William Dietrich: Getting back

"Why?"

"Because it's pointless. Right now they've got me on a project called a Meeting Minder. It tracks your schedule and analyzes its patterns, prescheduling based on your past activity. The goal is to make the next year as close to the last one as possible, for maximum efficiency. They're expecting a best-seller."

"I know it's dumb. I meant, why do you work on it?"

He looked at her in surprise. "Because it's my job. Everyone has a job."

"Why?"

" 'United Corporations has the right job, in the right place, for everyone,' " he quoted.

"No, why?" She looked impatient, as if he were slow.

He felt irritated. "What do you do?"

"I'm an investigator."

"Investigating what?"

She waved her hand. "Here. This. Now. Me. And you."

"Not exactly the wilderness."

"Something that's been explored by others can still be a wilderness to you, if it's your first time."

He looked around. "Well, you've got me lost."

"Do you like being lost?"

"I don't know." Was this a conversation or an interrogation? "It's not a question that occurred to me."

"Sorry. I ask a lot of things, don't I? I'm curious too."

"I'm not mindless like that janitor robot, Raven."

"I didn't say you were."

"You imply it by acting superior with your 'whys.' I think, I read, I have hobbies. I just built a catapult. I'm on a career track but I'm also my own man and I have adventures in my own way. Right now I'm trying to hack into Microcore's expense database. I want to put my bosses' obscene work charges on the corporate intra-web."

She looked interested at that. "Why?"

"Why, why," he mimicked. "You're like a two-year-old. Why? To elevate the gossip. To show I can."

"What's the point?"

"The point is that there is no point."

She began to nod, then shook her head. "I understand your point about pointlessness. But hacking into expense accounts is kind of juvenile, don't you think?"

"It's just a different kind of investigation, no different than this tunnel. I'm also in touch with the cyber underground."

"You mentioned that before. A bunch of people pretending, right? Rebels without a cause?"

"It's people who think for themselves. I think you'd be intrigued, if you tried it."

"Perhaps," she conceded. "But what's there to see, really?"

"You learn what's truly going on, without the United Corporations spin." He wanted to impress her. "You can use it to wake up."

"But do you really believe that stuff? I mean, I heard it was… crackpot."

"They put me inside another company, Raven. They let me download its secret."

Now she looked intrigued. She sat up straighter, tucking her legs beneath her. "What secret?" As conspiratorial as a schoolgirl.

"Well, I don't know…"

She leaned back, disappointed. "Rumors, right?"

"No, this was real." Could he trust her? Here was a soul mate, he hoped. Someone who felt like he did. "A file. Genetic plans by this company to modify cereal grains to transmit disease to insects."

She took another sip of water, watching him. "Bugs? What's wrong with that?"

What was wrong with it? It seemed less sinister when he tried to describe it. Was this really worthy of a truth cookie? Suddenly he was less certain. "It might wipe out whole species. It messes with the environment."

"Oh." She thought. "There's been a reform law, hasn't there? It's probably okay if all these scientists are working on it, don't you think? What company?"

He was discouraged at her reaction but didn't want to back down. "GeneChem."

"Never heard of them. But to play devil's advocate, they're not in business to screw up, right? They're not in business to break the law. We modify crops all the time. Have to, in a world with twelve billion people."

"So we unleash disease?"

"On insects, sure."

"What about Australia, Raven?"

"We learned from it, I hope." She glanced away a moment and then back, as if trying to decide whether to tell him something. "Look, I'm not endorsing this GeneChem. I'm just asking how are we- you and meto know? We're not scientists. We're not management. There's a difference between poking fun and challenging expert opinion."

She was watching him again and he didn't know if this was what she really felt or if she was testing him somehow. Dammit, he couldn't figure her out. "What if this mutates?" he asked.

"What if grasshoppers eat all the wheat and the world starves? Daniel, civilization has been modifying crops for ten thousand years. Now this underground of yours gives you one file and suddenly you have a monopoly on truth? Maybe there's more to the story."

"You sound like United Corporations. ' Trust us. You don't see the big picture.' Their patronizing attitude drives me crazy."

"I'm not patronizing you."

"Then kiss me again."

She looked suddenly uncertain, and turned away. "No." She wanted to, he was sure of it.

"You kissed me before."

"I… I was in the moment."

"What about this moment?"

She turned back, taking a breath. "I don't have to kiss you just because we came down here, or just because I did it once, or just because you're hacking corporate secrets, or just because I'm playing devil's advocate."

He slumped back. "Okay. All right already."

"I want to kiss you, except…" She paused, uncertain, looking at him curiously as if he baffled her as much as she baffled him. There was something she wasn't saying. "This electronic snooping is… in the establishment's arena, you know? Their game. I brought you down here because it seems outside that world. I thought you might feel the water, the magic of this place. I don't think you did."

"How do you know what I feel?"

"I know."

"I don't think you even know how you feel, Miss Why. Or why you do. One minute you're breaking into utility tunnels and the next defending their witch doctory."

She looked down at that. She was thin-skinned, he thought, and there was a moment's satisfaction at pricking her. But the arguing was silly.

"Raven, I think we need to reboot." It was slang that had come from the early days of computers.

"Yes, I don't want to quarrel. I was just debating a point."

"About corrupting the ecosystem?"

"About feeding the world."

"So I should ignore this kind of GeneChem stuff? Ignore the truth?"

"You can't know the truth. None of us can."

"I know the sloganeering of United Corporations isn't the truth."

"But don't you accept it? Conform? Compromise?"

"I'm tired of compromising. I'm tired of being the odd man out at work."

Again she looked interested. "Why?"

He groaned. "Why am I tired?"

"Why are you always the odd man out?"

"My colleagues say I don't believe in anything, that I have no faith in what we're doing." He stopped, as if to consider the truth of that opinion for the first time. "I don't know. I just look at everything sideways and it comes out funny."

"What if the sideways view is the right one, Daniel? What if you're right?"

"What if they're right?" He shook his head. "Now you've got me talking like you, going in circles. Waffle genes." He looked at her in discouragement. "I don't even know what side you're on."

"No. You don't know which side you're on. That's all I've been getting at."

He stood, suddenly tired of this. "Look, I'm sorry I disappointed you."

She stood too. "You didn't. It's for the best, I think."

"Am I going to see you again?"

She shook her head. "I don't think so."

"Okay. Fine."

"It's not for the reason you think."

"Sure." He glanced around. "Maybe you could show me the way out of here?"

"Listen," Raven said, reaching out to grip his arm. He started at her touch. "If we live in their world we make a thousand compromises, right? We take their pay, eat their bioengineered food. It's inescapable, correct?"