West of Nothing

8. Vegan Menu

"You coming to lunch?" Corny asked Mason. After a mini Ice Age, they were back on speaking terms again. "Zeus blocked out some cafeteria time after the white collars clear out. Afraid Shouter might mouth off to the wrong person and get the shit beat out of him. Anyway, if you want something to eat, you better come with us. Doogie's got the meal vouchers."

"Yeah, sure." Mason glanced at the time. 1:55 already? Where had the last hour gone?

In Mason's opinion, the cafeteria was one of humanity's greatest inventions. Cooking was a distraction that took you away from more important things, like working out the force calculation of a leg assembly. Most of his meals came in a wrapper.

He and Corny were the last to arrive. Mason sat his tray of meatloaf and mashed potatoes down across from Corny's artful Mediterranean salad. Doogie and Gabby were already seated. Shouter was busy haranguing the cafeteria line workers.

Doogie extended a hand across the table to Mason. "Now that we're lab partners, some real introductions are in order. I'm Douglas Carrington." They shook. "Assistant director of R&D at Stargil-Grant Medical. I work at the junction of biology and machines. Exoskeletons, implants, prosthetics, that sort of thing."

"Nice to meet you," Mason said. "Officially, that is."

Corny went next. "Carrie Ells. Bio-memeticist at Caltech. I won a DARPA grant to design a surveillance drone based on a wasp model. Gabby here is Gabrielle Mazer. She did a stint at Google after graduating summa cum from Stanford. Now she runs a popular programming blog called the Daily Algorithm. She's something of a goddess in hacker circles. She dabbles in hardware as well. Those spinner keyboards are her own design." Gabby's face pinkened as she pretended to concentrate on her food. "Skunkworks is Maxwell Kramer. He retired from the Lockheed Advanced Development Program, the original skunkworks. He cut his teeth under the legendary Kelly Johnson."

"Where is he now? Eating at the big boys' table?"

"Back on the Bridge keeping an eye on things."

"What about Shouter?" Mason asked. "Let me guess, he's some sort of genius too?"

"His IQ is off the charts, but he's had some academic challenges. As you can imagine, he and classrooms don't mix very well."

"Do you really buy that line about—what did he call it—uninhibited speech something or other? Seems like a cop out if you ask me. If you're going to be an asshole, why not just own up to it. Do you really need a note from your doctor certifying you as a medically diagnosed asshole?"

Corny stiffened. "If you're going to be an asshole around here, you need to be either a genius or have a medical diagnosis. So pardon me for asking, can I see your doctor's note?"

Doogie coughed into his sandwich.

The rebuke stung but only for a moment. Mason had been called worse. "Sorry for being an asshole. It's just my personality. I'm Mason Donnelly. I'm a student at Arizona State, at least I was. My status is a bit unspecified at the moment. I build microbots in my spare time." With the formalities over, he proceeded to tuck into his mashed potatoes.

After a couple minutes of strained silence, Mason was actually starting to miss Shouter. He may have been as subtle as a chainsaw, but at least he kept the conversation going.

"So what's with the nicknames?" Mason asked. "They're obviously not secret aliases since everyone just told me their real ones."

"Shouter gives nicknames to people he likes," Corny explained. "He's usually a good judge of character, though he does make mistakes from time to time."