All right?”
The other one yawned. “Sure,” he said. “We’ll do it tomorrow, first thing.”
“That ought to be enough to point him in the right direction.” He sounded a bit doubtful. “I mean, it’s so obvious, even a banana botherer ought to be able to see it.”
“You reckon?”
His colleague reckoned. “‘We’ll keep the situation under review,” he said. “See how he makes out. After all, he’s supposed to be the smartest human on the planet.”
The other one made a noise. There’s no human equivalent.
“Yes, fine, that’s not saying much, I know. But what do you want us to do, tattoo it on his forehead?”
“Let’s run some more,” his colleague suggested.
“OK.”
They ran. At one point they passed one of Dieter’s foresters, who’d been posted in a high seat halfway up a very tall tree to watch for unicorns. As soon as he saw the two shapes racing towards him, clearly visible in the bright moonlight, he raised his rifle. As luck would have it, he was a farm boy from the Ukraine too.
“Hey, there’s a human up a tree.”
“Ignore him.”
The forester was trembling like a leaf, but not so much that he couldn’t sight a rifle and squeeze the trigger. ‘Worth noting at this point that the supply clerk at Forestry Management had got a really good deal on surplus military ammunition from some guy he’d met in a bar. The bullet-heads in the magazine of the forester’s rifle were solid silver. Not that it mattered, because he missed.
8
Novosibirsk
“And that,” said the marketing director wretchedly, “is where the whole thing falls crashing to the ground, and why we can’t possibly launch on Tuesday. I’m sorry,” he added, close to tears, “but I just can’t see a way round this. Unless,” he added in a hoarse whisper, “you could maybe think of something?”
Lucy Pavlov blinked twice. The four men on the other side of the desk were watching her like gazelles watching a lion. She smiled at them. “Let me get this straight,” she said. “The product’s fine, OK?”
“Oh yes,” one of the men said. “Absolutely nothing wrong with the product. The product is the least of our problems.”
Lucy tried not to stare at him. She’d spent three months on the new XDB900 browser interface, during which time she’d had to rip out the very foundations of modern information technology and sow salt on them, reinvent the wheel as not so much a circle, more a sort of uniformly stretched ellipse, bend the fundamental principles of mathematics into a Mobius loop and, when she’d done all that, make sure the result would be compatible with all preceding systems as far back as the abacus. And the product was the least of their problems. Fine.
She tried again. “We’ve done deals with all the manufacturers, and we’ve got round all the anti-trust legislation?”
“Piece of cake,” said one of the men.
Lucy nodded. “We’ve run the most successful pre-launch hype campaign in the history of the industry,” she went on, “so successful that we’ve convinced six billion potential customers that they actually want a whole new operating system only eighteen months after they bought the last one—”
“Pretty straightforward,” muttered the man on the end.
“And now you’re telling me we can’t proceed and it’s all ground to a shuddering halt because you can’t make your minds up whether the cardboard box it’ll be packaged in should be red or green. Correct?”
The men nodded miserably. “We’re sorry,” one of them said. “We failed you.”
“But why—?”
“It’s hopeless,” one of them burst out. “We’ve run two entirely valid market-evaluation simulations in ScanCrunch Pro 4 using the best demographic-adjusted moderators, and one of them says it’s got to be red and the other one says it just has to be green.” He shook his head sadly. “We’ve been over and over the results looking for a blip and there isn’t one. The data just
The other one yawned. “Sure,” he said. “We’ll do it tomorrow, first thing.”
“That ought to be enough to point him in the right direction.” He sounded a bit doubtful. “I mean, it’s so obvious, even a banana botherer ought to be able to see it.”
“You reckon?”
His colleague reckoned. “‘We’ll keep the situation under review,” he said. “See how he makes out. After all, he’s supposed to be the smartest human on the planet.”
The other one made a noise. There’s no human equivalent.
“Yes, fine, that’s not saying much, I know. But what do you want us to do, tattoo it on his forehead?”
“Let’s run some more,” his colleague suggested.
“OK.”
They ran. At one point they passed one of Dieter’s foresters, who’d been posted in a high seat halfway up a very tall tree to watch for unicorns. As soon as he saw the two shapes racing towards him, clearly visible in the bright moonlight, he raised his rifle. As luck would have it, he was a farm boy from the Ukraine too.
“Hey, there’s a human up a tree.”
“Ignore him.”
The forester was trembling like a leaf, but not so much that he couldn’t sight a rifle and squeeze the trigger. ‘Worth noting at this point that the supply clerk at Forestry Management had got a really good deal on surplus military ammunition from some guy he’d met in a bar. The bullet-heads in the magazine of the forester’s rifle were solid silver. Not that it mattered, because he missed.
8
Novosibirsk
“And that,” said the marketing director wretchedly, “is where the whole thing falls crashing to the ground, and why we can’t possibly launch on Tuesday. I’m sorry,” he added, close to tears, “but I just can’t see a way round this. Unless,” he added in a hoarse whisper, “you could maybe think of something?”
Lucy Pavlov blinked twice. The four men on the other side of the desk were watching her like gazelles watching a lion. She smiled at them. “Let me get this straight,” she said. “The product’s fine, OK?”
“Oh yes,” one of the men said. “Absolutely nothing wrong with the product. The product is the least of our problems.”
Lucy tried not to stare at him. She’d spent three months on the new XDB900 browser interface, during which time she’d had to rip out the very foundations of modern information technology and sow salt on them, reinvent the wheel as not so much a circle, more a sort of uniformly stretched ellipse, bend the fundamental principles of mathematics into a Mobius loop and, when she’d done all that, make sure the result would be compatible with all preceding systems as far back as the abacus. And the product was the least of their problems. Fine.
She tried again. “We’ve done deals with all the manufacturers, and we’ve got round all the anti-trust legislation?”
“Piece of cake,” said one of the men.
Lucy nodded. “We’ve run the most successful pre-launch hype campaign in the history of the industry,” she went on, “so successful that we’ve convinced six billion potential customers that they actually want a whole new operating system only eighteen months after they bought the last one—”
“Pretty straightforward,” muttered the man on the end.
“And now you’re telling me we can’t proceed and it’s all ground to a shuddering halt because you can’t make your minds up whether the cardboard box it’ll be packaged in should be red or green. Correct?”
The men nodded miserably. “We’re sorry,” one of them said. “We failed you.”
“But why—?”
“It’s hopeless,” one of them burst out. “We’ve run two entirely valid market-evaluation simulations in ScanCrunch Pro 4 using the best demographic-adjusted moderators, and one of them says it’s got to be red and the other one says it just has to be green.” He shook his head sadly. “We’ve been over and over the results looking for a blip and there isn’t one. The data just
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