ii. The Anti-Heist

A story from the perspectives of Jacob and Kurt, as recorded by Aaron Silverbook.

It started as a normal evening.

It's 8pm, and I'm hanging out in the office with Oli, getting ready to do more work, or maybe just play video games. Ben has just returned from a restaurant dinner, and joins us.

Ben realizes his bag is missing. He runs to the restaurant to check if he left it outside; it's not there.

He checks the "Find my MacBook" app — and there it is. His new Macbook Pro, jumping from block-to-block, fleeing down MLK.

Ben calls the police. They happen to have a car nearby, and they meet us outside the office almost at once.

Officer Jacobs is a short woman with a powerful, ready stance. She seems to vibe with us. She also keeps glancing down the street like she's a wolf searching for prey.

She browses through the pages of her notebook. "I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but what's most likely happening is that he's on the BART to Civic Center, where he'll sell it and then it'll be gone. Let me get your details so I can file a report. How much was the laptop?"

"So what you're saying," I reply, declining to accept the loss, "is that if we get to Civic Center first... we can intercept them and get Ben's laptop back?"

"Well, yes," she says, sounding a little surprised. "But I can't join; it's out of our jurisdiction. You need to call the SF police when you get there."

She gives Ben her phone number so we can coordinate. I ask Oli to call me an Uber to the Civic Center.

("Oh my god," exclaims Officer Jacobs, "You don't drive??")

At this point, via pure serendipitous luck, a tall man on a giant unicycle rolls up next to us. He's preparing to have a relaxing night in after his long workday in the city, and just happens to be passing by the office to pick up some stuff. He is Miles Ornish, and he's going to help us fight crime.

"Miles," I ask, "do you have a car?"

Ten minutes later, me, Ben, Oli and Miles are speeding down University in Miles' "fastest Prius", chasing a dot on a map.

Oli and Ben are looking at BART maps and real time train tables, to track which routes our suspect could be taking. I've got my laptop tethered off of my phone hotspot in some kind of backseat Mobile Command Center, about to post on Bountied Rationality trying to find someone in SF who can make it to Civic Center faster than we can.

My seatbelt isn't working right, so I end up wrapping the belt around me and tying a strange knot around some plastic handle on the seat to my left. I briefly wonder whether, in a crash, my contraption will instantly pull tight and decapitate me.

Miles makes a tight, speedy turn around a corner. Oli is looking seasick.

Officer Jacobs can't leave the Berkeley area, so she's not following us into Oakland. She told us to call a closer department. We decide not to escalate to 911 responders, and so instead call the non-emergency lines.

This phone line is in no hurry whatsoever, and a voice starts down a menu of options.

"Welcome to the non-emergency Oakland police line. For English, press 1. Para Español, presione 2. 中文 请, 按 3..."

I get an idea. With my other phone—I carry two—I call Kurt, my PA and Lightcone's most recent ops hire. Today is his first full-time day at work.

Me: "Hi, wh-"

Me: "Kurt, Ben's laptop has been stolen. We're chasing the guy. Can you help us with something? It's a difficult task. We'll pay overtime. How would you feel about going to Little Plearn Thai restaurant in Berkeley and looking at the CCTV cameras from the last hour?"

(And bless him, he does it.)

"The Oakland non-emergency police office hours are Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm...."

During this time, as we watch the moving dot, Ben keeps wresting Miles GPS out of its little holder to update our destination.

"If you'd like to file or update a claim, press 1..."

Ben: "We still have time to catch him at MacArthur. Wait, no, he's moving. Let's catch him at the next BART stop."

"If you're calling regarding a stolen vehicle, press 2..."

Ben: "No, sorry, he's moving again, twelfth street BART."

"If you're calling regarding a previously filed claim, please ..."

At this point, our plan is to make it to a BART station, have each of us board one of the trains, and then casually walk through until we see someone carrying Ben's bag. We can then coordinate with the rest of the team, and call the police to meet us at the next stop.

We're not intending to confront him ourselves. Although Ben did happen to ask Officer Jacobs—just to check—whether we might be prosecuted for such an encounter.

"I can't recommend it," she said, "but he took your stuff first, and, well... I wouldn't arrest you."

We arrive at McArthur BART and Ben jumps out. Oli is staring at me, straight-faced while he waits for me to get out. I have become trapped in the seatbelt contraption I tied minutes earlier.

"...to report a vehicle as reclaimed, please press 3. If you're calling regarding a vehicle abandoned at a..."

But just as we finally get out of the car, we stop in confusion. Our suspect hasn't boarded any trains. If he was going to the Civic Center, he's had ample opportunities.

He must be headed elsewhere.

Miles: "Here, look at the GPS marker."

Ben: "We're close. He's one block further south."

We drive.

INTERLUDE: Our Field Agent Kurt

I arrived at the restaurant, looking for the manager, asking about the laptop.

Apparently someone already spoke to him about that, because he resignedly shrugs, like he knows he's in for an hour of mandatory and stressful police interaction.

I do my best to roll high on charisma, to try to talk him into letting me see the security footage. "It would be super helpful for us maybe recovering the laptop if we could just see it..."

He explains that there's only security cameras on the inside of the building, and that Ben was sitting outside.

I ask if I can see the inside footage anyway (hoping that maybe you'll be able to see through the window onto the seating on the street). He accedes.

So I'm scrubbing through the footage, looking for somebody stealing a bag, and,

I sure do find him.

A few minutes later, Officer Jacobs arrives. She's kind of startled to see me here.

"Y'all are really on this!" she notes. "Are you, like, spies?"

I don't elaborate on that, but I show her the tape. She starts to take a video of the video, but I instead offer to email her the footage. She seems impressed by this display of computer skills, and tells me that I should work for the Berkeley PD.

I ask her whether she can dispatch police to get the guy.

"I'm stuck in Berkeley," she says, "I can't go to Oakland. And I know the sergeant is gonna tell me that they're super busy tonight and that they can't make it."

Still looking at the tapes, I ask, offhand,

"Oh, so you asked him and he said no?"

She pauses. "No, I guess I'll radio him."

She comes back thirty seconds later.

"Actually, sure, he's got people free, and can send them right now."

The magic of Ops! You're welcome.

Jacob

Against the dark Oakland evening, the white neon light of Little Caesars glows like the promised land.

We pull up, four wide-eyed rationalist kids in a Prius. We're here to fight crime.

We see a rough-looking man on a bike waiting outside the pizza place. He's glancing around shiftily, and carrying a fat sack over his shoulder. Like Santa Claus, if Santa used a white plastic trash bag.

I call Kurt.

Kurt is in the Plearn Thai backroom, with the manager and Officer Jacobs. Officer Jacobs is, at this point, getting pretty confused about who even are you people and how we keep materializing ever more rationalist kids to help us. But explaining that is a problem for later.

Me: "Kurt, the guy on the camera—does he have a camo backpack, dark hoodie, and something that looks like a large white trash bag?"

Kurt: "And he also has a bicycle?"

We all look at each other in the car. This is our guy.

Me: "Send the police. We'll keep eyes on him."

There's nowhere for us to park where it won't be clear that we're watching him. So we pull up to the parking lot behind the place, and then deploy our top boots-on-the-ground agent, me.

I cross the street at a distance and, casual-like, walk into an empty lot where I can see our target. From a distance, I just look like a random guy in a hat, heads-down in his phone.

In my headphones are Kurt and Officer Jacobs, who are coordinating to send over the Emeryville unit. On my phone, I have slack open, talking with the guys in the car.

A car pulls up to meet with our target. There are three guys inside. It looks like they're negotiating a trade. I nervously pace back and forth in the lot, trying not to let them see me glancing at them.

I start frantically texting everything I'm seeing to my backup in the car.

9:53
>I'm in a parking lot

9:53
>Loitering

9:53
>Opposite side of atreet

9:53
>Looking the other way

9:53
>Other guys are in car

Kurt and Officer Jacobs have successfully gotten through to the Emeryville police.

They'll be here "soon".

I can't quite see what's happening with the trade. Seems like criminals know how to not flash cash and stolen goods in public, go figure.

Our target separates from the car. I resume battle-texting.

9:58
>He's carrying the bag

9:59
>He's gone inside

9:59
>He's on a bike now with pizza

(These are kind of sparse texts, but see how coherently you type while hiding and watching your possessions get sold.)

A minute later, two police cars drive in from either side. They arrive fast and synchronized, like a military action. It's honestly impressive.

Our target freezes. The cops step out of the cars, and converge on him.

He doesn't run, or anything. It makes sense from his perspective; he doesn't have the goods on him any more, and he doesn't know that we deployed a crack team of Rationalist SEALS and have been tracking him for the past two hours.

But...we got him, boys!

Now to get the laptop.

There's no laptop in that Santa sack.

The Oakland police officers asked us to hit the "make noise" button on the Find My Mac app, to be sure. Not thinking too much about obeying direct orders from police, we did.

No noise from the sack. But the people who bought it are probably freaking out right now.

We check the dot on the map. We show the location to the police. They see where it is, and shake their heads, and sigh.

They tell us we're not getting that laptop back.

"If you've seen District 9, it's basically like that," says Officer Pardo. "They're in the encampment now. If we see a car going in there, we presume it's lost."

It's a large patch of grass in Oakland. As the police describe it, it's a massive, extra-judicial zone occupied by homeless people, where the inhabitants have a multitude of guns and "improvised explosives".

"Holy shit," we remark.

Eventually, the dot stops moving. Either it's in some guy's van, or they got wise and turned it off. Either way, the police don't want to try for it, and they definitely don't want us trying for it.

We nod, as we quietly begin constructing our rationalist fantasies of a drone-heist into the Zone. We probably shouldn't start a gang war over Ben's stolen laptop.

Probably.

Later, when we return home, we pass a police car. It's got a bike attached to it in front. In the back is the guy who stole Ben's laptop. And in the front, Officer Jacobs is enthusiastically waving at us, like a happy kid.

"You guys are crazy," she said, grinning. "You should be some kind of spy team."