Page 10 of Dark Sky

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As they took the exit to the state highway from the airport, Joe’s cell phone chimed with three messages, one after the other. He dug the device out of his breast pocket and checked the alerts on the screen. He was alarmed to have received such a sudden onslaught. Was it some kind of emergency?

The texts were from two of his daughters and his wife.

Lucy, his youngest at twenty years old and a sophomore at the University of Wyoming in Laramie, wrote:

You’re with Steve-2? OMG. I nearly fainted.

The text was studded with emojis of rolled eyes, emojis laughing hysterically accompanied by tears, and Lucy’s own face emoji looking seriously shocked.

April, his twenty-two-year-old who had recently graduated from Northwest Community College in Powell and was purportedly taking a couple of months off to figure out her future, wrote:

How can the most uncool man in the world be hanging out with Steve-2? The world is upside down.

Joe knew April wasn’t referring to Boedecker as the most uncool man in the world.

Marybeth, who must have sent her text from her desk at the Twelve Sleep County Library, where she was the director, wrote:

This is a photo I never expected to see! Good luck and I hope you get your elk. Call when you can.

Xoxoxoxoxoxo,

MB

Joe turned to Joannides. “How can my daughters know what we’re doing all of a sudden?”

Joannides said, “We posted it. Steve-2 will be thrilled to know your kids use the platform.”

“I thought this hunting trip was supposed to be below the radar?”

Joannides grinned. “Nothing Steve-2 does is below the radar. When he posts to ConFab, all of our users get the image. He’s a very high-profile individual. I’m surprised you didn’t know that.”

“I didn’t.”

“Maybe you should talk to your daughters some more.”

Joe sighed. At least Sheridan, his oldest, hadn’t texted him. He wasn’t surprised. Since taking a job with Yarak, Inc.as an apprentice falconer the year before, she was often traveling or in remote locations with bad cell service.

“Is this whole hunting trip going to be posted to social media for all the world to see?” Joe asked.

“What do you think?” Joannides replied.

“Is that wise?”

Joannides paused to consider the question. Finally, he said, “Steve-2 made the call. He thinks it’s important to expose ourusers to aspects of real life they probably don’t know, like the hunting culture. His life is an open book. Sometimes it’s hard to restrain him when he gets enthused about a new topic. He knows there’ll be some serious pushback from users who hate the idea of hunting, but there has been serious pushback before and our users keep growing. ConFab has grown two hundred and fifty percent this year alone. We’re taking on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, and all of the ‘dinosaur platforms,’ as Steve-2 likes to put it.”

Joe nodded. Joannides had answered the wrong question.

“Aren’t there people out there who don’t like him?” Joe asked.

“Sure there are. There are always negative people and haters, especially on social media. But we like to think of them as users who just haven’t been persuaded yet.”

Joe nodded again and drove on. In the past, he’d been accused of appearing naive at times. But it was nothing compared to Steve-2’s crew, he thought.

But then again, as Governor Allen had said, Steve-2 was a billionaire tech mogul. Joe was a Wyoming game warden.

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