Waking up on the bed under his tab, wholly adrift. The room was dark.

The tab

was dark. He shifted his hips, a pelvic quiver, and saw the screen alight. Its flare an

instant beacon calling him back to duty, his services required.

Chilbert lifted the surface until he was holding it a few inches from his face while

wondering, in passing, how much sperm he’d killed off by falling asleep with it on his

lap. He wasn’t sure which count was lower, that or his Friends.

Both giving him anxiety.

He tilted the tab a half inch away from himself then back and watched as the

stream refreshed. The heartbeat quickening, surge from the adrenal to the cortex. Jolted

into alertness. Top Updates algorithmically drawn from 1,131 people, most of whom he

knew in name only, having met them some distant day at an event way beyond recall.

Chilbert lay there, held in the stream’s indifferent thrall. His need to pee

competing with everyone’s outcries. An inchoate mix of signals, heraldic of humanity’s

constant need, recurrent diurnal revolution. The best of life he’d missed in the last hour

and a half.

Dale Broad
Hey, I need your help! I’m working hard in MarsVille and really need your help. Please send me a
special delivery and help me build my next colony. In return, you will get your own living pod. Hurry,
my progress depends on you!
●
5 mins ago Like ●
Comment ● Send Special Delivery

Beth Kilgust
Everything in the universe is within you. Ask all from yourself. –Rumi
●
14 mins ago Like ●
Comment

1 person likes this.

●
12 minutes ago Like

Linnea Walentin
I don’t care if it is a Birkin. That brown bag still doesn’t go with your black outfit. Phew... glad I got
that off my chest!
●
23 mins ago Like ●
Comment

5 people like this.

2
 Natalie Kim I’m not so sure Lin: it’s still a Birkin! If I had one I’d
even wear it with my bathing suit!
●
31 minutes ago Like

Linnea Walentin I have no problem with that as long as it MATCHES your

bathing suit ;-)
●
36 minutes ago Like

Deb Jackson-Campbell
First time breathing in 3+ hrs. 7-6 Diamondbacks. Hester shut em down
●
41 mins ago Like ●
Comment

3 others like this.

Laura Nelson Almost gave me a heart attack!
●
38 minutes ago Like

Samuel Gagné
(AFP) Deadly Violence Erupts in Ivory Coast: At least three people were shot dead after
gunfire broke out in the country’s capital. Witnesses say violence in the crisis-stricken
city of Abidjan is the result of post-election tensions, when supporters of the man who
claims to have won...
●
about an hour ago Like ●
Comment ●
Share

Andrew Hobbs Quite sad to see what’s been happening since we were last there. Have you
heard from Cam yet?
●
7 minutes ago Like

Tulsi Kadam
At Coco de Ville (755 N La Cienaga Blvd, Central LA) with Rex Kravets and Jaren Gonzalez
●
about an hour ago via HTC Like ●
Comment

Kyle Morgan Stolz f uuuuuuuuuu. super jealous!

●
25 minutes ago Like

He had to pee.

Back maybe a minute later. No 3 minutes, according to the stream, which

displayed a fresh wave of updates. Only now upon his return noticing that the tab had

been playing music the whole time. Now it was a song he didn’t recognize from a person

called Bashir Siddiqi’s station, radionowhere. Whatever it was sounded like Daft Punk

put through a de-electronifying filter, out the other side of whatever worm hole they’d

originally come. Chilbert was moved, though he wouldn’t have been able to say why or

how, by its aleatory blend. He Liked it.

Lying back down he lifted the screen overhead once again, its light contracting his

pupils. This time he flipped over to the list he so obsessively followed these days, the

3
1,131 unchanged since last check. Chilbert began the systematic process of paging

through his Friends’ Friends, sending out blind requests, selective attention turned on for

any familiar faces, names.

Still the number sat there, mute, taunting him.

He waved his finger over it and watched the underline appear. As though coaxed

by a conjurer. Chilbert as post-millennial P.T. Barnum, standing in front of his lonely

tent, trying to seduce passersby into stopping. Tonight there were no takers. Almost as if

they knew, could sense with animal acuity, that the cat with nine tails behind the curtains

was a hoax.

He sighed.

At this rate he couldn’t hope to achieve more than another hundred, maybe—if he

went flat out—another 200 by the end of the week, and that was assuming people actually

accepted him. No, this wouldn’t be fast enough. He needed to go into overdrive,

somehow find a way to grow at logarithmic scale. He needed more Friends, now.

Chilbert flipped back to the stream.

You have a message from Rohit Goel.

Opening it immediately.

Mr. Chilbert I hope you don’t mind me cold-chatting you.

Unbidden. He decided to go live, stepping out from behind the invisibility cloak,

encouraging the chat to continue. He waited for the next comment.

4
 I’m a student at Cornell, class of ’18, comp engineering. I read about your
new company in the alumni news.

So it had been worth sending in his first update ever, an act that had seemed at the

time exceedingly, almost absurdly deliberate. Required him to send an actual email. In

fact Chilbert was still waiting for his copy of the magazine to arrive, but the forwarding

could add at least another week. He was surprised to notice that it mattered to him to see

his words in it, carbon on calendered substrate. As if that would make IdentifID real.

Fine, he’d hang around for a few minutes—no more than five, he told himself—to

see if anything worthwhile came of the chat. The kid’s last comment still hanging there.

Chilbert decided to break the silence, step into the void.

Well hello Rohit. Glad to hear you came across my note.

He waited again, let the words pulse, pushing it back to the kid. See what he’d do.

The response almost instantaneous.

What you’re doing sounds really cool, I’d love to hear more.

I don’t normally read the magazine but I was waiting at the career services
office and I picked it up.

I was hooked by what you wrote! “Reimagining your life online.” That
totally got me. IdentifID sounds like it’s going to be huge!

Not bad. Showing his elder some respect. Still, Chilbert wasn’t about to put him

at ease quite yet. Better to continue with formality, keep the power asymmetrical.

So then, Rohit Goel, what is it you want?

5
 After tapping out this last he screened away to his Friends, looking to see if any

new acceptances had come in. As if in the four minutes since he’d last checked a crowd

would have amassed in front of the tent, begging Chilbert to open its flaps, clamoring to

see the Boy of Bengal.

Nothing.

Okay so apparently the chat with this Rohit character was the most interesting

thing he had going at the moment.

He paged back over to the stream where he saw that it hadn’t advanced since he’d

been gone. This making him completely, incoherently rageful. That this nobody should

message him on his screen and take up his time, the time he had to spend taking IdentifID

to the goal. Registering heat at his throat and ears and, still worse, a gathering mass of

humiliation. Chilbert resisted the impulse, close and fierce, to fuck this. Then just as he

moved to kill the chat.

I was wondering, Mr. Chilbert, whether you might need an intern.

The request hovering, hopeful.

Interesting. Chilbert hadn’t seen that coming. But then prognostication wasn’t

among his better talents. Blood still beating hard at his temples.

He considered. An intern could be a real pain in the ass. Requiring one to come up

with things for them to do, which then became another job in itself; and the self-

motivated ones were almost worse, excitedly producing documents—I came up with

some innovative ideas for how to make the project better!—that in turn forced one to

6
feign actual interest.

Still, he weighed the kid’s potential utility. He had to give this Rohit credit for

initiative. Approaching Chilbert without a reference took balls. Quoting his own

company slogan back to him, that had been a nice touch. And, Chilbert glanced to the

tab’s top corner, 2:36 a.m. and he was out hunting too. Indicative of the right kind of

attitude. Hungry.

What if this kid had too much appetite though? The limbic kicking in, now.

IdentifID was his. There would be no shared equity, no options, no IPO. The thing wasn’t

even intended to get to launch. He didn’t need anyone interfering with the plan.

Finally fatigue won out, tipping his mental balance sheet over into the positive.

Fine. He would extend a bite but manage the kid closely.

Chilbert waited to respond, though, first screening away to check his Friends

count and watch a video. Came back at 2:41. Rohit was still there. All right, he’d at least

passed this test. Chilbert tapped a reply.

Can you come to Boston this week?

An immediate response.

Absolutely, Mr. Chilbert. I’m there. Where/what time do you want me?

Already better. The kid was learning.

There’s a conference on Thursday and Friday. FutureFounders. I’ll be

networking for IdentifID. I trust you can get the details and find me first
thing in the morning Thursday.

7
 YES!!! totally! o thk u so much, mr. chilbert. this is awesome!

The kid lapsing, in his excitement, into the universal digital demotic. Although

Chilbert had to admit it was kind of cute.

i’m really, really pumped. i can’t thank you enough for the opportunity!

Recovering a little,

I know I can contribute to IdentifID. I’m going to work really hard. You won’t
regret this.

All right, enough coddling for the night. Chilbert needed to get back on task. One

last word, then.

See you there. Ping me in the meantime if you have any questions.

On second thought, don’t. See you in Boston.

Killing the chat. Focus. Staring intently at the screen he noted, with satisfaction,

the newest count. 1,132.

Started up again.