Microserfs

Anyway, three minutes later my phone rang and it was Michael, asking if he could take me out for a late afternoon snack, but his voice was so hesitant in an un-Michael-ish way. He was stuttering and I began to freak out, the way you do when you pass a customs guard at a border, even though you're not hiding anything. I said yes and braced myself for what seemed could only be terrible news.

* * *

We drove up the 101 to Burlingame, driving and driving and driving and driving and driving and I realized that in the Valley, the formula really is, NO CAR = NO LIFE. We arrived at the SFO Airport Hyatt Regency of all places, and I asked him why on earth we were there.

"Daniel, I love this building. It resembles the world's most piss-elegant nuclear power plant - look at the copper-oxide-colored roof, turret-like center structures, and the delightful Bayside location providing cooling waters for all those toasty transuranic fuel rods." His expression never changed during this ode.

We talked about the games at Electronic Arts, but in the back of my mind, I was trying to remember if I was pulling my weight with Oop!. Everybody's been doing such amazing work lately - the freedom and freefloat of intellectual Darwinism is bringing out the best in all of us - and maybe Michael doesn't think my work is as amazing as everybody else's. But I think it is. I mean, not only am I doing some really hot Object Oriented Programming, but I think my space station is going to be truly killer. The injustice of it all - especially after Abe made us liquid.

Michael was trimming his finger nails and nudging the keratoid crescents into his shirt pocket, and I was getting so PaRAnOId.

We arrived and were sitting in the Swift Water Cafe, and Michael ordered a decidedly non-two-dimensional piece of apple pie, flaunting in my face his betrayal of his Flatlander eating code. He seems to be abandoning it of late. It's like an alcoholic going off the wagon. He's changing.

And then, from nowhere, he asked me, "Daniel, do I seem alive?" I was so taken aback. I think this is the oddest question anybody's ever asked me.

I said, "What a silly question. I mean - of course you do - a bit machine-like at times, but. . ."

He said, "I am alive, you know. I may not have a life, but at least I'm

alive."

"You sound like Abe."

"I always used to wonder, do machines ever feel lonely? You and I talked about machines once, and I never really said everything I had to say. I remember I used to get so mad when I read about car factories in Japan where they turned out the lights to allow the robots to work in darkness." He ate his apple pie, asked the waitress for a single-malt scotch, and said, "But I think, yes, I do feel lonely. So alone. Yes. Alone."

I said nothing.

"Or I did."

Did . . . "Did? Until when?" I asked.

"I'm -"

"What."

"I'm in love, Daniel." Oh man, talk about a gossip bomb. (And thank God I'm not fired.)

"But that's great, Michael. Congratulations. With who?'"

"I don't know."

"What do you mean you don't know who."

"Well, I do and I don't. I'm in love with an entity called 'BarCode.' And I don't know who he-slash-she is, how old or anything. But I'm in love with . . . it. The BarCode entity lives in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. I think it's a student. That's all I know."

"So let me be sure I understand this. You've fallen in love with a person, but you have no idea who the person is."

"Correct. Last night you were all talking about getting bar code tattoos, and you kept saying the word 'bar code' over and over, and I thought I was going to go berserk with love. It was all I could do to contain myself. And then Bug was so open and honest I thought I would die, and I realized things can't go on as they have been going."

Michael's scotch arrived. He rolled the ice around and gulped - he's shifted from Robitussin into the hard stuff.

"BarCode eats flat food, too. And she-slash-he's written a Flatlander Oop!-style product with immense game potential. BarCode is my soulmate. There is only one person for me out there, and I have found it. BarCode's my ally in this world and . . . "

He paused and looked across the restaurant.

"Sometimes when I'm loneliest, life looks the most dreadful and I don't want to be here. On earth, I mean. I want to be . . . out there." He pointed to the sun coming in a window, a beam coming down, and the sky over the Bay. "The thought of BarCode is the only thing that keeps me tethered to earth."

"So what are you going to do about it, Michael?"

He sighed and looked at the other businessmen in the restaurant.

"But what are you going to do about it?" I asked again. He looked up at

me. "Is that why I'm here, Michael? Am I getting involved in this?"

"Can you do me a favor, Daniel?"

I knew it. "What."

"Look at me."

"I'm looking."

"No, look."