by David Yoon
STUDENT 30: Fuck these fuckers.
STUDENT 42: Cal Peers just called Wren a waste of time.
STUDENT 30: This is the CEO, right?
STUDENT 26: Yes, this is the fucking CEO.
STUDENT 30: Whiteman?
STUDENT 47: Hell no.
STUDENT 42: Fuck you!
ALL: Fuck you!
STUDENT 26: We’re watching you, you fucking fuck.
ALL: Boo, fuck you!
STUDENT 42: Everyone, look!
STUDENT 19: You’re not livestreaming, are you?
STUDENT 42: Taylor deleted her Wren.
STUDENT 8: Again?
STUDENT 42: Ahem: It is with deep gratitude to my millions of followers that I must do what is right in the face of this toxic culture that is causing more harm than good. Sounds serious this time.
STUDENT 8: You know she’ll just come back.
STUDENT 42: I don’t know. Oprah’s out, too.
STUDENT 8: Whoa.
STUDENT 42: So is Brad. Holy shit, so is Target.
STUDENT 26: As in the store.
STUDENT 42: As in the store.
ALL: . . .
STUDENT 8: Ariana’s out.
STUDENT 30: Dude.
STUDENT 42: Let’s all do it. Come on.
STUDENT 42: Come on, you’ll live.
STUDENT 151: You guys, all of Brockton College just quit Wren.
STUDENT 42: Let’s do it!
STUDENT 92: Delgado Beach represent!
STUDENT 42: Don’t just delete the fucking app, I mean delete your whole account.
STUDENT 19: I’m in.
ALL: Fuck these assholes!
STUDENT 26: People lived without this shit just fine.
STUDENT 30: So do I just go to settings?
STUDENT 19: It goes account, settings, account settings, my account, my account settings, then scroll all the way down, hit the red delete my account link, then a confirm. Let me know when you’re at this screen right here.
STUDENT 30: Hold it up higher.
STUDENT 26: I’m ready.
STUDENT 19: On three, we all hit delete and yell “Delete,” okay?
ALL: Ready, ready, ready.
STUDENT 19: One, two, three . . .
ALL: Delete!
Cheers all around.
ALL: Shots! Shots! Shots!
STUDENT 30: Okayokayokay, listen up, we’re gonna do Knowned next.
More cheers.
STUDENT 42: Hold ’em up when you’re ready.
ALL: . . .
STUDENT 19: One, two, three . . .
ALL: Delete!
2.18
Max slipped on the Black Halo mask. He aimed his wristband at the door—Hadouken—and opened it. He strolled down the hallway followed by Akiko and Shane, also in their masks. He opened another door and raised a fist at his squad: Halt.
He’d always wanted to raise a fist at his squad like that.
The three of them crouched behind a tall dead plant and listened. Voices floated up from the illuminated dais below.
“I disagree,” said someone. Hunter Mole. “Mind has won over matter. The internet represents the purest marketplace in the history of mankind.”
“But that purity is becoming tainted,” said Cal Peers. “Government is interfering, obviously looking for a piece of the action. Look at Europe, look at America.”
Max gritted his teeth. He couldn’t wait to see Cal’s face when he got down there.
Outside it was dusk but not night. Pilot explained that this far north the days never sank fully into darkness. The walls—and most of the ceiling—were glass, giving the impression that the entire room was simply a huge concrete disk improbably set atop a mountain.
All of this glassy openness reminded Max again of the Helix, back at Wren HQ.
Or the top floor of Pilot’s house.
What was with these guys, and their urge to build Helixes?
“What is the poor entrepreneur to do?” sang Pilot.
“Well,” began Cal Peers. He looked what could almost be interpreted as coy.
“Tell him,” said Linda Belinda. “It is just so exciting.”
“I have been working on my escape strategy,” said Cal Peers. “There is an island northeast of Finland, unincorporated, absolutely pure and available for a steal. I have acquired it. I am calling it Helix 2.”
“Barf,” said Max aloud, then clamped a hand over his masked mouth. Akiko laughed silently. Shane didn’t get it.
Max vowed to explain later.
“I will set up operations there. Trade exclusively in e-currencies. It will take governments decades to figure out how to regulate me. Decades of peace and quiet.”
“To peace and quiet,” said everyone.
Glasses clinked.
“Although I do think bootstrapping your own sovereignty might be overkill,” said Linda Belinda. “A think tank could work just as well.”
Everyone spoke at once, and quickly.
“Ha, like a Citizens for Internet Freedom or some such?”
“Regulate the people, not the tool?”
“We already publish self-help guides: Things You Can Do to blablabla.”
“Advocate personal responsibility, sow doubt. It worked for tobacco.”
Laughter all around.
Max rose. He nodded to Shane and Akiko to do the same. He took a deep breath and strode into the arena. He made his way down the dark staircase and headed into the cone of light illuminating the dais.
The three of them stood in their ghostly masks.
“Sow doubt,” said Max to the room. His voice strangled by the digital filter. “I like it.”
“You,” said Cal Peers, squinting.
“No, you,” said Max.
“Pilot,” said Cal Peers. “What the hell is this?”
Pilot grinned so wide that he looked like a cartoon of glee. He composed himself.
“Everyone,” said Pilot, beaming. “This is Version Zero.”
2.19
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2.20
Cal Peers tried to peer around Max’s mask. “I should have you arrested. I should arrange worse.”
“A threat,” said Max. “Try it.”
Max wished he could see how the viewers were reacting at this moment. He would have to wait until Brayden filled him in afterward.
He smiled behind the mask. Then he imagined another Wren van, again parked outside his parents’ house, and his smile flickered. Cal Peers couldn’t legally do anything to them. Could he?
“Who are you?” said Cal Peers, squinting and squinting.
Max said nothing. He and Shane and Akiko stood in a rough triangle, faceless and mute as aliens.
“He is Version Zero,” said Pilot. “As am I. We all are.”
“Pilot,” said Cal Peers. “What are you doing with these children?”
The other CEOs tried to talk, but Cal Peers silenced them with a hand. “How did you penetrate my systems?”
“It was trivial,” said Akiko, her voice made low and gravelly by the mask. “We employed a dickfor.”
“What the hell is a dickfor?” said Cal Peers.
Akiko barfed a single laugh, and the laugh was an infectious one, for now Shane was laughing and so was Max and Pilot, too, and the air filled with electronic phlegm. Max was particularly glad to see Akiko and Shane laughing together. They were meant to laugh.
Max hoped they had a good talk.
Max bet a good long talk could fix a good many things.
“What is a dickfor, goddammit?” said Cal Peers.
Max gasped for air and held his hands up in a call for order.
Cal Peers looked as if he wanted to lunge.
Come at me, thought Max.
“This isn’t about any one person,” said Max. “It’s about all of you here.”
“What do you want?” said Cal Peers.
Max glanced at Pilot, who served an open palm: You have the floor.
Max stepped forward, bumping fists with Pilot.
“I already have what I want,” said Max.
Max realized he was making history in his own strange way. Giving the world a blunt view into a world they would never be able to unsee. He glanced up at a security camera suspended high in the arena, as if to say hi to Brayden. Good old Brayden, keeping watch from atop the pyramid panopticon.
Was Dad watching, too?
Was he huddled with Mom around their ancient laptop, thick as a phone book, set atop the wobbly dining table back home?
Might Dad put two and two together and figure out that it was Max with the great Pilot Markham? That it was Max doing all the talking?
Might Dad be proud? Or merely confused?
How is this a business? he might say.
Max wished he could speak to him across the wires and ether. This is important, he wanted to say. And I am doing it. Tell me you are proud of me. Tell me you understand why it is important. Tell me
you
get
it.
“This is kidnapping,” said Jonas Friend.
“No, it isn’t,” said Max. “You came here, remember?”
“Do not hurt us,” said Linda Belinda.
“No one is getting hurt,” said Max. “In fact, there’s the door. A chopper will be here soon.”
Outside the glass a snow fog began to fill the world with formless white.
The five CEOs looked at one another with growing realization. Finally Cal Peers spoke.
“You have been filming this whole time,” he said.
Max pointed out a camera, then another.
“No,” said Cal Peers.
“Actually, yes,” said Brayden. The boy’s voice boomed throughout the space. “Wave hi to the world, everyone.”
Max and Akiko and Shane waved hi.
“Hello, world,” said Max.
“We’re blowing up,” said Brayden. “Fifty million viewers, tech stock indexes down almost seventy-five percent.”
“Deletion count,” said Max.
“We passed a quarter million a few minutes ago,” said Brayden. “Mostly colleges at first, but now it’s everywhere.”
Max smiled. His mask was growing moist and hot, but he did not care. He would remove it soon, and the air against his skin would feel so cool and pure.
“No,” said Cal Peers. “This is a hoax.”
“Step on a chopper, fly ’til you get bars, and find out for yourself,” said Max.
“Is a chopper there now?” said Hunter Mole.
“Soon,” said Pilot.
“I am fucking out of here,” said Jonas Friend.
“These are not coming off,” said Linda Belinda, tugging at her wristbands.
Max straightened and addressed them all. “I’m curious about one last thing before you go.”
“These will not come off,” said Linda Belinda.
“Oh no,” said Pilot with a grin.
“How much,” said Max, “is enough?”
“She is right, these are locked,” said Hunter Mole.
“How much money will it take for you to be satisfied?” said Max. “Or will you just keep searching for endless ways to get money for souls?”
“What the fuck,” said Jonas Friend, tugging at his wristbands.
“Is a billion enough?” said Max, louder now. “A trillion?”
Cal Peers, who had been burning brighter and brighter through his pale skin, finally exploded. “You know nothing. It is not about one number.”
Max smiled. He was close. He reeled him in with a finger: Go on.
“It is about having more than the nearest competitor,” said Cal Peers. “It is about stepping on their necks and holding them down.”
“Wow,” said Akiko, eyebrows raised.
“I will hold you down, too,” said Cal Peers. “Just wait.”
Now Max raised his eyebrows.
Not Pilot, though. Pilot said nothing.
“Good-bye,” said Max.
2.21
HOST: And so this new network of yours—
GUEST: Basic.
HOST: —right, so, Basic will offer the same social stuff everybody likes, just without all that spy advertising and fake news crap.
GUEST: Correct. We also recently announced our Basic phone, which has a minimalist, stripped-down function set and a black-and-white screen so that we can return to the enjoyment of life without all the distractions of traditional smartphones.
HOST: As someone in my sixties, I just find that so funny.
GUEST: Why?
HOST: Never mind. Tell me: How will Basic actually, ya know, make money?
GUEST: We have recently secured series B funding—
HOST: That’s not making money, friend.
GUEST: I would like to finish, if that’s okay.
HOST: Go ahead.
GUEST: You seem a bit agitated.
HOST: I think a lot of people are agitated! I think a lot of us are looking at our phones right about now and saying what the hell did we get ourselves into?
GUEST: My team understands that feeling one hundred percent. That’s the whole reason we started Basic. We all worked as top engineers at the Big Five. We all started asking ourselves, what is it we’re building, exactly?
HOST: What is the purpose?
GUEST: Exactly, what
is the purpose? If we are building some new technology, and that technology is doing bad things, shouldn’t we stop? Maybe build something else?
HOST: I admire what you kids are doing—I do—and in some ways it reminds me of my own generation of revolutionaries, but I gotta say you’re up against some serious established infrastructure and inertia. Just plain old habit and laziness, if I’m being honest. Not to poop on your parade.
GUEST: We very much are aware of that, yes. But look: we believe that once we get enough first followers, we will reach a tipping point where there is a flood. And especially in this brand-new Vee-Zero era of online awareness—
HOST: Vee-Zero is short for Version Zero, for all you cave dwellers out there.
GUEST: We think we can all finally change things for the better for real this time.
Applause.
HOST: Now, my next questions are a little awkward, but . . .
GUEST: I know what you’re going to say, but go ahead.
HOST: Your main investors also have sizable stakes in—wait for it—Wren.
GUEST: That is true.
HOST: And A2Z.
GUEST: Yes.
HOST: And Knowned, and many others.
GUEST: Yes. That’s right. Yes.
HOST: How do you square that circle?
GUEST: How do we square the circle.
HOST: How do you keep your integrity as an ad-free, surveillance-free gazelle when you’re drinking from the same pond as the panthers right over there?
GUEST: Well, like the gazelle we are also nimble? But more importantly, we have faith that people will choose what’s good for them if offered a real alternative. We believe people are inherently good and wise.
HOST: And I want to believe that you believe.
2.22
Max watched the CEOs make the climb up the arena steps. He had done it. They had done it. The CEOs would return to a world of shit. Companies would crumble. A new generation would rise. And my God, Max would be there for it. He led once with Version Zero. He made a dent in the universe. And he could do it again, this time as Max.
His Benevolence, CEO Maximilian Portillo.
Cal Peers stopped in his ascent and turned around.