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“He told me it’s real. I know nothing about the details, other than what I can infer from the Supreme Court opinion he told me to read,” she said.
“‘A naïveté from which ordinary citizens are free,’” he said, quoting the chief justice—and confirming that Noah wasn’t wrong. “I can see why it would be part of his cybersecurity audit,” he added.
“You can?”
“Absolutely. Under Buck’s security protocols, project names must be random. It’s against every rule in the book to choose a name that could give an outsider any clue as to what the project is about,” he replied.
“Who came up with the name Naïveté?”
“I didn’t know at the time. I’ve since been told it was Patrick.”
“You mean since he’s gone missing?”
The point of reference seemed to make him uncomfortable. “Yes. Since then.”
“So Patrick was being truthful when he said my play was like the project. Or I should say my play before Irving Bass told me to change a few things, like the beginning, the middle, and the end. They both dealt with the U.S. census.”
“You said your play was about player pianos, so I can’t speak to that. But Project Naïveté isn’t about the census, per se.”
“I get it that I don’t have clearance. But there must be something more you can tell me.”
“I can give you the thirty-thousand-foot view. I won’t pass judgment as to why the Commerce Department wanted to include the citizenship question in the last census or why the Supreme Court shot it down. But the whole exercise revealed two important things. One,the census isn’t the best way to find out who is and who isn’t a U.S. citizen.”
“People lie,” said Kate.
“Or they just don’t respond. Number two, the U.S. government already has massive amounts of administrative data on citizenship, like Social Security records.”
“Which are probably more reliable than census responses.”
“But here’s the thing. Even all that data is only eighty percent accurate.”
Kate could see where this was leading. “So they came to Buck.”
“Yes. And there’s nothing illegal or immoral about the federal government trying to get a more accurate assessment of how many people living within its borders are citizens and how many aren’t.”
“What does the federal government plan to do with Buck’s ‘more accurate assessment’?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
“Because I don’t have clearance?”
“Because the next time you see Noah, I want you to be free to tell him everything I’ve ever told you about Project Naïveté.”
The mention of a “next time” seemed presumptive on his part.
“What makes you think I’ll talk to Noah again?”
“Because Ineedyou to keep the dialogue going.”
“I wish you wouldn’t put me in this position.”
“I’m not. Noah is. And I’m fine with it. This conversation has been very helpful to me and to the company.”
“But my stomach has been in knots all day.”
“Stop worrying, Kate. I swear, sometimes you’re so much like your mother.”
He rarely drew the comparison, and this was the first time since her passing, which made for an awkward moment. As always, it rang false to Kate. It was something he would say once or twice a year, usually when Kate’s self-doubt edged toward self-destruction, or when he could tell she was tipsy, and he felt the need to remind her that children of alcoholics were twice as likely to develop a use disorder. Funny thing was, Kate didn’t see herself as being “like” either parent, and if she went back far enough in time, she remembered only wanting to be like her father, not her mother. Just being in his office triggered memories of her father bringing in Kate to sit at Daddy’s desk and play CEO, overseeing a “staff” of American Girl dolls. Samantha, the most responsible, was her star employee and had a chair right beside her. So long ago, so much mischief. The fish in the saltwater aquarium she used to chase with the little net. The screensavers on Daddy’s computer she used to tinker with. Her father favored words over images, and he liked to post something philosophical or inspirational, a line from a book he was reading or a takeaway from a TED talk he’d attended. When he wasn’t looking, Kate would replace it with the latest words of wisdom from Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen.