"Not long, no." Which is ambiguous, but implies he counts as in her cohort; Bruce had toyed with the idea of pretending to be from some other time, but it's been easier to slip into the wake of Hasi's high-octane social engineering. She lived in Boston, Tom studied at MIT. It fits easily enough.

As for the network itself- "Digital crowds get me as much as real ones, I'm afraid I haven't been very talkative." Slightly apologetic, as if he doesn't mean to be mysterious.