<<Jennifer to Beth>> Of course you can complain. That’s unalienable. On the bright side, at least you’re not pregnant.

<<Beth to Jennifer>> Neither are you. Take a pregnancy test.

CHAPTER 4

JUST FOR THE record—his own internal record—Lincoln never would have applied for this job if the classified ad had said, “Wanted: someone to read other people’s e-mail. Swing shift.”

The Courier ad had said, “Full-time opportunity for Internet security officer. $40K+ Health, dental.”

Internet security officer. Lincoln had pictured himself building firewalls and protecting the newspaper from dangerous hackers—not sending out memos every time somebody in Accounting forwarded an off-color joke to the person in the next cubicle.

The Courier was probably the last newspaper in America to give its reporters Internet access. At least that’s what Greg said. Greg was Lincoln’s boss, the head of the IT office. Greg could still remember when the reporters used electric typewriters. “And I can remember,” he said, “because it wasn’t that long ago—1992. We switched to computers because we couldn’t order the ribbon anymore, I shit you not.”

This whole online thing was happening against management’s will, Greg said. As far as the publisher was concerned, giving employees Internet access was like giving them the option to work if they felt like it, look at p**n if they didn’t.

But not having the Internet was getting ridiculous.

When the newspaper launched its Web site last year, the reporters couldn’t even go online to read their stories. And most readers wanted to e-mail in their letters to the editor these days, even third- graders and World War II veterans.

By the time Lincoln started working at The Courier, the Internet experiment was in its third month.

All employees had internal e-mail now. Key employees, and pretty much everyone in the news division, had some access to the World Wide Web.

If you asked Greg, it was all going pretty well.

If you asked anyone in upper management, it was chaos.

People were shopping and gossiping; they were joining online forums and fantasy football leagues.

There was some gambling going on. And some dirty stuff. “But that isn’t such a bad thing,” Greg argued. “It helps us weed out the sickos.”

The worst thing about the Internet, as far as Greg’s bosses were concerned, was that it was now impossible to distinguish a roomful of people working diligently from a roomful of people taking the What-Kind-of-Dog-Am-I? online personality quiz.

And thus …Lincoln.

On his very first night, Lincoln helped Greg load a new program called WebFence on to the network. WebFence would monitor everything everyone was doing on the Internet and the Intranet.

Every e-mail. Every Web site. Every word.

And Lincoln would monitor WebFence.

An especially filthy-minded person (maybe Greg) had defined the program’s mail filters. There was a whole list of red flags: nasty words, racial slurs, supervisors’ names, words like “secret” and “classified.”

That last one, “classified,” beached the entire network during WebFence’s first hour by flagging and storing each and every e-mail sent to or from the Classified Advertising department.

The software also flagged large attachments, suspiciously long messages, suspiciously frequent messages…. Every day, hundreds of possibly illicit e-mails were sent to a secure mailbox, and it was Lincoln’s job to follow up on every one. That meant reading them, so he read them. But he didn’t enjoy it.

He couldn’t admit this to his mother, but it did feel wrong, what he was doing, like eavesdropping.

Maybe if he were the sort of person who liked that sort of thing …His girlfriend Sam—his ex- girlfriend—always used to peek in other people’s medicine cabinets. “Robitussin,” she’d report in the car on the way home. “And generic Band-Aids. And something that looked like a garlic press.”

Lincoln didn’t even like using other people’s bathrooms.

There was a whole complicated process he was supposed to follow if he caught someone actually breaking The Courier’s rules. But most offenses called for just a written warning, and most offenders got the message after that.

In fact, the first round of warnings worked so well, Lincoln started to run out of things to do.

WebFence kept flagging e-mails, a few dozen a day, but they were almost all false alarms. Greg didn’t seem to care. “Don’t worry,” he said to Lincoln on the first day that WebFence didn’t snag a single legitimate violator. “You won’t get fired. The men upstairs love what you’re doing.”

“I’m not doing anything,” Lincoln said.

“Sure, you are. You’re the guy who reads their e-mail. They’re all scared of you.”

“Who’s scared? Who’s they?”

“Everybody. Are you kidding? This whole building is talking about you.”

“They’re not scared of me. They’re scared of getting caught.”

“Getting caught by you. Just knowing that you’re snooping around their Sent folders every night is enough to keep them following the rules.”

“But I’m not snooping around.”

“You could,” Greg said.

“I could?”

Greg went back to what he was doing, some sort of laptop autopsy. “Look, Lincoln, I’ve told you.

Somebody has to be here at night anyway. Somebody has to answer the phone and say, ‘Help desk.’ You’re just sitting around, I know. You don’t have enough work, I know. I don’t care. Do the crossword. Learn a foreign language. We had a gal who used to crochet …”

Lincoln didn’t crochet.

He read the newspaper. He brought in comic books and magazines and paperback novels. He called his sister sometimes, if it wasn’t too late and if he felt lonely.

Mostly, he surfed the Net.

CHAPTER 5

From: Jennifer Scribner-Snyder

To: Beth Fremont

Sent: Wed, 08/25/1999 10:33 AM

Subject: This is only a test. In the case of an actual emergency …

It’s here. Return to your usual programming.

<<Beth to Jennifer>> It?

<<Jennifer to Beth>> You know … it, the thing that tells you you’re not pregnant.

<<Beth to Jennifer>> It? Do you mean your period? Your monthly? Did your aunt Ruby arrive for a five-to seven-day visit? Is it … that time?

Why are you talking like you’re in a feminine napkin commercial?

<<Jennifer to Beth>> I’m trying to be more careful. I don’t want to trigger one of those red flags and send some company watchdog computer into a frenzy, just because I sent an e-mail about it.

<<Beth to Jennifer>> I can’t imagine that any of the company’s red-flag words involve menstruation.

<<Jennifer to Beth>> So you’re not worried about it?

<<Beth to Jennifer>> About your period?

<<Jennifer to Beth>> No, about that note we got. The one that warned us not to send personal e- mails. The one that said we could be fired for improper use of our computers.

<<Beth to Jennifer>> Am I worried that the bad guys from Tron are reading our e-mail? Uh, no.

All this security stuff isn’t aimed at people like us. They’re trying to catch the pervs. The online p**n addicts, the Internet blackjack players, the corporate spies …

<<Jennifer to Beth>> Those are probably all red-flag words. Pervs. Porn. Spies. I bet red flag is a red flag.

<<Beth to Jennifer>> I don’t care if they are reading our mail. Bring it on, Tron! I dare you. Try to take away my freedom of expression. I’m a journalist. A free-speech warrior. I serve in the Army of the First Amendment. I didn’t take this job for the bad money and the regressive health care coverage.

I’m here for the truth, the sunshine, the casting open of closed doors!

<<Jennifer to Beth>> Free-speech warrior. I see. What are you fighting for? The right to give Billy Madison five stars?

<<Beth to Jennifer>> Hey now. I wasn’t always a spoiled movie reviewer. Don’t forget my two years covering North Havenbrook. Two years in the trenches. I bled ink all over that suburb. I went Bob Woodward on its ass.

Furthermore, I would have given Billy Madison six stars if they were mine to give. You know how I feel about Adam Sandler—and that I give bonus stars for Styx songs. (Two stars if it’s “Renegade.”)

<<Jennifer to Beth>> Fine. I surrender. Company Internet policy be d@mned: I started my period last night.

<<Beth to Jennifer>> Say it loud, say it proud. Congratulations.

<<Jennifer to Beth>> Yeah, that’s the thing …

<<Beth to Jennifer>> What’s the thing?

<<Jennifer to Beth>> When it started, I didn’t feel my usual hurricane of relief and Zima cravings.

I mean, I was relieved—because, on top of the Zima drinking, I don’t think I’ve eaten anything with folic acid in the last six months. I may even be eating things that leach folic acid from your system, so I was definitely relieved—but I wasn’t ecstatic.

I went downstairs to tell Mitch. He was working on marching band diagrams, which, normally, I wouldn’t interrupt, but this was important. “Just FYI,” I said, “I started my period.”

And he set down his pencil and said, “Oh.” (Just like that. “Oh.”)

When I asked him why he said it that way, he said he thought that maybe I really was pregnant this time—and that that would have been nice. “You know I want kids,” he said.

“Right,” I said. “Someday.”

“Someday soon,” he said.

“Someday eventually. When we’re ready.”

And then he turned back to his diagrams. Not mad or impatient. Just sorrowful, which is much, much worse. So I said, “When we’re ready, right?” And he said …

“I’m ready now. I’m ready last year, Jenny, and I’m starting to think that maybe you never will be.

You don’t even want to be ready. You act like getting pregnant is a disease you can catch from public toilets.”

<<Beth to Jennifer>> What did you say?

<<Jennifer to Beth>> What could I say? I’m not ready. And maybe I misled him every time I used the words “someday” and “eventually.” I can’t picture myself with kids …

But I couldn’t picture myself married, either, until I met Mitch. I always thought the kid idea would grow on me, that all Mitch’s healthy desires would infect me, and one morning I’d wake up thinking, “What a beautiful world in which to bring a child.”

What if that never happens?

What if he decides to cut his losses and find some perfectly normal woman who—on top of being naturally thin and never having turned to prescription antidepressants—also wants to have his babies ASAP?

<<Beth to Jennifer>> Like Barbie in a state of perpetual ovulation.

<<Jennifer to Beth>> Yes.

<<Beth to Jennifer>> Like the fictional new consumer-science teacher.

<<Jennifer to Beth>> Yes!

<<Beth to Jennifer>> It won’t happen.

<<Jennifer to Beth>> Why not?

<<Beth to Jennifer>> For the same reason Mitch tries to grow giant pumpkins every summer— even though your yard is too small, is infested with beetles and doesn’t get enough sun. Mitch doesn’t want the easy thing. He wants to work a little harder to get the thing he really wants.

<<Jennifer to Beth>> So he’s a fool. A fool whose seeds find no purchase.

<<Beth to Jennifer>> That’s not the point. The point is, he’s a fool who won’t give up on you.

<<Jennifer to Beth>> I’m not sure that you’re right, but I think I might feel better now. So, good work.

<<Beth to Jennifer>> Anytime.

(You know that I mean anytime after 10:30 a.m. or so, right?)

<<Jennifer to Beth>> (I do.)

CHAPTER 6

JENNIFER SCRIBNER-SNYDER, ACCORDING to the company directory, was a Features copy editor.

Beth Fremont, Lincoln knew. He knew of, anyway. He’d read her movie reviews. She was funny, and he usually agreed with her. She was the reason he’d gone to see Dark City and Flirting With Disaster and Babe.

By the time Lincoln realized that he hadn’t sent a warning to Beth Fremont and Jennifer Scribner- Snyder—after who knew how many offenses, three? half a dozen?—he couldn’t remember why not.

Maybe because he couldn’t always figure out what rule they were breaking. Maybe because they seemed completely harmless. And nice.

And now he couldn’t send them a warning, not tonight. Not when they were actually worried about getting a warning. That would be weird, wouldn’t it? Knowing someone had read an e-mail you’d written about whether someone was reading your e-mail? If you were an excessively paranoid person, it could make you wonder whether all the other things you were worried about were also true. It might make you think, “Maybe they are all out to get me.”

Lincoln didn’t want to be the bad guy from Tron.

And also …Also, he kind of liked Beth and Jennifer, as much as you can like people from reading their e-mail, only some of their e-mail.

He read through the exchange again. “Ass” was definitely a red-flagged word. So was “blackjack”

and “porn.” He wasn’t sure about “perv” or “menstruation.”