I’ve spent years writing about the intersection of technology, culture, and policy. When concepts like megawatt and megabyte are reshaping the very places we live, I’m finding that work increasingly relevant.
It is one thing to write an essay here or a newsletter there. Given the potential harms, utilizing adding additional forms, like narrative, seems warranted. The Biggest Little Bill is part tech satire, part civic noir. It’s a reminder that accountability doesn’t just live in boardrooms or algorithms; like all things, it starts with people.
I hope you enjoy this one, and maybe see a bit of your own fight in it.
This is the third scene. If you missed the first, you can begin at the beginning.
~Matthew
Scene 4 - Infiltration
Bill drove his Tacoma down the road, carefully navigating the handful of switchbacks. “Because I live here, dude” echoed in his head. She lived here, Dom lived here, he lived here. Who didn’t live here? Osirtek employees.
A handful of t-junctions later, Bill was near the interstate on ramp and the industrial park’s only hotel. Finished in the last year, he suspected it was where Osirtek’s rotating cast of high-priced consultants and limited time project personnel likely stayed; it would be closer to work. And - for all the young, single men with too much money and too little sense- it was probably safer for the company to put their employees up here than in downtown Reno.
As he approached, Bill could see his intuition was right; at least a third of the vehicles in the parking lot had those cheap, temporary magnetic signs with the OSIRTEK SYSTEMS logo on the door. Other than that, there weren’t any signs of life, the heat making any lingering outside uncomfortable.
Bill parked and studied the hotel in his rear view mirror, considering his options. The drone had been a bust. Dom would be laughing a week about that one. But maybe if he could talk to someone? Or maybe somebody that worked at the hotel might know something? He didn’t know what he was doing; only that he had to try and see.
The hotel was a casino in Monaco, inside was the mission, and he needed to be Bond, suave and capable. The only problem was that, in reality, he was a middle-aged man, sweating through his JC Penny button down, incapable of flying his kid’s drone.
He did a quick check in the mirror, attempted his most convincing poker face, and crossed the asphalt that radiated like a skillet.
If you’ve ever been to a chain business hotel, then you’ve been to this one. A drive underneath an awning before a set of double, motion-detected sliding doors. As Bill entered, he was blasted with the lobby air conditioning, the artificially sealed interior, fleetingly, doing battle with the high summer outside. Like the Osirtek waiting room, the furniture here was all clean lines and unsurprising color pairings; not boring, per se, but safe in the kind of way only design-by-committee can be.
Bill was about to move to the reception desk when raucous whoops and hollers broke out at the far end of the room. The hotel bar was packed for an early evening. Behind the bar, several televisions were full on sporting. The room was full of twenty-and-thirty-somethings, most wearing Osirtek polos, chattering away excitedly. Their imported beers raised or were pointing at the center screen, while one of them - apparently the loser of whatever bet - glumly pulled out his wallet.
Their conversations rose and fell inverse rhythm with the action on the screen, loudly talking to be heard over the commentators in one second and then hushed in reverence as the action played out in the next.
Bill gave the desk attendant an acknowledging wave, and headed to the bar. There was a seat at the end, where the viewing angle was the worst. He sat down and ordered an ice tea from the employee behind the counter. “This could be a thing,” he thought, taking out his phone and pretended to scroll.
The Osirtek employees carried on like pledges at a frat house. There seemed to be lots of prop bets happening on the baseball game: whether the batting team would score a run this inning, number of strike outs in that time, etc. It made Bill nauseous how much money seemed to trade hands, only to be traded right back.
It finished after what seemed to be an eternity, and the conversation seemed to turn to work.
“Yeah, we’re pulling 280 megawatts like it’s nothing.”
“Locals are freaking out about their water again, like their lawns matter.”
“Bah, if it looks like the aquifer is drying up, we’ll just use the new LLM engineering is training to figure it out.”
That last one made Bill pause. He had been typing the most egregious statements into a text to himself so he could recall them later, but that one was beyond just tech bro bravado - it didn’t make any sense. If they sucked the valley dry their plan was… to have the computers make water? He heard plenty of nonsense in county meetings, but this was something new.
Bill’s confusion must have have been apparent. An engineer, the glum bet-loser, had stopped nursing his imported IPA at some point and was watching him, curiously.
“Haven’t seen you before,” he said, turning slightly in his seat. “You with operations?”
Bill stiffened and set his phone face-down on the bar.
Several other people within earshot of the question were also now staring, expectantly.
“No, um.” The meeting at Osirtek; he had emailed with a specific division; what was its name? “Yeah, I’m with facilities compliance.”
There was a moment while they sized him up.
“You know - Coeburn?”
The glum engineer pulled a disapproving face. “You work with Coeburn?”
One of the guys - one with a shaved head and beard, who couldn’t have been out of college more than a few years, broke into a huge grin. He laughed as he blurted out, “Then you’re drinking the wrong thing, man!”
The room seemed to think it was the funniest thing ever, and exploded in laughter.
Bill lifted what remained of his iced tea and toasted the joke.
The assembled group returned to their respective conversations. Bill paid for his drink and left via the side door thirty minutes later; he didn’t know if anybody was paying attention, but, if so, he hoped the side door would look like he was returning to his room. It seemed to work - he climbed into his truck without encountering anyone else. Before starting, he doubled-checked his notes.
There was some good stuff here. Other stuff he didn’t understand. But there was one line he repeated under his breath:
“Redline burn-in - thurs. 10am.”
Whatever that was, he was going to be there to find out.
It was evening, and the sun was just beginning to set. As he went to pull away, he could see the canyon to the east, glowing unnaturally, the bright lights of the data center illuminating the valley like an artificial dawn.
End Scene 4 - Check back tomorrow for the conclusion of Biggest Little Bill.