The Anti Social Network (6 page)

Amelia took a sip of her beer, which she surprised herself by actually enjoying. “Oh, that is such good news. Because you know you’re more important than any of it. I mean,
we’re
more important than any of it.”

“I know. That’s why I have to tell you what I’m about to tell you,” he said. “I haven’t been honest with you lately and, well, here goes … ” He took a deep breath.

“Remember the first day in the incubator when we got that call from The Family?”

Amelia nodded.

“Well, they’ve been calling ever since. And e-mailing. They want you to start embezzling money for them again.”

“Tough luck,” Amelia said. “We’re done with them.” Adam swallowed. “That’s what we thought, but the thing is … they’ve got something against me. And they’re using it as blackmail.” Amelia put down her burrito. “What have they got against you?”

“After you got caught and went to juvie … You know how we had just taken our SATs the week before?”

Amelia nodded, not sure where this was going.

“Well, I didn’t do so well.” He looked down. “I did okay—I got an 1880—but you got a 2310. And when you left, I sort of freaked out.

Because it was awful being away from you and I started worrying. I knew that with a score like that you’d get into an amazing college and probably get a scholarship and I wouldn’t. And I started freaking out that we’d be separated again. So I … ” He couldn’t look at her. “I used the Dawsons’

computer and traced your steps to hack into the
SAT
website and change my score.”

He was picking at the corner of his burrito wrapper. “I only increased it to a 2150 and honestly, Amelia, if I’d had all the
SAT
prep courses most of the kids here had, you know I would easily have gotten that on my own.

But … somehow the Dawsons found out. And now they’re threatening to tell Stanford I cheated if I don’t get you to start embezzling money.” He sat looking down for what felt like an eternity, waiting for Amelia to say something.

Amelia took a sip of her beer. She chewed a bite of her burrito. Then she took another sip of her beer. Adam stared at her anxiously.

“So, how long before they tell?” she finally said.

“Two weeks.”

“Tell them I’ll do it,” she said.

“But Amelia, you can’t! You can’t start embezzling again!”

“I didn’t say I was going to embezzle money. I said to tell them I would.” She took another sip of her beer. The alcohol was making her feel confident.

Adam couldn’t believe how calm she seemed. “You’re not mad?” Amelia smiled. “No, I’m not mad. We’ll figure it out. I’m glad you told me. I don’t want us to have secrets.”

He grinned and picked up his burrito again. “Me either.”

“So is there anything else?”

He wiped a bit of salsa off the corner of his mouth. “Well, there is one other little thing. Since we’re not keeping secrets.” Amelia laughed. “What’s that?”

“I’ve been dating T. J.’s sister, Lisa.” Amelia choked on the beer she was drinking. “You’re what? Are you kidding? Are you crazy?”

“Amelia, I think I’m in love with her.”

“C
had and I are going to watch a movie. Any interest?” Shandi asked Patty after Sunday dinner.

“What are you watching?”

“
Henry and June
. It’s about Henry Miller, his marriage to June, and his affair with Anais Nin. It’s a beautiful film, if you haven’t seen it.”

“Sure. I’ll be right down. I’m just going to throw on some pajamas.” She slipped into a pair of Soffe shorts, slipped off her bra, threw on an oversized sweatshirt, and padded down the stairs. It had been a week and a half since Chad picked her up from jail, and things had been surprisingly un-weird. He hadn’t said anything, or even hinted at it in front of the Hawkins, and she knew she could trust him not to. Plus the fact that they had this little secret now—in addition to their other little secret—made her feel like they were secret pals, separate from the rest of the world.

Chad and Shandi were seated in two reclining theater chairs in the middle of the movie room. Patty grabbed a blanket and took the seat next to Chad as Shandi started the film.

“Mind if I share your blanket?” Chad whispered a few minutes into the film.

“Sure,” Patty smiled.

He lifted the armrest between them, and pulled the blanket so that it covered his lap as well as hers.

“Isn’t the cinematography beautiful?” Shandi whispered as a shot of Paris panned into Henry Miller’s bedroom, where he was lying with a naked French woman. Shandi’s eyes were glued to the screen, totally engrossed.

The actors started having loud, bed-shaking sex. “Did Shandi mention that this film was the first one in the world to get an NC-17 rating?” Chad asked Patty, loudly enough for Shandi to hear.

“Shhh … they only rated it that way because they were prudish and focusing on copulation rather than the artistry of presenting the affair. It’s not about pornography, it’s about Henry Miller’s life, which happened to be filled and defined by a great deal of sex.” The film continued, chronicling naïve Anais Nin’s sexual education by Miller.

Patty was blushing horribly at what was happening on-screen—two naked women were kissing in front of a casually smoking Henry Miller—

when she felt Chad’s knee press against hers. Her heart jumped. He just moved in his chair, she thought. It wasn’t intentional. It doesn’t mean anything.

But a moment later, she felt his hand settle on her knee under the blanket. Her heart raced and she focused her gaze forward. Concentrate, she thought, just concentrate on the movie. Slowly, his elbow pulled back so that his hand was resting on her thigh. His thumb toyed with the edge of her shorts. He let his fingers ever so slightly stroke the skin along her thigh.

She wondered if he could feel her pulse.

“Oh, devastating!” Shandi shouted at the screen as Anais tried to capture Henry’s attention from his wife, June. “Oh, poor Anais!”

“H
ey.” Amelia stuck her head into Sundeep’s office. “Do you have a minute?”

Sundeep looked up from studying a large medical textbook. “Sure,” he said. “Come in.”

Amelia sat down on the couch and exhaled.

“What’s going on?” asked Sundeep from behind his desk.

Amelia shook her head. “I have a problem. It’s a puzzle, kind of, that I’m stuck on. And I was hoping a new set of ears might help me think it through.”

“Sure. Let’s hear it,” Sundeep said, leaning back in his chair.

“Well I have a … code … that I’m working on that’s kind of complex.

So, start with Node A, which has two options to follow. If I choose option one, there’s a chance that at Node B a malfunction will happen that has a likelihood of damaging the whole program. But if I choose option two, nothing will happen at Node B. In fact, nothing might happen at all. But if something
does
happen, it’ll likely be catastrophic.”

“Is there any way to program around Node A?”

“No. It’s inevitable. And it has to be addressed within two weeks.”

“Well, it sounds like you need a third option at Node A.”

“But there isn’t a third option. It’s binary.” Sundeep nodded thoughtfully.

“What if you program something at Node B that overrides the malfunction caused by option one?”

“You mean, like, create a malfunction through option one?”

“Sure, I guess. Something that renders the threat of the malfunction moot.”

Amelia’s eyes darted back and forth as she thought this through in her head. Sundeep watched her with a curious smile: what was it like to be in this girl’s brain?

Suddenly Amelia looked up. “Yes! Yes! I’ve got it. You’re absolutely right! Sundeep, you’re a genius.”

She darted out of the room. Sundeep grinned and shook his head. He hoped she would remember him after she made it big.

Back in her dorm room, Amelia opened two windows in her browser.

Through one, she hacked into Gibly. Through the other, she hacked into The Family’s personal bank account.

With Gibly’s eyes on The Family’s information, she hacked into Indiana Central Bank and transferred fifty cents from their reserve funds into The Family’s account.

Smiling at her work, she took a screenshot of the Gibly report, showing that The Family had just been on Indiana’s Central Bank website, where they had transferred fifty cents into their personal savings account.

She logged out of all the browsers and attached the screenshot to an e-mail from an anonymous address, Bccing Adam, which she addressed to The Family.

Dear Family,

Not sure if you’ve heard of Gibly—it’s been on the news a lot lately.

Anyway, they’ve got this smart technology that follows users’ web
activity. I wanted to let you know, because it looks like Gibly caught you embezzling some money from the Indiana Central Bank. Looks
like they only caught you taking $0.50, so they probably won’t notice,
but I’d hate for someone to catch you stealing more and alert the
authorities …

Don’t you just hate these advances in technology?

“Send!” Amelia smiled as she tapped the button.

A
melia was at University Café, tapping away at her laptop. She and Tom had spent the morning talking to engineers interested in joining the team, and she was full of energy from the interviews.

She’d sent an e-mail to the computer science e-mail list at Stanford and within five hours had received over one hundred responses. She’d had to send another e-mail saying they were no longer taking applications just to stop the deluge.

In the end, they’d interviewed ten engineers. A junior, Ben, had put it best: “Amelia’s reputation around the Gates building is that she’s the next Bill Gates. Tom Fenway’s name is legendary. And Doreye is already being followed by TechCrunch. You’d have to be crazy not to want to join this team.”

Amelia couldn’t keep from grinning. She’d had no idea that her peers in the Gates building even knew who she was, much less admired her.

Tom and Amelia had narrowed the pool down to four candidates: two seniors, a junior and a sophomore. Tom sent them an e-mail requesting they come to the incubator the following morning to present their “best work.”

Amelia couldn’t wait. She’d never thought she’d like working on a team, but thinking about how much more they could get done with three people was exhilarating, and she was feeling as confident as she’d ever felt.

“Amelia, you are absolutely glowing today. You must have figured out the problem with Node A.”

Amelia looked up at Sundeep, who was standing next to her table. He was dressed in workout clothes, his white iPod earbuds hanging around his neck.“Sundeep!” She smiled. Could this day get any better? “I did! I figured it out, and I just spent the morning talking to engineer candidates—we’re going to hire two new people.”

“That’s great! It will be awesome to have more people in the incubator.”

“Are you getting lunch?” she asked.

“Oh, no. I just finished working out and stopped by to grab a smoothie.

Nothing like a peanut-butter-banana protein shake to completely undo all the calories I just burned.”

She giggled. She couldn’t help staring at the definition in his shoulders and biceps, which showed through his skintight Under Armour shirt. He always wore loose button downs to the incubator, and she’d never realized he was so fit.

They stood for a moment staring at each other. Amelia wasn’t sure what to say; all she knew was that she didn’t want it to end. She loved the way he looked at her, like he could see right into her soul.

“Well.” Sundeep finally broke the silence. “I guess I’d better go order.”

“Wait —”

What was she doing? Was she really going to?

Yes, just do it, she told herself.

“Would you … I mean, would you ever want to go out some time?

Grab dinner one day after work or something?” It was the single bravest thing Amelia had ever done, and she could not believe it as the words came out of her mouth. But he was so kind, and so attractive, and she just felt so comfortable with him. And besides, nothing could go wrong today.

Sundeep’s mouth opened but no words came out. “Oh, I—” he sputtered. “Amelia, I hope I didn’t … haven’t led you on. I have a girlfriend.” Amelia’s heart shrank in her chest. She could feel her pulse beating against her temple and the light in the room suddenly felt painfully bright and harsh.

“Oh,” she said. It was all she could muster.

“Hey, I think you’re absolutely brilliant. Seriously, you’re one of the smartest people I’ve ever met. And I’m so glad our paths have crossed in the incubator.”

“Yeah, glad, sure.” Amelia wasn’t even conscious of her mouth forming the words. She just needed to get out of there. Now.

“This definitely won’t make things weird for me, so don’t, you know, don’t worry about it at all, okay? I’ll see you back on Sand Hill, then?” Sundeep smiled and gave a little wave as he moved to the counter.

“Yep.” Amelia shut her computer and threw her water bottle into her backpack. She was out the door before Sundeep had finished his order.

A
melia raced down Palm Drive on her bicycle, ignoring the beautiful view. What had she been thinking? Of course Sundeep had a girlfriend.

How could a guy like that not have a girlfriend? He was just being
nice
.

God, was she so socially incompetent that a normal guy showing any sign of normal niceness made her think he was interested?

Boys were such a waste of time. Like she could just go off to a dinner anyway: everything was blowing up at Doreye and she needed to invest herself in that one hundred and ten percent. She couldn’t let herself get distracted by stupid … crushes.

Oh God, but she had such a crush on him! The way he looked at her, the way he checked in on her every morning, the way she hoped he’d be in the kitchen when she went out to get tea (she was drinking a lot more tea these days in the hope of those encounters). How could he look at her like that when he had a girlfriend? He did look at her in a special way, Amelia knew it. That wasn’t fair to her or to his girlfriend. Maybe she should tell his girlfriend.