“At a flea market in New Jersey,” she said.
I stared at her. And then she told me her whole story. Brooding for months, storming out of her parents’ house, chasing dead dolphins and bad internet, lugging around a potato plant, and running from crazed reality gamers. It was proper adventure! “Well, thank you,” I said when she was finally done. “For coming to get me. I don’t know what I would have done if I had opened that door and no one was there.” I shuddered. “Or worse, if someone else was.”
—
Before Andy left the apartment to go back to his work getting into the Altus Premium Space, we had concocted a very rough plan.
1. Always have our ringers on in case Miranda texts again.
2. Always be ready to move at a moment’s notice. Bags packed and ready to go.
3. Begin a whisper campaign against Altus. Right now, they were a big, shiny new thing. Everyone either loved them or didn’t understand them, so there was no pushback. If public relations was going to be any part of taking them down, that work was going to need time to spread.
The only thing that was clear was that Carl couldn’t just destroy Altus. Even if it was something their programming would allow, which I don’t think it was, they were not physically powerful enough to work against the desires of their brother. Indeed, Carl was in a kind of hiding. Their brother wanted Carl gone as much as he wanted me gone. I remember the exact words Carl said to me one night in that apartment, because I can do that now: “He doesn’t care about what the outcome is, he only cares about the level of certainty. He wants control, and you and I both represent challenges to that control. He wants me dead even more than he wants you dead. He is the god I was told to never be.”
The problem with starting a communications campaign against Altus was that I had to communicate.
—
Since we were now in a four-bedroom apartment, Maya and I, without discussing it, chose our separate rooms. So did Carl. They were sleeping in the smallest room, which was staged as a little boy’s room for potential buyers.
On the second night, after we had gone to bed, I got up and softly knocked on Maya’s door.
“Yeah?” she said. I opened the door, seeing the bed in the dark, silhouetted against the view, which from this side of the apartment was clear all the way down to the Financial District.
“Hey,” I said at the door.
“Hey,” she said, rolling over in bed.
“You know, there are blinds on that window.”
“I’m never going to have this view again.” And that was true. Maya was wealthy, but not this wealthy. “It feels like you can see everything from up here,” she said, “but really you can’t see anything.”
Things were falling apart. Tent cities were popping up in Central Park. Shelter space had filled up years ago, but now the homeless population was exploding. But from here, everything was perfect and beautiful. The world felt immortal and inevitable, but it was actually brittle and breaking.
I sat down on the bed. “A few days ago, I said I was sorry for not listening to you. You were right. You tried to stop me. I fucked everything up. But . . .” I had prepared what I was going to say while lying in bed by myself, but that didn’t make it easy. “But that’s not the thing I’m sorry for, really. That was just another piece of the same mistake that I’ve made over and over again. I’m sorry I put you last. You were the most important person, and I put you at the bottom of my list.”
“April,” she said.
“No, I’ve got a whole thing prepared, let me do it. I’m sorry because I was terrible to you, but I was also terrible to myself. I know I’ve got self-worth issues. I just found out I was chosen as an emissary by an alien envoy to represent and protect the human race, and still I spent the afternoon searching for validation on Twitter. But I know that you are a good, strong, beautiful, talented person, and you loved me, and literally if that isn’t enough, nothing is. So, thank you for loving me, and I’m sorry.”
“Thank you, April.”
And then I realized that she might think that I thought that if I said the right words we’d get back together. I didn’t want her to think that, so I stood up.
“I just couldn’t sleep.” I started walking out the door.
“They were good words,” she said. “Good night, April.”
“Good night.”
AN EXCERPT FROM THE BOOK OF GOOD TIMES
There isn’t anything I can say that will prevent you from skipping this week’s recording of Slainspotting. It’s a shame. You shouldn’t, but I’ve run the simulations and you now value your new mission too much, so you’re going to make a bunch of bad decisions. This is what he’s counting on. And who am I to say that you shouldn’t? You need to work hard right now. You are going to spend the day lying on your bed with a VR headset on instead of maintaining your relationships. Please do not forget, however, that you are a person and not just a tool. The Good Times are about more than just getting stuff done.
Oh, also, it’s time. Sell everything and buy AltaCoin. Right now.
ANDY
That week I canceled our recording of Slainspotting.
Jason was pissed, but he was nice about it. “I know, you’re obsessed with this Altus thing, you’ve got a chance at Premium access . . . Go for it. But if you skip next week, I’m gonna be mean about it.”
But I couldn’t record Slainspotting. April was back, The Thread was relying on me, and humanity was at stake, so I had to lie in my bed completely still while constructing objects to make my breezy spring day more appealing
