Tonio and Shan took turns stealth-punching each other in the shoulder. They found themselves in a Palo Alto suburb, ready for their 11 o'clock appointment with Mark Zuckerberg, ready to present their world-changing idea for his consideration. At least, they were sort of ready.
"I think I'm gonna puke, Tonio." Shan lurched over, his hands on his knees, trying to breathe.
"Dude, what are you doing? Your sister set this up!"
"She's always telling me to put up or shut up. At first, I didn't believe her when she said she was his favorite barista."
"-and now you think she's lying?"
"No, I think she told him about us, so he could shut me down for good, and I can go back to med school like my mom wanted!"
"That's insane! Besides, that would be on both of us, and your sister loves me!"
"Yeah, she- huh?"
"We've been turned down by everybody," Tonio said, grabbing Shan's shoulder. "If we got one swing left, we gotta swing for the fences! Now, how do they look?"
Shan looked at Tonio's earlobes. His right ear had a 12-gauge piercing, a blinking red dot. His left lobe had a 2-inch piercing, glowing an unmistakable blue, almost touching the lapel of his suit jacket. "You look lopsided."
Tonio offered two thumbs up, and buzzed the gate.
After passing through security and his assistants, Zuckerberg met with them. The boys had been prepared for a business presentation that their host seemed unaware of. "My wife's hosting a party on the lawn. Can you guys help us move a couple couches to the backyard?"
They agreed, and found themselves relocating 17 couches from outside his house. "They're not all from the house," he said. "I'm actually renting most of them for the occasion, although we want to cut down on the grass stains, if possible. Her family's coming up, and we wanted to whip up something comfortable for the movie."
"Movie?" Tonio raised an eyebrow.
Zuckerberg pointed to the 14-foot screen mounted below the trees. "Yeah, we're going to watch out here. Dirty Dancing came out this weekend, or something - ask her." He pointed to Tonio's earlobes. "Don't those get hot?"
"No, sir!" Tonio went into salesman mode. "And the little red has over 200 gigs of music, ready to find with a voice command. The blue one holds almost a Tet!"
"Neat. Or you could make those bluetooth-ready."
Tonio reeled for a half-second. "This style's been popular so far- but I think they'd like your idea even more!"
Shan was hyperventilating under his corner of the couch. "Yeah, or phone calls, gps..."
"It's great," Tonio said, "to talk with somebody that sees the potential in them!"
Zuckerberg let out a laugh. "I can't put any money in this. We don't do hardware."
They set the couch in place. Zuckerberg led them to the next one, while out of view, Tonio let out a heavy sigh, then caught up with the others.
As they carried the last couch onto the lawn, Mrs Zuckerberg made her appearance. She was delighted with the furniture arrangement, and began placing reservation cards on the couches. As her husband introduced his help for the day, Mrs Zuckerberg complemented Tonio's ear decorations. "That's wild!"
"They're music players," he replied, and twisted off the red piercing so she could hear the music.
Her face lit up when she recognized the music. " 'Be My Baby!'"
"He said what movie you were watching tonight, so I've been listening to it since we started."
Mrs Zuckerberg wiped off the piercing, and put it on. Excited, she danced over to her husband, humming the tune. He gamely swayed with her, tossing his phone to Shan. Understanding, Shan took a few pictures of the couple dancing. When the song was over, she pecked Zuckerberg on the cheek, and returned to the house to check on aperetifs.
Shan handed the phone over to Mr Zuckerberg; Tonio tilted his other ear slightly toward Mr Zuckerberg's sightline. But he looked at his phone, shaked their hands, and said, "I'm still not buying in. But somebody's going to. Keep swinging."
It was a big house. With no one to give directions, it took far too long for Tonio and Shan to find their way back to the front gate. Tonio was morose, shellshocked. Shan, pulling him along, drank the view in with every step, as if it was the last.
Shen took his phone off silent when they got to the gate; in the time it had taken them to leave the house, his sister had called six times, and left five text messages, each more urgent than the last "Don't sign anything yet! You're trending! I got Bose and a half dozen others that want to talk to you!"
inspired by Discover Magazine article, "Elon Musk's Hyperloop: A Pragmatic Vision of the Future"
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