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“Okay,” said Nadia. “But what if we eliminated those barriers to access?”
The CEO squinted. “In what way?”
“If every person had a VERA, and if those VERAs had access to each other, the potential human connectivity could increase utility exponentially.” Nadia speared another pyrohy in her excitement. “There would be privacy settings and opt-outs and everything necessary for people’s safety, but think about it. If your VERA knew what my VERA knew, they could have connected us much earlier.” Nadia was waving her pyrohy fork around like a conductor’s baton. “You could have helped me without even knowing me.”
“So…” Margaret’s fork was frozen halfway over her plate. Nadia watched the holubets fall back to the plate. Margaret was so deep in thought she didn’t even notice. “It’s like the self-repairing software. VERA could search its own networks for solutions to user problems.”
“Yes!” Nadia said. Her own pyrohy was still zipping through the air over the table. Nadia was a big gesticulator; she couldn’t help it. “A babysitter with a free afternoon on her schedule could instantly be connected with a parent looking for last-minute child care. Someone who needs repair work done, scheduled. A student struggling with a subject instantly meets a tutor. There are exploits we’d have to anticipate, but we could work on it!” Nadia finally waved her fork so forcefully her pyrohy landed in the lap of the older lady one table over. “Sorry!” Nadia said with another wave of her fork, not embarrassed in the least. She was being passionate! The lady had a salfétka* on her lap; she was fine.
The flying pyrohy seemed to shake Margaret out of her reverie. She flagged the waitress over to pay their bill while talking through the potential flaws in Nadia’s plan. Nadia had a response for all of them; these were still early plans and not meant to be put in motion tomorrow, after all. All software had bugs and security measures and privacy concerns. She could solve it. With time, she could solve them all.
Nadia and Margaret left the restaurant, full of food and inspiration. Just the way Nadia liked it.
“Do you have time, still?” Nadia asked Margaret, as they wandered out into the East Village.
“Yeah, why?” Margaret nudged her. “Want to check another thing off your mom’s list?”
Nadia felt an unfamiliar pang when Margaret referred to Maria as her “mom.” She’d only ever thought of Janet as her substitute mother; Maria was a sort of a faraway concept that vaguely held the shape of “mother,” but didn’t really fit the mold. Like, if you’d never heard the word “awry” said out loud before, you had an idea of what the word should sound like, but when you actually heard someone say it in English* it actually sounded completely different than the way you thought it should.
She supposed Maria was her “mom,” technically. But holding the concepts of Maria and
mom in her head at the same time felt slippery. Like she was trying to make a gas stay inside a wire-frame cage. It was impossible; gas fills the volume of the space it is in. You can’t make it conform to any one shape without the proper boundaries in place.
Nadia had no boundaries when it came to Maria. No proper shape. Just a wire frame, bent together with lists and ideas and hopes and concerns. Every time she finished another list item, there was more wire, but Nadia chose where to place it and in what shape. It conformed to Nadia’s imagination. It wasn’t attached to anything real.
She shook her head in response to Margaret’s question. “No, not another list thing. There’s actually someone I want you to meet.” Nadia dodged out of a hurrying pedestrian’s way; she narrowly avoided colliding with a familiar street-meat stand. “Actually, I think my driving instructor lives around here.”
“You want me to meet your driving instructor?” Margaret frowned.
“No!” Nadia shook her head emphatically. “Absolutely not. She is too scary for you.”
“You’d be surprised.” Margaret winked at Nadia, following her down into the Eighth Street subway station. “Oh hey, nice shoes!”
Nadia smiled a little sheepishly. They were white tennis shoes, just like the ones she’d seen Margaret and all her friends wearing. She’d ordered a pair online after working on her plans with VERA that night for hours. They made Nadia feel like a real tech CEO. Which, she supposed, technically, she was! Plus, they worked with her favorite crop-top-plus-high-waist-bottom combos. Versatile. Janet laughed at Silicon Valley types (like Margaret) who thought that clothing was a frivolous concern, but Nadia had to admit that she saw the time-saving value in wearing the same thing every single day.
She would probably need more than one pair of white tennis shoes in that case, though.
Nadia and Margaret hopped on the W train, still chatting about Nadia’s plan. Margaret was definitely intrigued, though Nadia could tell it was in her nature to question everything at length before getting excited about it. Tai was like that, too. Tai would absolutely hate to learn that she had anything at all in common with Margaret. The thought amused Nadia.
“This way!” Nadia grabbed Margaret’s hand and pulled her up the stairs at the Times Square station, battling tourists with their maps and their cargo shorts for every step. Technically cargo shorts were a wise fashion decision (they could store so much! So many pockets!) but viscerally Nadia could not not hate them. It was in her fashion-designer blood.
“I don’t really come to Times Square—” Margaret started, cut off by another tourist brandishing a camera.
“No one does,” Nadia agreed. “It’s just over here!”
Nadia pushed through the doors of a small tchotchke shop and suddenly she and Margaret were inside, away from the din of the crowds and the light of the jumbotrons. It was just Nadia, Margaret, many Manhattan magnets, and—
“Priya!” Nadia waved to her friend behind the counter. Nadia hated fighting with her friends, and she was hoping that she might be able to patch things up with Priya today. She was sure that if Priya met Margaret, she would understand what Nadia had been doing lately, and maybe even want to spend more time in the labs. “Margaret, this is Priya, G.I.R.L.’s chief botanist. She’s a genius and also incredibly cool and pretty.”
“Nadia!” Priya sounded surprised, and not necessarily good surprised. “Are you okay? What are you doing here?”
Nadia’s brows knit together slightly. Everyone kept asking if she was okay. It was getting to be a bit much. “Do I need a reason to come see my friend?” she tried. “Regardless, I have one. This is Margaret.” Nadia brandished her newest friend like the cutest tchotchke in the shop. “CEO of HoffTech. She’s helping with Like Minds!”
“Hi.” Margaret waved, a little awkwardly.
“Cool; hey,” Priya said, but her heart wasn’t in it. She was clearly distracted by something. The fight?
Nadia saw Priya subtly shift something under the counter. She wasn’t certain, but it looked vaguely plantlike.
