The Start-Up 3 Beautiful Code

by Hayes, Sadie

  Adam was suddenly self-conscious about his flip-flops, shorts, and ratty T-shirt, but Lisa didn’t seem to notice. He put his hands around her waist and pulled her in for a kiss. “You look absolutely stunning,” he whispered.

  She returned his kiss, but quickly put her hands on his chest, determinedly. “Wait. We have to talk. I have something I have to tell you.”

  Adam felt his heart drop. Her eyes were serious and sad. And he knew: she was going to end it. Suddenly, the memories of her never wanting to be called his girlfriend, of how seldom she’d slept over this quarter, of how long it took her to text him back all hit him like a ton of bricks. He’d been in such denial that he hadn’t wanted to accept the truth. The man at the bar was wrong. He wasn’t good enough for Lisa or her father.

  “Yeah, I know,” he pulled away, swallowing hard and turning from her to sit down on the gazebo bench, leaning his elbows forward on his knees and looking down at his feet.

  “You do?” She didn’t understand. “Did Amelia—?”

  “You’re not that into me. It’s obvious. And you’re ending it.”

  “No! I mean, that’s not what I…”

  But Adam didn’t hear her. The Scotch was pulsing through his veins and he was suddenly feeling confident and articulate—and angry.

  “You know what bothers me though?” He stood up and walked back toward her. “You never gave me a real chance. As sweet as you were, I was always the bar boy from your brother’s fancy party. I didn’t fit into your rich, exclusive world.”

  “That’s not—”

  “But you know what, Lisa? You may be embarrassed to stand next to me now, but someday…someday I’ll fit right into your little moneyed world and you’ll be sorry.”

  “Adam!” she snapped. “This has nothing to do with money.” She was shaking her head in frustration. “My God, Adam. Do you have any idea how much I care about you? How much I love you? But my past is complicated—”

  Adam touched his finger to her lips to make her stop talking, a glimmer of hope restored in his voice. “What did you say?”

  “I said my past is complicated.”

  “Before that. Did you say…you love me?”

  “Yes, Adam. I love you. But—”

  Suddenly all his distress transformed to joy. Adam felt like he was going to explode with happiness. He grinned from ear to ear and pulled Lisa into a close hug, kissing her mouth hard, again and again. “No ‘buts’!” he exclaimed. “You love me, you love me, you love me. It’s the only thing that matters.”

  Lisa laughed and let her arms fall around his. He looked so happy, and that made her so happy. How could she ruin this moment?

  “Whatever it is, it doesn’t matter, okay?” he said. “We’re together now and I love you so, so much.”

  She smiled and leaned her forehead against his. Faint music from the Hawkins party drifted in the air and “All I Want for Christmas is You” started playing, as if on cue. Lisa pressed her cheek against Adam’s and they swayed to the song in the moonlight. Adam listened to the lyrics and wondered whether Santa did exist, after all. And whether (dare he dream it?) maybe from now on he’d be one of those people who flew to Hawaii with his girlfriend’s family to celebrate the holidays.

  Seconds later, Lisa’s phone rang in her purse but she ignored it. A moment later it rang again. “I better get that,” she whispered, breaking their embrace to see who was calling.

  “It’s my family. I have to go.” She pouted.

  “No, you don’t. Stay.”

  “Trust me, if I could be two places at once, I would.”

  “I love you.”

  “I love you, too,” she said as she scurried down the gazebo stairs, her long dress flowing behind her.

  As Adam started back, his eye caught the flower she’d been wearing in her hair. Like Cinderella’s slipper, he thought, as he picked it up. He walked out to the beach and sat in the sand, crossing his ankles and taking deep breaths of the fresh sea air.

  He listened to the waves and reflected on the night. Lisa loved him! Could life be any better? He replayed her words and the sight of her lips in the moonlight—those lips that loved him, that he was allowed to kiss and admire, that belonged to him.

  Then he thought about her goodbye. “If I could be two places at once, I would.” If only!

  Wait, two places at once? With a start, his mind snapped to the airport gate that morning. All the expo participants had been on the same flight. He never would have missed seeing a woman who resembled Lisa. Was she not a passenger? TechCrunch had purchased the tickets and made sure they would all be on that plane. Why would they have made an exception for her?

  Adam’s mind suddenly felt alert. He stood up, brushed the sand from his shorts, and walked, deliberately, back toward the hotel. He thought about his conversation with the man in the bar that night: choose who you want to be and start to act like it. He could feel his heart pounding in his chest, but he pictured himself as James Bond—the bad-ass blond 007 who took out guys left and right—and let the thought motivate him as he glanced around to make sure no one was looking. Then he carefully slipped through the door to the conference room where the booths were still displayed.

  The lights were out and the room was silent, save the buzz of the electronics in place. Okay, he thought, what would Bond do? Adam tiptoed toward the RemoteX booth. A laser-thin ray of blue light shot out from the corner. An alarm! He jumped to avoid it, then realized it was just the glare from a computer at another booth. Calm down, he told himself.

  He reached RemoteX and slowly wiggled open the drawer under the booth, covering his hand with his shirt as he did so, so there wouldn’t be any fingerprints. He used the light from his iPhone as a flashlight, glancing into the corners of the room to be sure there weren’t any security cameras.

  In the top drawer were a pair of scissors, some wire, a garage-door opener, a television remote, and an MP3 player. He shut the drawer carefully and squatted to open the bottom drawer. It was empty, except for a small shoebox in the back corner. Adam pulled it out and took the lid off.

  “Bingo,” he whispered.

  A pile of magazine clippings and online article print-outs about Doreye were stapled together and folded neatly on top. Below it was a shoddy device, opened, with switches and wires sticking in and out like someone didn’t know what they were doing. It resembled a control panel. At the bottom of the box he found a slim, plastic container filled with little metal chips that looked like the SIM card in the back of a cell phone. Adam wrinkled his brow. What were these? There must have been fifty of the chips in the box. He used his fingernail to pull one out and slipped it into his pocket.

  Adam discreetly replaced the contents of the shoebox and slid the bottom drawer closed. He tiptoed back to the Doreye booth and checked the drawers: nothing unusual. What could the chip be for? And why was it in the RemoteX shoebox?

  Adam closed his eyes. Think! What would James Bond do? All he could think about were images of beautiful women and fast cars.

  His eyes snapped open: the toy car!

  He looked across the devices at the Doreye booth until he found the radio-controlled toy car. He picked it up and drunkenly snapped open the chassis to where the rechargeable battery was inserted. He slowly pulled out the battery and squinted to see…yes! A small metal chip, just like the one in his pocket, was tucked behind the battery, preventing two wires from meeting. He wasn’t sure what the wires were for, but he was pretty sure the chip was not supposed to be there.

  Adam looked across the other devices on the table. He didn’t have to disassemble each one to know that the British blond girl sabotaged those, too. “RemoteX, I’m on to you,” he said with a satisfied smile.

  Just then he heard a noise and a swath of yellow light streamed in from the conference room door. Adam froze.

  Instinctively, he ducked behind the Doreye table and peered toward the door trying to figure out who it was. His mind raced. If he got caught, what would pe
ople think? They’d probably think he was sabotaging RemoteX. Or, at the very least, he’d get kicked out of the conference and everyone would think he was the fucked-up, add-nothing leech to his sister they’d suspected all along. He had to get out of there now…but how?

  Adam heard someone whistling as he crawled behind one booth, then the next. Suddenly, the overhead lights snapped on and he peered out from behind the booth where he was crouched. A man in a cleaning uniform was pushing an industrial vacuum on the far side of the room. He was wearing headphones and looking away from Adam, going about his business. Adam felt his chest empty the breath he’d been holding. He quickly stood up and raced out the door.

  CHAPTER 11:

  Footprints

  After three hours of trying to find a solution, Amelia told her friends back in Palo Alto to go to bed. She sat staring out the window for a while, searching the Hawaiian stars for an answer and, finding none, took a deep breath and went to locate Adam. She knew he was upset, and she felt bad. He’d only been trying to help. But she’d also been relieved that George had had the guts to tell him he was slowing them down.

  She wasn’t sure where he’d gone, but she guessed he’d wandered down to the Ugly Sweater party a group of conference participants were unofficially throwing in one of the ballrooms downstairs. The last thing she wanted was to be social with a bunch of dressed up, drunk conference goers, but she hoped it was late enough that they’d all be on the prowl for someone to hook up with and not bother her with questions about Doreye.

  Amelia arrived in the lobby and followed the cheesy Christmas music down the hall, gulping anxiously before opening the door.

  The room was enormous, with another crystal chandelier hanging from the center and floor-to-ceiling windows across the back, which overlooked the beach and the crashing waves illuminated by the full moon. A huge palm tree decorated with lights and Christmas ornaments towered over a garland-trimmed tiki bar, and poinsettia blossoms were mounted on tiki torches. A wooden dance floor had been constructed in the middle of the room, and it was packed with drunk twenty- to fifty-somethings, all looking equally ridiculous in red and green turtlenecks, checkered suits, and oversized crocheted holiday sweaters.

  “Amelia?”

  She turned around to find Sundeep, clad in a two-sizes-too-small bright green turtleneck, red chino pants, an oversized reindeer pin clipped to his shirt, and a Santa hat in hand.

  “Sundeep!” She tried not to gawk at how ridiculous he looked. “I was just looking for…”

  “Adam?” he interrupted. “I haven’t seen him, and I’ve been here for a while.”

  Amelia’s shoulders dropped in disappointment. Why did everything about this day have to be a challenge?

  “Do you want to get some fresh air?” Sundeep asked.

  “Yeah,” she said, and followed him outside onto the beach. Fresh air was exactly what she wanted: lots and lots and lots of fresh air to make everything else evaporate.

  They strolled along the warm sand in silence, until Sundeep finally said, “What’s wrong?”

  Amelia pursed her lips and took a deep breath. “It was the expo today. Doreye didn’t work.” She tried to stop them, but tears filled her eyes. “And I just spent three hours working on it, and I’ve done everything right, Sundeep! It should be working.” She was sobbing now.

  He stopped her, gently holding her shoulders to steady her. “I heard about the other company,” he confessed. “And you know what else I heard? That you’re the smartest person in Silicon Valley. The next hotshot engineer. The next big thing. You will figure it out, Amelia. Of that I’m absolutely certain.”

  She shook her head and broke free of his grip. They continued walking.

  “You know what I think?” he asked.

  “What?” she sniffled.

  “I think women as strong as you don’t cry over iPhone applications.”

  She swallowed.

  “Do you want to talk about the press conference?” he asked.

  “No.” She kicked a conch shell and kept walking. “What is there to talk about? I did it. I’m guilty. I hacked in and embezzled money and knew what I was doing wasn’t right. I spent three months in prison and it was completely and utterly horrible. And now everyone knows and they’re going to bring it up and I’ll never escape it.”

  “You can’t change your past,” Sundeep said. “But you can decide how you’re going to use what’s happened to you.”

  She didn’t respond. He tried another angle. “What happened to you, Amelia…it’s part of you, and you may not want to do it again, but it made you a stronger person, a more honest person.”

  “I wish I could be as honest as you,” she said. “I mean, you don’t have a flawed bone in your body. You’re smart and caring and totally…perfect. Your life is perfect.”

  Sundeep was silent. Finally, he said quietly, “That’s not true.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “I haven’t been entirely honest with you.” He turned to look at her, the corners of his mouth pinched tight. “My family disowned me, Amelia. Last spring. And now I’ve got nothing.”

  They had walked back up to the hotel entrance, and she stopped before opening the door. So that’s what Lisa had been talking about. “Oh, Sundeep.” Her heart genuinely ached for him. “I am so, so sorry.”

  Sundeep was looking at the stars, as if trying to fight back tears of his own, but he forced a smile. “It’s okay. It’ll work out. Sometimes other people don’t understand why we do what we do, but we can’t let that keep us from fighting for what we believe in.”

  If Amelia had been a hugger, she would have given him a hug. But she was still attracted to him and was embarrassed that he might know that.

  A drunk man in a crocheted reindeer vest stumbled up off the beach beside them. “Ooooooh!” He yelled at the pair, lifting the eggnog in his right hand and spilling it onto the patio. “Somebody’s under the mistletoe!”

  Amelia and Sundeep glanced up and sure enough, they were standing directly under a thick tuft of mistletoe suspended from a light fixture on the wall. “That means you have to make out,” the drunk guy hollered as he stumbled through the door to the bathroom, leaving Amelia and Sundeep both blushing furiously. They paused, caught in the moment and the embarassment and the comfort of each other’s presence.

  “Amelia!” Adam’s voice called from inside. He was running down the hall toward them. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you. I figured it out! I figured out how RemoteX sabotaged us. There is nothing wrong with Doreye!”

  CHAPTER 12:

  Yours, Virtually

  Amelia pretended to go to sleep when Adam did. He was in a great mood, and she didn’t want to upset him with her nerves. She lay staring at the ceiling, heart beating and mind racing as she listened to her brother’s slow, steady breathing.

  She kept thinking about the chips Adam found in the Doreye devices. T. J. had shipped their presentation to Maui days ahead of time; someone could have easily added an override switch to the terminals in each device’s radio receiver. It was an easy hack to do for an engineer with time and a wire wrap tool. But why would anyone want to sabotage their demo?

  Unable to sleep she slipped out of the bed, picked up her laptop, and quietly opened the sliding door onto the balcony of their room.

  The air was thick and heavy, but a cool breeze blew from the ocean, bringing with it the scent of salt and tropical flowers. She closed her eyes, listened to the gentle melody of the bugs buzzing below, inhaled deeply. She looked up at the full moon overhead and wondered for a minute how life had led her here, to this balcony in Hawaii at a TechCrunch conference where her start-up company was on display.

  Then she sat down in one of the rocking chairs, opened her laptop, and logged into ZOSTRA, the virtual world she’d joined with George, T-Bag, Janet, and Jon. Wednesday nights were when everyone met at the Lair to get together in the virtual world, but individual players could log on any time to work on his
or her avatar. As players completed tasks and challenges, they got points they could use to buy virtual goods.

  Amelia had created an avatar that wasn’t much different from herself. Her avatar had more voluminous hair and bigger breasts, and she wore contacts, but Amelia didn’t spend any money on clothes or handbags like a lot of the other girl avatars. One Wednesday, virtual T-Bag (a stunningly buff and attractive blond) had taken virtual Amelia on his virtual private jet to virtual Rodeo Drive to model Gucci and Prada. Everyone had laughed and Amelia had blushed, but she’d quickly stuffed her virtual Jimmy Choos in her virtual closet.

  Instead, she used points to buy more and more complicated weapons to fight bad guys. She’d quickly mastered nunchucks and daggers. She was saving up for a master sword, like the one Uma Thurman used in Kill Bill, to fight a Russian terrorist named Boris, the virtual creation of a small and timid red-headed girl from Minnesota who had been playing ZOSTRA for four years and had serious skills.

  Amelia was shooting virtual clay pigeons when another avatar appeared on the right side of her screen. It was George. He didn’t say anything, just started shooting clay pigeons next to her. He was better than she was and, when they’d finished the round, she sent him an Instant Message to tell him so. The IM popped up in a speech bubble above her avatar. In the bubble above his, he said, “You’re quickly surpassing me, young grasshopper.”

  “There are too many pigeons to shoot. It’s getting more difficult to see them all.”

  “That’s what happens as you get better.”

  “Maybe I don’t want to get better.”

  “Then how will you beat Boris?”

  “Maybe beating Boris isn’t the only point of the game.”

  There was a pause. Amelia anxiously watched the speech bubble above George’s head. Finally, he responded.