examine (object)

“What is what?” you ask, like a total idiot.

Jayne points behind herself again at the Windows NT screen showing the blue window you know very well. “This super old looking program running here. It had some sort of menu on it but when I got closer it changed.”

You casually walk beside Jayne and look at the screen. You know you had left it on what you consider the main menu, the screen with the five options and your name on it, but now that is gone and in it’s place is the very first welcome screen you saw.

==============================

=========WELCOME TO========

===The Affection Multiplier!===

====CLICK [Y] TO PROCEED====

=============================

That… is quite odd. You look at Jayne, who is still very clearly curious as to what you are doing. In a fit of inspiration, you decide to tell her the truth, just not the whole truth.

“That’s a great question. I found this old server in the asset disposal bin and it was so weird I plugged it in. The only thing I can see on it is this ancient program, called ‘The Affection Multiplier’ obviously. As to what it does or why I’m not sure.”

Jayne nods and looks at the blue window again, “Oh, could be an old game of some kind. Any clinical program with confidential info would have been wiped, so presumably this server never had any on it or the hard drive would be gone.” That’s a great point, and one you hadn’t thought of.

She continues, “This is definitely not any health care program I’ve ever seen, and I remember the really old ADT system they used. That thing was from the ‘80s, it was text only, and you couldn’t use a mouse.” Suddenly Jayne snaps her fingers and exclaims, “Aha! That’s what this reminds me of! Zork!”

You are almost as stunned as you were when TAM knew your name. “Zork? Holy shit Jayne, you know Zork!”

With a satisfied smirk Jayne crosses her arms and says, “Are you gatekeeping me Zach? I’ll have you know my Intro to Computer Studies teacher in middle school was a huge fan of classic adventure games, and since they were text only he let us play around with them when we were done our labs.”

You laugh good naturedly and reply, “Fair enough, I’ll examine my gendered assumptions about you and videogames before bedtime meditation tonight. Really perform a serious mental assessment of my moral self.”

Nodding with a look so serious you know she’s not, Jayne turns and starts to walk out of your office. Just as you’re about to say bye, she pauses at the doorway and looks over her shoulder. “Nice to know you think about me before you fall asleep, Zach.” With a casual flip of her hair and, you swear, an extra saucy roll of her hips, she’s out the door.

God damn, that was a great line and a great exit. She might be perfect. You smile, allowing yourself to imagine being able to get to know her as well as you’d like. It’s a silly dream, one you are sure can’t be because of London. But you are still thinking about Jayne more and more as the weeks go by now. It’s been years, but you know your old life in London is always there, looming behind you, and you know how Jayne would react if she knew. That knowledge, as much as the rules, ensures you can’t just ask her out.

Still, it’s a nice fantasy to have. The life you’ve been living since you moved down highway 401 from London to Toronto is too solitary and disconnected. You know you need more social interaction, but maybe for now you can just flirt with the really hot, very funny and hugely charming woman in the office next door. That will be enough maybe. It has to be.

Ah well, there is still this crazy mystery to think about. You look again at the window, showing you the initial welcome screen. You know you’ve only seen that screen once since you ran the initial setup wizard. Maybe Jayne touched the keyboard or something? Regardless, the fact she didn’t see “Zachary” on the main menu is a real help. She likely would have had far more questions about it.

As you look at the initial welcome screen it goes blank, replaced by a single line of text.

===YOU SHOULD HAVE TOLD HER===

You gasp as you quickly take a step back away from the screen. What the actual fuck!

The line of text disappears, but slowly like a fade effect. Your heart is racing as you stare at a completely blank, perfectly blue Turbo Pascal window.

The main menu appears again. No fade in effect, just pops back on screen like it was never gone.

You stare at it. Somehow this is even creepier than anything it’s done up until now. Forcing yourself to act, you step forward again and hit 5 and then hit the Y to confirm you wish to exit. The program, as it did earlier, turns off very quickly. Trying to ignore the slight shaking of your hands, you power down the SGI server.

As soon as that’s done, you unplug the power cable for the server. Ok, now you feel slightly more relaxed. It’s good to remember that no matter how crazy or spooky TAM gets, it’s still just a bunch of lines of code on a computer that might just up and die any second. You can always turn it off.

Frowning, you realize that no matter what you need to know more about TAM. You go back to the cage, where you initially found the server. The tower was right there, on the bottom corner shelf. Not much to see now, the SGI and the weird cable and the extra weird port replicator that plugged into it were just sitting there, hidden by some old Blackberries. Maybe Jayne knows more about it? She might know when it was active, even if she didn’t seem to recognize the purple box itself. It’s almost a shame she just accepted it was some weird old curiosity, you could have used her help.

you should have told her

Ok, you’re not going to start arguing with yourself over it now. With a frustrated frown, you are just about to turn away from the asset cage when you see the cardboard box, the one that held the old mouse and keyboards. Those were all PS/2 peripherals, and the SGI server was the only thing old enough to use them.

The box only has a few old cables - wow is that S-Video? - and a clearly broken keyboard in it now. But as you look at the box itself you see something written on the side in faded black marker, “SB2-07”.

Well that could mean almost anything, but at least it’s something. You go to your computer. Shit, you have some emails and tickets you should probably do but you want to check this first. You open your browser and start Googling.

The SB2-07, as expected, is too vague to be meaningful. A lot of American states have their proposed laws use that naming convention and that alone is endless hits. Sadly, searching for “The Affection Multiplier” isn’t much better. About 10 years ago, there was an essay in the New York Times called “An Affection Multiplier, with Four Feet and a Wet Nose”, but it was about a man and his partner getting a small dog and how it changed them. It’s a cute little story actually, but you really doubt it has anything to do with TAM.

Forcing yourself to push this to the back of your mind as much as you can, you instead tackle your actual work with a will. You are focused on work when Jayne sticks her head in the door to wave.

“Night Zach, you staying late?” she asks. You both arrive and leave at about the same time normally.

Pausing in the email you are writing, you shake your head, “Not really, just a few minutes maybe. Trying to figure out how to phrase this reply without using the words ‘stupid’, ‘idiot’, or ‘please retire’ and it’s tough.”

“Hah, well see you tomorrow then,” she seems to hesitate for a moment as you watch her.

“Yeah, see you Hallsy,” you reply, wishing you could say more. Would it really be so bad if you asked if she wanted to get a coffee? Well you’ve had enough caffeine today. Maybe she’d like to go get an early supper? Or a drink? Or maybe she’d be interested in just letting you take off her glasses and then kiss the hollow of her neck and

Stop it.

With a last nod, she’s gone, and you get back to work. You have your ticket queue mostly in order and your inbox tamed in not much time. Then you grab your bag, toss your laptop in and by 4:30 you’re out the door, walking in the wonderful early summer weather to the basement apartment you rent nearby. It’s a nice enough place, despite you still not having bothered getting much in the way of furniture yet. But it’s just you, and you’ve never had any guests so who cares right. If someone did come over you at least have two cheap IKEA kitchen chairs to go with the cheap but serviceable table. In a pinch you could use the old loveseat for a guest and sit in one of the chairs to watch TV, maybe order in something. Or heck, the patio of the restaurant just down the street looks fun, you could take her

Seriously, just stop it.