Character is What You Are

"Well, your lunchroom love--"

"Whatever. You know how I feel about her."

I lifted my hands defensively. "It's not my fault. I was unplugged. I didn't know you were going out with her. I didn't even know I knew her! Look, it's no big deal. Nothing happened. We'll talk this over and get it straightened out."

Jason marched through the maze of cubicles with me in tow as if dragged by a chain of guilt. He kept muttering under his breath but I couldn't catch any of what was being said. It didn't sound happy.

When we entered the corner where our three cubicles faced towards a central common area, replete with dollar-store coffee machine and an empty water cooler rimmed with calcium deposits, the look on Raaj's face stopped me dead.

Where Jason was seething hurt, Raaj was a mix of confusion and anger. She stepped towards Jason but stopped when she saw his face.

"Jason--" she started.

"What the hell? I thought--"

"I was unplugged. Outside I don't know about us. I'm really lonely." She grimaced. "Just outside, unplugged," she added.

Jason shook his head in confusion. "Lonely? Why didn't you say something?"

Raaj stepped tentatively towards Jason. "I'm not lonely at work. I have you. But when I go home you cease to be part of my life. When I'm unplugged I have no one."

"But... Alex? I thought you..." Jason's voice faded to nothing.

"You know I don't like him."

"Hey, I'm right here," I said.

Jason and Raaj turned to face me but only Raaj spoke. "This isn't exactly news. You don't like me and I think you're a passive-aggressive arse."

"You seemed to like me just fine last night," I shot back, hurt.

That stopped her. "Sorry," she said. "But you know it's true. We've been working together for years and we've never got along well. Soon enough we'll realize that on the outside, when we're unplugged."

I wasn't so sure but couldn't think of a way of saying so without sounding petulant.

Jason too looked less than convinced. "Alex said you two had another date planned for this weekend."

"We didn't actually nail down any plans," said Raaj. "Maybe we won't even see each other again."

She was avoiding my eyes. There was no doubt that, once unplugged and home, I was definitely going to call Raajaa and make plans for Saturday.

We worked in such close proximity there was no avoiding each other. When Jason and Raaj disappeared for their lunchtime tryst I remained in my cubicle, staring woodenly at the faded Dilbert comics pinned to the padded blue-grey wall. Was Raaj right, would we soon realize how much we disliked each other? Right now it seemed a very real possibility, but I could remember how I felt last night as we sat talking. She collected old computers! How could we not get along?

The rest of the day was hell.

I exited Introspec and looked around for Jason but he was nowhere to be seen. No real surprise, Jason often left on time. I had to admire his ability to walk away from a project--no matter what stage it was in--at 5 pm to head for home. Perhaps if I could do that I'd have more than three hours of "real life" a day.

Now that I was out and unplugged, all I wanted to do was rush home and talk to Raajaa.

Once home however it didn't seem so easy. I sat in front of the SEC, a processed ham-on-whole-wheat sandwich forgotten on the coffee table before me. Should I call her? She had said that she wanted to see me again but was she just being polite, just letting me off easy?

The SEC pinged for attention. It was Raajaa.

"Hey there," she said with a mischievous grin. I could see a collection of old computer casings piled against the wall behind her.

"I was just trying to work up the guts to call you," I said.

"I can hang up and let you get back at that if you want."

"Nah. Any doubts I may have had have been soundly put to rest. I thought we were going to hook up tomorrow, on Saturday."

Raajaa rolled her eyes. "Or, if you're willing to blow off that sad-looking sandwich, we could grab dinner tonight."

An hour later we sat in a quiet Indian restaurant called North of Bombay eating Hyderabadi biryani which, Raajaa informed me, actually came from somewhere five hundred kilometers east and south of Mumbai. After dinner we walked back to her place, holding hands, chatting about our computer collections, and reminiscing about the days when we could remember what we did for a living. By some unspoken agreement neither talked about our current jobs; there was no point. It's difficult to maintain an interesting conversation about something you have no recollection of.

I didn't return home until late Sunday evening.

Jason and I stood in the hall beyond the IntroSpec security cordon, staring at each other.

Jason broke the silence first. "You son of a bitch!"

"But I didn't know!"

"You spent the weekend screwing my girlfriend--"

"You're screwing my girlfriend when she's at work!"

"--and the last fifteen minutes bragging about it at Java Joe's."

Jason, finally hearing what I said, stepped menacingly towards me. Thinking I was about to be hit for the first time since grade three, I quickly backed away.

Jason halted his advance. "We'll meet at lunch," he growled. "The three of us--"

"That won't be awkward."

"--and figure this out."

If Friday was hell, Monday was turning into something far worse.

We met at lunch in one of the unused boardrooms. I sat on one side of the table while Jason and Raaj sat across from me. I slumped in my chair, arms crossed a little too tightly as if hugging myself.

Jason leaned forward, elbows resting on the tabletop. "I assume we all agree that this is unacceptable. The question is what are we going to do about it?"

"I don't suppose you two are willing to break it off at work," I said, only half joking.

"Alex," Raaj admonished softly.

"Sorry. It's just... outside, we have--"

She leaned forward and rested her hand on my arm, effectively silencing me. When I saw the look on Jason's face, I kept my mouth shut. At least for the moment.

"I know what it seems like," said Raaj. "But Jason and I have been seeing each other for years at work. We're really in love."

I took that to mean that she thought what we shared while unplugged wasn't real. "I'm sorry, but what you two have at work is doomed. You unplug at the end of each day and promptly forget each other. Outside of work, all Jason knows about you is what I've told him. The company will never let you keep your memory plugs. You will never get married. You will never have children together. It's doomed," I repeated.

"We know." Jason said it calmly, but his face betrayed his anger. "It doesn't matter."

Raaj nodded in agreement. "Alex, the fact is you and I don't even like each other and we've known each other for years. At some point we're going to figure that out while unplugged. What's happening outside is just as doomed." She glanced at Jason. "More so," she added.

"You're my friend, right?" Jason asked.

I saw what was coming next but could see no way to avoid it. "You're my best friend," I agreed. Damned near my only friend, but I wasn't about to say that out loud. At least not now.

"And you're mine. All I can say is, I saw her first." Jason shot an apologetic look at Raaj. "It's juvenile, but that's how it is. And I love her."

And that was it. No way out. I nodded. "Okay. I'll break it off on the outside."

"How?" Asked Raaj. "We can't remember any of this once we Unplug."

"I'll figure something out."

Later, while sitting at my cubicle, I pulled off my right shoe and wrote a note on the bottom of my foot.

The SEC pinged for my attention. It was Raajaa.

"Hey sexy," she said.

"God, I love that accent."

"How about you get your arse over here. Now."

"Yes Ma'am. Gotta shower first, and then I'm on my way."

She blew me a kiss full of hot promise and was gone. The shower was the fastest I'd ever taken. My right foot was strangely tingly and raw. When I sat on the side of the tub to examine it, I saw that all the calluses had been scrubbed away. Weird, I must have done that at work.

The foot was quickly forgotten in my rush to get to Raajaa's.

Jason was already at Java Joe's when I arrived. "You don't even have to say it," he grinned. "I can tell by your face; you saw her again last night."

I nodded, flashing my own happy smile. "It was amazing."

For the next few minutes I told my best friend all the intimate details of the previous evening. The things she did with her tongue. The things I did with mine.

"Jason--"

"You said you were going to--"

"I left myself a note--" the memory of my tingling foot stopped me. "They found it."

Jason grabbed me and dragged me down the hall, away from the prying ears of IntroSpec's security staff. "Obviously. You thought you could sneak a note past security? If they cared that little, we wouldn't be wearing these damned memory plugs."

I shook Jason off. "I had to try. It's okay, I have another idea."

"Really? Is it better than hiding a fucking note between your toes?"

"I didn't... never mind. Yes, it's better." I didn't want to discuss it any further because I was less than sure who would really benefit from my new plan. There was a good chance it would get one or more of us fired.

Instead of taking a lunch break I visited the Human Resources department. It was a single small room with a shaky looking plastic collapsible table, and an unshaven middle-aged man sitting at it. The tabletop was barren except for a thin science-fiction paperback titled only 88. No interface of any kind was in sight.

"Is this Human Resources?" I asked, confused.

"That's what it says on the door."

"This is it?"

"No. We have a huge HR department with really nice desks and beautiful secretaries but we keep it hidden from the employees." This was delivered deadpan, with no hint of sarcasm.

"Right." I entered the HR office and realized there was no chair for me to sit in. "So you're not too busy?"

"Who said I wasn't busy? What do you want?"

I shrugged aside my confusion. "What's the company's policy on romances between personnel?"

"Verboten," snapped the man, thumping a fist down on the rickety table.

"Right. Well there's kind of this love triangle thing--"

"Threesome?" This was the first bit of real interest the man had shown.

"No. One guy is seeing the--"

"Seriously? I don't care."

"But unplugged--"

"No one cares."

"But--"

"Is everyone still doing their job?"

"Well... yes."

"Then IntroSpec doesn't care. Glad to have been of service. Goodbye."

I stalked forward and leaned on the table, which shifted ominously under my weight. "What kind of HR department--"

"The only reason IntroSpec even has an HR department is because by law they have to have one. I am it. This way they can, with all honesty, claim that they have an HR Department that represents and assists their employees. I have answered your questions. You have been assisted. Now fuck off."

"But--"

"But what? You don't get it." The man grimaced with annoyance. "At the end of the day you are going to unplug and forget everything that happened at the office. You might hate your job and everyone here, but the second you unplug it's all gone. The only way you can quit is if you do so while at work and still plugged. Then, if IntroSpec rather you stayed with the company, they leave you plugged until the end of the day. When you unplug to go home you immediately forget that you've quit and return to work the next day. Haven't you ever wondered why memory plugs are designed so that you can't unplug them yourself? There are people who have been trying to quit for years. Eventually they give up. It isn't like there's a lot of other work out there. Sometimes, when IntroSpec wants to fire someone but doesn't want to cough up for severance pay, they wait until they're unplugged and just tell them that they quit. Who will ever know otherwise?"

"Should you be telling me all this?"

The man snorted. "What are you going to do about it, complain to the HR department?"

The rest of the week crawled like an injured snail. I tried scribbling notes on the flesh between my toes, tucking messages into seams in my clothing, and hiding things in various orifices. Nothing worked, and no message made it past IntroSpec's security.

Each morning I met Jason for burnt coffee and stale bagels at Java Joe's, bragged of my sexploits and told my friend of the burgeoning love between Raajaa and me. Each day, once we'd plugged in, Jason stalked away without a word.

I spent lunches alone, wondering where Jason and Raaj were and imagining what they were up to.

I sat across the table from Jason and Raajaa, but this time it felt a lot less like the two-against-one of our last meeting. There was some indefinable non-physical distance between the two that had not been there before.

Deciding to lay my metaphorical cards on the table, I spoke first. "I can't take this any more. My best friend hates me and I have to live with the fact that he's screwing the woman I love every lunch hour." I decided to try a joke to lighten the tension. "Maybe if I'd watched more Sesame Street as a child I'd be better at sharing." The joke flopped.

Jason was studiously not looking at Raaj. "We aren't. Not any more. She ended it." He glared at me. "You stole the only woman I've ever really loved. Good job. You happy now?"

"No. I'm miserable."

"That's not fair," snapped Raaj. "He didn't 'steal' me. No one planned this. It's just... well... here at work... there is no future for us, Jason. I'm sorry but it's true."

"We didn't mean to fall in love," I added.

"We didn't fall in love," Raaj corrected. "I still think you're an arse. It's only outside."

"Plugged you just never took the time to get to know me."

"Unplugged me just hasn't had time to learn what an arse you can be."

"You're both arses," Jason threw in for good measure. "Why the hell did you ask us to meet you here, Alex? It's not enough that you tell me all the intimate details of your sex life every morning before work and I have to sit in my cubicle knowing what kind of lubricant you bought together?" He shook his head and muttered "Fuck" with great feeling.

"You tell him about our sex life?"

For a moment I thought to deny it but realized it didn't matter. "Yeah. He's my best friend."

"Was."

"Still is, you know, when unplugged. It's not like Jason wasn't telling me everything you guys were doing before all this happened. And don't even bother telling me that your girlfriends don't know every intimate detail of our sex life."

"Passive-aggressive arse." But she didn't deny it.

I stood and raised my hands to quell any further argument or hurling of insults. "None of this matters. I have decided that I want my cake and to eat it too."

"What?" Jason and Raaj asked together.

"Ignorance, as they say, is bliss. I have figured out how to keep both the woman I love and my best friend. It's obvious. I have to quit IntroSpec." I didn't add "if they'll let me." It seemed unlikely that I was all that valuable to the company.

"You're going to quit for me?" asked Raaj, eyes wide with surprise and something else I couldn't define.

"No," I said. "I'm going to quit for who you are when not at work. I'm quitting for her. I think you've changed. I think we've all changed. We've all become different than the people we were before we started wearing these damned memory plugs. I like who I am unplugged. I haven't been that happy in a long time."

"You don't seem all that happy," muttered Jason.

"I'm not. I am, as previously stated, miserable. Outside me, unplugged me, he's happy. I want that. I want to be him."

"But you are him," said Raaj.

"No. I want to be him all the time. I realized that I don't give a damn what you think. All I care about is what unplugged you thinks." I shrugged. "Go ahead, hate me. You don't matter. Outside," I nodded at Jason "you are my best friend." I looked at Raaj and gave her a sad smile. "And unplugged you loves me." I backed away from the table. "I'll see you both on the outside, in the real world. Jason my friend, I'm going to marry this woman. I hope you'll be my Best Man."

"Fuck you."

I bowed, spun on my heel, and left IntroSpec forever. Perhaps Raaj was right. Perhaps I was a little passive-aggressive.

I watched Jason fidget in his rented tuxedo. If anyone should be fidgeting here it was me, but I felt nothing but calm anticipation. We stood at the alter, Groom and Best Man, awaiting Raajaa's arrival.

"You okay?" I whispered.

Jason nodded, shifting his cummerbund as if it chafed painfully. "Yeah. IntroSpec went over the deep-end with their security measures right after you left. I unplug every day to find myself scrubbed raw. I'm all pink and don't have a callus on my entire body!" He grimaced as his pants rubbed at tender flesh. "You quit at the perfect time."

I was immediately reminded of the days I'd arrived home from IntroSpec to find myself pink and raw. It had been just before I quit. Had that been the reason I'd left the company? To this day I can't imagine how I could have walked away from such a high-paying job. My friends all said I was crazy. Crazy but happy.

I shrugged. "Just lucky, I guess."

Jason shook his head and whispered, "I can't believe she used to work at IntroSpec too."

I hadn't even known we'd worked at the same company until after I'd left. She quit a week later. "Yeah, weird, eh?"

"I wonder if I knew her at work, when plugged."

I shrugged. Knowing her skillset it was all too likely. The thought left me strangely uncomfortable.

The four-piece jazz band launched into the Wedding March and we watched as Raajaa began her stately walk down the isle, her father at her side. She was beautiful, she practically glowed. Thinking back to what had started me on this path I suddenly realized something.

Dad was wrong. Character is what you are in the light.