Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.Pablo Picasso
It's 5:30am. I'm moving with long strides through a corridor, rehearsing my destination in my mind: 31-215. A few minutes ago received an email message from reuse@mit.edu. This is a list to which people post descriptions of miscellaneous junk they don't want anymore. The first enterprising scavenger to claim it gets to keep it. My goal is a Macintosh SE computer that the message stated is just outside the door to the office in marked with these numbers. Everything around here has a number. The message also claimed that the location was hard to find, and that made the idea irresistible.
I straighten the sleeves of my blue jacket as I move. I don't recall where building 31 is, but I know I'm close. Numbers have patterns and in this place patterns have meanings. Buildings with odd numbers are West of the Great Dome and those with similar numbers are often next to one another. At the moment I'm in building 33, on the second floor. I stop to consider the next step. I seem to recall a campus map on the first floor. As I make my way down the stairs I can already see it on the wall. Let's see... there.
With some effort I shove the formidable heap of wood, metal and glass that passes for a door out of my way. I'm outside now, atop a set of imposing stone steps in the corner between two buildings. I descend at a trot and make my way around to a concrete driveway and under an enclosed passageway between two buildings. As I draw nearer I remember building 31. A program called Concourse I participated in last year had classes that met there. I know where the entrance is, and I want that computer. There ought to be a printer there too, but I won't take that. Or maybe I will if it's not too hard to carry.
I turn the handle and pull, but the heavy door doesn't budge. Somehow no one expected visitors at this hour. Not discouraged, I circle the building looking for where it connects with its neighbors. Enclosed passages connect most of the buildings around here, usually on the third floor. This one seems to be an exception. There is a set of metal stairs leading up to the roof, though. After looking around I resolve to see where they lead. The roof is forbidding and I am not equipped for this sort of expedition. I descend the stairs slower than I ascended because they are thin slices of metal and I can see the ground, five meters below.
I find two more doors back on the ground, but neither has the good manners to open without a key. Through a pane of glass set into one section of the wall I can see a stairwell leading down. That means that there's a basement, and basements around here often connect too. I move to building 13, still optimistic. I mean to give the Mac to my younger brother. He's attending another collage, no doubt sound asleep at this moment. The message said that the hard drive doesn't work but I don't consider that a significant problem.
I'm navigating the basements now. I haven't been in this area often, so I surface every so often to get my bearings. Rot, this is a dead end. There was another passage back there that might go where I want to be. I might be able to fix the hard drive, or buy a new one. And if not I might find another SE somewhere with a broken screen and then I would be in business. Rot. Rot, rot, and rot. There's no way through on this end either.
Hmm... I didn't know building 9 even had a first floor, but here I am. I cross the industrial driveway and circle building 31 again. No new orifices have appeared in its walls. That's just as well; my brother would not have appreciated my efforts to restore the old computer anyway. I could try to pick it up later, during office hours. No, someone else will have taken it before I could manage to separate myself from whatever surface I end up sleeping on. It may already be gone.
I try the metal stairs again. This time I set one foot on the roof. I remember the stairwell I saw through the glass; it might go all the way up here, and perhaps it doesn't lock from the outside. One can never tell. At least I can't, because there is an enormous metal-rimmed awning between me and that part of the roof. There are no gaps and I get the impression that it's in no mood to support my weight. Even if it were, my comfortable canvas shoes don't have enough traction for the climb.
I make my way down the stairs, faster this time, and head North, toward Vassar Street. I don't like Macintosh machines. They're pretty but reluctant to admit what they're doing. I don't trust that. I'd much rather use a more open system. My brother has different values and a Mac is the only thing he would have a chance of getting some use out of. I glance back at building 31, then wave at it in disgust. Earlier this evening I gave up on a week worth of work for one of my classes, so why not this too?
With fresh determination, I head for the metal stairs again. I take three steps up before becoming aware of something moving nearby. I listen for a moment. It sounds like a pile of metal scraps ambling across pavement -- a disturbing thought. I hop off the stairs and take cover in the shadows. In the distance I can see someone dragging a noisy but non-ambulatory bag across a parking lot. What an odd thing to be doing at such an hour! I wait until he's out of sight but not earshot to dash up the stairs. On the roof everything is the same.
I examine a large pair of black doors for a moment. They are in the wrong place to be the stairwell but I may as well try them. Locked. I try them again. Still locked. It looks as though I could get them open with an L-shaped piece of metal but as I said I am not equipped. I do have quite a few plastic cards that might do the trick. I dig the card I got from that high tech arcade in Harvard Square out of my pocket. What was that place called? Cyber... something. The card is solid white except for a few ink smudges where the account number was once penned. I attempt to force the card between the doors. The five dollars or so attached to this card would be a small sacrifice for the computer.
No good. The card won't even fit between the doors let alone get me past the lock. Well that's that. I'm done this time. I'm going home. As I get to the stairs I hear footfalls below. I see a bit of motion so I go back to the black doors. I'll wait here until whoever is down there goes away. They won't come up here... I hope. After all, what sort of a person goes wandering about on rooftops a few hours before sunrise?
Meanwhile, I take another look around. Overhead is a platform made of those strips of metal, sturdy but transparent. Maybe I could hang down from there and only have to climb down the far half of the awning. No, that would be foolish. I would have to climb back if there's no door on top of the stairs, or if it won't open from the inside. There's a door on top of the platform. No doubt it too won't open. As I curl my fingers around the handle I know that the effort is a waste. I can see through a large window next to it into a well lit room with a computer. It is some flavor of Intel x86 architecture and I can see a command prompt on the screen.
I press my thumb against the top of the handle, pull the door open, and gape at it for a moment. Then I close it. There is bound to be someone in there. It's some sort of workspace. The computer has recently finished running a program that seems to have something to do with prime numbers. No, I should definitely not go through this door. But then, what have I done to get here? I climbed some stairs from a public area and opened an unlocked door. I am student at this institute so I'm allowed to be here. Besides, if no one sees me enter I can say that I'm lost and not sure how I got here. And I want that Mac.
There is a door marked “exit” nearby and I head for that. Once in a hallway I should be out of danger. The glass panel in the door has “Aerospace Laboratory” written on it backwards. I open it and step into the corridor. One direction claims to have rooms 209 through 214 while the other makes no claims. What about 215? I go the other way. That proves less than promising. I retrace my steps and out of curiosity try the door to the Aerospace Laboratory as I pass it. It's not locked, but I'm not interested. Okay, there's 212, 213, 214, and -- aha! -- 215. No sign of the Mac SE or the printer here. Well, there is a sign. It reads, “If you are looking for the Macintosh and printer posted on reuse sorry they have been taken.” I stand a moment wondering what the time stamp on that email might have been.
I think I'll leave by more ordinary means. Here's a stairwell. At the bottom is a Coke machine but no exit. Back up and farther on I find a door with a small window pane set into it through which I can see another stairwell. Next to the window a small piece of paper taped to the door declares, “For security reasons this door must be kept locked after hours.” As I open the door I note that security is rather lax around here. Cybersmith. That's the name of the arcade. Since the card was not damaged in the incident on the roof I might go back there after all. Right now, though, all I want is to leave this place.
At the bottom of the stairs I can see the classroom where the Concourse program met when I was a freshman. Maybe they still use it. The lights are off, but I can still see the clock by the light from the hallway. The hour hand is on the six and the minute hand is at twelve. I consider sitting down in one of these hard wooden chairs and falling asleep. Then I would find out if Concourse still met here, but I'm not sure I want to know. Anyway, I slept here enough during classes and this room brings back too many bad memories. I think of the soporific lectures and the blonde girl who sat near the front. I didn't find the nerve to talk to her that year but I have since. I invited her to join me on a more organized exploration of the campus and she accepted. She canceled the appointment a few days later. Her story, that she received shrapnel injuries from a mishap with a water gun and liquid nitrogen, was too good to check. But I digress.
I leave building 31 and wander West toward Massachusetts Avenue. I wait on the curb near the crosswalk for the light to change. A pair dump trucks come to stop just as I begin crossing, and not a moment too soon. Their engines growl at me until I get to the other side and green light returns. I straighten the sleeves of my jacket again and look across at the campus. The sun is rising somewhere back there, which gives their edges a deep blue glow. My hands are empty, and not exactly clean, but I feel good anyway. My brother can survive without a computer for now, and I've found something else: a story. Perhaps when I get home I'll write it down.