The Meeting, Part 2

I must have moved toward him, because he ducked down farther, and tightened the circle of his arms. But still he didn't look away from me for an instant, and his watchful expression didn't change in the slightest.

I froze again. I have to honest: until that instant, I hadn't really given much consideration to how this all must seem to him. Was he afraid? Of me?

It was at that moment that I realized that I was still holding the cane in my hand.

Worse yet, I was holding it toward the end, and my hand was raised. How awkward. I desperately begged my mind to suggest a graceful way out of this, but it was apparently too busy calling me names. Why hadn't I taken a second to hide the cane, or at least drop it against the wall? I had to fight the childish impulse to whip it behind my back and pretend it wasn't there. Of course I could just throw the cane aside, but wouldn't that seem like an admission that I really had intended to club him from behind?

Not knowing what else to do, I loosened my grip, letting the cane slid down my hand. I grabbed the handle, lowered the stick slowly to the floor… and then leaned on it.

It seemed like a good idea at the time. I can't say I thought of it – my body seemed to come up with it on its own – but it seemed okay to me.

Anyway, it seemed to work. The client slowly lowered his arms and rose to his feet. Absent-mindedly, he adjusted his clothing. This was totally unnecessary, his clothes looked perfect, but there was no way he could know that. The guy didn't take his eyes off me for a second.

He scanned me from the top of my cowboy hat to the tops of my worn black sneakers and back, and he took his time doing it. I can't say it was pleasant. I hadn't met many strangers in a long time. I tried to take it like a man, though.- a tough guy, sure, but confident and peaceful. Relaxed.

Unfortunately, I had the sudden conviction that my beard really had come unglued. I tried to ignore it, because I didn't want to move and startle the guy, but I couldn't shake the feeling. My cheek started to twitch, and I couldn't stop it.

The client looked me in the eyes, opened up his mouth… and laughed. Harsh, cold, and bitter, it wasn't a happy sound, and not the least bit contagious. I can't say I enjoyed it very much.

He turned his back to me, and gave the rest of the team the once over. It was like I was seeing them for the first time myself. The sight wasn't a pretty one. Actually, it was even worse than I expected. Although the Boss didn't appear to have moved from his seat, somehow his wig had twisted to one side. Sam must have decided to lick himself while no one was looking, leaving patches of his dyed coat streaked and spotty. Even the equipment on the table looked old and shabby… because it was.

"This was a mistake," said the client, his voice was a cold as his laugh.

I can't describe what I felt right then. Fortunately, whatever the feeling was, the Boss did not seem to share it. "Perhaps," he answered in his usual voice. "Please sit down, Mr. Davis."

Davis did not sit. The two men studied each other. Davis was all in shades of gray – gray suit, silvery white shirt, soft gray gloves on his hands. I don't know what his fabric his clothes were made of, but it was unmistakably expensive. His eyes were matched his suit, his hair matched his shirt, and even his skin had a subtle gray tint. He was slender and not too tall, but he looked fit and well-proportioned. The effect was cold but perfect, like a work of art.

In contrast, the Boss didn't look too good. He was a big man, but old and fat. The skin that was visible around his beard was pale, mottled, and vaguely unhealthy looking. The many hairs visible under his wig were iron gray, and I happened to know that the very few hairs left on the top of his head were the just the same. He wore a faded red flannel shirt, and, out of sight behind the table, blue work pants and brown work boots. Those weren't part of any disguise – I just think that those were the only type of clothes he owned.

I half expected Davis to turn and march right out. Instead he stood there like a statue. Clearly, the masterpiece was torn. The Boss let him suffer for a moment before taking pity on him. "Mr. Davis," he said, his tone calm and reasonable, "it was you who requested this conference. I did not want it – I do not meet with clients." He paused, considering. "To overcome my reluctance, you paid me, in advance, quite a considerable amount of money. Furthermore, despite your position and your schedule, you agreed to my choice of location and time, though both were quite inconvenient to you."

The Boss leaned back in his seat. "Now here you are. There are only two possible explanations. Either you are attempting, however clumsily, to lure me out of hiding, or…," the Boss leaned forward, his voice hardening, "… or you are truly desperate for my help." Still the client did not respond. The Boss settled back, and held up one hand. "Given the first possibility, you can see why I had to take precautions, however extreme they may seem to you." The Boss raised his other hand. "But, if you are sincerely in need of my assistance, then you should appreciate my precautions even more. If you would be my client, you must necessarily rely upon my discretion. If I can be identified, I can be found. If I can be found, I can be questioned."

"What did you do to me," asked Davis.

"To you? Nothing."

Davis scoffed. "I didn't seem like 'nothing' to me."

The Boss nodded a little nod, conceding the point. "I reset your link," he answered. He placed his hand on a large box on the table beside him, just behind an ancient tape recorder. The box was wooden, but the top was gray plastic covered with buttons, dials, and an analog needle. "I used this to corrupt its storage, causing it to crash".

Davis touched his neck just behind his right ear. "You broke it?"

"No. It is merely rebooting. When that process is complete, it will be fully functional. But it will contain no data." The Boss folded his hands. "As your link crashed, it lost control if its signals, generating a random set of false sensations in your brain. These sensations may have been disorienting and unpleasant, but they were not real. The distress they caused you was real enough, of course, and possibly magnified perhaps by the psychological shock of being unexpectedly disconnected. But it did you no lasting harm. Quite literally, it was all in your head."

Davis moved closer to the table… so I moved, very quietly, closer to Davis. "All that data, destroyed," he said. "Was that really necessary?"

The Boss sighed, his patience worn thin. "I can sit here and justify each of my precautions one by one, sir, but I will not. You selected me, I presume, on the basis of my expertise with technology. You must decide whether to trust your own judgment or not."

The two men stared at one another for a long moment before breaking eye contact… but Davis looked away first.

When the Boss spoke, his tone was that of a gracious winner. "As for your data – you're right, of course, to lose it would be intolerable. Fortunately, your link, like all links, continuously encrypts and uploads its contents to secure storage sites scattered around the globe. You may not be aware of this feature – it happens automatically, and is not often necessary - but rest assured it exists. Once your link has rebooted and contacts those sites, it will automatically upload its previous contents and be restored."

"In fact," the Boss continued, "you should remove your link now, before it comes back on-line." Davis just stood there. I can't say I blame him. The Boss had given him a lot to process. But the Boss wasn't willing to wait. "If you do not," he said, "then I will be forced to reset the unit again when you leave." The Boss put one hand on the wooden box, and held out the palm of the other. "The choice is yours."

Davis considered a moment, then tilted his head forward and pushed. When he opened his hand, it contained a small silver box, no larger than the tip of my thumb.

But he didn't hand it over. Instead, he rolled it over and over in his hand. "This is new," he said, and looked up at the Boss. "How could that reset this?"

He had a point. The contrast between his sleek silver link and the rough wooden box was striking.

The Boss merely smiled. "All systems have vulnerabilities. Your link is no different."
He shook his head. "A link has, functionally speaking, two parts: a dense mass of electronics, to process and store data, and to interface through your jack with the traces in your brain; and a high gain antenna, to connect to the network. A small, one-piece form factor such that of your link forces these components together in a very small space."

"Shielding protects these components from one another. But while the shielding in your link is good, it isn't perfect. It too is constrained by the form factor. As a result, a certain signal at certain frequency, picked up by the unit's high-gain antenna, will leak through this shielding. If the signal is strong enough, that leak will interfere with the operation of the electronics. The result? A fatal error and a hard reset."

The Boss looked affectionately at his wooden box. "This signal generated by this box can be adjusted, but the truth is that it didn't need to be. While the capacities and features of links have changed over time, but the design has not. Why should it? It is proven, and, if not for people like me, its vulnerability would rarely be exploited. Even then, the link is designed to recover quickly, as I mentioned. It would take a much larger device than this to generate a signal strong enough to damage the link itself; stronger still to harm its wearer."

The Boss seemed amused. "Does that answer your question?" The Boss smiled. "You are not an engineer, but if I recall correctly, you have hard sciences in your education. Do you need a more detailed discussion to convince you of my competence?"

Davis stood silently, making up his mind. "That was a long time ago," he said at last, "and never was my strength. That's why I'm a lawyer now." And with that Gerald Davis, Chief Legal Office and co-founder of General Genetics Corporation, put his little silver box in the Boss's hand and sat down.