“It’s not ’til next week,” Morehouse said, getting up. “Alec will fill you in.”

  As I went back to my office, I wasn’t sure whether to celebrate my pending promotion and introduction to the power elite, or weep for my own lost soul. I kept my eyes on my shiny new shoes as they padded across the royal blue carpet, making a rhythmic leather squeak. They sounded like voices, musically scolding me for my sins.

  “Traitor,” my shoes whined. But it was Morehouse who thought of the pump and dump, I defended myself against the Greek chorus on my feet.

  “Yes,” my shoes sang, “but you knew all along what would happen!” I hadn’t really thought the whole thing out, I insisted. “Only because you knew what the outcome would be!” But I was pissed, acting out a bit, driven by my emotions. “It looked like a plot to us! A Machiavellian scheme!” I think of schemes fast, I guess. Faster than I can control them. “You had the chance to stop. You had the chance to stop!” The chorus was gaining momentum.

  “Fuck the Greeks,” I said out loud, the sound of my voice overpowering the squeak of my shoes and sending the chorus into remission. I wasn’t a Greek, anyway. I was a descendant of the Maccabees. They drove the Hellenists out of the holy land. This chorus shit was probably why.

  My switch-track to the Jewish rail provided only a temporary respite. My father’s voice dolefully echoing last year’s Yom Kippur sermon replaced the frantic Greeks. He was wailing on about how, according to Jewish lore, the first thing you get asked by God when you die is how you conducted yourself in your business dealings. That’s okay, I decided. I’m not dying today.

  All the way back then, the Jews realized that business was the easiest place to go astray—even easier than with sex. The system of laws was invented foremost to deal with the dark side of money. Somehow the pursuit of wealth led to self-interest, and self-interest led to corruption. I vowed I would be more upright in the future, even if it was all just a game. I’d let this one shady scheme go through, and play on the up and up from here on out.

  Hell, I was still learning the ropes, and I certainly wasn’t responsible for Carla not being around when it all went down. But once I was promoted from Researcher to Strategist, I’d be benevolent. I’d learn from my experience. I would evolve. Everyone in the Bible made mistakes before they got their act together. What I learned from this little lapse would make me a better boss than Carla was. If nothing else, I’d never put myself in the position to get screwed like I just screwed her. As for the sex, well, I’d just try not to think about it for the time being.

  Waiting for me in the small, shared conference room next to my office, as I had scheduled but only half-expected to find, were Jude, Reuben, and young Benjamin. I called Jude back on Sunday morning, and agreed to let him come in and demo his idea for the “ultimate killer meta-app.” Something he and Reuben were calling TeslaNet and promising would make cable modems and high-speed telephone access obsolete overnight. Jude wanted me to see TeslaNet working on my own laptop, and asked me to bring it to them in Queens and maybe smoke a bowl, or let them come over to my new place and pick it up. I decided to let Benjamin deliver it to them instead. I didn’t want a reunion on their turf, but I wasn’t ready to let them see the luxury in which I would soon be living. Besides, Benjamin was pleading to meet the remaining Jamaican Kings. By allowing my young cousin to visit, I was demonstrating my trust in them.

  Apparently they took Benjamin under their wing, because now the boy was tapping away at the keys on my computer, making final adjustments for the demo.

  “Hey, Jamie,” Reuben said, scratching his neck. Reuben was even taller than I had remembered, which made him look thinner. His acne was gone, but his strawlike hair still covered his forehead in unintentionally spiky bangs. Although Jude had always been the gang’s leader, Reuben really was our Master Hacker. It made him something like a pope to Jude’s king. Jude was in charge, and quite capable of writing a mutating virus or executing a daring break-in, but Reuben always had the final word about technological methodology. He knew facts that the others didn’t, whether it was phone-switching protocols or machine language. And we all trusted him, because he answered to no higher authority other than the elegance of code.

  This made him come off as something of a libertarian, but he claimed he was really more of a benevolent technocrat. He believed that markets, culture, and matter itself would reach maximum efficiency as humans perfected their social and technological programming. When Jude wrote the DeltaWave virus, it was Reuben who minimized the code down to a minuscule 78 k. And while the rest of us were drooling over the havoc we would wreak on Microsoft’s public image, it was Reuben who thought of the virus as a gift to Bill Gates that would allow the software magnate to correct the security flaws in his Internet software. This was Reuben’s main reason for spending so many hours paring the virus down to its essential lines of code. He wanted it to communicate as clearly and succinctly as possible.

  Reuben wasn’t dangerous as long as you could keep track of whom he thought needed to be gifted with an important lesson at any given moment.

  “Reuben!” I pinched his cheek. “I think you’ve grown!”

  “It’s been a long time,” he said quietly. He was right. We hadn’t seen one another since high school.

  Jude put one arm around each of us, and pulled us close. “And then there were three!”

  “Four!” added Benjamin.

  “Three and a half,” I joked, crossing over to him. “So, did you trash my laptop?”

  “Come on, Jamie,” Benjamin protested in all seriousness. “I know what I’m doing, right, Jude?”

  Jude winked at him, knowingly. The boy beamed.

  I put my hands on Benjamin’s shoulders. “I know you do. I know you do.” It was a little strange how quickly Jude had usurped my role. I wasn’t sure which bothered me more, the risk that Benjamin would be corrupted by my former friends, or that I’d lose the boy’s respect in the process.

  “The coffee and stuff is for you guys, you know,” I said, pointing to a small chrome cart near the door, with two severe, cylindrical black plastic urns and an octagonal plate of cookies. Everyone looked over at the cart. “I mean, it’s what they do here when someone from the real world comes to visit.”

  “So that’s what ‘they’ do,” Jude said, putting two cookies in a preposterously designed square teacup and then pouring coffee over them. “Want some coffee, Reuben?”

  “No, thanks,” he answered, examining one of the cup’s corners. “On principle.”

  Alec scurried by, holding a stack of brightly colored folders against his chest. I waved at him through the glass wall, hoping this would suffice as a greeting. Alec took the hint, and continued on his way.

  “Let’s get on with this before we’re interrupted,” I said.

  “Sure thing,” Jude began. “What we’ve got here is a prototype, mind you.”

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “Most of the stuff they fund here never even gets that far.”

  Reuben was still inspecting the china. “Not surprising.”

  “Well,” Jude said. “Let’s see what ‘they’ think of this.”

  He hit a few keystrokes on my laptop, which brought up a simple splash screen: TeslaNet.

  “It’s loading,” Reuben explained. “That will happen faster.”

  “Okay, Benjamin,” Jude ordered the boy. “Launch it on that one, too.”

  Benjamin opened a second laptop at the other end of the table, and started up the same program.

  “Now,” Jude said in the voice of a carnie, “you’d think these computers would need to be networked in order to communicate with one another.”

  “If they were communicating, they would be networked by definition,” I responded in alpha-geek.

  “Yeah. But you’d need them to be connected, right? Through a phone line, network line, infrared, or some kind of network, right?”

  “Sure.”

  “Well watch this.” Jude held a simple piece of wire with an alligator clip on either end. “Remember Tesla’s experiments with static electricity and ground? How he thought he could light up the Eastern Seaboard with a big coil, and that no one would need any electric wires?”

  “Yeah?”

  “TeslaNet uses ground to establish network connections. One end attaches to your laptop.” He clasped one of the clips to a screw in the back of my laptop. “And the other, to ground.” He attached the other end of the wire to the metal plate over a light switch. Benjamin worked simultaneously, attaching his wire on his computer to the metal windowpane.

  “Now watch,” Reuben said. I had forgotten that way he had of standing with his arms clasped over his chest, as if to demonstrate he was so confident in the technology that he wouldn’t be called upon to touch the keyboard.

  The screen changed to a simple Unix 51 prompt.

  “And?” I asked.

  “Go ahead, Benjamin,” Jude said.

  Benjamin typed into his keyboard.

  Magically, words appeared on my laptop:

  Chat request, user 17014. Accept? (y/n)

  I typed Y. The screen changed to a simple chat interface.

  Hello, cousin. How’s it hanging?

  “That’s incredible!” I said. It was. “It goes both ways?”

  “Indeed.” Reuben allowed himself a smile. “It’s using TCP/IP protocol. Just through ground, that’s all.”

  “You mean the computers are connected because they’re basically touching each other through the metal in this room, right? They’re communicating through the grounding wires?”

  “Essentially,” Reuben agreed. “But they’re actually able to communicate through ground itself. Over vast distances.”

  “Right,” Jude said. “You could as easily hook up to a drainpipe, or a stake planted directly into the soil.”

  “Anyone grounded is in the network,” Reuben explained proudly. “As long as they’re using the software. It automatically finds you a unique address when you log on.”

  “Jesus.” I was awed. “But can you use it to get onto the Internet?”

  “That’s the beauty of it, Jamie,” Reuben said. “As long as one node on TeslaNet is connected to the Internet, then the whole network is. The minute any major server like a University, search engine, or access provider installs TeslaNet, we’ll have more than enough bandwidth to support millions of TeslaNet users.”

  “But that’s not the point,” Jude interrupted, almost angrily. “The power here is that with TeslaNet, we don’t need an Internet. It replaces the Internet. There are no centralized servers. Everyone is connected as soon as they touch their computers to the ground. Most of the time that just means plugging into the wall outlet, and most computers are plugged in already. If you’re outside or using batteries, you just put a wire into the ground. Should even be able to work with a cell phone—we’re working on a port. It’ll work with anything. The earth itself is the network. The more people who use it, the stronger the network and vaster the distances we can traverse. And it’s absolutely uncontrollable.”

  I looked at my computer, the green wire connecting it to the light switch, and the flashing message on the screen. I didn’t know what emotion to have. Greed? Joy? Jealousy? Excitement? Fear? This could be a billion-dollar technology. Unless it can’t get patented. In that case, it would just kill a dozen other billion-dollar technologies, like Internet access providers, the phone companies, the satellite industry. That would make it revolutionary. Or catastrophic.

  And did I really want to work with these old friends again? If what they were showing me really did what they said it did, I had no choice. Then again, it might not even work at all. That would be a relief, in some ways. I chose cynicism.

  “So it works across a room,” I said. “What makes you think it could work across an ocean?”

  “It’s all ground,” said Reuben. “The earth is magnetic. It’s charged from its rotation. There’s more potential voltage in there than all the world’s power plants put together.”

  “It’s okay if you don’t believe us,” Jude said.

  “I’m not saying that,” I backed off. “What you’ve accomplished right here is terrific, really.”

  “Let’s go farther, then,” Jude challenged. “How about the lobby?”

  “How ’bout the roof?” I upped him. “And get me on the Internet, too.”

  “You got it,” Jude agreed. “Benjamin, get your laptop online so we can tap through when we connect.”

  “Okay,” he answered in cheerful obedience. Just like I used to when I was a sophomore at Stuy and a disciple of Jude. “Where can I plug in?”

  I didn’t relish the idea of letting these guys tap into the office network with my user ID and password, but it was the only way to make this work without calling in Tech Support and I didn’t want to look like I needed professional help to make a simple IP connection. Or like I didn’t trust my old posse. Besides, I figured they’d figure there was a firewall or something. So I helped Benjamin configure a connection to the M&L system, and the Internet beyond it.

  Then Jude and I headed up in the elevator. We ascended the M&L tower in silence, surrounded by men in gray suits and French blue shirts, just like mine. I had thought my blue shirt would make me stand out as an individualist, but it had just become another uniform. Blue was the new white. By the time we got to the fifty-second floor, we were alone in the wood-paneled car.

  “So you’re really into this now,” Jude said.

  “Not really.” I could feel my ears popping. “It’s just a good way to come back to New York, that’s all. Learn about the industry, make connections, try to contribute something of value to this crazy hi-tech business before it bursts again for good.”

  “And make a few million dollars in the process, too.”

  “It wouldn’t hurt,” I admitted. “But I’m not like these guys. I’m only in it for a year, max. Then I’m starting a game company. For sure.”

  “He who sups with the devil should use a long spoon,” Jude loosely quoted Shakespeare.

  “I’m keeping the whole thing at arm’s length. Don’t worry. I know it’s all just smoke and mirrors.”

  “You’re sure, right?”

  “Yeah, I’m sure.”

  “I mean, you really have the perspective to see it as a game?”

  “Absolutely,” I said, feeling more confident in my stance as I put it into words. “We’re subverting the system from the inside.”

  “Good to hear it, Jamie,” Jude said, putting a hand on my shoulder. “Because I’d feel bad if it were otherwise.”

  “What do you mean?” What did he mean?

  “Nothing, Jamie. Just that I’m glad you aren’t taking any of this too seriously. You had me worried there the other night.”

  “I know I can get carried away,” I said as the doors opened onto the sixty-eighth and final floor. “That’s why it really means a lot to me that you brought this here. To me.” I felt oddly emotional at the thought. It was the first time I’d felt any kinship with my former partner in crime since the sabotage. “I mean, it kinda lets me know you guys don’t think I’m some evil person.”

  “I never thought that, Jamie.” Jude held the door for me. “It’s just easy to get your head turned around in a place like this. You’ve got to remember that. Keep your perspective.”

  I felt an urge to admit all I’d done that morning. How I had undermined Carla, a woman I’d slept with just last week. But I settled for an honest, if extremely condensed, confession:

  “Tell me about it,” was all that came out. We laughed together and headed toward a stairwell leading up to the roof.

  The wind gusted through our hair as we crossed toward a ledge where I could put my computer. My necktie flew up and whipped about behind me, symbolically reminding me of my bondage. Sixty-nine floors below us, Wall Street’s minions went about their business. Tiny, pathetic creatures completely unaware of the technology that stood to change their world forever.

  “How about here?” I motioned with the alligator clip to a large air conditioning unit.

  “That should work,” Jude said. “Go for it.”

  I made the connection while Jude initiated the program.

  Connection established.

  “Damn!” I shouted over the din of rooftop machinery. “I can’t believe you really did this!”

  “Reuben did most of the work,” Jude said modestly.

  “Let me type something,” I said, giving in to the excitement of the moment.

  “Make it something good,” Jude said. “This is historic.”

  I took him at his word and typed:

  Watson, can you here me?

  In a few seconds, the reply appeared.

  This ain’t no telephone, you geek. And learn to spell. It’s *hear*!

  “Show me how it connects to the Internet,” I said, with an enthusiasm for technology I hadn’t felt since high school.

  “You just open the browser,” he said.

  I double-clicked on my Microsoft Explorer icon. I was a little embarrassed that I didn’t have the more egalitarian-seeming Netscape 52 on my machine. But I was even more shamed by the personal start page that filled the screen: a list of the company’s stocks-to-watch.

  “Let me try something with a little more bandwidth,” I said, typing in the URL for a streaming video company.

  The browser connected to the site about as quickly as it would have with a standard modem. Not blazing, but fast enough to make the point.

  “This is amazing, Jude,” I said, before dropping into business mode. “Have you arranged for a patent?”

  “We don’t know about all that business stuff,” said Jude, reminding me of my own claim to Tobias that morning. “That’s why we came to you.”

  “I’m honored, really.” My brain involuntarily schemed ways of stealing the rights to this technology. Even quitting M&L and joining Jude as CEO. I could probably convince them to let me run the company. But I managed to calm myself. “I know I can get M&L to back this.”

  “You can?”

  “Absolutely. They don’t know what the hell they’re doing here. They’ll listen to anything I say.”