Fall; or, Dodge in Hell - Neal Stephenson Page 0,104

existence.”

They all had a laugh.

“Tell us about this other plane, it sounds fascinating!” said Anne-Solenne, totally buying into the joke.

“The problem is, I can’t seem to remember it very well.”

“Aww!”

“Oh, don’t pout! It’s not my fault. This plane is made of different stuff, organized in a different way, and so none of my memories transfer over directly.”

“Like when you have to convert code from Python to C++,” Julian suggested, getting into the spirit of it.

“You would know better than I, Julian,” Enoch said, “but the upshot is that the best I can really manage is to try to help sort things out as best I can on this plane. Oh, I’ll have a grande flat white, whole milk please—I like to live dangerously.” Then he looked down at his hands, which were mummified in ice packs. “And a straw.”

Having determined that he wasn’t a total weirdo—or at least the wrong sort of total weirdo—they said yes to the idea of giving him a ride, on the general principle that this was meant to be a freewheeling coast-to-coast adventure, and as such it seemed like incorrect form to say no to this reasonably amiable chap who had, only a few hours ago, been nail-gunned to a glulam cross. So they piled into the car—which was now a bit crowded—and laid in a course for Moab. Which ought to have been as simple as laying in a course for any other place. But a little warning did come up on Sophia’s UI, letting her know that the existence of Moab was in question. Opinions differed as to whether it had been burned off the surface of the world by a nuclear blast twelve years ago.

This peeved Sophia to no end, and so once she had slapped the warning out of the air and confirmed the destination, she took the unusual step of making a voice connection to her editor, Janine. Janine worked out of Orcas Island in Puget Sound and was a junior assistant to Lisa, who was the editor of Sophia’s mother, Zula. That was for a reason. If you had a good relationship with an editor, you wanted to stick with them your whole life, and Lisa was of an age that she would probably retire while Sophia was in her thirties. Janine, on the other hand, was only a couple of years older than Sophia. “How was Nebraska?” was how she opened the conversation.

“Super weird. But I was just calling to report an anomaly.”

“I’m all ears!” Janine said. “Let me rewind your feed so I have it before me . . .”

“Okay, let me know when you—”

“Oh, whoa!”

“See it?”

“Yeah! Holy crap, how did that get in there?”

“My theory is . . .”

“Because of where you’ve been the last couple of days, the people you’ve shown interest in . . .”

“The Leviticans . . . maybe even some of the Forthrasts, who knows . . .”

“. . . some algo got the wrong idea about you.”

“It’s easy to forget,” Sophia remarked, “that there are millions of people who really don’t believe that Moab still exists. But when you’re here, you see the REMEMBER MOAB stickers all over the place.”

“It’s pervasive—super sticky—somehow it sneaked into your feed. Crazy!” Janine said, in a somewhat distracted tone suggesting that, while she held up her end of the conversation, she was swimming through clouds of visualized data.

“I just thought that it was so funny,” Sophia said, “given that—”

“You know Corvallis and Maeve personally, they are family!”

“Exactly.”

“Well, this is super-useful feedback!” Janine said. “And I am so glad you took the trouble to bring it to my notice.”

“I knew you’d feel that way,” Sophia said.

“I’ll do some diagnostics and let you know if I see any more of this kind of material trying to creep into your feed.”

“Great!”

“And I took the liberty of shutting off Family Reunion Mode.”

“Oh, thanks. I totally forgot.”

“I figured those crucifixion geeks didn’t need to know everything about you.”

“Good point. Well played. Thanks again.”

“Have a great drive to Moab! Thunderstorms ahead—will alert you!”

“Thanks!”

“Bye!”

“Bye.”

“What were you doing among those people?” Phil demanded to know when enough time had passed that he felt he could address Enoch in his usual blunt, familiar style.

Enoch, hands bundled in ice packs to hold down the swelling, was seated in the middle of the backseat for the simple reason that he could not operate the car’s door handles or seat belts and so required help from flankers.

“You’re a missionary?” Phil demanded. He was in the driver’s seat