Matt Richtel - The Cloud

“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.

With 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?”