Jassopy

That perfect knowledge arrived quietly. No ceremony, no paperwork worth remembering. One day, I simply began noticing things earlier than other people did — outcomes lining up before decisions were finished, conversations ending before anyone realized they had started going wrong.

I assumed everyone experienced this and merely chose not to mention it.

At the time, I was working on electrical contracts at a data center expansion outside the city. University degree or not, work is work when there isn’t enough of it. The union handled the rest — overtime calculations, vacation blocks, grievances filed somewhere above my understanding. Then one morning, the union was gone. Not dissolved exactly. Removed, like equipment taken off-site overnight.

No one explained it to us. Explanations belong to people who are known.

I am not one of those people.

Around then, I met Jassopy.

It was while we tested circuits along some catwalk rigging that Jassopy was perfectly still beside, while everyone else hurried around pretending urgency. Later, I learned she was a model. At the time, I only noticed that she seemed certain about things I had already calculated. Was that Perfect Knowledge, being so unpredictable? Well, as it turned out, not completely.

So then we got to know each other, and we were friends before I knew it. Here I am working, and to my shock, she's telling me everything. Her last partner. His abusive ways. My mind is turning over. Check. Yup. Gotcha. It's all there in the data dump, that minds my feelings.

She did say that perfect knowledge was a gift. I'll give her that. But it's one that I never seem to use appropriately. Or so she eventually tried telling me. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

“Oh, you should know!” she said one day after a hard evening’s work when I made a simple aside about how employees should be treated. I was alone with her in the dressing room. Well, I was alone with a whole bunch of models, getting back into their street clothes.

"Watch how the other women always fuss over themselves," I continued. "Then they build alliances with others. Shared confidences. The "yeah, me too!" vibe that sets them all against you..."

"Will you keep your voice down?" Jassopy snarls. "I need this job!"

"But will you keep it?" I'm asking. "I haven't seen you chat up anyone else here."

One lady, an older one, kept looking at us. I checked her out. The madam of the outfit? I never gave it another thought.

Actually, to tell you the truth, I was much more interested in the clothing. The women's street clothes were hardly different from what they modeled. Which was so odd. Models who can afford the clothing that they parade about in?

“It’s all a show! We borrow everything!” Jassopy remonstrated when I spoke about it.

Which made me think that she had deep thoughts on the meaning of life. You know, live now and ask questions later. That sort of thing.

"An unexamined life is not worth living," I popped at her as we were leaving the venue.

"And too much examination leads where exactly?" she rejoined. "You seem to know so much about the little things and not nearly enough about anything big."

But by the look on her face, so pensive, so persuasive in the moonlight--I almost believed her. The dark night held surprises that held me. But only for a moment.

I snapped back almost immediately. A soft rain began to fall. And I'm measuring the precipitation. Which led to endless thinking about Jassopy, who also fell silent as we walked.

I classified her as sincere, and the available data supported her reliability. But to hear her speak, you’d think she was the one with Perfect Knowledge. How could that be? I gave that over to the AGI, who was taking a break from being endlessly machine-intelligent. Taking a break from being omniscient and perfect.

We turned onto a busier street with a broad sidewalk. It was then, in the bright lights, that I realized how Jassopy simply towered above me. Not to mention that the awkward silence between us started to take a toll. Jassopy became animated.

“Those know-it-all politicians! Now I have hardly enough to cover my basic expenses! The high life is for them! What about me?”

“But your job is only to model perfection. It's a perfect lifestyle. The only curious part is that you look so unhappy doing it.”

She laughed. “Really?”

I stopped. “Yes, really.”

Now I’m 5'6" or so. The perfect size for small spaces, electrical cabinets, sewer pipes, and whatnot. It must have been so odd for people passing by us to see this incredibly slender, skyscraper-tall woman peering down on me, who was more like a scrub tree.

And to think that she was amused. Quite out of the ordinary. I hooked my thumbs in my pants to imitate some know-it-all man. “You know all about the fake life you model,” I growled. “The wonder is that you continue to live it.”

It was meant to be a joke. But Jassopy frowned. “It’s a job, and some of us get to be famous. And well paid too.”

“But not you?”

“The photo shoots make the difference. If you only catwalk, there’s not much to it.”

“I see.” We started walking again. Jassopy was tired when we got to her apartment door. She didn’t invite me in.

#

I rolled over. My day off. So much to think about, with my gig at the data center ending soon. Only piecework left. I didn’t get a piece of that. Not today anyway.

So I thought there had to be something I could do. Jassopy had a chance at modeling that very afternoon. She had to show up, and maybe she’ll get the nod and be in it.

As a friend, I was allowed into the venue as part of an understanding with security. “You can gad about, but do it unseen by anyone important enough to matter to us.”

Which suited me fine. I even got dressed up in my best slacks and a blouse that my mother gave me. Which looked nothing like what was being modelled.

Jassopy met me backstage. “I’m in!” she whisper-shouted to me across the hallway from the dressing room. I knew not to be in that room before a show. So I only gave her a thumbs-up sign and found a partially obstructed place to view the presentation.

It wasn’t long before it started. I was behind a grey pillar that supported the roof. People had left all sorts of camera equipment there. So much so that I was afraid I might trip over some cases that get all squishy when they lose the really important stuff.

Jassopy was a fill-in. I could tell because she only appeared occasionally. The regulars would strut down the catwalk, and when something unplanned happened, Jassopy would too. It had to be something unplanned, like a model taking too long to change into another outfit or a piece that had to be hemmed at the last minute.

She looked so unhappy. They all did. Which was supposed to happen. I could get all philosophical and say that working in the sewer never put a smile on my face either. The people did.

Like Joey, when he found the sinkhole we were afraid of, ready to swallow us up. He disappeared suddenly, only to pop back up. “Surprise!” he said.

I could have clobbered him. But we all burst out laughing. The whole work crew. More from a sense of relief than anything else. Which was so much like my implant. A world away from having to make sense of everything.

Ah, to daydream! I only saw it in my mind afterwards. Her awkward gait. Her tiredness. The "madam" looked especially stressed. She was trying to motion to the other models, something important enough to attract the spectator's attention.

Jassopy fell.

It was a moment caught in time. A sudden flash. Then a topple that floored everyone who saw it. People said that it was luck she only fell on the catwalk.

But the way I see it: When you strut your stuff, falling is part of it. Part of everything that makes us who we are.

I told her afterward. A sprained ankle was the worst of it. Very mild. But for the tears, you’d think hardly anything happened.

But it was that perfect knowledge that ruined everything. No really. From one perfect unknown to another. No need to filter it through celebrity, or power, unmitigated privilege, or understanding.

“I’ll never work again!” Jassopy moaned.

And for once, I couldn’t agree with her more.