“The secret teams know they’re secret, so even if they don’t know the big picture, they know they’re not supposed to be talking about what they’re working on.”
“Okay,” George said. “But that makes my point. Why go blabbing to someone who’s”—he weighed his words—“not necessarily coloring within the lines of the law?”
“They give me something on them to use in case they ever think about rolling on me,” Milo explained. “Like mutually assured destruction.”
“But isn’t the fact that they’re using enough when it comes to damaging intel?”
“Yeah, well, then there’s the testing of the product in question prior to transferring the crypto,” Milo continued. “And that’s the funny thing about intoxicants generally.”
“What’s that?”
“They inspire a certain chattiness,” Milo said. He paused. “‘Oh please, c’mon, tell me . . .’ That’s the extent of my enhanced interrogation tactics.”
“So what do you have on me?” George asked. “Why shouldn’t I go to HR and rat you out?”
“You know.” Milo smiled.
“I didn’t ask,” George said. “You gave. And money never changed hands.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about,” Milo said.
“Then what are you talking about?”
“A certain thumb drive,” Milo said, “that didn’t do what it was purported to do.”
Shit, George thought. “Um,” he said, “you know about—?”
“Kumbaya, my dude?” Milo filled in.
George nodded, and Milo returned the gesture.
Well, that was it. He was caught. Busted. George had never been authorized to work on artificial consciousness; that’s just what was needed to do it right. He could argue against it being unbudgeted mission creep on that account. The k-worm, on the other hand, was pretty much as Pandora portrayed it—an illegal, intellectual-property-harvesting machine. George had been fooling himself, thinking no one would notice or care—or that the end product would be so insanely great they’d look the other way on IP infringement. Milo’s nod and smile said otherwise. The newbie had been caught pursuing his own interests and breaking the law—both on the company’s dime.
That’s what Milo had on him.
“Okay,” George said, looking at the self-proclaimed pharmaceutical concierge, butt balancing against the office’s windowsill. “Understood.”
Milo nodded again. “Good,” he said. Paused. Then: “Now that we’re all on the same page, any questions?”
“So what do you—?” George began, already assuming the answer was some combination of Adderall and tranquilizers, based on what he’d already been given. Whether there was anything harder on offer remained a question. Still, Milo’s answer took him by surprise.
“Psychedelics mainly,” his mutually assured destructor said. “The whole ‘doors of perception,’ ‘portals of consciousness,’ ‘third eye’ thing. ’Shrooms for the vegans, LSD for the better-living-through-chemistry crowd, and DMT for the undecided. Half the Valley’s microdosing. It helps them get off amateur pharmaceuticals like the Adderall or Ritalin they’ve been popping since they couldn’t keep still in grade school.”
George blinked. The ADHD stuff made sense and was what he’d expected. But hallucinogenics did not compute. And so he said so.
“Micro’s the key,” Milo explained. “Teeny-tiny doses, supposedly below the threshold that leads to full-on tripping. The world doesn’t get all sparkly or interested in you. It’s basically a creativity booster minus the needing-an-asylum part.”
“And that works?” George asked, dubious.
Milo widened his eyes for effect—an ocular shrug—followed by a big, toothy grin.
“You’re high—right now?”
“Oh, Georgy Porgy, we’ve never had a sober exchange,” Milo said, making him turn, reflexively, to see if anyone was listening, even though they were in his office with the door closed.
“And QHQ is on board with all this?”
“Let’s say there’s a certain synergy in having drug addicts developing apps that, bottom line, are intended to be addictive,” Milo said. “I’m doing my part to keep the eyes, once captured, glued.” He paused, did a shifty-shift with his eyes, and dropped his voice. “So would you—?”
George cross-waved his hands to cut him off. “Nope,” he said. “I’m good,” he added, leaving out that he’d also been emotionally scarred by the last pusher who’d entered his life.
“No prob,” Milo said, backing off. “No means no. I got you.” He paused. “Meaning I can admit the other little thing corporate likes about our arrangement. See, long term, this stuff ruins your liver, which, in an amazing case of self-interest paying dividends, pretty much guarantees a lot of these code monkeys will be dead before they ever collect on any of that vaporware they’ve been sold, a.k.a. their pensions. It’s a win-win-lose-win-win, all to the betterment of Quire’s bottom line.”
“So,” George said, sounding like he might be changing the subject, but wasn’t, “if word of this ever got out . . .”
“. . . which it better not.”
“But if it did,” George continued.
“If I got busted somewhere along my supply chain outside of corporate sanctuary,” Milo said, “well, QHQ’s ass is covered. Somebody in HR gets canned for not collecting my badge, and I get tossed under the bus on its way to prison.” He paused before adding, “Theoretically.”
“Meaning?”
But Milo drew a zipper across his tight-smiling lips.
Postrevelation, it occurred to George that Milo was the anti-Roger, an observation he shared.
“I like that. Headshrinker versus mind expander.”
“Not exactly what I meant,” George said. “I meant he’s trying to keep his clients from going crazy and . . .” He cleared his throat and stopped.
“Still works for me,” Milo said. “Full-time crazy’s a drag, for sure. But part-time, a little adjunct insanity, tenure not on the table? Now that crazy’s the Goldilocks kind: just right.”
“What about overdoses?” George asked.
“Have you seen anybody leaving in an ambulance?” Milo asked back. “I mean other than when some pasty developer thinks he’s Edmund Hillary and falls off the climbing wall.”
George had seen no such ambulances.
“And then there’s this,” Milo added, indicating the smart watch strapped to his wrist. “You gonna buy from me, you’re gonna wear one of these,” he said. “Monitors heart rate, BP, rates of respiration and perspiration.” He paused. “I was going to add ‘number of steps,’ but who’s kidding who?”
“I thought you didn’t push?” George said.
“Whetting the old appetite, eh?” Milo said, leaning in.
But George leaned back.
“Right, right,” the other said. “No means no.” He made a check mark in the air.