Level Zero Glimpses #6

Alice Burrows shuffles into the kitchen and prepares herself a freshly squeezed orange juice. It’s a Saturday morning in March, 2008, and, as per usual, John has relieved the domestic staff for the weekend. He’s always felt self-conscious about the fact that he has a maid and a cook on his own personal payroll, but after the death of his wife, and with his Fall Water commitments, John’s time became his most precious commodity. It’s a vast household to maintain and there is simply no way he could do it without assistance. Weekends, however, are a different matter. Carlito and Kathy have been working here for fifteen years, since Alice was three. In return for them having every weekend off to spend with their families, they offer John an unwavering loyalty. John enjoys knowing that the house belongs to him and Alice at the weekend, and it provides them with some essential quality time. She cooks on a Saturday, he cooks on a Sunday. Saturday tends to be movie night – Alice is currently going through a Brian De Palma phase, much to John’s delight – and Sunday will involve fishing in Fall Water Lake, walking or cycling around it, or video games in the late afternoon, or some combination of all of the above. A key advantage of John’s position is picking his own hours. He’s a natural workaholic and will often put away fifteen-hour days in the week. But the weekends? They belong to him and his daughter.

“Dad?” Alice wipes orange pith from her top lip and waits for a reply. Strange. He’s usually buzzing around the kitchen at this time, spilling coffee or burning toast. 

Alice goes for a walkabout, keen to find John and talk about nothing in particular. She wears bunny slippers, complete with oversized ears that she constantly trips over, pyjama shorts, and an enormous t-shirt depicting a panda riding a unicorn down the crest of a rainbow. Alice doesn’t usually go for this cutesy bullshit, but this t-shirt belonged to her mother. John kept it in storage for a decade after Sam’s death before gifting it to Alice. She has worn it every night for bed, without fail, ever since. Her mother's scent has long been erased following multiple washes, and the peeling print job makes Mr Panda look like he's been possessed by a creature from the nether realm, but this old rag provides Alice with a tangible connection to the mother she never met. She’ll be heading off to college later this year and, yes, you’re damn right she’ll be taking this t-shirt with her. Alice is in the final stages of exam revision, as indicated by notes scrawled in pen on her hands and wrists, and fingernails bitten down to the nub. Both are habits inherited from her father. Alice’s head pokes around the door of John’s office. 

“Dad? Are you in here?” When a response isn’t forthcoming, she takes a door out to the back patio and takes a few seconds to enjoy the crisp spring air. “I say, old bean! Make yourself known! Your daughter requests your presence for the purposes of incoherent morning chitchat!” She’s about to head back inside when she notices the door to the guest cabin in the garden is wide open. Alice knocks and enters to see John sprawled on the sofa with the laptop on his knees.

“Morning, sweet child o’ mine,” he says, without looking up.

“What’s the point in adding yet another extension to this place every year if you’re going to sneak away to the guest cabin every chance you get?”

“It’s peaceful here, don’t you think?”

“Sure. It’s peaceful in the main house, too.”

“Well, this guest cabin was your mother’s idea.” John points to a framed napkin on the wall. On it, a crude drawing of a big house. Next to that, an even cruder drawing of a smaller house. The ‘artwork’ is signed Samantha Burrows, 1990. The masterpiece was completed in a downtown bar after John and Sam had viewed this place back in the day. John was unsure about making such a giant financial commitment, but Sam instantly fell in love with the empty plot and had grand designs in mind. It was this silly drawing that convinced John to sign on the dotted line. “She never got to see the finished product. I guess this little place makes me feel close to her.” Alice goes over and kisses John on the head. She loves it when he talks about her mother.

“That’s sweet. Tell me you ate breakfast?”

“Umm …”

“Dad! Who’s the kid in this house?” Alice has a point. While John may be a celebrated tech genius known and respected the world over, at home he’s as disorganised and chaotic as they come. “When I go off to college, you must remember to feed and water yourself.” John nods in compliance. 

“Sure. Sorry. I couldn’t sleep. Had the beginnings of an idea I couldn’t shake. I wandered out here early. Must have gotten carried away.” 

Alice ruffles his hair with affection. This is who he is. She accepts and loves him for it. “Inspiration always hits at the most inopportune time.” 

“Tell me about it.” 

Alice grabs John’s empty World’s Greatest Dad mug from the coffee table. “Top up?” He nods yes. Alice enters the kitchen area and opens a cupboard to reveal a collection of World’s Greatest mugs. World’s Greatest Husband … Boss … Business Partner … Games Designer … Squash Player. Alice opts forWorld’s Greatest Man-Child and places a pod in the coffee machine. “Are we watching more De Palma tonight?”

“Damn straight. What’s next from the maestro?”

“Body Heat.”

“Er, nope.”

“What do you mean, nope?”

“Just no, Alice.”

“Dad?! What the hell?”

“Sexy stuff. I can’t in all good conscience watch Body Heat with my daughter. I’ll end up on a watch list.”

“It’s next in his filmography! This whole De Palma season was your idea! We can’t just skip it because there’s some skin on display!” John contemplates how best to handle this conundrum. Alice helps him out. “We’ll just analyse it for its cinematic merits and comment on the mise-en-scène. Deal?” She places the mug down in front of him. 

“You drive a hard bargain, Alice Burrows. Deal.” John takes a sip of coffee and returns his attention to the laptop screen. He stares at it, befuddled. Alice slides down at the opposite end of the couch.

“You look stumped. What are you working on?” This question from his daughter has a much more rousing effect on John than the coffee ever could. One of his biggest delights is the genuine passion Alice shows for his line of work. It was never forced upon her; one day, she started asking questions and never stopped. It helps, of course, that she carries the inquisitive, fiercely intellectual Burrows gene. 

“I’ve been digging into the work of this Ukrainian guy. He’s deep into research on the Hilbert system, generating theorems from axioms and inference rules.” Most people would stare blankly at John at this point and fear he was having a stroke. Alice Burrows is not most people.

“Hyperbolometrics?”

“That’s the one,” John confirms, burning with pride. “It’s an intriguing mathematical and geometric thesis with, I believe, a practical application. If I’m getting this right – and I honestly can’t see the wood from the trees at this point – numbers can be implemented to build classic figures and bodies.” 

Alice steals a sip of John’s coffee. “Sounds like Minkovsky space.” 

John raises his finger. Aha! “You see, that’s what’s curious. Results differ quite significantly from Minkovsky space. It’s quite self-sustainable.”

“Interesting,” Alice comments. “I appreciate the excitement. What are you hoping to achieve from this? Integrate into Underside? Cheap rendering?”

“Maybe,” John answers coyly. “I’m just toying with it at this stage.” Alice doesn’t buy it. John rarely ‘toys’ with anything unless he knows there will be some form of creative payoff. She rifles through reams of handwritten notes on the coffee table. A recurring number leaps out at her: 1.618. She chuckles. John looks sheepish.

“Dad. These notes resemble the ramblings of a lunatic. Are you going down a golden ratio rabbit hole again?” John, like many of his peers in the mathematics and design space, is obsessed by the golden ratio. One glance at the Penrose tiling of the kitchen floor only a few feet away confirms this. Alice has warned her father to steer clear of magic mushrooms when in that kitchen, lest he get so lost in the hypnotic, tessellating patterns that he would never be able to find his way back to reality. 

“Guilty as charged, kid,” John says affectionately, holding out his hands to be cuffed. An excitement washes over him, cementing the claim made by that World’s Greatest Man-Child mug. “It’s all around us. It’s undeniable. This number, this code, could hold the … the—”

“The secret of the universe? As claimed by da Vinci himself?!” Alice exclaims, wide eyes mocking affectionately. She grabs her dad’s glasses off his head, puts them on her own, and adopts a well-observed academic vocal style. “You know my opinion on this, Mr Burrows. We can talk ad infinitum about 1.618, and I can already see you formulating your case by referencing the Fibonacci sequence.” John smiles, more than happy with the fact that Alice knows him better than anyone else on earth, including himself. 

“If I’ve told you n times, I’ve told you n+1 times, young lady. Don’t diss Fibonacci. Not in this house.”

“Some of the world’s greatest scientific minds,” Alice continues, “claim that pi is at the heart of everything. But there can be no doubt that there is only one number that holds the secret to the entire universe.” Alice pushes the glasses up her nose in a perfect imitation of her father when he’s about to make a bold claim. “And that number is 42.”

“Ha! I knew it!” John screams, throwing his hands up in gracious defeat. “Beaten once again by the smartest Burrows on the planet.” At that moment, Alice’s phone vibrates. She checks the text and looks conflicted.

“What is it?” John asks.

“Oh, nothing important,” Alice replies conspiratorially. “Just one of your competitors trying to sniff out your latest folly.”

“Alice …”

“Or could it be foreign intelligence services, offering rich financial rewards for developments relating to national security?” 

John stares at her, deadpan. “Don’t even joke about that. Who is it?”

“OK, fine. Jessica’s parents are out of town tonight. She’s throwing a last-minute party.”

“Oh, very nice. So what’s the problem?”

“It’s De Palma season, Dad!” John can barely believe what he’s hearing.

“Wait. Let me get this straight. My eighteen-year-old daughter would rather stay at home with her golden ratio-fixated father than go and blow off some steam with her friends? Will Dustin be there?” Now it’s Alice’s turn to look sheepish. “What? What’s that look?”

“I finished with Dustin last week. He has no ambition, so I ended it.” John’s parenting alarm goes into overdrive. Should he commend Alice’s emotional maturity for dumping a guy who was going nowhere fast? Or should he gently point out that perhaps she has been too rash and should give the poor sap another chance? Thankfully, he isn’t given the chance to make a call. “But there will be another boy there who I … you know.”

“Oh yeah? And what’s this one’s name?” Alice is so mortified that she stands up, goes to the kitchen, and simply stands there. “What are you doing?” John asks.

“Promise you won’t laugh.”

“I won’t laugh. I promise.”

“His name is Justin.” Of course, John explodes in a fit of hysterics. “Dad! You promised!”

“Come on, Alice! I’m only human. You’re trading in a Dustin for a Justin! Lustin’ for Justin!” 

Alice buries her head in her hands. “For the love of all things holy, Dad. Please. Stop. Talking.” John stands and gives his daughter a hug. His shoulders shudder as he strives to stifle his laughter. 

“I’m sorry. You’re going to that party though.”

“Fine,” Alice mutters, her head buried in her father’s chest. “But I’ll be home by eleven.”

“Midnight.”

“Fine. Midnight. If you insist.”

“I insist. You’ve been studying too hard. Cut loose. De Palma will be here waiting for you tomorrow.”

“Can I take the Porsche?”

“Don’t push your luck. You can take the Range Rover.” Alice spots something on John’s laptop over his shoulder and goes in for a closer look. He joins her with an inquisitive look on his face. “What have you spotted?”

“Oh, nothing.” Alice goes to leave, approaching the door, before turning back with a playful grin. “You might want to double check lines 1525 and 1535 though. Might be the reason why someone’s code isn’t compiling as it should.” John stares at his daughter, awestruck. “C’mon, Burrows. You’re getting sloppy.” John glances at the jumble of numbers on the screen.

“Where exactly are you looking?” He glances back up, but Alice has already left. John thinks back to something he’s told Alice again and again over the years. Tease the solution, but don’t reveal it. Deep gratification flows through his veins. He’s taught her well. 

Cyberside: Level Zero. Cyberpunk Book

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