“Okay.”
“But as we move down the line of switches, the value of each new switch gets higher by a factor of two. So if we have two switches, they have the following potential values.”
He writes on a napkin:
Both Off = 0 + 0 = 0
First Off, Second On = 0 + 1 = 1
First On, Second Off = 2 + 0 = 2
Both On = 1 + 2 = 3
I say: “The more switches you have, the potentially higher numbers. In theory, you can create impossibly huge numbers with long strings of ones and zeroes.”
“Not just in theory, but in practice. As I said earlier, these ones and zeroes ultimately make up all the underlying information in a computer. For instance, individual letters of the alphabet are represented by ones and zeroes organized in clumps of eight.”
On the computer, he calls up a web site. At the top of the site, it reads: “Binary Encoder.” There is an empty search box on the screen and beneath it, it reads: “Enter text.”
Into the box, he types: “Nat is dad.” He hits “Enter.” The encoder spits out the following:
01001110 01100001 01110100 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01100100 01100001 01100100
“Wow!” Bullseye says.
“What?”
“You’re going to be a dad.”
“Very funny. What does this have to do with Grandma?”
“Do you have that piece of paper you got from Pete’s library?”
I pull it from my pocket. At the top is a heading “1/0,” suggesting that each of the sets of memories has a one or a zero associated with it.
1/0
Yankees/Dodgers
Cursive/Block
12/7; Radio/Word-of-Mouth
Chevrolet/Cadillac
Standard/Automatic
Paternal car; Chevrolet/Cadillac
Slaughter Self/Butcher
Kennedy/Nixon
Married uniform/tie
Husband married uniform/tie
Saw moon landing/word-of-mouth
Union/non-union
Polio in family/No polio
Pink Cadillac/Blue Cadillac
Purple Chevrolet/Orange Chevrolet
One sibling/no sibling
Two sibling/three sibling
Procrastinator/punctual
Audited/Meticulous with books
If cursive, then “saw moon landing”
If union, then Yankees
If Procrastinator, then Polio
“It looks to me like a Kennedy equals one and Nixon equals zero; polio in the family equals one and no polio equals zero, and so on,” I say. “So what?”
“Therein lies the question. So what?”
On the laptop, I toggle back to Grandma’s last Human Memory Crusade transcript. We can see there that she has responded that her dad drove a PINK CADILLAC, she heard about Pearl Harbor on the RADIO, her husband was in a UNION, he drove a PURPLE CHEVROLET, she did NOT HAVE POLIO in her family, she supported JFK, was PUNCTUAL, she got her first color TV in 1967.
“Let’s assign each of those memories their ones and zeroes,” I say.
Bullseye’s already doing that. On a piece of paper, he’s written: “1111010.”
“Very elegant,” he says.
“Why?”
“Bits are written in chunks of eight ones and zeroes.”
“What’s it mean?”
“Let’s find out.”
On the laptop, he goes back to the binary decoder site.
Bullseye pastes Grandma’s ones and zeroes into the box. He hits “Enter.” Two new boxes appear. One box has the heading “Text.” The other box has the heading “Numerical.”
In the text box, is a single letter: “Z.”
In the other box is “122.”
Bullseye stares in silence.
“This string of ones and zeroes corresponds to either the number one hundred twenty-two or the letter Z?” I ask.
He nods.
“I’m underwhelmed. So we’ve traded one string of meaningless ones and zeroes for an equally meaningless number of 122 or a random letter of the alphabet.”
I close my eyes and search the inside of my head for something that would give this meaning. Have I heard anything the last few days that would make sense of this?
“You remember a few days ago the Pentagon computers got hacked into?”
Bullseye nods.
“Why did that happen?” I ask.
“Because the encryption scheme wasn’t good enough. Hackers penetrated safeguards and got to secret information.”
“Interesting.”
“You think your grandmother has something to do with that?”
“Not at all. I’m just wondering if she’s carrying around some information, something that someone would want — and want it off the grid, not in a server somewhere. But she’s carrying it in the form of her story.”
“Something encoded, encrypted?”
“Like maybe someone wrote over her fallow memory with a bunch of seemingly meaningless details. And this”—I hold up the piece of paper from Pete’s office—“this is the encryption key.”
He shrugs.
“Bullseye, there’s an important secret locked in here.”
I’m thinking of Pete’s cryptic scrawclass="underline" three weeks. Three weeks until what?
Bullseye’s begun looking at SportsCenter on the big screen television hanging over the corner of the bar. He’s losing interest or he surmises that even if we make progress in figuring it out, we’ll never be able to make use of the information. Or I’m projecting.
“Can I take your worksheet?”
“Can you buy me a beer?”
I order him an Anchor Steam. I’m out of cash and I hand the barkeep my credit card. As she processes the charge, I remember that my card, for some mysterious reason, did not work a day ago. I’m about to tell the waitress to forget about it when she returns with the tab. Just as mysteriously as my card failed, it is now working again.
“Someone thinks I’m no longer a threat,” I say.
I think of Grandma, Polly, our zygote.
Maybe I’m only a threat to myself, and them.
It is drizzling when I arrive at Magnolia Manor. The start of November marks the end of the Bay Area’s Indian summer.
At the front desk of the home, the attendant says he has a message for me.
“Mr. Idle, the director said he’d like to see you as soon as you stopped in. He’s in his home, not the office.”
“I’d like to see my grandmother first.”
“The director says it’s critical.”
Chapter 58
The Human Asparagus is up to his ears in cardboard boxes. He stands in his living room, wrapping his belongings in white tissue paper and setting them into packing boxes.
“Fleeing the scene of the crime?”
In his hand is a small brass goblet, cheap looking, like something you’d win at a carnival. He raises it up with one of his gangly arms. “Governor’s Chalice,” he says.
“The governor gives awards for allowing secret testing of old people?”
“It’s from my peers in the industry. Annually, we vote on which retirement home director in the region is most deserving and that person holds the chalice for a year.”
He’s melancholy. So I accede to his mood. “The chalice holder is the person who gives the best care?”
He laughs. “Who can best deal with obnoxious family members of our residents.” He looks up at me. “I’m a perennial winner.”
“Vince, I’m serious. Are you leaving to avoid being arrested or sued?”
“What do you want from me, Nat? What do any of you selfish, self-absorbed people want from me?”
“Are you serious? Answers and retribution for a start. My grandmother’s brain got baked.”