“Lay off the scifi with him.” Bridges advised. “He doesn't like it.”
“No problem.” Dar said.
They walked down the long hall and up another flight of stairs, then through a door and they were in spaces she'd seen on television. Dar just tried to keep her mind blank, and let the flashes of whitewashed walls and tall ceilings just move past her, very glad she had Bridges leading the way.
Then they were down another hallway and in front of a door, and her guide was rapping on it. “Bridges.” He called out.
“C'mon in, Mike.” The answer filtered through the wood.
“Ready? Doesn't matter.” Bridges worked the latch and shoved the door open, entering the room and drawing Dar after him.
It was one of the smaller offices, Dar realized. Not the big Oval one, but impressive enough. There were pictures and hangings on the wall, a plush carpet with the seal of the President on the floor, a huge desk, and behind it a somewhat scruffy looking man in a pullover with blinking eyes and a folder of papers in one hand
“Mike, hey. Who've we got here?” The man asked, his expression brightening on seeing Dar and his posture straightening up. “Hello there, ma'am.”
The irony was so crunchy Dar felt like she was chewing on year old Frosted Flakes
“This is... “ Bridges turned. “What the hell is your real name?”
“Paladar Roberts.” Dar supplied. “But everyone calls me Dar.”
The President put his folder down and stepped around his desk, extending a hand. “Well, hello there.” His grip was dry and firm. “You're the computer lady, right?”
“Right.” Dar agreed, releasing him. “Nice to meet you, Mr. President.”
“Hey, great. Thanks for coming over.” He pointed to a pair of wingback chairs in the corner. “Lets sit down a minute and you can tell me what this is all about. I want to understand what we're tryin to do here.” He glanced at Bridges. “Tell them to send one of the photogs in, Mike. I never like to lose a chance to get a picture of me with a good looking woman.”
“Sure.” Bridges gave him a droll look. “Be right back, Roberts. Remember, no scifi.”
Dar accepted the surrealism, and took a seat in one of the chairs, hiking a knee up and circling it with both hands as the President took the other chair, wishing belatedly she'd brought Kerry with her.
Without a shadow of a doubt, her partner would know far far better how to deal with this. “So.”
“So.” He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees in an oddly adolescent posture. “What did you say people called you? Dar?”
She nodded.
“Mike tells me that you're going to work up something for him that will let him find bad guys, living here.” The President said, in a straightforward way. “Call me George, by the way.”
“All right.” Dar responded. “It was explained to me that you want some way of delving into the public Internet, and sifting through all that data to find things that could harm us.”
The President smiled. “You got it.” He said. “So you're doing that?”
Dar cleared her throat. “I'm going to try.” She said, honestly. “I”m going to develop an intelligent set of automatic filters that will be programmable by the people who work for Mr. Bridges, and you, to try and do that.”
Bush thought about that for a minute, and Dar let him, remaining silent. Finally he looked back up at her, with an unexpectedly sharp stare. “People ain't gonna like us messing with the Internet.” He stated. “They don't want the government sniffing all up in their business, you know what I mean?”
“I do.” Dar agreed. “They won't like it at all. Just the idea, from an ISP, got everyone in an uproar and all they wanted to do was target advertisements.”
“Yeap.” Bush said. “But this thing.. you said it was automatic?” He questioned. “Like machines are doing it?”
Dar nodded. “The idea was.. “ She found herself to her surprise laying it out for him as she hadn't for Bridges “The programming algorithms are designed to find connections. “
He started nodding, but remained silent.
“And they deliver the connections to analysts, who can decide if they really are connections, or not.” Dar said. “You can't have someone looking at everything, it's too much.”
Bush was still nodding. “So the machines are looking, and they only kick it to a human when they find something they don't like.”
“Yes.”
The President smiled and gave her a thumbs up. “Got it.” He said. “So we can tell people – we ain't' snooping on you. It's just a machine, looking for patterns. No one's watching you look for porno.” He winked. “See, Mike just cares about results. I care about results too, but I'm the one who has to put their mug on television to take the blame for all of it.”
“More or less, yes. The interface will look on it's own for things that fall out of baseline.” Dar said, smiling at him. “So if, it sees.. a larger number of airline tickets being purchased one way, in a short period of time, it'll assemble that for review – but also.. “ She lifted a hand. “It's to give the analysts a way to look for something in natural language.”
“Like, anyone buying a lot of fertilizer components today that never did before?” Bush asked.
“Yes.”
He smiled again. “You're a smart lady.” He paused, watching her. “Your dad's a war hero, huh? I heard that.” He glanced up as the door opened and a slim young man entered with a camera. “Hold off a minute, Josh.” He put his hand up, then waited for the man to back out. “Thanks.” Then he turned back to Dar. “Navy was it?”
“Yes.” Dar responded. “Though he probably wouldn't call what he did heroism. Just a job.”
“My daddy says that too.” Bush responded. “And I always told him he'd be a hero to me if he'd done nothing but catch crabs off the coast of New England.”
So odd, to find a synergy in this, the most weird of places and strangest of people. “Well, that's how I feel about my dad also.” Dar admitted. “I think we're lucky that way. Not a lot of people are.”
He smiled briefly, and looked away, then stood up. “C'mon in, Josh.” He put his hand on the chair back. “Mike tells me you've got a lady friend, is that right?”
Dar stood as the photographer came back in. “Yes, if by that you mean I'm gay.” She responded mildly “And I have a life partner.”
He nodded. “Good. This'll do good for my demographics.” He waved the photographer over. “And they won't think you're sleeping with half the lot of us.” He grinned rakishly. “Don't tell anyone I said that. Everybody assumes I'm clueless.” He pointed at the desk. “Should we take a shot there, Josh? What would look best, you're the expert.”
Bridges came back as they started to get arranged, and Dar had a moment to pause, shake her head, and think about the long, long message she was going to type to Kerry.
Who would not, absolutely not, believe it.
Dar lay flat on her back on her acceptably comfortable hotel bed, her eyes closed as she listened to the voice on the other end of the phone. “That's what I said, hon.” She agreed, as Kerry finally wound down. “I just walked in the hotel twenty minutes ago. Finally got done arguing with Gerry's boys.”
“Holy crap, Dar!”
“Mm... didn't figure of the two appointments his would be the gnarlier.” Dar agreed, mournfully. “But I finally got through it, so we can move forward with the high level design.”
“Did you get dinner?”
“I got a subway meatball sub for late lunch.” Dar said. “That's what they have at the Pentagon, apparently.”