Jens had tried to tell his father that it didn’t matter that the code was for a war game. Walter didn’t understand, of course. How could he? He wasn’t there the night they wrote the sun. Jens thought of Vi at the house. He thought of what she had said — not everything in your life has to do with you. He hadn’t understood it at the time, but now he thought she’d meant that he ought to mind his own life and family, and not worry about BigIf, and whether it was good or bad, perfect or imperfect, the cartoons or the code. Give yourself a break, give Walter a break, don’t worry about purity, just live. Peta could have said the same thing probably, but from Vi it carried weight. Vi had been there at the start. Vi had been there all along. Vi had seen the paper train derailed outside Berlin.
Lu Ping was doing tai chi, the flowing early moves, Raise Hands, Cradle Swan, Strum the Lute, Repulsing Monkey, nearly hitting Jens, who was heading for the door. Jens ducked under Monkey and went up to the second floor.
Meredith Shattuck was enthroned behind her desk of solid butcher block.
“How’s Bradley working out?” she asked.
“He seems very nice,” said Jens.
“Has he mentioned any preexisting medical conditions? Jaffe has to do the health insurance paperwork.”
“Not so far, but I’ll keep my ears open. May I sit? Thanks. Meredith, the reason why I wanted to stop by is I feel I ought to clear the air with you. I lost my head a bit yesterday. Vaughn Naubek was my friend and a great coder. Charlie Mayer was a friend too. I’m not going to sit here and tell you that I think it was a smart move, firing those guys, because I don’t. I think it’s a mistake in the long run, because whatever productivity dips they may have been going through, they had experience, Meredith, and that’s important too — you can replace the old guard with the kids, but the kids don’t have experience. So yes I was upset. And I admit I lost my head and I apologize for that. And I just wanted to make sure that we’re fine, you and me, with our relationship. I know I haven’t been the most productive member of the team either. Hell, I’ll say it, Meredith: I’ve been in a slump. Monster Todd — he troubles me. I’m not sure why and I doubt you care. It’s the damnedest thing, because I could always work. Remember when my dad died? And you sent those flowers, which was awfully nice of you. I handled the arrangements, and two days later, bang, I was right back at the code. Remember when I wrote the river algorithm? My son was born that night, that very night. I stood there in the delivery room in my booties and my desperado mask watching my child slide out of my wife. It was like nothing I have ever seen. Then she fed him, and they slept, and I came back here at three a.m. and the river just poured out of me. But it’s been different with Todd. I couldn’t work, I mean, I could — I could work on certain things. I wrote the shadow for the crater smoke, which is, by the way, a cool utility. Sometime when you get a minute, load it up and take a look. Then look at the file size. Less than a kilobyte, a single kilobyte. It’s beautiful, it’s beautiful, so tiny and complete, just like my son that night. There aren’t a dozen men — people, sorry — who could have written that utility to compile as a k-byte. Let’s see Bradley Schwartz do that, let’s see goddamn Digby try to do that. I didn’t come to pick a fight or grovel. I know we’re living in the marketplace — that’s fine and I accept it, which is why I didn’t make a big deal about SmoShadow. I know that you and Head and the twins have prioritized Monster Todd, and, yes, I know Todd’s overdue. I can’t account for it. I couldn’t work or I couldn’t work on Todd. It was like a flu bug, Meredith, like a three-day flu, a head cold, a nothing stupid kind of thing, and yet you’re totally wiped out, you’re good for nothing, and there’s nothing you can do but wait until it clears. What I came to say is that it cleared. Now I’m better. I feel like I can work and that’s why I thought I ought to clear the air.”
Meredith said, “Yes. Thank you, Jens.”
“Yes?” said Jens. “How can you sit there and say, Yes?”
Meredith spoke very softly, as if talking to a child in the dark. She said, “A corporation is a forest, Jens, and I’m the forester. In forests you have lightning strikes, and fires, and many trees are burned, but the forest is renewed. But it’s over now — or it will be as soon as Davey Tabor shows his face and we can eighty-six his ass in person. Relax, Jens, the fire passed you by. Do me a favor — go home and get some sleep, or whatever it is that you need. I promise I’ll look at your shadow later.”
The roadblock was on Hanover Street, police cars nose to nose across four lanes of traffic, cops in yellow ponchos waving motorists away. Jens slowed, ran his window down.
“What’s happening?” he asked.
“Big rally,” said the cop. “Where you headed?”
“To the square.”
“Park it by the library. You’ll have to walk from there.”
Jens took the detour to the right, came all the way around again to the public library, parked his car. He dropped three quarters in the meter, set it ticking with a crank.
The sidewalks turned to brick coming into Market Square, the streetlights turned to gaslamps, and the shops and offices took on the look of Dickens’ Christmas without snow. A crowd was forming on the cobblestones and workmen were assembling a scaffolding out of tube aluminum. Jens saw a news van parked the wrong way on the street, a small dish antenna slowly rising on a mast.
Moss Properties was on the harbor end of Market Square, a building called the Moss Block, a stately brick Bulfinch with a bow facade between the Aran Isle knit store and the new patisserie. Jens stood outside the realtors for a moment, looking at the ships in the window, a model wooden frigate and a schooner named the Sally Ann, and the other toy-sized relics from the age of sail, a two-pound anchor on a coiled chain, brass cannons, and a polished sextant, and, higher up, a cork-board for new listings, snapshots of properties and two-sentence blurbs, stock phrases of the trade: move in now — your country hideaway — stone’s throw to the beaches.
Peta was in her office with Daphne Jaffe, the rotundly pregnant wife of BigIf’s corporate counsel. Daphne Jaffe was sitting in a rocker, one hand on her belly, leafing through a binder. Peta was on the phone, pacing back and forth.
Jens said, “Good morning.”
Daphne recognized his face, he saw, but couldn’t place him. She smiled slightly and went back to the binder, as Peta turned and looked at Jens and made a face like You? She was talking to a Kenny, somebody named Kenny, as she made the face at Jens.