Nora Vale

At 1:20 p.m., while Nora was still across from him pretending not to watch his hands, Palantir volume began to change. Ethan saw it on the corner of his screen and forced his face to remain bored. The stock moved quietly at first, then with purpose. Nora noticed his stillness. "What?" she asked. "Nothing." She turned her phone over, checked the market, and her eyes narrowed. "You were watching that." "Everyone watches Palantir. It's like politics with a ticker symbol." "Did you buy?" "No." "Why not?" "Because a journalist is sitting across from me asking whether I'm lucky, connected, or strange." That one got the smile. For forty minutes, they talked about markets, layoffs, Queens, and the new religion of artificial intelligence.