Too much control. Now that my attention included her, I could read more subtle body tells of deceit.
But over what?
Simple, let’s start by altering the patter. When you have a smooth and practiced stage routine, any variation can make your partner break stride. Cause her to make eye contact. Send a questioning look.
“So is this one of them there room temperature superfluids?” I asked the audience while flourishing both hands toward the pitcher in her grasp. “Or how about ectoplasm! Phlegm? Phlogiston? Fairy blood? Luminiferous ether?” I ran down a long list, made up on the fly. Teresa’s smile froze, exactly as one would expect if I were being a routine-wrecking jerk.
But there was no questioning look. No eye contact. In fact, her gaze flicked away…and I read guilt.
I read fear.
I guess I could have “accidentally” spilled the pitcher right then, ruining the trick but earning forgiveness from the audience with some performance lagniappes. Instead, I called for a volunteer.
“Hey, I get a lot of repeat customers, and I’ll bet some of you out there have seen this shtick before, right?” A smattering of applause. “OK then, how about one of you out there come up and take a gulp to prove it’s water? I’m getting older, and this bladder of mine is already full. Anyone? How about you, sir?”
Grinning sheepishly for his friends, and almost stumbling in eagerness, the tourist hurried forward, onto the stage…and it only took a glance to see plain panic in Teresa’s eyes. Good. The villains who blackmailed or bribed you into this will study the recording and see your shock, your dismay. They’ll know you tried and failed. That you didn’t tip me off. You’ll live.
I owed her that much. Nothing more.
As the tourist shuffled forward, dazzled by the lights, I teased laughter from his pals by suggesting that maybe this time the fluid might not be water! That I had summoned a mark onstage to do the taste test in order not to take the risk myself. He guffawed nervously, assuming that it was part of my new, mischievous patter.
Kilonova blanched, as pale as a ghost. Would I really be such a bastard?
The mark reached out to receive the pitcher, overcoming nerves with macho and a sense of fun. I loved the guy…and motioned for Teresa to hand him the crystal decanter—
—which, trembling, she fumbled at the last instant, letting it slip.
I dived after and caught it. Bumping heads with the eager, clumsy-helpful customer, I bobbled the heavy pitcher, losing hold, recovering…then taking a huge pratfall as the goblet fell crashing to the stage. Amid the splash and flying fragments, our volunteer hopped back, cussing amiably.
Rolling to my feet, I apologized, brushed off his jacket, handed him a couple of passes to the Horsefeathers Revue, and caught a final glimpse of my beautiful associate, disappearing behind the curtain.
During the next few minutes, Kilonova made repeated let’s get out of here motions. But no way I’d flee the stage, too! There were replacement tricks up my sleeve. And I remembered how to perform alone. And these good people—some of them—had paid good money to see me. Or at least deserved a break from the cybernetically enhanced parasitism of the casino floor.
Anyway, the show must go on.
“These distributed sensor networks have given us a new, powerful way to understand and manage human groups, corporations, and entire societies. As these new abilities become refined by the use of more sophisticated statistical models and sensor capabilities, we could well see the creation of a quantitative, predictive science of human organizations and human society. At the same time, these new tools have the potential to make George Orwell’s vision of an all-controlling state into a reality. What we do with this new power may turn out to be either our salvation or our destruction.” —Alex Pentland, Reality Mining of Mobile Communications: Toward a New Deal on Data (2008)
So there I was a few days later in Israel, presumably accompanying my new bride to an astronomical conference in Haifa, then taking a honeymoon trip to archaeological sites, culminating at the Tel Ain Makor dig, northeast of Jerusalem. Kilonova believed in realism, so I quite enjoyed the pretense. Indeed, I was pondering the possibility of proposing an indefinite extension of our ruse, which so far seemed—in addition to other advantages—to stave off more assassination attempts.
This meant that the powers intent on keeping me alive were at least evenly matched with those wanting me dead.
But why? This can’t be just Johann Mazella. Even if that ruthless mogul caught wind of our spycraft at the Golden Palace (and by now I doubted he ever would), time would surely have dissipated any rage down to the “you’ll never work in this town again” range. He’d know that was plenty punishment for a guy like me.
As Milla and I made our way back to the tour van, past layer after layer of failed civilizations, I pondered.
No, it has to be about Liar-Outer. A lot of powerful people have been inconvenienced. Some even had their careers ruined by our credibility scoring system. Could it be revenge?
But that didn’t make sense either! I’d broken no vows to members of the diffuse oligarchy. I had behaved as a member of an opposing team. You don’t kill honest adversaries out of pique, lest it turn into a tit-for-tat bloodbath. Revenge? No, there was something else. Something much more likely to propel murder.
Prevention.
I confronted Milla with my suspicion that evening, over dinner at our hotel near Ramallah.
“You know something I don’t know.”
She nodded, with a guarded expression, and gave an evasive answer.
“How would you know something that I know but you don’t?”
No, no. Evasion doesn’t make for good marriages.
“You and Sophia. Your predictive engines. You figure that I’m going to do something. And that potential future action would put me in danger. That’s why you showed up last Sunday at the Tuscany.”
A glint in the eye. She knew a subtle tell was all the confirmation needed, as I worked at the logical chain.
“Moreover, it’s something strong. A future condition attractor state that others were likely to detect, as well. Others who would not approve of my future course of action. Hence, you came to rescue me. My knight in black-spandex armor.”
This time a slight smile. A tight nod.
“The least service I could perform for a magic man.”
“And this thing I am about to do…can I assume it has to do with prediction?”
Another nod.
“Well, then,” I started to fume. “If you ladies are so good at fortune-telling, why don’t you go ahead and invent whatever-it-is yourselves! Why do you need me? I could’ve gone on, oblivious and perfectly happy—”
All right, that was a lie, and Milla could read it well enough. In fact, I never felt better about being alive than right there by a glittering swimming pool at the edge of the miraculous Israel-Palestine Economic Development Zone, looking at her and doing verbal jousting.
“It doesn’t work that way,” she explained in a very low voice, out of habit, since we had good anti-eavesdropping gear. “Our newest method is very person-specific. We focus on creative people and tell when they are having what’s called an aha moment…when they’re working on a tough problem and seem utterly confident they have a brilliant answer.”
I had to blink.
“So, I’ve been a lab rat. Watched. Studied.”