other car lights. I keep my trajectory west, heading toward the sharply rising hills that separate the highway from the Pacific Ocean. It’s even more rarified real estate here; big lots peppered with ancient trees, some with grazing deer and fenced horses, accessed, like the house I’ve just escaped, by narrow gravel tributaries.
It’s one of those off-roads I seek.
Less than a mile up the canyon, I find the one I’m looking for. It’s a turn to the left over a creek bridge onto a road that serpentines up a hillside. But I can see as I slow, nearing the turnoff, that, just beyond the bridge, there’s a spot to park. It’s just barely visible from the road, and only if you happen to be looking closely for, say, a slumbering journalist. I pull into the spot, turn off the car, and then, nearly, the phone. I don’t want to be tracked here. But with my finger poised to power off the device, I remember one last task.
I read the text from Jill Gilkeson: I remember Alan Parsons. Call me.
It’s too late for that. It’s nearly 1 a.m.
I type: “Sorry 4 delayed response. I’ll call in morning.”
I hit send.
I start to power off the phone. It beeps with an incoming text. “Im up.” I hit send to initiate a call, trackers be damned.
“I haven’t slept well in years,” she says by way of answering the phone. I blink back a tear. In my exhaustion, I feel connected to this woman.
“Alan Parsons.”
“An amazing teacher. A genius.”
“Of computers.”
“Right. Andrew was so good to him but, if I remember-and please don’t quote me on this-Alan just couldn’t keep it together.”
“Back up. I’m having trouble keeping pace.”
She laughs, like, of course. “By the way, why are
“I’ve experienced loss too.” It’s out of my mouth before I realize I’ve said it. I wonder if I’m establishing empathy as a tactic, or something rawer. In the brush, I see movement. I flinch. Is it a deer or my imagination?
I kill the fog lights. I don’t know if I want to see what’s out there before it visits me. Come what may.
The defeated woman on the other end of the line starts talking. She takes me back to when Andrew Leviathan started building new charter schools on the Peninsula. His goal, she says, was to give opportunity to at- risk students but also talented teachers who the public school system might not embrace. Alan Parsons, she says, was one such teacher. He was a computer whiz, engaging, bright, and thirsty. A drunk, he wound up dropping from Stanford’s computer science PhD program, where he’d been a favorite among undergrads he taught. There was some chatter that Alan did a bit of corporate espionage and hacking to support his booze habit and that he tended to get playful when wasted. He could be a recreational hacker and a devastatingly good one. There was a rumor that Alan, virtually joyriding on gin, once hacked into Pentagon computers and made it look like a warhead had gone missing.
Andrew, the tech-savvy savior, came to the rescue. Andrew hired Alan to do tech support at one of the first charter schools. And, so long as he remained sober, to teach one class.
“How to multitask?” I ask.
She laughs. “That word barely existed then. But, if it did, Andrew wouldn’t have allowed it in the school.”
“What do you mean?”
“Andrew wouldn’t even let computers into class. I only remember this because it seemed so odd. He said the school could teach the
It rings familiar. Polly mentioned at some point in our discussion of future school options for Isaac that some Montessori programs keep technology at a distance. But it doesn’t sound consistent with the Andrew I’ve been learning about. He’s been pushing heavy technology use; it’s in his blood, and maybe that blood is bad. I’m hypothesizing that he’s been simultaneously developing insidious Juggler technology on the sly while creating a public face that limits use of technology in schools. Why?
“Jill, was Andrew involved in the Juggler project?”
“Haven’t heard of it. But I didn’t know Alan all that well.”
She says that, as far as she could recall, Alan couldn’t stop drinking. He was fired. But the two men kept up their ties. She says that she seems to vaguely recall Alan’s name coming up recently; she thinks Andrew might have contacted him again.
“If you’re looking to do a story on Andrew’s generosity, I think you could include the part about Alan.”
“Alan died recently.”
She doesn’t respond. She can’t stand hearing about death.
“I need to go,” I say. I really do. I can’t see for exhaustion. And, I realize as the adrenaline starts to fade, I’m ravenous.
“Get some sleep.”
“Jill?”
“Yes.”
“May I ask you one more thing? It’s about your daughter.”
Silent ascent.
“Did she ever have contact with Mr. Leviathan?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Alarmed.
“Sorry. Terrible turn of phrase. I meant: was he generous with her too, in terms of his time or his commitment to education?”
“Oh.” She pauses. “Not really.” Another pause. “Other than the after-school program.”
“Program, like. .”
“Glorified babysitting, for kids of employees. Board games and computer games. Early ones. The kids got to play with all kinds of toys the big brains in R and D were developing.”
Internal alarm bells, a burst of adrenaline. I let it pass so I don’t betray the zeal of my curiosity and frighten her. She fills in the silence.
“She must’ve gone for near two years. She really craved it, hanging out with the other kids. It was a little wonderland. It brought her alive, in a way.”
“How so?”
“I’m really not comfortable talking about her. Suffice it to say, Mr. Leviathan’s a saint. Now, I’ve got to try to get some sleep myself.”
End of interview.
“Sleep well, Jill.”
My phone beeps. I look at the screen. There’s a notification: tomorrow afternoon, I’m due at the courthouse to meet with tax authorities.
I turn off the device. I drop it into the center console. I trade it for an energy bar that I devour. Dinner, breakfast, whatever it is at this point.
I recline. I close my eyes, craving sleep, seeing puzzle pieces. I form a picture: Andrew Leviathan, through his partner and intermediary, Gils Simons, has sold or is otherwise exporting to China some technology that entertains kids and professes to help them multitask, turn them into cloud masters. But it actually hurts their brains. Does it hurt development of their frontal lobes by overloading them with data? They’re not mastering the cloud, or successfully juggling it, they’re winding up in one.
I suspect Andrew had been testing the technology for years.
Recently, Alan Parsons stumbled onto their plot and he tried to blackmail Leviathan, his former benefactor. He first tried to reach me by a fake email address for Sandy Vello. I overlooked or ignored or didn’t see it. So he used Faith to help seduce me into his efforts. But why? Why did he need my help? Was he afraid Leviathan would come after him, and is that exactly what happened?
