Page 59 of Dark Sky

Ten minutes later, after Joannides had made a ConFab post using Steve-2’s satellite phone and personal account, he looked up to see that all three Thomases had dismounted and were surrounding him. Earl observed the man carefully.

“What’d you say?” Earl asked.

“I retrieved a selfie from yesterday that Steve-2 took when we were riding up the mountain. He looks really happy in it. I said, ‘Enjoying the big sky and the mountain air. It’s fun to be off the grid for a while.’”

Earl grunted his approval.

“Now his followers won’t get too concerned if they don’t see another post from him tonight. They’ll figure he doesn’t have cell service. They don’t know about all the gear we brought along to make sure he’d never be off-line.”

Joannides looked expectantly to Earl, then to Kirby and Brad. He obviously wanted someone to validate his actions and forgive him for his slip of the tongue earlier. Earl eyed him with complete contempt.

Earl said, “Show Kirby here how you did that.”

“Did what?” Joannides asked. He was in the process of returning the satellite phone to the saddlebag where he’d retrieved it.

“How you sent that message or whatever you just did.”

Joannides paused.

“I need his password,” Kirby said.

“But why? I’m here. I can handle it.”

“You won’t give me his password?” Kirby asked.

“I... I didn’t say I wouldn’t,” Joannides stammered. “It’s just...” He let his sentence drop away.

“What?” Kirby asked.

“This is how I can be helpful to you all. It’s my contribution. I can’t track men in the snow and I don’t know the geography here. But I do know how to post as Steve-2. I do it all the time on his behalf.”

“You’re real close to him, aren’t you?” Earl asked Joannides.

“Of course I am. That’s how I was able to make all of this happen. That’s how I was able to bring him to you.”

“You’re one hell of a friend,” Earl said. “You’re a snake in the grass.”

Joannides started to defend himself, but thought better of it. Instead, he looked to Kirby to intervene. Joannides seemed to think he had the best rapport with Kirby, Earl thought. Probably because they were about the same age. Kirby knew all about ConFab, and he participated in social media, after all. Brad was oblivious to it, just like Earl had been until all of this.

But Kirby simply glared back at the man. Joannides, Earl thought, seemed to finally realize what a precarious situation he was in. Almost unconsciously, he slipped the phone he’d been holding into his coat pocket.

Earl said, “You were aware of us because we contacted your company. You wouldn’t have known about what happened to my angel any other way.”

Joannides said, “You’re forgetting I’m on your side. We all want to see Steve-2 pay.”

“You know,” Kirby said, “we’re kind of confused. You know why we want Steve-2. We want justice, after all. But why do you want him gone? That’s something we just don’t understand.”

Earl thought Kirby’s tone was just right. Reasonable and soft.

“There are a bunch of things,” Joannides said. “The guy is brilliant, but he’s also a sick fuck without any loyalty to anyone. He’ll screw over his friends and he’s ruthless to his enemies. Hewasn’t always like that, but he’s completely changed. All his success has gone to his head.”

“What did he do to you, anyway?” Kirby asked.

“He personally fucked me out of billions of dollars,” Joannides said. “Billions. See, we developed this app together. Fifty-one/forty-nine. I was the forty-nine percent. But rather than introduce it to the market and take the time that was necessary to build the brand, Steve-2 shopped it around behind my back and found a buyer. It was practically a done deal by the time he even told me about it. I didn’t want to sell, but he was the majority owner and he could outvote me. Then he bought me out for what I thought was a good price. I later learned that it should have been a hundred times as much.”

Joannides looked to Kirby with indignation, and Kirby clucked with sympathy. He didn’t seem as wary of them as he’d been earlier, Earl thought.

“I helped build Aloft,” Joannides continued. “I was there when we had to pool our money to afford a case of ramen noodles to eat in our dorm room so we could spend every minute writing code and dreaming. But when I came back to the company, he pretended all that never happened. He made me his lackey. It’s humiliating. People in tech think I’m washed up—that I’m only there because Steve-2 feels sorry for me. Like I’m his charity case. But I’m no one’s charity case. I know my own truth, and I know he fucked me. I swore I’d get revenge when the right opportunity came around.

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