Read Online The Doomsday Equation by Matt Richtel - Free Book Online
Authors: Matt Richtel
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to mean?” Andrea laughs again. Then explains: “Usually your hostility comes thick with sarcasm and witty repartee. Maybe you really haven’t had your caffeine.”
“Hanging up now.”
“Easy, Atlas. I’m calling because you’re a week late.”
Jeremy swallows, still getting his bearings.
Every two weeks or so for the last eighteen months, Jeremy has called Andrea to ask one question: are you ready to admit I was right? It’s a question referring to his predictions—or, rather, the predictions of his conflict machine—about the length and intensity of conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. Ever since the military brass there dismissed him as a quack, he’s regularly hounded Andrea to own up to the fact that they somehow duped him. They promised at one point to send him overseas so he could do a real-time test, pitting his algorithm against reality on the ground in Iraq, but the trip never materialized. It was further evidence to Jeremy that they were afraid to allow him to see firsthand the breathtaking value of his technology.
“I was worried you’d lost faith in yourself,” Andrea says.
He looks down at the iPad, swerves his finger across the screen to awaken it, sees the map covered in red.
“So was I right?”
“That’s the Jeremy I know and have some grudging appreciation for.”
He doesn’t answer. On his iPad, he looks at the countdown clock: 59:15:32.
He swallows thickly, flicks away the map and pulls up a window from the background. It shows the calculations he was running overnight, the requests for whether the list of 327global parameters was accurately reported. The screen reads: “Action complete. Would you like to see the results?”
“No,” Andrea says.
“What?”
“No, you were not right.”
“You want a prediction I’m absolutely one hundred percent correct about?” Jeremy says into the phone.
“Sure.”
“I’m hanging up.”
He pulls the phone from his ear to end the call, hears: “Wait.”
Something in the intensity of the plea causes him to pull the phone back.
“I’m in town. Visiting another asset. Let’s get a drink.”
He rolls the logic around in his mouth, the change in data, the statistical significance of this call. And of the proposition. A drink, from the woman who seduced him into service.
He pictures Andrea, an unlikely cocktail: born in Mexico City of a local and an American doing executive kidnap recovery work for insurance companies, then raised in Idaho, forged with a kind of quiet and abiding patriotism. And undeniably beautiful, and quirky; encyclopedic about the nearest karaoke bar, blessed with a powerful soprano and no fear of showing it off. To inform his standard holier-than-thou worldview, Jeremy wanted to dismiss her as an affirmative action hire, some favor to her father—the kidnap specialist with CIA ties. But she just kept proving herself too smart for that.
After an introduction by Harry, she recruited Jeremy to the Pentagon, got him to let his guard down, put him and his computer in a position to be humiliated. The flash passes and he’sback to his head, wondering why in the world he’s hearing at this moment from a case officer in the Department of Defense.
“Andrea, do you know why they made me your asset?”
“Why?”
“Because they suspected I was a hack, a blowhard. You’re a junior case officer, an affirmative action hire, an effort to doll up an agency, a skirt they could send to low-level meetings on the Hill. They figured they could waste your time with me.”
“You’re an asshole.”
“Ta-ta.”
“But you are right.”
He doesn’t respond to her vague provocation. She clarifies. “You’re right about why they hired me. I’m good at dealing with assholes.”
“Ta-ta.”
“Does tonight work? It’s too small of a world to burn bridges. You never know when we might need each other.”
He grunts something noncommittal, which she takes as assent. “Not the usual spot. Let’s try somewhere
“Hanging up now.”
“Easy, Atlas. I’m calling because you’re a week late.”
Jeremy swallows, still getting his bearings.
Every two weeks or so for the last eighteen months, Jeremy has called Andrea to ask one question: are you ready to admit I was right? It’s a question referring to his predictions—or, rather, the predictions of his conflict machine—about the length and intensity of conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. Ever since the military brass there dismissed him as a quack, he’s regularly hounded Andrea to own up to the fact that they somehow duped him. They promised at one point to send him overseas so he could do a real-time test, pitting his algorithm against reality on the ground in Iraq, but the trip never materialized. It was further evidence to Jeremy that they were afraid to allow him to see firsthand the breathtaking value of his technology.
“I was worried you’d lost faith in yourself,” Andrea says.
He looks down at the iPad, swerves his finger across the screen to awaken it, sees the map covered in red.
“So was I right?”
“That’s the Jeremy I know and have some grudging appreciation for.”
He doesn’t answer. On his iPad, he looks at the countdown clock: 59:15:32.
He swallows thickly, flicks away the map and pulls up a window from the background. It shows the calculations he was running overnight, the requests for whether the list of 327global parameters was accurately reported. The screen reads: “Action complete. Would you like to see the results?”
“No,” Andrea says.
“What?”
“No, you were not right.”
“You want a prediction I’m absolutely one hundred percent correct about?” Jeremy says into the phone.
“Sure.”
“I’m hanging up.”
He pulls the phone from his ear to end the call, hears: “Wait.”
Something in the intensity of the plea causes him to pull the phone back.
“I’m in town. Visiting another asset. Let’s get a drink.”
He rolls the logic around in his mouth, the change in data, the statistical significance of this call. And of the proposition. A drink, from the woman who seduced him into service.
He pictures Andrea, an unlikely cocktail: born in Mexico City of a local and an American doing executive kidnap recovery work for insurance companies, then raised in Idaho, forged with a kind of quiet and abiding patriotism. And undeniably beautiful, and quirky; encyclopedic about the nearest karaoke bar, blessed with a powerful soprano and no fear of showing it off. To inform his standard holier-than-thou worldview, Jeremy wanted to dismiss her as an affirmative action hire, some favor to her father—the kidnap specialist with CIA ties. But she just kept proving herself too smart for that.
After an introduction by Harry, she recruited Jeremy to the Pentagon, got him to let his guard down, put him and his computer in a position to be humiliated. The flash passes and he’sback to his head, wondering why in the world he’s hearing at this moment from a case officer in the Department of Defense.
“Andrea, do you know why they made me your asset?”
“Why?”
“Because they suspected I was a hack, a blowhard. You’re a junior case officer, an affirmative action hire, an effort to doll up an agency, a skirt they could send to low-level meetings on the Hill. They figured they could waste your time with me.”
“You’re an asshole.”
“Ta-ta.”
“But you are right.”
He doesn’t respond to her vague provocation. She clarifies. “You’re right about why they hired me. I’m good at dealing with assholes.”
“Ta-ta.”
“Does tonight work? It’s too small of a world to burn bridges. You never know when we might need each other.”
He grunts something noncommittal, which she takes as assent. “Not the usual spot. Let’s try somewhere
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