“I thought that’s why you liked this place. Because we’re preparing for the afterworld?” He circles his arm around to indicate the rest of Utopia and to remind me that I’m just as weird as Marco.
As far as I’m concerned, I am doing a great job of adjusting to the new situation. Craig has joined the board, and I’ve stopped trying to make the big decisions. Cyrus has a vision, and the WAIs are so devoted to him, they’ll follow him anywhere. I’m starting to think about other things—a mentorship program I might kick off to help young women get ahead in tech. I might even ask Cyrus if I can spend some of our WAI money on building a lab for the Empathy Module. Jules is encouraging me to stay in stealth mode. “Just let him do what he does best—talk to the brethren—and the rest of us can enjoy being mortal,” he says. Jules is also busy keeping the team steady; the talk of acquisition has made everyone a little jittery.
Jules’s advice is all well and good, except I have to go home with Cyrus every night, and lately, the office Cyrus and home Cyrus are starting to sound like the same person. I find myself organizing more and more of his life, even though he now has two assistants. I answer the door when the dry cleaner comes to take his shirts, and I run through his calendar to make sure Eve is scheduling his meetings in the right order, and Jules and I coordinate when to give him little bits of bad news, like if someone quits or posts a Glassdoor review about how Cyrus is a controlling micromanager with a God complex.
We argue about money. Cyrus deals with having money by spending it fast, before it can accumulate. He sends checks with multiple zeros to multiple charities and monasteries and GoFundMe campaigns. He clicks on every Indiegogo film, travel pillow, and illustrated book project. He funds a school in Bangladesh. He pays a company called Green Taxi a huge amount of money to send him the same driver, a man called Daniyal, to take him anywhere beyond a five-block radius because he has developed an allergy to the subway.
The truth is, there isn’t enough money that we can’t burn through it. At this point, the millions are still imaginary. I want to pay off our mortgage and start a college fund for Gitanjali and buy my parents the kind of end-of-life insurance that means they will never have to worry about paying their medical bills when they get really old. Cyrus wants to send our money to Bangladesh, and I want to buy end-of-life insurance, and this of course means he’s a hero and I am a Grinch.
Still, we have our moments. I see the person I married inside the person in front of me. In some ways the new confidence, the swagger, is powerful. I love what we’ve created together, this world of people who suddenly find themselves with a center, something they never imagined they’d have—a social network that goes beyond selfies and humblebrags. We are woven together by these strangers who appear at once distant and intimate.
In the meantime, Cyrus has set up a giant easel in his office, and right now he is holding a palette of paints and a little knife with a triangular point. A landscape is starting to come into view, a blur of blues, grays, and whites. Along with painting, Cyrus has taken up capoeira. A large man named Gil comes to our apartment every morning to yell energetic things at Cyrus.
“It’s far healthier to confront death than to avoid it,” Cyrus says. “Ancient civilizations were obsessed with death.”
“Our civilization is obsessed with never having to think about death,” I say.
“The Anthropocene is corrupt.”
“I’m concerned about bringing Marco on board.”
“We’re developing a great working relationship,” Cyrus says, scooping up a dollop of paint from his palette. “Marco respects what we’re doing, and he agrees that we could bring the two companies together for everyone’s benefit.”
I’m not sure what he means, exactly. “Crazy Craig said to buy a company, not merge with a company.”
Cyrus puts his little knife down gently. “No decisions have been made.”
“You say that, but I recognize the tone in your voice, the one where you’ve already made up your mind and come up with a million arguments for doing something your way, and by the time you’re done, the rest of us have no choice but to fall in line.”
“It’s a merger, Asha, not a war.”
“See, you said it. Merger, not acquisition.”
“Craig wants us to find new revenue streams, so that’s why we are buying Obit.ly. It was your idea. Integrating the tech into our platform is just the natural extension of that. There’s no grand conspiracy, darling.”
“Dammit, Cy, don’t call me darling.”
He puts down his paint, reaches over, and kisses me.
“I don’t think this is a good idea,” I mumble. “Glass wall and all that.”
He pulls me tighter against him, and the smell of turpentine rises from his body. “I hear you,” he says. “I really do.” He leans down and looks into my eyes. “You’re so beautiful. Is that a new eyeliner you’re wearing?”
It is, and I hate that he notices everything. I kiss him back, my lips softening. Maybe he’s right, maybe Marco’s idea will flourish, and maybe Marco himself will be neutralized by the force of Cyrus. God knows the rest of us have been.
* * *
Marco is presenting Obit.ly to our board. “I’ve bootstrapped the company myself. I’m the only shareholder, and I’ve built all the tech.”
Craig has dialed in. “No big dev team around you, huh?” he asks. His face is enormous on the screen, and I feel like the question is directed at me, because Ren and I have fifty-two devs on our team, and Craig has been asking annoying questions about our cost base.
Marco keeps smoothing the hair on the sides of his head like he’s in a high school production of Grease. “Just me. I’m one hundred percent committed to my mission.”
“What is your mission, just so we’re clear?” I ask.
“I want to bring the benefits of the digital age—transparency, efficiency, ease of use—to our online deaths.” When he puts it that way, it doesn’t sound so crazy.
“You’re ready to launch in twelve weeks, right, Marco?” Cyrus prompts.
“That’s right, Captain.” Captain is Marco’s new nickname for Cyrus. This does not irritate me at all.
“There are some amazing synergies between the two companies,” Cyrus says. “Death rites are our most requested rituals, making up twenty-three percent of all queries on the platform.”
“What’s Obit.ly actually going to do?” Rupert asks.
“You give us permission to access all your social media accounts in the event of your death,” Marco says. “We close things down, write to all your friends, inform everyone about your final wishes. It’s like a will, except for your online presence.”
“What’s the market size?”
“Well, so far there’s no competition—no one else is trying to do this. But dead people are going to outnumber living people on social media within ten years. You obviously don’t want to give anyone access to your accounts while you’re still alive, but once you’re dead, there needs to be a way to put an end to your online presence.”
“I don’t know,” Rupert says. “You’re dealing with a lot of sensitive information.”
Craig loves it. “This is awesome,” he says. “I get so freaked out when a dead person suddenly appears in my feed.”
“Have you done a risk assessment?” Rupert asks. “What’s the tech behind the security?”
“Asha’s in charge of that,” Cyrus says. He turns to me.