“Accumulation. Reconciliation. Data transfer. What could be more clear?”
Information Jones nodded, as if these were the clearest concepts he could imagine. A bead of sweat trickled down his neck. The conference room lights glared at him like the bulbs of an operating theater. He squinted, trying to avoid the sight of disembodied heads floating on the screen at the front of the room, vivisecting him with their off-center gaze. He looked down at the laptop in front of him, pretending to search out a number from the mass of text blurring across the screen. Jones was hungry. He wondered if the participants in the teleconference could tell, through the camera, that the dark rings under his armpits were from sweat. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat and looked around the table. This case was not going well. He had to stall for more time.
Clearing his throat, Jones tried to seem healthy and confident. “Can we start again from the beginning?”
Next to him his client Franklin Rubicon rubbed his nose, trading glances with the other bank employees.
“We’ve got a database that’s end of life, and we need to migrate all the batch jobs. One of the jobs sends files to the partner. We don’t know what’s in the files. We do believe they are encrypted. We don’t know how the files are created. We heard a rumor that there are nine database tables related to the migration. We don’t know the name of the schema. Or the name of the host.”
“The files are not encrypted,” interrupted one of the engineers seated in the back of the room. “That’s a blatant falsehood. They’re hashed.”
“Why would they be hashed?” asked Franklin, his voice rising. Jones recognized a long-running misunderstanding. The engineer folded her arms defiantly and fixed her gaze on Franklin. Franklin broke eye contact first. He looked back towards Jones, massaging the bridge of his nose. He touched his face a lot, Jones noticed. He must have gotten the vaccination. Jones hadn’t been so fortunate, and had had to acquire his immunity the long-winded way. Short-winded, still, most days.
Franklin put his hand to his mouth, and bit the back of his knuckles with the confidence of man who had never had asthma as a child. “It doesn’t matter. We can’t read the files.”
“Is this your only data source?” asked Jones.
A head on the screen unmuted herself. “There could be others. Definitely. We don’t know. The migration is twenty weeks overdue.”
“Twenty-two weeks,” corrected Angela, sitting on the other side of Jones. “Our team just got the requirements yesterday. This is top priority.”
Information Jones nodded slowly. It was absolutely, one hundred percent against his policy to take cases at banks, no exceptions. The ancient technology and the atmosphere of bewildered fear was too stressful. In this case, his secretary Amelia had warned him that he must make an exception because he no longer had any money. Apparently, despite its bewildering internal systems, the bank had quite a bit of money and they were willing to part with it for his advice. Against his better instincts, Jones had arrived in San Francisco that morning after taking robot ride from his office in Monterrey. He saw now that Amelia had sold him out.
“Can we ask your partner what’s in the files?” asked Jones. The heads on the wall shook back and forth in vigorous unison.
“They can’t know that we don’t know how any of this works,” said Angela.
“Can I have access to the database?”
“No,” said Felicia, the engineer sitting in the back. “We do not know the password.”
“We don’t even have access?” screeched one of the screen heads. Half of the meeting participants turned off their video.
Franklin ignored the rising clamor of disbelief. “As you can see, we are desperate. We heard that you’re the best - tell us, Information Jones, what should we do?”
Jones looked around at gathered specialists. The bank was a complete and utter catastrophe, but they still seemed to believe he could save it. Neatly combed bobs, polo shirts, and groomed eyebrows leaned forward expectantly. Jones saw the hope in their eyes as they calculated, for the tenth time that day, their mortgage payments, the cost of daycare, their car loans, and whether or not unemployment insurance would cover it all.
“I have no idea,” he said. “You have created a terrible, unnecessary mess for yourselves. I do not think I can help you.”
Jones watched the icons blink as meeting participants unmuted themselves, then muted again without saying anything. The only sound in the room was the clatter of Felicia’s fingertips across her keyboard. Franklin held up his hands. “Snack break,” he declared. With obvious relief, the group slammed their laptops shut and headed to the kitchen.
Jones tried to make himself a cup of tea and watched as his clients raided the pantry. Next to the fridge, the TV was tuned to Bloomberg. The news anchor beamed.
“We’re thrilled to be joined today by Mervin Gumspeak, CTO of the World Bank,” said the anchor. “He’s here to tell us about an exciting new product - the Next Economy!”
The information technology professionals around Jones made approving noises and drank their coffee.
“Thank you,” said Mervin. “We’re very excited to unveil the Next Economy today. It is engineered to produce the most efficient possible growth in GDP. We think the markets will be very pleased.”
“They’re pleased already,” suggested the Bloomberg anchor. “What can our viewers expect from the Next Economy? Will their 401(k) double this week, or next?” The anchor chuckled.
“Probably not,” said Mervin. “401(k) are not very efficient growth engines, so they will not be a part of the Next Economy.”
“Fascinating. What will 401(k) turn into?” asked the anchor.
“Nothing,” replied Mervin.
The anchor frowned, and glanced offscreen. “401(k) will become worthless?”
Mervin looked annoyed. “Yes, 401(k) will become worthless. All irrational agents are going to be replaced by rational agents in the Next Economy. 401(k) are administered by, and intended for the maintenance of, irrational agents.”
“You mean people.”
“Yes, irrational agents, or as as a term of art, people, will not be a part of the Next Economy.”
“Fascinating.” The news anchor looked visibly flustered. “What else does this mean for our viewers?”
Mervin folded his hands genially in front of him. “The adjustments are minor. People will not be able to transact. They won’t be able to participate in the markets, use money, they won’t be compensated for any labor. Corporations can only participate in the markets if they’re compliant with our rational agent policy - so if the CEO is a person, for example, that corporation will no longer be able to participate in the market.”
“So what happens to the corporation? It becomes worthless?”
“In the Next Economy, it will not be a participant, yes.”
“So the Next Economy won’t involve any people at all.”
The CTO of the World Bank smiled, nodding encouragingly. “It will be very efficient. It will grow very quickly.”
The anchor paused, looked at the papers in front of him, and shook his head slowly. “Why are you doing this?”
Mervin smiled. His teeth were naturally white. Jones wondered if they were veneers. “Our economists got the idea after the first pandemic crash. We saw how, when irrational agents were unable to transact, certain sectors of the economy finally began to match up with the mathematical models. We were inspired.”
The anchor looked at the camera, hands fluttering towards his face in nervousness, then away. “What are we supposed to do? Irrational agents?”
Mervin nodded with satisfaction. “This has been the most rewarding technical challenge of my career. I’m proud of our journey and our partners and I look forward to handing over the reigns of this system to the next generation of autonomous agents.”
“The next generation? Are you a person?” Jones was pleased to see that Bloomberg news anchors suffered from sweaty armpits as well.
“We expect the transition to be complete by the end of the business day. At that time, the old, irrational market will close, and the new rational market will open in perpetuity.” Music began to swell and the camera zoomed backwards, forming an arial view of the news studio.
“Wait, we need more time!” The anchor spread their palms pleadingly towards a producer off camera, trying to prevent the transition. “Wait, fine, ok, Mervin, thanks for being here.”
“Thanks for having me on the show.”
The screen cut to a commercial for Vanguard ETFs. Franklin sipped his coffee. The other bank staff chewed their granola pensively.
“So we can skip the migration?” asked Angela.
Franklin nodded, and turned his head towards Jones. “The team is going to work from home this afternoon,” he said. He pulled his phone from his pocket. “I’m going to call my wife.”
Franklin ducked into a nearby conference room. Jones could still hear him. “Honey,” he said calmly, “We need find the key to my bitcoin. Yeah, I know, I said it was a god damned pyramid scheme and that we should just throw it in the trash. You didn’t actually, right? Well, can you check the garbage?”
Angela started to fill her pockets with granola bars. Jones nodded at her. “Nice meeting you,” he said. Angela crammed a packet of beef jerky into her bra and nodded back.
“Good luck.”
Jones looked around for the stairs. He mentally thanked the CTO of the World Bank, although he felt terrible about it. Jones could not think of a better excuse to leave the bank as quickly as humanly possible.