Shireen and Carlo would love to introduce you to some of the developers who want to be involved, she’d said in her message.

  When Delaney entered the room, eleven people stood up and looked at her with tilted heads and sad eyes. There seemed to be some implication that Delaney was close to Bailey, or was particularly devoted to him.

  “You holding up okay?” a voice said. Delaney turned to find Shireen standing more or less on top of her. Delaney caught sight of Carlo, who had his hands clasped in front of his stomach.

  “Tough week for us all,” he said.

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” Delaney said, and scanned the eyes in the room in a flailing effort to see who among them knew Bailey well. To the last person they seemed to be suffering. A few had the haggard looks of mourners who had been up late talking. One woman was nodding to herself, seeming to be engaged in an internal conversation of affirmation and resolve.

  “Sit, sit,” Carlo said, indicating an empty chair with a tablet set on the table before it. “We’re using Sozeb, which I guess is obvious.”

  Delaney looked down to find a diagram of the table, with thumbnail cartoon versions of each person at the meeting, each positioned as they were in real life. This was a kind of meeting software that she thought had become passé or obsolete. But the Every was like this, she knew—at once avant-garde and hopelessly square—devoted above all to using its own products and acquisitions far beyond their expiration date.

  As Delaney was introduced to each of the nine new people, their thumbnail would glow for a moment on the tablet, with their title—Blue-Sky Developer (BSD), Experience Engineer (EE), Design Devotee (DD)—appearing below their animated avatars. As Carlo and Shireen spoke, their words were transcribed on the tablet with differentiated attributions. The few words Delaney had said since she’d sat down—“So happy to be here”—had appeared perfectly on the transcription immediately after they’d left her mouth. Because this meeting involved IP there could be no doubt about who said what.

  Delaney looked at the attendees, searching for the attorney, but was struck by the intense look she was getting from a woman about her age, whose avatar was a fierce Scottish warrior but whose name was the comparatively peace-loving Heather. Heather had fixed her with as close to a death-stare as might be acceptable at the Every, which meant she was smiling brightly while something about her corneas was vibrating with suspicion and limitless rage.

  “Heather was actually working on something a bit similar to your GenuPal—” Shireen said, and then laughed. “Wait. Did we decide on AuthentiFriend or GenuPal?”

  Carlo smiled stiffly. “I still think AuthentiFriend has the kind of authority and action-orientation that implies it’s based on science,” he said, and then glanced at Shireen, who quickly looked away. “GenuPal has an unfortunate echo of MySpace, no?” he added.

  Delaney took Heather to be a junior staffer who did not seem to carry great weight in the room. The person who did, and who took over the meeting after Carlo and Shireen’s introductions and their brief summation of their interview-cum-pitch session with Delaney, was named Holstein.

  On Delaney’s tablet, Holstein was the only attendee who went by one name, and whose avatar was simply her actual picture, a no-nonsense photo presenting her exactly as she was in real life. She appeared to be at least fifty, with gorgeous white hair that swept around her head like a hurricane seen from space. Behind blue-framed glasses her eyes seemed to be black, her eyebrows painted on with severity. And as striking as her face was—every part of her head demanded fixation and fealty—the most mesmerizing part of her were her arms. Exposed from fingertips to shoulder and unsullied by jewelry, they appeared to be sculpted from bronze. Their musculature was just short of obscene, their coloring a good four shades darker than her face, as if she’d been using them, for decades, to shield her face from the sun, or in the construction of ships.

  “I like AuthentiFriend,” Holstein said, and with this resolution, Carlo and Shireen both seemed to collapse with relief. Someone had made a decision.

  Holstein looked at Delaney and Delaney tried not to blink.

  “Delaney,” Holstein said, in a steady, flutish voice, “I first want to say how impressed I was that you presented this idea during your third interview. That shows great courage and self-belief and it makes me confident that this is not the first or last idea you have had or will have.” Delaney opened her mouth to say thank you and no, it isn’t, but Holstein continued, and Delaney knew instantly that they were on the clock, and Holstein and her magnificent arms would leave the room within minutes. “We’d like to develop your app. Would you want to be part of the core group?”

  “I think—” Delaney started.

  “It’s not mandated,” Holstein added. And Delaney understood. She was not being invited to this stage of the development.

  “Because I just started here,” Delaney said, “and I’m a roamer, still exploring and learning as much as I can, I think I’d prefer that you take it and run with it.” She directed the last few words to the infuriated staffer whose name she glanced down to find again. Heather. “Especially if Heather’s got a head start and would like to incorporate anything of AuthentiFriend into her project.” And with that, whatever volcanic antipathy was sputtering inside Heather cooled.

  “Well said,” Holstein replied. “Anything else?”

  She looked around and put her palms on the table. Now engaged in the realization of purpose, her arms seemed to double in potency and magnificence. As if emboldened by the arms, Delaney had a thought. It was not yet fully formed, but she could hear it whistling toward her, like a happy train.

  “One thing,” Delaney said, buying time. And then it arrived. She would see how far this idea could be taken. How far they’d allow it. She saw no risk in the gambit, and the reward might be great—to see if there existed any ethical line the Every would not cross.

  “Well, especially given the loss of Bailey, and the risk of deep trauma and depression on campus,” Delaney said, “I think we need to consider the initial application of AuthentiFriend as really just a stepping off point for the tech.”

  Holstein’s eyes were fixed on Delaney. Rattled, Delaney turned away. She considered simply shutting up, but the words had already arrived, and she needed to see what effect they’d have on the room.

  “You all are probably working on this already, but I was thinking how crucial this tech would be for detecting depression. As you know, it goes undiagnosed over twenty-two million times a year,” Delaney said, pulling the number from the air and finding only agreement among her audience. “That’s in North America alone,” she added, in a last-second addition that made her stat seem at once more inflated and more credible. “And this rate is highest among young people. I believe that AuthentiFriend could be made to look for symptoms of depression, and could assess them immediately and objectively. No months-long delays in getting help. The tech is already built into the app. Right now it’s there to detect, for example, truthfulness in voice and facial expression, but it could be programmed to look for tonalities and speech patterns that hallmark depression.”

  The assembled Everyones were nodding, shaking their heads, trying to look both solemn and outraged by the very fact of depression and its being overlooked, while still encouraging Delaney.

  “And think of kids in rural communities without mental-health professionals,” said a balding man with spectacular sideburns. Delaney’s screen informed her that his name was Louis.

  “Or in countries where mental illness is stigmatized,” said another man, this one with a long blond beard and named Jens.

  “Right, right,” Delaney said, and plunged forward with the coup de grace. “And it’s really important to note that the app needs time to properly assess the user. It could give a quick judgment, and that could alert the user whether there’s any sign of trouble. But to do the work thoroughly, a wider data set would be needed. My estimate is that the user would need to spend six to seven hours a day on the phone, for at least three to six months—that would be the minimum to really get it right. The user could do anything on the phone, of course, use any social media or games or apps. All the while the tech would be collecting visual and oral cues. By reading facial indications, recording speech patterns, key words and phrases—and by analyzing the users’ searches and exactly what the users read and watch, and for how long—we could absolutely predict the signs of depression and even, I would expect, see early signs of suicidal ideation.”

  “Didn’t I tell you?” Shireen said, tapping both temples with her index fingers. “This lady’s incredible. Think about how many Overlook admissions we could avoid.”

  Carlo shot her an outraged look, and Shireen took in a quick, sharp breath. “I mean …” She was trying to read Carlo’s eyes, as if to limn what he wanted her to say. “I just—”

  He turned to Delaney. “This is groundbreaking. Vital.”

  Delaney smiled in a way she thought both humble and solemn, then turned her hand into a determined fist. “But for it to be most effective, we need to have access.”

  “Access is so key,” Shireen whispered, her eyes suddenly wet.

  “We need data, as much of it as we can get,” Delaney said. “So if we’re going to really address depression among young people, we absolutely must keep them on their phones as much as humanly possible.”

  XV.

  “I HAVE IT,” Delaney said.

  “You have it,” Wes said. “I’m glad. What do you have?”

  “I know how to kill this thing,” she said.

  They were in the Shed, cutting cucumbers, pretending that they could cook and would cook. The cucumbers were to be the beginning of a salad. Pad thai was to follow, but would not follow. They would give up and order out.

  “Of course you do,” Wes said. “And it’s about time. How?”

  “We push it too far,” Delaney said. “We push it over the cliff. We feed bad ideas into the system. Like AuthentiFriend. I gave this well-armed person named Holstein such terrible ideas today, and I wasn’t even sure why. Now I know. It’s the only way.”

  “We make it all worse,” Wes said.

  “Yes! We inject the place with poisonous ideas, the Every adopts them, promotes them, and pushes them into the collective bloodstream of the world’s people.”

  “And they overdose,” Wes said.

  “I was thinking get sick, but sure, okay, overdose.”

  “And they finally say Enough,” Wes said, and held his knife high like a sword. He looked out to the back window, his other hand shielding his eyes, though it was night.

  “Right,” Delaney said. “We make everything more diabolical and ridiculous. And finally someone will say, ‘At long last, have you no shame?’ Or whatever they said to Joseph McCarthy.”

  “Have you no shame, sir,” Wes corrected.

  “Right! I like the sir.”

  “But with Mae, it’d be, ‘At long last, have you no shame, miss?’”

  “Maybe ma’am?”

  Hurricane was on the kitchen floor, awaiting fallen scraps.

  “How about Ms. Holland?” Wes said. “It’s somehow respectful and condescending at the same time.”

  “‘At long last, have you no shame, Ms. Holland?’”

  “That’s good,” Wes said. “And you’ll be the one to say it?”

  “No, no. The world at large,” Delaney said. “The people!”

  “Oh right. The people! Which people?”

  “All the people!” Delaney said, her voice rising. “The citizenry!”

  “Ah, the citizenry,” Wes said. “I like them. They always do the right thing.” His voice sounded both hopeful and doubting.

  “Humanity will finally turn away from the endless violations of decency, privacy, monopoly, the consolidation of wealth and power and control,” Delaney said.

  Wes examined Delaney’s face. “You’re serious. Oh, okay. That’s good. And you’re starting with AuthentiFriend?”

  “It’s terrible but it’s silly,” she said. “That one alone—if they roll it out on a large scale, people will be outraged. They’ll leave in droves. They’ll smash their screens, run to the hills. There’ll be a global pause, a reckoning, a re-calibration.”

  “That sounds good,” Wes said. “Re-calibration. Got it. It might even provoke regulation. Are we for regulation?”

  “Of course we are,” Delaney said. “We’ll push it so far they’ll be forced to step in. The FCC. The EU. The UN.”

  “The WWF. The WNBA.”

  “Stop.”

  “FIFA. ZZ Top. Can you imagine the combined power of the FIFA and ZZ Top? Those guys would raise a ruckus.”

  “I’m serious,” Delaney said.

  “No, I know,” Wes said. “I’m serious, too. I think it could work. You’re supposed to rotate through a bunch of departments. So whenever you go at the Every, you seed that division with bad ideas.” He crouched down to stroke Hurricane’s snout. “Look what they did to this animal.” Hurricane whimpered weakly, his paws reaching out, galloping vainly in mid-air. “He used to be a paragon. They took away everything wild and good about this animal.”

  XVI.

  “IMPRESSIVE PRESENTATION,” A MAN SAID TO DELANEY. She was on campus, surrounded by men, and was doing her best to keep her eyes from wandering below the belt. “I’m Fuad,” this man said, and did the same tip-of-the-top-hat gesture that Delaney had hoped would be limited to Dan Faraday. If this proliferated she wouldn’t survive.

  “Thank you,” Delaney said, and looked for wine. They were at an eatery, at what she’d been told was a celebration, but there was no wine, no hint of wine.

  Delaney’s presentation had been recorded and replayed hourly since she’d made it two days ago, and now she was at a new eatery on the edge of campus, four stories up, with a commanding view of the steel-gray Bay. Technically this was a mandated gathering called Mix-a-Lot, wherein Everyones from far-flung departments were sent to cross-pollinate, but it had been repurposed to celebrate Authenti-Friend and the AuthentiFriend team.

  Delaney was desperate to dull her mind, certain that her ploy was obvious to all. She cursed herself; she’d gone too far. What she’d said to Holstein et al. was so gaspingly stupid that every person in that room, and now this mixer, would know. With every rerun of the show, it was more likely they’d see through her nonsense. They might be devout but they were not dumb.

  “Very impressive,” Fuad repeated, “but I believe it can go much further.”

  Delaney coughed into her hand. If the subterfuge didn’t kill her, these sincere and deranged people would. She needed wine. Where was the wine? She looked around her like a mother who’d lost a child in a mall.

  “What can I get you?” Fuad asked.

  “Oh, just—” she said, still flinging her eyes about.

  On three long tables, food had been laid out on enormous platters, and Everyones were standing around, talking and eating food with their hands. There was no packaging, no utensils, no glasses or plates. And there was no wine.

  Fuad said he was in youth outreach. He nodded with his hands occupied—his left held sashimi and his right encircled a sparkling, jiggling globe. It was the size of a golf ball, with the liquid inside held so by the thinnest membrane.

  “I asked to be added to the AuthentiFriend team,” he said. “I hope you don’t mind.” He popped the globe into his mouth and, with the slightest pressure from his jaw, it burst, and he swallowed it. He managed to make the action seem effortless.

  “Not at all,” Delaney said.

  He was the first Everyone she’d met thus far who could reasonably be called suave. Though he wore an unmarked red T-shirt and black pants—not leggings—his affect was that of a man in an ascot, holding a cane and drinking brandy from a snifter.

  “I’ll try to be of service,” he said, and with his palm on his sternum, bowed slightly with eyes closed.

  Fuad put another jiggling globe into his mouth. When Delaney had entered the eatery, she’d thought they were water balloons for after-mixer merriment. His jaws clenched briefly, causing a distant shush to sound from his throat. A purple droplet emerged from the left corner of his lips.

  “Have you had one of these?” he asked, and reached toward a pyramid of similar orbs. He took another, this one pink.

  She picked up a yellow one. “Probably lemonade,” he said. She put it in her mouth, which it filled, gelatinously, still full and round. She tried not to make a disapproving face, tried not to gag.

  “Now push down and it’ll pop,” he said.

  She applied pressure and nothing happened.

  “A bit more maybe?” Fuad said, smiling sympathetically.

  She pushed her tongue against it and it broke. The juice, liberated, shot into the backs of her teeth, her throat, the roof of her mouth. She choked, spit, coughed. A rivulet spilled from her mouth and onto her shirt.

  “They take some getting used to,” he said.

  She hacked and gasped.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “I’m fine,” she said. She looked for a glass of water but realized her mistake. She recovered and eyed the pyramid of tiny balloons as she would an ancient enemy. Finally she stood up straight again, and smiled. “That was wonderful,” she said.

  “The idea,” Fuad explained, “is changing habits. You know the campus doesn’t accept any single-use products or packaging.”

  Delaney rolled her eyes. “Of course.”

  “Well, Tamara Gupta took it further. You know her?”

  Delaney had actually read about Gupta. She was a water usage expert, and had taken a strong stand first against the use of potable water to wash dishes, then against dishes altogether.

  “I thought her book was provocative,” Fuad said. “Mae brought her in to do an assessment, and she calculated that just here on the main campus, we were using about half a million liters of water a year just to wash our plates and glasses. That shocked me. Shocked everyone. So we’re seeing how well we get by without plates and cutlery.”