Chapter 14

"We need more people," Sascha had said at the last board meeting. The topic at hand was how to replace the banished programmers. Right then, they were all the new personnel DEM could afford. "We need a way to get the graduating MIT seniors in. They’re really jaded. Everyone wants hackers who know their C code. So we’ll have to find some way to seduce them. Like a party. A rave. In a space on campus that no one can find except the people who’ve been invited. With a DJ. And a light and laser show. And smoke. And a smart bar. And free toys and candy. And naked tai’chi dancers."

"And drugs?"

"And those," Sascha said firmly. "Lots and lots of those."

*

I had never even been on a social committee in school, and now suddenly I was Queen of the Hop. Except that the hop was going to be at midnight on the supposedly inaccessible fifth floor of Hayden Library, and it was going to be completely unsanctioned and a firetrap and rolling with illegal drugs.

A year or so ago I hadn’t really known what a hack or a rave was.

The flyers were purple and black, and featured a woozy-looking computer terminal melting into a halo of groovy stars. Below was the following:

"We cordially invite you to attend the gathering

of advanced minds in the unity of our nation.

Journey to the land that time forgot and experience

kaleidoscopic vision.

CALL 253-UNIX day of event only.

If you don’t love your friends enough to share your C code with them, don’t come.

P.S. Featuring for the first time

THE HARNESSING OF THE EARTH'S CORE AS THE ULTIMATE BASS MAGNET

guaranteed to split the planet in half !!!!

and throw the moon out of orbit !!!"

These little flyers started appearing in the computer clusters, stuck under the doors at Senior House, tucked between the napkin dispensers at Walker cafeteria, where our potential inductees ate their dinner.

It was Wendy’s and my job to get the flyers to their destinations. It was kind of fun, really, like ding-dong-ditchem’. We had the people’s names, and we’d skulk into the halls, giggle like crazy, and run. Nobody ratted on us or even stopped us to ask what we were doing. I guess that aging women in the dorms, one of them noticeably pregnant and both of them acting suspicious, was no big deal.

The rave was going to be the Saturday night of Steer Roast. At the big Steer Roast weekend, there’s one party in Senior House, Friday night, where everyone gets fucked up beyond belief. The next day there’s an immense picnic. Hundreds of hung-over students (and alumni) come out in their most eccentric finery to eat giant slabs of meat, cooked over a massive open pit barbecue, and watch skits and bands.

Friday night, the Senior House courtyard was ablaze. The giant fire pit was already heating up, and the equally giant "Sport Death" banner (a red, white, and blue skull on a black background) was snapping brazenly. I came pre-cooked. At first I thought that I had too much pride to be stoned in front of a bunch of geeky undergrads. But there I was, swimming around their filthy orange dorm-lounge couch and grinning pointy-pupiled like I really cared about what was going on with all their "SmutCom"s and their "DrugCom"s.

Sascha and Jonathan were in their element. Both were, except for the ephedra softdrinks, amazingly butt-sober. Hank, a Libertarian gun nut who sometimes doubled in a tight spot as Sascha’s bodyguard, had come along in case there would be any trouble. Nobody in the Kill Strathmore Club (Alumni Chapter) seemed to be around just then, so Hank took a few tokes and sat on the other side of the rotting couch, fondling his ninchucks.

Jonathan was trying to make Sascha shut up about his recruitment tactics, and Sascha wasn’t doing it. "We are going to have the biggest, most secret hack in years," he giggled. "We are going to have the party to remember---except nobody who goes will remember it, hee hee---they’ll just know that they’ve sold their souls to Deus Ex Machina Software. And they’ll be grateful."

Ian and a couple of other people, who had been standing in a corner drinking beer from plastic cups, decided that their boss had opened his big mouth one too many times. "Someone is going to hear about this and narc on us," Ian hissed. "Shut the fuck up while you still can."

Sascha looked at him blankly, then rushed over and gave me a little smooch on the cheek. I was concerned that he was already so out of control---and this was only Friday night.

"No, my wonderful wife has everything under control, right? My wonderful wife will make sure that nothing bad will ever happen to me again. She’s an angel." A group of undergraduates was watching us on unsteady feet.

"Sascha, let’s go home," I said, feeling that paranoid headachy feeling creeping up on me. "We have a long night---er, day---tomorrow." I led him out the door toward the courtyard. I wasn’t feeling paranoid for nothing, either. He had a pocket full of Schedule I substances, and I was afraid he was going to start blabbing about them right there. His secret-keeping was not great even under the best of circumstances, and this certainly wasn’t one of them.

Saturday morning, after I had a couple big swigs of V-8 and a quick jog down to the water and back, I felt a lot better. Always trust Sascha, I reassured myself. His judgment came from a different place than most people’s, but the end results were always effective. Besides, I was supposed to go on the biggest, most wonderful trip of my life tonight, and he was responsible for providing the goods, set, and setting.

I decided to run down to Allston Beat to buy some rave-wear. Sascha was on the phone---I imagined he’d be there all day---doing bicep curls with a dumbbell I had bought him. I slapped him on the seat of his Levis as I went past. He grinned and gestured with his free hand: the sign language for the letter "E," then the letter "X."

*

At quarter past eleven that night, Sascha suddenly decided he wanted to leave. He didn’t want to be late; this was his show, and some of the best prospects would be showing up early, as MIT students often do. So we ran up into the bedroom, lit candles and incense, and sat facing each other on pillows on the floor. He was already trembling, and talking fast. I was trembling too---I hadn’t eaten since the picnic barbecue lunch in order to purify my system, and it was starting to show.

"Darling, beautiful girl," he said, reaching over and running his hand down my cheek. "I wish your first time didn’t have to be like this. We’re in such a rush." He reached into his jeans pocket and pulled out a little mother-of-pearl box. Inside were two capsules.

"130 mg for starters, OK? This Ecstasy is really clean. I don’t think you’ll need more." In the flickering darkness, we toasted each other with little Benedictine-filled art-deco colored shotglasses, and popped the capsules into one another’s mouths. The stuff tasted unbelievably bitter, even through the gelcaps. I took a swig of the Benedictine and squished it around in my mouth.

"Have a wonderful time, OK?" Sascha whispered in my ear. "I’ll be around if you need me." He blew out the candles and grabbed my hand. "Now let’s get over there before it hits."

The party was being held in a concrete bunker atop the library. I’m not sure how the sound and light equipment got up there, but we, and presumably all the guests, had to follow a circuitous route to the inner sanctum. We took the elevator to the fourth floor of the adjacent humanities building, walked down a hallway, snuck into a closet, went out the door in the back of the closet, ran across the top of the glassed-in bridge that connects the two buildings, and dragged open the metal service door that led into the gargantuan windowless storage space.

Sascha urged me faster and faster through the faintly surreal obstacle course, as I was progressively feeling weirder and weirder. "C’mon," he exhorted, whispering. "You don’t want to be up here when it hits."

I was feeling a little sick and shivery when we got inside the rave space. The speakers were banging out some high bpm techno bass. I was amazed at how little of it you could hear from outside, thanks to all the ingeniously rigged sound-retardant screens. But I was pretty sure the speakers were in fact hooked up to a magnet at the earth’s core, just like the flyer said. No prospects were there yet, just some jittery Deus Exers. Jonathan and Wendy were having a conversation in a corner.

"Are you feeling anything yet?" asked Sascha. His pupils were getting pretty big.

"Not yet. I don’t think. I wish they’d put on more accessible stuff. It’d be great to dance." I looked down at my new Airwalks, thinking that they were probably a cliché, but it was really cool of me to think of buying them, plus the fact that I could fit into the plastic bell-bottoms and the little club T-shirt. I was a pretty cool person after all! I noticed the people filtering into the room: some students, some programmers, some friends and competitors. They all looked so hopeful, so curious. What a talented bunch of folks I hung out with these days, I thought. I sighed. It felt very good to sigh.

I decided I really wanted to dance, but the music still wasn’t right. I stretched a little. Sascha’s glittery molecule T-shirt was so interesting to look at in these lights, why hadn’t I noticed that before? He stretched along with me. "That’s my girl," he said softly, bouncing a little on his heels. "They’re coming to see us!"

"Am I having fun?" I asked.

At that moment, this wild, golden, heartbeaty music burst from the giant speakers. Yes! I was having fun! I didn’t know whether to stay with Sascha, my wonderful brilliant husband, or run over to talk to or dance with one of the other wonderful, brilliant people.

"Talk to Wendy," Sascha urged. "Get her to dance with you."

The parts of my brain that were still capable of rational thought were teasing me. Sara! they said. What’s happening to you? You’re supposed to be a private person. I flicked off the nagging switches. I didn’t want to feel anything negative right then.

I skipped across the floor, the lights running over my face. Wendy was still lounging in the corner, watching the room fill up. She was wearing a pair of purple gym shorts and a white T-shirt that didn’t do a very good job of covering up her belly. It was hard for her, I knew, to stay straight in a glorious environment like this. But she had her baby to protect. What a remarkable woman, brave enough to have two children! I wanted her so much to like me. Had I ever thought that before? She was a hard tree-trunk with a soft maternal heart. Her legs were perfect. Did I want to have sex with her? Didn’t I want to belong to this group of people who were so free and open with their sexuality that they weren’t bound by stupid societal rules? Didn’t I want to love them and belong with them forever? My body was certainly starting to feel like it wanted to have sex with someone.

"C’mon Wendy, let’s dance!" She looked at me with a tired smile---I felt like she was so wise that she understood everyone’s inner child. I reached out my hand to her and wondered, in the last piece of my head that wasn’t tripping yet, who the hell was living in my body.

"Sure," she said. "C’mon." I was so flattered.

We flew onto dance floor. The pounding, grooving music and my own accelerating heartbeat were driving me to new heights of---joy? excitement? Did it have a word? Did I care about words right then?

Sascha had actually concocted this party in order to do business? How boring! Didn’t he want to have fun? Then I remembered that we were all different, and conducting job interviews while out of his mind was actually one of his many strange ideas of fun. It felt so good to dance. I was liquid, giggly, ballerina-ish. Wendy moved much more gracefully than I thought a pregnant woman could.

"You know," I said breathlessly, "I want to apologize for how I acted with you that time in the hot tub. I don’t know what my problem is about being around naked women. I know I’ve always been really sexually repressed---it’s something I have to get over. Even that thing with Tanya in San Francisco---I just let her do it, she might as well have been a man. I wasn’t really present for myself, you know? I think maybe I should have sex with more women. I think it would be a good idea---who would do it with me?"

Wendy laughed. "Slow down. Make sure you don’t say anything that’ll embarrass you in the morning. You’re embarrassed by so many things, after all---"

"Oh, but I see how wrong I’ve been! I can change! I want to change! I want to be different than I was! I want to see the beauty in everyone! I see it in you!"

"That’s fine, Sara."

"Can you think of someone for me?" The idea was really turning me on. Maybe I could find someone to kiss or something while I was here.

"I’ll work on it. Look, here’s Catfood and Drexler and Shanna! Hey guys! Come watch Sara trip her brains out!"

Drexler was wearing an open leather jacket, cutoffs, and a nipple ring. He hopped over to me and gave me a big wet kiss. His pupils were different sizes. "Hey beautiful," he said to me, then "Check out this laser system! How are they getting those patterns on the walls?"

"Drex, they’re not actually that good. It’s you," said Wendy.

He looked disappointed. I felt overwhelming sympathy for him. "Let’s dance!" I said.

I was flinging myself around with all the new, exciting dance moves I was inventing on the spot. My eyes were jangling around in their sockets, but that was OK.

"Whoa!" said Drexler. "Is that Crystal I see, or am I just hallucinating?"

Ohmygodohmygodohmygod, I thought, my heart beating even faster than before. This is my chance to confront her, to tell her...tell her what? Tell her I understood what it felt like to randomly offer up your body? To be lonely? Ahhh, we were sisters at some level, two sides of the same person, blond and dark, separated before time, each looking for the other...

BOOM, ba ba BOOM BOOM, ba ba BOOM BOOM BOOM, went the deep bass, vibrating somewhere around my G-spot. I squinted against the flashing lights. "Crystal? Where?"

Wendy pointed a bored arm towards the door. "She’s leaving. Thank God."

I whirled towards the doorway, prepared to make a run for it and stop her before she left. She was in fact there, alone, wearing a silver lamé bra top that exposed considerable white flesh. A silver chain ran from her nose to her navel. She craned her neck, taking in the revelers, bypassing me entirely. She stared for someone in the crowd for a long time. Then she was gone.

Catfood put his hand on my shoulder. "Forget about her, honey. Just dance and have a good time."

I tried to shrug away my touched magnanimity. "OK."

Drexler, Catfood, and Shanna were all raunchy dancers. Maybe, I thought, Sascha and I could take them home and have a fivesome or something. Where was my angel? I missed him so much! Why did I not tell him I loved him nearly enough?

At last I saw him, huddled against the wall with two undergraduates, waving his hands and bouncing up and down enthusiastically. A stray laser beam caught his pale curls and lit them golden. My heart felt pierced, seeing my husband like a stranger across a crowded room. "Sascha! Sascha!" I yelled. "I see you! I love you!"

Miraculously, he turned to me with a big open smile. "Sara! My wife! Come here to me!"

I ran to him in slippery shoes.

"Kevin and Skip, this is my wife, Sara. Sara, Kevin and Skip are thinking about joining us."

"How wonderful!" I shook both of their hands enthusiastically. "Come join our family on Magazine Street. It’s not such a far walk from here. You’ll have a great time."

Kevin looked sober, but Skip looked like he had probably been smoking some pot. "Cool," he said, squinting. "I am king of Objective-C."

"Can you dance?" I asked Sascha.

"Sure, in a minute. Listen," he continued to the other two, "here’s the macro view of looking at it. Imagine a giant beach. Imagine that each grain of sand is either a one or a zero. Think of the cosmically large numbers of ways all those grains can blow. The ones and zeroes come together and make glass. Or they blow in your eyes or go out to sea. Every program ever created is a different combination of ones and zeroes. The sand blows one way, you get a word processing program. The wind shifts a little, you get a spreadsheet. Think about it---all the beauty of God’s Heaven, right there in your hard drive. All the software in the world that can ever get written is already there---you just have to find it. The possibilities are infinite---"

"I need to talk to you," I said, tugging at his shirt and feeling like my skin was bursting. "Wendy says she’s going to find a woman for me to have sex with. Is that OK with you?"

I had finally gotten his attention. "Great! Will it be something that I can join in? Or just watch? Wow, that really makes me want to have sex with you right now. Let’s go out and dance."

We skipped out into the middle of the floor together. People stepped aside for us. Sascha could really get his body into a hot little bump and grind. We held each other’s hands over our heads and mashed our pelvises together. His jeans were tight, and so was his underwear. I could feel every inch of him through me. I wanted his sperm, so we could be like Jonathan and Wendy, you know, have a baby or something. Why wasn’t our sex normally this good? He started to unzip my plastic pants and reach inside, in front of about 25 people. I leaned even closer into him. I was so hot, I wanted him so much, I didn’t care...

It must have been about then that we were busted by the campus police. In the center of a ring of admirers, with my husband’s hand down my pants, I didn’t notice that the cosmic lights had been cut off and replaced with the room’s ordinary fluorescents. I did break away, though, when the deep bass sounded like it had just had an aneurysm and keeled over. For the first time, I noticed the smart bar and the massage table, which were rapidly being disassembled. A couple of people suddenly sat down at the workstations and pretended to type. Most scattered, frightened of being caught in flagrante.

I couldn’t understand what was happening. What were policemen doing here? Were they going to arrest all hundred of us? I thought I’d better get sober in a hurry. Zipping up my pants might do for starters.

"This party is shut down!" one of the cops shouted. "If I see any illegal drugs or paraphernalia, you’re all coming down to the station." They stalked over to us. "You---Strathmore, Marshall, Drexler---you guys are all coming with us anyway---trespassing, noise, illegal campus venue. Why can’t you pussies grow up! You haven’t been students here in almost ten years. Be grateful we’re not running drug tests on you."

Sascha gave me a look---don’t even think of opening your mouth, it said. He nodded to Wendy.

"I’m feeling sick," she groaned, doubling up and holding her hands over her stomach. "Sara needs to take me home."

"I’m taking you home with me," she whispered, pulling me by the back of my bra strap. "We’ll pick up the guys in the morning if they haven’t come back."

Jonathan folded his arms and slumped like a juvenile delinquent in front of the campus police. Sascha was cold and poised, a product of prep schools and public observation. His face was greenish white and one of his eyes wandered a little, but otherwise you couldn’t tell what was happening in his head.

Wendy led me down many wavery flights of stairs. I knelt and threw up some of the Benedictine in front of their parking meter on Mass. Ave. The three-flight walk up to the Marshalls’ condo was excruciating. Wendy checked on Starchild, paid the babysitter, and pushed me down on their bed. "You were so brave tonight," she whispered. "Are you still brave enough to sleep in a bed with a naked woman?"

"I just want to sleep now," I whined. Coming down like this was not fun.

"Take off your clothes then. Get into bed with me."

I let her unzip my silly plastic jeans and pull off my T-shirt. She still had that nurse-ish demeanor. "I’m not going to lay a hand on you, Sara. Just get in the damn bed, OK?" She put her hand on her belly. "We need some sleep."

And so, at 4 a.m., while our tripping husbands were trying to wheedle the MIT campus police out of charging them with yet another destructive hack, I slept naked in the Marshalls’ bed with Wendy’s strong hairy legs wrapped around mine and my arm draped over their unborn baby.