Lexicon

keywords. This is just the beginning. Third major advantage: People who use a site like this tend to ramp up their dependence on it. Suddenly all those other news sources, the ones that aren’t framing every story in terms of the user’s core beliefs, they start to seem confusing and strange. They start to seem biased, actually, which is kind of funny. So now you’ve got a user who not only trusts you, you’re his major source of information on what’s happening in the world. Boom, you own that guy. You can tell him whatever you like and no one’s contradicting you. He’s—” The kid sucked in breath. “Aw, shit.”
    “What is it?”
    “I think I see a body.”
    “You didn’t know there would be bodies?”
    “I knew. Of course I knew. But knowing and seeing are two . . . aw, geez. That’s disgusting.”
    “They’ve been in the sun for four months.”
    “Yeah. Clearly.”
    “Is it just bone or . . . ?”
    “It’s
mostly
bone,” said the kid. “That’s the disgusting part.” For a while Eliot heard nothing but his breathing. “Yecch. They’re all over.”
    “You were telling me about Digital.”
    “How do you think they died?” His voice sounded muffled, as if he was talking through his sleeve. “Did the bareword blow out their fucking brains? Like aneurysms? Because it doesn’t look like they died from aneurysms.”
    “Why not?”
    “They’re in clumps. Like they dragged themselves into groups. Then died.”
    Eliot was silent.
    “So . . . yeah, Digital.” The kid’s voice wavered. “Fourth advantage. We can whisper. A problem with old media has always been that we can’t control who’s watching. There’s self-selection—people don’t tune in for shows that rub against their beliefs—but you still get people from the wrong segment watching. And they think you’re peddling bullshit, of course, because you are, and sometimes they make a big deal out of that, and it feeds back to the target segment. Then you have message bleeding. In Digital, that problem goes away. You can say things to a user and no one else can hear, because it’s dynamically generated for that user. The next user, the site looks different. End result, you get people from different segments and they agree on nothing, literally nothing, except the site is a great source of unbiased information.” He took a breath. “I’m passing houses. Flat, ugly houses.”
    “Are you okay?”
    “Yeah. Fine. Just hot.”
    “Take a rest if you need it.”
    “Why do you think they’re in groups?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “You think they could be families? Like . . . they had time to find their loved ones?”
    “Maybe.”
    “I don’t think that’s it. Something about the way . . . I don’t know. But I don’t think so.” Something scraped against the phone. “I need a drink.”
    “Rest.”
    The kid gulped water. “No. I want to get this done.” Time passed. “So . . . that’s Digital. Pretty great, huh?”
    “It makes me wonder why we’re bothering with anything else.”
    “Heh. Yeah. Well, we have a problem with unidentified users. Someone visits our site for the first time, and we have no idea who they are. We don’t know what to show them. We can make guesses, based on where they are geographically, and the software they’re using. But that’s suboptimal. We’re getting better. You know about social networking?”
    “No.”
    “You are . . . you need to get into this stuff, Eliot. It’s the future. Everyone’s making pages for themselves. Imagine a hundred million people clicking polls and typing in their favorite TV shows and products and political leanings, day after day. It’s the biggest data profile ever. And it’s voluntary. That’s the funny part. People resist a census, but give them a profile page and they’ll spend all day telling you who they are. Which is . . . good . . . for us . . . obviously . . .”
    “What is it?”
    “There’s a . . . ah, it’s okay.”
    “What is it?”
    “Gas station. Place is burned out. Cars all over. And one is . . . yeah, one is upside down. That’s . . . uh . . . not bad, huh, Eliot? A word that can flip cars?” He laughed, the pitch high. “That’s some pretty fucking impressive neurolinguistics, wouldn’t you say?”
    “Are there bodies?”
    “Of course there are bodies! I’m fucking knee-deep in bodies! Just assume there are bodies unless I tell you otherwise!”
    “Understood.”
    He panted. “I’m not knee-deep. I’m . .