Internet Kill Switch (2 page)

2

I hate going to this office,
Nelson George thought as the elevator glided up to the thirty-second floor of Mobiligent Corporation’s headquarters. Nelson had that thought every time he paid Dalton Greavy a visit. It wasn’t the office or the man that he hated. It was actually
getting into
Greavy’s office.

Nelson exited the elevator
, which could climb no higher. This floor, to which only a handful of people had access, held just two offices: that of the President and CEO of Mobiligent, a multi-millionaire named Mortimer Sacks, and “Distinguished Engineer” Dalton Greavy, who got to share the penthouse with the president. It didn’t take much detective work to glean the pecking order at Mobiligent.

Nelson approached
Dalton’s high-strength, intruder-proof steel door. The door had no name; another security measure. That didn’t make him nervous, though. What made Nelson nervous was embedded in the wall beside the door: a metallic, 4-foot-by-4-foot square frame, like a picture frame, attached to the wall with a metal arm. The arm held the frame out from the wall; it always reminded Nelson unpleasantly of a fly-swatter stuck in the wall, if the “swatter” part at the end was just an empty square. The arm disappeared into a slot in the wall. The slot ran from the bottom of the floor up to about seven feet high, like a big zipper.

Nelson stood under the frame and closed his eyes
. He felt the bass thrum as the scanner powered up, then whirring and whooshing noises as the square started to move down. A light wind blew over his head and neck from tiny holes in the frame, which continued south. He imagined the scanner depositing invisible radiation into his organs as it glided slowly toward the floor, taking its sweet time as it passed down the length of his body.

After 15 seconds, the square had finished its scan of Nelson. A small panel next to the scanner turned green, and Nelson h
eard the sharp click of the door unlocking.

“Come on in, Nelson” called out a high-pitched voice from inside the office.

He stepped over the frame of the mechanical sentry. The flyswatter returned to the top of the slot, and Nelson walked into Dalton’s office.

The office was, as usual, a landfill. Boxes were scattered about, with “Leaning Towers of Paper,” as Nelson called them, perched on top. Two huge filing cabinets took up most of one wall. Copies of “Scientific American” and “Air and Space” magazine lay here and there.

Dalton’s desk
was no better, covered by three 24-inch flatscreen monitors and more papers. On one edge sat bobblehead dolls of various Star Trek characters, including Captain Picard, Data, Spock, Captain Kirk and Scotty.

Behind the desk sat pony-tailed, middle-aged Dalton Greavy, looking intently at one of the monitors. He didn’t bother looking up at Nelson.

“I know that scanner thing’s going give me cancer,” Nelson complained as his body gave an involuntary shiver.

“Nope. But you’ll never be able to have kids,” Dalton said.

Nelson turned a bit paler, and Dalton laughed. Nelson scowled.

“I really don’t find…” Nelson began, but Dalton cut him off.

“Relax, Nelson. The scanner’s less harmful than me.”

Nelson was about to reply, when a paper airplane struck him in the arm. It was thrown from the side. “Hey!” he yelled, looking to his right.

Sitting there, in a chair in the corner, was Dalton Greavy. The same Dalton Greavy who he’d just been talking to.

Nelson looked back at the desk
. Dalton smiled at him. He did a double-take as he looked at the corner chair, in which Dalton also sat. Understanding dawned, and he rolled his eyes as Dalton-in-the-corner cackled.

“Dalton, I wish you wouldn’t do that. Which one is you?”

Dalton-in-the-corner-chair held up a small gadget about the size of a pen and tapped a button. Dalton-in-the-chair-behind-the-desk vanished.

“Sorry. Testing
. Wanted to check out the hologram’s ability to respond to queries.”

“
You don’t actually have to test things out on me, especially since I’m your boss.”

“Lighten up, Nelson. If it’s getting good enough to fool you, it’s almost ready.”
Dalton noticed that Nelson had a small package in his hand. His eyes lit up.

“Is that it?” he asked excitedly.

“Yeah” Nelson answered, slipping it in his jacket pocket and turning around. “But I might not give it to you now. I might have to hold on to it for a day or two, until you learn some manners.”

“Knock it off, Nelson,” Dalton said. “You know I was kidding
. I have a tendency to do that, you may have noticed.”

“
I did. And you know I hate it. But you still do it.”

Dalton adopted a tone he hoped came across as sincere. “Look, I’m sorry, OK? You know I don’t mean anything by it.”

Nelson stopped by the door; he’d put his hand on the knob and turned around, face impassive. “How do I know that?”

“Because I said I was sorry. And I meant it,” Dalton said, putting extra
emphasis on “meant,” for effect.

Nelson turned around and placed the little box on Dalton’s desk. “Yeah, this is it. It just got here.
The final prototype. It’s ready to go.”

“I’ll be the judge of that,”
Dalton said as he carefully opened the box, which had a label that screamed “EXTREMELY URGENT. HANDLE WITH CARE.” He took out his life’s work and inspected it. Nelson whistled low.

What Dalton held was a phone, but more than a phone; really, it was a work of art. About the size of a half-deck of cards, the phone was all glittering chrome. There were no buttons of any kind on the surface, no seams to disrupt the flow of its rounded beauty. It was if it was formed out of one perfect piece of the purest metal ever discovered.

As Dalton admired it, turning it over, Nelson asked to hold it. The phone flashed and gleamed, picking up any hint of light nearby and reflecting it back
as a shower of silvery sparks. Nelson held it, feeling its weight. Heavier than he expected, but not heavy; substantive without being burdensome. It felt perfectly balanced, and felt so, so… so
right
in his hand. Almost like it knew his hand, and knew just how to sit, knew where it would feel most comfortable, the way a tiny kitten might. Nelson looked at the places he’d touched it. He didn’t see any fingerprints. Shiny phones usually ended up looking smudged within seconds. Not this phone.

It w
as a perfect small sculpture. This was more than a phone -- it was the Mona Lisa, the Sistine Chapel ceiling, Beethoven’s Fifth.

Then Nelson dropped it. His hands were still slightly sweaty from his experience with the scanner, and he lost his grip as he started to hand it back to Dalton. The phone bounced on the floor a few times and glanced off a
metal desk leg.

Nelson yelled as he tried to pick it up. “Oh damn, sorry, Dalton, I’m sorry!”

Dalton grabbed the phone from the floor as Nelson fumbled for it. “Leave it alone! I’ve got it!” he said. Nelson yanked himself away.

Dalton
chuckled inwardly as he inspected the phone. As he knew it would be, there wasn’t a scratch to be seen. It would need a tank rolling over it to dent it. But he wasn’t about to tell his boss that. Better to keep him feeling like a screwup. It made their relationship much more entertaining; more useful, too.

Nelson
regained his composure as Dalton wrapped the phone in a protective cloth and put it in his pocket.

“
This is the one, Dalton. The one that changes everything. It’s so beautiful.”

Dalton was touched, despite himself. “Thanks, Nelson. Very much. A lot of work went into it.”

“At least 10 years, right?”

“About a dozen, if you count the two years I spent thinking about it before I started any design work.”

“The iPhone and Android,” Nelson said contemptuously. “They’re just toys compared to this. Like a … a Pinto compared to a Ferrari.”

“Let’s just hope it works as well. That’s what I plan on doing over the next month
, starting tonight. Everything should work as planned, but the testing has to be exhaustive.”

“It will be,” Nelson said, his eyes glinting.
“But you’ll have it ready enough for the meeting tomorrow, right? I mean, they’re coming in from Beijing, and there’s potentially billions riding on this phone and…”

Dalton cut him off with a wave of his hand. “For that little dog and pony show tomorrow,
it’ll be ready. They’ll be dying to write us a blank check after 15 minutes. I’ve got some fun stuff on tap.”

Nelson energetically slapped his thigh. “You’re about to make me a very happy man. “Let’s go celebrate before you head home. Drinks are on me.”

Dalton shook his head. “Can’t do it. Need to be clear-headed. I’ll be up all night, prepping. Even one beer would be too many. It’s coffee for me tonight.”

Nelson nodded. “Suit yourself. I’ll just have to have your drinks.” He got up to leave.

Dalton laughed. “Works for me. Enjoy yourself. I’ll see you at 11 tomorrow.”

A
fter Nelson left, Dalton gathered up his laptop and car keys. His eyes nearly vibrated with excitement. He was finally going to be able to put his greatest creation through its paces. He had no doubt she’d perform flawlessly, but a good engineer is always over-cautious.

As he held the phone, watching it sparkle in the light of the monitors, he grinned at its loveliness. T
his phone, his crowning achievement, would be his legacy. Dalton was a great engineer, one of the three best on the planet at what he did, and he knew it. But he was even more than a great engineer: he was a great artist. Engineers could build great machines, which this was. But to make it an object of desire, as this phone was sure to be, was the work of a Leonardo, a Picasso. Soon, the world would agree with him.

3

“The peas
are cold.” Tony’s statement didn’t carry any apparent anger or malice, but Jo Carver knew her son well enough to understand that behind the placid comment was an undercurrent of displeasure. Tony didn’t show anger, at least not to her. And it was unlike him to comment negatively on her meals.

“Sorry, honey. I can heat them up in the microwave if you’d like.”

“No thanks,” Tony said flatly.

Jo was about to respond
when she heard Bart Rumson scream profanely at his girlfriend in the trailer next to theirs. It was like living next door to an outdoor theater that only showed R-rated movies, Jo was fond of saying.

Bart’s
girlfriend, Juanita Cortez, a tiny woman who never backed down to her much larger boyfriend, responded in kind; maybe even louder than Bart. Her voice was high-pitched, and when she was especially angry, it took on an edge like metal scraping on glass. It pierced Jo’s ears, so she turned up the volume on the ancient radio on the counter, trying to drown out the fight. As Bart and Juanita continued to yell, a third voice joined the fray; Freddy Goshen, a 30-year-old plumber a few more trailers away.

“Would you two shut up?” he screamed. “Do I have to listen to this every damn night?”
His voice was gravelly and booming, like a grizzly bear’s roar.

Bart
momentarily diverted his anger from Juanita to Freddy, telling him he could close his windows if he didn’t like what he heard. Juanita joined Bart in screeching at Freddy, forgetting their spat as they enjoyed a momentary rapprochement to fight a common enemy. All three were now screaming at once, trying to out-yell the others. The din spiraled upward.

Jo closed the
trailer’s windows and front door, even though it was hot and the sole air conditioner was broken. She turned up the radio even more, but it wasn’t much help, as the cacophony drowned out even the Led Zeppelin coming from the overmatched radio. Trailer walls are thin, and not much good at soundproofing. They are, however, very good at trapping heat. The effect, with the windows closed, a screaming match in progress and the radio blaring, was like being in a mosh pit at a heavy metal concert in Hades.

Such was life in Pleasant Acres trailer park
, just outside of Austin, Texas.

Tony
sweated and munched his BLT as he tried to tune out the shouting match.

“They’re in rare form tonight,” Jo said with a tired smile.
“Must be the heat.”

Getting no response, s
he tried changing the subject. “So, what happened in school today?”

Tony kept his head down. “My phone got destroyed.”

Jo turned down the radio. “What? How?”

Tony
pulled out a piece of bacon from his sandwich that he considered undercooked, and put it on his plate with just enough of a flourish to ensure his Mom would notice. “Doesn’t matter.”

“I’m sorry, honey.” Jo knew how important phones were to kids. “I’m sure we can get another one, once I’ve saved for a bit...”

Tony set down the glass he was about to sip from. It hit the table with a thud. “Another garbage phone, you mean, that can’t do anything and doesn’t have any apps.”

Jo sighed
. “Look, I know you’d like an iPhone, but I just can’t afford another $30 or $40 a month for a data plan. We’ve talked about this.”

Tony
snorted. “I know. Just another thing I can’t have.”

“Well, I’m so sorry that
we’re not rich like Rick’s family,” Jo said sarcastically. But sarcasm didn’t suit her, and her shoulders slumped as she watched Tony spit out another piece of bacon.

“Baby, tell me what you’re so angry about. You’ve been mad ever since you walked through that door.”

Tony put down his sandwich and glared at his Mom, two things he rarely did. “You want to know why I’m mad? Do you really wanna know? Why did you...” he began, but suddenly stopped. He couldn’t go there. Just couldn’t, no matter what she’d done. She was his mother. As much as he hated not having a father, she probably hated not having a husband even more: someone to love her, stroke her hair, help her raise their son. Someone to grow old with. He could see the lines on his Mom’s face getting deeper every year, her eyes growing weary with this miserable, dead-end life. She was aging quickly, faster than a 38-year-old woman should. Living in Pleasant Acres will do that to a person, she often said.

That’s why
Tony stopped himself. He was unusually good, especially for someone his age, at putting himself in other people’s shoes. Even now, when he wanted to stay mad at his Mom, he could see why she’d want to be rid of the memories of the man who walked out on her. He would probably have done the same thing.

So he gave up being angry.
Instead, his eyes filled with tears and he ran out of the house and down the road to the small pond that formed a partial boundary for the trailer park.

Back inside, Jo lost her composure, too. She lit a
Camel and poured herself a shot, then another, wondering what she’d done wrong now.