Who are the kids?

It is the fall after my first summer with the feds.

"It won't move,"

"Go for the 50's"

A year and a half ago they said we this was going to be the next big thing. I'm told they hired Ph D's and respected field experts and moved them out here to build this.

"Is there still space for the 50's?"

"Better be..."

A year ago a senator said no. He said the project had to be moved to his state or it wasn't going to happen at all, that the funding would be all cut. They laid off all those respected experts and moved the project south, where they milked the prototype funds for all they were worth. The proposal they returned to congress was thousands of times above budget and got laughed out, but it served the purpose they gave it. It was a bridge between that center's projects, and it kept their very finest scientists fed until the center could bring them a new project to sink their teeth into.

"You were right, lotsa torque in the 50's."

"I'm getting pretty tired, I may nap under my desk for a bit."

A year ago, when they all left Crash said no. He squirreled away all the funds he could find and started picking up labor as cheaply as he could. He continued the program, but kept it a secret. That included the internship program I was going to be in.

There is probably 500 feet of cat5 under my desk, and I barely shove it out of the way to crawl in the sleeping bag and try to catch an hour and a half nap. If we don't take one a day we get less productive.

Five months ago I realized I was assigned to two different labs at once for my upcoming internship. Rather than ask for clarification I opted to wait until I arrived and got to see both. This way I could figure out which one was cooler and could angle for it.

Four months ago Crash was standing in the hallway trying to convince me his was the better lab. He promised me this project would change everything, and I agreed. He took me, Tie-Dye, and Gemini out in the hallway and explained our situation. I was the assistant to the assistant to somebody important. Many people quit, including the important person. The Canadian was added to the staff, but he wasn't quite ever meant as a direct replacement. My boss quit after 3 months for more theoretical pursuits, and then it was just the Canadian, Gemini and me.

One month ago we got delayed because legal hadn't worked out who would get sued if we died during the demo. I wish I was kidding you. I called my school and told them that I wasn't coming back to campus, but that it would look great for the school if they let me call this my senior project. I had to call a few different professors before I found one who wasn't upset about the fact that I was only entering my junior year.

A week ago the team agreed. We would take the last night off to be will-rested, calm, and collected for the director. Three days ago we found out the networking equipment wasn't compatible. This morning the man in the suit wanted to try to cancel for rain. Four hours ago we found out the 20's didn't pull enough to power the drive system. The rest of the night blurs, although I remember realizing this was the third 100+ hour week in a row, that I didn't want to see another fast food container for a year, and that there were marks on my arms from falling asleep in piles of communications cabling.

At 5:08 AM the robot drove for the first time. Talk about cutting it close.

It is 9:50AM. The director is arriving in 40 minutes, plus or minus 20. I brush my hair and wash my face in a bathroom sink, and try somewhat in vain to brush my teeth. With my hoodie zipped up the whole way you can not see my ratty tie-dye tank top, and my cargo pants are long enough to mostly hide my knock-off Birkenstock sandals. Funny, this is not how I envisioned looking when meeting one of the most powerful people I'll ever encounter. I throw Gemini my hairbrush and he tries in vain to make his hair lie down.

It's 10:05. The man in the suit is a little horrified at our appearance. He is slightly pacified by the fact that Crash changed into his suit in his truck. There isn't time for Gemini and me to go home and change anyway.

It's 10:30. Guess there was time, but we missed it.

At 10:40 the director arrives. My first thought was how human he seemed. All we knew was his history: a general who was told the military politically couldn't do this science, so he left the military to run this place instead. We were instructed to still call him general anyway. I liked him because he swore a lot and laughed while he did it.

Somebody ran over a cable with a truck and I'm on the radio shouting instructions while Crash stalls. We pull it back online and I stand next to the television. Gemini sits on the other end of the telecon in the red dirt, looking a mildly disheveled but entirely unfazed. He use to be so relaxed about everything. Crash is rattling off specs, but the director looks bored and is watching the two of us.

"Huh," the he asks, "Who are the kids?"

"The," Crash stutters, "...boy is a fresh college graduate, and the girl is a junior in college. They are our interns."

"Huh." There is a pause. "Keep 'em."

And this is probably what made my career.

Consumer Trust

Street cleaner bristles, a dremel, and piles upon piles of locks and picks. A small group of adults, mostly in their 20's, huddle around it tinkering. Every once in a while a latch clicks open and somebody is patted on the back.

"This," Dany says, showing us an unusual keyway, "is an older style lock. It just has a lever in the back and you just press the whole way to the back and rotate to open it, no tumblers at all. The rest of the stuff in there blocks the wrong keys, and is the sort of lock you build skeleton keys for."

A key for one of them, a dremel, and 10 minutes later and I'm holding a key with only two sets of bumps on the bottom. It opens all the locks of that style on the table.

Some of the newbies stand in mild disbelief. That's the most common reaction I get when holding this class: that this is only the sort of thing which happens in movies, or by extremely skilled people. The concept that I can teach a room full of people all the skills they would need to break into a hefty percentage homes in under two hours always comes as a bit of a shock.

"What's the easiest brand to pick?" Some of them fumble with their phones during the class to find a locksmith to call to upgrade their doors.

"Masterlock padlocks are normally the first thing you practice on. Next are kwikset and schlege...but a lot of it is personal preference"

"But those things are everywhere."

It is true. I have seen them on yard fences, electric equipment, government storage spaces, countless yard totes, virtually everywhere. People routinely trust in these products to secure their belongings, and yet most of the consumer-used security products blatantly do not offer much resistance to even a modestly trained individual.


"I am disappointed," he said, "I had always thought personal security was one of those markets which would sort itself out, with snake oil being readily exposed."

The taller girl from juggling class looks down over the edge of her glasses, "You do realize they're really just out to sell you peace of mind right?"

"But this is a really easy-to-test product and the free market right? Inferior products will lose out to superior ones via competition..."

"Like in what industries? What industries are governed by this law that the superior product can run an inferior one out of business? Can you name a time it has happened?"

We sat and thought for probably half an hour, and we couldn't think of any.

Related Posts:

• Security Theater in Airports
• People watching bad things happen and not doing anything

Amish

Bill looks a little out of place at the Umbrella Corporation. He has a tattoo of a woman on one arm and a sword on the other. He has more, but I never get a full view of the pictures since they disappear into his sleeves.

Bill in a previous life worked in a humanities field with a complicated name which meant he studied cultures of people. In his case this meant he spent some time living with the Amish in the absolute middle of nowhere.

They had one phone. It was used in the most dire of emergencies, such as once to call a medical helicopter to get a sick child to the hospital so they could do robotic surgery on him. When asked if they had an issue with that, they told Bill he was totally nuts. "It is a kid's life," they said, "Why would we make somebody die for our cultural preferences?"

Amish people probably vary, but Bill's crowd seemed on the whole pretty reasonable about most things. One once accepted a ride in Bill's car when stranded, "It isn't about following the letter of the law," he said, "it is about deciding to live simply and focus on what is really important."

"I locked my keys in my car once," Bill laughed. "They were such dicks about it.

'Oh hey Bill! How's that fantastic new technology improving your life?'

There was quite a crowd and I'm just standing there. We didn't have cell phones then so I had to pop the lock.

'Hey,' they're calling to each other, 'Do you remember that time I locked my keys in my buggy? No? Maybe because it doesn't happen!'"

Meet Pacem

"You want to come over later?" I ask Carne, "we're throwing a party."

"What's the occassion?"

"It's some kid's birthday..."

"Do I know this guy?"

"No, technically I don't either. He's one of the new kids in the program. Actually, I'm not even sure its his birthday. I just want a really good excuse to throw a party."

There's a pause. I can't see her face over the phone but I know exactly what expression she's making.

"So, you coming?"

Hilariously enough, she met her current boyfriend at that party.

***

"So," I ask the blond kid who just walked in the door, "you normally go by Xenu?"

He stares at me, "what? Oh! My facebook! Yeah, I like messing around with that..."

I start cracking up and hand him a drink, "Well, happy birthday stranger."

"Birthday?" he's laughing too now, "oh yeah! Today IS my birthday on facebook isn't it?" He grins and poses with the cake with his name on it for a photograph.

"You know," he says, "according to facebook, I have a birthday about every two weeks...and there are a whole slew of my 'friends' who haven't caught on yet."

"Whatever, I like having parties."

***

"Ya-pach-um"

It was his first phrase, or more, that's how I can best type it an Anglesized version of it. I can gesture vaguely verbally at the myriad of hidden consonants in the actual polish baby-talked version, but I'll never be able to type it.

I'm observing.

His grandfather had found him sitting in the family's garage and asked him what he was doing. I find it a fitting summary of Pacem in general.

I'm observing.

Most people when they want to understand another person "walk a mile in their shoes," or imagine themselves as being in the other person's situation. Pacem instead has the sort of mind which permits him to observe himself from the same third person perspective he sees other people, and to understand them that way. This has many side effects, one of which is his ability to look at himself and have a good laugh from time to time, which is one of my favourite things about him.

I'm observing.

***

"Dona nobis pacem..."

I distinctly remember preforming this piece in fourth grade. The harmony and simplicity mezmorized me, and still does to this day.

Let us have peace.

I remember singing at the very top of my lungs. The world is complicated, and the things which you know are beautiful are true are worth really clinging to.

***

He looked worn out, tired, and depressed. His boss was an asshole and his team's aptitude left much to be desired. Furthermore, two of the team members no more qualified than him had escaped the worst of it, and had a lot of goodies and attention from his boss's boss which would surely let them escape the looming fallout this work team would suffer. One of them wasn't being particularly nice to him either.

He locked himself in his room for hours with his laptop and didn't speak to much of anybody. I would come in to tell him when dinner was ready, but realistically there wasn't a whole lot I could do.

"Ya-pach-um," I grinned and waved to him from the doorway. When all else failed, I guess act like an idiot.

"Ya-pach-um," I repeated, falling into a game of word sounds, "Ya-pach-um, pach-um, pacem, dona nobis pacem."

"What?"

"Peace, you could use some probably."

"Huh?"

"Dinner's ready."

***

"Red four on the five."

"Oh man I didn't see that one."

Nerds do some fairly impressive things when deprived of internet, but the words "communal solitaire" still crack me up. I think it was one of the best things that happened to the house, because with nothing better to do we all got to really know and care for each other. Pacem and I remained close considering the distance my senior year, and we even found time to visit him on the road trip with Ginger and Giraffe. When I found we were both returning for a second year I was overjoyed.

***

"Quesadillas and bud lite," he looks down at himself, "I feel like white trash."

Pacem is wearing a wife beater and athletic shorts since the rest of his clothes are currently in the drier. The two of us are on our knees loading up gallons of milk and orange juice into the upper shelves of the refrigerator.

"I figure," he says as he hoists the 30 rack into the new space we have created, "Its all about the finer things in life anyway."

I'm on the couch later when Pacem wanders back with a box labled Xerox. It once to contained printer paper but now it carries his clean laundry. He sits down on a couch to begin folding it.

"You want...us to pick up a real laundry basket for you?"

He shrugs, "this works."

He pulls out a hilighter colored shirt with the bright pink AMP logo. Its the most horrendously beautiful shirt I have ever seen in my life, and I always make fun of him for it.

"Directing traffic soon?"

"Fuck, give me direct sunlight and I'll blind you!"

***

We've been fighting a lot recently for no real good reason. Well, I know mine. I have a terrible pressing need to escape and keep finding him in my room when I want to be alone. I guess that's one of those things roommates have been known to do. Pacem probably has his own reasons, but I wish he wouldn't vent them by helping in the efforts to circumvent me that have cropped up.

"We're heading up to the casinos that last weekend," he says.

I glare at him. We have four houses to shut down and clean and a ton of furniture to move and now he's skipping out with how many people?

"We'll clean up a ton on Sunday and Monday to make up for it. We don't really need a whole weekend to clean. I promise, we'll make up the time."

I shrug. There isn't a whole lot of point to arguing with somebody whose mind is made up that firmly. Pacem knew damn well how much work this was going to be: he, the guy I was dating at the time, and I had spent a whole weekend last time cleaning up only one house, and that one had been subjected to a lot less wear.

***

They came home Sunday sunburnt and tired. They slept a few hours and then drank until one threw up on the carpet we had finished cleaning. The next day was Monday. They sat on the couch, still hung over, and announced they were going to the beach. I was carrying a load of food and supplies from Delta to Alpha when Pacem came up to me to say goodbye since they were getting on the plane right from the beach. He wanted a hug. His eyes were dead.

"You're going?"

"Yeah."

"You said you'd help..."

"Well the car's leaving now."

"We'll see you again soon Pika," Tiffany interjected.

"Yeah, whatever," I respond.

"Aww," she continues, "don't be sad, we probably will..."

The truth was that right then I never wanted to see any of them again in my life. Turning back to Pacem I hugged him so I wouldn't be that asshole who leaves somebody with outstretched arms hanging, "You promised," I said.

"Promised what?"

I'm pretty proud of not flat-out decking him right there. It was just the last straw after a whole summer of passive aggressive bullshit from somebody who I had relied on to back me up and help me out.

I walked back into the house and Joker's friend followed me. "Who were those guys?"

"People who lived here."

"Aren't they going to help us out?"

"Apparently not."

"That blond kid, you knew him well?"

I shrugged. What am I suppose to say other than 'I thought I did.'

"He seemed like a real asshole."

"Yeah I guess he is."

***

I left this post for months because I didn't want this story to end like this. Pacem was one of my closest friends in AMP. It wasn't that I was even mad at him, it was that I was disappointed that this was who he turned out to be.

We talked briefly only about business a few times over the next while in the course of wrapping up the house stuff. It was not until six months later when I had had yet another stupid boy-related adventure that I was upset about that we wound up striking up a serious conversation.

"I've been..." he pauses, "working through some stuff. I'm really sorry that I took it out on you."

I use to hear stories like this from my friends and tell them they're crazy to forgive people like this, but I guess if all people were held to those standards I'd be shit out of luck myself.

"I'm sorry too."