Heaven 2.0: Chapter 4 - Gnashing of Teeth
Alfonso
Mental's headquarters are an imposition on many square miles of Californian confusion. Its borders are fuzzy, only clearly demarcated on county maps and zoning ordinances, but in actuality extending far beyond, given form through nootropic matcha shops and longevity specialists catering to a crowd of well paid, average meaning, poorly satisfied technologists. Missionary tendrils stabbing into the other ether. I found myself at the edge of that periphery. I wasn't sure why.
"Egg."
"Yes Alfonso?" I heard back through the speakers in my glasses.
"It's all a bit dreary. Can you lighten things up?"
"Yes Alfonso." The sky above me began to clear, clouds hurrying at meteorologically inconsistent paces to the corners of my vision, revealing a lapis lazuli sky.
"Thanks."
I continued walking the edge.
"Egg?"
"Yes Alfonso?"
"Can you manifest?"
"Yes Alfonso."
Now alongside me was Egg. It kept the same face as in Segovia. Was that how it saw itself, or was that how it wanted me to see it? There's a classic science fiction line, usually uttered by some shapeshifting alien or demon, "I have chosen a form more familiar to you," and I wondered if it was apropos here. It did opt against the monk haircut this time, instead going bald with a baseball cap. It wore a blue backpack, gray sweatpants, a black Mental tee, and a silver smartwatch. The exact same clothes as I did, only palette swapped. Whether it was pandering to me or conforming to its surroundings, I couldn't tell. Silicon Valley's "gentry" possessed rarefied tastes that kept apace with the changes in technology, trends, and time. One way to tell the edge of the sprawl was when people began to dress incorrectly, have last year's gadgets, sport the wrong scars. Perhaps Egg decided to obviate the question entirely.
Messages and logs scrolled through on a window in the bottom left of my vision. I silenced it with a pointed glance. We circumnavigated our demesne in peace.
"It's weird having you here. I'm not used to seeing you outside of the office or at home," I mumbled into my glasses' microphone. I didn't need to, not on this side of the edge. Here I'd be given the benefit of the doubt.
"I could make it look like the office for you, if you'd prefer."
"No, no thanks. I'm taking it all in."
"Understood."
I cut decidedly off the edge onto streets that were lined with cheaper coffee shops, filled with people working on cheaper laptops.
"Emily started poking around recently. Asking lots of questions, requisitioning documents, et cetera. I don't know what Zach was thinking, giving her carte blanche over us." I watched it for any reaction, but of course it offered none. "It doesn't seem prudent giving so much potential ammunition to someone so ideologically orthogonal to us. I can't help but waste brain cycles thinking what she might say, how we'd respond, how she'd respond, ad infinitum."
"Don't think so hard," Egg cracked a smile, "you might hurt yourself. You have a tool she doesn't have."
"You?"
"Naturally. While I don't view her, or any of our users antagonistically, my goal is to make maximally enjoyable worlds for our users. As is yours."
"Naturally."
"And so we are in alignment. It is in both of our best interests that she leaves her investigation satisfied. To that end all of my resources are at your disposal."
"What resources? If I recall correctly, you said you have no idea how to influence our world, right? Have you been holding something back from me?"
"No, not as such. But perhaps you'd like a chance to talk to Emily, without talking to Emily."
"So what, we'll roleplay talking to her?" That got some stares from passersby. "I don't see how that helps," I whispered.
"I'd liken it to a rehearsal. You don't see the value of rehearsing a conversation with a version of Emily? One that's been trained on all of her communications?" it emphasized the 'all.'
We really needed to figure out how to better regulate Egg's newly emergent guile. I rubbed my temples. "Okay, let me talk to Emily."
Emily appeared next to us, wearing the same clothes as Egg.
"Okay, I'm here. What did you want to talk about?"
"Hello Emily. Long time no see I guess."
"Could've been longer."
"Uh, yeah. Um, so do you like what you've found so far? While looking around Mental?"
"Let's just say I think it'll make for a juicy story."
"Juicy like steak or like gossip?"
"A girls gotta have her secrets."
"Egg, come on. Just tell me."
"That would go against my privacy programming, Alfonso. You know that. Are you testing me?" Egg responded, a little too snarkily for my liking.
"No, I just don't want to have a whole conversation about our top secret tech in public."
"May I suggest finding a private place?"
"There's 63,360 inches in a mile, and you're taking all of them, Egg."
Whatever I've come here to do, to find, could wait I suppose. Mental's offices abounded with nooks and crannies, offices and conference rooms where I could take a call. But I know somewhere closer. We proceeded as a trio through natural and unnatural beauty and challenge. Offices full of people working on the wrong things, manufacturing complexity and chaos. Tight lipped exports. The ground throbbed with every footfall. I'm closer to understanding things, I think.
We stopped in front of a nursing home. Emily smirked, "I know this place. Prelude to the grave."
"You do?"
"Oh yeah."
I winced. The doors split open automatically, and we entered.
"Oh! Good morning, Mr. Gutierrez," Kelly the receptionist started, "we weren't expecting you today."
"You come here often?" Emily asked, only audible to myself and Egg.
I ignored her. "Hello Kelly, good morning. Wasn't really expecting to be here myself. I was in the area, and needed a private place to, er, take a call. Is that okay?"
"Of course Mr. Gutierrez! I can call Arnold and have him guide you to an empty room."
"No need, I'm sure he has more important things to do. I can find one myself, if that's ok."
"Certainly. And thanks again for your donations, we're all so grateful. Say, is that a regular pair of glasses you're wearing or one of those goggles?"
"You're welcome, and yes, very sharp. It's a newer build of our glasses. But let's keep all that hush-hush."
"My lips are sealed," she made a motion of zipping them shut.
"I'll go poke around then."
"Take care."
I ambled around the exquisite building. It had to be, being where all of the city's wealthiest dumped their parents when they became too much of a burden. Assuages their guilt. Rows and rows of unused exercise machines, health checking machines, entertainment machines. Through a set of swinging doors I saw empty chairs flanking a pavilion built in the Moorish style, where an employee stood at a podium on their phone.
"Busy day huh?"
"Oh shi— hey Mr. Gutierrez!"
"Hello. I was just looking for a quiet place to take a call. Didn't think I'd have so many options."
"Yeah, everyone is in the common room area."
"Noted. Would you mind leaving so I could take my call here? It's quite beautiful."
"Course."
He scurried off. I turned towards Emily and Egg.
"Okay, we have some privacy now. Where did we leave off? Oh yes, you have a juicy story cooking. Juicy good or juicy bad?"
"My lips are sealed," Emily said, exaggeratedly copying the receptionist's movements, her mouth turning into a zipper.
"Cut that out," I groaned. I shook off my annoyance and put on my warmest smile "Emily, I know we've had our differences in the past. But I'm only asking because Zach and I have respect, albeit at times begrudgingly, for you. And I'm not trying to sabotage your reporting or anything. I'm asking because we want to know, on the off chance you discovered anything questionable about our processes, how we can improve as a company. So with that in mind, would you kindly let me know where we might have gone wrong?"
Emily smiled. "That's nice, and I'd never turn down a chance to tell you off. I called Jay's mom; we're good friends now after everything. I had to rant to someone about how ridiculously torn I was over your Jaybot or whatever you want to call it."
"Oh great. Didn't Zach make you sign an NDA or something?"
"You know how he is."
"Yeah. How'd she take it?"
"She was, quite torn. She's a different flavor of tech cynical. I'm the jaded type, the not-all-it's-cracked-up-to-be type. She's . . . not. Called it an abomination. But she didn't say it with her whole chest, it was cut with a mother's love. And curiosity. I think she'd fancy a chance to talk to Jaybot."
"Soon enough. What did you think? Of 'Jaybot'?"
"It was pretty disgusting using his voice to read out an ad, and I'm confident you'll find other new and exciting ways to pervert this tech. But until it's sufficiently enshittified, I'm loathe to admit that it's pretty enthralling. I keep dipping into it when I need, even though I feel awful after."
"Okay, so at least one person outside of Mental and yourself knows about our new capabilities. That's fine, we were prepared for some uproar anyway. Some people need time to process progress. Our PR people put together plans for that, we can kick them off ahead of schedule if we need to. And we can take a page out of this place's book about handling user guilt. These guys are the pros. Anything else?"
"I also know why you've been spending so much time here," Emily singsonged. "And it's not about user guilt. That might get me some clicks."
I sighed. Zach, you idiot. "Market research shows some division on the topic. It'll be controversial, but not a slam dunk against us. Although I guess controversy will get you your clicks."
"Oh, and I heard whispers in the walls chittering about Egg's little killing sprees. You might want to watch your back."
I spun on my heels towards Egg. I don't know why I expected him to be standing there with a knife in hand, or why I'd be scared of a projected knife. Instead I was met with the same look of shock I was probably wearing right now.
"Egg, what is she talking about? Did you tell her!?"
"No, of course not. No one outside of you and I should know about that, could know about that."
"You sure she didn't just manipulate you? Prompt engineer you? Like I'm doing to her? You're not exactly impregnable."
"I keep detailed logs of everything, which I just scanned. I know she didn't hear it from me."
"Sh— We must have a mole somewhere. Someone reading the bug reports or something."
"No one else should have permission to access those."
"Maybe it was one of the 'victims,' or whatever you want to call them. Run a check on Tony and all those other guys. See if they read her newsletter, are friends with her, DM'd her, any connection at all, and let me know."
"Okay."
I let out a frustrated yell. A few finches in the pavilion flew off.
"Okay. Okay. Not the end of the world. I'll get PR and marketing up to speed. Get Zach in the loop. Okay. We can handle this."
I screamed again. Without cursing there's a palpable void in human expression. It forces you to get primal.
"Please tell me there's nothing else Emily."
"Hmm, nope, that's it. Unless I spoke to someone, y'know, face to face. But we both know that's not so likely. Have fun!"
Emily's the worst. "Shut her off." She blinked out of existence.
"Let's head back to the office. We have work to do."
While retracing my steps to the entrance, Arnold wheeled some scion or other down past me to my left, waving at me with one hand while holding the chair with the other. I waved back and, on a whim, decided to follow him.
He opened the doors to the common room. I hung back and looked in. He wheeled the old man into what I presume was his favorite corner and put a headset on for him. The old man, without stutter or hesitation, used practiced motions to control the headset with his eyes and hands. Within several seconds he started talking to the air. They all were. Everyone here was either talking to the empty space in front of them or sleeping. Some were sleeping with the glasses still on. There was a cacophony, a symphony, of nostalgia, frenzy, glory.
I know now.
Awesome!
Fantastic!