Just a Matter of Time
By Michael Swaine
He's still there where I found him, ceaselessly surfing the Web, looking for his way home. The little Mac CI had been humming away in the nook off the hallway outside my office since before I had come to the department. Amortized out of existence, it officially and practically belonged to no one, which is who used it. But it was on the network and had file sharing activated, so I let it hum. And so I saw nothing unusual in the blue glow emanating from the nook when I came in that morning. It was only hours later, when I realized I'd been hearing a soft clicking outside my door for some time, that I went and investigated, and found him there at the keyboard. He was dressed like — sort of like — a faux-50s hot rodder, with tight jeans and a brown jacket, apparently leather but with an oddly woodlike grain. The traditional pack of Luckies under the shoulder strap had been replaced by a cheap toy car, which, despite his faux style, seemed to be the only bit of plastic on him. His glasses, styled like racing goggles, seemed to be hard rubber; the lenses were the dark-adaptive type, but so adaptive that they pulsated as the screen changed before him. He was surfing the Web, his fingers and eyes moving with the frustrated grace of a virtuoso learning a new instrument.
"I could use some quail eggs," he said without looking up. That first day, he ordered three more meals, each an imaginative combination of exotic ingredients, some of which may actually have been available somewhere on earth.
