Everything but the Squeal

“Even if you can do it, what good is it?” Jessica said loftily. “Who wants a phone book arranged by the length of the name? You know, Morris, that's one of the things that's wrong with you. There's enough junk to learn without making up new stuff.” She sat down on the edge of the bed, pushing aside something that was probably vital to some computer in the room, and looked around her with the disinterested air of a deaf person who'd been dragged to a concert.

Morris swallowed the rebuke in silence, but then he reached down and twisted a knob that plunged the offending screen into darkness. He chewed on his lip as the silence lengthened.

“My, my,” I said heartily, looking at a large pair of apparently extraterrestrial landscapes on the wall, an oddly colorless mountain and a shoreline, jumbles of rocks and natural forms, as lifeless as the moon. “Where are these?”

Morris wasn't buying peacemaking from anyone he was jealous of. “To the extent that they're anywhere,” he said tartly, “they're in Benoit Mandelbrot's frontal lobe.”

“Old Bennie,” I said. “I knew they looked familiar.”

“They're fractal landscapes,” Morris continued, ignoring me, “computer-generated mathematical pictures that approximate the natural world. Only less sloppy.”

“I like the world ‘sloppy,’ ” Jessica said. “I don't want some egghead turning it into a bunch of numbers. What good is it?”

“It helps us to understand the world,” Morris said doggedly, looking everywhere but at her.

“Ah, we've gotten to fractals,” Elise Gurstein said, com- ing into the room with a glass of red wine in one hand and a Coke in the other.

“I don't know why everybody has to understand everything,” Jessica said defiantly. “Why can't we just leave things alone? Can't I like a blue sky without someone like you explaining to me that it's because the air scatters the light waves? When I go body-surfing, do you think I need some schnook in goggles swimming along next to me telling me about the movement of liquids?”

“But you don't understand anything,” Morris insisted, holding his ground. His color had heightened, making his eyes even paler. “Don't you want to know how things work?”

“See you,” Elise Gurstein said, leaving the room. “I've heard all this.”

“I can start a car,” Jessica said silkily, turning her hazel eyes on Morris. “I can go shopping. I can read a map and use a calculator and turn on a television set. I can find something in a library if I need to. What else do I need to know?”

Morris gave an exaggerated Gilbert-and-Sullivan shrug, as though he were rolling the weight of the entire globe from one shoulder to another. “Nothing,” he said with a finality that would have been impressive in anything but a soprano. “Just nothing. You're doing great.”

“There are already people who know all the stuff you're talking about. That's their job. Haven't you heard, Morris? It's called specialization.”

“You want to know what's wrong with the world?” Morris said to me. “Attitudes like that.”

“Oh, talk to each other,” Jessica snarled. “You're both so much smarter than me.” She lay back on the bed, rolled over, and faced the wall.

“Than I,” Morris said, looking longingly at her back.

“Find the appropriate orifice, Morris,” Jessica said, plumping one of Morris’ wrinkled pillows and curling herself around the computer.

“Listen,” I said, “this could go on all night.” I waved the disks in the air. “The floppies.”

“I'm not sure Morris is interested in the floppies,” Jessica said to the wall.

“Of course I'm interested,” Morris said, shamefaced.

“Then do something, Morris,” Jessica said in a voice that was pure saccharine. “Show us what a genius you are. Who knows, maybe you'll inspire me to learn something myself.”

Morris wedged his hands back into his pockets and then realized that I was holding the disks out. He pulled out one hand with some difficulty and took them from me. “What are they?” he said.

“Some kind of code. It looks like algorithms or something. Lots of numbers and calculus signs. Some stuff that looks like Greek.”

“Hmmm,” Morris said, slipping one disk into the drive of the nearest computer. He sat down on a stool and peered at the screen. “You don't know what language they're in?”

“The beginning is English,” I said.

He was tapping the keys. “What computer language, I mean.”

“Well,” I said, feeling dumb again, “no.”

“There are only so many,” he said. He banged at the keys faster than Horowitz doing scales and looked at the result on the screen. It was the same junk I'd seen.

“Who knows?” he said to himself. Seated at the keyboard, he was back in his element. He yanked out the first one and slid in the next. “What are these numbers on the labels?” he asked.

“I don't know. I just copied the numbers on the originals.”

He looked up at me. “These aren't the originals?”

“I told you, I stole them,” I said. “If I'd taken the originals, they'd have missed them.”

I heard Jessica draw in her breath behind me. “Simeon,” she said, “you mean, they're-”

“It doesn't matter where they came from,” I said quickly. “Morris doesn't need to know where I got them to figure out what they are.”

Morris gave me a glance that was full of curiosity. “That depends,” he said. “Are they from some kind of scientific facility?”

“No.”

“Math? Computer specialists?”

“Nothing like that.”

“Well,” he said, looking back to the screen, “they're specialized somehow. Are they all like this?”

“I don't know if they're identical. All I know is that they all come up in English when you boot them, and then they turn into gibberish. Also, they seem to have lots of space on them when you do a directory, but after you type a few words into the English part they come up with a disk full message.”

“Very interesting,” Morris said. “Very, very interesting. Some kind of hidden files, then. Or else somebody's just balled them up.”

“I don't think so,” I said. “I think whoever created them knew exactly what he was doing.”

“Or she,” Jessica said. She was sitting up on the bed now, staring at the screen as Morris tried some more wizardry.

“Let's assume you're right,” he said, tapping away. “Let's assume that somebody has hidden information on these things. What do you think it is?”

“Illegal,” Jessica said.

“No, I mean, what kind of application? Is it language, or math, or what?”

“I think it's some kind of data base,” I said.

“Well,” Morris said, looking at me as though I were a performing monkey who wasn't performing very well, “why didn't you say so?” He moved crablike across the room on the stool, which, I saw, had wheels, and pulled open a drawer in one of the filing cabinets. “Data bases,” he said, gesturing at the drawer.

It was absolutely jammed with bootlegged software, stacks of photocopied manuals wedged in every which way, sandwiched between disks. He grabbed a handful of disks and wheeled back to the computer. “This could take a while,” he said.

I sat down on the bed, next to Jessica. For forty-five minutes or so, Morris tried one program after another, humming happily to himself. It was like watching submarine races. I had absolutely no idea what was happening. Jessica dozed off, emitting zippery little snores.

“This is pretty neat,” Morris said at last.

Jessica started and opened her eyes. “What is it?” I asked.

“That's what's neat,” Morris said. “I haven't got the faintest idea.” Jessica made a small groaning sound. “It's pretty cute, though, whatever it is,” Morris said, his eyes glued to the screen.

I looked at my watch. It was almost nine, and I had somewhere to go. “Can I leave them with you?” I asked.