by David Yoon
“Which one is River Askew again?” said Shane.
“Pretty sure he’s into Asian girls,” said Brayden.
“Jesus,” said Akiko, and she blew her cheeks up at the stars above.
Shane danced in his seat and jabbed Akiko with an elbow. “Work it.”
Akiko punched him.
“Hey, I did it,” said Shane. “Plus you’re way hotter than me.”
Akiko kissed the spot where she punched, and Max gazed at his shoes.
“We could get in close and hack into his phone,” said Brayden, bouncing a knee with growing vigor. “Mister Pilot, you must have some tech for that?”
Pilot closed his eyes and nodded Of course I do. “First, we find the backdoors.”
“This is gonna be a lot of work,” said Max, mostly to himself. “And it’ll get riskier each time we do it. Unless—duh—we wait until we have access to each of the Big Five, and then release their emails all at once?”
“That would be a motherhugging A-bomb right there,” said Akiko.
“Eh,” said Shane. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know what?” said Max.
“This is all sounding pretty impossible,” said Shane with a twist of his mouth.
“That’s the spirit,” said Max.
Brayden stopped bouncing. “Debbie Downer.”
“Mister Shane, I think at this point the impossible is precisely what our fans expect from Version Zero,” said Pilot.
Shane opened another beer. “Dude. All the Big Five know each other. Any one of them has the slightest suspicion something’s wrong, and one call is all it takes to say hey, Version Zero’s up to something, everybody go to fucking DEFCON 1.”
Max began to speak, but stopped. His mind sped through dozens of possible capers. None of them could defeat the simple defense of awareness. Shane was right.
“Shit,” said Max.
“We could get to them through their kids,” said Brayden. “Linda Belinda just had a baby, right? So maybe—”
“Brayden,” said Akiko.
“We are not involving children,” said Pilot.
Brayden shrank. “No kids, okay, cool.”
Max poked the fire with a stick. He flopped another log onto the pile, sending embers billowing heavenward.
“Shane, you’re right,” said Max. “The Big Five’s impossible.”
“I didn’t mean to shut your shit down,” said Shane.
“It’s okay. We’ll just start over and come up with something else.”
“Unless,” said Pilot.
Max looked up. “Unless what.”
“Shane, you’re right in saying that the Big Five all know each other,” said Pilot. “But do you know who else they know? And most importantly, trust? Ever since the very beginning, back when we were all tinkering in garages and college computer labs?”
Now Max was smiling. Everyone was.
“Do you know who they would just absolutely die to hear from after years of silence?” said Pilot with shimmering eyes.
“You,” said Shane.
“Forget email leaks,” said Pilot. “I would like to propose another idea.”
1.31
I have a place,” said Pilot. He splayed his fingers toward the fire. “It is across the ocean, high within the Balkan Mountains. There could be a conference. Very exclusive, very bogus. They would all agree to come. I am sure of it, for I have been in exile for three years, and their curiosity would get the best of them.”
Max’s mouth hung open. A little bird could fly in.
“There is no cell reception so high up in the Balkans, in such a remote spot. No internet. We could give the conference a ludicrous name.”
“Disconnect,” said Max.
“Duncie,” said Akiko. “It’s perfect.”
“So bad it’s good?” said Max.
Akiko answered with a guilty half smile.
“Disconnect,” said Pilot, nodding. “We bill it as a back-to-basics retreat. A sort of digital Geneva Convention, where the righteous future of the internet will be debated and discussed without distraction. Something they could crow about later, to show how moral and civic-minded they are.”
Max saw that the group had become animated. Brayden was bouncing again. Shane and Akiko whispered things to each other. And Pilot grinned and grinned.
“You can pull this off?” said Max, more as a statement than a question. Of course Pilot fucking Markham could pull this off.
Pilot wrapped an arm around Max. “They will come. We will barely have to do anything aside from establishing a private satellite connection. Just point a camera and let them dig their own graves. Leaked emails are one thing. Livestream video is something else entirely.”
“This is so awesome,” said Brayden, bursting now.
“There’s a problem,” said Max. “I don’t have a passport.”
Pilot laughed and laughed at that.
“So we go there,” said Akiko, “hold this fake conference, and then just . . . ?”
“Sit back and enjoy the fireworks, I guess,” said Max.
“After Disconnect, Version Zero may no longer need to exist,” said Pilot. “We will have shaken them to the core. We can even part ways if you fear retribution.”
Pilot leaned in and whispered into the fire. “This is what you wanted, Mister Max. This is exactly what you asked for.”
Max watched the flames dancing in his eyes and knew the same flames were also dancing in his.
Pilot spoke so softly that everyone had to lean in. “Listen to me. I have three billion dollars,” he said. “I have no need for any of it.”
“What?” cried Shane.
“Fulfill your vision. Change history. When we return to civilization, your reward will be waiting for you to claim. Start a business if you wish. Start a charity.”
“I’m in,” said Akiko.
Everyone looked at Akiko.
“What, how could you not be in?” she said.
“Are you saying you’re giving us money?” said Shane.
“It would be the only good investment I ever made,” said Pilot. “A true angel investment.” He looked at Max with wonder. “Mister Max. You inspired me when I thought such inspiration was no longer possible. Let me be your legacy. You are my son from another hon, so to speak.”
Let me be your legacy was a weird way of putting things, but Max shrugged it off. He imagined Pilot retiring to this very island at some point, after their revolution was accomplished and done. He tried to picture him driving a golf cart in an aloha shirt and shorts, far away from Cal Peers and the Big Five and all of that.
“And you are my father from another mather,” said Max.
“That doesn’t really rhyme,” said Brayden—but his smile was sad. Maybe it was hard for him, watching Max and Pilot grow closer before his very eyes. The boy probably craved a mentor. A father. What kind of parents left their high school son alone all summer while they traipsed off on vacation?
“We’re all in this,” said Max. “Right?” He reached out and snapped fingers with Brayden.
“Hell yeah I’m in,” said Brayden, a little brighter now.
“No money for you, rich boy,” said Pilot.
“Wait, what?” said Brayden.
“Joking again,” said Pilot. “Got you.”
“Cut it out,” said Brayden.
“I’m in,” said Shane.
From deep within Shane’s embrace, Akiko stared at Max with something approaching pride. Hard to tell in the dim firelight. Nostalgia, maybe? Wistfulness for a legendary romance that could never be?
That last one was just Max making up wishful bullshit.
Max steadied himself. Were they really going to the Balkan Mountains, for real? Max had never left the country. Was there for real a
big bag of money with the word max on it? One that could fund his very own company, and the one after that?
Everyone looked at Max, waiting.
“Let’s get the fuck out of here,” said Max.
2.0
2.0
Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather.
We have no elected government, nor are we likely to have one, so I address you with no greater authority than that with which liberty itself always speaks. I declare the global social space we are building to be naturally independent of the tyrannies you seek to impose on us. You have no moral right to rule us nor do you possess any methods of enforcement we have true reason to fear.
Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. You have neither solicited nor received ours. We did not invite you. You do not know us, nor do you know our world. Cyberspace does not lie within your borders. Do not think that you can build it, as though it were a public construction project. You cannot. It is an act of nature and it grows itself through our collective actions.
People are going crazy over this weird card game that has raised over two million dollars. Find out why.
You have not engaged in our great and gathering conversation, nor did you create the wealth of our marketplaces. You do not know our culture, our ethics, or the unwritten codes that already provide our society more order than could be obtained by any of your impositions.
Cyberspace consists of transactions, relationships, and thought itself, arrayed like a standing wave in the web of our communications. Ours is a world that is both everywhere and nowhere, but it is not where bodies live.
Who is your ideal sexual partner? Take the quiz. This is most definitely not safe for work.
We are creating a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice accorded by race, economic power, military force, or station of birth.
We are creating a world where anyone, anywhere, may express their beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity.
Your legal concepts of property, expression, identity, movement, and context do not apply to us. They are all based on matter, and there is no matter here.
Your article will continue after this short video.
2.1
The snow was so vast that Max could hear it crackling in the sun.
He stood on a triangular balcony made of glass jutting over a hundred-foot drop. Standing at the triangle’s point, he could see nothing else but an impossible sea of frozen summits below him; above, an impossible endless sky and its white sun.
The air smelled infinite. Max felt like he was not really there. He felt as if he were a camera—a brilliant chrome orb—sent to probe the surface of an alien planet.
But here he was. For real. One week he stood overlooking the ocean on Glass Island, and the next week he was here, on the other side of the planet.
There was a low flissilating sound. Far below, Max could see a white gossamer trail of snow crystals dancing about in a vale of blue shadow.
Cody had flown them here, first in the jet, then in a monstrous refurbished army helicopter still bearing ancient markings in Cyrillic. No passport control, no customs. Max texted his parents before they lost signal.
Startup is going great dad, learning so much :)
Ok mijo im proud of you Mama says v b careful
I love you guys . . . I’ll be back soon <3
They sat at a long conference table in the helicopter eating fresh hot pupusas—from where?—while they sketched out the overall plan for Disconnect.
“So, Pilot,” said Max.
Pilot tapped his phone. “Just feeding the dog back at home. Sorry.”
Pilot put his phone away and reached under the table to draw forth what looked like an artist’s toolbox. He nodded at Max: Go ahead.
“Once the guests arrive,” said Max, “we let them settle in. Put out drinks, let their lips get loose, just capture conversation. Pilot will do the glad-handing. He’ll be like the warm-up act.”
Everyone looked at Pilot.
“But you’ll blow your cover,” said Akiko.
“I already sent them all personal invites,” said Pilot. “They already know Disconnect is me. So what if the world finds out as well?”
“They’ll sue your ass,” said Shane.
“On what grounds?” said Max. “These fuckers are coming to Disconnect of their own free will. They already consented to being videoed in their Terms and Conditions.”
“Gahaha nice,” said Brayden.
“Even if they sue, I can defend myself,” said Pilot, calm as could be. “I can spend money on lawyers quite literally until my dying day. What is important is, if I am not there to welcome the CEOs, they will sense something is off. They will spook. They consider me their long-lost brother, and will not think anything is amiss even as I lead them to the edge of their doom.”
“You sure about this?” said Max.
Pilot smiled and nodded.
“Aw shit,” said Shane. “I forgot this is Pilot fucking Markham we’re talking about right here.”
Shane high-fived Pilot and Pilot returned it just as cool as can be, no-look style.
“Once Pilot gives me the signal, then it’s time for the main event,” said Max. “I go down there, pose as Pilot’s secret right-hand man, and get the CEOs to really show their true selves.”
“Okay, but you definitely can’t blow your cover,” said Akiko to Max.
“That is why I have prepared this,” said Pilot. He opened the artist’s toolbox. Inside were fake beards, fake eyelashes, fake everything. Wigs. A card with ten moles of differing shapes and colors.
“I’ll be wearing a disguise,” said Max. “The rest of you stay hidden, especially you, Akiko. Cal Peers will probably recognize you on sight.”
“Yup,” said Akiko with a grimace.
“So we’re just doing nothing the whole time?” said Shane.
“No,” said Max. “You’ll be manning the cameras with Brayden. Akiko, you take care of the tech and monitor the stats. Cameras roll continuously for a total of two days until Disconnect ends. Then you guys come down for the big reveal, wearing these.”
Max nodded at Pilot, who reached under the table and produced a large cardboard box containing hundreds of white masks with black halos on them.
“Crazy, right?” said Max. “Pilot had these made yesterday while we were asleep.”
“From my men in China,” said Pilot.
“So we put these on and we’re all, You’ve been punked?” said Brayden.
“Basically,” said Max.
“They’re gonna shit their pants,” said Shane.
“After that, then what?” said Akiko. Max felt a frisson just being addressed by her, but quelled it. It was just a question.
“Then we just let them all go,” said Max. “They’ll find out what the public now thinks of them.”
“Put ’em on a sled and sshhhh down the mountain,” said Shane, laughing.
“Something like that,” said Pilot with a smile.
“It’s gonna be so badass,” said Brayden. Then, out of nowhere: “You guys are like family to me.”
A super-awkward silence followed, filled only by the thrubble of helicopter blades.
Shane broke it. “We’re bros by now, right?” he said, and clasped Brayden’s hand so that for a moment the two looked like the cover of Dragon Twins Battle Arena.
“What do you think is gonna happen after this?” said Akiko.
“Hell if I know,” said Max. “Hopefully something good. Something better.”
The helicopter chugged it
s way between mountains, climbing higher and higher until the trees gave away to black rock. Then the black rock gave way to white slopes, and then the white slopes gave way to nothing but open sky bathed in the radiant gold of a sunrise unfettered by cloud or haze.
The Big Five will also come flying through here soon, thought Max. And then half the planet—so closely watched—will finally become watchers themselves.
The helicopter descended onto a massive platform swirling with white dust—snow finer than any Max had ever seen—and, after sprinting single-file out of the helicopter through the miniature maelstrom, they soon found themselves in the sudden calm of a glassed-in observation room redolent with espresso and warm pastries.
Small satiny signs everywhere read welcome to the first-ever disconnect. There was a little logpile of custom tee shirts.
Brayden changed into one of the shirts without hesitation, briefly flashing the pale swath of his skinny torso for a moment. He put on a Black Halo mask, too.
“A-a-a-a-a-a,” said Brayden. A speaker within the mask garbled his voice.
Shane put a mask on, too, as did Akiko and Max and Pilot.
“A-a-a-a-a-a,” said Max.
“Microphone check one twoo-oo-oo,” said Akiko.
“Luke, I am your fa-a-a-ather,” said Pilot.
They went on and on like this until they noticed Cody, still standing in one corner with bemused deference.
“Mister Cody, you are free to relax in your quarters,” said Pilot through his mask.
Cody doffed his hat. “Gentlemen. Lady.” He vanished behind glass.
Pilot slipped the mask up to his forehead and spoke with a normal voice.
“Shall we get ready?” he said.
2.2
Max stood at the apex of that triangular glass balcony, staring down at the snowy world. Behind him loomed the great silent bunker of concrete that was the compound. A cubist communications tower stood to one side and bristled from top to bottom with ancient antennas and dishes, all defunct and rusted black. Max breathed frost and glanced at his cracked phone.
