Am I in the mood to be embarrassed by Brian, Meg wondered as she made the turn on to Ventura Boulevard.
She had tried not to think much about yesterday's long strange trip to the Other Building -- and the shorter, stranger trip into some alternate internet. Maybe she would try to explain it to Brian, a former co-worker. She was on her way to meet him for dinner at Casa Vega.
No, wait a second, Meg brought herself up short, I know I'm going to tell him about it. Why else would I have called him after not talking to him for weeks? He's an internet geek and one of the only people I know very well who is odder than I am.
It was one particular manifestation of Brian's oddness that had Meg wondering if she was up for embarrassment. He always carried a little audio player device with him that played one tune over its speaker: the Darth Vader theme from Star Wars. Thinking it was funny -- actually it was -- Brian flipped on the dirge when he entered any room, no matter how public or inappropriate. He thought of it as his entrance music, his own personal "Hail to the Chief." Good grief.
Brian was anything but menacing, a wiry, spectacled, late-twenties programmer whose grooming and dress lived up to all the stereotypes.
That's what makes his Vader gag funny, Meg considered as she pulled in to the parking lot.
I'd trade his physique for mine right now, she thought, checking her look in the rear view mirror before going into the restaurant. She didn't look a tenth as bad as she thought: Meg was a little taller than average height, with wavy reddish brown shoulder-length hair, and a decidedly female shape. Her problem with herself was the shape. Ten years ago she seemed to be all angles, with wide but fine-boned shoulders and narrow hips. These days she was more rounded, all over, and she didn't like the effect.
Entering the restaurant, she spotted her friend in a booth. Oh good, she thought, he's already here, no entrance. Meg giggled as she made her way across the floor, knowing that his musical entrance had been made earlier for everyone else in the room. She giggled again as she waved to him, wondering if the restaurant patrons would be expecting her, as an acquaintance of Darth, to come in with her own theme music.
There was Brian -- ratty backpack at his side, his nose three inches from his little Nokia tablet. He was pouting.
"Hey buddy," Meg said, swinging her bag on to the seat and sliding into the half-circle booth.
"Meg," he grunted, not looking up.
"Have you ordered?"
"Huh?" he answered, still concentrating on his display. "No."
Meg leaned over to see what was competing for his attention, and saw a photo of an orange sofa, with reversed-out type spelling "Scripting News."
"I'd have thought you would read Dave Winer's feed instead of going to the web page," Meg wondered.
She and Brian, who made their livings by keeping up with the internet, both read the blog every day, but Brian was an addict.
Brian sighed and switched off the device. He looked heavenward, looked at Meg, and sighed again.
"What," Meg said.
"He's going to stop blogging. He's already slowing down," Brian explained. Winer, a celebrity programmer, had announced earlier in the year that he would cease publication of his blog by the end of the year, and the end was just a few weeks away.
"Oh, right," Meg said. "That's going to be tough on you, isn't it?"
"Yeah…" he said in such a dreamy, hangdog way that Meg had to laugh.
"Look, maybe it will be healthier for you to shake this," Meg proposed. "I mean. You watch every TV show he mentions."
"No!" Brian countered. "Only the ones he says he loves."
She pressed on. "You bought the same HD rig he has with all the same accessories and connectors, which you couldn't afford!"
"I got a gig on deck, I'll handle it. He makes you want things."
Meg frowned. That was all true. "Admit that it's not good for you. You probably wanted to buy firewood the other day when he was looking for some. Even though you don't have a fireplace."
"No." Brian said. "Well… I might have wanted a fireplace. Look, Meg. It'll be intervention time when I buy the firewood and make a campfire in the middle of my living room. Anyway, it'll all be over soon. Except it sounds like he'll still have websites that aren't blogs." His face brightened a little at this thought, then fell into a pout again. "But it probably won't be something you can check all throughout the day. Not like a blog."
Poor thing. He really was feeling a loss. She gave his arm a soft little punch in sympathy.
-----
Meg was on her third chicken taco before she felt able to broach the topic of the Other Building and the response from the internet. She was reluctant for all kinds of reasons: it was crazy as hell; she wasn't sure how to tell it; and worst, she was beginning to even wonder if it really even happened.
Once she started the telling, it all came tumbling out fast – the visit to the other laundry room, the Google query and its results, and her panicked reaction to it all. Brian did not betray whether or not he believed it was real, but he knew Meg. She obviously thought it happened, so he took it seriously, interrupting as a help desk rep would interrupt, with questions about the Google session. He kept a poker face, except for the eyebrows, which made an occasional reach for the ceiling. Brian was oblivious to the waitress, who kept checking back to see if they wanted anything else.
Meg gestured to the lobby, where people were waiting. "They need the table," she said. "Let's get coffee somewhere else."
Having gathered their things and paid the tab, including a fat tip, Meg and her friend edged through the crowd, brushing past Gary Collins. Meg had seen the TV host and actor around the valley before, and she mentioned it to Brian once they emerged from the building.
"Seems like every one of the three or four times I've run into him, it's always been at Tower Video or some place right on Ventura. Maybe he isn't allowed on any other street!"
"This isn't part of your mystical shit, is it?" Brian asked.
"No!" Meg said. "Unrelated. Just a comment. Can't I just make a comment now and be silly about it? I'm sure and I hope that Gary Collins will not be showing up to answer questions I pose to Google. I hardly even know who he is or like him, and I probably would have guessed he was dead. I knew I shouldn't have told you about my mystery. And it's not mystical. I don't think. Not necessarily." But she was glad she had told him about it.
They decided to go to her place so Brian could look at the Google search results URL that Meg had saved before she got impetuous and neglected to grab the screen capture.
(Now would be a great time to warn you against expecting any romance between Meg and Brian. He may be gay, we're not quite sure -- and anyway it would spoil their chemistry.)
-------
At home in her apartment, Meg heard the faint notes of the Star Wars Empire Theme seeping in from the hallway. Brian.
The minute Meg let him into her apartment (he'd followed her over in his own car), they both started talking at once, having stored up some questions and ideas during the 10-minute drive.
"I wonder if --"
"Have you tri--"
"You first," Meg said. "Do you really want coffee? I think I do."
He followed her to the kitchen.
"Oh, I was just asking if you'd tried the query again," Brian said.
"No, I've been afraid."
"Afraid? Of what?"
Meg couldn't really say. "I don't know. Afraid I'll use it up?" She poured water into the coffeemaker and pulled out two mugs.
Brian looked down and shook his head – that techie gesture that means "you poor dumb shit." Meg ignored it. She and Brian had worked together for six years and treated each other like family.
"You're afraid you'll use up the… whatever it is… the magic or whatever?" Brian asked with a slightly scornful but friendly and amused smile. "Like Aladdin?"
Meg laughed. It did sound pretty stupid when he put it that way.
"Well, let's look at the search string and try a real search and compare them," Brian proposed, "then we'll shoot the moon and risk trying the query again. Did you save the text you input?"
"I think so."
Meg had an extra bedroom that she might have used as an office, but she preferred to have her desk and computer set up in the living room. She pulled up an extra chair for Brian, seated herself at the desk, and went to look for the two text files – the search results URL and the text she had pasted into the search box.
She found one. "OK, here's the URL."
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=The+building+ was+identical+to+my+building%2C+but+the+little+differences+ seemed+so+very+different.+The+smells+really+turned+me+ off%2C+because+they+were+unfamiliar%2C+but+more+than+ that%2C+they+were+unfamiliar+because+they+were+produced+ by+people+who+were+not+%22my+people.%22+I+know+that%27s+ crazy.+And+the+wear+and+tear+was+not+put+there+my+my+ people+either%2C+even+though+I+hardly+know+the+people+in+my +own+building.+&op=answers.opml&btnG=Search
"Paste it into Google," Brian ordered.
"No, trade me seats," Meg said. "I don't want to screw it up again." They switched.
Brian hesitated. "Now I'm nervous. Is the coffee ready?"
"Yeah, hang on. Cream and sugar?"
"You got some Baileys?"
"No, I like Baileys but I don't keep stuff like that around anymore," Meg answered.
Brian grabbed the backpack that was never out of his reach and rummaged in it. "Not a problem, got some right here," he said, and whipped out a little plastic one-serving package of the whiskey and cream liqueur.
"What a boy scout you are," Meg chided him, always amazed at his stash of useful stuff. She brought him a mug and dumped in the liqueur.
Armed with his drink, Brian stretched his fingers in the air like a cartoon pianist and pasted in the string.
They looked at the screen. Brian looked at Meg, who shook her head. It was normal search results page.
"Let me try the text," Brian suggested.
"It's right there on the desktop," said Meg. "Text file named 'otherBuilding.'"
"Got it. Hang on to your butt," he said.
Meg wrinkled her brow.
"Jurassic Park," he answered.
"Right. Samuel L. Jackson," she remembered. "Go."
Brian flipped Meg's rambling text into Google's search query field with a deft CTRL-V, then tacked his initials -- BTR -- to the end of the string, and hit enter.
The pair looked at the monitor, looked at each other, and back at the monitor. The Windows hourglass showed that Google was still working on the problem.
"It's taking too long," Brian noted.
"Happened that way before, too," Meg said.
"Did you follow up on the results from the other time?" Brian asked?
"I haven't tried to reach my old playmate," Meg answered, not really wanting to talk while they were waiting for the new results, and keeping an eye on the screen. "But I did spend a little time searching Calacanis's blog and Blake's collected works, and I cou--"
The results started to draw on the screen.
"Those borders? They were there before?" Brian asked.
Meg nodded. She wanted to see the words. Only two results this time. They leaned in to read:
I don't know, Bryan. As you know I spend some 20 pages in my book, How Buildings Learn, on maintenance, but I concentrated mostly on the long-term effects of weather, chiefly water. I should learn more about what people do to interiors to cause buildings to change and differ from one another.
Thanks for planting the ideas,
Stewart Brand
Brian absorbed the message, eyes widening with every sentence. He read it quickly again, then bolted from the desk chair to have a seat in Meg's big overstuffed armchair.
Meg took his place in front of the monitor and read the second entry:
Ms. Harkin, would you be available to meet with me about the unusual search results that have been returned by your question? It interests me, and I would like to attempt to replicate what you have been doing. Please reply by OPML.
Charles Eppes
Charles Eppes… Meg thought the name sounded familiar but could not quite place it.
And "reply by OPML," what the heck is that about, she wondered, remembering that she had found the identity of "J" in an OPML file, a type of XML format file. Meg looked to Brian for an answer. He had not been able to sit for more than a minute before he was up and pacing.
She wiggled her finger in a come-here gesture, and Brian crossed the living room floor to read from the monitor over her shoulder. He started to smile.
"Who's Charles Eppes?" Meg asked him.
"Maybe you know him better as 'Charlie,'" Brian responded.
"Charlie... Charlie, the genius math professor on Numb3rs?" Meg said incredulously. "But he's not even real."
Brian shrugged. "Let's take a walk and I'll tell you about Stewart Brand."
"I feel a little ansty, too."
Brian picked up his backpack on his way to the door.
"Do you always have to bring that along?" Meg asked, pointing to the pack.
Brian hoisted his backpack, Meg grabbed her purse, and they headed to the building's elevator bank.
"You want to show me the other building?" Brian asked.
"Ah. No, I don't think I want to go there again just yet," Meg said. "Let's just walk and talk."
"Asher's teacher-slash-mentor used to say that in Chaim Potok's sequel to The Chosen. Walk and talk," Brian said.
"I read all those. All the novels, not the nonfiction. Potok died a couple years ago, didn't he?" Meg asked.
"Maybe not in your world," said Brian wryly.
"Yeah. So what do you think is going on?" Meg asked. "Should we forget about it and just hope it all goes away one morning when we wake
up? Scares me. Anyway, it's not just my world anymore. Looks like you're in it now too."
Brian looked a third excited, a third glum, a third freaked out as they rode the elevator down to the lobby of Meg's building.
The elevator doors opened and they pushed through the big lobby doors to the sidewalk. Meg pointed to the left, toward Ventura. "Let's walk toward Ralph's. I need a can of coffee." Brian nodded and followed.
"So… Stewart Brand?" Meg prompted. "He's the one who wrote The Media Lab at MIT, right?"
"Right," Brian confirmed. "I hadn't paid much attention to him lately either, but the other day Jon Udell mentioned on his blog that The Long Now Foundation's seminar podcasts were a good listen if you felt like thinking, so I checked them out.
"Brand's talk was about how cities learn, extending his work for his book How Buildings Learn. I was way into it -- the podcast -- except he kept referring to slides, and that was frustrating, since I was listening in the car and couldn't even check it see if the PowerPoint was available."
"The point?" Meg urged. (It was their way with each other to indulge in rudeness to advance a discussion.)
"Right. So I ordered the book," Brian said as he rummaged in his pack. "And I just got it today." He pulled out a landscape format paperback with two photos of buildings on the cover.
"Yikes," Meg said.
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Filed Under:Submitted by amyloo on Mon, 11/20/2006 - 05:50.
