Book of Numbers: A Novel (60 page)

We did not need to meet British staff to discuss removing the UK Only option from the hpage. We did not need to meet with French staff to discuss the .fr launch of Autotet. Perhaps a small part of us, the small part whose metastized cancer will be our death, perhaps, wanted a last reminder of our successes. Mostly though, the mostly functional portion, we wanted to escape Palo Alto. We could not have spoken in Palo Alto. We could not have been so

Sincerely yours,

Very Truly Yours,

as like our lawyers are always writing.

Dictated but not read.

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We had hoped to have this time alone with you. No Kor. Two days in Berlin, two days in Moscow-Skolkovo, two days in Seoul-Teheran-ro. With Dubai and Paris and London, enough. If you ever find yourself at a loss for recalling how we left it, remember. This is how we left it. We had not even told the local offices about our trip until the night we departed for London, meaning that Kor would have been told by the morning we arrived in Paris. We had not expected him to free himself immediately. He had meetings arranged, with lobbyists, consultancy chiefs. Myung had made sure to schedule by his schedule.

No wonder no antitrust motions have ever tractioned, parenthetically. We used to drive ourselves conspiranoiac over Tetration being cut up by the Feds, never suspecting we would be the one cut up instead, in a substitute sacrifice. Death is the only monopoly. Nothing can compete, parenthetically.

The purpose of our visit to Dubai was to scout a location for yet another DCent, but this was never the purpose. We did not have to be present to scout, but that we were present made Kor cur. But what is more fucked than the fact that no court will ever find him guilty of having violated the Fourth Amendment, and/or the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, what is more fucked than even his violation of plentitudinous international conventions, is how blatantly his new mode of pursuit transgresses a basic commandment. He bought the same jet we bought. No asking permission, no asking forgiveness. He did not even use his own money. Thou shalt not covet the jet of thy boss. Commandment 10.5.

Our intention in visiting Berlin was to inaugurate a freshly completed DCent, but again, not. Regardless of whether we would snip a projected ribbon with a pair of digiscissors, the DCent would function, the champagne and flecky charcuterie atop square pumpernickel hors d’oeuvres would still be served. Moscow, we had not figgered that yet. We would have gotten Cossack furs and danced outside the Kremlin with Tetbooks on our heads. Seoul. We would have found a garden with lotus ponds and a comfortable pavilion.

Out in the desert everyone suddenly has more to conceal or has to work harder to conceal it. Nothing, no one, has more clearance than the desert. Kor had just landed and we were both crisis panicking. He called the suite at the Burj and we ignored his calls, and then he knocked himself but Jesus or Feel told him we were snorkeling, or scubaing. Myung told him we were in DCent sessh with the Dubai clan, and that was true, partially. Lavra and Gaston were honestly paddleboarding. You were out on the beach. Disgusting to imagine Kor all slouched out roasted pink and stinking of sunscreen carcinogens.

The sheikh himself came back with an estimate. He would sell us 2 km
²
or 200 desert hectares assessed cheaply at $10 million USD, and provide construction according to our specs at $200/m
²
for up to 180000 m
²
, an entire DCent for $46 million, a bargain.

Exclusive electricity and water contracts would go to the official Emirati provider, the Dubai Electricity and Water Authority, administered by the prince whose friendship you enjoyed.

That was two nights ago now.

While you defended Israel we were calling the other Emirates, which had never even been on the map.

We called the princes of Sharjah and Fujairah, both Mohammeds, both cousins of your Dubai friend. We sought to deal, individually, offered to pay the Dubai assessment to each, explained that Sharjah and Fujairah synergized better with our goals. Dubai was so 2000. In the 2020s the minor Emirates would flower.

They would become as like Switzerlands, we said, but for the future
money, which is information. They would become datahavens with new laws, or no laws, they would overcharge the Saudis for fiber.

If our DCent experience was satisfactory, we might even consider opening a local Tetplex. Employee shuttlebuses shimmering by a wadi.

Yesterday. We pilled, went down to visit Kor in his suite and dismissed a nude twink fauxgrammer who had apparently taken up residence. Sand was pooled on the carpet. Kor was in flipflops and towel. In towels. He had burned himself.

But it was us who was acting wild. We launched into our new fascination with servers, talked geography, talked topography, dune and diaspore preservation, lizard dwindling, photovoltaics comptrasted with thermals, grid parity, Filipino labor working 6/12 and if or how to negotiate fair shifts and a living wage.

To be convincing we had buried ourselves in the deets and become as like a god who knows it all. But then a god would know how to create a replacement pancreas, how to make the islets and acini and insulin and glucagon and all that raging hormone and chymey digestive enzyme. The pancreas, being endocrine and exocrine, is the server of the body. Just now, just now that came to mind.

At this point Kor got dressed.

We told him about the Mohammeds. Sons of their Emirs, promotable sheikhlings on the Economic and Industrial Development committees of the Council, deputy generals of the armed forces, of the UAE. They were willing to match the Dubai price. Pay attention and they might even go lower.

Sharjah and Fujairah were the Emirates to bet on, we said. In every crash Dubai had evinced a withering. It was all prefab infrastructure afloat on silica, grainy towers slipping through the fingers, whole entire reinvestment zones and innovation districts just salty Gulf bubbles rolled up on the shore, the roads between them paved with oil borrowed from the Emirates that pumped. Sharjah and Fujairah pumped. Dubai had no oil, just reserves. Sharjah and Fujairah would survive no matter what.

All the billionaires we have ever met stand clasping their hands behind their back. Only Kor holds his hands that way while sitting.

He was basically disgusted.

“Stop micromanaging,” he said. “Stop all this cockmonkey nano pico femto attomanaging.” He asked us what reduction came after atto. Then he asked us to have a seat.

“So you flew all the way the fuck out here just to save dough with a petty Emirate? What the fuck is going on with you?”

We answered with the further reductions, “Zepto, yocto, nothing.”

“You sound the way you look,” he said. “Shit.”

Then he broke out a bag of sourdough white, tipped a jar of mild salsa, pooling the gunk atop each slice, mozzarella, parmesan, prosciutt. Mexican pizzas, mezzas, two, and two minibar colas.

We should have abstained, should not have abstained, unsure as like which would have maintained the normal. We delivered the mezza to our mouth and chewed.

Kor asked, “This is Negam territory, no?” Referring to Monica Negam, who directs our DCents in Africa.

We swallowed and said, “You,” not basically, verbatim.

Kor asked, “You ping Susan Rim?” Referring to Seo Woo-Rim, who directs our DCents in Asia.

We said, “This is us delegating. You.”

“What?”

“You are going to go to Sharjah and Fujairah on our behalf.”

“Why?”

“Because the Emiratis expect the works with extra cheese.”

“You are telling me? With how you screwed us already, just by making this trip alone? It was enough of an effort to massage the fauxgrammers. To keep your autobiographer or whoever minding his manners.”

We had a sip of cola and laid our trump. We said we were only trying to do something nice for him, “Korele, stop making this something we regret.”

We told him that one of the Council negotiators had turned out to be a comrade vintage military freak who quartermastered the army depot in Ajman, collected vehicles and crafts, historical armaments. At our suggestion he was sending a helicopter. A mint condition Mil-24, a Soviet combat rattletrap, a cramping buggy Hind. Kor would be traveling to Sharjah and Fujairah in style.

But not just that, Kor would be permitted to fly the thing, and beyond
that he would even be allowed, but this was not our suggestion, to fire a rocket or two along the way. Into the desert. At a dune. Oryx, ibex, gazelle, whatever leaps.

You will go suss both deals and return same day, we said to Kor, basically.

We would stay behind, not to spook Dubai. This Sharjah and Fujairah trip would be pleasure, justifiable.

Just after Kor went coptering off we put all nonessential personnel on our jet and flew them Stateside.

Then we took his for Abu Dhabi.

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Josh, Balk not. We will give you our passport. Tomorrow you will go to Abu Dhabi International and buy a ticket on one airline with our passport for anywhere, Aeroflot has significant discounts to Moscow, then buy another ticket on another airline with your passport for anywhere, Korean Air to Seoul always gets tetpraisals of four stars. But remember, two different tickets to two different destinations on two different airlines leaving from two different terminals under two different passports. Pay everything in cash. You will have to backtrack and take out cash. Next. Check into one with one passport, go through security, go through immigration, go for the veggie kabob, no booze, then go back out and take the shuttle to the other terminal, check into the other with the other passport, security, immigration, another veggie kabob, no booze, then back out and take a taxi to Al Bateen Executive Airport, executive terminal 2, arranging to arrive by 10:00. We have hired a plane. Not a Gulfstream as like none were available but be assured it will be serviceable and staffed with a competent twoperson crew. They will fly you to Berlin. Upon landing, customs or whatever might assume you are us but in the event they request a passport, they will certainly not scan it. Jets make an impression, even if they are not Gulfstreams. Backtracking. Destroy our passport between the airports. Correction. Shred inflight and flush. Keep your own for a souvenir or an escape plan. Immaterial. In Berlin you will be met. And though you will not know this someone, they will know you. Someone with a car we presume. They will reimburse your tickets and expenses and drive you to a house apportioned to your use by an anonymous donor to Balk whose identity even we do not have. Neither do we have the addy. Not city or state. Do not interrupt us. Or country. You will stay until you finish our book.

Backtracking. You will have to transcribe our recordings yourself. Use no online or offline computational transcription service or product, and never employ assistants, secretaries, humans. Backtracking. Avoid your Tetmail account, never check it again from this or any other computer. Backtracking. Same goes for all other accounts, including Tetset. Backtracking. Do not transfer the recording or manuscript files to any other computer or take any other computer online. Backtracking. Give us your Tetbook. Help us off with our belt. It has the prong. To strap the strap. Shaking, there. Steady, there. We have just disabled your modem. You cannot take this Tetbook online. Upon completion, destroy it. Backtracking. Upon completion, print one copy and only one copy of the manuscript on a new and/or old printer that has never been and/or cannot be taken online. Load the printer driver by hard software and couple to the printer by wire. Transfer one copy of the recordings to either our agent or publisher not by stick but with a crossover wire with two male ends. Deliver a paper manuscript.

You will note that if you have not delivered a manuscript by 24:00 EDT, 04/01/2012, our contract autonullifies and you are forbidden from publishing in any media or way any work you might have completed. In that event Balk himself will contact you to take receipt of the recordings, an unedited transcript of which b-Leaks will post online. Regardless, the recordings must be retained, either by our agent and/or publisher or b-Leaks, and made available to press or court as like testimony, in a manner that mitigates their dissemination/reproduction. Once authenticity has been established we request they be destroyed. We are ashamed of our voice and would not wish its immortality on anyone. Upon what we are confident will be the print publication of a finished book, $14 million assetized to our shell Firstborn Equity, B.M., held in escrow by Bank Hapoalim, Tel Aviv, will be disbursed to b-Leaks accounts. This understanding will prevent b-Leaks from pursuing the matter independently, and will further incentivize its support of your work. Upon publication, the remainder of our estate will be entrusted jointly to M-Unit and Aunt Nance, all instructions pertaining to which along with
suggestions for almsgiving have been arranged with Mendel Gutshteyn, Esq., 5290 Geary Boulevard, the Richmond.

We are going to find Ohlone. We will be taking Tetjet Two with Jesus and Feel, who will return to the States without us. We will be alone. We will be lost. Kor will have not even uncovered our routes by the time you are settled and we, all crossed. The crossing we seek does not countenance the passport. Moe never hanged himself with a belt from Montreal. But if he did it was only to return as like another.

We make this declaration while in full possession of our mental faculties for in . We have had visions, bells.

Online has expanded since first we spanned it. There is a Vishnu Fernandes who sets up pennyante eTailer sites for as like tool and die and silk wholesalers in Goa, just some bad oneclick carting better subcontracted to robots. There is another just an entry on the rolls maintained by the Department of Social Welfare, Goa. A Vishnu Fernandes who appears to be a teacher at one institution, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, and a student at another, Kohinoor College of Tourism Management. Yet another in some orphanage in Uttar Pradesh, Varanasi, adoptable. We go. Moe claimed life open and we claimed life closed but neither is feasible because there are cows in the road. You can go and then smack. There is a cow. In the river of the road. You have to wait. You wait to cross.