The Babel Tower

by J. B. Simmons

  He read over the lines of code for the thousandth time. He laughed inside at how many hackers had disassembled a Babel device and tried to reverse-engineer it. Counting China, he figured a billion people had tried. And they’d all failed. None of them had the encryption key that Jax knew was hidden in Liz’s DNA. Many called him a genius. Others called him selfish and petty and small, probably for cashing out from Babel.

  He didn’t care. The money gave him freedom, even if it couldn’t buy what he wanted most. Whatever divine fortune had configured his brain to come up with this algorithm, it had also played the eternal joke on him: make the frog love the princess, but no kisses allowed. Life was no fairytale. That’s why Jax had engineered the code to require Liz to sit beside him.

  The door to the Babel vault opened.

  “Stop drooling,” said Liz’s cheerful voice.

  Jax turned and wiped at the corner of his mouth. “I missed it, that’s all.”

  “The code, or our monthly session?”

  “Is there a difference?”

  She laughed and sat beside him. “One of these days someone is going to find us out, you know.”

  He breathed in deeply, letting her scent wash over him. “I don’t think so,” he said. “And what if they did? Even if they knew how I made the code evolve, they couldn’t hack it without you.”

  “Thanks for the job security.”

  “Don’t give me that look,” Jax said. “Once Babel goes public, you can sell your shares and do whatever you want.”

  “You mean, as long as I come back so you can use my DNA?”

  “Somebody has to make sure all this data doesn’t end up in the hands of the dark side.”

  “You’re such a nerd.”

  Jax smiled. “It takes two to tango.”

  She rolled up her sleeve and held out her arm to him, palm up. “Shall we dance?”

  He took her arm in his hands. He let his fingers savor the touch for a moment longer than needed. Then he picked up the tweezers by the computer. He found the spot by the crease of her elbow, on the effervescent skin. He breathed in, then out, steadying himself, intoxicating himself with her closeness. He plucked three nearly invisible hairs.

  She bent her arm back and forth. “Easy as ever.”

  Jax nodded. “Let’s see which sequence it picks up this time.” He placed the hairs under a scanner linked to the computer. He typed in a few instructions, and the code on the screen began to change.

  “Amazing,” Liz said. “How much data could you store like this?”

  “Each hair can hold more than your computer. Every cell has six feet of DNA. It just has to be translated into the digital language.”

  “You ever going to tell me how you do it?”

  He smiled. “Maybe in exchange for some sweet lovin’?”

  Liz laughed and rolled her eyes. “The price is too steep.”

  “Hey, can’t hurt to try. This secret is worth it.”

  3

  Dylan and Katarina met at midnight, the door to the speakeasy bar unmarked. Members like Dylan knocked four times, and the bouncer welcomed them into the sparsely lit warehouse. They passed the bartender wearing an apron and grinding bitters with a mortar and pestle. The music thumped and kept each table isolated from the others, with its own dim light bulb dangling on a wire from the rafters high above.

  The table where Dylan and Katarina sat overlooked the Bay. A waitress delivered their drinks in mason jars and guessed: clandestine affair. A sprig of rosemary floated in Dylan’s drink, a lemon rind in Katarina’s.

  “Heard from your boss?” Dylan asked.

  “She met with the King.”

  “Not bad. What did His Highness think?”

  “He’s already sold on Babel, but he wanted to test the newest language. It’s what the Sahrawi people speak out in the desert.”

  “And?”

  “He ordered ten million more Babels. All it took was one day riding along desert dunes with the great Liz Trammell, talking about silicon chips and languages.” Katarina tapped the lemon rind with her crimson-red fingernail. It sank below the ice. “She’s in Rwanda now.”

  “That’s news. She texted me today, said she wanted to meet again tomorrow.”

  Katarina nodded. “She’s back in the morning.”

  “Why Rwanda? Aren’t they having some sort of crisis?”

  “The UN is hosting an event there. And where the UN goes, we follow. They’ve ordered a few million units for Rwanda’s tribal people.” The lemon rind had fought its way back to the surface of Katarina’s drink. She pushed it under again. “Liz wasn’t planning to go, but you know how she loves synergies.”

  “Nothing like good press. Did she give a speech?”

  “Same as usual. With Babel,” Katarina recited, “the world speaks the same language.”

  Dylan smiled. “Bored with the company pitch?”

  Katarina continued in her advertiser’s voice: “Your words understood, your secrets safe. A tiny, cheap device by your ear, and you can understand anyone, anywhere. But that’s not all! The latest Babel-plus unit can scan the screen in front of you, detect the words, and read them aloud in your native language. Now the Internet has a universal language, and…It. Is. Babel.”

  Dylan was laughing. “You’ve got it down.”

  “Babel’s projected stock price is the best measure of world progress.”

  “Which…is why you wanted to meet with me?”

  “That’s part of it.” Katarina sipped her drink for the first time. “You know about Liz’s plan after the IPO?”

  He nodded, unsure whether he or Katarina knew more.

  “Not everyone wants to step down from leading a company worth billions.”

  “Liz is not everyone,” Dylan said.

  Katarina smiled, darkly beautiful. “You must be wondering why I asked you to meet me.”

  “Not really. Most women ask for the same thing.”

  Katarina’s smile widened as she met Dylan’s eyes evenly. “Liz told me what you said, when you met with her.”

  “And?”

  “You told her to stay with the company and use the Babel data.”

  “Yeah, I guess I said that.” Dylan shrugged. “Seems like a waste to keep all that information locked up.”

  “Don’t tell Liz I said this, but…I agree.”

  “So that’s why you wanted to meet with me?” Dylan leaned forward, elbows crossed on the table, his fingers pressed into the cool condensation of his glass.

  “I think we both know it’s risky. The company is young. It still needs her.”

  “How so?” Dylan had figured Katarina would be fine with Liz leaving. It would probably mean a promotion for her.

  “The company has sworn by the security of its data. If that fails, Babel fails.”

  “Babel’s not going to fail.” Dylan tapped his ear. “You’ve already captured the market. Does the UN buy from anyone else?”

  “Competitors will come along.”

  “Unless they steal or reinvent your source code, you’ll be fine. And you’ve only got, what, a trillion recorded conversations stored somewhere?”

  “More or less.”

  “So what are you worried about?”

  Katarina pulled the Babel out from her ear. She laid it beside her drink. The tiny chrome device curled like a miniature nautilus shell, with a small wire and an imperceptible microphone at its tip. Then she reached across the table. Dylan held still as her fingers grazed his ear and released his device. She laid it beside hers. Two fish out of water.

  “But isn’t…” Dylan paused, eyeing the devices. “I thought the data was encrypted and secure in some hidden warehouse. And isn’t it company policy to keep them in?”

  Katarina smiled. “At all times.”

  “I guess every encryption has a code,” Dylan said.

  Katarina swept up the two devices in her hand and slid them into her pocket. She leaned forward. “Liz has access to the data.” Her English
was good, but her Russian accent was thick. “But she doesn’t use it. It’s only…to improve translations.”

  “That’s what I thought,” Dylan said. “It’s a shame though. The company could do amazing things with the information. It could change the world.”

  “Liz’s money…could also change it.”

  “Yeah,” Dylan said, “if she uses it for something good, whatever it will be.”

  Katarina paused as if translating the language of her thoughts. “How much do you think she will spend?”

  “Knowing her, whatever it takes.”

  Katarina pulled out a pen and scribbled something on her napkin. She slid the napkin to Dylan.

  $5B. Cash out.

  Dylan flipped the napkin over, covering the note. His second drink had arrived. He lifted his glass, swirled the amber liquid. That was enough money to buy a few countries, go to the moon a thousand times, keep millions of starving children alive. He met Katarina’s eyes. “You really think she’ll sell all her shares?”

  “You know her better,” Katarina said. “She’s bored with being CEO. She wants a new project.”

  Dylan shook his head. He’d seen the list of the world’s richest published last week. Liz’s net worth had been estimated at $5 billion, most of it in Babel stock. He’d never thought she would cash out. But what Katarina said made some sense. Liz always had big ideas. He loved that about her. But this time it was about more than her. Her project, whatever it would be, could impact the whole world. “I’m supposed to be thinking about ideas for Liz,” he said. “You have any suggestions?”

  “We can both get what we want.” Katarina’s accented voice had dropped to a whisper.

  “And what do I want?”

  Katarina put her hand over Dylan’s. Her eyes locked onto his. “You see how I look at you?”

  He tried to pull his hand back.

  She gripped it tighter, rubbing her fingers into his palm. “You want her to look at you like this.”

  Dylan shook his head. “We’re friends. That’s all.”

  Katarina released his hand and laughed. “You don’t look at me the way you look at her. In Russia, we say a boy never loses his desire for the first girl who…captures his imagination.” She paused, studying him.

  He didn’t answer, but his mind went to the memory. He’d been twelve, Liz eleven. She’d walked into the school cafeteria, the new girl, like she owned the place. All the boys had talked about her. What’s her name? Where’d she come from? Dylan had been the first of his friends brave enough to approach her. She’d smiled up at him like a goddess descended from Olympia to his cafeteria, and he became her champion. As the years passed, he shrugged off his feelings. The guys would rib him. When are you going to ask her out? But Dylan never did. He lied to everyone, even himself, that it wasn’t like that. Liz was like his little sister.

  “So?” Katarina prodded.

  “I was twelve when I met Liz.”

  “And?”

  “I’ve moved on.” Mostly, he thought. Liz had called him on Sunday. Said she had an important question. Said she needed him. He’d cancelled his Monday meetings, put everything aside for her, like always. And now she wanted to leave Babel and spend a fortune on a pet project? It didn’t seem right. He lifted his drink but put it down. He couldn’t keep dropping everything for her. “Alright,” he said, “leaving Babel may not be her best idea.”

  “I have a better plan,” Katarina said. “But this stays between us.”

  “It depends on what your plan is.”

  “Not good enough.”

  “I’m not signing up to kill anyone.”

  She grinned. “Between us.”

  “Fine, but I’m not doing anything I disagree with.”

  She clasped his hand again. “I…don’t worry about that.” She released him and reached for the napkin.

  The first words she wrote made Dylan’s eyes open wide.

  Let her project proceed. Give the data to the world.

  4

  Rachel woke up in the middle of the night, sweating. She glanced around the unfamiliar room as her eyes adjusted. It smelled sterile, and soft metallic light oozed under the bottom of a heavy curtain. No sound had stirred her, no baby’s cry. Then she remembered.

  I’m in San Francisco. This is a hotel.

  She regretted coming again, and so soon. It was hard being away from her little ones. They needed her so much at ages four and one—more than she felt like she could give. And it was always like this with Liz. She’d call Rachel out of the blue, expect her to drop everything and come at a moment’s notice. Well, this was the last time. Rachel had gone to the first meeting, and she’d go again in the morning, but that was it. She couldn’t keep this up. Her family needed her at home. No more impromptu trips to California. However close she and Liz had been back in school, they lived in different universes now.

  But is that anger talking? Fatigue?

  It couldn’t be right, and Rachel knew it. A bubble of truth slipped through the pain: love her and protect her. That’s what Liz’s dad had said to Rachel the week before he committed suicide. Rachel hadn’t understood it at the time. It made more sense after Mr. Trammell was gone.

  This wasn’t about her. It was about her friendship to Liz, because Liz needed her. If Rachel pulled away, what anchors would Liz have left? No father, no mother, no siblings. Rachel was the closest thing to family that Liz had. She couldn’t just drift out of her life, not when Liz was losing touch with reality, feeling like she couldn’t remember her true self, and wondering what new project to throw herself and her fortune into.

  Rachel rose from the bed and flicked on the light. She paced on the hard hotel carpet, trying to let her mind relax. Her conversation with Liz still haunted her. It was over a week ago, on Monday after the meeting in Liz’s office. Liz had pressed her for ideas while they sipped lattes. She’d told Rachel all the suggestions from Jax, Dylan, and Owen. They had plenty of ideas for how to spend a billion dollars. Who didn’t? Rachel had shot them all down. The whole concept stank of pride.

  “The money doesn’t have to dictate your life,” she’d told Liz.

  “But I have it,” Liz had answered, “so don’t I have a responsibility to use it for something?”

  Rachel still felt frustrated. She hadn’t responded well. Everyone gave Liz their own visions of utopia. Rachel just wanted to shake some sense into Liz, to make her understand that she couldn’t make heaven come to earth.

  But Liz hadn’t relented. She never did. “Rach, you’ve known me since we were little girls. You knew my parents. You knew me in Nebraska. Just give me an idea. Anything.”

  Rachel’s reply was instinct, part anger, part joke: “Why not build one of your dad’s designs?”

  Rachel had regretted the words the moment they slipped out of her mouth.

  Liz’s expression had drawn back, a look Rachel knew well. It was the focused Liz that nothing in the world could stop. “You know…I’ve been waking up night, thinking about something like that. Deep down.” Liz had stared at her intensely. “But you saying it means…yes, of course, that’s it!”

  Rachel kicked herself for not pushing back immediately. Many said it was Mr. Trammell’s unbuilt tower that had driven him mad, like the design was haunted and doomed. But her coffee with Liz had ended, and her friend the CEO had flown to Africa. There were so many better things Liz could do with her time and her money, like find a husband and raise a family, for starters. Or put Rachel’s kids through college.

  Rachel shook her head. Being selfish wouldn’t help anybody. She checked the clock. 5:05. The meeting with Liz was only a few hours away. She needed someone else on her side. Owen might be waking up soon. She grabbed her phone from the nightstand and called.

  “Rachel?” Owen sounded tired.

  “I’m sorry, I know it’s late.”

  There was a pause. “It’s early.”

  “Aren’t you still doing morning workouts?”

  “I ha
d ten minutes until my alarm…” He groaned, or maybe it was a yawn.

  “Well I’m glad I caught you,” Rachel said. “Remember what I told you about my conversation with Liz?”

  He was quiet a moment. “Something about a tower?”

  “Exactly. I’m worried that she’s going to try to build it.”

  “What’s so bad about that?” Another yawn. “She’s had crazier ideas.”

  “But she hasn’t had billions of dollars to throw at them.”

  “Liz will be fine. Everything she touches turns to gold.”

  “Not this time.” Rachel gazed out the hotel window, overlooking sickly yellow lights in a parking lot. “I’m going to warn her. She knows her dad killed himself over this tower. There are so many better things she could do.”

  “Liz wants advice, not some kind of warning.”

  “So you won’t help me?”

  “No, maybe, I mean…I just woke up. I’ll think about it. Okay?”

  “Good. We have a better chance of slowing this down if we join up. You know the company better than anyone.”

  “Has anyone ever slowed Liz down?”

  “I’m telling you, this time it’s different. She’ll throw away her fortune chasing a dream that’s doomed.” Rachel crossed her arms, and she clutched her elbows the way she did when she felt a conviction. She’d never admit that she could be as stubborn as Liz. “Today might be our last chance. You know how she builds momentum with ideas like this.”

  “Yeah…nothing stands in her way.”

  “That’s why I need your help.”

  “We’ll see.”

  Rachel said goodbye and knew she couldn’t go back to sleep. She showered, called home, and then knelt by the bed. She didn’t know what else to do. In the quiet stillness of the hotel room, she prayed for wisdom. A thought drifted into her mind, landed with certainty: God won’t be steamrolled like the others.

  5

  “I think I’ve got it.” Liz sat perched on the edge of her desk wearing a yellow V-neck sweater. Yellow because it was Friday. “When I was in Rwanda this week, looking at those beautiful, innocent, hungry kids’ faces, I saw despair. Do you know what they needed?”