Matt Richtel - The Cloud

I’m trying to make sense of any of it. Andrew builds his school just a few months after Kathryn Gilkeson, his administrator’s daughter, walks into the street and gets killed. Sounds innocuous enough. He found a cause, became wildly acclaimed for it-big deal, right? So why the dead man from the subway, and the bizarre Chinese connection, and the weirdo reality-show contestant? Why won’t my brain work? Why can’t I piece any of this together? Does it fit together?

And Jesus, that girl, that poor, poor Kathryn, who impulsively ran into the street and turned her mother into a shell.

I look up and out the window.

Then I see it. Or, rather, him.

Across the street, on the sidewalk in front of the bookstore, stands a boy. He wears overalls and a jockey cap.

Not just any boy. It’s not possible.

He takes a step toward the street.

“No!”

I scramble to my feet. It cannot be. I’m at the doorway of the cafe. I’m on the sidewalk. The boy takes a tentative step off the sidewalk, into the street. Not just any boy.

“Isaac!”

A car comes screaming from the right. It’s heading toward my son.

I sprint across the street. I fly. I’m practically in midair, my feet only touching the ground, my vision narrowed to a point, head screaming. I hurl myself in the path of the car; it screeches, swerves. I lope and gasp toward Isaac. I scoop him up with one arm.

He screams.

“It’s okay. It’s okay.” I cradle him. I look into his face. I see blue eyes filled with terror, quivering lips, the round heaving nostrils filling with snot bubbles. Tender features, innocent and beautiful, but not ones I recognize.

“Henry. Henry. Come here. Come to Mamma.”

It’s a quavering voice pushing the limits of the vocal cord, a protective lioness poised to pounce.

“What’s wrong with you?” she accuses me.

“He. .” I start, then pause, then see Faith approach, quickly, darting from across the street.

“Your son looked like he was going to walk into the street,” Faith says to the boy’s mother.

“I had him under control.”

Faith takes my hand and leads me away. Before we reach the car, I withdraw from her, willing myself for objectivity and clarity, about her, about everything.

Islip into the driver’s seat and coax the keys from Faith.

“It’s off-limits.”

“What’s off-limits?”

I don’t answer as I take a left from El Camino Real onto University, a swanky commercial strip. Here, entrepreneurs with full hearts sketch business plans to fill garages first with start-ups and then with BMWs those start-ups eventually afford. Back-of-the-napkin central.

The energy here is so vibrant and so enervating. The entrepreneurs reject propositions that aren’t “game changers” or aren’t “fundamentally disruptive,” then turn ones and zeroes into dollar signs, then, upon realizing their dreams, settle into a stifling and predictable suburban lifestyle; they raise children who can feel like failures if they don’t take full advantage of the advantages. At the main high school in Los Altos, there was a suicide and two copycats by accomplished students, all heading to the best colleges. Now I remember. When their peers were asked why, they responded: every time we accomplish something it feels mostly like a doorway to the next test.

“What’s off-limits, Nat?”

“Isaac. My family, such as it is.”

“Okay, but. .”

“No.”

“We already talked about him.” Muttered.

I assume she is referring to the idea that we, apparently, spoke about Isaac during the blur that was last night. No more-no more blur, no more offhand or concussion-fueled personal revelations, the information exchange now goes in only one direction. I’m laser-focused, I tell myself. I’m in total control of the only thing I’ve ever been halfway decent at, pulling up rocks people don’t want unearthed. My personal rocks will remain entrenched.

“That’s him.” I gesture with a nod.

“Isaac?”

“Andrew Leviathan.”

He sits at a table in the sun at a corner cafe. As we pass, he sips a drink and flips newspaper pages.

I take a right on Cowper and pull into a parking spot.

“Give me fifteen minutes.”

“No.” Faith’s arms are crossed. “Do you remember hearing about Timothy and the music triangle?”

I have no idea what she’s talking about. With a locked stare, she reminds me that Timothy is her nephew and that she and I had discussed him briefly last night.

“I told you about the argument he got into with a music teacher who said Timmy wouldn’t stop hitting the triangle. He’s got Asperger’s. They know that. The teacher grabbed him by the arm and shook him.”

“I remember.” I don’t, mostly.

“To Timmy, that kind of discipline comes out of the blue. So I went to the school, to the teacher’s office and I took her by the arm to show her what it feels like to be physically handled when we don’t understand what’s going on.”

“And so you’re not willing to wait fifteen minutes?”

“I’m here to protect myself and my family, not because you’re a great lover. If you want me to keep waiting for you then you need to start telling me what’s going on in these mystery meetings.”

“You’re after information.”

“Aren’t you?”

“I’ll tell you about my meetings and you tell me more about Alan Parsons, and about whoever keeps calling you on your phone, and what is motivating you to stay so close to an investigation that seems to be making your life more dangerous, not less.”

“Fifteen minutes.”

I open the car door.

“Nathaniel.” She forces me to catch her eye. “Even with a head wound, you are, in fact, a really great lover.”

The main thing that this brunette is fucking is my head.

In the half second between the moment that I reach Andrew Leviathan and he looks up to greet me, I realize I have absolutely no plan.

“Nathaniel.” He seems unsurprised and to slightly recoil, the Palo Alto Daily News open on his table.

“I figured you for an iPad.”

“Too much of that stuff will burn out your brain. What happened to your eye?”

“Fell down the stairs.”

He blinks, furrows his brow, purses his lips-the pantheon of mildly disbelieving facial expressions. He wears a stark white-collared polo shirt that shows biceps I’m guessing were sculpted by a personal trainer.

“You want to grab a coffee?”

I shake my head. I pull out a chair, seeking conversational footing.

“I was mugged. Maybe someone heard I won the journalism award and figured I was carrying a bunch of cash.”

“Mugged? C’mon.”

I tell him the truth; I got slugged in Chinatown.

“Just a random attack?”

“I’m being followed.”

He looks at me, then around us. It’s a natural reaction, and I follow his gaze. Parked cars line the street. None of them a black Mercedes.

“You’re being followed now?”

I shake my head. “Earlier, last night. By someone who was at your awards luncheon.”

He takes me in.

I tell him there was a man sitting at one of the front tables at the lunch. He stuck in my memory because he had a shiny bald head and an interesting, elongated walk. I explain that I noticed him twice outside my office, and then he followed me in a black Mercedes.

“How can I help, Nathaniel?” He must be used to getting all manner of weird questions from people who work for him and think he has the power to change their lives.

I tell him that I’d like to get a list of attendees, particularly anyone whose name he doesn’t recognize.

“I’m not sure I’m comfortable with that.” Before I can respond, he adds that he’ll look into it. I doubt he’ll be much help, but it’s not really, or exclusively, what I’m looking for in this meeting. I’m here to look into his eyes.