The Tethelds were scanned—touchless mating of machines—the attendees were admitted, returned their devices to their pockets, patting, reassuring: like it was the last time they’d make love to a spouse they’d have to abandon.

The invites were surveys, apparently—digi.

Waiting for approval, I recognized: the chairman/cofounder of America’s most popular eTailer, a crowd theory academic from UC Berkeley, the COO of a premier iConometry site, a venture capitalist/immediate past California state controller, a Congressperson who’d been advocating for the establishment of a Department of Online (DO) within the next president’s cabinet (the president of the United States), and then—far in the front, past cyberpunkadelic bodimodis, transdermally implanted proboscideans, vulcan jedis with diversified portfolios and freshly filed teeth—was the alternative to the alternatives, was Finnity.

I wanted to sign off, I wanted to sign out—whichever had the most hits, or provided the least traceable exit.

Which flight had he been on? the red eye or brown nose? The rest of him was a ruddy blond—and perfectly unfolded, with not an extraneous crease—tweeded like a lordly hunter.

I might’ve guessed: Finn never missed parties—he would’ve hitched if he’d had to.

He scanned, was admitted, indifferently seamless, but because I didn’t have a pda or even a rotary dragging an oinker’s cord all the way from NY, the Chicana guided me under the privacy of a willow, “I’ll have to take this actinally.”

“Take what?”

“Your dietary requirements,” clicking her screen. “So: vegetarian, vegan, pescatarian, lactovo, or macrobiotic?”

“Are you serious?” but as her thumbs huddled I answered myself, “I’m an omnivore.”

“Now do you mind eating out of the Greater Bay? Or do you insist on zipsourcing—94/95000s?”

“Anything goes.”

“Any allergies?”

“Just to being interrogated.”

She put me down for seconds of testiness, “This is only because you didn’t respond online.”

“You asked this on an invite?”

“It’s just protocol.”

I was Table ^πie—which was difficult to remember atechnically. But if the seating arrangements were what I suspected, that would be the one to avoid.

The festivities were centered on a capacious bullfighting ring patio flanked by Moorishish fountains reviving ponds. Hubs of eager earnest convo, politics too optimistic for opinion. Mass delusion. Mass hydration.

The patio: La Korto—every notable architectural element was labeled, was to be referred to, in a slurred Spanish that was just Esperanto. La Trovita Lando, the compound—the main house above us (La Domo), the guest huts beyond (La Domoj), enshrouded in fog.

The xeriscaped rear descended into the vast gape of a wildlife refuge: a semiofficial preserve and so another tax dodge to Principal, a religious life—mission farmland and clergy R&R—to the Spanish, but originally a religion itself—animism, totemism, dendrolatry—to the indigenous Indians, whom the Spanish called the Costeños, or “coastal people,” but who called themselves Ohlone: Ohlo = “western,” ne = “people.”

All information offered by my employer, sin costo.

The info both explained, and became, my surroundings: The darkness was cypress, juniper, madrone. The trailside eruptions were of manzanita and sage. The interfaces scattered around the property obtruded with names, in English, in Spanish, their Native American names and Genus, species. I trackballed one: “Tell me more about chaparral.”

The interfaces served dual functions: to educate, sure, but for the more curious—to mark the perimeter of the wild. No Trespassing. Be content with what vantage you have. Go beyond, get a foot stuck in a conquistador helmet, a tomahawk wedged in the head.

I had the sense, though, that those woods were where the real party was—the real debauchery, I mean. Those woods were made for culty fucking, if not for fucking then for fireside circlejerking, critter sacrifice—who had the coke? what’s a Cali dally without pot (without unrefined hemp utensils, dishes, and stemware)?

I was about to make a break for them when the apéritif/hors d’oeuvres sampling was called by the perky MC, Conan O’Brien (Late Night with Conan O’Brien)—the only chair vacant was mine. I had to either leave or confront—a round table, Finnity counterclockwise from me, lagging always a moment behind.

“Yo,” he said.

“Eloquent,” I said. “Yo back.”

He took it, he grimaced but took it. Perspiration down my crevice, already.

“So,” he said, “a surprise?”

“I think our host knows it’s his birthday.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Sure, my life’s been nothing but surprises—for what’s it been for us? A decade?”

“10 years Aar’s filled us both in on.”

“What’s left to say then?”

“That ever stopped you before?”

“It wasn’t you I was avoiding in line, it was definitely Gwyneth.”

I didn’t mean to be so rude, just I felt—cornered, even at a circular table. Babysat, boosted.

“You want to know why I’m here?”

“I want to know why you think you’re here, Finn.”

“I thought it would be nice to talk.”

“I was going to say frequentfliers, I was going to say points.”

“I trust you’re keeping your receipts.”

“You came to intimidate me into getting to work—but you’re staying for the favors, the swag?”

Conan (The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien), loosened tie, hair swept up like someone had jizzed it, told a joke about some Silicon Valley Social Media PR summit happening now “at the Best Western in Menlo Park,” but empty, unattended—not because everyone was here, but because it hadn’t been publicized.

“One dork, one geek, one nerd, all male, just hanging around polishing the icecubes.”

He told a Gwyneth joke funnier than mine—when Finn leaned in: “You might’ve made time for me in NY.”

We got sommeliered by a guy with a cowbelling tastevin. Finn went white, I went red, both of new autochthonous vintage.

His cheers: “To your book,” mine: “To your book.”

To ours, to theirs, earthy, hints of bile.

“Josh—this is us doing the mending, OK? Healing up? It’s enough. No more grudges. No more blame.”

“Sure, why not? How to argue that? Edit away—you’re the editor.”

“Keep lying to yourself—you’re the writer.”

“Finn, you can return to your prixfixe friends at Café Loup in peace. Your ambush was successful.”

“Enough, Josh? What did you expect me to do back then—take out a fullpage color ad in The New Yorker saying ignore the tragedy and read this book?”

“I get it.”

“Fuck it, I tried for you—OK? I had the Times chasing you for a feature, didn’t I?”

“The angle was like author victimized.”

“OK?”

“Wasn’t exactly dignified.”

“Nothing was dignified then except to shut the fuck up. Still I leaned on them to let you write it.”

“Promote myself—not exactly tactful either.”

“That was the choice—whore or be whored. But you went lofty.”

“But there could’ve been a rerelease. There could’ve been a goddamned paperback.”

“That was shit luck—it’s not like I landed so smoothly either. The quarterlies came around and we all had to explain our no sales and why we hadn’t been signing up Islam books all through the summer like we had warning. The publishers were acting like they’d all known about the attacks forever—why didn’t we know? Why weren’t we prepared with books on how to cope with jihad or the infrastructure of hawala or a comprehensive history of the House of Saud, or, fuck it, a Guantánamo tellall by the fucking 20th hijacker, OK?”

“Got it.”

Finn iced himself down and sipped, whispered, “You haven’t met our Principal, have you?”

“I was expecting you to introduce me.”

“He doesn’t know I’m here—I begged an invitation off an exgirlfriend from Gopal,” and he nodded a radius through the table at four brunette romcoms.