The Start-Up (4 page)

“Can I get you—?”

“No. No. No,” Patty mumbled, staring up at the ceiling. “I don’t need anything. I’m just in … I’m in so much trouble, Amelia. I really, really did a really not-good thing. Like, a really not-good thing.”

“What happened? What’s the matter?”

“I hooked up with … ” Patty took a deep breath and sighed. “I hooked up with … Chad.”

“Who’s Chad?” Amelia asked.

“I mean, I didn’t really hook up with him. We, like, well, we made out a lot and did … other stuff. A
lot
of other stuff. But we didn’t have sex.” Having never kissed anyone, Amelia knew Patty had more experience with boys than she did, but she didn’t know what sorts of things were defined as “hooking up.” Patty’s confession to her was a little startling and very embarrassing.

“Oh, Amelia. He is sooo hot and it was sooo good making out with him and he is soooo … ”

“What?”

“He’s soooo Shandi’s fiancé.”

“Who’s Shandi?”

“Shandi?” Patty sat up and stared at Amelia. “My sis-ter!” she shouted, and then fell back on to the pillow with a groan.

“Oh, wow,” Amelia said under her breath, but Patty picked up on it.

“I know! Annnnd Shandi’s coming home next week and we’re having a big family dinner to welcome her home and I just hooked up with her
fiancé
. Oh, Amelia. This is not good.” Amelia took a deep breath and switched into solution mode. “Well, let’s think about this rationally.”

Patty giggled. “Yes, let’s do. Let’s think about this ra-tion-al-ly.”

“Where did it happen?”

“At T. J. Bristol’s party. Oh! Your brother was there, by the way. I think he has a crush on my friend Lisa.”

“What? Adam was … Okay, that’s not the point. Did anyone see you with Chad?”

“No. Absolutely not.”

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Where did it happen?”

“It’s all a little fuzzy, Amelia. I mean, we had tequila shots and then there was some announcement and everyone was cheering and I went to the bathroom and Chad was there. Where did he come from? I’m not sure how he got there, but he was there when I came out and then we were outside and then we were in a car. Wait … How did we get in a car?

Ohhhh … ”

Patty groaned again. “I need to go to sleep.” She rolled over and shut her eyes right as her phone rang, indicating a text message. “Will you get that?” she mumbled to Amelia before drifting off into a heavy snoring slumber.

Amelia picked up Patty’s pink bejeweled iPhone and tapped the text message that had just come through.

“
FYI
. More where this came from. You are such a naughty girl.” The message was from T. J. Bristol and came with a video attachment.

Amelia looked at Patty, who was dead asleep, then back at the phone before tapping to open the attachment. A twenty-second video clip played, showing a guy and a girl—oh my God, it was Patty—on top of each other, aggressively making out, in the front seat of a Lamborghini. The guy in the video pulled off Patty’s shirt and the clip cut out.

Amelia felt her jaw drop as she looked at her sleeping roommate. Not good, indeed. She tucked the phone next to the pillow and gently removed Patty’s shoes, bracelets, and earrings and pulled a blanket over her. She brought the trashcan next to the bed in case Patty woke and threw up, and filled a glass of water to place on the dresser. Then she turned out the light and crawled into Patty’s bed, exhausted.

T
he bright California sun streamed through the window and woke Amelia early. She got out of bed to head to the hall bathroom, and, when she opened the door, found Adam passed out in the hallway. He was cradling something in his arms, like a teddy bear. It was a Tupperware container full of the dessert he promised Amelia.

She didn’t know whether to laugh or scold him as she shook him awake.

“Wha … ?” he said as he blinked open his eyes. “Ohhhh … ” He moaned and put his head back down on the floor. “Do you want some cake?”

“Adam, what on earth? Did you sleep here all night?” Amelia couldn’t conceal a smile at her brother’s rough-and-tumble state. His dirty-blond hair was shaggy across his forehead, his dark green eyes puffy and a little bloodshot.

“Umm … ” Adam looked at her but didn’t make any attempt to lift his head from the floor. “I must have. Oh, wow. I do
not
feel well.”

“Come on, let’s get you out of the hallway.” Amelia giggled as she helped him into her room. “Quiet, though. Patty’s sleeping.” Adam took a deep breath, shook his head and blinked his eyes, and snapped back to life, crawling up from the floor and into Amelia’s room.

“Man, have I got a lot to tell you. I’ve had a total breakthrough, Amelia.”

“Me too! You won’t believe what I did at the computer lab last night.”

“Why is Patty sleeping in your bed?” he whispered, noticing that Patty was still clad in the dress she’d been wearing the night before.

“Long story,” Amelia said as she walked over to her computer. “Come here; let me show you —”

“What time did she get home?” Adam was still stuck on Patty. “Amelia, you would not believe this party. I have never seen so much booze. And all the kids were drinking with their parents like it was totally natural.

But here’s the thing, Amelia, these millionaires— no, billionaires—they’re smart, they’re super smart. But you know what? They’re no smarter than you. And I realized last night, Amelia, that you could program something and we could get a venture capitalist to invest. We could be one of them, Amelia. We could start a tech or Internet or computer or whatever company and be freakin’ millionaires.”

Amelia looked up from her computer. “What are you talking about?

Why on earth would we start a company?”

“To make money, Amelia! And get out of the shit life we’ve been living.

Why should we be on scholarships, riding our bikes around because we can’t afford a car, when you’ve got all the brains— probably more brains—

than any of these guys that are making billions off of deals like Gibly?”

“What’s Gibly?”

“It’s the software behind mobile payments, like for the iPhone. Gibly makes buying stuff with your phone easy; that’s why they do the voice-to-text software, so you can just speak and buy. Last night, Gibly was sold to some company in England for like 3.8
billion
dollars and all these guys at this party made crazy money off of it.”

“That doesn’t sound so complicated. Why did someone pay so much for it?” Amelia went back to her computer and started typing something.

“Exactly! It’s not that complicated.” Adam’s hangover was replaced by excitement as he leaned against his sister’s desk. “It’s not that complicated
for someone like you
. You could do something like that in your sleep, and we could build it into a company and make a killing and never have to worry about anything again.”

“Adam.” Amelia stopped typing and took a long look at her brother.

“Money causes problems. The pursuit of money causes problems, and I don’t like the way you’re thinking.”

“But … ”

“I don’t want to hear it,” she snapped. Adam looked at his sister, stunned. “We haven’t had the best luck, Adam. The way you’re speaking, the way you sound … You sound like … ” She trailed off. “This type of thinking has gotten us into trouble before.” Amelia turned back to her computer and lowered her voice so as not to wake Patty. “In our new life, I program because it’s the one thing in the world I absolutely love doing. It’s interesting and inspiring and occasionally creates something that makes the world an easier place to live in. Money ruins everything. It will ruin our lives.”

“Don’t be selfish.”

“I’m sorry?”

“You’re being selfish, Amelia. You have talents that you can share with the world. Sitting in a lab by yourself, creating programs that could help people but don’t because you’re too stuck on not exposing them, is selfish.”

“I didn’t say—”

“And not using your talents to help us get out of where we are—I mean, I would do it for you, Amelia. In a second. If I had your talent, and I knew it could help us, I wouldn’t hesitate.”

“I did try to use my talents to help us once, Adam, and it didn’t exactly turn out well,” Amelia snapped back.

“That was totally different.
This
is totally different. This is setting up a legitimate company that legitimately helps people and makes money—

lots of money— in a totally legitimate way.” Amelia had tuned her brother out and was busy looking at her computer. “That company was called Gibly, right?”

“From the party? Yeah, Gibly.”

Amelia was typing furiously, her brow furrowed in confusion.

“What is it?” Adam asked. “What’s wrong?”

“This is a little sketchy.” Amelia said to her computer screen, then typed some more.

Adam was staring at his sister, his face a mixture of nervousness and excitement. “What do you mean by ‘sketchy’?”

“Adam, if this is right— I mean, if I’m in the right place … yes, I’m definitely in the right place. Adam, Gibly’s tracking their users’ information in a major way.”

“What do you mean? What does that matter?”

“I mean, they’ve put tags on all their users, and there are, like one hundred million of them. And they’re not only tracking all the websites they go to, they’re using
GPS
to track users’ locations at every moment.

Come look at this.”

Adam walked over to Amelia’s side of the computer screen, where she’d pulled up a database with lines of information.

“How’d you do that?” Adam asked.

“I went into their platform.”

“You mean you hacked in?”

“I’m just peeking in. Here, let’s find you. Read the number off the back of your phone.”

Adam flipped over his phone. “A6829.”

Amelia did a quick search, but then shook her head, “Either I entered the number incorrectly or you were at a place called Hanky Panky in Redwood City at two a.m.”

Adam’s face turned beet red as Amelia looked up at him, “I … I,” he started.

Amelia giggled. “Oh my God! You were at a strip club?!”

“I went with T. J.! It was his graduation party and he was helping me think through all this. Whatever. The point is, that’s totally right and totally weird. Why would anyone want to know where I was all the time?”

“How did you put it a moment ago? To make money? Adam, can you imagine how powerful you’d be if you had tabs on where one hundred million people were at any given moment? If you had that information, you could sell for, like, $3.8 billion or so.”

“But who would want that? I mean, who would care where I was at any given moment?”

“Beats me. What company did you say acquired it?”

“An English company. Lords or L … Lloyd’s? Yeah, Lloyd’s. That was it.” Amelia went back to typing. “Lloyd’s is just a holding company. It looks like they own a grocery store chain and an auto manufacturer and a few other random companies in the UK and Europe. Why would they buy a technology company?”

Adam waited while his sister continued to search for the answer.

“Here’s a Wall Street analyst report that says they’re trying to diversify.

That everyone’s getting into technology now. I guess that’s true. But why would you spend $3.8
billion
to get into a new industry?” She typed some more. Adam could see the excitement on his sister’s face, and he loved it.

“Whoa!”

“What?” Adam couldn’t stand it. “What is it?”

“Lloyd’s! Lloyd’s has been collecting ten-million-dollar payments from someone called
VIPER
every week for the past … year.”

“No way. How did you find that out?”

“I hacked—I peeked into their company accounts,” Amelia said nonchalantly.

Adam looked at her, jaw dropped. “You’re ridiculous. You know that, right?”

Amelia rolled her eyes. “Just look at this.” She pointed to the accounts.

“Ten million every week for a year— that’s like half a billion dollars. Who do you think
VIPER
is?”

Adam looked at his sister. “I’m guessing it’s someone interested in knowing the whereabouts of about one hundred million people.” Adam and Amelia exchanged a meaningful glance, recognizing the danger of what they’d just discovered.

“Okay, let’s not get too excited. I’m sure there’s a good reason,” Amelia said. “Yeah,” Adam said, “they just announced the sale. I bet all of this will come out in the papers soon enough, right?”

“Yeah, totally,” Amelia said, glancing nervously back at her computer.

“Come on.” Adam patted her on the back. “Let’s go get some food. I need something greasy to get me through this hangover.”

“Okay.” Amelia snapped back into focus. “I’m dying for a dining hall waffle.”

The twins grabbed their stuff and carefully closed the door so as not to wake Patty, who hadn’t moved throughout their whole conversation.

When she heard the door click shut and knew they were gone, Patty rolled over and picked up her phone. She tapped to open a note to herself:

“Gibly storing information / TJ and Adam at Hanky Panky /
VIPER

monthly payments to Lloyd’s.” She wasn’t sure how, but she had a feeling information like that could come in handy at some point.

“W
hat time is it?” the girl in T. J.’s bed asked groggily as she stretched her arms above her head in a yawn.

“Eleven-fifteen.” T. J. stood at the full-length mirror next to the door of his fraternity room, the collar on his crisply ironed white shirt popped as he straightened an Hermes tie around his neck. He’d been up since eight o’clock studying the latest trends in Internet investing. He’d read that day’s
Wall Street Journal
, TechCrunch, and Yahoo finance, and searched thirty Silicon Valley companies he’d been following on Lexis Nexis to make sure he was up to speed on any headlines that involved them. He’d showered, shaved, gelled his hair, and put on his favorite navy suit, one he’d had custom-made last summer during an investment banking internship in Hong Kong. It looked great, he thought, but the navy made it more casual, like he wasn’t trying too hard.