The Word Exchange Read online

  “But actually,” Max interrupted, “like with other Memes, you don’t need the chip.”

  “Can I ask,” I said, gingerly removing the box from my hood, “what does it … do?”

  “What—the Nautilus specifically?” Vernon said, forking dressing-glossed arugula leaves. “Or you mean a Meme?”

  I shrugged evasively. (I’d seen them up close and even held them, but I’d never actually used a Meme.)

  Floyd, eyes goggling, laughed. “Are you fucking serious?”

  But before I could feel too sheepish, Max coolly responded, “Everything.” And together they proceeded to rattle off a list that did in fact succeed in blowing my mind. The Meme did all the “obvious things,” they explained: anticipating wants and needs. “It’ll do your groceries,” Vernon said through his napkin. “That’s pretty convenient. Oh, but taxes is the best. There’s a pop-up sometime in March asking if you want them filed, and you just hit ‘yes.’ ” That’s the moment my interest increased.

  But it also transformed life in more extraordinary ways. Max claimed, for instance, that anyone could create a “masterpiece.” As proof, he nudged the least obvious artist in our party. Floyd put on his Crown, concentrated for a minute, and beamed the results to Vern so I could see. Astonishingly, it was true: the image, of women bathing, was breathtaking. Sort of Baroque, with golden, Flemish light, the figures drenched in pathos and grace. “And it’s dialectical,” Max explained, “which is part of what makes it so moving, or whatever—it senses what you want to see and augments those aspects. There’s no fixed image. And you can do it in any medium—music, film, glyphs.”

  If I was willing to get a microchip—a minor, outpatient procedure—my Meme could do even more for me. Make it easier to remember certain incidents in full, lustrous color, or forget things I’d rather not revisit (again and again). It could change my visual field so that walking or driving or riding in the train would feel like performing in a video game.

  “What happens if you want the microchip out?” I asked, looking around at all of them. “Is that—that’s a minor procedure, too?”

  There was an edgy silence. Vernon shifted next to me.

  “Yeah,” Max acknowledged. “That’s a little more complicated.” But he quickly changed the subject, listing more Meme functions: it could yield access to whole fields of study—macroeconomics, 17th-century Italian poetry, mixology. “You don’t necessarily ‘learn’ the stuff,” Max explained. “But it doesn’t matter—it’s all right there for however long you need.” It could suppress or increase appetite. Help you focus. Coach you to enhance some physical abilities.

  Needless to say, my defenses started getting worn down almost painfully—and Max hadn’t even started to describe the Nautilus.

  When he did, his face was deadpan. But his voice was a little too muted; I knew it was big. “It’s the first commercially available device that integrates electronics with cellular biology,” he said.

  Obviously I needed to have that explained—and I suddenly had the uncomfortable feeling that the machine then nestled in my lap cost more than my childhood home.

  Unlike his own Meme, Max said, which utilized electroencephalography; an abundant array of chips, sensors, and transmitters—“Enough for a small island country”—and (he tapped his skull) a microchip; my new Nautilus Meme required far less “messy hardware,” because it utilized the already existing infrastructure of the brain.

  He invited me to think of the brain as having all the functions of a computer. It has computational power; it can filter, sort, and rank data and stimuli (determine what to pay attention to, what to ignore). It has the capacity to visualize and conjure auditory sensations through imagination and dreams. By building strong neuronal pathways, it can become very efficient at certain things. But like a computer, it can also form new networks. “Which is how it’s able to work with the Nautilus,” Max said mysteriously.

  Synchronic had spent years perfecting a device that, instead of maintaining separate, parallel systems that have to interface constantly, could simply integrate them—literally. The cellular components in the Nautilus combined with sensory neurons. That’s why it didn’t need a screen or mouthpiece or mic, or “any of the cumbersome light-to-sensor-to-signal transitions.” (I jotted down a few hasty notes on my grease-freckled napkin.)

  And with its electronic and digital elements, the Nautilus created a gateway that would convey information directly from the Internet to the brain. It required a little neural “rewiring,” Max said. But especially with extended use, it could create what he called a new “relay center,” exploiting the brain’s plasticity and “changing native topology” to engage directly with visual, auditory, and other sensory systems.

  That was how, Max claimed, you could get a “text” without a screen to see it on: it would simply appear, like a mirage. Eventually, he went on, you’d no longer even need any vestigial cues, e.g., a ringing sound to alert you to a call. After months, or maybe only weeks, of use, you’d simply sense the call—and perhaps be able to respond without words.

  At my request, the guys went into a lot more detail about the Nautilus. It was named for its spiral design, reminiscent of the eponymous mollusk, and like its namesake, it has to be stored in fluid. (“Comes with enough for the first six months,” Max said, tipping his chin at me.) Parts of the device are electronic. But it needs to be kept in special solution when not attached to skin because it also contains biological tissue. “Sort of a logical extension of biological computing,” Max offered casually.

  Apparently the Nautilus has a semipermeable membrane; when you put it on, its needleless “bioject” technology creates the conditions for cell “infiltration.” That, naturally, sounded pretty unwelcome to me, but Max claimed it was completely safe; just the device’s cells integrating with the somas of the nearest sensory neurons to create new chimeric cells that can communicate with their cortical counterparts in the brain.

  “Whatever that means,” I said, glancing around the table, expecting nods of solidarity. But everyone was staring calmly at Max.

  “What it means,” Max elaborated, pausing to sip his rum and soda, “is that the Nautilus creates its own point of entry for letting digital information in. Namely, it allows data to flow through the device to the user’s skin, and then it employs existing neuronal channels to send signals from the skin to the brain.”

  “Where exactly are you supposed to put it?” I asked warily.

  “The directions will say to put it on your forehead,” Max replied through a mouthful of pork. “That’s partly a marketing thing, so other people can see you have one. It’s probably also a little more effective there; the signals don’t have to travel very far since the forehead’s so close to the brain.” That made me flinch a little, which I guess Max could see, because he chewed, swallowed, and continued smoothly, “But you should be able to put it anywhere, as long as it’s in the same place each time.”

  Floyd leaned across the table toward me, his eyes betraying rare excitement, and interjected, “That’s only possible because the Nautilus uses biological computing, like Max said. It stores data in DNA code, not zeros and ones—although it’s obviously always translating back and forth between the two. But also, instead of electronic logic gates, it uses proteins. So there’s this … seamless integration between the device”—he held up one hand—“and the neuronal network it joins.” He raised his other hand and clamped them together. “In other words,” he said, smiling slyly, “between the outside world and your mind.”

  “We’ve all tried them,” Max reassured me.

  “You too, Vern?” I asked. I thought I felt him tense a little on the bench beside me. But he just nodded mildly. “Indeed,” he said, scratching his throat.

  Max then explained, lowering his voice, that I could tell absolutely no one that he’d given me a Nautilus. “I will hunt you down,” he joked. (I think.) They wouldn’t go on sale for several more weeks. But he expected a shipment withi
n days of a version that fixed a few “tiny, superficial glitches.” When they got the new ones in, he promised to hold one for me.

  I shook my head. “Not necessary,” I said.

  Max sort of squinted at me, one corner of his mouth ticking up—his codified expression of disappointment—and said, “You’re not going to use it, are you?”

  I shrugged. Sighing, Max said, “Yeah, I thought you might be that way. You should really try it. It’s pretty cool. But—” He reached back under the table and brought out a second box, this one picturing a standard Meme. “Here, Horse,” he said, tossing it at me.

  And then something else happened. Floyd interrupted. “Hey, that reminds me. Anyone else see that report in the Times yesterday on

  Memes?”

  “It was an opinion piece,” Vern corrected, and Floyd flipped him off reflexively.

  Vernon seemed unfazed. He very plainly had read the piece (I hadn’t), and in fact he seemed to have come prepared to dissect it: he offered a close reading of everything from use of the term “book” (“manipulative, maudlin”) to a critique of the former EU. Most of all, he seemed disturbed by the lack of a true byline. “It’s the end of journalism” were, I think, his words, which struck me as a bit overwrought. Max seemed to agree with me; he smirked through Vernon’s oration. Strangely, though, he chose not to riposte.

  But that wasn’t the oddest thing about the conversation, which soon got far stranger.

  It was all sparked, per Vernon’s byline comment, by an argument over the so-called Diachronic Society, which had apparently written the piece. The guys all seemed convinced, for some reason, that I’d know what this is. When I assured them that I don’t—“I never know anything,” I explained—Floyd said, “Dude, are you lying right now?” But prompted by Max, Floyd soon ceded that lying is one of several things that fall outside my skill set. That, though, is not what surprised me. Rather, N.B. the following exchange:

  “What do you think, Johnny?” Vernon asked, pointing one of my fries at Johnny.

  “Yeah, little guy,” added Floyd. “Your threshold of creepy silence is impressive today even for you.”

  Johnny shrugged, looking, I thought, a touch disquieted. “Eh,” he said. “Whatever.”

  “Seriously, John.” Vernon laced his long, aristocratic fingers and craned his head to the left to give Johnny one of his special supra-glasses stares. “It’s the first public critique of the Meme that links it explicitly to the Word Exchange. I’m curious to hear your opinion.”

  It might sound naive, but this was maybe the first time it really sank in that my compatriots in meat are into something truly big. That what they’re doing with Synchronic is on the national stage. And I, too, was curious to hear Johnny’s judgment, since I’m sure he’s the only one who really understands the technical aspects. And Johnny looked queasy.

  What he said was, “Honestly, dude, I feel a little exinbo.”

  We all stared at him. I don’t know why, but the hair on my neck stood on end.

  After a moment of silence, Floyd said, “Exinbo? What does that fucking mean?”

  Johnny looked nonplussed. “Exinbo?” he said, turning a shade greener. “Huh?”

  Vernon cleared his throat. “That’s what you just said,” he offered gently.

  “I-I did?” stammered Johnny. “Really?” He gave a lopsided shrug, wincing. Pressed his temples for a second. “Don’t know what that means.” Then he tried to laugh, but it was a strange and stifled sound, like a person laughing in his sleep. “Hungover, I guess I meant. Feeling hungovo.”

  “Nothing to be ashamed of, little buddy,” Floyd said, hoisting a refreshed glass. “Hair of the dog. Nature’s medicine.” Ad hoc shtick seemingly meant to un-unsettle things.

  But the exchange had profoundly agitated me, in ways I can’t quite explain. It made me hearken again to the weird, brief call I’d had with Ana Sunday, when her speech was overrun with lots of these odd slips. Frankly, though, everyone seemed shaken. I could see it in their boozy faces.

  But Max prodded us on. “Who do you think wrote it?” he asked, staring at Vernon.

  Before Vern could reply, though, Floyd said something that set off another strange cascade of chain reactions. “I don’t know, man,” he said, gurgling his bourbon. “What about your ex? Doesn’t she hate you right now? Maybe she’d want to discredit us.”

  The corners of Max’s mouth dipped down, and a crease furled between his brows. “No way,” he said, shaking his shaggy blond head. But his eyes had dimmed. He turned them on me and started to speak, and his voice was edged with the sharp teeth of worry.

  The question he asked, though, had nothing to do with Hermes. “Hey, Horse,” he said, trying (I could tell) to sound relaxed. “Has she heard anything, by the way? Or have you? I know she loses her shit if anyone goes missing for, like, 20 minutes.”

  I was chilled to the kidneys. Like I’d put on a pair of jeans taken too soon from the drier. “Who said anything about someone going missing?” I asked Max.

  “Oh …” he trailed off, his brow crease deepening. “I thought I heard … in the news. About her dad?” We were all watching him by then, even Floyd, and Max’s frown flickered into a small, embarrassed smile. I felt, if possible, even more rattled than I had after Johnny’s slip. What did it mean, I wondered, that Max knew Doug had disappeared? Who would have told him? Ana? That seemed extremely unlikely.

  “In the news?” I said. “Really? I haven’t seen anything.” In fact I knew, based on my discussion yesterday with the detective in charge of Doug’s case, that the story hadn’t been made public.

  Max ducked his head and, trying to suppress his nervous smile, babbled, “Yeah, I heard about it somewhere yesterday. Or the day before, maybe.” I saw him look pointedly at Vernon, who again feigned indifference at the scrutiny. Though again I could swear I felt his shoulder tense. Then Max took a long pull of his drink, and when he set down his glass, I could see he’d recovered his equilibrium. In a tactically offensive move, he pinched my last, runty fry from its wide slick of grease, met my eyes, and added, “Let’s face it, Horse. You’re not exactly known for your deft grasp of current media developments.”

  And as if to prove Max’s uncontestedly superior au-courant status, his Meme chose that moment to chime. He glanced at it, peered up at the rest of us, and said, “Hey, did you guys hear someone just tried to hack the Pentagon again?”

  I decided to let the Doug thing slide. Max’s favorite insult for me is “milquetoast.” And I do hate needless discord. Honestly, I was pretty drunk by that point. With some magnanimous donnings of his Crown, Max had ordered us all several rounds. So I shrugged, faking good-natured defeat. Vernon, our resident diplomat, maneuvered a change of subject by reviving the question of the Times op-ed’s authorship.

  Unfortunately, Floyd jumped in. “Maybe Douglas Johnson wrote it,” he mused, spinning a coaster. Then, impishly eyeballing me, he added, “Unless he’s dead or something.”

  I knew it was meant as a provocation. Normally I wouldn’t have taken the bait. But I’d had one nutty, autumnal Märzen too many to simulate the appropriate level of apathy. (Also I was probably sublimating.) “You know, you’re a real asshole,” I responded. “That’s a seriously uncool thing to say.” (Floyd seems to understand me better when I use his vernacular.) Riled, I disclosed, “The police and Anana and I are all looking for him. He might be in trouble. So please. For once, can you just …” But I let the sentence die, shaking my head. I was beginning to feel the familiar urge to take off.

  “What about you, Max?” Vernon asked, draping his napkin over the remains of his plate and gently pushing it away.

  “What about me?” Max asked, seeming distracted. I couldn’t really tell, though: he’d plucked a pair of Aviators from his shirtfront and put them on.

  “Who do you think wrote the piece?” Vernon persisted.

  Max broke out a fresh toothpick. Jimmied meat from his teeth. “Doesn’t matter what I think,”
he said. (Which was clearly not what he meant.)

  “Do you have an opinion?” asked Vernon, who is fluent in Max. As are we all.

  “You really want to know what I think?” Max said. All I could see was the bowed reflection of me, Vernon, and Johnny in his dark lenses. But it seemed like he was once again glaring at Vernon, jaw set in a hard line. I could tell Vernon felt it, too: he squirmed a little. Dipped his long fingers into the neck of his sweater and stretched it away from his throat.

  It was Floyd who obliviously negotiated the moment when he said, “Yeah, dog, I do.”

  Max stabbed his spent toothpick into Johnny’s nearly intact steak. “I think Horse wrote it. Didn’t you?”

  And for no reason at all, I broke out in a sweat. Then I spilled beer on myself and pretty much everyone else.

  After that I went sheepishly back to the Heights. And let me say this: I didn’t write that op-ed. I don’t know why my gadfly fingers made it seem otherwise, but Max has adapted some of the erratic methods of a dictator, and it makes me nervous. His accusation was obviously insincere. I don’t know what he meant by it, or who it was most supposed to disconcert. It could just have been payback for my catching him out about Doug. But there’s clearly something going on between him and Vernon. Guess I’ll have to ask Vern about that.

  As for the op-ed, which I just read: I don’t believe it at all. Synchronic making a bid to co-opt the NADEL? Impossible. I’d even hazard to say that it seems like a publicity stunt—that Chandra in marketing has gotten even cleverer than she’s always been. Maybe that’s where Doug is? This is part of a whole thing, to ratchet up suspense ahead of Friday’s launch? I guess that’s pretty implausible. Why wouldn’t Doug just tell me? And, more relevantly, A? Unless she’s lying to me, too. God, please let that not be the case. Please?

  Okay, this’ll be ves for tonight. But a few super weird things just happened.

  So I’m trying the Meme. I was a little hesitant, taen reading that op-ed, but they do all use them, ez Vern, and after what they described, I was also tychen curious. I figured I’d just quickly check email from bed, and if I didn’t like it, I’d take it right off again. And the Crown takes a little getting used to, ash it is pretty amazing. I especially liked how it started eezow Neil Young on the stereo before I quite knew that’s what I wanted to fall asleep to.