It was a magnificent crow. Its black button eye glittered with malice. Each feather seemed to be individually present, discrete. He found himself counting them: one, two, five, ten, until he was distracted by the light streaming between the needles of the tall conifers lining the campus perimeter. According to a sign screwed on to the wall by the fire door, Virugenix has landscaped this zone using native Washington State plants to encourage a land ethic that celebrates our natural heritage. Yes, he thought. Yes, that’s right. Everything seemed precious and perfect, the way things ought to be. The sun marched down correctly through the dense green branches of the trees and the ground sloped away in an ordered mat of native Washington turf grasses. On impulse he stepped off the deck and kneeled down. He ran his hands over the grass. It was fine and soft and thick, like hair. The sunlight was blinding. The world seemed to have dissolved, to be coming to him through a series of prisms. His face was wet. He realized he was crying.
‘Are you OK?’ The voice was concerned, hesitant. Turning round, Arjun recognized a Singaporean guy who worked on the diagnostics product team. He raised an arm in a weak fine-thanks wave. The Singaporean guy waved too and backed away still watching. Finally convinced that there was no immediate problem, he turned and went inside. Arjun remained kneeling for a while, smoothing his hands over the grass. Then he got up and returned to his desk.
There were two emails waiting in his inbox.
To: arjunm@virugenix.com
From: darrylg@virugenix.com
Subject: Blame
Blame is MEANINGLESS. You must understand it is NOBODY’S FAULT. Looked at from a cosmological perspective this has VERY LITTLE SIGNIFICANCE. Be aware I have in place COMPREHENSIVE personal security measures. Dsrr{l
To: arjunm@virugenix.com
From: chriss@virugenix.com
Subject: are you all right?
Heard the news. So sorry. Meet me after work? Xc
‘That bastard.’ She meant it. She had always thought Darryl was a shit. ‘He couldn’t even face you on his own. But it doesn’t surprise me. You know how he is with people.’
They were parked by the lake, at the end of a private road belonging to a sailing club. Ahead of them a slipway ran down into the water. A little way out, people who could afford to take Wednesday off were messing about in catamarans. Chris had brought Arjun here because she thought the view might calm him down. She was trying to face up to her responsibilities. He was not making it easy.
‘At least I have you,’ he said with determination.
‘Sure.’ She nodded warily. He was not in good shape. His eyes were red. Earlier he had been picking at his clothing and muttering to himself in a fractured mixture of English and what was probably Hindi. Chris was worried. She had been avoiding him all week and was intending to go on doing so for as long as possible, but when she heard he had lost his job, guilt told her she ought to check on him. Karmically speaking, it was the proper thing to do.
He kept talking about going back. She supposed he meant to India, but it wasn’t clear. They were trying to make him go back, but it was impossible. He would show Them. He would make Them see sense.
‘I think,’ she ventured, choosing her words carefully, ‘it’s kind of a done deal.’
He scowled and said, ‘That’s not true.’ Just that. Final and definite. Which worried her even more.
Since the weekend she had been doing a lot of thinking. Not about Arjun particularly. About her and Nicolai. She and Nic had always tried to be each other’s fantasy. That was their bargain, the thing that held them together. No compromises, anything possible, anything permitted. It sometimes made for a strain, especially when other people got involved, but it had always felt like a brave choice. They were making their lives up as they went along, playing by their own rules. And often it worked, which was more than you could say for most people’s relationships.
It was just that lately she seemed to be pushing Nic’s buttons. He was pissed at her, and he was probably justified. She felt as if she was losing him. Arjun was a symptom, but there had been more significant attachments for her and, she suspected, for him too. A while back she had had a thing with someone which threatened to get serious. Nic knew about it, or at least guessed something was up between her and this other guy, a studio engineer. He said nothing, rode it out.
He was a calm one, Nic, almost too laid-back sometimes, but he had problems and she was supposed to be part of the solution. For a long time she had been kind of shitty to him; now it was time to step up. That’s what she had decided. To commit. So when she heard Arjun had been fired, it was, among other things, a relief. That was one more night she would be able to forget about. Arjun would disappear and it would be easier to put things right. It was cold of her; she knew it. She also knew whatever had happened was her fault. She did owe Arjun something. A shoulder. He had been a friend, after all. So she came and scraped him up and put him in her car. She had expected him to be upset, but not like this. He seemed to think he could persuade the company to take him back.
‘You’ll help me, won’t you?’ he said.
‘Help you do what?’
‘You must know people. You could talk to them for me, tell them I can’t go.’
‘Arjun, that kind of decision takes place way over my head. I’m just a coder. You know that. I realize it’s hard, but you’ll find another job.’
‘You’re not listening! I can’t! You’re my last hope. It’s you and me against the world now.’
Chris stared at him in horror. You and me against the world? What movie was that from? ‘Arjun, I’m your friend, OK? But there is no you and me. I’m with Nic. You understand that, right?’
‘But you came to my place. We — you finally understood, and you came.’ He looked at her, almost imploring her. It felt terrible to say what she had to say next.
‘I know what happened between us the other night might make you think that, but — it was a mistake. It was my fault. I got high and — well, I shouldn’t have done it. It was unfair. I know I’ve been leading you on.’
He just stared at her. Blank. Uncomprehending.
‘I’m a bitch.’
‘You’re still going to help me, aren’t you?’
‘Help you do what? There’s nothing to do. I can’t make them give you your job back.’
‘But you have to,’ he said. ‘It’s me and you. We’re together. That’s how it’s supposed to be.’
When you write code you are in control. You construct a world from first principles, drawing up the axioms that govern it, setting in motion the engines of generation and decay. Even in a computer environment designed by someone else you can relax, safe in the knowledge that you are engaged with a system that runs according to potentially knowable rules. From this perspective the real world possesses the paradoxical quality of not feeling real enough. Surely, of all things, reality ought to be transparent, logical. You should be able to unscrew the fascia and view the circuitry inside.
‘Chris, why did you have sex with me?’
‘I don’t know, Arjun. I just did. It was a bad idea.’
‘That means you don’t love me.’
‘Arjun —’
In a world of illusion you have to ask questions. You have to doubt, systematically. Other people may act real. They may behave as if, like you, they are animated by internal processes. But you never know. Some of them are just machines.