He might have the key to Natia’s whereabouts.
Across town in Atherton, the ping! of a new Flitter message rang sweetly in Niels’ ears.
“Yes!” he said aloud, pumping his fist in the air and draining his second bottle of wine. It was his first response since he had begun targeting Poodlekek fans.
But whether he was drunk or simply confused, the message from PrinceArsyen didn’t make much sense:
Is it that bad? Can I help?
Was PrinceArsyen quoting a Poodlekek song? It certainly wasn’t from any Poodlekek song he could remember. Niels hated it when he was outsnobbed by other music fans.
Then again, even as a lyric, the fleet didn’t really make sense. Poodlekek songs were never about charity or helping people. It was one of the reasons Niels had liked them so much — heavy metal had been an early conduit for his misanthropy. He had even found the name of the band fitting — all about the prissiest of dogs, a poodle, getting kicked.
Niels pictured a startled poodle flying through the air above him, landing with a crash among Gregor’s shelf of Chateau Latour.
He laughed at the image, but then paused. Poodlekek, or was it Poodlekik? Poodlekik. Poodlekek. Poodlekik…
What the hell was Poodlekek?
Niels groaned, suddenly remembering a college geography course. Poodlekek was the capital of one of those countries no one cared about; one of the places that was always poor, and always in revolt, whose leaders were always doing crazy things like naming the days of the week after their dead pets. The hundreds of #Poodlekek fleets about violence now made sense to him. There must be some sort of revolt in the region. That was just what those countries did when they had free time.
“Arrrrrrrrrgh!” Niels kicked the step of the cellar stairs. How could he screw up his Flitter strategy yet again? How many more times would he have to start over?
And then he stopped. An invisible hook passed over Niels’ face, first drawing the eyebrows upward, then the corners of the mouth, freezing in a smile.
He turned back to his phone. There was a new message.
@PrinceArsyen: What it like there? People ok?
Niels responded immediately:
@Niels_1973: Shootin’, lootin’, and general pollutin’!
It was the chorus of his favorite Poodlekek song: Shootin’ — boom boom — lootin’ — boom boom — gen-er-al pollutin’!
Niels hummed the song, feeling the wine dance along with him in his head. No one cared about old Niels, but it seemed like a whole lot of Flitterati cared about a bunch of poor people in Poodlekek. He’d make the most of it.
@PrinceArsyen: Anyone hurt?
@Niels_1973: Can’t you hear the distant cry, of the children, the women!
@PrinceArsyen: Horrible!
@Niels_1973: No food, no water, we’re in for a hell of a slaughter!
Arsyen gasped as he read Niels_1973’s messages. It was worse than he had imagined. Natia, his supporters — they were all in danger. He jumped from his seat and paced the cubicle, the trumpets of the Pyrrhian national anthem marching through his head.
It was eleven a.m. in Palo Alto, but already nighttime in Pyrrhia. His country was moving into the future before him, its steps and disasters ahead of him and beyond his control. He jumped back to his computer.
PrinceArsyen: Can I help? What do you need?
Niels_1973: I am a leader, kidnapped and trapped.
PrinceArsyen: Klok klu sto bi kek Natia Simatov? Kiki Natia?
Niels_1973: Speak English. Other languages dangerous. Can you call the police for me?
PrinceArsyen: Police controlled by government. Natia Simato safe?
Niels_1973: Natia is in great danger.
Arsyen felt his heart jump. There was no one but him who could save Poodlekek.
Arsyen spun in his chair to face the whiteboard, trying to dream up cheap and quick modifications to his forty-cow, one-bomb, ten-thousand-horse plan.
“Sven,” he said, tapping his co-worker on the shoulder. “If you want to do something but don’t have money, is it problem?”
Sven looked up from his Rubik’s cube. “If you build something people want, the monetization will figure itself out. That’s what Bobby always says.”
“So if you need to kill someone but don’t have money to pay person to do?”
“Figure out how to incentivize them. Give them extra points or access to a secret level or something. Maybe they win an extra life if they kill the bad guy?”
“Yes!”
Arsyen stood. If Bobby Bonilo could run his company without thinking about money, then Arsyen could certainly take back his small country without it. All he needed was vision and spirit…and two other things.
“I need guns and horses,” Arsyen said to Sven. “Does Anahata have?”
Sven kept twisting his Rubik’s cube and didn’t look up. “Hmm…probably. Ask one of the receptionists.”
Arsyen nodded and made a note to contact Jennie. He had a long to-do list and very little time. He had to get to Pyrrhia. He bent over his keyboard and wrote one last time to Niels_1973.
Coming! Stay there!
He stood, made the sign of the red-breasted woodpecker, and dashed out of the cubicle.
G regor knew nothing about the ventilation system in his wine cellar. Niels had been stuck down there since the previous evening — how much longer could he last? A few days? Gregor still needed several weeks before Project Y would be ready.
Then there was the issue of sustenance. Gregor had to go to work and would be able to feed Niels only twice a day. That was probably sufficient — though Niels’ body might not easily digest the legume balls Gregor ate in lieu of breakfast and dinner. Even then, he had no slit or dumbwaiter he could use to pass food or water to the cellar. And if he opened the door to deliver it himself, Niels might pounce from the top step. Even if Gregor could overpower him (which was no guarantee), he’d have that same problem each time — unless he didn’t feed Niels, and Niels became weak and then…but no, that was too cruel. And in any case, at the moment Niels had all of his strength and wits about him — what might he do to Gregor’s wine collection? Was it bad to starve him just a bit? Gregor could feel his head spinning. He had stayed up all night and hadn’t gone into work that morning — the first time in ten years. But it was already almost noon, and still he had no plan.
As much as Gregor hated it, there was only one thing left to do. He rang Bobby.
Someone picked up immediately, but there was a loud racket on Bobby’s side, and Gregor couldn’t hear the voice on the other line.
“Bobby? Is that you?”
It sounded like a bunch of children running about, screaming and banging cymbals.
“Bobby? I can’t hear you.”
The clamor suddenly stopped.
“Sorry,” came Bobby’s voice. “I lost control of the electric chimp, and he was throwing things from the chandelier. He’s made quite a mess, and someone’s going to have to clean it up.”
“Listen, we need to talk,” Gregor said. “I did what you told me. I removed the roadblock, but now I don’t know what to do.”
“Roadblock?” asked Bobby.
“The roadblock I told you about before. I removed it.”
“Oh, good! I told you those colonic cleanses were effective. Though…how long were you stuck in the bathroom? I gotta say, by the time I got to the second hour on the toilet — “
“No, Bobby. I mean, the sales roadblock.”
“I see,” said Bobby. “The…sales…roadblock.”
“The sales roadblock…is locked in my wine cellar.”
There was silence on the other end. Then came a groan. “Ugh, this is last year all over again. Is she an employee this time?”
Gregor sighed. Bobby was confusing him with Fischer, Anahata’s CFCAO known as much for his fiscal wizardry as his trysts with the company’s paralegals. Gregor hadn’t had a woman in his home since his
grandmother died. Bobby knew that. How could he confuse him with someone like Fischer?
“Nothing like that,” Gregor said. “I’m talking about the Project Y roadblock. I had no other choice. He was going to stop it all. Stop our engineers. Stop our dream!”
“Which dream?”
“Project Y, Bobby! You have to help me.”
“We do best when we help ourselves.”
“He’s locked in my cellar. I don’t know what to do.”
“You and Niels need to learn to work things out. My yogi told me that — “
“If he gets out, he will destroy Project Y. Please, Bobby. I never ask for you help, ever. But this time…it’s him or me. You have to choose.”
Bobby sighed.
“Okay. My thought sends itself to you.”
“Bobby?”
Bobby sighed again, louder this time.
“Listen closely and I will repeat myself: I will send Progressa to deal with your cellar. In the meantime, I want you to leave now and drive to my cabin. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Bobby.”
N iels’ wine buzz had long worn off, and he was left with nothing but exhaustion. He had been stuck in Gregor’s basement for eighteen hours. His sales team at Anahata was well into the workday, marching forward to monetize unconquered corners of the internet.
Niels kept glancing at the top of the stairs, straining his ears for the sound of a car coming down Gregor’s driveway. But there was no sign of PrinceArsyen. He had sent him the Tuscany Drive address and tried messaging him several times, but it all had gone unanswered.
Niels stifled a yawn. He was too angry to sleep. He kicked the broken chair, then the good chair, and finally the table, leaving the center of the cellar looking like the remnants of a bar fight. Niels scanned the room for something else to kick, but there was nothing left beyond wine bottles. Those weren’t an option — he didn’t want to stain his Prada shoes.
He sat down against the wall opposite the stairs. Once he made it out of Gregor’s dungeon, he would make sure that ads were on every single Anahata product — blinking, singing, dancing, screaming at consumers to try, buy, dabble, and dip into any and everything that a human being could be offered. And then he would have Gregor Guntlag fired and thrown in jail.
Just then, Niels heard a crunching of footsteps outside the door at the top of the stairs. He drew in his breath, straining to hear what was happening on the other side. He hoped it was PrinceArsyen coming to rescue him, but even if it was just Gregor, that would still be progress.
Niels considered his options. He didn’t want to do anything that would set Gregor off. Admitting defeat was fine if it would get him out of that cellar. He sat up straight in preparation for his visitor.
The door opened a crack, and a sliver of white light peeked through, a light so bright that Niels suddenly realized just how dark it had been. But even with the light pouring in from above, there was little Niels could see above the shadows now cast across the entrance. “Hello?” he called out. “Gregor?”
There was no answer, but Niels could now make out the form of two pairs of legs, shifting, conferring with each other, at the top of the stairs. The silence worried him.
“I think I’ve been down here long enough. You’ve made your point,” Niels said. “There will be no ads on Moodify, and I’ll help you with your moon plan.”
As he rose to his feet, the legs on the stairs suddenly dropped into a crouch. He could make out the outline of two enormous frames, a pair of linebackers blocking the stairs.
“No sudden moves, Niels,” said an unfamiliar voice. “There are more of us than there are of you.”
It was them.
Niels took a step back, running into the wall.
“I’ll do anything you say,” he said, his voice collapsing at the end of his sentence.
He had never thought it would end like this, at the hands of the Progressa unit. These were the men who ostensibly brought Anahata technology to the poor but who lived in the shadows, nameless, faceless, conveniently turning up in various spots around the world just before popular upheavals, banking reforms, or natural disasters. They were also known to clean up any of Bobby’s “messes.”
Now Niels was one of those messes. The stupidity of his earlier nonchalance leaped upon him. His eyes darted about the basement, looking for a means of defense or a place to hide. He could grab a wine bottle, but Niels realized there were too many legs at the top of the stairs, too many Progressa men for him to take on his own.
The heavy shoes began their descent down the staircase, their large bodies blocking most of the light from the top. Quickly, Niels refleeted an earlier message, hoping one of his six thousand Flitter followers would finally take him seriously.
#Anahata building moon colony. Stop them!
W hen Gregor arrived at Bobby’s cabin in Big Sur, he found his boss blindfolded, sitting in the grove behind his back porch. Laid before him were a stone, a strip of bark, a leaf, and a mobile phone.
Although Gregor didn’t understand the significance of the props, he immediately recognized the ritual. It was the same performance Bobby had enacted a decade earlier, just a few days before Anahata became a publicly traded company. Summoned at midnight to a small Palo Alto park, the Anahata board of directors had watched Bobby’s cryptic movements in horror, worrying in hissed whispers that he would repeat his routine at the sound of the market’s opening bell. Then, as now, Gregor absorbed it as one might a nature program. He believed that watching Bobby (and watching Bobby watch others as they watched him) was the only path toward understanding the Anahata founder and his genius.
Because for all of his billions, comprehension was the one thing Bobby Bonilo couldn’t buy and would probably never have.
But that’s why he had Gregor, whose job it was to help translate Bobby’s vision to reality. If Bobby was a genius and his ideas transformed the world, then Gregor’s work was vital to human progress. If Bobby was a sociopath and his dreams lacked innovation, then it meant Gregor was a fool and his own work meaningless.
Bobby was now rubbing the strip of bark against his cheek. Gregor glanced at his watch — more out of curiosity than impatience — and realized he had been standing on the porch for ten minutes. He zipped up his windbreaker — the ocean lay just beyond the fir trees, and the air was crisp.
Gregor let a few more minutes pass, as he knew he should, then threw a rock against a nearby trunk, producing a loud thud sufficient to break Bobby’s trance.
Bobby removed his blindfold, bowed to the grove’s fir trees, then threw his hands into the air, waving his fingers as though playing a piano in the sky. He breathed deeply, taking in the forest air, then lowered his arms and slowly walked back toward his cabin.
“I’ve been thinking about big data,” he said to Gregor as he sat down on the bench.
“What about it?”
“That it could be bigger. Much, much bigger,” he said, his hands drawing an imaginary load of great weight.
Gregor looked at Bobby’s hands. How could big data be bigger? How could there be a limit on the limitless?
“And one other thing — optical time travel. People get too caught up in transporting the physical body. And then they worry about whether you are you once your body has been reconstituted. If we just transport your eyes, you can see everything, but it’s like, just your eyes. All the benefits, none of the existential dilemma.”
“But if the eyes are on the body — “
“Not now, Gregor. Only big thoughts here. Big thoughts.”
Bobby gestured at the forest before them.
“You know, I think differently when I’m out here. As Thoreau said, ‘I lose myself in society, but I find myself in the woods…’ Want some kombucha?”
Gregor shook his head. He would’ve preferred to talk about big data and optical time travel, but there was a much more pressing matter at hand.
“What will they do to Niels?
”
“Ah, Gregor. When you know as much as I do, you also know that knowledge is not always a gift. I will not burden you with knowledge. But rest assured that Progressa will not hurt him. I was clear about that. I also asked that they teach him Spanish.”
“Spanish?”
“In case we ever want to bring him back. We really need a more diverse workforce.”
Bobby was always one step ahead.
“Now that I’ve solutionized that little problem,” Bobby said, “tell me where we are with Project Y.”
“With Niels gone, I expect things will be back in shape on the technical side with Project Y within a day or two. The field, the servers — we can now move forward without any obstacles. Though there is one other problem. A human problem.”
Bobby’s eyebrows rose. “Is something wrong with our child prodigies…or the distractions? Is there something wrong with Genie? Social Car?”
“The child prodigies are all fine. The distractions are good, too. Actually, I threw a female receptionist onto the Social Car team to slow them down a bit. They were performing ahead of schedule and could have launched this quarter, ahead of Project Y. The result was actually better than I expected — she killed the project. So that’s currently serving as a distraction for the distraction. I think I will try the same technique with a few other teams.”
“It’s a shame women keep failing at the opportunities we offer them,” Bobby sighed.
“Well, yes, that’s part of our problem, actually — the women,” Gregor said. “According to our predictions, our colony dies out after the first generation because we can’t get the inhabitants to breed.”
“How can that be? We’ve optimized for the best models of behavior and philosophy for the past fifteen centuries.”
“Yes, but only if we can get the colony to self-perpetuate. We’ve run several different models, but we can’t get the women to sleep with our male engineers, who of course make up the bulk of our moon population. Hence, virtually no breeding, and our colony eventually dies out. The best we can do is keep shipping women in, but that doesn’t make for a stable community.”
The Big Disruption Page 15