Chapter 1 II

The rest of the days went quite fast. The main target of my trip was to carry on some testing. We had some concepts we had toyed with and we wanted to test them. None of us was very optimistic about them and thus we skip inviting the client along. We labeled them as "internal trials". As it turned out, I spent a good deal of the first day butchering the little German I knew and asking for translations for the rest, following mazes of wires from sensors to yellowed out prehistoric computers from which grease was often dripping. All to make sure that we were getting data and preferably plausible data. Only then we could start recording the data.

Obviously, because this is one of those things you have to do, we had made a plan of what we wanted to test, how did we want to test it and in which order. As usually, 5 minutes after getting your safety glasses, it was clear what we could not measure, what could not be done at the time, that this or that sensor was not suitable for that measurement that was so critical and my personal favorite; that computer over there does not seem to be communicating with that other on the same time basis... the test themselves are often a few minutes affair. Getting there is what is complicated. 

It was not until the evenings, when I could allow my mind to go back to the odd incident of the first night. For at least one hour every evening, when I was back to the hotel. I went through the file, which turned out (perhaps now for you unsurprisingly) to be the archive of our IRC chats, during and after Napster times.

Boone and I were not exactly friends. Well, with today's perspective, it might sound odd to talk about "people you meet in internet" as an exotic thing, but in the mid 90s it was something very new, for which we were not ready. To exchange a couple of messages about when are you online and  what are you going to upload is not a whole lot. However since you are sitting in the privacy of your room, feeling all nice and safe you start getting deeper. References about the music you love lead to talk about more personal stuff and then, with time and daily contact, you end up "knowing" this person a little. Whether that is friendship I let you to decide.

Napster went bust in 2001 and fairly quickly we lost contact. I went to other sources of music  and such. At the end of the chat files, there where a couple of emails we exchanged in 2002, in February apparently. I talked about my exams period and he was talking about him working with some mathematicians in order to design and implement analysis code, that is automated code to evaluate data. I chuckled a bit, because that could be of help on what I had currently spent the day on. Then nothing from John Boone until a few days back. Was he complete bananas? why had he come to me like that? what was all that about? I mean that number of the super Spy and the fucking Mr. Roberts?
 
The highway that takes you to  Vienna Airport is a well traveled road, rich on that highway animal, the lorry or, the semi or whatever you want to call it. The continuous stream from Austria to East Europe may seem daunting to the untrained driver. Nevertheless, local taxi drivers are all but untrained and not so easily daunted. They use the "fighter pilot" tactic, which consist on driving unpredictably and never hold the same relative position to anything else on the road for any measurable amount of time. They will speed up the shoulders at the least of windows and will take advantage of every horsepower. On this driving mode, the wing mirrors are just a measure of how wide the vehicle is. After 25 stressing (for me) minutes of relaxed chat (for the driver) I was happy to say goodby and asked him for a receipt " Eine Rechnung, bitte" for my expenses and headed for the terminal, where I was about to follow the cumbersome procedure that ends up (all going well) on you climbing on a plane.

Vienna's airport is a little different from what you usually find in Euripe. The free access area before the first security check is tiny and uncomfortable. After that you are in a high density populated area. Populated by shops,that is, which is well exploited and usually very crowded. From the perimeter of this area outside, you find the boarding gates, but there you have the security control, at least the "proper one". Each gate has its own belt with metal detector and staff, which does not hung around, but will take positions prior boarding. This is where the novelty is. Usually, once you have explained why you have contact lenses fluid with you and that those chocolate balls are not explosive, but Mozart's (do not ask) you are good to roam around, see shops and such. Not here. Once you stuffed yourself and got everything you could carry, you have to do the explaining and then let into an impersonal crowded room, a proper boarding room if you wish, where you are trapped to wait until the gods of the skies take you with them.



As this was known to me, I just went along to check my boarding gate and roamed around among expensive t-shirts, inexpensive sex toys and unattractive Cds. I was looking around for John- Roberts. The build up continued as my flight was announced and I had seen no sign of him. I arrived to the control a little nervous, which was perhaps not the best attitude, but all went well. 

The waiting room was rather crowded, which made me think that the fight was full. I had managed to get a sit fairly in the front of the plane. Unfortunately my luck with the reservation was only for the hotel. Plane was still coach. I was therefore very optimistic, as I hoped to be able to walk after the flight. I think it is kind of a shame that the amazing technological achievement of ferry thousands of people hurtling through the air at almost the speed of sound is somewhat contrasted with the reality of having to eat your knees for the duration, because of the small leg room. The plane was a standard two columns of three seats with a middle isle. Mine was right after business, conveniently separated through a heavy curtain. John-Roberts arrived little after  I had fastened my seat belt, which is the norm in this case, because I had to unfasten, stand and let him through. He nodded at me while holding his breath to get past my seat. Didn't help. He was wearing the same suit as the day of our meeting, just with a horrible pink tie.



Since it was getting late in the evening, after the safety demonstration, the cabin lights were turned off during take off and the crew let them off. After the buzzing of the flaps being retracted and engines getting confy rpms for the haul, John-Roberts leaned towards me and said
-- I have much to tell you -- I could notice some anxiety on his voice, though it could be short breath from the seat. As an answer I nodded and opened my hands, inviting him to get on with it.

Chapter 1 I

Yeah, sure, sit down I said while I could hear cogs in my head turning. Since I had been teached not to stare at people I looked down to my plate and rammed some toast in my mouth, because I could also hear cogs turning in my stomach.

I started chewing when it came down on me, it was the man from the airport!, that one bastard that had all but rammed me! I brusquely looked up from my plate to look at the man across the table, not quite opposite, but towards my left.

I noticed then that he was staring at me with something like a smile.

--Yeah, at the airport, that's me.--

 I guess I looked surprised, and perhaps not at my best with a mouthful of toast to deal with, because his smile widened into a grin

--I'd like to apologize again--

-- Well, do not worry it's ok -- I was trying to get on top of things and said

-- what a coincidence that we are both in the same hotel, uh? -- I thought his accent was not so strong as I had thought at the airport.

-- My name is Roberts -- he said, extending his hand towards me and looking me in the eye. I could not decide whether he was ignoring my comment or he was following a plan, as if he had thought this conversation beforehand.
-- Nice to meet you -- and I did the nice thing meeting his hand half way across the table and telling him my name, as the polite boy I am. Then I turned my attention to my plate and bit again the toast, deliberately.

--Perhaps not as much as you would thing -- I stared back blankly
-- The coincidence, I mean -- he grinned again. Then leaned to the side and from somewhere pulled out a fat collection of paper, loosely folded in three, as in a letter. Carefully not to spill them, he let them in front of me.

 07/13/97
>>nagt9005: This weekend I am going for a Korn concert.
>>U-688: ...
>>U-688: I don't like Korn.
>>nagt9005: xD
>>nagt9005: that's all right grandpa.

Confused, I leafed through the rest

 11/30/97
>>U-688: Welcome back, I was looking for another fixer :P
>>nagt9005: I've been to NASA man!
>>U-688: Are you changing job?
>>nagt9005: Nah, no way man. We are collaborating with another agency
>>nagt9005: We got to participate on a meteo satellite.
>>nagt9005: Which is going to measure radiated energy from the clouds.
>>nagt9005: we got to see the Launch!
>>U-688: You have been to a launch? How is it?
>>nagt9005: Well, actually ... like on the TV, just louder.

-- I do not get it... this are... chat files?-- abía I had no problems recognizing my old internet nickname, but I could not pinpoint the chats themselves. Fuck, if dates were back to 1997, what the hell was I going to remember?
-- Don't you remember the nickname nagt9005?-- I was still blank. Mr. Roberts was staring at me. No grin now. -- Do you remember Napster?-- 
I could feel the pins slowly getting pushed home in my head, click after click. Finally an image popped out. The same man sitting in front of me, 12 years younger, with a Manowar t-shirt and a large beer on one hand and a bigger grin. A name was bubbling out on my throat, not unlike that cheap beer he had been holding
-- You are... ! --
-- Mr. Roberts -- Mr. Roberts cut me short, he was making a habit out of it.

-- We got to talk-- the grin came again -- I have a lot to tell you. We'll meet on the flight back-- and with these words he stood up, headed to the entrance door and then I lost sight of him. I was pinned in place, as confused as surprised. I looked down, next to my plate, to the file, now a little messed up...

Chapter 1: Improbable encounters

Threading your way through a sea of people who does not really care much about being shoved, pushed and stepped on irritates me. On top of it, once you step out of the plane in an unknown airport, you have to pay attention to all those signs that, eventually, will take you to an exit... or a police search. This does not help much when you are wading through all that people pulling a trolley. Thus I rather use a messenger bag as hand luggage.

So, there I was, after leaving the crowded terminal behind. I managed to get almost to the exit by means of elbowing soft sides whenever they were in front of me, usually looking at overpriced ties or checking the possibility of giving some years of their life on a food stand. I was, at that moment, reasonably happy with my progress and, with the exit in sight, I pressed on.

From nowhere, a fairly robust individual, with thick frames and unbelievable speed cut me off. The crash made me stagger, almost bent over by the weight my bag, balance overboard. The man turned around, looked at me deadpan behind his also thick lenses and, while holding me by the arm said -- I´m sorry, are you ok? -- with a strong American accent.
 -- Yes, excuse me -- I then moved around him and continued walking. Social conventions prevent you from splitting the head of such people open with a one of those nice chromed bins. In any case, arguing is fruitless, so I believe on cutting these discussions short. You will live longer.

I hate work trips, mostly because one cannot do things at his own pace. You have to follow what the work dictates, On the other hand there are taxis. When I arrived at the hotel, I took, as usual, some minutes to take the room in, wash myself a little, take a look at the emergency exits and generally have a look around. I took my jacket off and fished around in the pockets for those small pieces of paper you collect when you fly, refunds be coming...

A nice hotel room

I settled the travel bag onto the luggage tray and while rummaging around I turned the tv on, just to have some company. The trick is just push buttons randomly until some channel is tuned in.
 

Get some company by turning on the TV

I took my wash kit out and after fumbling with the switches (all lights on, but the working principle is just like the tv, push around) I had a look at the bathroom and hung the wash kit behind the door. I exchanged my shirt for a cotton t-shirt and I was ready for dinner.


As I crossed the reception area, I looked with evil satisfaction at the faces of the newcomers, who looked tired and weighted down by their luggage and I continued without stopping, head for the bar. Outside, darkness was settling in and dinner was very much on my menu. Another good thing from work trips is club class. That special area reserved for people who is on the move, has money or had it and are on a honeymoon and got optimistic about their budget. The concept is, that if you pay enough, you can eat at any time, whatever you might wish and sometimes drink too. Therefore, once at the operational area and armed with a plate I went for the free buffet and, flaking the happy chaps in suits who had found the drink bar, I found myself a nice quiet place. Unfortunately I do not get that treat of having a club class reservation often and I was reflecting on it as I sat. On the one side, that kind of add on is more expensive (sensibly so) and then again, the person doing the reservation is not me, so you might expect a little less motivation for extra comfort. This time I had been lucky, there was no other type of reservation available

Excuse me, is this seat taken? I looked up from my toast and cheese operations and I  faced a vaguely familial face.