Neeson starts to walk through how to expose the bug. It’s like the Chief Architect’s not-a-trick except in words. More words, but not any more detail. His lecture probably has a structure and a direction. It’s also boiled chicken breast in the form of sentences and paragraphs. Ellie manages to get it down but she’ll be shocked if Daniel can withstand anything this boring for more than a minute or two.
A whole two minutes, an eternity in Daniel time, go by before his left hand starts tapping the table. From pinky to index, each finger hits the table one after the other in a steady rhythm before the process starts again. Neeson drones on. He either doesn’t notice or, more likely, is ignoring Daniel.
It’s only a few minutes more before Daniel excuses himself. He paces the lobby in a giant oval, looking less agitated with each circuit. Neeson forges on like an intrepid letter carrier pushing through not only rain but also snow and sleet, not to mention hail.
Ellie lines up Neeson’s words with the Chief Architect’s actions. The skunkworks speculates possible future states of the universe even as some state is committed as the present. Representations of the futures that never come to pass may still be lying around in the skunkworks somewhere basically unfindable. The exploit games the skunkworks into calculating the possible future you want and leaking it so it manifests in the universe.
Neeson winds up his explanation. Daniel, looking much more settled, returns with suspiciously perfect timing and sits across from Neeson.
“So, as I said, none of this is new.” Neeson’s gaze acknowledges Daniel’s existence for an instant before it returns to Ellie. “Theidea of speculating future states came in with quantum mechanics over a century ago. The notion of temporary transient-state storage is older than that. This bug is the accidental fallout from a bunch of decisions, many of which are decades, if not a century, old. The architects say it’s removable, so there’s that.”
“Thank you for the explanation.” Ellie sounds as sincere as possible under the circumstances. “So it’s a bug. A side channel isn’t great but it beats the alternative.”
“Listen, your reputation precedes you. Vera must have trained you as well as she’s trained her other daughter. Chris is always going on about how annoyingly good you are at all the things a builder has to do.” Neeson leans in ever so slightly. “I can use another builder like your sister in my organization. She has been invaluable to me.”
Chris has never mentioned working with Neeson. Then again, Chris told Ellie the wrong date for the funeral. If Chris ever mentioned working with Neeson, that might have been the surest sign she isn’t. Conversely, that she’s never even uttered the name Neeson around Ellie may be the surest sign she is. Along the same lines, though, Chris has never complimented Ellie to Ellie, but apparently has to Neeson. Ellie had no idea Chris ever said anything good about her to anyone. Maybe Mom is right. Maybe Chris can return to Ellie the love and respect owed to family that Ellie tries her best to give Chris. Maybe they can have the relationship that Mom always told Ellie to have with Chris. She sets the thought aside for later.
“Why does Verification need builders?”
“For issues like that hold-time violation you found and fixed last month. We need builders to study the actual physical structures, to rule in or rule out damage or a bad build or that the laws of physics have changed out from under it. That’s a good chunk of the inspections we’re doing now. Architects and builders have to be involved or else we’ll never figure anything out. Thedirty secret is no one completely understands how any universe works.”
Neeson’s cell phone chirps from a jacket pocket. He takes it out, clicks a side button, and stares at the screen.
“My car is here.” He slides the phone back into his jacket. “You don’t have to answer now. If you have any other questions, you know how to reach me.”
He shakes her hand again and gives Daniel a nod so slight it’s practically subliminal. A large black SUV pulls up to the hotel door. Neeson drags his roller bag behind him out of the hotel. The driver puts it in the trunk as Neeson gets into the backseat. The SUV pulls away.
“Well, he seems nice.” Ellie turns to face Daniel.
Ellie isn’t sure what she expected but it wasn’t a relatively reasonable explanation and an invitation back into the community of maintainers. She can’t say she isn’t tempted. If both the Chief Architect and the Chief Verifier vouch for her, everyone else might not welcome her back with open arms but at least they might feel forced to stop whispering unfounded rumors about her. Whatever is happening between Neeson and Daniel groans like a dull alarm in the distance. Honestly, though, being too boring to hold Daniel’s attention is not that hard.
“Yes.” Daniel nods slowly. He’s still watching where the SUV disappeared from view and he squints as though if he stares hard enough he can still see it. “It’s weird. He’s not normally this nice.”
“Wait.” Ellie holds up a hand. “Why doyouthink this? He barely acknowledged your existence.”
“Exactly. He acknowledged my existence.” Daniel nods as if he’s made a point. “He even called me ‘Daniel.’ Something’s off.”
“So you don’t believe him?”
Daniel’s gaze shifts to the floor. He takes a deep breath before facing Ellie.
“I’m sure he said a bunch of things that are technically true,although I doubt Aunt Vera ever nontrivially worked with him. We knew he’d explain to us why it’s just a bug. He’s simply telling us what he told the Chief Architect.” Daniel shrugs. “I don’t trust him. There’s a difference.”
“Daniel, did you tell anyone the physics of the universe our skunkworks lives in changed?”
“No.” Daniel shakes his head. “There wasn’t a bug in the logic as designed, so I had no report to file.”
“I didn’t either. Neeson brought up changing the laws of physics, though.” Ellie shrugs. “For something that’s never supposed to happen, it’s come up a lot.”
Ellie pulls out the list of people the Chief Architect said to interview. Most are the maintainers doing the auditing, so it’s not like the Chief Architect wants them to take Neeson at his word. Ellie pulls out her cell phone and, one by one, she works her way down the list.
The calls don’t go well. Ellie barely gets past “hello.” Everyone makes a point of expressing their condolences. Some of them immediately go on to claim they know nothing about the contraption that kept her mom alive. A few sidetrack her with one reminiscence or another about some obscure bug or difficult construction issue or something that her mom solved.
Once Ellie is allowed to explain why she’s calling, though, it’s shocking but unsurprising how they all have to get off the phone that very moment. Many of them simply must leave for the Smithsonian immediately or have a dear friend whom they hadn’t seen in years they need to visit right now on the Maryland side of metro DC or, less believably in, say, Gaithersburg or Towson. The latter is on the other side of Baltimore and about an hour and a half away before you even think about traffic.
Everyone she calls nails that mode of politeness that is both performatively obsequious and, honestly, the least they could do. She can hear “Besides, I’m sure you’re too deep in grief to discussan obscure bug” only so many times before she hurls her phone across the lobby. It’s not their business how she deals with Mom’s death, and the way they throw it in her face makes it obvious how little they care whether she’s grieving or not. She shouldn’t care what they think of her, but each phone call is another tiny cut, prodding open a wound she desperately wants healed.
Halfway down the list, she can’t take it anymore. Maybe it’s not them. Maybe it’s her. She hands the list to Daniel.
