“All the technical aspects of the platform have been developed by Asha,” Jules says. He shoots me this look that I think means Stop making it sound like we don’t have our shit together.
Frank leans back in his seat and regards us, doing whatever mental calculation people like him do at times like these. Even before he starts talking, I know what he’s going to say. It comes together in my mind the way things do when they’re inevitable—like they’ve been there all along.
“Look,” Frank says, “it’s not up to me. But if I were you, I would make your guy—what’s his name?”
“Cyrus.”
“Yeah, Cyrus, the CEO. Because someone has to represent the idea—it’s woo-woo enough as it is, and if you’re going to pull in seed money, the person at the heart of this whole thing should represent you.”
“What do you mean by woo-woo?” I ask, even though I can’t say I disagree.
“He means it’s going to be difficult to raise money,” Jules says. “But we already knew that.”
“I thought that’s why you were here.”
“Frank is just here to give advice,” Jules says.
“Not necessarily,” Frank says. “I’ve been doing little investments here and there. You know Countify?”
“No.”
“It’s a SaaS company, they do cloud-based storage for cloud-based services. IPO’ed last year, and I got in early, so I’ve got some funds for seed stage investments.”
I have no idea what SaaS means. I’m assuming it is not, in fact, sass. “Is Cyrus being the CEO a deal breaker for you?” I ask.
“I’m just telling you what I would do if I were you.”
Why do people say “if I were you” when there is no way they could ever be you? We thank Frank and he trots away, and Jules and I are left wondering what to do about Cyrus.
* * *
On the last Friday of every month, Li Ann holds auditions for the new crop of Utopians. In early December, eight months after we’ve moved in, it’s my turn to sit on the selection committee.
Li Ann hands around the list of hopefuls. Saint or Sinner is the name of the first company. It produces wearables that turn red or green depending on your climate behavior that day. Did you take a taxi? Ride the bus? Buy a plastic bottle of water? Was it Fiji? The ring or bracelet or necklace tracks everything. At the end of the day, when you’re sitting in front of your dinner, you get a personal audit of all your shitty behavior that day. And then you wake up and try again.
The two men making the pitch hand around a few bits of jewelry. Li Ann and I each get to try on a ring. Marco gets a cuff link.
“In ten years, wearables will be the only accessories around,” one of them says.
“Why wear something that’s purely ornamental when it can work for you?” the other one echoes.
“How do I know if I’m a saint or a sinner?” I ask.
“It’s going to change color.”
“But how will it know what I’m doing? Is it going to take photos?”
“We’re still prototyping that,” the first one explains. “We’ll probably use sensors and bar codes.”
“Or cameras,” the other one says. They tell us more about the cameras, then give us a slightly glitchy demo.
Li Ann stands up, smiling extra-sweetly because she’s about to turn them down. “We’ll be in touch.” She hands back the ring.
“Oh, no, you can keep that, we got a great deal on the prototypes. Excellent supply chain if we can get it up and running.”
Li Ann glances at the list she’s printed out. “The next one is called No Touch.”
Two people in identical black suits stand facing each other. They start to move, their hands gliding up toward each other. One of them starts to speak. “In the future,” she says, “the spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria and new viruses will change the way we interact with each other. Touching will become rare.” They step back from each other, then turn to face us, identical twins with matching cropped hair. “Developed by a team of social anthropologists, behavioral psychologists, and dancers, No Touch is introducing new ways to uphold social norms while maintaining safety.”
They project a series of images on the screen. “We will use nudge theory and mass social marketing to promote safer greetings, such as”—and now they are folding at the waist—“bowing”—holding their palms together—“namaste”—bending at the knees—“curtseying.
“We will target the fourteen-to-twenty-five age group and introduce the new behaviors as innovations. We expect that within a generation, handshakes, hugs, and casual kissing on the cheek will completely disappear.”
They paint a picture of a world where touching a stranger is akin to licking a subway seat. There are invisible threats everywhere. Their behavioral shifts come with swag: brightly painted face masks, rubber gloves, antibacterial pocket liners. Li Ann and Rory are rapt, nodding enthusiastically, trying on the gloves. Rory says the investment in public health is below par in 74 percent of all health services. The twins geek out on all the statistics, and soon it’s like the annual meeting of the Pandemic Preppers Society. No Touch gets an instant yes and they move in the following week. The week after that, you can’t pass through reception without pausing to sanitize your hands.
* * *
Jules and I are at the diner across the street, talking about money. It’s snowing, a kind of friendly, fluffy snow falling lightly on the sidewalk. The taste of regular crap coffee is oddly reassuring. We are broke—my credit cards are maxed out and Jules is paying for our server with what’s left of his allowance. “What’s the game plan?” he asks.
I tell him I’m close. “But I need a front-end developer.”
“And we need someone to run the community side of things. And marketing. How will anyone know about us?”
“Facebook?”
“Facebook isn’t free—we’d have to pay them a shitload of money to get anywhere. Dammit, I’ve never spent so much time thinking about money.”
“You? Moneybags you?”
“Oh, we never talk about money where I come from. My dad goes to sleep, and all the dollars just multiply.”
“Do your folks even know you moved to New York?”
“They said, ‘That’s nice, dear,’ as if I finally agreed to wear white pants to their Memorial Day party.”
I reach over and squeeze his hand. “I’m sorry,” I say, thinking of my own mother sending me off every morning with an egg sandwich. “Maybe we should bail,” I say. “We could just go back to Cambridge.”
Jules shakes his head. “Not possible. We’ve had a taste—even the smallest taste changes you.”
I had been thinking this very thing. “Is that what happened to you last time?”
“My business succeeded for about five minutes, and I spent the next seven years trying to chase that high again. Probably why I fell on my face so many times. Cyrus was the one who finally helped me get over it, because none of this stuff matters to him.”
I know exactly what Jules means. Cyrus really doesn’t care. He isn’t worried that we are on the verge of bankruptcy, or that there is the tantalizing possibility of something bigger. He is obsessively focused on both the present and on the esoteric distance. The middle ground, the place most of us inhabit—what we are going to eat for lunch, how we are going to pay our bills, how we are going to fulfill our petty human ambitions—those things do not occur to him. He doesn’t care, because they are not on his mind.
“We’re running on empty,” Jules says.
“There’s only one thing to do.” I wait for Jules to say it.
“We have to make Cyrus the boss.”
I nod. “He can make the pitch, get us our funding. You know how he is in front of an audience.”
Jules looks up something on his phone. “There’s another speed-dating thing in two days.”