Free We See a Different Frontier: A Postcolonial Speculative Fiction Anthology by Lavie Tidhar, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Sofia Samatar, Sandra McDonald, Ernest Hogan, Sunny Moraine
Hira n , ending with an ‘n’, not an ‘m’, if you please… Raitek.
Raitek grimaced.
“Ok. As long as you don’t forget to pronounce my name with a guttural ‘R’. It’s not a weak ‘R’. It’s more like a roar, if you please, Hiram.”
Both went silent the rest of the way. When they entered Patel’s office and he closed the door, Raitek turned to him and suddenly changed his tone. He went from that easygoing mode to utter seriousness and delivered the following speech, almost as if in a robotic mode:
“Do you want to know what I do, Hiran? Do you really want to know what I’m here for? I’m going to tell you.
“I compress stories.
“These are times of raw information. Information is not knowledge—at least not until it gets mixed with reference and experience. Then it becomes something else: it gets transmuted, translated into a legible, understandable message.
“Information is pure data being fed to you from every possible source at the same time. People like me act like human filters. In the past, some tried to call us names: Googlists, information curators, Gibsonians. I don’t call myself anything. I am what I am. In fact, I don’t do anything you don’t already do. When you open a book, do you read all its pages at once? No. You read them one by one. Whether on a linear basis or not, it doesn’t matter. When you watch a bustling, crowded street at rush hour, are you able to take in every single face in the sea of people who threatens to engulf you from all around? Of course not.
“I just happen to be able to do it a little bit better.
“I take the ancient concept of the memory palace and shrink it down to the size of a 1:72 scale model. A die-cast aircraft toy of a memory palace in my head. All I do then is move the goods in.
“The process is like unloading a removal van. But, instead of big, tidy boxes crammed with info, I picture amorphous masses, not hard stuff, but spongiform ones instead, bouncy buckyballs with tiny spikes all over their surfaces, like weird alternate-Earth Mongol-Raygun-Gothic antennas. I stuff the place with them, and their antennas start telescoping and touching each other. Kinky alien robot sex. I always thought it a bit too cyberpunk-chic-démodé, but it’s deeply imprinted in my culture. I’m comfortable with the imagery.
“The balls interconnect and form a rhizome. The information sexes up and creates a wave of mutilation. All the data is cut, cropped, pasted. Measured, compared, verified. After all this processing, I expand the memory palace… and the knowledge is there. Not so simple, but you don’t need to know every single step, do you?
“To keep it short: I’m the one you’re looking for. I am the one you need to collate all the data you've amassed, to make some sense of all your fucked-up experiences. I came here to salvage your invention, and to save your ass in the process. Is that clear or not, Hiran?”
Patel was impressed with the apparent intelligence of the man, but not with the vulgar display of power. He knew it came with the suit, even if the Brazilian bureaucrat decided to change clothes later.
“It is clear, Raitek.”
The easy smile came back to the Brazilian man’s face as quickly as it had vanished.
“Good. Good, man. We’ll work this out. You will see.”
Patel nodded. But he was not amused.
----
The next day began on a lighter note. As promised, Raitek wasn’t wearing a suit: to match the hot weather of Ghana, he wore a light blue polo shirt, khaki pants, and flip-flops. Patel noticed the man’s feet were well-manicured.
“ Salve, moçada! Tudo beleza? ” he said to everyone in a loud, happy voice. “Let’s get to work, shall we?”
As if we haven’t already been working our asses off for months, thought a disgruntled Patel, still combing his hair. He missed his flat. He missed his freedom. He was becoming more and more uncomfortable with the increasingly military vibe of this whole lockin. He didn’t
Raitek grimaced.
“Ok. As long as you don’t forget to pronounce my name with a guttural ‘R’. It’s not a weak ‘R’. It’s more like a roar, if you please, Hiram.”
Both went silent the rest of the way. When they entered Patel’s office and he closed the door, Raitek turned to him and suddenly changed his tone. He went from that easygoing mode to utter seriousness and delivered the following speech, almost as if in a robotic mode:
“Do you want to know what I do, Hiran? Do you really want to know what I’m here for? I’m going to tell you.
“I compress stories.
“These are times of raw information. Information is not knowledge—at least not until it gets mixed with reference and experience. Then it becomes something else: it gets transmuted, translated into a legible, understandable message.
“Information is pure data being fed to you from every possible source at the same time. People like me act like human filters. In the past, some tried to call us names: Googlists, information curators, Gibsonians. I don’t call myself anything. I am what I am. In fact, I don’t do anything you don’t already do. When you open a book, do you read all its pages at once? No. You read them one by one. Whether on a linear basis or not, it doesn’t matter. When you watch a bustling, crowded street at rush hour, are you able to take in every single face in the sea of people who threatens to engulf you from all around? Of course not.
“I just happen to be able to do it a little bit better.
“I take the ancient concept of the memory palace and shrink it down to the size of a 1:72 scale model. A die-cast aircraft toy of a memory palace in my head. All I do then is move the goods in.
“The process is like unloading a removal van. But, instead of big, tidy boxes crammed with info, I picture amorphous masses, not hard stuff, but spongiform ones instead, bouncy buckyballs with tiny spikes all over their surfaces, like weird alternate-Earth Mongol-Raygun-Gothic antennas. I stuff the place with them, and their antennas start telescoping and touching each other. Kinky alien robot sex. I always thought it a bit too cyberpunk-chic-démodé, but it’s deeply imprinted in my culture. I’m comfortable with the imagery.
“The balls interconnect and form a rhizome. The information sexes up and creates a wave of mutilation. All the data is cut, cropped, pasted. Measured, compared, verified. After all this processing, I expand the memory palace… and the knowledge is there. Not so simple, but you don’t need to know every single step, do you?
“To keep it short: I’m the one you’re looking for. I am the one you need to collate all the data you've amassed, to make some sense of all your fucked-up experiences. I came here to salvage your invention, and to save your ass in the process. Is that clear or not, Hiran?”
Patel was impressed with the apparent intelligence of the man, but not with the vulgar display of power. He knew it came with the suit, even if the Brazilian bureaucrat decided to change clothes later.
“It is clear, Raitek.”
The easy smile came back to the Brazilian man’s face as quickly as it had vanished.
“Good. Good, man. We’ll work this out. You will see.”
Patel nodded. But he was not amused.
----
The next day began on a lighter note. As promised, Raitek wasn’t wearing a suit: to match the hot weather of Ghana, he wore a light blue polo shirt, khaki pants, and flip-flops. Patel noticed the man’s feet were well-manicured.
“ Salve, moçada! Tudo beleza? ” he said to everyone in a loud, happy voice. “Let’s get to work, shall we?”
As if we haven’t already been working our asses off for months, thought a disgruntled Patel, still combing his hair. He missed his flat. He missed his freedom. He was becoming more and more uncomfortable with the increasingly military vibe of this whole lockin. He didn’t
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