Cryptonomicon

Damn, after you said you did it for a living. I was going to guess that you were Geb, or another one of my ex-girlfriend's crowd.

Why don't you tell me your name?

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To: dwarf@siblings.net From: root@eruditorum.org Subject: Re(5) Why? Randy, I've already told you my name, and it meant nothing to you. Or rather, it meant the wrong thing. Names are tricky that way. The best way to know someone is to have a conversation with them.

Interesting that you assume I'm an academic.

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To: root@eruditorum.org From: dwarf@siblings.net Subject: Re(6) Why? Gotcha!

I didn't specify who Geb was. And yet you knew that he and my ex-girlfriend were academics. If (as you claim) I don't know you, then how do you know these things about me?

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Everyone now turns to look towards Prag, who seems to be having trouble with his peripheral vision today. "Prag is avoiding us," Avi snaps.

"Which means it will be completely impossible for us to reach him until after this is all over."

Tom steps towards Avi, drawing the corporate circle in closer. "The investigator in Hong Kong?"

"Got some IDs, struck out on others," Avi says. "Basically, the heavy set Filipino gentleman is Marcos's bagman. Responsible for keeping the famous billions out of the hands of the Philippine government. The Taiwanese guy--not Harvard Li but the other one--is a lawyer whose family has deep connections to Japan, dating back to when Taiwan was part of their empire. He has held down half a dozen government positions at various times, mostly in finance and commerce--now he's sort of a fixer who does jobs of all sorts for high-ranking Taiwanese officials."

"What about the scary Chinese guy?"

Avi raises his eyebrows and heaves a little sigh before answering. "He's a general in the People's Liberation Army. Equivalent to a four-star rank. He's been working their investment arm for the last fifteen years."

"Investment arm? The Army!?" Cantrell blurts. Re's been getting uneasier by the minute, and now looks mildly nauseated.

"The People's Liberation Army is a titanic business empire," Beryl says. "They control the biggest pharmaceutical company in China. The biggest hotel chain. A lot of the communications infrastructure. Railways. Refineries. And, obviously, armaments."

"What about Mr. Cellphone?" Randy asks.

"Still working on him. My man in Hong Kong is sending his mug shot to a colleague in Panama."

"I think that after what we saw in the lobby, we can make some assumptions," Beryl says. (16)

To: dwarf@siblings.net

From: root@eruditorum.org

Subject: Re(7) Why?

Randy.

You ask how I know these things about you. There are many things I could say, but the basic answer is surveillance.

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Randy figures there's no better time to ask this question. And because he's known Avi longer than anyone else, he's the only one who can get away with asking it. "Do we really want to be involved with these people?" he says. "Is this what Epiphyte Corp. is for? Is this what we are for?"

Avi heaves a big sigh and thinks about it for a while. Beryl looks at him searchingly; Eb and John and Tom study their shoes, or search the triple-canopy jungle for exotic avians, while listening intently.

"You know, back in the forty-niner days, every gold mining town in California had a nerd with a scale," Avi says. "The assayer. He sat in an office all day. Scary-looking rednecks came in with pouches of gold dust. The nerd weighed them, checked them for purity, told them what the stuff was worth. Basically, the assayer's scale was the exchange point--the place where this mineral, this dirt from the ground, became money that would be recognized as such in any bank or marketplace in the world, from San Francisco to London to Beijing. Because of the nerd's special knowledge, he could put his imprimatur on dirt and make it money. Just like we have the power to turn bits into money.