“Let’s begin,” said the other. And as the VC sat back comfortably—leg crossed ankle over knee, hands made into a steeple—Ethan realized he’d completely forgotten his name now. What did Harry say it was? And the other one—was he Night-something? Joanna had tried to teach him how to remember people’s names. Repeat them right away when you’re introduced, she’d said. Pick out an identifying characteristic and match it to the name as you’re saying it. But how was he supposed to do that while he was wondering how it would look for him to be sitting on a bright orange exercise ball? He looked from one man to the other and tried to concentrate. Both in dark suits. Both in red ties with diagonal stripes. Cuff links—God, who wore cuff links anymore? Loafers, the kind with a fringe. Mid- to late thirties, no facial hair, not much to distinguish them in a crowd. One was handsomer, Ethan decided, the other one balding.

And so the paradox: The more the debugger remained the tireless binary companion it was designed to be—answering, answering, answering without hesitation or effort late into the night—the more exhausted and hesitant the human, Ethan Levin, found himself to be. He was sinking to the debugger’s level. Thinking like it. Asking only the questions it could answer. All the while he suffered what the debugger did not have to endure: the pains of the body, the tingling wrists and fingers, the stiffness in the neck, the aching back, the numb legs. And worse, the messy wet chemistry of the emotions, the waves of anxiety that washed across him, and then, without warning, the sudden electric spikes of panic.