He grunted, and leaned back in his chair.
“I’m serious. Think about it. What is a public Internet shaming if not the stocks and pillories? And ostracizing of somebody for violating the way the group perceives morality. It’s what we’ve always done. Computers don’t change that. I mean, that’s the thing. I understand why you think something like this is silly, or even harmful, but I just think it’s human nature. We bring it with us wherever we go. And we bring it into modern technology.”
“You’re much more fascinated by the intricacies of human behavior than I am. I make products, and if they are useful, people will buy them. That is all. I don’t need to understand the concept of public shaming to know that.”
And yet he had to wonder if he was so averse to it because it felt...foreign to him in some ways. Unknowable.
“Really? I would’ve thought that you would find it interesting. We’re always looking for the barbarian at the gate. Even if we have to make one up. And most especially, I think we have to make one up in this modern world.”
“I thought you said you didn’t have any friends. You sound like a person who is interested enough in the way that people behave and communicate that you want to.”
She scrunched her nose. “I observe people. And this is what I think about them. I don’t know. You don’t like people, do you?”
“I don’t like or dislike people until I get to know one of them. You speak of humanity. I don’t care.”
“Why not? I would’ve thought that somebody who was so invested in green energy would have a lot of thoughts on human nature.”
“What does that have to do with human nature?”
“For example,” she said. “You’re never going to get people to switch to a green energy product unless it is convenient, less expensive, or remarkably better. People are all about their own convenience. And they might philosophically care about broader things, but at the end of the day, you have to make things appealing to them. Because most people have to get what they can afford. Or what feels nice if they have money. Or what is convenient, because God knows everybody is strapped for time, and the point of technological innovation is supposed to be convenience.”
“An interesting perspective,” he said. And he had to admit that it was. He tended to think of things in terms of right and wrong. To him, changing things to benefit the planet was right. And he felt that comfort, convenience... None of it could possibly be more important than that one moral truth.
Obviously, Olive saw things differently.
He thought again of the corporate espionage, and the way she had justified it.
“So what then does you stealing information from me fall under? Convenience? Luxury?”
“That was about loving someone,” she said softly. She met his eyes. “I loved my father so much that there was nothing quite so important as making sure that he got what he wanted. Even if he wasn’t here to see it. The more emotions get tangled up in situations like these, the less black and white they are. Because it shifts what’s acceptable. And what isn’t. For me, acceptable is only getting the contract my father wanted. And that’s... It’s changing. Inside of me. All the time. As things... As they change. As I think about what kind of mother I want to be.” She looked up at him, her gaze dewy. “I had a realization, or, it skimmed past me yesterday, and just now it’s beginning to bloom into a full-on epiphany. My father loved his company more than he ever loved me. For me, it was about loving him. As much as Ambient has been the biggest work of my life, my motivation in making it so was to make him proud. Because his investment in my childhood was entirely related to Ambient. Because what he considered a success was entirely related to Ambient. I wanted to make him proud. But he never wanted to be proud of me half so much as he wanted me to accomplish specific things. What he wanted was the result. Not the feeling. I think he wouldn’t have cared at the end of the day if it were me or somebody else who had accomplished all these things, except that if it’s me, it links more directly back to him and his legacy. It’s convenient for him. You understand?”
“I suppose.”
“The point is, that’s what got me started on letting go of this. Because that isn’t why I was doing this. You’re doing things for achievements, that’s why the cheating seems important to you. You want to know that you’re the best. I just want to know that I did what my father asked of me. That’s all. I also realize that I don’t want to consign any child of mine to the same sort of fate. To this desperate need to make their dad proud. To this desperate need to perform to please a parent. Because it’s... It’s nearly impossible. It’s such a weight, such a burden. And I just can’t... I just can’t put them under that.”
“I do not know why my father did the things he did. He was a man with more money than God. He could have lived well and been decent. I will never understand him. But I know why I wanted to take control of Magnum and turned it into something better than he ever did.”
“Why?”
“To prove I’m better. To prove that he was wrong. To prove that he is nothing.”
To prove I’m not the same.
“Revenge?”
“If I’d sought revenge, I would have done it while he was alive. I want more than revenge. I want to make a change. My takeover of Magnum is essentially what I’m doing to Ambient. It has become part of the thing that I made. Which is bigger. And is the way of the future. These things are simply... Assets.”
“And you don’t care about them.”
“My father thought that to care about things was a weakness. I do not respect my father, but if there is one thing I never allowed myself to become...it’s weak.”
His one indulgence was the house in Iceland. A faint echo of better times. Simpler times.
“My father wanted there to be no softness in me. And he got his wish. But the fact is, the hand that sharpens the sword must be very careful that the sword is not turned upon him.”
“That seems very Viking of you.”
“You seem to have a preoccupation with Vikings.”