Transmission Read online

  ‘There’s been a mistake,’ he said.

  Jennifer Johanssen nodded as if to signify that yes, she could see why he thought so. Then she shook her head as if to signify that no, despite his perception, he was wrong.

  ‘Mr Mehta, I understand how you feel,’ she said. She was beautiful, really. You could imagine her participating in outdoor pursuits such as skiing or catamaran sailing. Aspirational pursuits. Pursuits which used expensive specialist equipment.

  ‘Please don’t do this to me,’ said Arjun.

  ‘I realize that from a human-resource accounting perspective, this could be viewed as a retrograde step for both sides,’ said Jennifer Johanssen.

  ‘Please,’ said Arjun. ‘I’m begging you.’

  Darryl moaned softly.

  ‘So I can understand why you may feel we are not making the right move.’

  ‘No, you don’t understand. I need this job. This job is all I have.’

  ‘We have looked at the options.’

  ‘Please, if I lose this job I’ll have to go back. And I can’t go back. Don’t you see? I can’t go back.’

  ‘I am aware of your visa situation, Mr Mehta, but as I understand it you’re still technically employed by Databodies. In reality Virugenix has no obligations to you. It is only because we believe that all our employees, even those on freelance consultancy contracts, should benefit from harmonious termination experiences that my presence here was mandated at all. Mr Mehta, I hold a diploma in severance-scenario planning. I assure you that this encounter has been designed to be as painless for you as possible.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Arjun. ‘I see. Of course I see. Just don’t fire me, OK? I’ll do anything. I’ll work for less money. I’ll do longer hours.’

  He was raising his voice. Jennifer Johanssen shifted in her seat. Though she appeared outwardly composed, her eyes were darting towards the door and towards Darryl, who had slipped off his chair and was trying to wedge himself out of sight behind the desk.

  ‘Make him go away,’ pleaded Darryl, his voice somewhat muffled. Jennifer Johanssen looked down at him, then back at Arjun, her face bearing the terse expression of a woman who has accepted that she is now on her own.

  ‘What Mr Gant wishes to express is – um, our sincere thanks for your loyal service. And we can offer you two weeks’ grace so that you can make whatever preparations you deem necessary for your change in circumstances.’

  ‘You don’t mean it,’ said Arjun. ‘What if things change? What if they get better? You’ll need me then.’

  ‘Naturally you’ll have to vacate your apartment. I believe the personnel department here at Greene Labs will be liaising with you about that, probably some time later today.’

  ‘But you haven’t answered my question. What if things change? What if the downturn suddenly turns up?’

  ‘Mr Mehta, as I understand it there are no indicators of short-term recovery It’s a sector-wide trend. This is what our public-relations team has been trying to underline to investors. It’s not just Virugenix, it’s across the board. And Mr Mehta, that’s the take-home for you too. You shouldn’t see this as a sign of personal failure. You’re a valuable individual with a lot to offer. It is just that Virugenix can no longer offer you a context for your self-development.’

  ‘But if everything changed, you’d take me back?’

  ‘Of course, Mr Mehta, in a hypothetical situation where we had vacancies for someone of your skill set and background, you would come into consideration.’

  ‘Right,’ said Arjun, feeling that he had won some kind of victory. ‘OK!’

  Jennifer Johanssen nodded. ‘Thank you, Mr Mehta, for your understanding.’ She craned her neck to look down behind her chair. Only Darryl’s legs and feet were visible, a pair of high-top basketball shoes poking out from the crawlspace of the desk. She smiled wanly. ‘Mr Gant thanks you also.’

  As he left the room Arjun’s mouth was dry. He took a soda from the chiller cabinet and drank it down in three large gulps. There had been an error. But it was fixable. All he had to do was treat this situation like any other technical challenge. Parse the problem. Find the bug and deal with it. Because this was not how his story went. He was doing well in America. He was a big success.

  His head felt as if it were clamped in a vice. They couldn’t force him to leave, not like this. What if he could make them see how efficient he was? Then they would change their minds and fire someone else. He sat down at his desk and tried to focus on his monitor. Two weeks? The view from his bedroom window. The mountains floating on a sea of fog. Only two more weeks of those mountains, then back to California. Hard white sun baking the concrete. And what about Chris? He couldn’t leave her now. Even after months of working he had no savings. He wouldn’t be able to last more than a few weeks on the bench. After that he would have to go back to India.

  Then everyone would know the truth.

  He blamed the phone. It made it too easy. In the early days, when he had just arrived in the US, he had done it to reassure his parents. They would have been worried if they thought he was having difficulties. And then Priti had been so impressed, so proud of her big brother in America. Aamir also. The thing had taken on a life of its own. Yes, Maa, I’m doing fine…

  The way his mother talked, she had probably told everyone in Noida by now. His story. His version. Maa, something good happened today… How her son had been on the fast-track to success from the moment he stepped off the plane. How at world-famous Oracle Computers her beta had solved technical problem worrying Larry Ellison for years, but turned down partnership to go to Virugenix and run computer-virus department. How her little boy now socialized with businessmen and politicians. How he had sat next to David Hasselhoff at dinner.

  There was no way he could go back to India. He would bring shame on his family.

  The air in the office was stifling. His colleagues were pretending not to watch him, peering slyly round their cubicle walls. He had to think. He had to find the bug. At the back of the Michelangelo Building was a wooden deck scattered with white metal cafeteria tables, the type with a hole in the middle for a sunshade to poke through. People came here to eat lunch or hold informal meetings. He swiped himself out of the office and went down into the open air. Sitting at one of the tables, he watched a crow pecking at a plastic yogurt pot, the remains of a lunch which, contrary to policy, had not been cleared away into the receptacle provided.

  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: [email protected]

  From: [email protected]

  Subject: Blame

  Blame is MEANINGLESS. You mus
t 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: [email protected]

  From: [email protected]

  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.

  ‘You’re supposed to love me.’

  ‘I’m sorry but I don’t know what to say to you. It’s not supposed to be any way. Things are how they are. This is just how it is.’

  Just how it is? Nothing is just how it is. Behind things are explanations. Behind things are the ideas of things and they are what count. He stared at her. Just how it is? Broken automaton.

  ‘I know what you are,’ he told her. Then he got out of the car and headed in the direction of the main road. In the distance vehicles whizzed along the highway. Chris was shouting something after him, calling his name.

  His feet crunched over gravel. It felt like the floor of a game-world dungeon, shifting, full of traps. Everything was wrong. His life was malfunctioning. He needed a place to stand.

  What is more certain than number?

  Fifteen sails visible on the water.

  Twelve cars parked in the lot by the marina.

  Eight windows along the first floor. Eight more above them.

  Numbers were the truth of the world, numbers cloaked in materials. Find certainty by counting the things. In decimal. In binary, hexadecimal. How many sixteens of trees in his field of vision? How many around the lake? Streams of numbers came to him, too fast to handle. But he had to try. It all boiled down to your ability to handle complexity.

  He trudged home along the side of the road. When he was safe inside his apartment, he locked the door and sat down on his bed, his hands in his lap. Moving was not important. Eating was not important, though somewhere deep down he knew he must be hungry. The important thing was to think. The evening light was soft and yellow. He stared at the tree branches framed in his window. How many needles? ed ee ef f0 f1 f2…

  For some hours he sat and counted. Around him the light faded. He could not go home, which meant he had to find a way to stay, to make Virugenix keep him on. Parse the problem. Think of a number.

  Then it came to him. He scrabbled around in the trash on his floor, squashing a little plastic container of milk with his foot. A squirt of white shot out over the carpet. Always conserve your semen. It is your strength. Underneath a pile of papers he found a pla
te with something growing on it. Wedged behind the desk was the left chappal he had lost. There were letters from his sister, and an Asha Bhosle disc. All useful, but not what he was looking for. Finally he laid his hands on it, a torn copy of last month’s Filmfare magazine. Yes, there it was. He was right.

  Think of a number.

  06 13

  13th June. The date of Leela Zahir’s birthday. Only two days away.

  Arjun first saw a computer when he was ten years old. It was a 286PC and it belonged to Cousin Hitesh, whose father, concerned for his son’s education, had brought it back from a business trip to America. Hitesh improved himself by playing solitaire and trying to beat his high score on a side-scrolling game which involved bombing villages from a helicopter. Mostly the machine sat grey and untended in Hitesh’s bedroom, humming portentously. Arjun’s family was staying in Bombay for a week, and, while Hitesh was in the next room watching action movies on the laserdisc, he could spend hours undisturbed, exploring the guts of the extraordinary object. He was thwarted at every turn. Path not found. Sector not found. He was asked questions which made no sense.

  Abort, Retry, Ignore, Fail?

  When he pressed a key and the cryptic pulse of the DOS prompt exploded into graphics, the suspicion was planted in his mind that something inside the machine must be alive.

  File creation error.

  By the age of thirteen Arjun had long discounted the theory that there were actual living things inside computers. But something mystical persisted, a hint, the presence of a vital spark. A computer booting up is creating itself ex nihilo, each stage of activity generating the grounds for the next. A tiny trickle of electricity to a dormant chip allows it to take a roll-call of components, which then participate in a simple exchange of instructions, a setting-out of terms and conditions that generates a more complex exchange, and then another, tier after tier of language coming into being until the display of a holiday photograph or the sweep of a pointer across a spreadsheet become thinkable, their meanings reaching all the way back down into binary simplicity.