Хэнк Грин - A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor

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 than other people’s breezy spring days! I had a sun that moved through the sky, rising and setting if you wanted it to. I had some starter trees that came with the pack, but other people were specializing in trees, so people mostly bought other trees and put them into my environment. The wonderful thing was, there ultimately wasn’t that much I could do to make the environment better.

When I wasn’t in the Altus Space, I was in The Thread, where, with one day left before the Premium selection, I had good news.

Twelve:Hello all, there’s less than twenty-four hours left before the week ends and the first fifty are selected. I have good news, I’m in the top fifty and things look strong.

Five:What? I’ve barely left the Space and I haven’t cracked the top 200.

Twelve:I got in early with a good idea. Can’t tell you more without threatening to give away my identity.

One:@Twelve, congratulations, this is amazing news. Please do not share any more if you think your identity may be compromised. But having someone who has access to the Premium Space will be extremely helpful. I haven’t been able to gather any intel about what makes it so appealing, though it seems a number of people who played Fish have access. Fish players seem like they would practically kill to get in.

It was a big deal when One dropped in on a conversation, and it felt good to have their approval. One was the only person in The Thread who had no identifying details attached to them. But after that quick chat, I logged back into the Altus Space to find that I was no longer in the top twenty-five. In fact, I was getting terrifyingly close to not being in the top fifty at all.

I started checking new entrants to the top list. I was keeping track of the bestseller ranks just in case there was something I needed to be aware of. People tended to focus on homes, clothes, decor, or natural settings. But suddenly, there was a solid dozen people in the top fifty who were selling what appeared to be cheap little trinkets. Small statues, pins, coins, badges, that kind of thing. They didn’t look appealing for any particular reason, and any of them would be fairly easy to re-create, so I didn’t see why they would be doing so well.

I immediately started freaking out. How were these shitty little objects doing so well? The back of my neck was getting sweaty. I was panicking. That’s when I started realizing how much this meant to me. Fifty people in the whole world were going to get selected for an experience that was, if the people playing Fish were to be believed, a kind of nirvana.

I logged out of the Space and logged into The Thread.

Twelve:Does anyone know what’s going on with the new chintzy trinkets in the Altus Space Store?