Some of them can't figure
out touch-tone dialing. So we're slow. Conservative. But we can do lots
of killer R&D, we can roll out really hot upgrades on the back end, and
we can provide this essential service to the world that underpins its
ability to communicate. We're not just cool, we're essential.
"So you come in and you show us your really swell and interesting
meshing wireless data boxes, and I say, 'That is damned cool.' I think
of ways that it could be part of a Bell's business plan in a couple
decades' time."
"A couple decades?" Kurt squawked. "Jesus Christ, I expect to have a
chip in my brain and a jetpack in a couple decades' time."
"Which is why you'd be an idiot to get involved with us," Lyman said.
"Who wants to get involved with you?" Kurt said.
"No one," Alan said, putting his hands on the table, grateful that the
conflict had finally hove above the surface. "That's not what we're here
for."
"Why are you here, Alvin?" Lyman said.
"We're here because we're going into the moving-data-around trade, in an
ambitious way, and because you folks are the most ambitious
moving-data-around tradespeople in town. I thought we'd come by and let
you know what we're up to, see if you have any advice for us."
"Advice, huh?"
"Yeah. You've got lots of money and linesmen and switches and users and
so forth. You probably have some kind of well-developed cosmology of
connectivity, with best practices and philosophical ruminations and
tasty metaphors.
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