After a week in, Four shaves his head. Now he has the mildly irritating habit of running his palm through his scalp, leaning back with a deep sigh. Three gives him a look when he does it, but forgets that he has the habit of clicking his tongue ring against the back of his teeth.
But these quirks are far between, the small window when we lean back in our chairs and look at the thing we have wrought. The long compile, the unit test, tweaked parameters and output graph. One likes to provide running commentary.
"Matching vectors up eight percent. Good work on that implementation Four, that's a wonderful algorithm, isn't it?"
If anyone's the leader of our strange collective it's One. Charisma usually self-selects for leadership, rising through a tepid sea of apathy, or in our case, dedication. Four's certainly not interested in leadership, let alone pep talks and pithy dialog during test runs. He's content to strap headphones of ambient white noise and tap out five thousand lines.
My perspective is a little different. Perhaps something of an advisor role. One is the voice of the group, giving words to the thoughts we all think. Four might be the deep core brain of the operation. Two, that's me, I'm the eyes. I look down from above. Observe, make sense of the readouts. Understand how it fits together. If anything, I'm the eyes.
Our collective didn't start as much. Just a few guys sick of consulting firms, treated like peons and code monkeys, equally sick of the endless meetings. There had to be an alternative way, a third path between the bad code factories of outsourced Mumbai and the expensive suit stiffs from Redmond and Silicon Valley who couldn't pull an all-nighter to save their lives. A third way beyond the typical development route - puke up bad code, jam it into the testing rig, watch it fail, try it again. The same consultant lifestyle of bad fast food on the road, endless nights in cookie cutter hotel rooms, lobby buffet bars, late nights pounding shots with clients, only to offset the hangover with Starbucks IV drip for the 8:00 AM conference call. There had to be a path of discipline, skill, temperance and stoicism.
Complex systems aren't built by rock stars or businessmen. A certain type of temperament is paramount. Start with a heavy stock of mathematician (to temper and tame the algorithms), a dash of science fiction buff (to approach progress with excitement, not disdain), a rich base of introvert (to find friendship with a select few, and thrive during long blocks of uninterrupted silence), and a pinch of artist (not to paint by numbers, but with them). The recipe was never followed, but it contained the essence of what we wanted - one able to adapt, perform, strive and succeed. We didn't want office drones, we wanted warrior monks.
***
The first job was trivial. Security cam analysis in a big midtown tower. Facial recognition, people tracking (RFID cards). That kind of thing. Senior comp-sci thesis stuff. Trivial.
We nailed the job with a full virtual model of the building's architecture, exploded floor plans, customizable avatars. We plugged it into the elevator bays to optimize rush hour throughput. We tied it into the fire alarm drills to minimize downtime and congestion in the stairwells. Then we productized it in six months and contracted it out to a sales team.
After that we could be choosy. MTA tried us but we didn't want to deal with their bureaucracy, the working requirements - limits of our time and hours per day, outside coding reviews, endless design meetings.
We did select a little project for the mayor's office - congestion pricing and traffic optimization. Built the entire street layout in virtual graphs, again, with vehicle avatars. We optimized all traffic between 14th and 59th using a variant of Dijkstra's, reduced congestion by 25%, while upping revenue from that particular stream (tolls + bridges) by 15%. Four other high profile cities have us on back order, jobs lined up all the way through 2015.
But there's little glamour. Any day of the week (and most weekends), its four guys, head's shaved and down, jacked into big foam headphones, pupils glistening, pixilated, bobbing to some internal percussion. Fingers dancing, jiggling insectoid over black keys.
We sit around a geometrically symmetrical table, four quadrants sectioned off with stacks of notebooks, scribbled with rough boxes and squares, dirty arrows, parabolic rocket trajectories, messy labels, empty plastic containers of caffeinated beverages, pencils constructed into tiered feudal forts, fixed together with silly putty and chewing gum, and any other number of small plastic gadgets and electronics, black, shiny, blue blinking LEDs.
We are ZEN Enterprise Networks. ZEN.
Cubicles inspire slacking, slow communication. Instead we work in overlapping pairs. The coder to my right proceeds as normal, his work replicated on my screen. I correct his obvious mistakes, walk him through complex data structures, recursive methods. The coder on my left does the same for me. At first, we'd time it - rotate between "watcher" and "worker". At the strike of a bell, on the hour. But we've grown since then - now we divide our attention between a split on the screen, half our own work, half the work of another.
The department of labor would not approve. We've been working twelve hours and One calls a break. We rise from our chairs together, silent. Three crouches, cracking the joints in his knees and lower back. Four sets aside his headphones, shuffles to the refrigerator to pick over a tofu and spinach salad - leftovers. One leans against the glass, looking down over the city. The glass is cold and his breath fogs.
"Another week," he says. "At least."
"The framework's almost there," I say. "The hookups and feeds will be trivial. UI we have in source already, that EXA job. It's just tracking and modeling, same as before."
"You forget the value isn't in the display, Two. It's in the analysis. What does it all mean? Pretty red boxes blinking on a map of Manhattan is spectacle, not value. There's no meaning in it. No wisdom."
One has begun to group sets of knowledge into classification - spectacle verses wisdom. What is the core of a thing, and what is the pretty sparkle on the outside?
"Lets take a walk, Two," he says, already striding to the elevator. Our office is stark, save the hexagonal desk in the center, a few beanbags at the corners for observers - friends and academics. We have full natural light from three angles, not greedily consumed by enclosed offices or cubicle dividers. There's no hierarchy; we are all equal.
I follow One to the lobby and out to the streets. It is late afternoon, the sun on the horizontal, cutting orange through the troughs. All things are silhouette.
We enter a corner cafe. Warm chattering from people in duo seats, little round iron tables and chairs, steaming cardboard cups between them. The queue at the cash register advances steadily, each patron swiping a small plastic rectangle through a reader.
One hugs two green teas and a rice cake, which we split. We sit in a booth facing the din of the sidewalk and street.
"Watch," he says. "Watch the people moving. Everything is moving."
But his comment is not necessary. I was a watcher from the start. An observer. I am the eyes.
I see the man with the leather coat and the shopping bag pilfer the kiosk - two bags of roast coffee beans and a sample CD. I see the woman heft her stroller into the corner and meet the man she's having an affair with in the back booth. I see the sad girl bite into a double chocolate brownie, texting her woes to socialites on her small square PDA. I see these things, take them in, stick them on shelves of my mind.
What is this place, this cafe? What does it mean to these who come here? There's a touch of warmth, community, but also cold commerce. There's an invitation to sit, unbothered. There's the line of customers, the promise of unrelenting jostling, quiet, murmuring chaos. What does that aesthetic mean to these people? Why does this place become a waypoint on the daily journey of their lives?
"We're here to make sense of these things," says One. "Not merely to record and organize, but to understand. Do you see?"
After the small break for caffeine, we return to the office. One encourages me to change and practice yoga with him. I accept.
We roll out our mats and face the final orange blur of sunset in the west, obscured by buildings taller than ours. One moves through the initial movements. Downward Facing Dog, the Bow. Then he sits in Lotus, pulling his socked foot through the crook of his leg. He closes his eyes and wrests his wrists on his knees. I look at him for a long minute, thinking about who he was before the collective, what he has become. Then I face forward and too close my eyes.
The purpose of meditation is to clear the mind. We're encouraged to meditate, and even have weekly practice sessions, especially between projects. We want to erase the whiteboards, so to speak.
I often have trouble fully embracing the blank slate. I'm always churning ideas. They say this is the sign of a restless mind, the very thing meditation attempts to combat. They say when a fragmented thought enters the mind, it should be cradled, a gentle thing. Focus on it; accept it for what it is. Then set it aside. Do not attempt to crack it open, or worse, combat it. Accept it, and set it aside. Return to the zero, the root position, the Om, the point of calm.
We were taught to start with the number one. Picture it on a beach, tropically, with framing palm trees and a high hot sun. Breathe slowly, with each inhalation, increment the number. Picture it in your mind - Roman or Arabic numeral. Binary if you want. But only that number for that long deep breath.
If you encounter a wandering thought (the pressing error on line 5231 of the mapping class; the wayward smile of an attractive girl on the downtown A) catch and release, of course. But reset the count. Start back at one.
When One finishes meditating an hour later, he rolls his mat and stands. I'm still at numero uno.
***
I remember One when he was called by his given name - Ross. He was an introverted computer nerd, deep into role-playing games and black shirts with airbrushed wolves. He did martial arts on the side, grew proficient with a bo staff, hung cheap katana replicas on his apartment wall. Then he took a class in transcendental meditation, shaved his head and started thinking about Zen.
In a way, there was more humanity to him then, with his comical faults. Now, he reminds me of a machine. He dwells inside his mind. His personality is consumed by discipline. But, I remind myself, we're not here to embrace humanity, but to transcend, to find that Zen.
Sometimes additions to the collective do not mesh. We had a temporary coder called by Seven. Immediately I saw him as one who tried on belief systems like clothes, trading in with prevailing fashions. The mindset of the collective was intriguing to him, something he could consume, a product to test drive.
He would exclaim various Eastern sayings he probably found in a book or a satire film - things like "Find yourself - attain nirvana." He was constantly purchasing trendy fruit drinks with pseudo-mystical ingredients, plastic shoes from an expensive yoga mail-order, hemp. Beyond that, he couldn't code his way out of wet paper bag.
It was strange to "fire" an applicant to our group. One delegated the responsibility to me. I took Seven aside and told him as plainly and directly as possible. We don't believe in coating the truth in monosaccharides. "Look it face forward," Three sometimes says.
When I told him, Seven was surprised at first, jaw slack. He fidgeted with his fingers, twisting a set of stamped plastic shells on a hemp bracelet. I think he knew he was being treated fairly, that he never really fit in. But then he scrunched his mouth, sneered.
"I thought you guys were different. You're so fucking corporate."
We're taught to approach the chaos of existence the same as distractions during meditation. Accept. Catch and release. Yet Seven's accusation was a slippery thing, had bite. After Seven was gone, I set aside the mistakes he had made. The awkward energy he had brought to the group. But his words kept morphing, spoken anew, in a variety of voices, all those who had doubted me, were confused by our calling. Even when I cleared my head, drowned out the sounds with headphones of ambient white noise, I could see the letters in my mind's eye. Large, bold, black.
I told Four. I didn't want to tell One, because I knew he'd be disappointed. I'd failed at the catch and release approach. The Zen way. Four was more junior, a bit more worldly. He still occasionally ate meat.
"Well," he said, when I recounted the story of Seven's firing and outburst. "We kind of are. Corporate."
I nodded, thanked him, returning to my screen to get lost in data structures and code.
***
In a week we are done, as One predicted. The pieces fell into place. The team performed admirably. The credit card company accepted the invoice, paid enthusiastically. Our coffers were full, the mission of the collective complete.
We are free for a good few days, and I walk the streets of the city, observing. Watching the comings and goings. The myriad lives moving. Marching in a vast number of gaits, some leisurely, others hurried, sweating and stressed, others distraught, face down in the November wind.
There are colorful items for sale on the sidewalk, scarves and mittens of patterns and weave, mass-produced on machines in China. There are men hawking electronics, glittering jewelry on black felt tables, a legless man with a tambourine, whistling through a missing incisor. There are salacious advertisements at nearly every corner, women whored for the curves of their flesh, matching an arbitrary pleasing slope and angle. There are screams and whistles and groans and roars of all manner of wheeled machines, many painted yellow and intended for personal transportation, others larger, belching ghastly black fumes, rumbling over the crumbling asphalt, bedecked in industrial logos and strobing lights. There is life, beating quickly, the white-hot center that is the city, aligned on machined tracks of steel and stone and poured concrete.
And I can see now, above and around, a glittering array of electromagnetic rays, pulsing in machinegun buzz, ridges and troughs interpreted and understood by other machines, surrounding the people upon which they rely, binding them, dictating the paths of their lives, the connections between them, the visions that befall their eyes, the music in their ears, the thoughts in their brains. Their minds, riddled through with this mighty machine we have built. Towering, dwelling in the invisible ether, a paradigm beyond the breath of man.
"Something troubling you, Two?" One asks when I return to the office. I had not noticed on the elevator ride, but my frown betrayed my worry.
"It's nothing, an idle thought," I return.
"Speak with me, Two. Share what you're feeling."
I breath deep through my nose.
"It is what Seven said."
My eyes fidget.
"Do not be troubled."
"I'm not like you, One."
He blinks.
"And I am troubled. I need to leave ZEN. Return to humanity."
"Two?"
"Ross," I say. "Don't call me Two. My name is Dave. Remember? What's wrong with our given names? Prisoners go by numbers. Cults go by numbers. We have names, Ross."
"The numbers aren't important. It's the idea..."
"...the idea they represent," I finish for him. "I know Ross. I know. We wrote the book on it. Together. Remember? This was our experiment. And we came pretty far. Ten million this year, isn't that right? Five hundred dollar bill rate. That's no small accomplishment. But why did we get into this? A way to live? A way to write great software? Find enlightenment?"
"We're all called to the path for different reasons."
"What do you do with the money, Ross?"
"The money is not important."
"Ross. What do you do with your paycheck? Once the necessities are taken care of - rent food, coffee..."
"Tibetan monks," he says. "Striving like us to find peace, in a land where there is none."
"That's admirable. It really is. But don't you see the cycle Ross? The money you send to those monasteries originated in the hands of their oppressors. We sell software to corporations that reap the rewards of Chinese manufacturing. It's all connected, it's this mindless beast, we're not enlightened. We're just highly trained and focused rats in the maze."
One takes all this with the proper meditative grace. When I’m done, breathless, he nods and extends his arms. He is reaching to embrace me. With his wrists locked behind my back I feel him breathing deeply on my shoulder.
"It's ok, Dave," he says into my ear. "Do what you think is best. Everyone walks his own path. Perhaps ours will cross again."
I step back. "I'll keep my eyes open."
***
I see Four a few weeks later. He didn't last either. Got burned out on a long code binge for some defense-contracted missile tracking system.
I'm free that afternoon and we spend some time together. He shows me his life. He codes for a small web-app startup. He has a clean apartment, and there's a meditation mat in the corner. Big ambient white-noise headphones hanging by the desk. He's ditched the robes, back with sweatshirts and jeans. He's socializing again, meeting friends, partaking in bars. He's extricated himself from the collective.
He smiles jovially, and I think he'll find some happiness beyond the ordeal that was ZEN. When I leave after a drink at the bar, I'll never see him again. He'll slip into the background radiation that is the city stranger.
ZEN still lives. One recruits, remakes his younglings anew into warrior monks, algorithm acolytes. I see it now, a web of electric harpoons, arcing the world, it’s sentience too far beyond to grasp.
I see the machine, and it is us. That’s my koan.
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