“I thought you said he was in data mining. Not stock picking.”
“It’s all numbers,” Sloan says. “The heart of Eli’s business is a piece of software called Cutter. It analyzes the data for him. But the engine that drives Cutter is the same one that drives Spike. The one I built. It can be used on any set of facts, provided you can reduce those facts to computer input. Phone calls, credit-card purchases, social-media posts—my algorithm can find the patterns hidden in all of it. Everything OmniVore does, it’s doing on the back of my work. That’s the genius of my discovery.”
“Again, not to boast or anything.”
Sloan waves that off. He doesn’t have time for false modesty.
“Still doesn’t explain why you’ve waited two years to go after him,” I say.
“If I knew he’d stolen from me, I certainly would have done something about it sooner. I thought my security was adequate. There are no records of any breach. The software behind Spike is located inside secure computers that would have recorded any attempt to hack them. Access is strictly controlled. Every email is monitored. My analysts walk through a scanner and a strong magnetic field on their way into and out of the office, which means I would know if they carried any thumb drives or disks from the office, or they would be wiped clean if I didn’t. Then, about six months ago, I received information from one of Eli’s former employees. Someone upset with his own pay package, of course. He told me that he’d heard Eli bragging to a client that his computer models were better than Spike—that he’d improved them.”
“That doesn’t prove he stole them from you.”
“No. But Eli’s security isn’t as thorough as mine. This informant showed me several blocks of the source code Eli uses for Cutter. With a few changes here and there, it’s the same as Spike. No question.”
He takes a manila folder and places it on the table. He opens it and shows two different printouts. One is marked SPIKE and the other is marked CUTTER. They look identical to me, but only because I can’t make sense of either of them. Sloan seems pretty convinced, however.
“So if he didn’t download it from you, how was he supposed to steal it? Did he break your security system? Pay off one of your other employees?”
Sloan shakes his head. “No. Again, I would have noticed any breach. I have redundant systems and loyal, well-paid people. He might have been able to corrupt one or two, but not all of them. It would have shown up.”
“Then how did he do it?”
“He took my ideas out of here the old-fashioned way—in his brain.”
That staggers me for a moment. “Is that even possible?”
Sloan radiates ironclad certainty. There’s no doubt in him. “He’s smart enough, yes. He read the underlying computer code of Spike, line by line, until he found the algorithm, and then he memorized it. He walked out of here and wrote his own version, and then used it to create Cutter.”
I suddenly have a new respect for Preston. He’s not just another tech-bro, boy-billionaire douchebag. Smuggling an entire software system out by memorizing it would require both an insane amount of discipline and genius.
“I take it you don’t want to go to the authorities,” I say.
Sloan makes a face. “Please. They couldn’t catch Madoff. You think they’d even understand this?”
Fair point. “So use your own lawyers. Sue him.”
“You know that would take years. And it would require exposing all my software to his attorneys as well as the court. What’s worse, my own clients would react badly to news of this sort of a data breach. I rely on their confidence. If they were to find out that I’d had my most valuable trade secret stolen—”
“They might take their money to someone else,” I finish for him.
“Correct,” he says. “Even if I won, years from now, what then? Eli still has my knowledge inside his head. He could simply start over. I’d have to sue him again. The cycle would continue, over and over, and the only people who’d profit are the lawyers. I’m already an old man, Mr. Smith. I don’t have the time or patience for this to play out inside a courtroom. I know he’s stolen from me. I don’t need to be paid for it. Forgive me for sounding Old Testament, but I need him to be punished.”
“If you’re looking for someone to take out his eye, you could send one of your goons. It would probably be cheaper.”
Irritation leaks through Sloan’s cool detachment for a moment.
“I can recover the software,” I tell him. “I could even get inside his mind to find out how he stole it from you. But I can’t wipe out someone’s memories permanently.”
He gives me a long, hard look. “Mr. Smith. Do you think I enjoy repeating myself? I told you: I know more than other people do. Why would I ask if I didn’t already know you were capable of it?”
Another secret. This one I thought was buried deeper than Sloan could dig, honestly.
“Then you must know that’s only ever happened once. And it wasn’t exactly planned.”
Sloan taps his phone. He shows me the island on the screen again. “Well,” he says, “for what I’m offering you, I expect you’ll find a way to repeat that trick.”
I look at the green square surrounded by blue one more time. Peace and quiet and a life of luxury. Everything I’ve ever wanted, right in front of me. It only takes a second for me to decide.
“All right,” I tell Sloan. “I’m in.”
[3]
Sloan takes his private jet back. He drops me off at O’Hare on his way out of the country, and suddenly I’m Homer Simpson again, down here with the rest of you.
I spent the night at a business-suite hotel in Sioux Falls, along with Sloan’s flight crew. The flight attendant and I found each other at the hotel bar, and then she used my body as impersonally and athletically as a StairMaster. In her mind, I was barely in the room at all. Which, honestly, is the way I prefer it.
I should be in a better mood. But I threw up twice this morning—the chemo trick from yesterday catching up with me—and the Vicodin I swallowed with my morning coffee does nothing to shut out the herds of people in the airport. Now there’s pain and anxiety and boredom and discomfort from every person I pass, poking me like thorns. I get caught behind a morbidly obese man with a brand-new knee replacement, buzzing slowly along the floor on a scooter. His whole body is a collection of aches and pains and his thoughts are an ongoing obscene phone call. His fat is like a wet wool blanket, hugging every inch of him under the skin. His fake knee is giving me a real limp by the time I manage to get around him.
The doors to the first-class lounge don’t screen out the mental noise, but the anxiety level is lower in here, at least. Most of these people are more worried about making their connecting flight than about how they’ll pay next month’s credit-card bill. Believe me, that’s an easier burden to bear. I start looking for my contact.
Sloan was on his way to Switzerland for a high-security retreat with all the other men who run the planet—that’s why he needed the jet. He will be locked down and completely out of touch for the next week or two, as he goes off with presidents and prime ministers to think big thoughts at high altitudes. I can reach Gaines if I need anything, but Sloan also provided one of his employees to go with me on the job. Someone to pay for plane tickets, hotel rooms, and any weapons or supplies I decide I might need: a walking expense account and executive assistant. I asked him what my credit limit was, and he said, “I’ll expect a phone call if you buy a yacht. Anything below that is DGAF.” DGAF is a technical term in finance, for “Don’t Give A Fuck.”
I sense her eyes on me before I see her. Twenties. Business suit/skirt combo. Tasteful makeup, unobtrusive jewelry. None of which does a thing to hide the fact that she’s stunning. She cuts through the cr
owd and walks over to me. I feel envy from the other men in the lounge like dirt on the floor underfoot.
“Kelsey Foster,” she says. “I’m here to help you with your work for Mr. Sloan.”
I take her hand and do a quick surface scan, more out of habit than anything else. I get flashes of the self-image that we all carry with us—the tiny chunks of identity and memory that we use to orient ourselves in the world, to literally remember who we are. I see a tidy apartment more like a hotel room, cool and abandoned due to her constant travel; a Mercedes C-class in the garage that she never gets to drive; and a semiboyfriend who’s polite enough to call instead of text before he comes over late at night.
For an instant, I see myself through her eyes. I look a lot better than I do in the mirror. There’s a charge of attraction from her, but it’s quickly shut down. She’s remembering chunks from a dossier given to her by Sloan. I know instantly it’s not complete—there’s a lot that Sloan didn’t choose to include. But some of the details are enough, especially the ones about my personal life.
“And no, I’m not going to sleep with you,” she adds with a smile.
“Is that some kind of legal disclaimer you have to give to everyone you meet?”
“Just want to be clear. I know men in your position sometimes expect companionship as part of their fee. I’m not paid to be a mattress topper.”
“And what if I am looking for that?”
She gives me a look.
“I’m sure I can. Thanks.”
“As you asked, I’ve set up a meeting for you with Preston,” she says, smoothly moving on from the unpleasant spot in the conversation. “You’re going to be a new employee of Mr. Sloan who’s tasked with starting our own data-mining division. You’re going to ask Eli to consult on this venture. That should give you a chance to see him face-to-face and do . . . well, whatever it is you do.”
She comes out with a folder full of materials and hands it over. “I prepared this for you. Eli Preston’s life and times. The highlights, anyway.”
I open the file. It’s filled with magazine articles, financial statements, and a confidential dossier from a high-priced investigation firm. On top of everything else is an invitation for OmniVore’s quarterly corporate retreat.
This explains why we’re flying to Pennsylvania, not California. Instead of going to Silicon Valley, where OmniVore is headquartered, we’re going to someplace called Gun Hill Ridge, not far from Scranton.
“What’s Gun Hill Ridge?”
“It’s a hunting preserve,” Kelsey says. “They import exotic animals, like wildebeests and zebras and such, or buy them from zoos when they’re old and dying. And then they charge guys to come in with guns and shoot them. Go on safari without ever using your passport. That sort of thing.”
I read the invite. “‘Dress for Serious Play’? What the hell does that mean?”
“No idea,” Kelsey says. “It’s some kind of team-building exercise. So I suppose he wants his people to kill some big game and then take the skins home as trophies.”
“Oh good. A bunch of tech geeks with weapons. Nothing could possibly go wrong there.”
“It was the only time I could get you on Preston’s schedule.”
I close the folder. “Thanks for this. But really, I’ll get everything I need out of Preston’s head.”
Another brilliant smile. “Of course you will.”
“Look. We’re going to work together,” I tell her. “It will save some time if you just accept that I can do what I do.”
“I didn’t say anything,” she says. “Oh right. You knew what I was thinking.”
“That I’m full of shit.”
“Well, now I’m convinced. There’s no way you could have guessed that.”
“Your pin number is 3510. It was the combination on your Hello Kitty bike lock when you were a kid. Your favorite color is turquoise,” I say. “And you’ve never really forgiven your dad for leaving your mom when you were fifteen.”
Kelsey goes very still for a moment. Inside, I can see her assimilate this new piece of information. A moment ago, her world didn’t include people who can read minds. Now it does, and she smoothly integrates the new reality with only a slight pause. It’s like watching a drone lose track of a target and then reacquire it with a radar lock. Not many people can do that. Most people go tripping over new facts like potholes in the concrete, eyes fixed firmly ahead, pretending they don’t exist. It’s got very little to do with intellect; even people with high IQs can have agendas and issues that act like a blindfold. They spend so much time tending their interior damage that they ignore anything in the outside world that seems even vaguely threatening.
Kelsey’s smart enough and has a healthy enough ego that she doesn’t need to do that. Her self isn’t bound up in always knowing the right answer. She always wants to find the right answer, which is not the same thing at all.
This might sound odd, but she has a great mind. Seriously, I see a lot of them, and I could watch her think for some time.
Unfortunately, she doesn’t feel the same way. Her smile vanishes. Her guard goes up so fast I can almost hear the sound of doors slamming.
“Oh, can I play too?” She doesn’t wait for me to answer, just takes a theatrical look up and down. “Let’s see, you get all your fashion tips from GQ and Esquire, which is probably your way of compensating for the fact that nobody cared what you looked like when you left for school. You’re way too impressed by labels, which means you don’t know that the really good stuff doesn’t come with a tag and a logo. You haven’t woken up to the fact that no man in America under fifty wears a suit and tie every day unless he sells used cars. And you put more thought into your choice of shoes in the morning than whoever you climb on top of at night.”
She pauses, looks at me.
“How’s that? Pretty close?”
Impressive. Hard to argue with any of it. “Dead-on, actually.”
“And I don’t even read minds,” she says.
“You cheated a little,” I remind her. “You have access to Sloan’s file on me.”
“That’s right,” she said. “We have very good researchers. But I don’t need them to tell me everything I need to know about you. I admit, you’re a good-looking guy, Mr. Smith. And yes, I might have used your body for a night or two and we both would have enjoyed it—”
She makes sure I pick up on the past tense there.
“—but now I’m thinking that’s not a good idea, since you don’t know where the line is between professional and personal.”
I hold up my hands, as if to ward off incoming blows. “Hey. You wanted proof.”
“No,” she says sharply. “Actually, I didn’t. I’m capable of working with you whether I believe you or not. Mr. Sloan believes you. That’s all I need to know. I’m a little surprised that someone who can apparently do what you do hasn’t learned this by now, but sometimes people keep things to themselves. You know why? Because they want to keep it to themselves.”
Despite her tight control, I get a shot of everything behind that speech: Ivy Leaguers who looked down on her public school education; coworkers she technically outranked asking her to fetch coffee; and the self-designated alpha males who saw her as a decorative place to drain their glands. When Sloan offered her a job, it was like clouds parting. She broke for the sun.
Any time anyone condescends to her, underestimates her, or simply violates her personal boundaries, her shields go up, and she gets ready to fight all the old battles again. And I just did all three.
One of the many other downsides to being a telepath: knowing instantly and with certainty when you’ve acted like an asshole. I broke into her private life to score a cheap point, which is a lot worse than the countless guys who snuck a look down her blouse when they thought she wouldn’t notice.
There’s onl
y one thing to do: I apologize.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her. “You’re right. That was unnecessary.”
Her guard is still up, but her hostility recedes a bit. She makes a conscious effort to let go of the grudge. I can feel her releasing it, like opening a clenched fist.
“Apology accepted,” she says, with a curt nod. “They’re calling our flight. We should go.”
She walks away without looking back.
Well done, I tell myself. We’re off to a great start.
ONCE WE’RE IN the sky, the background noise recedes. There’s still a whole plane full of people, but the tension level drops considerably now that we’re on our way. Most of the passengers in first class are asleep or close to it. The only people awake and alert are a couple of plastic surgeons on their way to a conference, discussing this year’s jawlines.
And Kelsey. She’s busy with her computer and the gray slate of detail it presents. So I get a bourbon from the flight attendant and my copy of Debt: The First 5,000 Years from my bag.
Books were the first thing I found that helped me. I went to the library in my elementary school because it was usually deserted; it was easier to screen out the thoughts of the elderly librarian than the chaos of six hundred grade school kids and their overworked teachers. To stay there, I had to read. Word by word, line by line, the focus required for reading built a wall between me and all the stray thoughts ricocheting through the air.
That was my only defense until junior high, when some of the older kids in my group home got me drunk on Zima. I could see they thought it was a joke:
Turned out, there should have been trumpets playing “Hallelujah.” It was a revelation. I could still read others—better than before in some cases. The noise was still there too. I could still feel other people’s pain and see their secrets. I just didn’t care. I had a nice, warm cushion of apathy for the first time in my life.
Now booze and books are like old friends. Together they make me feel almost human.
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