“What?”
“The bracelet.”
I was standing now.
He continued, “Five hundred bucks.”
“I don’t know what you think is happening right now, but none of this makes any sense, and I’m going to go.”
“OK! OK!” he rushed. “I’m sorry, this is going different than how I expected.”
“Yeah, well, same,” I said, backing away from him.
“Let me explain!”
For some reason I stopped. It was weird enough that I did want an explanation.
“I do an alternate reality game. It’s called Fish. Do you know what RGs are?”
“Yeah, sure,” I said. I was roughly familiar with folks who paid a monthly subscription for clues to be dropped into their lives.
“Well, I just got a text from Fish saying that if I found you and got you to give me what you bought at Cowtown that I would advance two levels instantly. So, can I have it?”
“No!” I said.
“A thousand,” he said.
“No, it’s not a price thing. This is just weird and I don’t like it.”
“Ten thousand.” He was taking out his cell phone like he was going to Venmo me ten grand.
“No! And stop asking.”
His frustration was turning to anger now.
“Just let me buy it! It’s a good deal!”
He was at least six inches taller than me, and every step I took back, he moved forward into. His hand reached out for the bag, and adrenaline pumped into my body. I panicked, threw my hot sausage sandwich at his face, and ran back into Cowtown.
I ran through the booths, jumping around and dodging people, not taking time to look behind me until I was halfway through the massive building. When I looked back, the Oakleys guy was nowhere to be seen. I started walking more normally now, afraid people would be suspicious, but I was also winded. Fitness was never my focus.
Another guy locked eyes on me, this guy was middle-aged with his dark hair close cropped where it wasn’t balding.
“Are you Maya?” he asked. I was still catching my breath, so I did not reply, about to start running again.
“Did you buy anything at the market today?” he asked. I took off as fast as I could, which is not particularly fast, but I did not stop until I got to my truck. I hit the push-button starter on the rental and did everything I could not to drive too erratically out of the Cowtown parking lot.
I considered just driving home to Manhattan, but the rocks sitting in their little bag on the passenger seat were whispering to me. Something was happening, and I couldn’t give up now. Plus, as I drove in circles, trying to figure out if someone was following me, I got an idea.
—
Now a note because it feels necessary:
When we think about the first anniversary of the arrival of the Carls, we mostly think about that shooting. But really, the whole day was a pretty good and normal day until that evening. Yeah, people were mad on the internet. And yes, there were a couple little skirmishes at a parade. But it only takes one person shooting their way into a nightclub to change the story.
We gave everyone in America that power when we decided that basically anyone can buy an assault rifle. I don’t pretend to understand the motivations of these shooters, but ultimately it has to be at least a little bit about power, right? They’ve been convinced that having power is how you measure your worth, and they are sad or angry or, as is so often the case, both, and they see that there’s one way they can definitely change the world. They’ve seen a dozen other guys do the same thing, so why not them?
I hate that I even have to write about it here because, ultimately, billions of people decide every day to be decent and kind, but one person decides to be powerful for a moment and now I have to talk about it or people will be like, “But what about the shooting?”
Well, what about it? It happened. It was terrible.
Why did it happen? Was he a Defender? Was it ultimately about the Carls? No. Those are all the wrong questions. It’s so tempting, even now, to try to blame all of the politicians and pundits who were rising in power by feeding on people’s fear and confusion.
We can blame those people, but the only thing a mass murder “means” is that we’ve made it too easy to kill. None of us are going to talk about it anymore in this book, because if we did, that man will get to keep having his power on us, and I’m sick of it.
Moving on.
ANDY
I couldn’t stop feeling bad about telling Miranda she had to apply at Altus. My gut was all, Absolutely not! She should stay in Berkeley where it was normal and safe. Enough of my friends had done weird, risky things. If the book hadn’t told me to tell her to do it, I absolutely would not have. It was one thing putting my money on the line with this thing, but this was Miranda’s future. But The Book of Good Times was in charge now. Or maybe I just wanted it to be.
And now, since I had completed the book’s two requests, I could turn the page.
You waited! Excellent work! I knew you would. I mean, I literally knew it. Otherwise, how could I have known when I printed the book? You probably shouldn’t worry too much about all of this right now. So, you have another million dollars. It seems like you can trust me, right?
As previously noted, this wasn’t true. I was doing everything I could to not trust the book. I knew it was powerful, but I did not know what it wanted.
So now, I’d like you to move 100 percent of your portfolio into Posthiker, a distributed shipping company. They’ve only been publicly traded for about a year, and people are not optimistic about how
