“What . . .” I said.
“This is the server farm,” Peter said proudly.
I turned to him. He was not smiling, but his eyes had a terrifying glint of pride in them.
“What?” I said.
“AltaCoin is the world’s first cryptocurrency mined by the human mind. More efficient, and more available. Everyone will be able to be a part of this economy.”
Everyone who can afford a headset, I thought.
“Soon, we will make it so that everyone can mine in their sleep, but before then, we had to create an initial supply. So that’s what the server room is for.”
“But these are people,” I said, and the question was there for him to answer.
“Yes, employees. They are being taken care of. They are working for Altus.”
“Why haven’t I ever seen any of them around, though?” I asked, trying to make him see the same thing I was seeing.
“They live here.”
“Where?” I asked, wondering where we could possibly have a dorm that could house all of these people.
“Here,” Peter said.
It took a few moments to realize that when Peter Petrawicki said that they lived here, he meant . . . this room. They lived in those beds. I didn’t respond. Why was he showing me this? I didn’t know if it was illegal, but it was definitely indefensible. It was the kind of thing that you should not tell someone who you do not trust.
“I know what you’re thinking, Miranda. I know that this looks immoral to you. But you can’t change the world from the kiddie pool. Altus isn’t going to be a company; it’s going to be its own nation, its own world. We are going to give people what they have lost, what they need. For decades, humanity has had nowhere to expand to, but now we’re giving people a new horizon, a new frontier.”
That all sounded pretty gross, and I didn’t know what to say. Then he spoke again, and my stomach dropped through the floor.
“I’ve taken the liberty of having someone pack up your old quarters. Everyone who works in high security lives here. Let me show you to your new room.”
I let out a shaky breath, trying to control my panic, but we both knew the score. If someone had packed up my whole room, they knew about the phone; they had probably even seen my texts. I hadn’t been brought to this new place to work. I had been brought here to be held prisoner.
APRIL
When we walked out of the auditorium, hauling the first round of bags behind us, Maya and I were a little surprised to find that Derek’s pickup truck was gone and in its place was a white moving truck with its rear door lifted and nothing in the back except for a large wooden crate strapped to one wall. Apparently we had arrived on a Friday night, and now we were leaving late Sunday. It felt like it had been much longer. Carl crawled up on my shoulder to watch with me as two people, a man and a woman, stepped out of the van. I knew their faces, but it was dark and the context was off. Then again, my brain could do things now that it couldn’t do before, and suddenly I had access to all the data I needed.
“Jessica?” I asked, in shock.
“April! Oh my god!” She bent over and put her head between her legs for a moment and then continued, “I didn’t believe it was true, but it’s true!”
“What the hell is going on?” Maya said quietly, toward me and Carl.
“We were told that we needed to come up here and get you, so we just . . . did,” the man said.
“And Mitty!”
“I can’t believe you remember my name,” he said, laughing.
“It was a big day, but also, like, since . . .” I gestured at my face, though neither of them had made any sign that they’d noticed it. “I’ve been able to remember more or less everything that’s ever happened to me.”
This was something I was just figuring out, but yes.
“Can someone explain what’s going on?” Maya said, looking at Carl. But Carl was being quiet around Jessica and Mitty.
“We each got a book, a few months ago,” Jessica said. She still had the small fighter’s frame and the bright red lipstick. “It was a very smart book, and it had a lot of good ideas that have helped us a lot. With money, but also with some family stuff.”
Here Mitty picked up. “Yesterday, we both got another one. It told us to come up here and rescue April May and her friend and her monkey and her potato plant, and it looks like all of this is coming true. Except the potato. I’ll be disappointed if there isn’t a potato.”
Fucking Carl.
“Maya, this is Jessica, and this is Mitty—they were the ones who helped me on the day that Martin Bellacourt . . .” I faded out, not sure how to finish the sentence.
“Stabbed you in the back like the fucking bitch that he was,” Jessica filled in.
Maya actually smiled—it was hard not to like Jessica.
“Well, let’s load up,” Mitty said. “We were told to move quickly.”
“Are we going in . . . the back?” Maya asked, pointing at the empty back of the moving van.
“That’s what the book said. There’s more too. We’ll tell you about it when we get closer.” I looked at Carl. There was a twinkle of excitement in their eye that I did not like, but I didn’t ask them to explain.
We tossed all of our possessions into the back of the truck. Jessica and Mitty sat up front, and the three of us went in the back with the crate. The truck started to rumble. It felt unsafe without seat belts on, but Carl was in charge and they seemed to think it was fine.
“Where are we going?”
“It’s a surprise,” Carl said.
“OK, well, if you’re not going to answer that question,” Maya said, “answer
