Landscape with Invisible Hand

Adam and Chloe visit a “rich-people cloud-complex” (44), and Adam paints a top-down view of his town. Mr. Reilly, a volunteer art teacher, works as a door attendant at the complex. Chloe and Mr. Reilly get along, and the two teens sit with him as he works. Adam wishes Mr. Reilly were his grandfather and shows him the virtual castle he’s working on for Chloe. A group of rich teens enters the lobby. Mr. Reilly greets them, and one gestures at a large box on a hovering dolly, telling Mr. Reilly to take it to apartment 723. The kids use Mr. Reilly’s first name (Dave), which Adam finds disturbing. He, Chloe, and Mr. Reilly are all uncomfortable.

One of the rich teens sees and compliments Adam’s castle, and Mr. Reilly says that Adam and Chloe are visitors from another complex. Chloe brags that Adam made the castle for her, and he and Chloe show them the different rooms of the virtual building while Mr. Reilly takes the box up to apartment 723. The rich kids use slang that Adam doesn’t understand. Adam makes up a school, St. Photon’s, and Chloe claims that he’s a long-distance runner, but Adam says he no longer runs because of an injury to his Achilles tendon.