what it would be like to be inside the computer itself, to be an electron whizzing through the minute circuitry, exploring the endlessly complex world contained on the surface of the microchip.
That’s what I should have been, Adam told himself.
I never should have been born at all.
I should have been something else, something that doesn’t feel any pain.
Tonight, he reflected with a cold shiver of anticipation, he would run away from the pain. And never come back.
9
Adam Aldrich waited until thirty minutes after the Academy’s ten-thirty lights-out before he rose from his bed and, without turning on the light, quickly pulled on his clothes, choosing a pair of jeans that were all but worn-out, and a bright red shirt that he’d never liked. Unlike Jeff, Adam had never much cared about clothes. Clothing was just stuff, and stuff had never mattered to him at all. The only thing that really mattered to Adam was the world inside his own brain, and, once he’d discovered it, the world inside his computer. And the only person who mattered at all to Adam was Jeff.
Jeff
The one person who knew him almost better than he knew himself.
The person who could talk him into absolutely anything.
The person with whom he had been closest all his life.
And who, tonight, was sending him away.
But maybe, somehow, they’d be together again. At least they would be if it was anything like Adam thought it was going to be.
It.
That was how he always thought about what he’d decided to do. Even tonight, when the time had finally come, he still put no other name to it.
Dressed, he moved to his computer and turned on the screen. It glowed softly in the dark, and Adam sat down at the keyboard. When the menu came into focus, a menu Adam had designed himself, he stared at it for a few seconds, then chose one of his utilities programs from the list.
Slowly, almost regretfully, he began deleting all the files from the eighty-megabyte hard drive in the computer. Finishing the task, deleting the directories and subdirectories one by one, he stared silently at the new directory tree, which now showed nothing more than the utility program he was using.
He could still change his mind. After all, the files weren’t really gone yet—all he’d done was erase the first letter of the file names. The data itself was still there on the hard drive. If he wanted to, he could recover it all in just a few more minutes.
He hesitated, then made up his mind.
His fingers working quickly, he typed in the commands that would begin washing the disk, going through the whole drive, recording a series of randomly selected digits over all the existing data.
The computer would go through the process three times. When it was done, nothing at all would remain except the single utility program.
It would be gone, all of it. All the programs he’d learned to use in the five years since he’d gotten his first computer, all the data he’d compiled, all the games he’d not only loved, but reconstructed to suit himself, reworking the codes so that no one but he could play them.
In a way, it was as if he was wiping his life out, obliterating it, so that no one would be able to search for clues as to why he’d done what he’d decided to do.
After all, it wasn’t anybody else’s business—it was his life, and he could do anything he wanted to with it.
The computer beeped softly, indicating that its task was completed.
Adam dropped the utility program out of memory, and when the “C:” prompt appeared, typed a single line:
C ERASE* *
He pressed the enter button, and a question appeared:
ARE YOU SURE? ALL FILES WILL BE ERASED. N (Y)
For a fleeting moment he was once again tempted to change his mind. Then, taking a deep breath, he hit the Y key. When the final question reappeared, giving him one last chance to reverse his course, he pressed it again.
A second flicked by, and then the “C:” prompt reappeared. Though the computer was still functioning, there was nothing it could do, for Adam had stripped away everything that made it useful. Now it was nothing more than a blank memory, waiting for data to fill it up.
Adam typed for a few seconds, then turned off the monitor, plunging the room again into total darkness. Moving silently to the door, he opened it a crack and peered out into the dimly lit hallway that ran