“Geoff… Noonan.”
“Father Pat West.”
“No shit?” Noonan said, still catching his breath. “You’re the priest from the pic on the website?”
“Indeed,” West said again.
“You look different,” Noonan said. “But I’m glad I found you. You’re the reason I’m here.”
West helped him sign in and introduced him to the rest of the group.
“I’m not Catholic,” Noonan continued, after introductions and Hash business was finished and the run began. He kept checking over his shoulder, addled about something. Burdened. The people who came to Father West were often that way. “I’m not anything, really,” he went on. “I mean, my wife drags me to church, but they don’t do formal confessions there. Still, I got some stuff I really need to get off my chest. It… I don’t know… It needs a pro. An American pro. You guys are good at confessions. Everybody knows it.”
West heaved a heavy sigh, repenting of his earlier impatience. As odd as this young man was, he’d come for help.
“I found you online,” Noonan continued. “I called this morning. The guy said I’d find you here. Can you do it? Take a confession, I mean.”
“Why don’t we just speak as friends?” West said. “If talking about things that bother you gives you comfort, then that is good enough for the time being. I am happy to listen.”
Noonan gave an emphatic nod. “Yeah,” he said, breathless with worry. “Yeah, I guess that would work.”
He spilled his guts for the next ten minutes, admitting that he’d been weak and slept with a Sundanese woman he’d met in a bar. For some reason, he made a point of saying that the woman wasn’t “all that good-looking,” as if cheating on your wife with a homely girl made it less of a sin. Noonan began to go into explicit detail about what he’d done with the woman. For a moment, West thought he might be one of those people who got some gratification from bragging about their behavior. Then Noonan began to weep in earnest, tears accompanied by the appropriate amount of flowing snot. Perhaps the sorrow was just over being caught, but it was sorrow nonetheless.
“I know I did wrong,” Noonan said, scuffing his feet in the loamy ground as he walked.
Here it comes, West thought. The mitigation. I did wrong, but I’m not to blame, and this is why.
“The thing is,” Noonan continued. “It was all a setup.”
The way he said it made the hair on the back of West’s neck stand on end. “A setup?”
Noonan nodded emphatically. “Yeah. Some guys who said they were Indonesian policemen busted in from the bathroom and caught us in the act. They threatened to tell my wife—”
West stopped on the trail. “They entered from the bathroom?”
“Yes,” Noonan said.
“Does the bathroom have exterior doors?”
“No.”
“Do you think they were waiting in there the entire time?”
“I took a leak before we… you know… Shower’s pretty small. I didn’t see anybody.” Noonan scratched his head. “I never thought about it like that.”
“Did these men want money?”
“That’s the thing,” Noonan said. “Not at all. I offered to pay them, but they wanted something else.”
West felt himself putting on an old hat that he’d been all too happy to take off. He looked from side to side, instinctively checking over his shoulder. The other Hashers had pulled well ahead, so he was alone now with the newcomer. Somehow he knew that with one more question he’d slip inexorably into his previous life.
“What did these men want?”
“Something from my work.”
The way Noonan glossed over it piqued West’s curiosity. He tipped his head toward the gaudy T-shirt. “I assume you’re in some kind of tech field. Computers?”
“Software,” Noonan said. “I work for Parnassus, a computer game company in Boston.”
West picked up his pace. It was difficult to think about two things at once, and if Noonan had to focus on where to put his feet, he might be more forthcoming.
“That must be an interesting job.”
“I hate it,” Noonan said. “My bosses don’t like me, my coworkers don’t like me…”
Imagine that, West thought, but he said nothing.
“Anyway,” Noonan continued. “The engineer I work with set up this deal that made us a shitload of money, but…” He paused, peering at West through the dim light filtering down through the jungle canopy. “I really only wanted to tell you about how I messed around on my wife.”
“As you wish,” West said. “I only ask because it seems like something else is troubling you. I can see it in your eyes.”
“You can?”
“I can,” West said honestly.
Noonan walked in silence for two full minutes before glancing sideways at the priest. “It’s just… I think I got in way over my head on this. My partner, another software engineer at Parnassus, we developed this software that’s like nothing I’ve ever seen. It’s going to revolutionize the industry.”
“So it’s worth a lot of money?”
Noonan took a deep breath. “A shitload… sorry, Father.”
“And these Indonesian men who came from your bathroom tricked you into sleeping with a woman in order to get this software?”
“Two Indonesians and a different Asian guy,” Noonan said. “I heard him speak to the woman. I think it might have been Chinese. Pretty sure he was the one in charge.”
West filed that away but didn’t comment.
“Did you give them the software?”
“Hell, yes, I gave it to them! They kind of had me at a disadvantage when they busted in.” Noonan licked his lips. “Man, I’m thirsty.”
“This trail makes a big loop,” West said. “We’re almost back to the cars.”
“Good,” Noonan said. “Listen, Padre, I sure appreciate you lending me your ear.”
“No problem at all,” West said. A few steps later he said, “This software must be very special.”
“Oh, it is. To be honest, I had two copies when I came to Jakarta. My partner set up a deal to sell one of them to another company before the other dudes took one of the drives.” Noonan chuckled.
“Why two copies?”
“I don’t know,” Noonan said. “Insurance, I guess. That Chinese guy is going to be surprised when he finds out someone else has the software.” His head snapped up, coming to a sudden realization before he wilted. “Shit, that means he’ll probably still tell my wife.”
“You should tell your wife,” West said.
“Yeah, maybe,” Noonan said. “But that’s not happening. At least not until I tell her about the money I got from selling Calliope. She might be more forgiving when she’s a millionaire.”
“Calliope,” West mused. “Can I ask what makes it so special?”
“You know what an NPC is?”
West shook his head. “Afraid not.”
“Non-player character,” Noonan said. “You play Ghost Recon or Halo?”
“No,” West said. “But I’ve seen them played.”
“Well, the guys onscreen who are reacting to you as the player — bad guys, fellow good guys, bystanders — those are all NPCs.”
“Okay.”
“The industry uses deep learning, you know, AI, to help these NPCs make their decisions more lifelike.”
“Artificial intelligence?”
“Exactly,” Noonan said, with the exuberance of someone talking about his life’s work. “We add actions to make the NPCs more realistic, you know, rolling off a roof when they come on scene, jumping out of an open Jeep instead of opening the door. But sometimes the NPCs pick up these actions by themselves. Like they’re learning from the players. It drives the compulsion loop like crazy.”