I don’t in fact see Becks the next day. By the time I subdue the evil progeny of alcohol and dehydration that annexed my skull overnight, a feat that requires my entire remaining supply of expired Advil, and then drag my contrite self over the Brooklyn Bridge and into Veracity, she’s left for her afternoon observation.
I slouch at my desk and slog my way through an essay advocating for universal basic income by a blogger known as the Socialist Wonk, who I have determined is my new target, Chris Reichert. Another project that Squirrel has been spending time on, in lieu of developing a clone filter, is a program that can pick out unique markers in a person’s writing style and then search the Internet for instances of that style. This allows us to find out what else our targets may have been posting online beyond the accounts and handles we’re aware of. So far, it seems what this program excels at is identifying plagiarism in everything that people write, from matching profiles to Tripadvisor reviews—which is why we’re calling it To Catch a Plagiarist, or TCAP—but now and then it turns up something more interesting. Like Chris Reichert’s blog, discontinued four years ago now. I’ve been going through the entries, which expound on topics like immigration (vital) to climate change (real) to tax rates (way too low), and any one of them would have gotten him excommunicated from both the Heritage Foundation, where he is a fellow, and Meet Conservative, the boutique where he matched with our client. At first I thought TCAP made a mistake, but I was able to match enough references in the blog to facts I knew about Reichert—the rescue dog he adopted, a surgery he had (cue indignant piece on health care reform), mentions of an upbringing in suburban Maryland—to feel relatively confident that it’s the same person. What could have happened to him in the last four years to flip his entire suite of political, social, and economic views inside out like an attempt to reuse one’s final pair of underwear? Or is he faking it now, and if so, why?
My phone, lying next to my keyboard, lights up, and I grab at it with an urgency that would be unseemly were there anyone around to notice. Becks hasn’t contacted me at all today, which is unprecedented—she’s typically haranguing me on at least two separate communication channels about all the things I haven’t done or she’s certain I’ll forget to do. Is it because of last night?—of course it’s because of last night. What does it mean?—what do I want it to mean? My insides feel like a two-in-one soft-serve swirl of hope and foreboding.
The message is a notification from Venmo—I have an incoming payment from Becks R. Comment: Symposium ticket.
The soft-serve melts into something gloopy and indefinable. I reject the payment and turn my phone facedown.
The remainder of the day is even more unproductive than what preceded it; my big accomplishment is saving a new Word document as Chris Reichert’s as-yet-unpopulated diligence report. I check my phone again right before I leave. Nothing further from Becks, which, whatever. But in my hapjackflappiness account is an email from amsuarezrivera@gmail.com, with the subject line Any second thoughts on e-bikes yet?
I read it while taking the stairs down to the first floor. Amalia’s note is as friendly as it’s brief. She hopes I’ve been going on fun bike rides and asks if I’d be up for accompanying her to her friend’s show in Williamsburg, opening at the start of next month. I tap the link at the bottom of her email and skim the show description: a reimagining of Emma Woodhouse as 3M-M@, a know-it-all romantic compatibility algorithm in android form that’s purchased by a Mars colony to match up its inhabitants.
I step out of the building, still perusing my phone, and get beeped at by a delivery e-bike guy who, firstly, shouldn’t be swerving around at such speed on the sidewalk, and, secondly, shouldn’t be on said sidewalk at all. I almost hit Reply right then to share those thoughts on e-bikes with Amalia, but that would just be compounding the mistake I made of giving her my email address.
I slide my phone into my pocket and cross the street, looking both ways in the event of more errant e-bikes. Going to that play with her—a whole other magnitude of mistake. Obviously.