The Cloud (19 page)

43

S
andy takes two steps back from the chair just as I feel my phone buzz. I’m not sure whether to answer when it becomes clear that Sandy has picked up my distraction. She tells me to pull out the phone and put it on the table. She watches the movements carefully. The phone buzzes again, jumping lightly on the table, then stops.

“Interesting,” Sandy says.

“Why?”

“Usually we don’t get reception here, unless you stand on one foot near the window in the downstairs bathroom.” She smiles at what feels to her like a clever line. “You probably just got a text.”

From the phone’s abbreviated buzz, I’d have to concur. She reaches forward and pulls the phone nearer. It’s a surprisingly painful invasion of my personal space. She clicks with her thumb and she says: “I remember Alan Parsons.”

“You do?”

“That’s what it says.”

She slides the phone toward me. I start to raise my hands.

“Leave them on the table, palms down.” Sandy’s playing a part she once saw on TV. I have a vision of Faith being held somewhere at gunpoint, just like this.

I look down at the screen of the phone. It reads: “I remember Alan Parsons. Call me.”

It’s from Jill Gilkeson, mother of Kathryn, the girl who ran into traffic.

“It’s from a woman who works for Andrew Leviathan. Can I call her?”

“You can’t call anybody.”

She reaches forward and she pulls the phone to her edge of the table. “What’s it mean?”

“It means that another piece of evidence suggests that whatever you’re involved with—whatever we’re both involved with—points to one of the most powerful industrialists in the world.”

“Movie rights.”

I want to throw up. But I’m liking the way the psychology is unfolding; Sandy’s paranoia is giving way to her narcissism, which is the easier of the two of her prevailing traits to manipulate. And she’s feeling taken advantage of by PRISM or her Chinese handlers and humiliated that the world will see her as merely a volunteer teacher. Still, even as I try to keep her gaze, I’m glancing around for some escape hatch—a weapon, sharp object, fire extinguisher, anything I could use to throw or wield, distract, not harm or injure her so much as facilitate my exit.

Rifle trained on me, she takes two steps backward, bumps into the chest-high counter that separates the kitchen from the dining room, feels her way around its rounded edges until she, without taking her eyes from me, winds up in the kitchen. She slides open a drawer, looks down. I reach down at my feet and lift my untied sneaker with my right hand. It’s a hapless projectile I drop when Sandy returns and I see what she’s holding aloft: a black plastic device that’s shaped like a cross between a portable video-game console and a small baseball mitt. It lies in her right palm, attached by a strap that encircles the back of her hand.

“Meet the Juggler.”

My head suddenly goes light. I picture Polly holding up an empty fortune cookie poised to lay something heavy on me. I cough twice, sharply, begetting a dry heave. I raise my head, eyes watery, trying to keep a grip. Reality, memory and mystery have begun to collide. Everything feels scrambled up inside my gray matter, an omelet of imagery and emotion and I can’t seem to separate out the ingredients.

I recall where I’ve seen this device before. Piles of them sat burning at the learning annex on a long cafeteria table.

“It’s obviously a prototype.” Sandy moves to the edge of the counter to my left. She sets down the rifle but not in a way that offers me any particular advantage. She’s ten feet away from me, not close enough. If I tried to attack or flee, she’d have ample time to take aim.

Eyes still on me, she reaches to her left and lifts a second device from the drawer. It’s identical to the first. She slips the second one onto her left hand and she holds up the two Jugglers, palms facing me. I can see now in the center of each device a rectangular video screen slightly larger than the screen on a mobile phone. On each screen shines an image of a juggling ninja, an image I recall seeing on the mural inside the burning learning annex. Above their hands, these cartoonish, macho Ninja juggle tiny little clouds, not balls. What strikes me is the image quality. It’s more vivid than I’ve seen on any television or even movie-theater screen. It’s not just the colors but also the way they seem to leap from the screen like they’re combusting with the air. I can’t take my eyes from them, to the extent I’m wondering if I’m imagining it.

Sandy lightly lifts the device in her right hand. Into the air pops a high-definition image of the number 1. It arcs in the air and it lands on the device in her left hand. She holds up the device in her left hand so that I can see the screen; on it is the number 1. The image has traveled, wirelessly, from one device to the other.

She then starts moving the devices at the same time, as if she were juggling them, though they remain in her palms. But the air starts popping with images of ones and zeroes. They travel in neat little arcs from one device to the next. It’s a digital air show, 21st-century wizardry, something from the hands of a supernatural creature in a Harry Potter story. But even as I stare in wonder, I know this hardly is science fiction. It’s well within the realm of software.

“Data juggling, literally?”

“Have you ever seen anything like it?”

Her hands have stopped moving. In the air, above the devices, a static image appears: ninja jugglers with their hands beneath an arc of tiny clouds.

I shake my head.

“It’s infrared and wireless technology, Bluetooth, twelve hundred hertz image refresh, basic stuff.” She knows she’s got me. “It captures body motion like the Nintendo Wii system. I don’t even know all the technical terms. But this is just the sizzle, not the steak.”

She has grown more impassioned, her mouth slightly agape, lips moist, lost in presentation.

“You should see how excited the kids get.”

“How many kids?”

“Fifty overall, give or take. But only twenty on any given day. A totally captivated group. Taking care of struggling kids is really the wave of the future in forward-thinking communities. This is where we start building the middle class from people who might otherwise get stuck at the bottom rungs.” She’s reciting from a manual. “There’s one kid, Samuel. He’s ten, I think. Robbed a convenience store. Cutey. Loves me. Gets what I’m about. He spends hours with the Jugglers, and so fast. He can whiz through the data.”

She reaches with her right thumb and swipes the side of the device in her palm. She starts moving the device again, literally in a juggling motion. This time, a maze projects into the air; on the end of the maze near her left hand is a virtual piece of cheese while on the other hand is a mouse. She starts moving the fingers of her right hand, prompting the mouse to move in fits and starts through the maze. It’s awkward, either bad design or she’s just not very good. All of a sudden, the device in her right hand beeps. A cat appears and begins chasing the mouse, and is just about to catch its virtual prey in the maze when her left hand beeps.

“Level Two,” she says.

The maze seems to leap such that it now hovers only over the right-hand device. Over the left device, a new maze appears. It’s got a different configuration, this time with a tiny egg on one end of the maze and a dinosaur on the other. She starts glancing back and forth between the mazes, trying to move the creatures simultaneously—the mouse to the cheese and spiky-backed dinosaur to the egg.

Between the two mazes, there’s a bridge, projected about two feet in the air above her hands. A cacophony of beeps commences, marking the appearance of new images. Beep. Mouse. Beep. Cheese. Beep. Cat. Beep. Dinosaur. Beep. Bigger dinosaur chasing smaller one chasing egg. She lowers her hands, prompting the images to waver, then disappear.

“Samuel can switch and switch and switch. He’s a genius. He’s going to run the twenty-first century.” She pauses and laughs. “Just so long as there are no food trays.”

“Huh?”

“He’s incredible when he’s on the device. But when he’s not using this thing, he’s a little tyrant. Can’t sit still. In the dormitory, he climbed onto a table, started throwing food trays. He started a riot, got a black eye and then detention. I’d have been more upset but it honestly reminded me of myself as a little kid, raised in a tough environment.”

I take it in.

“There are a dozen games. The older kids can do the hard ones but even the younger kids can do better than I can. The boys get so focused on the firefighter game. No tension between them, the anger and all that just melts away when they’re Juggling. They . . .” She trails off.

“Sandy?”

“Watch for yourself.”

She pushes a handful of buttons and a scene appears over the pair of jugglers. It’s a high-tech, translucent video. I’m watching footage shot of the learning annex. A boy wearing the devices moves his arms in fits and jerks, a controlled spasmodic, sending ones and zeroes flying through hoops and tunnels.

Click.

A small boy—shaved head and syrupy-thin arms—spins three holographic balls down three holographic bowling lanes. He alternately grimaces, smiles, focuses, his face a bubbling landscape of the turmoil within. I feel like I’m looking at the physical correlate to the chaos going on inside their brains.

Click.

Five boys in a semicircle, juggling, captivated, at once completely active and utterly inert.

Click.
The static image appears, the ninja jugglers and the clouds.
Click.
The image vanishes.

“Clouds?”

“The Cloud.”

“Juggling the cloud?”

“C’mon.” Impatient with my evident stupidity. “We’re moving into the cloud, all of us. This next generation, they’re the cloud warriors, the digital ninjas. I guess we’ve got lawyers getting a bunch of different trademarks.”

Before I can follow up, she switches directions. “They obviously lied to me.”

“Who?”

“The brain images. Something’s not right. I know that. They say they’re giving the kids physicals, full consent from the county and the parents whose kids get bussed in and all that. They say they’re making sure that playtime builds better kids. But it’s obviously not that.”

The brain images. “What do you mean?”

With her right thumb, she clicks off a button on the device in her palm. She pushes it onto the counter. She seems suddenly defeated.

“Everything I’ve told you is true.”

“I know that.”

“I’ve been there less than a year. They wanted a celeb to reach out to the annex and inspire the kids to use the Juggler. Y’know, get them thinking that if they followed my lead, maybe they could get on TV, stuff like that. A lot of the parents are heavy TV watchers or first-gen Americans, some right-off-the-boat support staff. They like the idea of having me as part of the mix.”

“Okay.”

“I can tell you, without any reservation, these kids are getting smarter with their devices. And I honestly don’t see what the big deal is; sure, this is great technology, but it’s just an amped-up version of portable video games and mobile devices with some of the brain-game technology mixed in.”

“Then why did Steve try to burn it down?”

She shrugs and drops her eyes.

“It was an accident, I’m sure.”

I give her the “give me a break” look.

“I think you’re the one who’s lying. You’re doing corporate espionage, just like they warned me someone might do. You want to know how it works, how it works so well with their brains.”

“I’m a journalist.”

“Then do what modern journalists do and wait for the announcement.”

I shake my head, not understanding.

“It’ll all be public soon enough. Ten days. The marketing and product launch.”

“At PRISM?”

“Chengdu.”

I shake my head again. Am I hearing correctly? My ears feel like they’re ringing. Two weeks. The launch. What I’d been warned about.

“Huge city in China. I guess they’re all huge. They’ve got a zoo there. They’re going to have clowns and, of course, jugglers.”

“China.” I’m surprisingly staggered by this piece of information. It doesn’t conform to the picture I’ve been forming. And I can feel the wary gears of my overtaxed brain trying to adjust. “Why test it in San Francisco? When is the U.S. product launch?”

“Never. That’s the big thing. They did some refining of the software here, for obvious reasons. Smart engineers, U.S. know-how, and all that. But they don’t want this product to come to the U.S. Not ever. Or at least not until they establish control over the intellectual property.”

“Why not?”

Sandy’s eyes go wide. But she’s not looking at me. She’s looking at the front door of the house. I follow her gaze. I don’t see anything. Then I do: some movement, a whisking in the shadows.

She raises the rifle.

44

W
ith Sandy’s eyes averted, I reach for my iPhone. I lift it from the table, undetected, then slip it into my pocket.

“Clyde?” Sandy directs her shout at the door.

It’s not. At the door, a figure appears through the glass, not Clyde. He peers inside. He sees the shotgun and recoils. I can’t see what he does next but I infer that he slinks a step or two down the stairs, and pastes himself against the outside wall. He’s thin, tall, with a rounded head that, near as I can tell from the partial darkness, is bald. The buzzard.

“I know my rights.” Sandy squeezes the trigger, prompting a blast and then an explosion of glass.

A rectangular window next to the front door seems to ripple, a slow-motion effect, then its puzzle pieces start to fall to the ground. The door itself looks lightly peppered with buckshot and punctured on the far right, just above the handle, with a hole the size of a baby’s fist.

I slide to the ground and peer through the legs of the dining-room chairs at the doorway. No movement. No fallen body. The whole thing feels both violent and almost comical; melodramatic Sandy Vello makes her last, loud stand.

“Call 911,” Sandy orders.

There’s a pause, then a sound from the outside, the buzzard making some kind of noise near the front door. Hurt? Taking aim? Suddenly, an object flies through the shattered window. It’s making a wailing sound, like an alarm.

“Bomb!” Sandy yells.

I flatten myself and cover my head. I think: Isaac. I see an image of my crinkly baby. Pink, then pale, then blue. Not breathing. What’s wrong with him? He’s so still. I’m paralyzed. Is this how it ends?

I hear footsteps. They’re coming from the outside, shuffling, maybe down the stairs. Definitely down the stairs. Our attacker in full escape; I thought he said he’d protect me.

I look up. I can’t help myself. I should be retreating. I should cover my head but, impulsively, I look up. I peer at the object that flew through the window. The supposed bomb on the floor, between the entrance to the house and the dining-room table. It’s small, wailing like an alarm clock. And it’s not a bomb. Not even close. It’s a cell phone. Not just any cell phone. I know it. I bought it. It’s the cheap-ass Motorola phone I put on the seat of the black Mercedes.

“Not a bomb,” I yell. “A phone. A diversion.”

“What?”

I get an idea. I pull on my sneaker and say: “It’s just a cell phone with the alarm going off. He’s getting away.”

“Fleeing like a little girl.” Triumphant.

“Not if you get a shot at him from the front window.”

She doesn’t respond.

“Sandy, what’s to stop him from going back to his car and getting some actual bomb, or whatever, a gun?”

She starts moving. Peering between the refinished legs of the table, I see her feet churn toward the front of the house. My cue to move. I slink around the back end of the table. I lift my head to see her absorbed, pushing aside a rocking chair that sits beneath a square window at the front of the narrow house. I snag one of the Jugglers from the countertop. Sandy sets down her shotgun, then looks back at me. Just before she sees me, I lower the Juggler and lift my phone. Into it, I shout, “Intruder.” I mouth to Sandy: “911.”

Sandy turns back to the window. She opens a lock on the side and begins to turn a crank at its bottom. Her hand slips, betraying nerves. I can imagine the collision in her brain of neuro-chemicals and ego, the ego compelling her to show her moxie, the chemicals urging her to fall to the floor and remember she’s not a super-secret spy but a physical-fitness devotee caught up in something well beyond her resolve.

The window pops open. I start moving quickly to the door. I reach it and twist the door handle, my silent hopes answered when it turns, unlocked. Sandy lifts the rifle, fumbles it, and seems to hear my movements behind her. My own mordant curiosity—some preternatural inquisitiveness that the Witch would say borders on a death wish—prompts me to pause and see what Sandy decides to do, rather than duck from the window. She starts to raise the weapon in my direction, then hesitates. I do not. I step into the darkness.

Keeping my head down, I fly down the wooden stairs slippery with night, trying not to fall and pretending I may not get shot. Within seconds, I’m on the ground, beside the garage. Then:
Bang!

Sandy’s pulled the trigger. I look up the side of the house. I’m nearly directly below her, but slightly around the corner of the house. I doubt she’s aiming at me. The angles don’t work. So what, or who, is she aiming at? I peer across the road into the mini-forest. Tall trees, dense, underbrush. No movement. I’m guessing Sandy isn’t shooting at anyone at all. She’s announcing her presence.

And doesn’t she have to reload? I sprint across the road into the underbrush, duck beneath a leafy limb, step onto a rock and feel my knee twist. I stumble forward, drop the Juggler, demi-dive after it, find myself lying on the ground, my head nestled beside a puddle.

I pause. I wait for the pulsing pain to pass. I listen. Silent night. I picture Polly, teary-eyed, holding the fortune cookie, and Isaac, pale in the delivery room, chaotic sounds and nurses and doctors circling, a cacophony of shouting but, for me, everything going terribly silent. My baby boy born, Polly prone on the delivery bed, pale, my dreams on the cusp. Something’s gone terribly, terribly wrong.

I stand. I don’t look back. I stop listening. I don’t care. Shoot me, Sandy, if you will. Capture me, buzzard, if you can.

I sprint in the direction of my car, then stumble, sprint, stumble, sprint, the Juggler somehow in my hand, slippery, the grainy brain images in my pocket.

I reach the Audi. I climb into the car. I whisk it in a tight circle. I pull up to the metal gate, step out of the car, open it, am about to climb back into the car when I hear it. Rustling. To my right, in the darkness and trees. I see it, don’t I? An angry red light. It’s the tip of a cigarette, ten feet deep in the trees, held head-high. I flash on an image from a few hours earlier; a packet of cigarettes in the front seat of the car of the buzzard. In the present, I don’t bother to strain to make out the face behind the cigarette—or to discover if I’m imagining things or not. I drop into the driver’s seat and I gun the car, fishtailing through the gate, then swerving more as I pull a hard left onto the main gravel road.

Seconds later, I pass the house, again without incident. I’m free. Has the buzzard sprung me? Or taken pity?

I pull out my cell phone and, numb-fingered, dial, my brain bursting with questions and theories, not just about the Juggler and the conspirators behind it, but about the reasons my life fell apart. My cozy dream shattered, in a moment over an empty fortune cookie, the pieces strewn over the last agonizing nine months. The phone rings. I picture Faith, the compassion of a nurse, nubile movements of a dancer, the fraudulence of a stage actor. Still, I’m feeling something. It’s deep. It’s affection, a genuine crush. It’s the first time I’ve felt it, maybe that I’ve felt anything, since . . .

My thoughts are interrupted when a man answers my cell.

I say: “I have what you’re looking for.”