The Glitch_A Novel

by Elisabeth Cohen

  “Would you tell me a little,” I said, “about the people you work with and how you established the relationship with us? Your supervisors, or contacts higher at Conch?”

  “Certainly there’s a lot of paperwork.” He alluded to it with a gentle wave at his office. “It’s a complex, sprawling company, Conch.”

  I nodded in extremely genuine agreement.

  “But as a matter of fact the president of regional operations is here this week. Of course you must know him. You two must work closely.”

  I nodded, but without really paying attention, because my attention had been drawn to something on a TV monitor on the wall. I went closer. “Oh, wow,” I said expressionlessly, trying to move my lips. I felt my chest go tight and my body get heavy. It’s the feeling I have when grappling with an especially stressful turn of events, or possibly when I am possessed by spirits.

  “It’s me,” I said, at the same moment he said, joyfully, “It’s you!”

  I gazed dully at myself. “Turn up the sound.”

  There I was, giving a speech. Striding into a building. Driving a car—the silver car. Then I was standing in an unfamiliar room, exhorting a diverse crowd of workers in a language I don’t understand.

  “What am I saying?”

  He looked perplexed, and then his expression resolved, as if he thought it was some kind of test. “You’re speaking of the necessity of work, how important it is to work hard.” He looked sympathetic. “Perhaps the jet lag has affected your ability to speak Chinese.”

  I’m impressed by the ingenuity of my employees, even ones I don’t realize I have.

  “Every day,” he reassured me. “We work hard, just like you say. It is inspiring, how you work all the time.”

  In the video I was at a desk in a gray room, stacks of paper in front of me, a rapturous expression on my face, demonstrating exceptionally good posture while fake-writing on papers. There I was, gliding along a production line, patting an employee’s shoulder to gently urge her to greater productivity. There I was in a park as my children (not my real children) wobbled on a seesaw. Meanwhile I typed away on a phone, resolutely disengaged. “When you want to rest, that’s the time to work harder,” I said, turning to look at the camera. “Work more hours. Work harder.”

  “The regional director is here,” the manager said again. “Would you like to see him?”

  I would.

  He led me down a back hallway of the factory past several plain, unprepossessing offices. “I don’t think either of you needs me to introduce you,” he said, holding the door, smiling. “I’ll leave you to your talks.”

  I saw the regional director and nodded. “We’ve met.”

  “Oh, it’s you,” the man behind the desk said, in a familiar burnished voice. He half-stood and extended his hand.

  “Hello, Enrique,” I said.

  Chapter 19

  There was a prickle along the back of my scalp as I slid down into a chair. My vision went gray, narrowing until it was as if I were looking through the binoculars Nova made at preschool out of toilet paper tubes. Through the two small circles of my visual field I was able to make out a gold cuff link, the metal twisted to simulate a knot, and a small digital clock. I braced myself against the chair’s armrests and willed my blood to rush through my body and oxygenate it. I don’t like feeling vulnerable or weak; I don’t even like sitting on the underling side of the desk. I reminded myself to stay in the conscious zone. That’s where the action happens.

  “I can’t believe it,” Enrique said. “What are you doing here? How did you find out about our operation? Are you truly a genius like Fast Company says? Ms. Stone, are you all right? Don’t fall. Do try to sit up, you look gray. Are you going to sleep?”

  I pried open my eyes. It wasn’t sleep. It was another feeling I’ve had once or twice before, most recently the time I got too aggressive about leading the workplace blood drive (I went down with every department, and demonstrated, baring my green-veined forearm again and again, what a not-big deal it was to give). The key takeaway I gleaned from that experience was it’s better to stay sitting until you are certain you can stand.

  “What is this place?”

  He smiled slyly. “Conch.”

  I shook my head, disputing this. My vision was coming back, the circles of sight widening enough to admit the wall, some of the window, and Enrique’s face. He lifted one finger, indicating a logo on the wall behind him.

  It was a vinyl decal that resembled the Conch logo, but there was something off about it. The spacing or proportion of the three scallops, or perhaps the concavity of the curves, didn’t exactly comply with the Conch style guide, though even someone like me who was as familiar with Conch’s logo as anyone, who has debated in meetings the pros and cons of tiny tweaks and their global repercussions, could not exactly articulate what was wrong.

  “We are all so proud,” he said, “to make the Conch.”

  “This isn’t Conch.”

  “We make duplicates,” he said pedantically. “Some of our duplicates turn out more successfully than others.”

  “They’re not duplicates, they’re violations of our intellectual property.”

  “Imitation is a form of—”

  I broke in, with emotion, “And they aren’t duplicates, because they don’t even work right.”

  “Oh, don’t give me that look,” he said. “There is room in the global market for both of us. You, to market Conch and make it cool.” He made a little cheerful gesture in the air. “And us, to sell it all around the world for thirty percent less.”

  “You make bad ones,” I said.

  He didn’t like that. He bristled. He was touchy. I remembered that now, from the way he’d reacted when I’d criticized his video app in Barcelona. He was too proud of himself. He thought he was so much more clever than other people. I understood that point of view; I had had my own moments of feeling that way. It was dangerous, though. Because groups, when thoughtfully composed and solidly managed, can actually be smarter than the individuals who make them up. And sometimes those of us who are ultra-talented at generating and synthesizing enormous piles of information can miss something quite simple, something right in front of us.

  “Ours work,” he insisted. “They differ from yours, because we use our own software. But different is not worse. In fact, I think you’d be surprised by some of our novel solutions. I am certain they will appeal to an innovator such as you, Shelley.” His voice turned whispery, maybe tender. “May I call you Shelley?”

  An itch called to me from in front of one of my ears. I postponed scratching it and then I did: it seemed expeditious to take care of it. Another itch, on my neck. Another, at the edge of my shoulder blade, and that one I couldn’t scratch. Easily, I mean. One starting on my right temple, above the initial itch. Then the flat part of my opposite ear. The back of my neck, along the skin above the spine. My nose, where the nostrils separate. My scalp, clavicle, the soft part of my belly. I looked down at my hands and arms for a rash: no rash. It was like I was being eaten by doubt. “You’ll go to jail.”

  “Eh.” He gave a contemptuous wave, as if this were the stupidest thing he’d ever heard. “You don’t go to jail for counterfeiting electronics.”

  I was beginning to suspect that Enrique was unwilling to have a constructive discussion.

  Through the window of his office I could see a tall building going up across the street. Scaffolding ringed brick walls. Empty sockets awaited window glass. The top edge of the walls was uneven: in some places the bricks had been built way up, and in others they hadn’t. I blinked, and on second look I wondered if I’d been wrong, if the building wasn’t going up, but was an old one being taken apart piece by piece.

  Flies buzzed around the room. I started coughing, possibly because I’d swallowed one.

  It’s amazing how much in life you don’t see coming. For someone committed to her five- and ten-year plans, who views her life as a series of ninety-day goals, there are
nevertheless so many possibilities that occur despite their infinitesimal likelihood and destroy your best efforts to knock out your priorities.

  It’s not just the distractions that represent a failure of self-control or will, but the distractions that oughtn’t to have happened, in any logical world. Why was Enrique doing this? Who’d have thought a legacy company like Powerplex would have such unreliable quality control? The unexpectedness of life is a source of sorrow to me, but it’s also a fact of which I’m aware. I’m more aware than most people. It doesn’t stop these things from happening.

  “It is truly a pleasure to see you again. I’ve looked for you so many times,” he said. “And here are you, you came to me. That’s funny, isn’t it?” As if to prove this, he laughed. The laugh was detached from the joke, if it were a joke. It was more of a prompt, a suggestion. I didn’t take him up on it; I sat stony-faced. I’m not big on laughing in business contexts, anyway—it’s a distraction that gets people off-track, and if it’s aimed at a particular person, that’s mean and potentially could have HR implications. Plus I don’t always get why it’s funny.

  I don’t like this man, I thought. He didn’t seem aware of that.

  “Of course, every day—” He pushed the paper on his side. “Every day, you are who I hope to see. On trains, in restaurants, on nighttime streets…” He was gazing at me and the intensity of his eye contact made me uncomfortable. That’s rare for me. “You have a special way about you. You must know it.”

  I shook my head. I felt physically weak. My mouth was dry. I thought suddenly of my dead Conch, my dead phone, and that nobody knew where I was. Also, I had to pee. It was sudden, overwhelming, and dire. I can hold it for an extremely long time, and then I start to shake and sweat.

  “May I use your bathroom?” I asked.

  He showed me the way, leading me across the factory floor, past the equipment, the Conches flat on their backs on stopped conveyor belts, the bins of components. It was quiet; a solitary machine hummed.

  “Just the same as your factory, so far, correct?” he said.

  I forced myself to nod. “Similar.”

  He beamed. “Ours is more efficient.”

  “It’s a decent space,” I said neutrally. “Is it up to code?”

  “Well, we do the best we can. We don’t have a license to be a factory; no sprinklers for instance, but it’s OK, it works all right. But here. This is what you should see. I prize this area very much.”

  He gestured to a tray set into a long, narrow cabinet along the wall. The tray was divided into compartments, and in each compartment was a kind of proto-Conch, varying a little in shape, size, and texture: some were crisply articulated, some embryonic. Many lay on oval discs of shiny metal. Some were vibrating against the metal, as if they were wiggling. One was flat and equipped with comb-like teeth. Some were attached to thick industrial charging cables. In a cylindrical container at the end of the row, something very like a human ear (pale, waxy, and perhaps made of silicone) bobbed in liquid, a wire running out of it and into the base.

  “What are these?” I said.

  “These are in development. We are always advancing our product, using the foundation laid by your Conch.” I chose to ignore this. He led me past a plastic crate in which thousands of Conches lay heaped. He flattened the pile with his hand, like smoothing cake batter around a pan. “Our Conch gives many more reminders than yours. Ours uses more data, and pushes users harder. Some of your users are a little lazy, don’t you think?”

  “All data is actionable,” I repeated to myself, quietly. As I followed him, I studied the arrangement of machinery on the factory floor, blinking hard to take it all in.

  In the tiny, semi-functional factory bathroom, I executed my number one priority (peeing). The lightbulb overhead flickered. Maybe it was the storm. I rooted through my bag, pulling out the Powerplex prototype. It looked just like all the other Conches I’ve had the privilege of using, inspecting, touching, or evangelizing. It didn’t look faulty, but one could hope. It felt a little warm. I sandwiched it in the crook of my hand, between my thumb and forefinger, and practiced holding it there in the webbing so it wasn’t obvious I was holding it. I was not that good at this. Then I went out to face Enrique.

  “I’ve been thinking,” he said. “There’s a lot you could learn from our operations. We had the benefit of your Conch as a model, but we have taken it further. The code your friend sent was very helpful. You should be grateful. Buy us up. Enfold our operation into yours. Here we have dozens of trained workers and product improvements. Let’s be friends. We have every reason to be friends. Perhaps even, someday, more than friends. It is not impossible, would you say?” He held his jowly expression and looked at me without blinking. He had the droopy kind of eyes that let you see, at the bottom, a comma of puddled red-and-white viscera.

  “What does that mean?”

  “No doubt you are curious about all this. I could help you. If you remember, I have been helpful in the past.” He leaned forward.

  I shook my head, not trusting myself to speak.

  “I helped your daughter when I found her on the beach.”

  Your daughter. When I found her. The words thundered inside my head, filling my chest with what felt like noxious black smoke. I could feel it curling into my shoulders and arms, and lapping at the back of my throat. When I found her. The briefest gallop of the mind through the horrifying preparation that “finding” must have required. I had the feeling of being in a helicopter, banking left, my body dropping before my stomach. A long downward view to Nova on the beach, in a smocked dress with a red bucket, oblivious and exposed. I couldn’t stand to think about it; a great wave of pressure surged through me.

  “Hm,” I said. It was a groan, which only through gritting my teeth, curling my toes, and clenching my pelvic floor I was able to transmute into something that sounded a little bit open-minded and conversational. I dipped my head, which could be interpreted as a nod, to buy myself time (“Take a moment,” Greer always says). I’ve had a lot of experience pretending to entertain terrible ideas. I drew on that well now and adopted my most relaxed facial expression, to give the impression that soliciting his help was an intriguing possibility. I clutched the Powerplex prototype tighter. It felt encouragingly warm in my hand. Hot, even.

  I had never so desperately wanted a product to malfunction. Please be part of the faulty batch, I thought. Please have a glitch.

  It seemed a long shot. For a moment. I felt scared and panicked about what to do, or how to do it, and then I caught sight of myself on the video monitor. There I was, or if not me, a version of me: cool, powerful, serene. It was fake but I felt a little inspired nonetheless. Everything that had ever happened to me was a long shot. I reminded myself to be optimistic, not because optimism was warranted, but because it was necessary.

  “I see,” I said to Enrique. “What are you thinking, roughly? Tell me more about how you’d help me.”

  “You might be interested?” His eyes were bright.

  “I’m interested in all kinds of things. For example”—I patted his surface-mount technology component placement system. “Is this the same one we have? I think we have the nine hundred series at our factory, am I right? Yours looks newer—is this the one thousand?”

  “It might be,” he said. He seemed a little suspicious of my sudden enthusiasm for pick-and-place technology.

  “I’m certain,” I said. “Ours hasn’t been working well. Could you turn this on? I’d love to see it in action.”

  He hesitated, but then he seemed to change his mind. He switched it on.

  We waited for it to warm up. Some machines can take almost an hour to warm up. Fortunately this wasn’t that slow. Still, I thought about things I could do to distract him. I could offer up Nova—we could call her. Would that be horrible? Yes.

  The pick-and-place machine began to make a whistling sound. I leaned in, pretending to examine it.

  “So, tell me more about what you
’ve got over here.” I gestured over to the tray.

  “You’re interested.”

  “I’m very curious.”

  “Well…” He walked up the row. “We’re developing one that senses vibrations. It’s very promising.”

  “Can I hold it?”

  He turned around to pick it up, and as he did, I jammed the Powerplex prototype into the surface-mount technology component placement system. I wedged it into one of the nozzles, hoping the suction would help it get stuck in there. A torrent of golden sparks rained down from the nozzle. I glanced out the window at the bowing palm tree. Please let the storm continue, I prayed.

  “This is my favorite one,” he said, turning around. He seemed to be able to tell from my expression that something was up. I raised my hand and made a dramatic swishy gesture in the air. I thought about Jedi mind tricks, and I summoned up intense leadership and certainty with which to stare him down.

  “That’s not a Conch,” I announced. “This is not a Conch factory.”

  He looked confused. I held the eye contact.

  I saw, behind Enrique’s back, a wisp of smoke coming from the machine. Aha, I thought. Good. “I need to get going,” I said.

  “When will I hear from you?”

  A bulb in the machine flashed and popped in a blaze of white, and a thin trail of purple smoke trailed from the machine’s arm toward the ceiling.

  “What was that?” he said.

  “I will never consider partnering with you,” I said. “Your products are terrible. Especially the waxy little ear.”

  He looked stricken. I turned and fled.

  “What’s that smell?” the receptionist said as I left. “The lights are always going out in these evening storms. I apologize.”

  “I don’t smell anything,” I told him. I took a deep sniff. “That? I think that’s the construction going up next door.” I hurried out of the building. The factory manager and the receptionist waved me out, smiling. But even outside in the fresh rain, I could still smell the acrid scent of smoldering Conches beginning to spark.