He pulled back from me to look at my eyes. His eyes were rimmed in red. “You’re only here because I …” And then his face crunched together and his throat slammed shut.

“No, Robin.” Someone came out onto the deck. I locked eyes with them and they turned around like they hadn’t seen a thing. Rich people, I have noticed, are good at looking the other way. I continued, “You can’t still be blaming yourself.”

At that he just cried softly into my shoulder. It was the first time we’d actually talked about April. We’d both been sad, and I’d assumed I knew all about his sad because I knew about mine. Except, of course, he was dealing with even more guilt. I wasn’t the only one who had let April down that day. Finally he said, “Of course I blame myself, it’s literally my fault. I should have told her about Putnam … any day before that day.” I could feel him shaking, so I led him over to a plush outdoor lounge chair, which he sank onto. Helping him helped me feel stronger.

I sat beside him and put my arm around him. He leaned into me. I talked in a low voice. “No one is responsible for what happened to April except the guys who lit that fire. Friends hurt their friends’ feelings sometimes. April hurt my feelings a thousand times. She knew I loved her. Sometimes she was a bad friend. You screwed up, but that is not why she’s dead.”

Robin leaned out from under my arm and looked up at me, and I was suddenly worried that he was going to try and kiss me. I pulled back a little bit. He noticed and laughed.

“You dork! You thought I was going to kiss you!” he said.

“What?” I said, convincing no one.

He laughed a little more, sniffing up his snot. “Jesus, guys are screwed up, aren’t we. There’s no space between being emotional and making out. How have any of us survived? We’re so bad at this.”

“Agreed,” I said, still feeling awkward.

He stood up. “Let’s leave this boat.”

Over the next few hours, we wandered around Cannes together. We didn’t try to network or make connections; we just went to fancy shops and gawked at all the rich people who were somehow way richer than me. We talked about relationships and life and the internet, and I didn’t think about IGRI a single time. Before I knew it, it was time to check in to give my talk. Just as I was going onstage, Robin grabbed my shoulders and said, “You deserve to be here,” and at least in that moment, I believed him. Here’s the juiciest part of what I said that night:

I am not going to pretend that I understand what you do. Earlier today, I had to ask someone what private equity was. But my guess is that, to some extent, your jobs are to predict the future. I bet a lot of you even do it really quite well. But here’s what I know … This isn’t over. Last August, the Carls disappeared, and we have, for the most part, attempted to pretend that they never happened. But if you think things have gone badly in the past year, I have bad news. It’s going to get worse before it gets better.

More than ever in our history, we understand that we aren’t in control. We never were, of course, but now we really understand that we are not. The Carls could return anytime, or maybe they’re still here. We exist at the mercy of some superior intelligence. Incorporating a reality like that into our minds and our cultures doesn’t happen quickly. Already suicides are up. Already fewer people are buying the stories we’ve been telling. This is only the beginning, and I want you to ask yourselves whether you’re helping people find their place in the world, or whether you’re hurting their ability to do so.

Stability is a big deal for the world, and I would not, if I were you, spend very much time expecting it. I would, however, work hard toward doing everything we can to create it. You’re a bunch of powerful people, and I assume you spend a lot of time thinking about not just how you can exploit the state of the world, but also how you can affect it. I imagine it’s harder to make money when the world is in shambles, so if there is anything you can do to set us on a path to be more able to withstand another cosmic kick in the nuts, please do it.

“That was new!” Robin said as I came offstage.

“New good or …”

Robin shrugged, beaming.

One of the planners of the event came up to me, a younger guy who I’d talked to on the yacht. “Oh, Andy, that was wonderful. Hah! I love it. ‘Cosmic kick in the nuts’!” He gripped my shoulder and shook me a little. “We got our money’s worth with you.”

“Thanks, I worked up something special for you.”

“You say you don’t have any actual knowledge of what’s coming, but if you did, it wouldn’t be hard to turn that knowledge into money.”

I thought about The Book of Good Times in my bag back at the hotel. I thought about IGRI and my sudden foray into paranormal insider trading, and then said, “I know exactly as much as you do.”

“Sure! Sure … Just in case, here’s my card.” These people still gave each other cards. I looked down at it. “Stewart Patrick?” I said.

“My parents were Star Trek fans, what can I say.”

“Sorry I don’t have a card for you,” I said, “but I think you know how to get in touch. Um … is there a bathroom backstage?” I knew there was—I had used it before the show. He pointed me the way, and I rushed off. The moment the door was locked, I sat down on the toilet and opened my phone. A text message from Maya had come in, complimenting my video. I moved past it and opened my portfolio.

My $100,000 of IGRI stock was no longer IGRI stock. IGRI had been acquired by a car company trying to lock up cobalt mines to make electric-car batteries. So now I had over $1 million of stock in that car company. I let out a long, cool breath, feeling my heart thumping under my new French suit.

And then I opened my phone’s calculator and figured out that I would have to make $1 million every day for almost three years before I had $1 billion. Suddenly, inexcusably, I felt like I was playing with very small potatoes.

I almost dropped my phone in the toilet when it rang. It was Miranda.

Associated Press

@AP

Dozens injured as “Happy Birthday Carl” parade-goers clash with anti-Carl protesters in New York City. The parade, which was billed as “a celebration of our new place in the universe,” broke down into chaos when blocked by protestors.

239 replies 730 retweets 593 likes

Kyle Stafford

@kyylestafford

@AP What the fuck are they thinking, celebrating after everything that was done to us. there lucky no-one drove a Dodge Challenger into them.

303 replies 21 retweets 187 likes

Altus

@AltusLabs

We. Are. Hiring. We have dozens of positions open right now. This is your chance to make the future. Altus.net/MakeTheFuture

203 replies 2.7K retweets 15K likes

MIRANDA

I do not have the temperament to be a secret agent. I hate stress. I hate it so much that it makes me extremely productive, because I will work any amount necessary to make stress go away.

But that was the thing. The existence of Altus was stress for me. Every minute of the day there was a little ache in my brain, and every time I checked to see what it was, it wasn’t worry about my experiments or about whether I’d said something dumb to a labmate; it was always only Altus. It was like a grain of sand in my heart. And when something is stressing me out, I have to do something about it. I have to at least feel like I’m trying.