"Uh-huh."
"No, really. You and I are a team. I rely on you and you rely on me. We're loyal
to something concrete -- each other. The Eastern Standard Tribe is an
abstraction. It's a whole bunch of people, and neither of us like most of 'em.
It's useful and pleasant, but you can't put your trust in institutions --
otherwise you get Nazism."
"And patriotism."
"Blind patriotism."
"So there's no other kind? Just jingoism? You're either loyal to your immediate
circle of friends or you're a deluded dupe?"
"No, that's not what I'm saying."
"So where does informed loyalty leave off and jingoism begin? You come on all
patronizing when I talk about being loyal to the Tribe, and you're certainly not
loyal to V/DT, nor are you loyal to Jersey. What greater purpose are you loyal
to?"
"Well, humanity, for starters."
"Really. What's that when it's at home?"
"Huh?"
"How do you express loyalty to something as big and abstract as 'humanity'?"
"Well, that comes down to morals, right? Not doing things that poison the world.
Paying taxes. Change to panhandlers. Supporting charities." Fede drummed his
fingers on his thighs. "Not murdering or raping, you know. Being a good person.
A moral person."
"OK, that's a good code of conduct. I'm all for not murdering and raping, and
not just because it's *wrong*, but because a world where the social norms
include murdering and raping is a bad one for me to live in."
"Exactly."
"That's the purpose of morals and loyalty, right? To create social norms that
produce a world you want to live in."
"Right! And that's why *personal* loyalty is important."
Art smiled. Trap baited and sprung. "OK. So institutional loyalty -- loyalty to
a Tribe or a nation -- that's not an important social norm. As far as you're
concerned, we could abandon all pretense of institutional loyalty." Art dropped
his voice. "You could go to work for the Jersey boys, sabotaging Virgin/Deutsche
Telekom, just because they're willing to pay you to do it. Nothing to do with
Tribal loyalty, just a job."
Fede looked uncomfortable, sensing the impending rhetorical headlock. He nodded
cautiously.
"Which means that the Jersey boys have no reason to be loyal to you. It's just a
job. So if there were an opportunity for them to gain some personal advantage by
selling you out, turning you into a patsy for them, well, they should just go
ahead and do it, right?"
"Uh --"
"Don't worry, it's a rhetorical question. Jersey boys sell you out. You take
their fall, they benefit. If there was no institutional loyalty, that's where
you'd end up, right? That's the social norm you want."
"No, of course it isn't."
"No, of course not. You want a social norm where individuals can be disloyal to
the collective, but not vice versa."
"Yes --"
"Yes, but loyalty is bidirectional. There's no basis on which you may expect
loyalty from an institution unless you're loyal to it."
"I suppose."
"You know it. I know it. Institutional loyalty is every bit as much about
informed self-interest as personal loyalty is. The Tribe takes care of me, I
take care of the Tribe. We'll negotiate a separate payment from Jersey for this
-- after all, this is outside of the scope of work that we're being paid for --
and we'll split the money, down the middle. We'll work in a residual income with
Jersey, too, because, as you say, this is bigger than MassPike. It's a genuinely
good idea, and there's enough to go around. All right?"
"Are you asking me or telling me?"
"I'm asking you. This will require both of our cooperation. I'm going to need to
manufacture an excuse to go stateside to explain this to them and supervise the
prototyping. You're going to have to hold down the fort here at V/DT and make
sure that I'm clear to do my thing. If you want to go and sell this idea
elsewhere, well, that's going to require my cooperation, or at least my silence
-- if I turn this over to V/DT, they'll pop you for industrial espionage. So we
need each other."
Art stood and looked down at Fede, who was a good ten centimeters shorter than
he, looked down at Fede's sweaty upper lip and creased brow. "We're a good team,
Fede. I don't want to toss away an opportunity, but I also don't want to exploit
it at the expense of my own morals. Can you agree to work with me on this, and
trust me to do the right thing?"
Fede looked up. "Yes," he said. On later reflection, Art thought that the *yes*
came too quickly, but then, he was just relieved to hear it. "Of course. Of
course. Yes. Let's do it."
"That's just fine," Art said. "Let's get to work, then."
They fell into their traditional division of labor then, Art working on a
variety of user-experience plans, dividing each into subplans, then devising
protocols for user testing to see what would work in the field; Fede working on
logistics from plane tickets to personal days to budget and critical-path
charts. They worked side by side, but still used the collaboration tools that
Art had grown up with, designed to allow remote, pseudonymous parties to fit
their separate work components into the same structure, resolving schedule and
planning collisions where it could and throwing exceptions where it couldn't.
They worked beside each other and each hardly knew the other was there, and
that, Art thought, when he thought of it, when the receptionist commed him to
tell him that "Linderrr" -- freakin' teabags -- was there for him, that was the
defining characteristic of a Tribalist. A norm, a modus operandi, a way of being
that did not distinguish between communication face-to-face and communication at
a distance.
"Linderrr?" Fede said, cocking an eyebrow.
"I hit her with my car," Art said.
"Ah," Fede said. "Smooth."
Art waved a hand impatiently at him and went out to the reception area to fetch
her. The receptionist had precious little patience for entertaining personal
visitors, and Linda, in track pants and a baggy sweater, was clearly not a
professional contact. The receptionist glared at him as he commed into the lobby
and extended his hand to Linda, who took it, put it on her shoulder, grabbed his
ass, crushed their pelvises together and jammed her tongue in his ear. "I missed
you," she slurped, the buzz of her voice making him writhe. "I'm not wearing any
knickers," she continued, loud enough that he was sure that the receptionist
heard. He felt the blush creeping over his face and neck and ears.
The receptionist. Dammit, why was he thinking about the receptionist? "Linda,"
he said, pulling away. Introduce her, he thought. Introduce them, and that'll
make it less socially awkward. The English can't abide social awkwardness.
"Linda, meet --" and he trailed off, realizing he didn't actually know the
receptionist's name.
The receptionist glared at him from under a cap of shining candy-apple red hair,
narrowing her eyes, which were painted in high style with Kubrick action-figure
faces.
"My *name* is Tonaishah," she hissed. Or maybe it was *Tanya Iseah*, or
*Taneesha*. He still didn't know her goddamned name.
"And this is Linda," he said, weakly. "We're going out tonight."
"And won't you have a dirty great time, then?" Tonaishah said.
"I'm sure we will," he said.
"Yes," Tonaishah said.
Art commed the door and missed the handle, then snagged it and grabbed Linda's
hand and yanked her through.
"I'm a little randy," she said, directly into his ear. "Sorry." She giggled.
"Someone you have to meet," he said, reaching down to rearrange his pants to
hide his boner.
"Ooh, right here in your office?" Linda said, covering his hand with hers.
"Someone with *two* eyes," he said, moving her hand to his hip.
"Ahh," she said. "What a disappointment."
"I'm serious. I want you to meet my friend Fede. I think you two will really hit
it off."
"Wait," Linda said. "Isn't this a major step? Meeting the friends? Are we
getting that serious already?"
"Oh, I think we're ready for it," Art said, draping an arm around her shoulders
and resting his fingertips on the upper swell of her breast.
She ducked out from under his arm and stopped in her tracks. "Well, I don't.
Don't I get a say in this?"
"What?" Art said.
"Whether it's time for me to meet your friends or not. Shouldn't I have a say?"
"Linda, I just wanted to introduce you to a coworker before we went out. He's in
my office -- I gotta grab my jacket there, anyway."
"Wait, is he a friend or a coworker?"
"He's a friend I work with. Come on, what's the big deal?"
"Well, first you spring this on me, then you change your story and tell me he's
a coworker, now he's a friend again. I don't want to be put on display for your
pals. If we're going to meet your friends, I'll dress for it, put on some
makeup. This isn't fair."
"Linda," Art said, placating.
"No," she said. "Screw it. I'm not here to meet your friends. I came all the way
across town to meet you at your office because you wanted to head back to your
place after work, and you play headgames with me like this?"
"All right," Art said. "I'll show you back out to the lobby and you can wait
with Tonaishah while I get my jacket."
"Don't take that tone with me," she said.
"What tone?" Art said. "Jesus Christ! You can't wait in the hall, it's against
policy. You don't have a badge, so you have to be with me or in the lobby. I
don't give a shit if you meet Fede or not."
"I won't tell you again, Art," she said. "Moderate your tone. I won't be shouted
at."
Art tried to rewind the conversation and figure out how they came to this pass,
but he couldn't. Was Linda really acting *this* nuts? Or was he just reading her
wrong or pushing her buttons or something?
"Let's start over," he said, grabbing both of her hands in his. "I need to get
my jacket from my office. You can come with me if you want to, and meet my
friend Fede. Otherwise you can wait in the lobby, I won't be a minute."
"Let's go meet Fede," she said. "I hope he wasn't expecting anything special,
I'm not really dressed for it."
He stifled a snotty remark. After all that, she was going to go and meet Fede?
So what the hell were they arguing about? On the other hand, he'd gotten his
way, hadn't he? He led her by the hand to his office, and beyond every doorway
they passed was a V/DT Experience Designer pretending not to peek at them as
they walked by, having heard every word through the tricky acoustics of O'Malley
House.
"Fede," he said, stiffly, "This is Linda. Linda, this is Fede."
Fede stood and treated Linda to his big, suave grin. Fede might be short and he
might have paranoid delusions, but he was trim and well groomed, with the sort
of finicky moustache that looked like a rotting caterpillar if you didn't trim
it every morning. He liked to work out, and had a tight waist and a gut you
could bounce a quarter off of, and liked to wear tight shirts that showed off
his overall fitness, made him stand out among the spongy mouse-potatoes of the
corporate world. Art had never given it much thought, but now, standing with
Fede and Linda in his tiny office, breathing in Fede's Lilac Vegetal and Linda's
new-car-smell shampoo, he felt paunchy and sloppy.
"Ah," Fede said, taking her hand. "The one you hit with your car. It's a
pleasure. You seem to be recovering nicely, too."
Linda smiled and gave him a peck on the cheek, a few strands of her bobbed hair
sticking to his moustache like cobwebs as she pulled away.
"It was just a love tap," she said. "I'll be fine."
"Fede's from New York," Art said. "We colonials like to stick together around
the office. And Linda's from Los Angeles."
"Aren't there any, you know, British people in London?" Linda said, wrinkling
her nose.
"There's Tonaishah," Art said weakly.
"Who?" Fede said.
"The receptionist," Linda said. "Not a very nice person."
"With the eyes?" Fede said, wriggling his fingers around his temples to indicate
elaborate eye makeup.
"That's her," Linda said.
"Nasty piece of work," Fede said. "Never trusted her."
"*You're* not another UE person, are you?" Linda said, sizing Fede up and giving
Art a playful elbow in the ribs.
"Who, me? Nah. I'm a management consultant. I work in Chelsea mostly, but when I
come slumming in Piccadilly, I like to comandeer Art's office. He's not bad, for
a UE-geek."
"Not bad at all," Linda said, slipping an arm around Art's waist, wrapping her
fingers around the waistband of his trousers. "Did you need to grab your jacket,
honey?"
Art's jacket was hanging on the back of his office door, and to get at it, he
had to crush himself against Linda and maneuver the door shut. He felt her
breasts soft on his chest, felt her breath tickle his ear, and forgot all about
their argument in the corridor.
"All right," Art said, hooking his jacket over his shoulder with a finger,
feeling flushed and fluttery. "OK, let's go."
"Lovely to have met you, Fede," Linda said, taking his hand.
"And likewise," Fede said.
15.
Vigorous sex ensued.
16.
Art rolled out of bed at dark o'clock in the morning, awakened by circadians and
endorphins and bladder. He staggered to the toilet in the familiar gloom of his
shabby little rooms, did his business, marveled at the tenderness of his
privates, fumbled for the flush mechanism -- "British" and "Plumbing" being two
completely opposite notions -- and staggered back to bed. The screen of his
comm, nestled on the end table, washed the room in liquid-crystal light. He'd
tugged the sheets off of Linda when he got up, and there she was, chest rising
and falling softly, body rumpled and sprawled after their gymnastics. It had
been transcendent and messy, and the sheets were coarse with dried fluids.
He knelt on the bed and fussed with the covers some, trying for an equitable --
if not chivalrously so -- division of blankets. He bent forward to kiss at a
bite-mark he'd left on her shoulder.