by Drew Magary
Anna had a plan. It took a while to form, but she hammered it into shape the way she would a critical term paper. At first, she thought about finding the main PortSys switchboard and blowing it to smithereens, un-tethering the company’s satellites from their respective orbits and freezing everyone in place: a great reshuffling of humanity that would redraw all borders and give birth to entirely new cultures. Then Bamert reminded her of the number of people who could potentially die from such an audacious act—like if they were, say, hanging out on top of Everest right when she hit the kill switch.
She was forced to reconsider, then drafted a new plan that they both agreed was superior. Sturdy. But it was a plan that required time and an inordinate amount of legwork on Asmi’s, Burton’s and Bamert’s end—work that all of them proved shockingly up for. So she lingered in the frozen heartland and waited there in that dark, decaying apartment as spring clawed its way into existence. She could be patient when she needed to be. This was fine. It wasn’t safe, but it was fine. Finer than prison, at least.
Against all odds, Anna Huff was feeling fitter than she ever had. Her wounds healed up. She did yoga in the main living room in the middle of the night. There was a musty piano that the apartment’s former owners had been too lazy to move when they fled, so she practiced for hours at a time, never striking the keys fully, instead sounding out ghost notes she could only hear in her mind. Her hands needed the work. Cards only pleased them so much.
Despite dropping out of Druskin, she followed along with the English syllabus Nolan had posted online and did the required reading. Each block of text seemed to eat up a quarter-hour at a time, which served her purposes well. She even typed out mock papers on her phone using the Notes app. After she “died,” Druskin shipped all her belongings back to their container in Rockville, which Bamert had a private security guard unpack and store. The school had also sent Sandy a formal letter from trustees explaining why Anna’s boarding fees would not be refunded. Dean Glenn did NOT deliver that letter personally.
She slept soundly on a flea-ridden couch in that Minneapolis condo, keeping a gun under the throw pillow. One night, a mangy man ported in and she pointed the gun at him. He cursed at her in Finnish and then ported right back out. Another night, a group of port immigrants blew in, seeking refuge. When they saw Anna, they politely found another spot. She hoped they might stick around so that they could talk and eat canned soup together, but that little sting of loneliness soon faded and she went back to her routine.
It felt good to be dead. In her mind, the longer she stayed dead, the sweeter her reunion with Lara would be. Nothing else mattered. She was more focused and determined now than she had ever been at school. Thanks to the yoga and to her voluntary studies, she was developing a sharper mind and a hard bark around it. She even gave meditation a shot, downloading the MINDFL app and sitting cross-legged on the floor as a calming voice urged her to focus on her breath and her breath alone.
“Listen to the breath going in.”
Okay.
“And out.”
Got it. Her voice really is soothing.
“If your mind wanders, gently nudge it back to the breath. Only the breath.”
Move your ass back to the breath, you stupid brain.
“Sometimes we can get so preoccupied with our worries.”
Like Lara. Wait, you’re not supposed to think about Lara right now. Shit.
“We have so much business to tend to, and so many different concerns about how to invest our money wisely.”
What the fuck? Who is this app even for? Did Jason Kirsch write this?
“People beg for our attention and we always feel like we have to indulge them because we know that what we do is just that important. That is the price of ascending to such a lofty position in this world.”
Who’s “we,” lady? She’s not talking to you, that’s for sure. This app sucks.
Lara Kirsch was still MIA, never posting to WorldGram and never spotted out in the wild. Like the other Kirsches, she remained invisible on Anna’s doctored phone. Still, “Lara” remained the preferred keyword search of her renovated imagination, which possessed all the time and space it needed to concoct elaborate daydreams about where Lara was, and what she was doing, and what she was wearing. That flapper dress. Good god.
Anna was enjoying the distraction her obsessions provided, perhaps a little too much. She thought about Phoenix, and she thought about that kiss: Lara’s lips, her scent, her fingers gently brushing against Anna’s cheek. She could have survived for years on just that kiss alone. Kiss them once and they expect the world. She was no boy but she expected the world now all the same, yes she did. There was a way to avenge Sarah and get Lara all in one decisive strike. But it required patience. It required Anna to spend months subsisting on little more than dry sandwiches and canned food, unable to ever shower. To live like a bug. But she could do that, and she did.
Now she was back on campus at Druskin, ready to set the grand plan in motion. Yet here was Burton, still knitting a goddamn sweater.
“Can we hurry this along?” she asked him.
“This needs to be done before Friday,” Burton told her.
“Or what? Fido gets a cold? You don’t even own a dog.”
“You know, everybody gives me grief. But the second they need a micro camera, or an inflatable mattress when they’re stuck out at sea, or a place to harbor a technically deceased fugitive, suddenly I’m a pal again.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be a dick.”
“Yes you did,” Burton said. “That’s why I like being your friend, against my better judgment. But you could at least shower before mouthing off at me.”
“Sorry.”
“I know I have strange way of doing things, but it’s the only way I can do them.”
Anna acquiesced and plopped down on Burton’s bed as he slowly, painfully, looped the red yarn over and over. She made her fists tight enough to crush stone. Then she spread her fingers wide, reaching her thumbs and pinkies out until her hands were wider than they were long. Like she was back out on the Salton Boathouse dock, stoned out of her brains and watching her metacarpal bones shine through her skin.
“How’s Asmi?” she asked Burton.
“Still alive. Less bubbly these days, though. What’s it feel like when Vick does the weight test on you?”
“It’s the worst feeling in the world. Once you know you can be in that much pain, you can’t un-know it. I don’t like thinking about it.”
“I’m sorry for both of you. That sounds like a really lousy jaunt.”
“It’s okay. And you? How have you been?” she asked him.
“I’m lonely,” Burton said. “Bamert sometimes ports in secretly but I have to chase him out so that I don’t get in trouble. He’s always taking liberties. I try to stay focused on my future, but sometimes I worry that the world’s future and my future aren’t exactly compatible.”
“You’re gonna be fine,” Anna told him. “At least you’re still here at Druskin.”
“Oh, you never liked being at this detention hall of a school anyway.”
“I did and I didn’t.”
Burton set down the sweater and walked over to her.
“Gimme that camera.”
She handed it to him and he downloaded it to a homemade PC on his desk that had seventeen separate components. It looked like Burton imported the machine from 1981.
“Ugh, a .wav file,” he complained.
“Can you tell what they’re saying at the 20-minute mark?”
“Hang on.” He banged away at the PC as Anna balled up her fists again. He turned up the speakers to full blast. These were good speakers, much better than they had at the Dunbar welcome mixer. Jason Kirsch was talking about Singapore when a voice came in underneath him. Burton toyed with the clip some more, slowing the voices down and bending them until they sounded drunk. The buried voice was getting clearer.
“We could walk,” it slurred, “
To Griffith Park.”
“That’s LA,” Burton said. “That’s where the lab is. You understand that they’ll have surveillance, right? They’ll see you in there.”
“Will they?” asked Anna. She pointed to the surveillance footage on Burton’s laptop. Sitting in the lab was a mousy brunette in a lab coat. Her ID tag was visible. The name read “Victoria Marshall.”
“Burton, is there any chance you could give me a haircut?”
LOS ANGELES
It was just after lunch hour Pacific time when J. Paul Bamert ported onto the main stage of the Greek Theater nestled inside Griffith Park. He was dressed in a salmon-colored suit festooned with little fishhooks, custom made for him at the Suitsupply. All of his cherished old Druskin suits—with their geckos and poodles and owls and very small anchors—were now too large for his rapidly slimming frame. He was a lean boy now. This suit was brand new. Bamert would have to break it in at some point, perhaps by running five miles in it. A suit was never fully his until he’d sweated past its pits and subjected its fibers to burning things.
His normally mangy beard had been mowed down into geometrically precise stubble. His hands were freshly manicured, devoid of grease and lingering odors. He wore a wireless earpiece with the mic hugging close to his meticulously groomed cheek. A team of sound men sat behind a console that was seventy-five yards away from him, right behind Section A. The amphitheatre had grown dilapidated over the years now that so many concerts and shows were held at pop-up venues across continents. But the place still had a bigness: a pervasive vibe that a mass of dormant human energy was ready to explode out of it.
Bamert sauntered over to the microphone at the front of the stage and grabbed a bottle of distilled water, drinking it all in a single, rapturous gulp. Behind him was a silver scrim with a logo that read PEGASYS in letters nearly as tall as the Hollywood sign itself. Every seat in the theater was empty, but that wouldn’t be the case for long. Two sections of seating were cordoned off with red tape.
The afternoon sun bathed the Santa Monica mountains in warm, thick rays. The sun belonged to California. Always had. It would make for an afternoon of long shadows on this day. Not a trace of smog to ruin it. Bamert wondered to himself why he didn’t port to California more often, why he didn’t just live here. He was free to do as he pleased, after all. He was rich and expelled and his father hated him. But, in a neat twist, Edgar hated Emilia Kirsch even more now that her cronies had burned his mansion down, and the old man wasn’t about to let PINE agents harass his son over some crazy girl Paul was once friends with. After Anna Huff “died,” the agency interrogated Bamert for a scant ten minutes before politely fucking off to harass more vulnerable targets.
Signs around Griffith Park warned of mountain lions and rattlesnakes that roamed the small, dusty peaks above. Those were Bamert’s people. He would have liked to party with all that messy wildlife. Instead, he stepped up to the mic, cradled it in his paws, and gave a sound check.
“CHECK TWO CHECK TWO CHECK TWO CAN Y’ALL HEAR ME?”
The sound men gave Bamert a thumbs up. He faced stage left.
“Video? Are you guys set to go with the live stream?”
The video crew also gave him the go ahead.
He whispered into his lapel, “Burton? You there, honeysuckle rose?”
“I’m here,” Burton told him.
“But?”
“But what?”
“You’re not gonna complain to me about something?”
“No,” said Burton. He was sitting at his PC back in Gould House, an interactive map of the theater and surrounding parklands displayed on the monitor in front of him. Small blue dots flashed across the map, wandering around before blipping elsewhere. Burton scratched his mouse button like it was a trigger. “I’m set.”
“I can’t believe it. Truly it is a new day,” Bamert said. It was time. Everything was in place. But before Bamert could begin, he had to indulge himself. He crooned into the mic:
♫ These arms of miiiiiiiiiiine
They are lonely
Lonely and feeling blue
These arms of miiiiiii-iiiiiiine
They are yearning
Yearning from wanting you ♫
His baritone echoed out and shook the great sycamores ringing the amphitheater. Hikers traversing the dusty paths above stared down at the lonely boy singing and the strange brand emblem behind him.
Bamert usually only sang to have fun, but feeling this song come out of his mouth caught him off guard. He stepped away from the mic, grabbing a pocket square to dab away a couple of fugitive tears. A deep breath and he was right again.
“Okay!” he announced into the microphone. “Let’s dance.” He took out his phone and held his index finger over the SUMMON button for a few dramatic seconds, like he was about launch a nuclear missile. Then he finally smashed it.
In a blink, 5,000 people appeared in the seats before him. They were mostly older, mostly male. Some of them were still dressed in their work attire. Others had been summoned while in their underwear. They were disoriented, confused, and quite angry. Not all of them had their PortPhones on them.
“Hello!” Bamert cried out to them. “Now you might be asking yourself: what manner of witchery could summon 5,000 of the world’s foremost industrialists to a single spot in a single moment? I do apologize for rudely taking you away from your present endeavors, but I assure you that I’ll get you back home the second I’ve finished cutting your port costs in half.”
That last piece of information simmered down the crowd. Some of them had clapped back out right away, but Bamert was undeterred.
“My name is J. Paul Bamert and I am an alcoholic,” he told the crowd, only confusing them further. “Sorry to mention that off the bat, but it’s the first thing I tend to say to large groups of people these days. Force of habit. But I’m not here to wallow in such matters, and neither are you. It’s been 130 days since my last drink, but it’s only ten seconds until I change the world. For you see, I’m about to introduce something to the porting industry that you’ve never seen before: COMPETITION.”
He ported to a spot beside the great silver scrim. Reporters popped up along the outskirts of the theater, holding up their phones to get footage of this unheralded tech wunderkind.
“This. Is. PEGASYS!” Bamert cried out. The logo on the screen blew up to reveal a graphic of the Earth spinning on its axis, a series of busy satellites orbiting it.
“This is an entirely new port network, and 100% secure. And affordable, too! We’re gonna offer unlimited plans to people at less than $40 a month. And we’re gonna have even better rates for direct-to-business service. Now isn’t that a rainbow?”
“How do we know you can do this?” shouted one man.
“I brought y’all here, didn’t I?” asked Bamert.
“How old are you?!” another asked.
“How old are you?” Bamert countered. “Don’t you know it’s uncivilized to make such inquiries?”
Still another. “Why is it called Pegasys?”
“Because I thought of the name myself, and it owns. What I will also disclose to you, the potential investor, is that I am the son of Edgar Bamert. And as they say in the financial business, the word of a Bamert is oak. Isn’t that right, father?”
Edgar Bamert had been force-ported into the second row. He was dressed in a suit and bewildered as to how his derelict of a son, who crassly asserted that he could ruin the Kirsches with just a bit of seed money, could remove him from a party that he had been hosting in Savannah just seconds earlier.
“But if y’all need more proof,” yelled Bamert, “Here’s another trick for you. ALAKAZAM!”
He tapped his prototype phone and now one of the cordoned-off sections was filled with PortSys lab technicians, still in their coats.
“Everyone say hello to the R&D team of PortSys! So glad they could join us. Ah, but that’s not all.”
He tapped his phone again and the other section fil
led up with hundreds of young men, women, and children. All of them had been shaved bald. All of them cowered at the sunlight.
“These are the unfortunate souls that the PortSys R&D team uses as guinea pigs. Isn’t that right, team?”
Silence from the lab section.
“This may not be music to y’all’s capitalistic ears, but I do believe I can offer a more humane network of port travel. I do NOT agree to Portsys’s terms and conditions, and neither should anyone else. Instead, I do believe that I will never let the Kirsch family, nor any of you fine people here today, lay a goddamn finger on these men, women, and children ever again. Nor will I be selling anyone’s porting information to anyone else. I can guarantee you that much. Pegasys will have ETHICS.”
Down the mountain from the theater, a tinge of acrid smoke came on faintly: a black wisp that tickled noses in the crowd until it grew beyond mere suspicion. Something was burning down that hill. Something industrial. Something toxic. The California natives in the audience knew the bitter char of a standard wildfire all too well. Wingnuts often liked to port in during dry seasons and start them as a form of soft terrorism. But whatever was burning down there was feasting on more than just trees and shrubs.
One of the technicians cried out, “THE PORTSYS LAB IS BURNING!” and the displaced crowd rumbled. PINE agents materialized in the aisles.