“To? I’m guessing Palo Alto?”

“Palo Alto does not have a commercial airport. Delta 269 nonstop to SFO. San Francisco. 10:18 PDT, arrival.”

“Oskar Kilo.”

“Excuse?”

“That just means OK.”

“Please, one precaution we ask: take your phone or pda and remove its battery, leave both the battery and chassis at home. You will not require it.”

She didn’t have to ask twice—she didn’t.

Goodbye (646).

://

The shift to Palo Alto was—I’m already regretting this—tectonic.

Not because there was this apparently extremely minor earthquake or tremor just as my flight was being cleared for landing and we were delayed, an hour, hovering, two hours—the last time I fly commercial—nor because all my typical eastern negativity toward the West always threatens to break and chunk and pile up into violent incoherence.

Rather I’m talking a totally personal, emotional rupture. Coming to the other coast, single, oneway, felt like a permanent upheaval.

Also, I was all sorts of pilly.

I have what’s called an addiction to Ativan, and Xanax. Which is preferable to admitting to an aversion to planes.

The livery smartcar had a partition between me and what must’ve been a driver, but the switches just lowered the windows and a platelet of GPS. Our destination was La Trovita Lando, which I took for a city, or for a neighborhood. It was a slough through brackish marshes, a ping at a gate, and we stopped. And I stepped out into the snaring web of a twentynothing woman, covered with spidery henna, her hands just slobbered with cobs—spinning me through the grounds to a lavish stucco cottage, unlocking the door, handing me the key, then sticking around spraddled in the doorway, one hairy armpit aired by the jamb.

I’m proud of myself for not mentioning until now that she was Asian. She was. Now hatless. Braless vest and culottes.

“It was you on the phone?”

Nothing.

“Or at the library—but isn’t there a library closer to home? Like in your lap or whatever?”

Or in her vest. She took from its midzip pouch the house pda, a Tetheld.

“Your guestwork is paltoguest0014,” she said. “For access you will have to create a uname/pword, each a min of eight alphanumerics, the pword to contain a symbol and CAP.”

“I’ll try,” taking the Tetheld from her, klutzing the keying, creating both out of my former accounts.

Her Tetheld informed: that uname is not available, and I said, “That uname is not available,” and she said, “What does it suggest? Can you follow the prompt?”

It suggested Jcohen19712, which was also to become my email.

I chose the dollarsign to close my pword—$ finishing what’d been my pword for all.

In other accommodations the bellhop points for his tip to the thermostat, or offers to lead you up the lilypad slates toward the saunas, but here the orientation was only: how to get online.

She took back her Tetheld, “We have been instructed to apologize. Today will be busy.”

“It will? What’s the schedule?”

“Party prep. Invasion and occupation. Caterers. Florists. Amusements. Petting zoo.”

“I don’t understand—party for what?”

The face she purged was disgusted.

“His birthday?”

“His?”

Principal’s, she informed me as she flicked, finalized my account. His 40th, tomorrow.

Was I supposed to have mindread? or have been previously briefed?

She had an @ bud pierced above her lip. Her Tetheld shook, “You are affirmed.”

“Confirmed?”

“Affirmative.”

“Confirmative?”

She buttoned again, “May we have a moment with your computer?”

My computer—two years old? two generations and an operating system defunct? A present from Rach from my own birthday past, a generous provocation to earn. As I dug through my bag for my laptop, I considered the immediate gift politics—what to give a quadragenarian who has everything? besides donating to a favorite cause? Besides myself, I mean.

“We have been instructed to transfer everything—your .docs, your contacts—all will be the same.”

“Why?”

“There is a requisition order.”

“Requisitioning what?”

“A new laptop.”

She left, I pottered, lasers raved across the windows and mariachis tuned. I’d only just unpacked and was resting on the cot when there was a knock at the door, and without me responding she entered, “We are sorry for keeping you waiting, Mr. Cohen.”

I took the slab from her, “Thank you, Miss?”

“You are welcome, Mr. Cohen.”

“Miss?”

“Myung.”

She turned to go so I went grasping: “It’s smaller.”

“.72″ / 1.8 cm × 12″ / 30.4 cm, × 8.2″ / 20.8 cm the depth.”

“Lighter too.”

“2.4 lbs / 1.08 kg.”

“Brand?” because none was evident.

“Tetbook prototype.”

“You’ve moved into computers?”

“No.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Prototype.”

Drop it, rather—don’t, “But everything’s still on it?”

“Everything.”

“You sure?”

“Even the apps you will never use are on it.”

“Appreciated—but where’s my old unit?”

“Excuse me?”

“Larger, heavier? My oldie?”

That flustered. “Most guests do not want theirs back.”

“Most everyone hasn’t a clue what they want.”

“Please,” resetting herself, “you are also completely backed up to servers. Clouded. Nubified. Nephed. Your files are now protected online. Accessible to your account only.”

“Jcohen19712 then my password?”

“Precisely. If that is what it is, precisely.”

“So this is mine to keep?”

“All yours.”

“As for the oldster?”

“Yes?”

“You’ve trashed it already, haven’t you?”

“Do not worry. We recycle.”

It was only when my deliverer had departed, when I was alone with this foldable tablet where all my files, or copies, were nestled nicely again, or anew, into folders, that I realized just how much they had the goods on me, how much intel was available on my preferences, vice. I had no secret, I was no secret, to be Principal’s guest was to have nowhere to hide—not just the laptop but, beyond the panes, the surveillance outside, the tall strong stalks of spyquip planted amid the birch and cedar, the sophisticated growths of recognizant CCTV, efflorescing through my bungalow’s peephole, getting tangled in the eaves. I bawled myself out, got cotted, covered my face with the dresser’s doily and scrolled schiztic for what to disclaim, for which self to accuse of what inclination: the offlabel oxycodone and hydrocodone ordered scriptless from British Columbia, the minoxidil reliance legal though mortifying, all that screengrab analingus. Meanwhile, vans and trucks were offloading dusk—a carousel clattered from a trailer, ferris wheel assembly clamor, a log flume hosed, trampolines inflated.

\

Waiting to be collected by dark. Waiting mopey for Myung. As the helicopters chopped my sleeping into naps. As the gusts balmed in chatter between the blinds.

Finally I got up, showered and shaved and toweled over to my wheeliebag to formally decide (wrinkled old City Hall ceremony suit? wrinkled older bookparty suit?), ineluctably jeansed it below a tshirt Rach’d gotten me from the Mark Twain House in Connecticut: black, “Mark This Twain” in graffiti white, an arrow pointing dickward.

My presence aside, I still hadn’t come up with anything as tribute—again, what do you get the Founder of everything? besides flattery? Beautiful. It was just beautiful. The trail to Principal’s back 40 acreage had been redcarpeted, a door policy was in effect.

At trail’s terminus was a cupreous voluptuous Chicana. The thing in her hand must’ve been an unreleased Tetheld, judging by how it disturbed attendees into fussing with their own models, noting equivalencies, compatibilities, breathing screens and wiping them clean.