Joshua Cohen - Book of Numbers

“His birthday?”

“His?”

Principal’s, she informed me as she flicked, finalized my account. His 40th, tomorrow.

Was I supposed to have mindread? or have been previously briefed?

She had an @ bud pierced above her lip. Her Tetheld shook, “You are affirmed.”

“Confirmed?”

“Affirmative.”

“Confirmative?”

She buttoned again, “May we have a moment with your computer?”

My computer — two years old? two generations and an operating system defunct? A present from Rach from my own birthday past, a generous provocation to earn. As I dug through my bag for my laptop, I considered the immediate gift politics — what to give a quadragenarian who has everything? besides donating to a favorite cause? Besides myself, I mean.

“We have been instructed to transfer everything — your.docs, your contacts — all will be the same.”

“Why?”

“There is a requisition order.”

“Requisitioning what?”

“A new laptop.”

She left, I pottered, lasers raved across the windows and mariachis tuned. I’d only just unpacked and was resting on the cot when there was a knock at the door, and without me responding she entered, “We are sorry for keeping you waiting, Mr. Cohen.”

I took the slab from her, “Thank you, Miss?”

“You are welcome, Mr. Cohen.”

“Miss?”

“Myung.”

She turned to go so I went grasping: “It’s smaller.”

“.72″ / 1.8 cm × 12″ / 30.4 cm, × 8.2″ / 20.8 cm the depth.”

“Lighter too.”

“2.4 lbs / 1.08 kg.”

“Brand?” because none was evident.

“Tetbook prototype.”

“You’ve moved into computers?”

“No.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Prototype.”

Drop it, rather — don’t, “But everything’s still on it?”

“Everything.”

“You sure?”

“Even the apps you will never use are on it.”

“Appreciated — but where’s my old unit?”

“Excuse me?”

“Larger, heavier? My oldie?”

That flustered. “Most guests do not want theirs back.”

“Most everyone hasn’t a clue what they want.”

“Please,” resetting herself, “you are also completely backed up to servers. Clouded. Nubified. Nephed. Your files are now protected online. Accessible to your account only.”

“Jcohen19712 then my password?”

“Precisely. If that is what it is, precisely.”

“So this is mine to keep?”

“All yours.”

“As for the oldster?”

“Yes?”

“You’ve trashed it already, haven’t you?”

“Do not worry. We recycle.”

It was only when my deliverer had departed, when I was alone with this foldable tablet where all my files, or copies, were nestled nicely again, or anew, into folders, that I realized just how much they had the goods on me, how much intel was available on my preferences, vice. I had no secret, I was no secret, to be Principal’s guest was to have nowhere to hide — not just the laptop but, beyond the panes, the surveillance outside, the tall strong stalks of spyquip planted amid the birch and cedar, the sophisticated growths of recognizant CCTV, efflorescing through my bungalow’s peephole, getting tangled in the eaves. I bawled myself out, got cotted, covered my face with the dresser’s doily and scrolled schiztic for what to disclaim, for which self to accuse of what inclination: the offlabel oxycodone and hydrocodone ordered scriptless from British Columbia, the minoxidil reliance legal though mortifying, all that screengrab analingus. Meanwhile, vans and trucks were offloading dusk — a carousel clattered from a trailer, ferris wheel assembly clamor, a log flume hosed, trampolines inflated.

\

Waiting to be collected by dark. Waiting mopey for Myung. As the helicopters chopped my sleeping into naps. As the gusts balmed in chatter between the blinds.

Finally I got up, showered and shaved and toweled over to my wheeliebag to formally decide (wrinkled old City Hall ceremony suit? wrinkled older bookparty suit?), ineluctably jeansed it below a tshirt Rach’d gotten me from the Mark Twain House in Connecticut: black, “Mark This Twain” in graffiti white, an arrow pointing dickward.

My presence aside, I still hadn’t come up with anything as tribute — again, what do you get the Founder of everything? besides flattery? Beautiful. It was just beautiful. The trail to Principal’s back 40 acreage had been redcarpeted, a door policy was in effect.

At trail’s terminus was a cupreous voluptuous Chicana. The thing in her hand must’ve been an unreleased Tetheld, judging by how it disturbed attendees into fussing with their own models, noting equivalencies, compatibilities, breathing screens and wiping them clean.

The Tethelds were scanned — touchless mating of machines — the attendees were admitted, returned their devices to their pockets, patting, reassuring: like it was the last time they’d make love to a spouse they’d have to abandon.

The invites were surveys, apparently — digi.

Waiting for approval, I recognized: the chairman/cofounder of America’s most popular eTailer, a crowd theory academic from UC Berkeley, the COO of a premier iConometry site, a venture capitalist/immediate past California state controller, a Congressperson who’d been advocating for the establishment of a Department of Online (DO) within the next president’s cabinet (the president of the United States), and then — far in the front, past cyberpunkadelic bodimodis, transdermally implanted proboscideans, vulcan jedis with diversified portfolios and freshly filed teeth — was the alternative to the alternatives, was Finnity.

I wanted to sign off, I wanted to sign out — whichever had the most hits, or provided the least traceable exit.

Which flight had he been on? the red eye or brown nose? The rest of him was a ruddy blond — and perfectly unfolded, with not an extraneous crease — tweeded like a lordly hunter.

I might’ve guessed: Finn never missed parties — he would’ve hitched if he’d had to.

He scanned, was admitted, indifferently seamless, but because I didn’t have a pda or even a rotary dragging an oinker’s cord all the way from NY, the Chicana guided me under the privacy of a willow, “I’ll have to take this actinally.”

“Take what?”

“Your dietary requirements,” clicking her screen. “So: vegetarian, vegan, pescatarian, lactovo, or macrobiotic?”

“Are you serious?” but as her thumbs huddled I answered myself, “I’m an omnivore.”

“Now do you mind eating out of the Greater Bay? Or do you insist on zipsourcing—94/95000s?”

“Anything goes.”

“Any allergies?”

“Just to being interrogated.”

She put me down for seconds of testiness, “This is only because you didn’t respond online.”

“You asked this on an invite?”

“It’s just protocol.”

I was Table πi e —which was difficult to remember atechnically. But if the seating arrangements were what I suspected, that would be the one to avoid.

The festivities were centered on a capacious bullfighting ring patio flanked by Moorishish fountains reviving ponds. Hubs of eager earnest convo, politics too optimistic for opinion. Mass delusion. Mass hydration.

The patio: La Korto — every notable architectural element was labeled, was to be referred to, in a slurred Spanish that was just Esperanto. La Trovita Lando, the compound — the main house above us (La Domo), the guest huts beyond (La Domoj), enshrouded in fog.

The xeriscaped rear descended into the vast gape of a wildlife refuge: a semiofficial preserve and so another tax dodge to Principal, a religious life — mission farmland and clergy R&R — to the Spanish, but originally a religion itself — animism, totemism, dendrolatry — to the indigenous Indians, whom the Spanish called the Costeños, or “coastal people,” but who called themselves Ohlone: Ohlo = “western,” ne = “people.”