Cumulus (24 page)

39

DOWNDRAFT SET THEIR HAIR STREAMING
and eyes watering as the Fleet chopper touched down in the middle of the empty road on Treasure Island. It had dropped Huian and Karl off a few blocks away, far enough that the sound hadn’t alerted Graham to their presence. Since then, it had circled far overhead, waiting to pick them up.

They jogged out, boarded, and got themselves strapped in. Karl helped Lilly with the restraints.

“I’ve never been in one of these before,” she said, running her fingertips along the glass of one of the windows.

“I’ll get us moving back to HQ,” Karl said to Huian.

“No, wait.” She held up a hand and turned to Lilly. “I need to talk to Frederick O’Livier. Can you tell us where we can find him?”

Lilly frowned but, after a moment, nodded. “I don’t know whether to blame you for Sara’s death or thank you for saving my life,” she said. “But as long as you promise no harm will come to Frederick, I can bring you to him.”

“You have my word,” said Huian.

“Ma’am,” said Karl, frustration edging into his tone. “We have to get back. The president has an open line waiting for you, and the governor has been screaming at Tom for an hour.”

“Then they’ll have to wait,” she said. “There isn’t much time, and they’re not very high on my list of priorities.”

The chopper leapt into the air, pressing them all back into their seats. Backwash from the rotors kicked up spray from the surface of the bay as they accelerated out across the water. They gained altitude, and soared over the eastern half of the Bay Bridge. Dozens of cables extended from the single central pylon to support the wide arc of steel and concrete. Loading cranes squatted on the Port of Oakland. From this height, they could see muzzle flashes, smoke, and explosions from the ongoing battle at MacArthur. National Guard helicopters had joined the cloud of Security and news drones circling in the surrounding airspace, and soldiers were rappelling down to enter the fray.

Huian remembered a ballpoint pen sitting on a single piece of paper marooned on the wide granite surface of their kitchen island.
I’m tired of being an externality.
She smiled sadly. Graham may have orchestrated their separation, but Dr. Corvel, for all that Huian hated him, had only cultivated seeds that had been planted long before. The president and the governor weren’t high on her list of priorities. But when push came to shove, Vera wasn’t either. Huian loved her, but the mission subsumed such personal obligations.
The future was a demanding mistress
. If Huian was going to define it, she had to pay the price. Over and over again.

Her eyes traced the border that separated the Green Zone from the Slums. That line was about to become more porous. Her vision of a perfect utopia would be diluted by the festering mud of democratic social reality.
Whenever wealth is so unevenly distributed in a population, social tension is bound to arise. When social tension grows, protests and other forms of unrest simply become a part of the fabric of the nation.
Graham hadn’t had any moral high ground to stand on, but the success of his methods proved his point. For a fleeting moment he had commandeered Cumulus, an accomplishment on par with a national coup. But he hadn’t needed an army. All he had needed was to get to her. The company was too reliant on her. She might have dedicated her life to building the future, but the future couldn’t depend on her. Through careful management of board composition, voting rights, and equity dilution, she had ensured that she remained firmly in control of Cumulus. That had given her the authority to be agile in a world of lethargic institutions, and go boldly where others balked. But it had also made her a critical point of failure. Good leaders made themselves indispensable. Great leaders made themselves expendable. Conflating the two had nearly cost her everything.

Under Lilly’s direction, the chopper touched down in an industrial section of West Oakland adjacent to the port. Two dreadlocked men stationed on the sidewalk aimed assault rifles at them as they stepped down onto the pavement. But they lowered their guns when they recognized Lilly. A pack of pit bulls slavered behind a high fence surrounding the Compound. A massive warehouse rose in the middle of it all, brightly colored murals covering its walls.

“We’ve got business with Frederick,” she told them. “Let him know I’m coming in with Huian Li and Karl Dieter.”

“You gonna walk ’em back?”

“Yeah.”

Huian and Karl looked at Lilly in surprise as she stepped between them and took their hands. Her palm was small and warm against Huian’s. The men opened the gate, and Huian half expected the dogs to tear them to pieces. Instead, the pack parted and wet tongues lapped at her as they walked hand-in-hand to the warehouse.

The door opened just as they arrived.

“Lilly!” A slender young man charged out. “I’ve been trying to call you for over an hour to tell you about what’s happening at MacArthur. I knew you wouldn’t want to sleep through it, but I couldn’t get through to your phone. Are you okay?”

Lilly smiled. “I’m all right, Henok,” she said. “I’ll tell you all about it later. But right now, we’ve got to see Frederick.”

Henok’s eyes widened. “He’s waiting for you in the conference room. He has the mayor with him.”

Karl snorted, but Huian shot him a warning look.

Henok and Lilly escorted them through a cavernous interior that housed everything from boxing rings and cubicle farms to pit barbecues. Dozens of people looked up from their various activities to glance over at the newcomers, but nobody paid them undue attention. Huian would have been impressed, but the day’s events had dulled her capacity for amazement. They negotiated a labyrinth of pathways, and entered a large sunken conference room that was walled off from the rest of the space.

The half-dozen people seated at the central table stood as their group descended from the door. Huian recognized the likeably chubby mayor of Oakland, Juan Gonzalez. His hair was combed back with liberal use of gel, and his cheap suit was fraying at the edges. He had two young members of his staff with him. Her eyes traveled up to meet the gaze of the man at the other end of the table, Frederick O’Livier. He was a head taller than the aides at his side, his sinewy build athletic despite his age. The tuxedo complemented his aristocratic features. Despite the circumstances, she couldn’t suppress a rush of fangirl nerves. The Golden State Warriors had been her private obsession since she’d been introduced to basketball on the court of the Palo Alto YMCA when she was six years old. O’Livier was a Warriors legend, and it felt surreal to be standing in the same room as him, even though she now owned the team and met NBA stars on a regular basis. Nostalgia deified role models.

“Ms. Li,” Frederick’s voice was smooth and resonant. “Forgive me for cutting right to the chase, but we don’t have time for niceties. Did you order the assassination of Sara Levine?”

The mayor sucked in a shocked breath. The bluntness of his question took Huian off guard, and she had to take a moment to recover. On balance, it was better this way. He was right that they didn’t have time for small talk.

“Sir,” said Karl, outraged. “I must—”

Huian held up a hand to stop him. She composed herself and looked directly into Frederick’s dark eyes. “I did,” she said, and felt the full weight of the admission settle onto her shoulders. Everyone’s face in the room went blank in shock except for Frederick’s. He remained entirely focused on her. Everything rested on this. It must work. “At the time, I did not comprehend what I had approved or how it would be carried out. I realize that will hold no water here or anywhere else. I am not here to make excuses, or to make amends. All this and much, much more will be made public tomorrow, and I and others will be held to account. Nothing can bring Sara back. Instead, I am here to use what authority and resources remain to me to end the violence on the streets of Oakland, and to extend Cumulus services to all residents, regardless of their ability to pay. Will you hear me out?”

Perfect silence reigned. The universe seemed to orbit around their locked gaze. Sara had been his friend, lover, and confidante. Huian could only imagine the internal conflict that must be raging inside his soul. There was likely nothing he’d like more than to have one of his enforcers shoot her where she stood. On balance, that might be a less painful prospect than what tomorrow held.

After a full minute, he adjusted his bow tie. “What do you propose?” he said.

An unexpected flush of joy rushed through her. She had her chance.

“In your final game,” she said, “you sucked. The Warriors depended on you to lead their offense, but you couldn’t hit a shot to save your life. By the beginning of the fourth quarter, you were down twenty points. The crowd had lost all faith. People were getting up and leaving to try to beat the traffic. But with nine minutes left, against the advice of your coach and every sports analyst out there, you benched yourself and forced Walter Jackson to relieve you as point guard. The Warriors won by three points in overtime. You sacrificed your reputation to allow the team to win the championship. I was at that game. I never understood why you did it. In retrospect it was obvious—all the pundits lauded you. But in the moment? That must have been one of the hardest decisions you ever made, ending your career in obvious disgrace. But ultimately it allowed your legacy to outlive you.”

She stepped down to the floor of the conference room and gripped the back of a chair, keeping her eyes on Frederick the entire time. His eyes narrowed. “I now face a similar predicament. Three days from now, there will be a leak that shares shocking and destructive information about me and certain rogue elements within my company. We do not have time to go over the details right now, but suffice it to say that the excellent investigative reporting of Henok and Lilly barely scratches the surface. It happened under my watch, and I will take full responsibility. Tomorrow, I will preempt the leak and release everything in a press conference.”

“Ma’am,” Karl grabbed her arm. “We don’t know—”

She looked at him. “Graham made good on every promise he made to me,” she said. “We simply cannot afford to take the chance that he was bluffing. This is the only way.” After a moment, his fingers loosened and his hand fell away.

She turned back to Frederick. “As soon as this comes out,” she said, “I will recuse myself from Cumulus, and likely spend the bulk of my time fighting an uphill legal battle. In the meantime, however, I still hold some sway. As you may know, through a combination of carefully managed dilution, board selection, and voting rights structures, I have maintained unilateral control of Cumulus. I built the company to realize a better future for this country, and the world. In so many ways, we have already succeeded. In so many other ways, we have a long way to go. I’ve always thought about that gap in technical terms, and tried to bridge it via investments in R
&
D
.
But William Gibson once wrote that the future is already here—it’s just not evenly distributed. Nowhere is that truer than Oakland. I am loath to confess that it took a lawsuit, an outbreak of urban warfare, and an extremely personal betrayal to force me to see it. To risk sounding melodramatic, the story of Oakland is the story of America. Today, we’ve seen the dark side of that story. With your help, I’m hoping we can see what the flipside might look like.” She raised both of her hands, palms up. “Here’s what I propose. I will extend all Cumulus services to all Oakland residents, with subsidies for every income level that can’t already afford them. This will require close collaboration. Nobody understands Oakland better than you. Security will need to work alongside OPD. Fleet will need to talk to AC Transit. Learning will need to integrate with the school district. You get the idea. Oakland will be the test case for making Cumulus services inclusive on a regional, and then a national and international level. There are millions of details that will have to be worked out. In fact, I’m almost positive it won’t work. The most probable outcome is complete ruin. Cumulus engineering teams love the term ‘perpetual beta.’” She gave the phrase air quotes. “It refers to the idea of constant experimentation that assumes a high level of implicit failure instead of trying to avert every contingency through careful planning. The logic is that careful planning doesn’t work very well because both failure and opportunity arrive from unexpected directions anyway. In that sense, the idea would be for Oakland to become a socioeconomic Skunk Works. It’ll be messy and awkward. But so is almost every adolescent. If it’s going to happen, we have to start right now.”

Frederick shook his head. Exhaustion suddenly exerted an almost gravitational pull on Huian. This was her last and only gambit to preserve her vision.

“What would stop your replacement from undoing everything you just described the moment he takes over Cumulus?” he asked.

“If they are stupid enough to compound what will already be a PR nightmare by doing that,” she said, “then I’ll fund it personally.”

“Still, it won’t work,” he said. “If the scandal is as far-reaching as you claim, this will be seen as a last-minute pity play to try to win public favor.” He frowned, but the expression was thoughtful rather than argumentative. “As much as I hate how exclusively Cumulus has tiered its services and business practices, there’s no denying the power of the technology you’ve built. But this plan won’t fail for lack of capital or technology. What you really need is trust.”