Reamde

THE SPACE WAS windowless. Or, if you were willing to consider giant flat-panel screens as being windows into other worlds, it was a greenhouse. In the middle was Devin’s elliptical trainer, or rather one of a pool of treadmills, elliptical trainers, and other such gadgets that were swapped in and out as he ruined or got sick of them. Depending from the ceiling was a massive articulated structure: an industrial robot arm, capable of being programmed to move along and rotate around a myriad of axes with the silence of a panther and the precision of a knife fighter. It supported an additional large flat-panel screen and a framework that held up an array of input devices: an ergonomic keyboard, trackballs, and other devices of which Richard knew not the names. Devin, naked except for a pair of gym shorts emblazoned with the logo of one of his favorite charities, was stirring the air with his legs, working the reciprocating paddles of the trainer. Invisible streams of cool wind impinged on his body from perfectly silent high-tech fans, not quite evaporating a sheen of perspiration that caused all his veins and tendons, and his twelve-pack abs, to pop out through his skin, as though the epidermis were shrink wrap laid directly over nerve and bone. According to this morning’s stats, Devin’s body fat percentage was an astonishing 4.5, which placed him into a serious calorie debt situation that in theory should extend his life span beyond 110 years. The slight up-and-down bobbing of his head and upper body was compensated for by equal movements of the robot arm, which used a machine vision control loop to track his attitude through a camera and to calculate the vector of translations and rotations needed to keep the huge screen exactly 22.5 inches away from his laser-sculpted corneas and the keyboard and other input devices within easy and comfortable reach of his fingers. A custom-made headset, with flip-down 3D lenses (currently flipped up and out of the way) and a microphone enabled him to dictate ideas or take phone calls as necessary. A chest harness tracked his pulse and sent immediate notification of any flipped T-waves to an on-call cardiologist sitting in an office suite two miles down the road. A defibrillator hung on the wall, blinking green.

You laugh, Richard had once said to a colleague, after they’d visited the place, but all he’s doing is applying scientific management principles to a hundred-million-dollar production facility (i.e., Devin) with an astronomical profit margin.

“Hello, Dodge!” he called out, only a little short of breath. The system was programmed to keep his pulse between 75 percent and 80 percent of its recommended maximum, so he was working hard but not gasping for air.

“Good afternoon, Devin,” said Richard, suddenly wishing he’d remembered to bring a hat, since it was chilly in here. “I apologize if our arrival came as a surprise.”

“Not a problem!”

“I had been assuming that with all your support staff and whatnot, someone here might have made you aware of the schedule.” This for the benefit of the half-dozen members of said staff who, unaccountably, had crowded into the room.

“No worries!” And he sounded like he meant it. If it was true that exercise jacked up one’s endorphin levels, Devin must live his whole life on something like an intravenous fentanyl drip.

“You remember Pluto.”

“Of course! Hello, Pluto.”

“Hello,” said Pluto, looking put out that he was actually being chivvied through this meaningless program of social pleasantries.

“Can we talk about something?” Richard said.

“Sure! What’s on your mind?”

“We,” Richard stressed, “as in, you and me.”

“You and I are both here, Richard,” said Devin.

Richard held eye contact for a few moments, then broke it and scanned the faces of everyone else in the room. “This is not material,” he said. “Devin and I are not going to be generating intellectual property. And neither is it some kind of a brainstorming or strategizing effort in which we will be wanting ideas and input from amazingly bright and helpful people whose job it is to supply that. No record of the conversation needs to be made.” Richard could see people’s faces falling as he ticked his way down the list. Finally he looked back at Devin. “I’ll see you in the trailer,” he said, “just for old time’s sake.”