Once that pool is exhausted, it queries your peer for a list of its peers -- the cars that it's getting its music from -- and sees if any of them are in range, and downloads from them. So, it's like you're exploring a taste-network, doing an automated, guided search through traffic for the car whose owner has collected the music you most want to listen to."
"But I hate your music -- I don't want to listen to the stuff on your radio."
"Fine. That's what the fast-forward button is for. It skips to another car and starts streamloading off of its drive." Fede started to say something, and Art held up his hand. "And if you exhaust all the available cars, the system recycles, but asks its peers for files collected from other sources. You might hate the songs I downloaded from Al, but the songs I got from Bennie are right up your alley.
"The war-drivers backstop the whole system. They've got the biggest collections on the freeway, and they're the ones most likely to build carefully thought-out playlists. They've got entire genres -- the whole history of the blues, say, from steel cylinders on -- on their drives. So we encourage them. When you go through a paypoint -- a toll booth -- we debit you for the stuff that you didn't fast-forward, the stuff you listened to and kept. Unless, that is, you've got more than, say, 10,000 songs onboard. Then you go free. It's counterintuitive, I know, but just look at the numbers."
"OK, OK. A radio with a fast-forward button. I think I get it."
"But?"
"But who's going to want to use this? It's unpredictable. You've got no guarantee you'll get the songs you want to hear."
Art smiled. "Exactly!"
Fede gave him a go-on wave.
"Don't you see? That's the crack-cocaine part! It's the thrill of the chase! Nobody gets excited about beating traffic on a back road that's always empty. But get on the M-5 after a hard day at work and drive it at 100 km/h for two hours without once touching your brakes and it's like God's reached down and parted the Red Seas for you. You get a sense of *accomplishment*! Most of the time, your car stereo's gonna play the same junk you've always heard, just background sound, but sometimes, ah! Sometimes you'll hit a sweet spot and get the best tunes you've ever heard. If you put a rat in a cage with a lever that doesn't give food pellets, he'll push it once or twice and give up. Set the lever to always deliver food pellets and he'll push it when he gets hungry. Set it to *sometimes* deliver food pellets and he'll bang on it until he passes out!"
"Heh," Fede said. "Good rant."
"And?"
"And it's cool." Fede looked off into the middle distance a while. "Radio with a fast-forward button. That's great, actually. Amazing. Stupendous!" He snatched the axe-head from its box on Art's desk and did a little war dance around the room, whooping. Art followed the dance from his ergonomic chair, swiveling around as the interface tchotchkes that branched from its undersides chittered to keep his various bones and muscles firmly supported.
His office was more like a three-fifths-scale model of a proper office, in Lilliputian London style, so the war dance was less impressive than it might have been with more room to express itself. "You like it, then," Art said, once Fede had run out of steam.
"I do, I do, I do!"
"Great."
"Great."
"So."
"Yes?"
"So what do we do with it? Should I write up a formal proposal and send it to Jersey? How much detail? Sketches? Code fragments? Want me to mock up the interface and the network model?"
Fede cocked an eyebrow at him. "What are you talking about?"
"Well, we give this to Jersey, they submit the proposal, they walk away with the contract, right? That's our job, right?"
"No, Art, that's not our job. Our job is to see to it that V/DT submits a bad proposal, not that Jersey submits a good one. This is big. We roll this together and it's bigger than MassPike. We can run this across every goddamned toll road in the world! Jersey's not paying for this -- not yet, anyway -- and someone should."
"You want to sell this to them?"
"Well, I want to sell this. Who to sell it to is another matter."
Art waved his hands confusedly. "You're joking, right?"
Fede crouched down beside Art and looked into his eyes. "No, Art, I am serious as a funeral here. This is big, and it's not in the scope of work that we signed up for. You and me, we can score big on this, but not by handing it over to those shitheads in Jersey and begging for a bonus."
"What are you talking about? Who else would pay for this?"
"You have to ask? V/DT for starters. Anyone working on a bid for MassPike, or TollPass, or FastPass, or EuroPass."
"But we can't sell this to just *anyone*, Fede!"
"Why not?"
"Jesus. Why not? Because of the Tribes."
Fede quirked him half a smile. "Sure, the Tribes."
"What does that mean?"
"Art, you know that stuff is four-fifths' horseshit, right? It's just a game. When it comes down to your personal welfare, you can't depend on time zones. This is more job than calling, you know."
Art squirmed and flushed. "Lots of us take this stuff seriously, Fede. It's not just a mind-game. Doesn't loyalty mean anything to you?"
Fede laughed nastily. "Loyalty! If you're doing all of this out of loyalty, then why are you drawing a paycheck? Look, I'd rather that this go to Jersey. They're basically decent sorts, and I've drawn a lot of pay from them over the years, but they haven't paid for this. They wouldn't give us a free ride, so why should we give them one? All I'm saying is, we can offer this to Jersey, of course, but they have to bid for it in a competitive marketplace. I don't want to gouge them, just collect a fair market price for our goods."
"You're saying you don't feel any fundamental loyalty to anything, Fede?"
"That's what I'm saying."
"And you're saying that I'm a sucker for putting loyalty ahead of personal gain -- after all, no one else is, right?"
"Exactly."
"Then how did this idea become 'ours,' Fede? I came up with it."
Fede lost his nasty smile. "There's loyalty and then there's loyalty."
"Uh-huh."
"No, really. You and I are a team. I rely on you and you rely on me. We're loyal to something concrete -- each other. The Eastern Standard Tribe is an abstraction. It's a whole bunch of people, and neither of us like most of 'em. It's useful and pleasant, but you can't put your trust in institutions -- otherwise you get Nazism."
"And patriotism."
"Blind patriotism."
"So there's no other kind? Just jingoism? You're either loyal to your immediate circle of friends or you're a deluded dupe?"
"No, that's not what I'm saying."
"So where does informed loyalty leave off and jingoism begin? You come on all patronizing when I talk about being loyal to the Tribe, and you're certainly not loyal to V/DT, nor are you loyal to Jersey. What greater purpose are you loyal to?"
"Well, humanity, for starters."
"Really. What's that when it's at home?"
"Huh?"
"How do you express loyalty to something as big and abstract as 'humanity'?"
"Well, that comes down to morals, right? Not doing things that poison the world. Paying taxes. Change to panhandlers. Supporting charities." Fede drummed his fingers on his thighs. "Not murdering or raping, you know. Being a good person. A moral person."
"OK, that's a good code of conduct. I'm all for not murdering and raping, and not just because it's *wrong*, but because a world where the social norms include murdering and raping is a bad one for me to live in."
"Exactly."
"That's the purpose of morals and loyalty, right? To create social norms that produce a world you want to live in."
"Right! And that's why *personal* loyalty is important."
Art smiled. Trap baited and sprung. "OK. So institutional loyalty -- loyalty to a Tribe or a nation -- that's not an important social norm. As far as you're concerned, we could abandon all pretense of institutional loyalty." Art dropped his voice. "You could go to work for the Jersey boys, sabotaging Virgin/Deutsche Telekom, just because they're willing to pay you to do it. Nothing to do with Tribal loyalty, just a job."
Fede looked uncomfortable, sensing the impending rhetorical headlock. He nodded cautiously.
"Which means that the Jersey boys have no reason to be loyal to you. It's just a job. So if there were an opportunity for them to gain some personal advantage by selling you out, turning you into a patsy for them, well, they should just go ahead and do it, right?"
"Uh --"
"Don't worry, it's a rhetorical question. Jersey boys sell you out. You take their fall, they benefit. If there was no institutional loyalty, that's where you'd end up, right? That's the social norm you want."
"No, of course it isn't."
"No, of course not. You want a social norm where individuals can be disloyal to the collective, but not vice versa."
"Yes --"
"Yes, but loyalty is bidirectional. There's no basis on which you may expect loyalty from an institution unless you're loyal to it."
"I suppose."
"You know it. I know it. Institutional loyalty is every bit as much about informed self-interest as personal loyalty is. The Tribe takes care of me, I take care of the Tribe. We'll negotiate a separate payment from Jersey for this -- after all, this is outside of the scope of work that we're being paid for -- and we'll split the money, down the middle. We'll work in a residual income with Jersey, too, because, as you say, this is bigger than MassPike. It's a genuinely good idea, and there's enough to go around. All right?"
"Are you asking me or telling me?"
"I'm asking you. This will require both of our cooperation. I'm going to need to manufacture an excuse to go stateside to explain this to them and supervise the prototyping. You're going to have to hold down the fort here at V/DT and make sure that I'm clear to do my thing. If you want to go and sell this idea elsewhere, well, that's going to require my cooperation, or at least my silence -- if I turn this over to V/DT, they'll pop you for industrial espionage. So we need each other."
Art stood and looked down at Fede, who was a good ten centimeters shorter than he, looked down at Fede's sweaty upper lip and creased brow. "We're a good team, Fede. I don't want to toss away an opportunity, but I also don't want to exploit it at the expense of my own morals. Can you agree to work with me on this, and trust me to do the right thing?"
Fede looked up. "Yes," he said. On later reflection, Art thought that the *yes* came too quickly, but then, he was just relieved to hear it. "Of course. Of course. Yes. Let's do it."
"That's just fine," Art said. "Let's get to work, then."
They fell into their traditional division of labor then, Art working on a variety of user-experience plans, dividing each into subplans, then devising protocols for user testing to see what would work in the field; Fede working on logistics from plane tickets to personal days to budget and critical-path charts. They worked side by side, but still used the collaboration tools that Art had grown up with, designed to allow remote, pseudonymous parties to fit their separate work components into the same structure, resolving schedule and planning collisions where it could and throwing exceptions where it couldn't. They worked beside each other and each hardly knew the other was there, and that, Art thought, when he thought of it, when the receptionist commed him to tell him that "Linderrr" -- freakin' teabags -- was there for him, that was the defining characteristic of a Tribalist. A norm, a modus operandi, a way of being that did not distinguish between communication face-to-face and communication at a distance.
"Linderrr?" Fede said, cocking an eyebrow.
"I hit her with my car," Art said.
"Ah," Fede said. "Smooth."
Art waved a hand impatiently at him and went out to the reception area to fetch her. The receptionist had precious little patience for entertaining personal visitors, and Linda, in track pants and a baggy sweater, was clearly not a professional contact. The receptionist glared at him as he commed into the lobby and extended his hand to Linda, who took it, put it on her shoulder, grabbed his ass, crushed their pelvises together and jammed her tongue in his ear. "I missed you," she slurped, the buzz of her voice making him writhe. "I'm not wearing any knickers," she continued, loud enough that he was sure that the receptionist heard. He felt the blush creeping over his face and neck and ears.
The receptionist. Dammit, why was he thinking about the receptionist? "Linda," he said, pulling away. Introduce her, he thought. Introduce them, and that'll make it less socially awkward. The English can't abide social awkwardness. "Linda, meet --" and he trailed off, realizing he didn't actually know the receptionist's name.
The receptionist glared at him from under a cap of shining candy-apple red hair, narrowing her eyes, which were painted in high style with Kubrick action-figure faces.
"My *name* is Tonaishah," she hissed. Or maybe it was *Tanya Iseah*, or *Taneesha*. He still didn't know her goddamned name.
"And this is Linda," he said, weakly. "We're going out tonight."
"And won't you have a dirty great time, then?" Tonaishah said.
"I'm sure we will," he said.
"Yes," Tonaishah said.
Art commed the door and missed the handle, then snagged it and grabbed Linda's hand and yanked her through.
"I'm a little randy," she said, directly into his ear. "Sorry." She giggled.
"Someone you have to meet," he said, reaching down to rearrange his pants to hide his boner.
"Ooh, right here in your office?" Linda said, covering his hand with hers.
"Someone with *two* eyes," he said, moving her hand to his hip.
"Ahh," she said. "What a disappointment."
"I'm serious. I want you to meet my friend Fede. I think you two will really hit it off."
"Wait," Linda said. "Isn't this a major step? Meeting the friends? Are we getting that serious already?"
"Oh, I think we're ready for it," Art said, draping an arm around her shoulders and resting his fingertips on the upper swell of her breast.
She ducked out from under his arm and stopped in her tracks. "Well, I don't. Don't I get a say in this?"
"What?" Art said.
"Whether it's time for me to meet your friends or not. Shouldn't I have a say?"
"Linda, I just wanted to introduce you to a coworker before we went out. He's in my office -- I gotta grab my jacket there, anyway."
"Wait, is he a friend or a coworker?"
"He's a friend I work with. Come on, what's the big deal?"
"Well, first you spring this on me, then you change your story and tell me he's a coworker, now he's a friend again. I don't want to be put on display for your pals. If we're going to meet your friends, I'll dress for it, put on some makeup. This isn't fair."
"Linda," Art said, placating.
"No," she said. "Screw it. I'm not here to meet your friends. I came all the way across town to meet you at your office because you wanted to head back to your place after work, and you play headgames with me like this?"
"All right," Art said. "I'll show you back out to the lobby and you can wait with Tonaishah while I get my jacket."
"Don't take that tone with me," she said.
"What tone?" Art said. "Jesus Christ! You can't wait in the hall, it's against policy. You don't have a badge, so you have to be with me or in the lobby. I don't give a shit if you meet Fede or not."
"I won't tell you again, Art," she said. "Moderate your tone. I won't be shouted at."
Art tried to rewind the conversation and figure out how they came to this pass, but he couldn't. Was Linda really acting *this* nuts? Or was he just reading her wrong or pushing her buttons or something?
"Let's start over," he said, grabbing both of her hands in his. "I need to get my jacket from my office. You can come with me if you want to, and meet my friend Fede. Otherwise you can wait in the lobby, I won't be a minute."
"Let's go meet Fede," she said. "I hope he wasn't expecting anything special, I'm not really dressed for it."
He stifled a snotty remark. After all that, she was going to go and meet Fede? So what the hell were they arguing about? On the other hand, he'd gotten his way, hadn't he? He led her by the hand to his office, and beyond every doorway they passed was a V/DT Experience Designer pretending not to peek at them as they walked by, having heard every word through the tricky acoustics of O'Malley House.
"Fede," he said, stiffly, "This is Linda. Linda, this is Fede."
Fede stood and treated Linda to his big, suave grin. Fede might be short and he might have paranoid delusions, but he was trim and well groomed, with the sort of finicky moustache that looked like a rotting caterpillar if you didn't trim it every morning. He liked to work out, and had a tight waist and a gut you could bounce a quarter off of, and liked to wear tight shirts that showed off his overall fitness, made him stand out among the spongy mouse-potatoes of the corporate world. Art had never given it much thought, but now, standing with Fede and Linda in his tiny office, breathing in Fede's Lilac Vegetal and Linda's new-car-smell shampoo, he felt paunchy and sloppy.
"Ah," Fede said, taking her hand. "The one you hit with your car. It's a pleasure. You seem to be recovering nicely, too."
Linda smiled and gave him a peck on the cheek, a few strands of her bobbed hair sticking to his moustache like cobwebs as she pulled away.
"It was just a love tap," she said. "I'll be fine."
"Fede's from New York," Art said. "We colonials like to stick together around the office. And Linda's from Los Angeles."
"Aren't there any, you know, British people in London?" Linda said, wrinkling her nose.
"There's Tonaishah," Art said weakly.
"Who?" Fede said.
"The receptionist," Linda said. "Not a very nice person."
"With the eyes?" Fede said, wriggling his fingers around his temples to indicate elaborate eye makeup.
"That's her," Linda said.
"Nasty piece of work," Fede said. "Never trusted her."
"*You're* not another UE person, are you?" Linda said, sizing Fede up and giving Art a playful elbow in the ribs.
"Who, me? Nah. I'm a management consultant. I work in Chelsea mostly, but when I come slumming in Piccadilly, I like to comandeer Art's office. He's not bad, for a UE-geek."
"Not bad at all," Linda said, slipping an arm around Art's waist, wrapping her fingers around the waistband of his trousers. "Did you need to grab your jacket, honey?"
Art's jacket was hanging on the back of his office door, and to get at it, he had to crush himself against Linda and maneuver the door shut. He felt her breasts soft on his chest, felt her breath tickle his ear, and forgot all about their argument in the corridor.
"All right," Art said, hooking his jacket over his shoulder with a finger, feeling flushed and fluttery. "OK, let's go."
"Lovely to have met you, Fede," Linda said, taking his hand.
"And likewise," Fede said.