by Sean Platt
The receptionist hung up, and Noah pitched his voice toward her.
“Question for you.”
It would have been more polite to approach the desk, but Noah didn’t want the receptionist to think he was hitting on her. She was cute, in her midtwenties, and around his age. She must be hit on constantly. And just as Noah had a sore spot about laziness, he also had a sore spot around the way women were treated — even in the 2020s, while men were working the moon and the world was finally getting out of its own ass and working together. Noah’s sister was attractive. She got a lot of dates, but her ideas at her marketing firm were only really “taken seriously” by the men cocky enough to think they had a chance with her. Besides, Noah wouldn’t have the guts to hit on her anyway. He’d grown up as a farming gamer with a speech impediment who could barely read primers at age ten, and had the confidence-related scars to prove it.
“Yes?” said Tinkerbell.
“Have there been a lot of candidates coming in recently?”
She nodded. “It’s like Willy Wonka announcing he’d let a tour through the chocolate factory. The minute they listed the job, résumés poured in like the faucet had stopped working.”
Résumés. Of course EverCrunch would receive résumés. Probably on paper, stapled in the corner, and detailing five years spent getting official degrees that were obsolete before the ink on them had dried. It was like the corded phone and the failure to see the applications of their own code. What did a résumé tell a company, other than that the applicant was proficient at listing bullshit on a template?
“How did they sort through all of them?”
The girl giggled again. Noah thought it was distinctly possible that she liked him, but having never been a lady killer, he had a hard time believing he wasn’t imagining things.
“What?” he said, not understanding her lack of response.
She shrugged. “I don’t know if I should say.”
“Trade secret?”
“Maybe.”
Knowing he was being manipulative but curious to proceed, Noah said, “No offense, but if it were a trade secret, do you think the receptionist would know about it?”
She could have gotten offended at that, but she didn’t. Instead, she seemed to agree and then answered the question. “I guess not. Okay, they shredded them.”
“Ouch.”
“You know how they call Mr. Stone ‘Buddha’s Brain’? Well, it’s not just because of the shaved head. He’s really into Eastern thinking.” She looked around as if keenly aware of her lips loosening. She became louder after noting that every door into the offices was closed. Electronic soundproofing would be standard in a building so new, which meant that whatever she said, no one else would hear. “Anyway, he got an idea from…I don’t know, a monk test or something. They kept rejecting people, tossing their résumés. Then they would wait to see who came back in spite of being turned away.”
“And those people got interviews.”
“Well, I think they’re scheduled,” she said, looking upward as if in realization that no actual interviews had been conducted.
The phone rang again, and the receptionist took the call, but Noah had already decided not to press her further. He drained his coffee and chewed his apple to a core, mentally stringing the pieces together. If the girl knew more about the hiring process, she really shouldn’t tell him, and he already knew what he needed to anyway. Even the die-hard applicants for the EverCrunch opening, who’d kept coming back after being rebuked, hadn’t landed face time with the boss. And yet here Noah was, ready to meet Stone in person. And what was more, he hadn’t called them; it was EverCrunch that had made first contact. Why?
But Noah had a guess about that, too.
The job posting had come with an attachment — a form EverCrunch wanted applicants to fill out in consideration for the job. It looked like a personality assessment, which made sense given EverCrunch’s secretive and paranoid reputation. (Whispers said employees had to sign a contract — something between the world’s strictest nondisclosure agreement and a loyalty oath, and secrecy surrounding EverCrunch’s code was CIA strong.) Asking applicants to fill out a screening form wasn’t at all surprising. But Noah had been as curious about the form as he’d been about the receptionist’s corded phone because it wasn’t fillable. Applicants would have to print the form out and fill it in by hand. At first, Noah was almost insulted; how could such a simple detail be overlooked by a tech company? But as he’d begun to pull at the question’s frayed edges, he’d discovered a few hundred K of code that comprised a background image on the document. Only on further inspection, that block of extra code proved to be not just an image, but also a puzzle.
Intrigued, Noah had examined and then cracked the puzzle like a Rubik’s Cube. When he was finished, those few hundred K of code had bloomed into something larger (EverCrunch compression in action), unfolded into a virus, force-executed on his machine, then died. As best as Noah could tell, the virus did nothing other than send a single email. Noah saw that email again when [email protected] sent a reply to it, asking him when he could come in for a meeting.
Something dinged unseen on the receptionist’s computer. She lifted her head and said, “Mr. West?”
Noah looked up.
“Mr. Stone will see you now.”
Noah stood, smiled at the receptionist…and then, feeling guilty for having objectified her as Tinkerbell, noted her nameplate.
“Thank you, Denise,” he said.
“Do you want me to take that for you?” she said, indicating the empty coffee cup in Noah’s hand that contained his spent apple core.
“Are you asking if you can walk around your desk, take this cup from my hand, and drop it in that can that’s five feet in front of me?”
She laughed. “You’d be surprised.”
He tossed the cup into the garbage, gave her a serious look, and followed a hallway to a door that had just opened at its end. Behind him, Denise the receptionist laughed again. Yes, she seemed to like Noah West just fine.
The man in the open doorway looked like a poorly outfitted assistant — barefoot, dressed in a loose-fitting blue T-shirt and gray yoga pants — but Noah recognized him from photos on multiple covers on many of his favorite magazines. Ben Stone never seemed to dress up…or, for that matter, act remotely businesslike enough to justify his spot at the helm of one of the richest, most desired companies in the world. Stone shaved his head to a shine and had a warm, welcoming smile. Noah felt an instant kinship with him. Based on what he’d read about Stone, he knew that the icon had also grown up as a gamer and had fought with his parents to turn a fierce love of gaming into something that looked less dope-smoking-on-the-couch unproductive. Stone was barely thirty, just five years older than Noah. He’d started EverCrunch as a school project and, as the billions rolled in, never seemed to treat it any more seriously than that. His office had a yoga mat on the floor and a few cartoon figurines lined up along the front edge of his unassuming desk. The figurines were arranged in chronological order like a 3-D timeline: a 1940s-era Mickey Mouse, a Bugs Bunny, an Opus, a Phineas beside a Ferb, a Finn and Jake from Adventure Time, a Molly Destructo, and a Bill the Borg from Dumb Space Opera.
Stone closed the door behind Noah, crossed the room, and sat on his yoga mat. The move could easily have seemed pretentious, but somehow it worked. Noah knew if he sat on the mat near Stone, it would seem pretentious, so he sat on an overturned crate instead. Whether the crate was supposed to be there or whether it was a holdover from a delivery of some sort, Noah had no idea. But he had to sit on it if he wanted to sit at all, given that there appeared to be no chairs in the room.
“You solved Buddha’s Box,” said Stone without introducing himself or shaking Noah’s hand. He’d sat on the mat then stated the truth.
“Sorry?”
“The puzzle. Did you catch the allusion?”
Noah felt like he’d walked into a funhouse. “Sorry?” he repeated.
“I’m a bit of a pop culture nerd,” said Stone, gesturing at the figurines on his desk. “My dad was one, and so I became one too. I learned to love his favorites, so I’m not just a pop culture nerd; I’m an oldies pop culture nerd. But that’s how you get cred as a nerd. You make references that no one understands because they’re too obscure. Like being into punk rock, actually.” He waved a hand. “Anyway. The box? It came from an old horror movie called Hellraiser. That’s what the background image was: the puzzle box from that movie.”
Noah shook his head.
Stone seemed disappointed. “I figured someone would see the image, recognize it, and get the idea that it might hold a puzzle.”
Noah shrugged, wishing he could participate.
“Bah,” said Stone. “Just as well. The box in Hellraiser opened doors, and creatures came out. Who wants to crack that puzzle? So. Without catching the reference, how did you even know there was anything there to solve?”
Noah realized he wasn’t sure himself. He answered the best he could, wondering if he was telling the truth: “I just like to take things apart.”
“Interesting. Anyway, you were the only one,” said Stone. “Well, you and the NSA. But they keep bugging me, and I’m not hiring an NSA agent. I haven’t trusted them since the WOPR in WarGames.”
After a silent moment, Stone made an I-give-up gesture. If his applicant didn’t even know what a WOPR was, there seemed to be no way they could speak on common ground.
Noah felt lost. He’d been so cocksure when he’d seen what Stone was calling the Buddha’s Box puzzle. In the two weeks since, he’d rehearsed his enumeration of EverCrunch’s glaring business oversight in the mirror. He’d spent so much time deciding that EverCrunch’s CEO had simply gotten lucky and didn’t know what he was doing that he now felt totally disarmed. Sure, Stone was outdoing him on obscure trivia, but he was outdoing him nonetheless.
“Fine,” said Stone. “I’ll stop. But you’re really missing out. It’s not like I’m that much older than you. If you’re going to work here, I’m at least going to need you to see Star Wars Episodes 4 through 6 and the Matrix movies. There will be a quiz. Anyway. This is your time, so let’s hear from you, not me. I need new blood. Someone very, very, very smart. The pay for the position I have in mind will make your brain explode, but you’ll have to promise me your soul. I’m only kidding. But also not really. And I will need you to convince me.”
“I solved the puzzle,” said Noah.
Stone waved his hand. “Yes, yes. But so did the NSA, and I hate those bastards. You still have to make me believe. Who is Noah West? Why do I care? What do you have to give the world? What the hell makes you think the world will care to remember your name when you’re gone?”
“Big questions,” said Noah, feeling disarmed.
Stone shrugged. “Yeah, well, I’m a Buddhist.” He sat, cross-legged with bare feet and waited. Noah stared at him for a minute. The CEO stared back, his expression polite but anticipatory. Stone had finished, and now it was Noah’s turn.
“I’m good with computers,” said Noah. “With code. I can see a million ways to improve Internet connectivity — not just bringing it to more people, but helping it to evolve, and…”
“Yawn. Move along.”
“I have unmatched scores in the fields of…”
“Oh, Jesus. The other shit was better. Don’t start giving me your grades. Next thing, you’ll be sending me a résumé.”
Noah almost laughed at that, but instead he found himself getting irritated. Stone was too cavalier sitting on his mat, letting Noah do all the work, making him jump through hoops while he sat in judgment.
“I think you’re missing vast sections of the marketplace for data archiving,” Noah said, speaking quickly, almost sniping with his words. “Your compression destroys everyone else, and the only reason everyone isn’t using EverCrunch is because they’re too lazy to switch or don’t realize that staying with another provider is…”
Stone moved as if to stand. “Okay. Thanks for coming in, but I don’t think this is going to work out.”
Jesus Fucking Christ. The asshole wasn’t even listening. How was he supposed to judge Noah’s ideas when he wouldn’t even hear him out? What did he expect? What the hell else would anyone do for his company with its dumbass blind spots, its CEO sitting around doing fucking yoga while missing the entire point of data compression…not to store it, but to move it faster. That was how EverCrunch would benefit if they hired him, if this asshole would just listen for a second instead of…
“Why do you use corded phones?” Noah blurted.
Stone was halfway to standing. He paused, one arm propping him up, his right leg on the mat, his left leg in a squat.
“I’m sorry?”
Noah reached over and flicked at the cord hanging from Stone’s desk phone. “Cords. Your phones have cords.”
Stone sat. “Yes, they do. Why does it matter?”
“Tell me why you have corded phones,” said Noah. He was out of line, but it looked like he’d blown the interview already anyway.
“The office just came that way,” said Stone.
“But you pay for the phone bill. It’s not bundled in.”
“Right…”
“Well, you’re the world’s biggest technology company. And you’re not fucking paying attention.”
Stone shook his head. “I’m sorry?”
“You’re using technology that no one uses anymore ‘because it’s the way things have always been done.’ You want a sign that you’re not innovating and just got lucky with one big hit? That’s it. You aren’t asking why or how. You got into the lead by luck, and now you’re just coasting. You’re following.”
“I don’t see the big deal. It’s nickel-and-diming. What would we save? A few hundred bucks?”
“It’s not about money,” Noah snapped, suddenly angry. “It’s about blindness. You discovered you could take data and make it very, very small. Good for you. But that’s not enough. Remember Dropbox? You’re Dropbox 2.0. That’s great until someone else comes up with a 3.0. You’re thinking one-dimensionally. Who gives a shit if you can make data small? Storage is already dirt cheap. What are you going to do when people figure out that small doesn’t mean much in a world where storage is unlimited?”
“Now wait a minute. We do more than just compress data for storage…”
“Oh, sure. You sync it. You make data small, and then you sync it. People everywhere who enjoy things that are small and synchronized, rejoice! Just imagine the sponsorship opportunities in midget water ballet!” He made jazz hands. “But all you’ve done is nudge our same old way of thinking a bit further down the line. For a while you’ll be ahead…until someone smarter catches up. You haven’t changed the paradigm. Google changed the game. Amazon changed the game. You’ve taken the same game and made it better.”
Stone looked angry. From where Noah was standing, it felt great to see the Zen flee his eyes.
“How the hell are you going to change the game?” he said.
Noah lowered his tone, made it more conversational. “You need to use the network. Don’t be Dropbox 2.0. Be the Internet 2.0. What would happen if you applied EverCrunch compression to data packets on the net? You can compress and decompress on the fly, so what’s to stop you from baking that into the fabric of a new network that could ride on the current one’s shoulders? Right now, data people — that’s you — want to make information smaller. Network people — that’s the ISPs and the G10 companies — want to make transfer faster. But what I’m shocked that you of all companies can’t see is that there are two ways to effectively make things happen faster. One is to move the same amount of data faster. The other is to move at the same speed, but shuttle a lot more data.”
Stone’s mouth hung open. “Holy shit.”
“Think of what could be sent using a data stream that’s as compressed as you could make it. Holography. True VR. Maybe, some day, teleportation. And tha
t’s just transfer across distance. You’ve heard this new stuff with nanobots? You know the problem with nanos, right? They’re tiny, but the atoms needed to make them up don’t get any smaller. Trying to build nanobots is like trying to make a highly detailed six-foot-tall sculpture with Legos the size of my torso. They can’t have many moving parts because until mankind manages to shrink atoms, the building blocks are just too damn big. But what if what they lack in brawn could be made up for through intelligent cooperation?”
With that, Noah stopped. He’d already given Stone one trillion-dollar idea, and he’d almost handed him a second. If Stone hired him, the first idea was worth the surrender. Later, when Noah started his own company, he could develop the second. And the other was a doozy. Data compression and highly coordinated transmission could make nanotechnology infinitely viable and applicable — much, much more than was currently thought possible. Once engineers could stop worrying about freezing a nanobot into one configuration forever and sending it out into the world as a one-function drone, the world’s potential would split like an overripe coconut.
Stone stared at Noah. He lowered his head then raised it again.
“When can you start?”