Prey

When he wakes in the morning, Jack realizes that Julia didn’t come home. He wonders if he needs a lawyer. He calls his sister, Ellen, who is a clinical psychologist. She advises him to see an attorney and is frustrated with his perceived passivity. When he argues, she says she’s coming to visit. Jack disagrees with her assessment of his temperament. He thinks he is thoughtful, not passive. As an example, he contemplates the ferocity of Silicon Valley competition: Passive people can’t succeed in the field, let alone become elite players, as he was before his firing over office politics.

Jack thinks about how little insight people have about themselves. He thinks the computer-programming idea of “recursion” (77) offers some clues about human psychology. Recursion refers to a procedure in which a programmer makes a program loop back on itself, which risks infinite regress, like a series of funhouse mirrors. He compares this to the fact that introspection rarely leads people to change their behavior.

While getting a coffee, Jack notices his lawyer, a man named Gary Marder. Gary is there with a woman half his age. As they talk, he suggests that Jack see a marriage counselor. This could help him get out ahead of a potential alienation-of-affection case. Then the ER doctor calls and says the MRI machine that they used for Amanda is breaking down: Its chips are corroding, which may affect Amanda’s test results.

Julia calls to say she’ll be home that evening. She says she left him a message about not being able to come home the night before, but he knows she didn’t. A man named Tim Bergman calls from MediaTronics. He says that Don Gross wants to rehire Jack to work on the PREDPREY agent-based program, which Jack developed; Tim reveals he sold it to Xymos. He says the program keeps losing track of its goals and that they need Jack to fix it. He proposes hiring Jack as an off-site consultant.

Jack promises to call the following morning. Ellen arrives and thinks he should immediately accept the job. He says that it’s possible the administrators at MediaTronics want him to be a scapegoat in case they have messed things up too badly to fix. He calls Ricky’s home, but Ricky’s wife says he is in Nevada for a week. She says Ricky is acting strange and asks if Julia ever mentions a black cloud or a black cloak. When Jack says no, she says that Ricky has mentioned them more than once.

Jack hears Julia come in, and then he hears Eric asking her about the man who was in the car with her. Jack doesn’t know what this means, but he plans to ask Julia later. Over dinner, Amanda won’t eat for Julia. As Jack watches Julia interact with the kids, he wonders if she is on drugs. She is talking too fast, and her movements are twitchy. She suddenly says she must get back to work.

After she leaves, Ellen immediately says that Julia must be on drugs. Jack watches her drive away from the window and sees a man in the car with her. He follows them in his car and sees the man again a few blocks later. There is something weird about the man’s appearance, like he has no features. He goes home to think. Shortly after, his daughter Nicole comes home to find him in the kitchen and says the police want to talk to Jack.

The police tell Jack that Julia’s car went into a ravine five miles away. Jack immediately heads to the site of the accident, where the rescue crew tells him that she will live as they pull the car up. He asks about the other person in the car, but the cops say she was alone. As they wheel her by on a stretcher, Julia is in a stupor of pain and adrenaline. Julia begs him not to get involved—in what, he doesn’t know—and says it doesn’t involve their family. As he rides with her in the ambulance, she mutters about black clouds and says she didn’t mean to do anything wrong.

Jack returns to the crash site. A white van marked “SSVT Unit” has been parked there for an hour, watching. It drives away as Jack approaches. He sees men wearing what appear to be gas masks inside. The bumper has the Xymos sticker. It’s from the fab plant. He calls Tim and says he will take the job.