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reassuringly. “If she’s a spy, I’ll deal with it. Now let me buy you a second breakfast and a cup of tea. After that, I’m off to SoHo to meet with FBTI.”

Chapter 4
     
    I make the trip to SoHo. The security guard at the FBTI building lets me in once he knows I have an appointment with Richard Stone, the CTO.
    “Hi Richard, I’m Darren. We spoke on the phone.” I introduce myself to a tall bald man when I’m seated comfortably in a guest chair in his office. The office is big, with a massive desk with lots of drawers, and a small bookshelf. There’s even a plasma TV mounted on the wall. I take it all in, feeling a hint of office envy again.
    “Please call me Dick,” he says. I have to use every ounce of my willpower not to laugh. If I had a bald head, I’d definitely prefer Richard. In fact, I think I’d prefer to be called Richard over Dick regardless of how I looked.
    “Okay, Dick. I’m interested in learning about what you guys are working on these days,” I say, hoping I don’t sound like I relish saying his nickname too much.
    “I’m happy to discuss anything outside of our upcoming announcement,” he says, his tone dickish enough to earn that moniker.
    I show interest in the standard stuff he’s prepared to say, and he goes on, telling me all the boring details he’s allowed to share. He continues to talk, but I don’t listen. Tuning people out was one of the first things I mastered in the corporate world. Without that, I wouldn’t have survived a single meeting. Even now, I have to go into the Quiet from time to time to take a break, or I’d die from boredom. I’m not a patient guy.
    Anyway, as Dick goes on, I surreptitiously look around. It’s ironic that I’m doing exactly the opposite of what everyone thinks I do. People assume I ask pointed questions of these executives, and figure things out based on their reactions, body language, and who knows what else.
    Being able to pick up on body cues and other nonverbal signals is something I want to learn at some point. I even gave it a try in Atlantic City. But in this case, as usual, I rely on something that depends far less on interpretive skills.
    When I’ve endured enough bullshit from Dick, I try to invoke a frightened state of being so I can phase into the Quiet.
    Simply thinking myself crazy is not that effective anymore. Picturing myself showing up like a dumbass at that Brooklyn address Bert gave me for Mira, on the other hand—that works like a charm.
    I phase in, and Dick is finally, blissfully, quiet. He’s frozen mid-sentence, and I realize, not for the first time, that I would have a huge edge if I were indeed able to read body cues. I recognize now that he’s looking down, which I believe is a sign that someone’s lying.
    But no, instead of body language, I read literal language.
    I begin with the papers on his desk. There’s nothing special there.
    Next, I roll his chair, with his frozen body in it, away from the desk. I love it when people in the Quiet are sitting in chairs with wheels. Makes this part of my job easier. In college, I realized I could get the contents of the final exams early by reaching into the professor’s desk or bag in the Quiet. Moving the professors aside, though, had been a pain. Their chairs didn’t have wheels like corporate office chairs do.
    Thinking of those days in school makes me smile, because the things I learned in college are genuinely helpful to me now. This snooping in the Quiet—which is how I finished school so fast and with such good grades—is how I make a living now, and quite a good living at that. So, in some ways, my education really did prepare me for the workforce. Few people can say that.
    With Dick and his chair out of the way, I turn my attention to his desk. In the bottom drawer, I hit the mother lode.
    FBTI’s big announcement will be about a device that will do something called ‘transcranial magnetic stimulation.’ I vaguely remember hearing about it.