Part 6 (1/2)

”I think the information is going to come out regardless. The difference is, I can give it to you now and give you a head start to tell your father and be a heroic son, or at least a powerful one. As much fun as it is to have me wrapped around your finger, I bet having Ted on your leash would suit you even more.”

T. J. considered this carefully. As annoying as it was, she was right. He wanted this. He wanted his father to respect him one way or another.

”Okay,” he said. ”I'll destroy the tapes. There's only one hard copy. I'll mail it to you and you can do whatever you want with it. And the digital version is on my laptop in my car. We can erase it after you tell me what you've got.”

Patty's thin lips spread into a satisfied smile. ”Very good,” she said, sticking out her hand to shake on it.

T. J. thought the handshake a little unnecessary but did it anyway.

”Okay, spill.”

”So,” Patty sat up in her chair. ”It turns out Gibly is stealing peoples'

information. Well, not really stealing it, but apparently when you download any of the applications onto your phone, it installs a chip that tracks everything you do on your phone, including all the websites you visit and, through your GPS, everywhere you go.”

”Lots of software tracks where you go. How do you think Google knows what ads to feed you? It drops cookies and follows where you go.

You're going to have to do a little better than that, Patty.”

”Yes, but Google doesn't keep a database that records everywhere you've been and everything you've seen, organizing it by the unique ID number on the back of your phone.”

”Gibly does that?”

”Yep! Did you seriously take Adam Dory to a strip club after your party?”

”How did you know that?” T. J. sat forward in his chair. ”No way.”

”And that's not all. Apparently Lloyd's has been receiving ma.s.sive payments from some random bank account for the past year for an unspecified service.”

”You mean . . . ” He started to put it together. ”There's no way they'd be selling that information.”

”Three-point-eight billion says they are,” Patty shot back, pleased with her wit.

”Patty, this is ma.s.sive. I mean, that's a huge f.u.c.king deal. You better be right about this. How did you find all this out?”

”Adam Dory was in my room the other day blabbing on about starting a company and told his sister, my roommate, about Gibly, and she hacked into the site and found the database. Then she hacked into Lloyd's bank accounts and found the secret deposits.”

”But that's . . . how is that possible? It's maybe the most sophisticated software on the planet. There's no way some freshman could hack in.”

”She's a total nerd. Like, beyond nerd. Imagine if a computer and an iPhone had a baby-that's Amelia.”

”And she and her brother told you about it?”

”They thought I was asleep.”

T. J. laughed. ”You little b.i.t.c.h. You're even more of a troublemaker than I gave you credit for.”

Patty smiled, knowing this was a compliment.

”Alright, my dear, let's go destroy those tapes. Are you in charge of your own trust fund? Might want to call tomorrow and make sure whatever of it is invested in Gibly gets sold, p.r.o.nto.” Even though Patty didn't have full access to her trust fund until her thirty-fifth birthday, Patty had a.s.sumed investment decision rights on her eighteenth birthday. Since she knew nothing about investing, she just signed whatever her father sent her and let him handle it. She made a mental note to go back and check what she'd signed to make sure none of it had gone to Gibly.

”Thanks, T. J. I actually hadn't thought of that.”

”No worries.” He stuck out his hand. ”I think we'll make a good team, you and I.”

Chapter 11.

Family Decisions.

Where Patty dressed up on Sundays for three-course family dinners prepared by the live-in cook, the Dorii put on sweat pants and snuck food out of the dining hall for their Sunday movie night tradition.

They were working through AMC's list of the top one hundred films of all time. Amelia plopped down on the mattress Adam had set up as a couch in his dorm room and pulled her tray of dining hall chow mein onto her lap.

Adam's a.s.signed freshman roommate, an aspiring nuclear physicist from the Ukraine who spoke broken English and had a penchant for heavy metal music, had had a mental breakdown in the fall and never came back after winter break. Adam considered saying something, but it was so convenient having a double dorm room all to himself that he eventually decided just to wait and see if the University figured it out. They hadn't, or had chosen not to do anything about it, so he'd pulled the mattress off his roommate's bed and made a makes.h.i.+ft sofa, on which he now joined his sister.

”What are we watching tonight?” Amelia asked between bites of greasy Chinese noodles.

”The G.o.dfather, Part II,” he answered as he inserted the disc into Amelia's laptop, which she'd brought over with a cable to connect to a thirty-six-inch monitor Adam had ”borrowed” from the Gates Building.

Amelia scrunched her nose in disapproval. She'd hated The G.o.dfather, Part I, with all its violence and betrayal, and had hoped they could remove the sequel from their list of must-sees. But Adam couldn't wait to see the next one. He was totally enthralled by the strength of loyalty and the strategy of the family.

”I know, I know. I didn't complain on Casablanca week, though,” he said as he punched his sister lovingly on the arm.

Amelia rolled her eyes. ”Fine, fine.”

It didn't matter anyway. Thirty minutes in, she was sound asleep, half a bite of chocolate pudding still left on her spoon.

When he realized she was sleeping, Adam laughed, moved the tray from her lap, and gently placed a pillow behind her head. He was deeply engrossed in the movie when an e-mail notification popped up on Amelia's screen. The mail icon bounced up and down in the corner, its cheerfulness the ant.i.thesis of the drama unfolding onscreen.

Adam leaned forward to click the icon so it would stop bouncing, but when he saw the subject line and sender-”Nice Meeting You!” from Tom Fenway-his interest was piqued. He paused the movie and opened the e-mail.

Dear Amelia, You'll have to forgive my tactics, but I called a few friends at Stanford and got them to track down your e-mail address (luckily there are only two women named Amelia in your freshman cla.s.s, and the other is from France), but I wanted to follow up with you about your awesome invention.

As I mentioned, I'm launching an incubator for start-up companies and I'd love to have you join. I know you're anti-business, and I total y get that. Trust me, I was completely anti-business when I started out.

But I think together we could create something that allows you to do even more of what you love to do, and have a lot of fun doing it.

I'm including my contact information just in case you scratched it out of your notebook. I've also attached a Word doc.u.ment that provides more detail about the incubator. Please give it some thought and let me know if you have any questions or want to talk more.

All the best, Tom Tom Fenway Fenway Ventures, LLC 2800 Sand Hill Rd Palo Alto, CA 94025 (650) 326-9251.

[email protected] Adam's jaw dropped. What was this e-mail, and why hadn't Amelia told him about Tom Fenway? He quickly googled Fenway Ventures and got over sixty thousand articles mentioning ”Tom Fenway,” the second of which was a Wikipedia entry.

”s.h.i.+t-this guy's got a Wikipedia page?” Adam whispered to himself.