The Big Disruption

by Jessica Powell

  Gregor shook his head.

  “Don’t you realize I’m human, too?” the squirrel squirrel. “I mean, I’m a squirrel right now, but I’m also a human. A human with my own problems and defects. If you put me on a pedestal, I’m always going to disappoint you. ”

  “It doesn’t matter anymore,” Gregor said. “I’m done.”

  “Nothing is ever done. Life continues to move. Hey, can you crack this acorn for me?”

  “Y is a joke,” Gregor said. “The engineers are too busy with the women to get anything done. They’ve failed me, and I’ve failed them.”

  “No one’s failed at anything. Look, this is our chance to iterate on the human race. You and me, we will build this together, our own imperfections a testament to our great achievement.”

  The squirrel jumped onto Gregor’s chest and began to whirl around, its bushy tail hitting Gregor in the nose every few seconds. Its arms waved in the air, pushing the clouds to the edges of the sky, filling it with purple and green swirls that unfolded into the Anahata logo.

  Gregor lifted his palms into the sky and pushed it all away.

  “You ruined Social Me,” said Gregor, shaking his finger at the squirrel. “We never should have turned it on for the whole campus. We should have figured out how to dole it out.”

  “So dole it out,” said the squirrel, whirling around on Gregor’s knee. “Dole it out, man, dole it out.”

  The squirrel suddenly stopped and fetched two acorns from the ground. He pressed them against his chest like two perky cones.

  “Let’s pretend I’m a lady squirrel and you are a dude squirrel, and all you can think about are touching my acorns. You’ll do anything to get at my luscious acorns. Are you following me?”

  Gregor grunted.

  “You’re suggesting we sell our female employees to the men in exchange for code submissions?”

  “Funny you say that — I had Fischer look into it. Turns out prostitution is too complicated legally, not to mention that the pool of prostitutes with PhDs is actually pretty small. But then I came up with a better idea after I ran into one of the girls you brought on board — the lead of the Social Me team. Janie something? Anyway, she said something about women not being the tools of the oppressors. And it made me think, well, shouldn’t they be?”

  “Make them tools,” nodded Gregor. “Dole it out.”

  He felt his stomach grumble again.

  “We need you. I need you,” the squirrel said. “We are a team, the sun and moon in the sky. We rise and set and orbit together.”

  The squirrel nestled against Gregor’s chest and rubbed its cheek against his windbreaker.

  “Did you like that thought, Gregor? I came up with it a few days ago but had been saving it just for you.”

  “Yes, Bobby.”

  The squirrel smiled, then shimmied off Gregor’s chest and crawled onto his backpack. It tried to move the zipper, but its hands and mouth were too small to make any progress on its own.

  Gregor leaned over and unzipped his front pack. The squirrel scurried inside and emerged a moment later with Gregor’s mobile. He dialed Bobby’s number and handed the phone to Gregor.

  “Gregor!” Bobby cheered on the other end. “I’d been hoping you’d call.”

  “I’m coming home,” Gregor said, “and I have a plan.”

  W ith the exception of an IPO, no other ritual in the Valley provoked such bloodlust as the quarterly Anahata earnings call. The analysts, shareholders, and Suits of Nefarious Intent all crouched around their phones, asking cynical, doubtful questions, their hearts bleeding with greed. None of them could grasp Bobby’s vision. They were always hoping to catch him out on a false step or slip of the tongue, looking to glean insight helpful to their various capitalist machinations.

  Bobby found the whole thing repulsive, a bit like being forced to speak to just-above-average smart people.

  He took comfort in knowing he would be rid of them soon, leaving behind Fischer, his chief financial and corporate affairs officer, to deal with the terrestrial bankers.

  He would go out with a bang. Rather than hold an actual phone conference, as was now common practice in the industry, Bobby instead ordered Fischer to “radicalize” the event and invite all the relevant financial analysts out to Palo Alto, with the promise that Bobby would answer each and every one of their questions in person. In preparation, he had Shanley Field cleared of any errant robots and asked the marketing team to construct a suitable space where he could host the visiting analysts for the afternoon.

  The marketing team, which up until that point had only ever orchestrated events for bloggers and engineers, decided to rent a circus tent. They set about making sure it was the most connected, Wi-Fi’d tent in the world, ensuring that any analyst could livestream, live blog, and live eat from the comfort of a beanbag. One wall of the tent was covered in Red Bull cans, and another was lined with potato chips and beer. Masseuses were on hand to relieve any fiscal stress. A spiral staircase was installed in the tent’s center, leading from the ground to the very tip of the tent. While it served no purpose, it pleased Bobby. “Staircases are aspirational,” he told Gregor and Fischer as they entered.

  The three executives walked to the back of the tent, where they took their seats at a long table. There were twenty black-suited analysts before them, flown in that morning from New York and now squirming in their beanbag chairs, computers and notepads balanced on their knees.

  Bobby’s assistant flashed him the signal that everything was ready to go. Bobby pulled out his special gavel and began to knock: one, two, three, pause. He giggled and did it again. One, two, three, pause. It was like he was a musician! One, two —

  Fischer’s hand came down on his and pried the gavel from Bobby’s fingers. Then the CFCAO cleared his throat and began to read from the disclaimer prepared by the legal team.

  “Welcome to Anahata’s first-quarter earnings call. During this call, representatives of the company will make certain statements within the meaning of the U.S. Securities Act and the Securities and Exchange Act. Anahata undertakes no obligation to publicly update any forward or backward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, historical revisionism, or otherwise, and at no point should any statement be considered binding or reflective of the full truth. Please refer to the risk factors described in our Annual Report on Form 20-F for discussion of some of the important factors that could affect future results or change the course of history.”

  With the legal mumbo jumbo out of the way, Fischer began his presentation: a glorious, one hundred–slide affair in which the most important piece of news — Anahata’s staggering forty percent rise in quarterly profits — would be revealed at the three-minute mark, after which would follow twenty-seven minutes of detail in which the analysts would only feign interest, but which, out of a need to justify their jobs, would constitute the majority of their resulting analyses.

  Bobby tuned out Fischer the moment the CFCAO began to speak, and instead studied the group of suits before him. On the whole, they seemed younger than the suits of his board. This irritated Bobby — young people were supposed to love technology. Instead, these men had chosen the old-man institution of banking; they were little more than well-dressed gamblers. All they wanted to talk about was how he could make them more money. They cared nothing for Anahata’s Progressa program or its charitable endeavors. Bobby wondered whether his next project should aim to destroy banking altogether.

  Or maybe he would just draw. Fischer had given him some crayons and paper before the start of the meeting, and Bobby now made use of them. He doodled on the corner of the quarterly report, sketching an idea he had for an enormous flying worm that would carry people through congested cities. Then he made a list of his ten favorite meditation retreats. When he tired of that, he worked on a few ab-tightening breathing exercises his personal trainer had taught him. He was just getting ready to do his neck rolls when he heard Fische
r open the meeting to questions. It was the only part of the meeting Bobby ever found interesting; the only time the hunter capitalists had a chance to prick him with their judgments, questions, and irrelevant musings.

  A German-accented analyst spoke first. “There are rumors that Galt is working on a drone so small it can enter people’s ears and study their biomes and thoughts by analyzing their earwax. I’m wondering what Anahata is planning to do in order to compete.”

  Bobby winced. It didn’t matter how much Anahata profits rose each quarter; the analysts were always fixated on Galt.

  “We focus on our own innovation,” Bobby said. “We don’t pay any attention to the competition.”

  The next question was about differences in mobile versus desktop revenue — the same question the analysts had asked the previous quarter, and the same one they would ask the next quarter. Bobby didn’t bother to listen to Fischer’s response. He knew his reliable CFCAO would give the same answer he always gave, which was essentially to say nothing at all.

  Bobby craned his neck to catch a glimpse of the plastic clock attached with twisty ties to the spiral staircase. There was still a half-hour to go. His nerves tingled as he thought about what was to come. Once the questions were done and the tasteful, tree-shaped Anahata keychains had been dispensed to the analysts, Bobby would lead the crowd out onto the field, where he would unveil Project Y — the biggest idea in the history of ideas.

  The next analyst struggled to climb out of his beanbag chair, his acrobatics leaving one pant leg tucked halfway into the top of a purple-and-green-striped stock. Those were Anahata colors, Bobby observed with a smile. He wondered whether he should buy similar socks for his employees. Cotton or a cotton/polyester blend — which one screamed “hot young startup”?

  The analyst at the mic was droning on.

  “Eighty-four billion dollars not accounted over the past year…moved between projects…outputs not correlating with inputs…”

  Bobby felt a nudge in his side.

  “The moon,” Gregor whispered. “He’s asking you about the moon.”

  “I have here the proof that you took company funds and diverted them into a secret project — ”

  The analyst’s mouth continued to move, but the remainder of his sentence was drowned out by a sudden commotion at the front of the tent.

  A ll eyes were now on the bedraggled figure who had just entered the tent. The man’s pants were torn, and he wore a grime-blackened windbreaker, the trace of an Anahata logo still visible along the pocket. A pair of blue eyes peered out from dirty skin and mud-chunked hair. “La luna!” gasped the man, his finger shaking as he pointed toward the front of the tent where the Anahata executives were sitting. “Van a la luna. Van a la luna!”

  The analysts all shifted in their beanbags, keen to put a few inches between the man’s filth and their expensive suits.

  “It’s Niels!” Fischer whispered to Bobby and Gregor.

  The man jerked forward like a zombie escaped from the grave, his left leg dragging behind him, arms guiding him forward. Bobby’s assistant tried to speak to him, suggesting in a low voice that the man was lost, but he did not seem to understand English.

  “Les van a decir que no hay ninguna colonia, pero es mentira,” the man wheezed, lurching toward a cluster of analysts. They recoiled as his arms reached out to them.

  “Is this the entertainment portion of the earnings meeting?” one of the analysts asked.

  “Hmm. Doesn’t he look a bit familiar to you?” said another.

  “Galt had its execs jump out of a plane last week. Maybe this is just Anahata trying to outdo them.”

  The zombie reached the middle of the room, where the analyst at the mic was still trying to ask Bobby his moon colony question. He placed a hand on the analyst’s shoulder and leaned in, spreading his hot, putrid breath across the man’s face. “La luna!” he hissed, his finger pointing at the back of the tent, where Bobby, Gregor, and Fischer were sitting.

  “Están locos! La luna! Tenemos que pararlos!”

  “You need to wait. It’s my turn to ask a question right now,” huffed the analyst, pushing the zombie back and sending him tumbling to the ground.

  “Gregor! Get security!” Bobby yelled.

  Gregor nodded and dashed toward the tent’s back flap, where an opening revealed a sliver of the sky.

  The zombie rose to his feet and shuffle-lurched his way forward. “Te voy a matar, te voy a matar,” he repeated.

  He heaved one step, then another, his hands strangling the air as he made his way toward Bobby, who now backed into the folds of the tent.

  “Gregor! Come back!” screamed Bobby, hiding himself behind Fischer and closing his eyes.

  “I recognize him!” said one of the analysts, pointing at the zombie. “It’s their old head of sales, Niels Smeardon. The one who fleeted about — ”

  “The moon!” yelled the analyst at the mic, waving his documents in the air, furious that this circus was distracting from the issue at hand. “Listen, everyone! I have proof that they are going to the moon! We’re talking about billions of dollars the company is wasting on — ”

  “La luna!”

  The security team rushed in through the front entrance. Within seconds, the zombie was toppled in a hail of purple and green beanbags.

  The head of the security team rushed Bobby and Fischer out through the back flap, where Gregor was already waiting.

  “Go! Run!” the head of security urged.

  The three men began a slow, unpracticed gallop toward the other end of the field, leaving their head of security to play defense.

  Back inside, the tent filled with conjecture and heated words, outrage soon propelling the analysts to their feet.

  A senior analyst put his fingers in his mouth and whistled loudly. The room went silent. “Where’d they go?” he yelled, pointing at the table where the executives had been sitting.

  “Out the back!” shouted another.

  The analysts scrambled over each other, visions of a Wall Street–style massacre filling their heads as they jumped over the beanbag-covered zombie and headed out the back flap of the tent. On the other side, they were met by the security team, which managed to tackle seven of them, reducing the army of analysts to thirteen.

  Onward those thirteen pushed, their treadmill-trained legs carrying them at a much faster speed than the Anahata execs, whom they could now spot in the distance, awkwardly loping toward an enormous structure situated at the edge of the field, covered top to bottom in a red-and-white fumigation tent.

  The two groups raced forward, with the analysts quickly gaining ground. But just as soon as the Anahata execs seemed within their grasp, they disappeared into the tent.

  “We’ll surround it!” one of the analysts yelled. “The fumes will eventually drive them out!”

  “The market needs answers!” screamed another, carrying a beanbag above his head, already relishing the moment when he would watch it crash atop Bobby’s head, forcing him to answer the product roadmap question he had dodged on the last two earnings calls.

  The zombie was also in the race. He had climbed out from under the beanbag dog pile and followed the analysts out of the tent, staggering behind them initially, but quickly catching up after discovering a Segway lying next to the tent’s exit. He motored ahead with practiced skill and soon was leading the pack. “Vámanos! Vámanos!” he screamed, his two-wheeled chariot blowing dust in the face of his troops.

  Just then, the analysts began to feel the ground rumble below their feet. A loud noise, as if someone had opened the exit door on a plane, suddenly invaded their ears. They pressed on toward the fumigation tent, but the shaking intensified, making it difficult to move. The men halted as the tent before them began to sway and heave, its outline violently transforming as though a wild animal were tearing at it from the inside. A crack appeared in the dirt, and then another, and another. Amid the shaking, the zombie was tossed from the Seg
way, landing on his face.

  The zombie spit out a mouthful of dirt and at first thought he might be suffering from a concussion, for what he saw before him seemed like a hallucination. The fumigation tent was rising, first a foot, now two, now five, then ten feet in the air, some sort of engine underneath it blowing the field’s red dirt into the men’s eyes, transforming the frozen analysts into rusted statues. It rose another few feet, and then the tent itself began to rip, coming apart in four sections like a banana peel, its skin gently floating to the ground, revealing an enormous boat-like structure rising ever farther into the sky. There were endless rows of windows, each portico occupied by a smiling face or, occasionally, the terrified stare of an animal. At the front of it all, framed in a wide window running the length of the bow, were Anahata’s leaders. Gregor peered down at the zombie, a smile stretched wide across his face. To his left, Bobby beamed, pointing down at the analysts and even doing a little jig as the boat floated upward. Behind them, the tentacles of the Anahata squid waved frantically within its tank.

  “Nooo!” screamed the analysts.

  “Nooo!” screamed the zombie.

  For a moment, as if it had heard their cry, the boat stopped, gently bobbing in the sky. But it did not rise farther or move beyond its spot above the field. Seconds passed, and the light bobbing became a strong jerking, soon accompanied by the sound of an engine sputtering. The boat fell ten feet, then rose again, fell, and rose.

  From below, the analysts could hear the screams of its passengers. A chunk of metal fell from the vessel’s side, crashing to the field and puncturing the tent where they had all sat just minutes before. Another chunk fell from portside, rushing to the ground in a multicolored comet.

  “Que lástima!” the zombie wailed. “Que lástima!” His ears filled with a rumbling he would never forget.

  O ne man had taken his suitcase. Another offered him a pink cocktail and a warm towelette. Even the squid waved hello. And now he was standing here, in a long, white arrival hallway, a bit cold, a bit uneven on his feet, but excited to explore his new home.