Activity

He took his little meal to the dining table, where he turned on the light and surrounded himself with books. The window-system manual, the UNIX operating system guide, a data sheet for the graphics workstation, specifications for the VT-200 character terminal—a circuit of technology ringing his pla…

I looked behind the counter at the agent’s terminal: Yes. That damned transaction interface. The Immigration Service was one of our first customers. In 1986, they were going to “revolutionize” international arrivals with our database. And here it still was after all these years, our software, its t…

And so we waited. Tick-tock, blink-blink, thirty seconds stretched themselves out one by one, a hole in human experience. Waiting for the system: life today is full of such pauses. The soft clacking of computer keys, then the voice on the telephone telling you, “Just a moment, please.” The credit-c…

Her odometer has just tipped above two hundred and fifty thousand miles. How much of that has been spent running, she thinks, hurrying from one place to the next, trying to remain unnoticed? She buys a canned coffee from the mini-mart and fills her tank. At the neighboring pump, a girl is perched i…

“I’m telling you; it doesn’t hurt.” Lena pauses between each word with a forced, patronizing clarity. “I just want to find the wires.”

“Lena.” Mitty collects herself, the fury in her chest only growing louder. “What are you talking about?”

“I know there are wires in there.” She presses her fi…