Trade Me (34 page)

She parks next to a flock of shopping carts. I navigate to the Cyclone website. It’s twenty-two minutes into the launch by the time I get the feed working. David Yu, the chief product engineer, is finishing the demo on the updated tablet and the new video app, to massive applause.

The screen behind him goes black and a spotlight falls on him.

“So,” he says. “Internet: we have to talk about your gossip problem. Apparently there are rumors out there that we have a new, undisclosed product codenamed Fernanda. The top three claims are…”

He does a quarter turn, and as he talks, bullet points appear behind him. They’re familiar to me. They should be; I wrote them. I can’t help but feel a sense of pride.

“One,” he says. “Fernanda is a flying smart drone that will mix drinks and deliver them.” A cute little animated video plays, demonstrating this, and the audience’s laughter can be heard over the feed.

“Get it straight,” he says with a straight face. “That’s next year’s product line.”

The laughter doubles.

“Two,” he says, “some of you think that Fernanda is an injectable microchip for people that allows you to pay for things without using your wallet or a phone.”

There’s a clip of a woman waving her hand in front of a credit card reader.

Yu wrinkles his nose. “That’s disgusting. Where do you get these ideas?” He pauses. “No, don’t tell me. Do I look like I want to know? We don’t mind if you write Cyclone/microchip fanfic. Just don’t show it to us. Thank you.”

I can’t help myself. I grin and lean back.

“Three,” Yu says. “Some of you apparently think that Fernanda is a watch. Come on, internet. How unrealistic can you be? Even though the smartwatch technology is relatively new, the field is already crowded. And the challenges of producing a truly excellent watch are enormous. You guys know that Cyclone doesn’t get into a field unless we can leave our competitors in the dust. Unless we can put out something that is easier to use and more robust than anything on the market. Come on, people. What are the chances that Cyclone would be getting into the smartwatch business?”

There’s a long, dramatic pause.

Yu smiles. “Actually, one out of three isn’t bad.”

The audience erupts in applause, and despite myself, despite the fact that I wrote that last little section, I find myself smiling along with them.

“I want you to meet our newest product. She’s been codenamed Fernanda, but now she’s ready to be called by her launch name: the Cyclone Vortex.” The watch practically sells itself, and as Yu goes through its features, he does a good job of snarking on the competition without ever mentioning them by name.

“Of course,” he says, when discussing the health monitoring features, “if what you want is to have a GPS record of your run, you’ll do what every athlete does. You’ll put on your watch. And then you’ll strap a tablet, a phone, a printer, and the complete works of Shakespeare to your back.” He grins. “Oh, wait. Nobody wants to do that. That’s why the Vortex has a built in GPS chip, so it’s not dependent on any of our other technology.”

The crowd oohs over the circumference ring scrolling.

“But the Vortex has another amazing feature,” Yu says. “Remember how I told you earlier that we had updated our computers with the newest, the best video app ever invented? One that could follow your face as you walked around the room? Well, the Vortex is the first fully video-capable watch in the world. Let me bring up Lisa, our product management specialist.”

He taps the watch, and Lisa, a smiling brunette, answers. They show how the watch automatically adjusts the video to stay on his face, even when he gestures, waves his hands, and then—to tumultuous applause—performs a handstand. The video of his face is jerky, but it’s video.

Lisa on the other side of the call smiles. “It’s amazing,” she says. “I only wish…”

Yu clambers to his feet. “Yes. We’re trying. But it’s not the same thing without them.” He doesn’t say who
they
are.

From here on out, this part of the launch is new. It was going to be Adam and Blake, but Adam’s in the hospital and Blake… I lean forward.

“Some of you found the patents last night,” Lisa says, “and so you know that Blake and Adam had their hands on the Vortex the way they do all Cyclone products. We’re told that Adam is in the ICU and active at the moment, and that he’ll make a full and complete recovery. We’re sorry that they can’t say hi in person and introduce the Vortex to you themselves, but Adam’s health has to come first.”

Yu shakes his head, looking sad. “After all, it’s not like we made a portable device that allows people to make three-way video calls over a cellular network.”

There’s a single second delay—a moment of breathless silence while everyone processes this—and then a beep.

Incoming call,
the projection of the watch screen behind them says.
Adam Reynolds.

“Oh, wait.” Yu grins, taps his watch, and a little icon of Adam’s face projects onto the screen. “It turns out that we did.”

The video rearranges to show Adam in a green gown, a slice of gray wall and an IV pole visible behind him. “Hey David,” he says. “How’s the launch going?”

The crowd screams in appreciation, and I can’t help but smile. Adam has been the public face of this company since its inception. They’re happy to see him. He looks tired, but he has a smirk on his face.

“Good, good,” David says. “But the crowd voted for a drink drone as our next new product and I told them they could have it next Christmas.”

“Man, who put you in charge? What were they thinking?” Suddenly Adam frowns and points at the screen. “Wait. Who
did
put you in charge? Isn’t Blake running things over there?”

Yu frowns. “Blake? Blake isn’t here. I thought Blake was with you.”

I feel a cold little chill.

“No,” Adam says. “He’s not.” The two fall into silence.

“Wait,” my mother says. “Doesn’t he know where Blake is?”

“Of course he does.” I’m reassuring myself as much as I’m reassuring her. “These things are fully scripted.” They almost always are. Blake wouldn’t have told me to watch the launch if it was going to end up a complete clusterfuck. Right?

“If he’s not at the launch,” Adam says. “Where is he? Dang it. If only we had built a video-capable device that handled robust four-way calling.”

The
dang it
convinces me this is scripted.
Dang
is not the word Adam Reynolds would reach for on his own.

On cue, the watch beeps.

Incoming call: Blake Reynolds.
“Oh wait,” Adam says. “We did.”

The audience laughs, playing along, and the new video resolves into Blake.

He’s taken off his glasses, but his hair is still disheveled. He smiles broadly. “Hey, Dad. Lisa. David. Internet.”

“Blake, where the hell are you?”

“About that…” Blake smiles. “So, there’s this really cool feature we haven’t shown you yet with the Vortex video. We’ve shown you that the camera will adjust to follow your face, no matter how you move your hands. But it turns out, um.” He grins. “Sometimes a picture is worth a million words. Before now, when someone asked you over the phone where you were, you’d have to answer with a description.” He beams at the screen. “For instance, I could say, ‘Hi, Dad! I’m in jail!’”

The audience laughs disbelievingly.

“Or,” Blake says, “you can tap the edge of the watch, telling the camera to go into scenery pan mode. And then you can show everyone where you really are.”

His video shifts to an all-too familiar view of a bare cell.

“Which,” Blake’s voice continues, “it turns out is…still jail. Sorry.”

There’s a single high-pitched gurgle of laughter, quickly curtailed as it becomes obvious that Blake is serious. I’m leaning forward. I don’t know where this is going, what they’re planning to do with it.

“Dude,” Adam says with an exaggerated clap of his hand to his heart, “are you trying to give me a heart attack?”

That draws a wave of laughter.

“Well,” Blake shoots back, “at least if I do, I know you’re in the right place to get the very best of care.”

Another wave of laughter.

“After all,” Blake says with a grin, “you
are
wearing a device with real-time heart rate monitoring.”

“You can’t say that.” Adam holds up a finger. “The FDA has not approved that statement. Also, I pulled up the record of my heart rate during the attack. It doesn’t show a single useful thing.” He sighs. “That would have been good publicity.”

Blake shakes his head. “You must be getting old. You can’t even have a heart attack right.”

“You see that?” Adam points a finger at the screen. “Shifting the blame back to me already. You’re not off the hook. Want to explain what you’re doing in jail?”

“It’s a long story.”

Adam raises an eyebrow and points to the IV pole behind him. “I’m not going anywhere.”

There’s another wave of good-natured laughter.

“Fine.” Blake sighs. “It started because my girlfriend broke up with me.”

Someone in the audience lets out a protracted
Awww;
someone else yells something that comes out indistinctly over the feed.

“I heard that,” Blake says. “Don’t talk about her that way. I know it
looks
like she broke up with me just before a huge launch when my dad was in the hospital. But I don’t blame her for it, and by the time I’m done here, neither will you. Let me set the scene for you. It’s two in the morning. My father has just had a heart attack. The ambulance lights are receding in the distance. And I am doing what any good son would do under the circumstances.”

Adam doesn’t say anything.

And me? I hold my breath. I know these things are supposed to be true constructions, but I also know that Blake won’t tell the
real
truth. They aren’t going there. They wouldn’t.

“Which,” Blake says smoothly, “is this: I’m gathering up my dad’s cocaine.”

Holy fuck. They did. There is dead silence from the crowd. I set my hand on the screen, my head spinning.

True construct
is one thing. This? This is too real. I’m not sure if I’m looking at the truth or a fake. I’m not sure what I’m looking at, and I’m living it.

“This might be a good time to mention,” Adam says with a growl, “that I have a problem.”

I don’t even know what to think.

“So I put all this in the car, my girlfriend drives me to the hospital, and I am distracted by the fact that my dad had a heart attack, and also happens to have a cocaine problem. So I leave, and um.” Blake shrugs. “Yeah. There’s still cocaine in the car. Which wouldn’t be a problem, but she gets pulled over by the cops, who find it. She spends six hours in handcuffs.” He makes a face. “See? I told you not to blame her for breaking up with me.”

“So it
is
his fault,” my mother says beside me.

“That is so not how it went down,” I say to the screen. “Blake, you idiot.”

“In any event,” Blake says with apparent good cheer, “this leaves me with two choices. First, I can keep quiet, stick around for the launch, hire lawyers, and let my girlfriend take the fall. Or…” Blake shrugs. “I can strike a bargain with the DA to get her out.”

“Well,” Adam points out, “she
did
break up with you, so I vote for door number one.” The audience laughs.

“I kind of think that announcing this on a live stream with—what are we at, David?”

“A hundred and six million viewers,” Yu puts in.

“Yeah. I think I’ve kind of shut that door.” Blake smiles. “Jokes aside, there was never any choice about what I was going to do.”

“There is that,” Adam says softly.

I have always been confused by Blake’s relationship with his father. It is, in so many ways, not remotely ideal. They swear at each other. They milk their friendship on stage for corporate good will. Blake’s dad put him in a commercial when he wasn’t even two years old. The first time I met Adam Reynolds, he offered me fifty grand to leave his son.

I told him I’d settle for sixty-six billion. In this moment, I realize that he would take that—that if it came down to it, if the choice was between Blake and his company, between Blake and those sixty-six billion dollars, he’d choose Blake every single time.

It may be fucked up, but it’s love.

“But that’s between me and her, not me, her and one hundred and six million viewers,” Blake says.

“You know,” Adam puts in, “we could make it between you, her, and a hundred and six million viewers.”

Blake shakes his head. “No. Seriously. This we did not talk about.”

But Adam just looks up at the ceiling. “If only,” he says with a smirk, “we had made a video-capable smartwatch that could manage robust five-way video calling over a cellular network.”

“Dad,” Blake says sharply.

But time has seemed to slow for me. There’s no way I should be able to call in. Their tech automatically blocks all unauthorized calls to devices during the launches. But… Adam is looking calmly at his screen. I feel like he’s looking at me.

This is a true construct, truer than anything else. It’s a risk, a huge risk. If I make that call, everything will change. Adam Reynolds has just put in his sixty-six billion dollars.

The only question is if I’m willing to match him.

Without thinking, I pull up Blake’s contact information on my watch and hit call.

On my tablet, on the live stream, I see my name show up.

Incoming call: Tina Chen.

“Oh wait,” Adam Reynolds says. “We did.”

And then I’m on screen. There’s a horrible noise.

“Tina,” Blake says, “turn off the sound on your live stream or there’ll be feedback.”

I flick the mute on my tablet with shaking hands.

“This is not scripted,” I say. “I was in jail literally an hour ago. You people are crazy.”

“That’s not true,” Adam says smoothly. “It was scripted. I just didn’t tell you and Blake about this part. Thanks for playing along. Internet, meet Tina.”

“Hi.” My voice is shaking a little. “I didn’t get my part, and so I’m going to tell you that Blake is a huge liar.”

Now that I’m not looking at my tablet, Blake’s face takes up a mere quarter of my watch face. Tiny Blake raises his eyebrows.