“I know it’s strange, but I invested … wisely, I guess.”

“The book,” she said.

“What?”

“The book!”

“The book?”

“What are you two talking about?” Jason pitched in.

Bex jammed her hand into her purse and pulled out a book. “This book can predict the future. It told me you were going to ask me to go to fucking STOMP. It told me to play piano more and gave me some stock tips and said that you were going to be a dick to me but that I had to come here today anyway.”

“Wait, how long have you been getting these?”

“Oh, since a couple weeks before we met,” she said sheepishly.

“WHAT?! But that first day, I asked if the book looked familiar.”

“I lieeeed?” she said, drawing out the word. “The book was really specific … and helpful, and I was scared to mess it up!”

“So you’ve been making money too?” I asked, realizing that there was a chance that there were more people like Bex out there with a LOT of new money.

“Yes, but not five billion dollars. And it’s not just that. The fact that it was good at picking stocks made me trust it, and every time I took the book’s advice, I was happier, so I started taking it more. I felt better. I saw my family more. I was a better friend. The book helped me ask for help when I needed it. It helped me help you when you needed it. I listened to more music, I played piano more.”

This was (very) roughly true of me as well. The book hadn’t made me happier, but that was an uphill battle considering the circumstances.

“So, you have five billion dollars,” she said. I don’t know why I’d assumed that the books were only for our little crew—seeing one in Bex’s hands made my head spin. I wondered if I should tell her that it was Carl who had been sending them, but I didn’t get a chance.

“It probably still isn’t enough,” she said.

“What?!” Jason and I said together.

“Five billion dollars is like 1 percent of their most recent valuation. We need to hurt them bad enough that investors will take a 99 percent bath.”

“And proving that they’ve invested in a company that is literally kidnapping and imprisoning people won’t do that?”

She thought about this for maybe one second before saying, “No. I mean, probably not. I don’t see what else we can do. But I think they’ll find a way to squeeze more than a measly five billion out of it, even if we do make them look like trash for having invested in the first place. But”—and here she did pause to think—“investors are irrational. They’re just people. We have to scare them. We have to make them think it’s going to zero.”

“I think maybe The Thread can do that.”

“How?”

“I don’t know,” I said, but I had confidence they could. They clearly were looking for a good story about Altus. It was becoming the only story, and everyone wanted to talk about it. It had to be about more than how bad they were; it had to be about how they weren’t going to be able to make money anymore.

And then Jason had a good idea. “You should call April.”

“I was about to before you stole my phone, you dick!”

Former Airbnb Executive Launches Altus-Specific Housing Across Silicon Valley

TechCrunch

Among the droves of Altus-related start-ups popping up every single day, occasionally we find one that completely blows our minds.

Jeremy O, former CTO of Airbnb, today announced a new start-up called Gateway that is buying and remodeling homes to be used specifically by people who are spending the majority of their time inside of the Altus Space. Individual homes are being subdivided to house up to twenty-five people.

The living and sleeping space is tiny, but rents are too. Meals are prepared by a live-in maid, and bathroom and workout breaks are prescheduled so that roommates don’t overlap.

“This isn’t meant to be a long-term living situation,” Mr. O told TechCrunch. “It’s for people who are looking to save a little cash while they build up their AltaCoin.”

Dystopian shit? Maybe. But also, who needs a house anymore anyway?

APRIL

I placed the phone on the couch between me and Maya and answered Andy’s call. “What is it?”

“Miranda is in trouble.” He sounded jittery—excited or scared. “She left a message inside the Altus Space.” He told us the gist of the message.

“Jesus Christ,” I said. Thinking about Miranda with all of her life and energy locked away and unable to move her own body was crushing. “Carl just told us we need to go to Altus now, but I have no idea what to do when we get there.”

I looked up at Maya, who was looking at me like we were living inside a nightmare, but I was ready to take any chance to get out of this damned apartment.

“We have a plan,” Andy said.

“Who is we?” Maya asked.

“Me, Jason, and Bex. You don’t know Bex.”

“And we trust all of these people?” Maya continued the cross-examination.

“If you can trust me, you can trust them. It’s a long story, but we think this will work.”

Andy explained about his money and the plan to scare Altus’s investors so much that they would sell enough of the company that we could control it.

“But we don’t know if it’s enough money,” Bex added. “We either need more, or we need something that convinces everyone that Altus is actually worthless.”

“More money, then,” Andy said, knowing the power of Altus too well.

“I don’t have anything like a billion dollars,” I said. “Do we know anyone who does?”

No one said anything, so Andy continued.

“You need to go to Val Verde and rescue Miranda, we’re staying here. We have a lot of phone calls to make. As soon as you can get access to the internet there, you need to send us every scrap of dirt you can find on Altus.”

“I love this, Andy,” Maya said, “except we have no idea how to infiltrate a secret Caribbean supervillain’s lair.”

Carl appeared, slinking out of the hallway and pulling a child’s backpack onto their back, and said, “I do.”

After we hung up with Andy, and as Maya and I were trying to figure out how exactly one dressed for this kind of thing, Carl again popped his head in.

“Maya,” Carl said, “I need to talk to you alone.”

That was weird, but the balance of power had shifted to Carl. They were the only thing keeping us safe. I waited in the living room while they talked, and when they emerged, I could tell Maya had been crying.

“Is everything OK?” I said, a little panicked.

“Yeah, they were good tears. But I can’t tell you. I’m sorry.” And then she grabbed my gaze with an unforgettable look and said, “We have to make this happen, April. We have to.”

Our pilots were waiting for us when we got to Teterboro.

“Ms. May,” one of them said, “we’ll be flying you straight to Val Verde. We’ve been briefed.”

“By who?” Maya asked incredulously.

The pilot winked at us and then said, “Technically, we cannot land at the private airstrip in Val Verde without notifying them of our flight plan. We are going to do that anyway.”