Todd works as a tester with me. He’s really young—22—the way Microsoft employees all used to be. His interest is entirely in girls, bug testing, his Supra, and his body, which he buffs religiously at the Pro Club gym and feeds with peanut butter quesadillas, bananas, and protein drinks.

Todd is historically empty. He neither knows nor cares about the past. He reads Car and Driver and fields three phone calls a week from his parents who believe that computers are “the Devil’s voice box,” and who try to persuade him to return home to Port Angeles and speak with the youth pastor.