Chương 110: Chapter 109: Everything Is Going To Be All Right (10/03/1993 | 07:10 AM PST)

DATE: Sunday, October 3, 1993 LOCATION: La Jolla, California | The Sand Castle LOCAL TIME: 07: 10 AM PST (05: 10 PM EAT in Mogadishu) Up until two months ago, my life had been a perfectly predictable trajectory. Risk assessment, derivative modeling, comfortable corporate security as a vice president at D. E. Shaw on Wall Street.

I walked away from that golden cage because a seventeen-year-old kid with a high-and-tight combat haircut strolled into my Manhattan office, tossed out a 2, 300% web usage growth statistic before the federal government had even finished compiling it, and handed me a million-dollar check with the word AMAZON written on it. I had moved across the country on his dime, temporarily staying as a guest at the Tillmans' Sand Castle retreat while my permanent apartment at the San Diego Arcology was finalized.

I came here to secure an infrastructure partner. Instead, I was currently caught in the middle of a family's worst nightmare. Standing in the far corner of the grand living room, I was experiencing a very specific, numbers-driven form of vertigo. I looked down at my hands, which were sweating in the pockets of my rumpled trousers, and tried to run the margins. I am a man who builds his entire existence on cold, predictable curves and data points that behave themselves.

But this morning, the chaotic math of a combat zone had completely paralyzed my brain.

"I own the pipes, Jeff," Chad had told me back in New York, his voice carrying a terrifyingly mature, flat baritone.

"I see the flow before the government counts it." Now, I was looking at his massive family holding a silent, agonizing vigil around the television, realizing the sheer, staggering absurdity of my position. My prime investor, my data infrastructure provider, and the entire architectural framework of my nascent empire was currently pinned down in a hornets' nest in East Africa. If that teenager died in the dirt today, the twenty-first century collapsed before Amazon could ship its first book.

The financial data, the vacuum-tube transit systems, the global logistics—it was all hanging on the survival of a kid with a rucksack. This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"How are you holding up, Jeff?" I flinched slightly, blinking away my internal panic as Chad's grandmother stepped into my personal space. She was wiping her hands on a floral apron, looking up at me with eyes that had navigated decades of family crises. She was entirely unbothered by my manic, high-speed energy.

"I'm... I'm not entirely certain what I'm doing here, ma'am," I stammered, awkwardly adjusting my collar. I felt like a massive interloper amidst their raw grief.

"I should probably check on the data streams. Perhaps it would be best if I just got a hotel room while the Arcology apartment is finalized. I really don't want to intrude on a private family matter." Chad's grandmother let out a soft, dismissive chuckle and firmly took my arm, steering me away from the flashing television matrix.

"When Chad was five years old, we were all camping in Yosemite," she said quietly.

"Jason, Chad, and Debbie's boys had made a huge mess of my trailer. Chad met me at the door and told me, 'It's OK Nana. Everything is going to be all right.' We are all worried in our own ways, Jeffrey, but it is best to do so with family. Right now, you are also family. The store doesn't launch until next summer. Today, you eat." She patted my hand with an authority that left absolutely zero room for executive dissent.

"So, what can I get you from the kitchen? I have chilaquiles warming on the stove, or I can throw together some breakfast burritos. It takes five minutes… and Jeff… you can call me Nana." I stared at her, the furious mathematical calculations in my brain grinding to a sudden, appreciative halt. For the first time since I had abandoned Wall Street, the crushing weight in my chest loosened, replaced by a bizarre, profound sense of grounding safety.

"A breakfast burrito sounds... perfect, Nana. Thank you." I paused, glancing back toward the living room before looking down at her.

"So... was everything all right?"

"With my trailer? No. It was not all right," Nana laughed, pulling me toward the warm light of the kitchen doorway.

"None of those boys could sit down for a week afterwards. Come help me slice the tomatoes. It keeps the hands busy."