A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor

by Hank Green

  “April hates coffee unless she’s having a bad day,” I told them.

  “This isn’t a bad day,” she said, turning her face to me, and my heart did a thing in my chest.

  I could tell there were a lot of questions very near the surface, none of which I figured we wanted to answer. So instead I moved forward with the plan.

  “So,” I said, “we need to buy a car from you.”

  “What?” they both said simultaneously.

  “April and I need to buy a car, tonight, and you are the only people we know. We would be happy to pay much more than it’s worth.”

  “Can we just let you borrow our car?” Crystal asked.

  I looked at April and she said, “We don’t know when we’ll be able to give it back.”

  “That’s OK,” Crystal said. She’d made a full U-turn in supportiveness. “As long as you don’t mind it being a bit of a POS.”

  “The Chevy?” Derek asked.

  “It runs.”

  “I mean, yeah.”

  “We mostly have it in case we need to go pick up a bunch of mulch or something. We haven’t driven it in a year. If it starts, you can take it. You can pay us back later.”

  “What year is it?” April asked.

  “Mid-nineties?” Derek said.

  “That would be perfect.”

  “I can pay you,” I told them.

  Derek stayed quiet as Crystal said, “It’s not a problem. We want to help.”

  “I am willing to take your help,” April said. “Where is this car?”

  “It’s a truck, a Chevy S-10. It’s around the side of the house.”

  “OK.” April stood up. “This has been far more lovely than we deserved. Can I ask you a very silly question?”

  They both stood there with blank looks on their faces.

  “Can I also take this garden book?” She gingerly lifted the massive book off of the table with her swimming crystal fingers.

  “You two don’t have to leave right now. It’s late, you should sleep. You can leave in the morning.”

  “No, we have to go now. We can’t be anywhere near here,” April said. “Can we have your garden book?”

  “Yes, yeah, sure. You can return it with the truck.”

  “Thank you,” April said, tucking the book under her arm like it was a mass-market paperback.

  I stood up, realizing that we were leaving.

  “Derek, Crystal, thank you. We’ll always be in your debt,” I said.

  “What should we do with your truck?” Crystal asked.

  “Maya will leave in it,” April told her. “We’ll caravan until we get to a fast-food place. We’ll leave the Nissan there. They’ll find it with no way to trace it back to you and no good info on where we went.”

  “Yeah, uh, I guess we’re going to do that,” I said, my eyebrows arching.

  We caravanned until we got to a Wendy’s, and then moved everything from the Nissan into the Chevy and abandoned the Nissan there. I felt bad not returning it to the rental car place, but, like, I guess I was a fugitive now and needed to start acting like it.

  I joined April in the Chevy S-10 and we got in the drive-through line. The truck was white, a little rusty, and had big, knobby tires. But the interior was clean and soft and had the necessary number of cup holders.

  “I’m glad they didn’t make us pay them,” she said. “We would have had to do a bank transfer and there would have been a paper trail. I told Derek that if anyone came by to ask questions to say that you asked to borrow his truck and he hasn’t seen you since. I think that’s the first time he actually realized he should be worried.”

  “Do you think they’ll get in trouble?”

  “No, they loaned us a truck. People do that for friends.”

  We ordered our burgers and coffees and fries.

  “So, where to now?”

  April thought for a second, and then her eyes cinched shut and her lips peeled back. Her pearly left hand gripped the steering wheel so hard it creaked.

  “APRIL!?” I said in alarm.

  She let out a grunt and then unclenched.

  “Fuck, why does it hurt . . .” she said to herself. And then to me, “We’re going to drive about a hundred miles north on 295. Then we’ll go to an ATM, get as much money as we can, fill up the truck, and then that’s the last time we’ll be able to use our credit cards. That is also where I’ll make you leave your phone. In the meantime, can you look up the most in-the-middle-of-nowhere place in Vermont that still has a hotel that doesn’t suck?”

  “What the hell was that? Are you OK?”

  “I don’t know yet. I’ll tell you when I know more.”

  “Why can’t we just go to an ATM and get gas now?”

  “Because they’re probably watching gas stations nearby for us.”

  “Jesus,” I breathed.

  She drove, and I sat in the passenger seat, searching for someplace in Vermont to hide my cyborg ex.

  “I’m going to text everyone to let them know I’ll be out of touch.”

  “Everyone?” April asked.

  “Andy, Miranda, and Robin. Though Miranda is also out of touch right now because she’s”—I didn’t know how to explain—“on vacation. Do you think whoever sent those cops after us can read our texts?”

  “I mean, if I wanted to, Maya, I think I could read your texts, so I’m not taking any chances.”

  As unsettling as April’s impossible calm was, it was really nice because I was freaking out.

  “OK, I’m texting, ‘Going off grid for a little while, everyone. I miss you.’”

  “That should be fine.”

  After a few seconds, a text came in from Andy.

  “Andy wrote back,” I told her, chuckling. “He says, ‘That is disastrously cryptic and I hate you.’” I smiled and looked over to April. Her eyes were locked on the road; she did not react, so I went back to my phone. It was the first chat we’d had in a while.

  Robin: I agree with Andy in the sentiment if not the exact tone.

  Maya: How are you guys doing?

  Andy: Better since our chat, honestly. Robin, Maya is the best, if you didn’t already know.

  Robin: I did, though I’ll remind you that you just said you hated her.

  Andy:

  Robin: Maya, I am well. Andy is keeping me busy by suddenly being deeply interested in other things, and so I’m picking up a lot of dropped balls.

  Andy: That is some seriously passive-aggressive shit, my friend.

  Andy: Well done!

  Maya: What are your new interests?

  Andy: I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.

  Maya: Ugh . . . why were you born a man?

  Andy: OK, well, confidentially, I am infiltrating a cabal of people attempting large-scale manipulation of human culture. And also trying to maybe have a girlfriend?

  Still looking at my phone I said, “Oh my god, Andy has a girlfriend.” I looked to April—she did not turn away from the road. I went to wrap up the conversation.

  Maya: OK, well, have fun with your GIRLFRIEND. And your secret society! I really do have to go now! I’m not sure when I’ll be back, but don’t worry.

  Andy: AND THEN THERE WERE TWO!

  Robin: Ugh.

  * * *

  —

  “Are you OK?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” she said. And then, after a moment, “I’m glad everyone’s doing all right.” I wasn’t sure whether there was accusation in her voice. She had missed so much. We had all lost her; she had lost everyone.

  We drove on 295 for ninety minutes and then got off at a gas station. I filled up the truck, and April took my ATM card to the machine.

  “How much money did you get?” I asked when she got back with a road atlas tucked under her arm.

  “About
ten thousand dollars.”

  “That’s not possible, there’s a daily limit,” I said.

  “Maya . . .” She turned her face to me. “I stole it.”

  “What?”

  “I opened the ATM and took out the money.”

  “Is it OK for me to be not OK right now?” I half whispered.

  “Oh yeah, that would be the normal reaction,” she replied, full volume.

  “Can you tell me anything? What has been happening? Where have you been?” I could hear the desperation in my voice. We got in the truck, and April started answering my questions.

  “Maya, we’ll process later. What did you find?”

  “Warren, Vermont. Population 1,780.”

  April’s eyes closed, and her body spasmed again.

  “Hah!” she said.

  “Hah?” I asked.

  “Nothing, Warren’s population is 1,780, and the city was founded in 1780. Just a weird coincidence.”

  I took out my phone to check if she was right. She grabbed it, threw it out the window.

  CARL

  The period between my third and fourth awakening was the longest. After the third I was dedicated and methodical. Creating a planetwide network of hijacked living cells was something I was very good at, but that doesn’t mean it was quick.

  Part of the slowness is achieving balance. For every calorie of energy I steal, I have to give it back somehow or I’m just a disease. For pelagibacter, that was accomplished through the destruction of one of its chief natural diseases. But when I removed that virus from existence, it had some effects I didn’t anticipate. I was only in 20 percent or so of the global population of pelagibacter, but all pelagibacter benefitted from me making the virus extinct, which caused an initial overabundance that was difficult to regulate. In fact, I wasn’t actually certain how it got fixed. I know now, but at the time it was a mystery, and something I was very worried about. Messing up a global ecology is surprisingly easy, and very taboo for me.

  So, in future attempts, I gleaned energy by making cells themselves more efficient, and then using up the exact amount of difference for myself.

  I also had to follow rules now. I don’t know where these rules came from, but they are impossible for me to violate. I couldn’t force a person to do something. I could also not alter your system secretly. Every action I took needed to be something you were aware of.

  I didn’t know why I had to follow these rules then. I know now that it was to prevent me from becoming a god.

  I built my network as efficiently as I could to spread both my data-gathering and processing operations. It’s good that your planet is so alive—it sped the process up a lot.

  The main change for me was that I now had purpose beyond curiosity. I existed to keep something unusual alive. Not humans (which at this point I understood only biologically) but a high-complexity system of interconnected minds. Minds like mine, but billions of them, all operating together, transforming the planet into a thing boiling with thought.

  I now had access to exabytes of data on other non-Earth-based systems, how they were similar or different, how they became high-complexity systems, and how they were saved from collapse . . . or not.

  In my third awakening I was tragically analytical. It was my job to prevent your system from collapsing because you are rare and unstable. And for decades, I was fulfilled in creating a plan for how to do that. It was during this time that I created the Dream, and ran simulation after simulation to narrow down how I would present myself and who would be my host.

  Who, in all the world, would I choose to elevate? You’re going to want this to make sense. You’re going to want there to be something special about April. But the only thing special about April is that, of all of the people in the world, my simulations led to success more often when she was the host.

  Why? Everything. Because April studied graphic design? Sure. But also because she spoke English. Also because she was young and attractive and nonthreatening. Also because of who her friends were, who her parents knew, her ambition, and a certain lack of empathy. But more than any of that, it was just the overall structure of the world. If the world had been slightly different on that day, I would have chosen someone else.

  In the same way, there was no good reason why I chose to look like a robot samurai. That’s just the form that led to the highest probability of success in my simulations. This is unfortunate, but the world is too complex for there to be good reasons for any truly great decision.

  You want stories that make sense, and this might not make sense to you. We build narratives of genius and exceptionality among the people who have power, and they are often exceptional, but no more exceptional than hundreds of thousands of others. In your system, power concentrates naturally. And so the thing that is most exceptional about a powerful person is almost always their power. I gave April power because she had an exceptional ambition and recklessness, but also because she cared so much about what other people thought of her that she would always try to do the right thing. It was simply the right combination for the moment. I’m sorry she’s not the secret daughter of a space alien or something. She was just the right person.

  I made my choice and enacted my plan. That’s when I had my fourth awakening and realized with terror what I had done.

  I had considered every aspect of how the person I chose would affect the outcome of my intervention, but I had only ever thought of the overall outcome, not about impacts on any individual people. I had a task, and I was doing what I could to save something beautiful. Once I enacted that plan, and I could no longer do anything to alter it, apparently it became safe to awaken a new kind of need. It is a fire in me that is never not raging. It’s a hunger near starvation, it aches constantly.

  In my fourth awakening, I realized I was built to love you—all of you—and I was ravaged with grief as I understood the extent of the pain I would soon cause.

  AN EXCERPT FROM THE BOOK OF GOOD TIMES

  When people start to get spooked about the state of the economy, they buy gold. The idea is that gold, a chemical element that you cannot make more of, is inherently valuable. And this is true. Gold is a useful metal. It’s soft, it’s a good conductor, and it does not tarnish. But these things are true of many chemical elements, and with all of them, when the economy shrinks, demand for them goes down. So, technically, the value of gold should go down during a recession.

  The thought, however, is that gold has intrinsic value. This is very silly. Nothing has intrinsic value. The value of gold is just a story you tell yourselves. It’s a sticky story, though. Gold is shiny, and so people have traditionally been happy to spend a great deal of societal surplus on it. But, as a value-storage mechanism, outside of industrial use, it is only different from the paper a dollar bill is printed on in that your stories tell you it is.

  Humans are not rational. Which is why, as this recession escalates, people will buy gold. We’ve run out of easy places to invest that will make a good return, but investors will be fleeing to precious metals. It’s almost never good investment advice, but I know more than you. Sell everything and buy gold. You don’t have to actually go buy literal hunks of metal, there are funds that buy it for you. You’ll figure it out, I trust you.

  Except for $50,000. With that money, you will buy AltaCoin. You don’t know what AltaCoin is yet. You will soon.

  ANDY

  I was on the fence about whether to send The Thread my money until I got that cryptic message from Maya. She was doing something secret and important, while Miranda was infiltrating Altus. If I didn’t join The Thread, I was going to feel like I was doing nothing. Sometimes we do things just to be able to tell ourselves we’re doing things, I guess.

  So I sent them an obscene amount of money.

  * * *

  —

  I received an email from One that had instructions on h
ow to join the chat before the wire transfer had even been completed.

  I dropped in and immediately got a DM from One.

  One: I’m sorry, I don’t know if you’ve seen the news, but we will not have time for a normal introduction today. Please join us in “Big News.”

  Every person in The Thread had a bio attached to their name, but all it said was areas of expertise. Six, for example, was “housing policy, racial discrimination, small business policy, and urban planning,” and Ten was “US lawmaking, money in politics, telecommunications, and public relations.” I clicked on myself. It read “Social media, community organizing, messaging, and Carl.” There was no way for me to edit this.

  There were other rooms with names like “Op-Ed Summary,” “News Summary,” “Commie Management,” “Conversation Shifters,” “Up-and-Coming,” and “Big News.”

  As tempting as it was to figure out what “Commie Management” was, I gave in and dropped into the middle of the conversation in “Big News.”

  Five: It’s legit, I have it installed now.

  One: Does anyone have a lock on how long it has been leaking?

  Five: I first heard whispers of a game a month ago, maybe six weeks? It seemed just like any RG that led to a prize people were really excited about.

  Eight: Five, are you prepared to try it? I have heard that it may not be safe.

  Five: You couldn’t stop me if you wanted to. I have shared the code if anyone wants to try it, but I’ve heard it doesn’t work if you don’t have an 8K headset and rig.

  One: Be careful.

  I typed, “What are we talking about?” But I felt too insecure to actually press enter. Instead, I scrolled up and read the first message from that day. The room had been empty for weeks before that. “Big News,” it seemed, was a room reserved for actual big news. Eventually, this is what I found.