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Good Old Boys


“But— how does it know what to do?” 


I’ve seen this face a million times, by now. Distraught, confused. There’s an ache in there, and suddenly every tidbit in history class about one era becoming another has a bit more weight to it. This particular face is pale, doughy; almost a cartoonishly exaggerated caricature of old wealth. 


He’s looking at the Box— staring, really— like it’s just marched in on its own, found a spot to be planted, and declared to him that it’s here for everything, even his trophy wife hidden somewhere in a far-too-big house in the hills. Sympathetic as I can be at times, right now is not one of them. I have to actually try hard to not crack a cynical smile. It *is* a little funny. Men who celebrated their whole lives over essentially imaginary numbers, whole ecosystems of potentiality and calculated risks, thrown into a world where the tiniest unseen particles can decide the fates of more currency than has ever been generated in human history. Like daydreamers suddenly beaten over the head with their wayward thoughts. 


“It’s a quantum-groove algorithm”, I say, dipping back into the Marketing Voice. I dream in that voice now, I’m pretty sure, even use it during sex. It’s just automatic. Now matter how hard I’ve tried to scrub it away. 


“It watches the market with predictive programs that use electron waves..” He’s lost. I can see it in dower, glossy eyes. Looking back into days where this place would’ve been crowded with traders, big and quarrelsome voices echoing over frantic chained numbers. Hands clapping on suited backs. The place is empty as a tomb now, except for the delivery bots wheeling in more Boxes. Large, slick onyx monoliths where one side is a singular glassy panel covered by colorful patterns. They look like out of place experimental art beneath a classical revival ceiling and on the burgundy carpet. 


I continue on down my recitation like a good parishioner. He signs the paperwork, still resigned to a far away place. When I leave him, he’s still there. Looking at the Box.

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