Invasive by Chuck Wendig Page B

manufactured—and yet, could he be sincere? His website calls him an altruistic capitalist . He’s quoted as saying, “Changing the world for the better is more important than changing my financial fortunes. But I believe that doing the right thing is also a very good way to get rich.”
    So far he hasn’t been wrong. He first filled his coffers with the profits from a game he designed with ten other people, his first and only release. Dragonsdoor: a massively multiplayer open world. Changeable and buildable. Hannah doesn’t know much about it, but she knows that if you walk into any Walmart or Target you can buy the game, toys, T-shirts, beach towels, snack foods. Einar no longer owns the rights—he sold the game and the company he formed to produce it years ago. But it’s still a machine.
    Since then, he’s used the billions of dollars he made on it to jumpstart a series of projects: desalination plants, solar batteries, wind energy, nanotechnology, and, of course, plant and animal genetics. Not to mention smaller endeavors: a company devoted to sustainable, free-trade coffee; a micropress publishing company meant to release free scientific data and plans unburdened by copyright or patent; a tiny South African software company that makes a free meditation app for every phone, tablet, and computer platform. He’s recently begun dropping hints that he has a self-driving car in production. (This is tied to the secret factory he is rumored to have built in Wyoming.)
    He believes that innovation in technology and science will save the world. According to him, nanotech will compensate for antibiotic immunity. Desalination will solve the fact that global groundwater has been on the decline for decades. Wind and solar—installed aggressively and made attractive to buyers—will fix the screwed-up climate before the damage is irreversible.
    The future, it occurs to Hannah, does not frighten him the way it frightens her. That worries her. Someone with his power and experience shouldn’t have such raging optimism—and deception by powerful men is a danger as persistent as global warming, famine, or disease.
    And yet the work he’s doing is unparalleled. His companies are literally changing the world. Nobody else invests in these future-forward technologies like he does. Most Fortune 500 companies run on business models reliant on maintaining the status quo. But Geirsson never flinches in the face of global troubles.
    And yet, can you really trust someone with that kind of money? With that kind of power ? It appears as though Einar Geirsson represents evolution. But what if he’s secretly betting on ruination?

    They land at a small airstrip on the south shore of Kauai. As soon as Hannah steps off the plane, a hard wind lashes her in the face. The airfield is dark, but saturated with a red, rust-like dust as far as the eye can see. In the distance, a few palm trees sticking up past bent guardrails give the only sign that they’re on a Hawaiian island and not Mars. That and the chickens: a scattering of hens and roosters mill about.
    Nearby on the tarmac sits a black Lincoln Town Car, the tires and bottom of the car airbrushed with red dust. The driver—an older man with chubby cheeks and the cast of a native Hawaiian—shows Hannah a big set of bright white teeth and waves her on. She looks behind her, back at the private jet: Nobody sends her off. The pilots remain in the cockpit. She gets in the car.
    â€œIt’s a short drive,” the driver says, looking back at her over the seat. Still that beaming smile. Like this is the best job in the world. Maybe it is. Einar is known for paying his employees well. He’s also known for working them to the bone: he’s notoriously judgmental of employees who want to take time off for the birth of a child or the death of a parent. A quote from Einar that Hannah read onthe airplane: “We’re here to