“We should get off the highway. Find a new car.”
“If you’d only let me turn on my iPhone,” said Lulu, “I could tell you exactly where the nearest exit is.”
Decker glanced over at her. “Yeah, and you’d be telling whoever is following us exactly where we are. Good idea.”
Lulu frowned. “Fine. No need for sarcasm.” She folded her arms.
“Look at you. You’re all itchy, like a heroin addict. You know,” Decker added, “I heard about a study the other day showing that people used to think losing their wedding band was the most stressful loss of a personal item. Now, of course, it’s their smartphone. Look how far we’ve come in just a few years.”
“You’re a luddite, John. A throwback. Frankly, I’m surprised you haven’t tossed my phone out the window already. Just like you trashed my Alienware laptop. You’re the one with a problem, John. You’re anti-technology.”
“I’m not anti-technology. I just don’t like turning it into my personal fetish.” He waved a hand at the dashboard. “It’s like the way we talk about cars. You have an accident and you say, ‘Hey, someone hit me!’ You don’t say, ‘Someone hit my car.’ We’re constantly anthropomorphizing technology. Same with Facebook Friends. I know people with thousands of ‘Friends,’ but they’re not really friends. They’re barely acquaintances. It’s reductive, depersonalizing, insulting to people. Like Wikipedia.”
“Oh, so now it’s Wikipedia? What’s the matter? Don’t you like your article? I think you look pretty good in that picture.”
“I don’t like the whole setup. It’s like every wiki came fully formed right out of the head of Zeus. Like Athena.”
“What does that mean?”
“The authors behind every entry — they’re nameless, faceless, just like the authors of holy books. Their very anonymity gives them power. That way the people in charge can contend they came directly from heaven. Muslims, for example—”
“The Oracle Effect. You sound like Jaron Lanier.”
“Who?”
“The inventor of virtual reality. That’s what he calls it.”
“Well, he’s right. Remember a few years ago when the chess master Kasparov was defeated by IBM’s Deep Blue computer? Everyone was so impressed that we’d finally developed a system that could vanquish the best human on earth. Or, when the Watson computer defeated those Jeopardy experts? What people seem to forget is that those machines were programmed by people. People programming — that’s what defeated Kasparov. It wasn’t just a machine on its own. But people like you don’t see it that way. You’re always imbuing computers with human characteristics, just like our cars. You make systems sound like an oppressed people.”
“People like me?”
“You know what I mean. Like the folks at Anonymous, like H2O2, or like Ibi Barzani. You’re always talking about data wanting to be free—”
“Free as in unfettered, not free like free coffee.”
“Whatever. Digital data doesn’t want to be free. It’s just data. Data doesn’t want anything. It isn’t alive.”
“Not yet, you mean.”
“I don’t subscribe to your noöspheric view of the world.”
“Clearly.”
“The Net isn’t a global brain. But over-using tech does mess with your head. Do you know Rex McCullough’s daughter, Lisa?”
“I didn’t know he had a daughter.”
“He does and she’s addicted to tech. Literally. Each time her phone pings, she reaches for it. It’s compulsive. Why? Because it sets off a chemical charge in her brain, releasing endorphins. Who’s calling or texting me? Is it my boyfriend, my BFF? Is it a new romantic opportunity? No wonder kids today are so fucked up. And the anonymity of it all just encourages bad behavior and bullying. If machines ever take over, like in Terminator, we won’t be skulls under their tracks. We’ll be drones lashed to some global Metropolis help desk.” Decker laughed grimly.
“At your party the other day,” he continued, “one of your guests was talking about how more news is generated today by consumers blogging than by all the traditional news agencies combined. But I bet that with all of this mass linking and sharing, we’re not likely to see any more Bob Woodwards emerging and keeping us honest. Sure, we had lots of bloggers bitching at George W when he invaded Iraq, but did one of them uncover the fact that Sadam had no WMDs? Nope. That takes hard work, real investigative journalism. Just because you can reach millions of people — like Snooki or Honey Boo Boo — doesn’t automatically mean you have anything interesting to say.”
“Hey, I like Honey Boo Boo. I’ve got a T-shirt with her face on it.” She put on a thick southern accent. ‘The menu says I get two sides. Why can’t my sides be meat?’ I think that’s rather profound.”
Decker laughed. “If you say so. Personally, I think Reality TV is like watching a half-hour car wreck. People know it’s disgusting but they still turn their heads and keep looking.”
There was a buzzing sound and Lulu lunged for her pocket. She plucked out her iPhone.
Decker looked horrified. “I thought I told you to turn that thing off.”
“I did. Honest.” She stared down at her mobile. “It’s a text message.”
Decker plucked the iPhone from her hand. It was a simple, two-word transmission—The Wave. “There’s a cutoff just up ahead. I just saw a sign,” Decker said. “We must be three or four miles shy of Garner. Why don’t you take the wheel for a while?” With that, he swung the car off the road.
A few minutes later, with Lulu once again in the driver’s seat, Decker accessed the Amazon page for the book he had written with Emily. Sure enough: There was a new review from some reader named “Scrapple220.” Decker read it three times before he realized it was a hybrid key-number/key-word code, using Scrapple and 220 as the base points. In less than two minutes, he’d decoded the message.
“What’s it say?” Lulu asked.
“It’s from our friend, Mr. X. It says we should go to something called the The Education Arcade, whatever that is.”
“The Education Arcade? That’s the Virtual Reality center at the MIT Media Lab,” she told him. “Anything else?”
Decker nodded. “Yes, I’m afraid so.”
“What?”
“It says, ‘The police are on to you. Hurry.’”
“The police?”
Just then, the text message on the smartphone was replaced by a video image. At first, Decker couldn’t discern what it was. It looked like some sort of game. A tiny spec moved along a thin line. He gasped.
“What is it?”
“It’s us,” he replied. The tiny spec was their car! He was watching a live ARGUS satellite feed. A moment later, the image was replaced with another scene of the Pontiac zooming right by a traffic cam. Decker could see it swivel and focus on them as they whipped past in a flash. That’s when he first heard the police siren wailing.
“Shit!” Lulu cried.
Decker glanced up at the rearview mirror. A state police cruiser was following them only two hundred yards back.
Lulu’s phone started flashing. It too started wailing a high-pitched alarm.
“Fuck!” Lulu cursed. “That’s my FoneHome alarm. It goes off if my phone’s lost or stolen.” The phone flashed again. “It’s taking our picture!”
Decker fumbled about with the phone but the siren kept wailing.