Mike forced a cheerful smile. “So, you like my design?”
It picked at its teeth with eight-inch foreclaws. “I’ve been worse.” It shifted game parameters, bringing up critic-layer details.
This was a heavy player, maybe even a cracker! On the ground between them was a dead and dissected example of Mike’s creation. Big Lizard nudged it with a foreclaw. “The skin texture is pure Goldman. Your color scheme is a trivial emergent thing, a generic cliché.”
Mike drew his knees in toward his chin. This was the same crap he had to put up with at school. “I borrow from the best.”
The saurian’s chuckle was a buzzing roar. “That might work with your teachers. They have to eat whatever garbage you feed them-till you graduate and can be dumped on the street. Your design is so-so. There have been some adoptions, mainly because it scales well. But if we’re talking real quality, you just don’t measure up.” The creature flexed its battle scars.
“I can do other things.”
“Yes, and if you never deliver, you’ll fail with them, too.”
That was a point that occupied far too much of Mike Villas’ worry time. He glared back at the slitted yellow eyes, and suddenly it occurred to him that-unlike teachers-this guy was not being paid to be nasty. And it was wasting too much time for this to be some humiliating joke. It actually wants something, from me! Mike sharpened his glare. “And you have some suggestions, Oh Mighty Virtual Lizard?”
“… Maybe. I have other projects besides Cret Ret. How would you like to take an affiliate status on one of them?”
Except for local games, no one had ever asked Mike to affiliate on anything. His mouth twisted in bogus contempt. “Affiliate? A percent of a percent of… what? How far down the value chain are you?”
The saurian shrugged and there was the sound of gingkos swaying to the thump of its shoulders. “My guess is I’m way, way down. On the other hand, this is not a dredge project. I can pay real money for each answer I pipe upwards.” The creature named a number; it was enough to play the Hill once a week for a year. A payoff certificate floated in the air between them.
“I get twice that or no deal.”
“Done!” said the creature, and somehow Mike was sure it was grinning.
“… Okay, so what do you want?”
“You go to Fairmont High, right?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s a strange place, isn’t it?” When Mike did not reply, the critter said, “Trust me, it is strange. Most schools don’t put Adult Education students in with the children.”
“Yeah, Senior High. The old farts don’t like it. We don’t like it.”
“Well, the affiliate task is to snoop around, mainly among the old people. Make friends with them.”
Yecch. But Mike glanced at the payoff certificate again. It tested valid. The payoff adjudication was more complicated than he wanted to read, but it was backed by eBay. “Who in particular?”
“So far, my upstream affiliate has only told me its broad interests: Basically, some of these senior citizens used to be bigshots.”
“If they were so big, how come they’re in our classes now?” It was just the question the kids asked at school.
“Lots of reasons, Miguel. Some of them are just lonely. Some of them are up to their ears in debt, and have to figure out how to make a living in the current economy. And some of them have lost half their marbles and aren’t good for much but a strong body and lots of old memories… Ever hear of Pick’s Syndrome?”
“Um…” Mike googled up the definition:… serious social dysfunction. “How do I make friends with someone like that?”
“If you want the money, you figure out a way. Don’t worry. There’s only one on the list, and he’s in remission. Anyway, here are the search criteria.” The Big Lizard shipped him a document. Mike browsed through the top layer.
“This covers a lot of ground.” Retired politicians, military officers, bioscientists, parents of persons currently in such job categories. “Um, this really could be deep water. We might be setting people up for blackmail.”
“Heh. I wondered if you’d notice that.”
“I’m not an idiot.”
“If it gets too deep, you can always bail.”
“I’ll take the job. I’ll go affiliate with you.”
“I wouldn’t want you doing anything you feel un-”
“I said, I’ll take the job!”
“Okay! Well then, this should get you started. There’s contact information in the document.” The creature lumbered to its feet, and its voice came from high above. “Just as well we don’t meet on Pyramid Hill again.”
“Suits me.” Mike made a point of slapping the creature’s mighty tail as he walked off down hill.
THE twins were way ahead of him, standing by the soccer field on the far side of campus. As Mike came up the drive-way, he grabbed a viewpoint in the bleachers and gave them a ping. Fred waved back, but his shirt was still too gooey for real comm. Jerry was looking upwards, at the FedEx shipment falling toward his outstretched hands. Just in time, for sure. The twins were popping the mailer open even as they walked indoors.
Unfortunately, Mike’s first class was in the far wing. He ran across the lawn, keeping his vision tied to unimproved reality: The buildings were mostly three storeys today. Their gray walls were like playing cards balanced in a rickety array.
Indoors, the choice of view was not entirely his own. Mornings, the school administration required that the Fairmont School News appear all over the interior walls. Three kids at Hoover High had won IBM Fellowships. Applause, applause, even if Hoover was Fairmont ’s unfairly advantaged rival, a charter school run by the Math Department at SDSU. The three young geniuses would have their college education paid for, right through grad school, even if they never worked at IBM.
Big deal, Mike thought. Somewhere down the line, some percentage of their fortunes would be siphoned sideways into IBM’s treasury.
He followed the little green nav arrows with half his attention… and abruptly realized he had climbed two flights of stairs. School admin had rearranged everything since yesterday. Of course, they had updated his nav arrows, too. It was a good thing he hadn’t been paying attention.
He slipped into his classroom and sat down.
MS. CHUMLIG had already started.
Search and Analysis was Chumlig’s thing. She used to teach a fast-track version of this at Hoover High, but well-documented rumor held that she just couldn’t keep up. So the Department of Education had moved her to the same-named course here at Fairmont. Actually, Mike kind of liked her. She was a failure, too.
“There are many different skills,” she was saying. “Sometimes it’s best to coordinate with lots of other people.” The students nodded. Be a coordinator. That’s where the fame and money were. But they also knew where Chumlig was going with this. She looked around the classroom, nodding that she knew they knew. “Alas, you all intend to be top agents, don’t you?”
“It’s what some of us will be.” That was one of the Adult Ed students. Ralston Blount was old enough to be Mike’s great grandfather. When Blount had a bad day he liked to liven things up by harassing Ms. Chumlig.
The Search and Analysis instructor smiled back. “The pure ‘coordinating agent’ is a rare type, Professor Blount.”
“Some of us must be the administrators.”
“Yes.” Chumlig looked kind of sad for a moment, like she was figuring out how to pass on bad news. “Administration has changed a lot, Professor Blount.”
Ralston Blount shrugged. “Okay. So we have to learn some new tricks.”
“Yes.” Ms. Chumlig looked out over the class. “That’s my point. In this class, we study search and analysis. Searching may seem simple, but the analysis involves understanding results. In the end, you’ve got to know something about something.”