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  Trust Vixen to bring things back to suggestible topics. It was annoying at times; I liked the atmosphere in there so much better when everyone was at ease, rather than trying to outdo each other in sexual innuendo. Take it into whisper mode, was my idea.

  Not that they didn’t. I think that the ratio of private messaging went up threefold whenever the open discussion got suggestive. No wonder advertising worked so well on people; at times we really are sheep.

  PM from Sanders to Chimera: So tell me about your grandmother. She sounds like someone I would have admired.

  PM from Chimera to Sanders: I thought she was wonderful. I used to stay with her on summer holidays, to give my parents a chance for some grown-up time.

  PM from Sanders to Chimera: I used to long for that sort of summer holiday. My parents demanded we all go on a long road trip every summer. My sister, my brother, and I were all close to murdering each other, and my parents were keen to leave us at a service station. However, we managed to drive each other crazy past the Grand Canyon, across Canada all the way to Prince Edward Island, up the Alaska Highway and, of course, always through to the Okanagan, the tropical jewel of Canada.

  PM from Chimera to Sanders: Oh, I have always ­wanted to do that Alaska Highway trip!

  PM from Sanders to Chimera: Well, let me know if you head through Edmonton on your trip. I would be honored to show you around.

  PM from Chimera to Sanders: Why, thank you. So Edmonton is on the route, then?

  PM from Sanders to Chimera: Pretty much, unless you’re joining it from northern bc. Would that be better for you?

  I decided I had better back out of this conversation pretty quickly, or he was going to get into where I was from again, and, while I didn’t want to let him know I was likely just down the street, I had an aversion to lying to him. Even if he was flirting in PMs with Vixen, he was one of the most literate and certainly one of the kindest of the whole Babel crowd.

  I had been toying with the idea of telling him where I was from until I’d seen him playing with Vixen. Somehow it had jolted me that he was no better than the others, which was odd since I accepted it from most of them as a natural form of communication.

  I just didn’t want any cyber-man of mine behaving that way. Not that I was even looking for a cyber-man, of course, I reminded myself silently. I had a terrific man and a relationship worth working at. I didn’t need to flirt on-line. In fact, given my job, it was far better that I remain aloof.

  I had to admit, though, the power of words was so deliriously enticing that I would veer close to the edge every now and then with someone who could wield phrases the way a matador whipped his cape about. Sanders was like that, in my mind. He was so above the rest of the crowd in his literacy, and so clever in his ability to discuss without ever resorting to argument, that I was naturally drawn to him.

  Maybe there was a high-schoolish thing to it as well. It seemed as if folks in Babel paired off, and we were all playing the beautiful people in high school, leaning against the lockers with our arms slung over our girlfriend’s shoulders, or our thumbs hooked into a back belt loop of our boyfriend’s jeans. Not that many of us were those characters in high school really, I was betting the farm. To be interested in computers bespoke a level of nerdishness that didn’t equate with the in-crowd of any high school.

  There was a pecking order in cyber, though, much like in high school, or, I suppose, any congregation of people. Vixen and Maia were definitely on top, with Carlin and Ivories and Tracy right there as the most solid of the evening regulars. A lot of it had to do with regularity, and some of it with plain old popularity. After all, Kafir and Kara were in there almost as much as Vixen, but they talked to almost no one, and very few folks bothered them in cyber.

  I wondered how popular Chimera was. It seemed as if I was welcomed happily whenever I appeared, and no one minded me joining in any conversation. I felt like an accepted regular, but I realized it was Sanders alone who made me feel special. Well, Alchemist, too, of course, but Alchemist was a work buddy.

  I did wonder just as much about Alchemist as I did about Sanders, come to think of it. He wouldn’t show a picture and was very self-deprecating any time I had asked him to describe himself. I was glad I was working there, though, because he was certainly a friend worth having. I thought of him as personable and easygoing, and I always pictured him with a smile on his face as he typed.

  They were talking about shopping now, and I figured it had a lot to do with the fact that both Sanders and Dion had left. Tracy was going to some function at the hospital where she worked in Singapore and was describing the traditional costume, which was a long tunic over a matching, wrapped, long skirt. The way she was describing the wrapping of the skirt reminded me of a cross between a sari and a kilt, and I said so.

  Tracy: That is a great description, Chimera. It has the pleating at the front, though, and not the back. I like to wear them, because in them all women look graceful.

  Chimera: They sound lovely. Do most women there still wear traditional clothing?

  Tracy: Many do. Some uniforms, as for air stewards and such, are based on the traditional style. Many older women wear them every day, and most of the rest of us wear them when we dress up. :)

  Maia: Are you going to send us pictures, Tracy? Get someone to take a shot before you head out!

  Chimera: What day is the reception?

  Tracy: Oh Maia, I can’t promise you, but I will try! :) I won’t be in on Thursday, because that is the reception, but I shall try to get someone to take my picture and I will post it on Friday!

  Chimera: I’m going out on Thursday, too.

  Maia: Pictures, pictures! We want pictures.

  Chimera: No luck, I’m afraid. I don’t have a digital camera, and even my old camera is shot.

  Maia: *pouts* That just isn’t fair. It sounds like just no one will be in on Thursday and now there will be nothing to show for it, either. That is, unless Tracy can get someone. Vixen won’t be in, you two won’t be here, Ivories has a gig, and Sanders is heading out somewhere, too. I think Babel is gonna just dry up and blow away.

  Chimera: I predict you’ll start some word game and have 75 folks dancing attendance, Maia. I am not going to be worried about you!

  Maia: You’re always going out these days, Chimera. Tell us, have you got a fella?

  Chimera: :) Well, I don’t know what would give you that idea. Besides, I am hardly ever anywhere but here!

  Maia: I wish I could go out sometime, but there is just no way I can support an on-line habit AND a ­babysitter!

  Tracy: ~laughing~ Like you would trust anyone with Jacob.

  Maia: This is true. *grin* Okay, so you ladies can go to the ball, and poor Cindermaia will stay home and pick lentils out of her hair, or the fireplace, or wherever.

  Chimera: You do that, kiddo.

  Maia: However, I expect full reports when you return! In fact, that might be how Friday works. Instead of how you spent your summer vacation, I’m going to ask y’all how you spent your Thursday!

  Maia had a weekly question that folks were invited to respond to in a bulletin-board room she set up for that purpose. Usually it was a silly question, much like the old journal topics I used to assign my students at the beginning of each class. She would leave it up for the weekend, and people could check in on what everyone had posted. It was fun, and the result was much like those wild boards on the old TV show Laugh In. Some folks tried to answer seriously, while others just riffed on what the previous person had posted. All in all, it was another interesting experiment in communication.

  Maybe that was why chat fascinated me so much. I felt as if we were in on the vanguard of some new form of rhetoric, the future as Marshall McLuhan had predicted. For once, I was in on the happening scene. I may have been too young to appreciate the 1960s, but here I was right smack dab in the middle of the Silicon Age. And making the most of it.

  19

  Wednesday was nothing much. I spent most o
f the day cleaning the apartment and marking the one essay that arrived in the mail. Chat that evening wasn’t all that stimulating, either.

  Geoff L was back and posting the offensive lyrics to an insipid, if angry, song by yet another band I’d never heard of. Your cross-section of music is a bit more limited when all you listen to is the CBC. As Alvin, I gave him two warnings, and he finally calmed down just before leaving for the night. Alchemist had warned me that Venita might be in that evening. He had been monitoring her that afternoon, doing her Lolita number from her school’s computer lab. The guy she had been with wasn’t Theseus, either, and if he got wind of that there would be hell to pay in big, sweeping, Greek drama motions. I didn’t consider myself a prude, but the whole concept of teenaged girls as sexual predators just made me want to shower. Venita should have been sitting in a school gym, preying on a basketball player, not getting old men all hot and bothered.

  So I was pretty alert when, as Dr. Evil said, “things got weird.”

  First off, Sanders seemed distracted. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but he was not quite as fluid in his ­conversation as usual. Then Milan showed up, again wanting to know if anyone had seen Thea. I checked my logs and notes. Thea hadn’t been around in over three weeks now. I sent him an Alvin PM to that effect. Milan was all over that, asking Alvin what he should do, if Alvin could contact her, and whether Alvin thought he should call the police. “What police?” Alvin responded. Did Milan even know where she lived? I tried to imply, as gently as possible, that Thea might have simply got tired of chat or Milan, or both.

  Milan wasn’t having any of it. Apparently he knew for a fact that Thea was not only in love with him but she was also willing to leave her marriage for him. They had been in the middle of discussing the ways and means of her escape when Milan lost contact.

  PM from Alvin to Milan: I’m afraid I cannot divulge her address to you.

  PM from Milan to Alvin: I don’t need it; I tell you, we had a serious thing happening. I just can’t get hold of her right now, and it’s worrying me.

  PM from Alvin to Milan: Did you have a falling out? Do you know any of her real-time friends? Maybe she’s ill. Or, I hate to bring it up, maybe she has taken the coward’s way out of the relationship and is avoiding you.

  PM from Milan to Alvin: She wouldn’t do that, Alvin. You don’t know her like I do. We’ve been completely open with each other. I mean, completely.

  That could mean anything from long telephone conversations to passing risqué shots of themselves back and forth. I wondered how long Thea had been chatting, and how long with Milan in particular. It took a bit for women to expose themselves, I thought. Milan answered that for me without being asked.

  PM from Milan to Alvin: We’ve been chatting for almost a year now. I met her in Yahoo Chat and we eventually drifted over here. I am sure I am the first man she met here. This is a serious relationship, Alvin. I am so worried.

  I tried to comfort him as best I could. I left notes for both Chatgod and Alchemist about the situation and watched him flit out of the room. Poor guy, he was transmitting his worry to me. I wasn’t sure Thea hadn’t blown him off, but, still, he seemed so sure something must have happened to her.

  There was the real problem with cyber-relationships of any kind. You could chat with folks day in and day out, establishing strong friendships and a real sense of community, yet, if any one of them were hit by a bus, how long would it take for their cyber-community to learn of it? Possibly, if their families knew of their on-line friends, word would get to you. However, if they were loners, they could just disappear off the screen, and that would be that. You would never really know why.

  Shortly after he left, Tremor logged in, again looking for Milan. Out of curiosity, I shot him a private message: PM from Chimera to Tremor: Milan was in here a little while ago. He’s really worried about Thea, because he hasn’t seen her around lately.

  PM from Tremor to Chimera: What is he worried about?

  PM from Chimera to Tremor: He hasn’t been able to contact her in two or three weeks. I guess she isn’t on-line, but he says they haven’t fought or anything.

  PM from Tremor to Chimera: She’ll be back. Maybe her ‘puter died on her or something.

  PM from Chimera to Tremor: Well, I hope she gets back soon, because it’s driving him crazy.

  PM from Tremor to Chimera: I should e-mail him and talk some sense into him. Do you have his e-mail address, by any chance?

  It wasn’t regular, but Milan was in such a stew that I decided to bend regulations slightly. Besides, I’m sure Tremor could have found the information elsewhere if he really wanted to dig.

  Tremor thanked me, and I clicked on the member list and scrolled down as quickly as I could. The darn thing refreshed every ninety seconds, but I managed to get to the Ms and copy Milan’s e-mail before the screen went momentarily blank. In a minute I was back in the main room and sent it in a PM to Tremor.

  PM from Chimera to Tremor: Tell him what you told me, that she’s bound to be okay. He is so bent out of shape about this. I think he really loves her.

  PM from Tremor to Chimera: Don’t worry, I’ll reach him. Thanks.

  Computer trouble could account for Thea’s being incommunicado, I reasoned. However, I knew of folks who raced off to Internet cafés and moved heaven and earth if their connection went down for one evening. How on earth could a dedicated chatter like Thea manage to stay off-line for three weeks?

  20

  Thursday was a study in fairy tales. I went from little match girl to ugly duckling, trying to wend my way toward Cinderella. First off, my hair wouldn’t do what I wanted it to do, but that wasn’t an unusual occurrence. I washed it a second time and tried to be patient while it air-dried. If I messed with it before it was dry, all the body it was capable of fell out and it began its imitation of brunette spaghetti. While I was waiting, I decided to do something to my nails and began soaking the cuticles in softening gunk to find room on the nail to paint.

  My mother used to swear that eating Jell-O was her secret to great nails, but I have a feeling she just ­inherited great hands from her mother while I got my dad’s hands. For one thing, I cannot recall ever seeing her voluntarily eating Jell-O. My nails, no matter how much Jell-O I had room for, never seemed to do much more than crack or peel. Whenever I had the time to hit a beauty college for a manicure, they would comment pityingly on the state of my nails. Regular manicures were something I intended to fit into my regime if I ever made steady money. After all, with all the on-line chatting and distance marking I was doing, I had to look at my hands in front of me more often than ever. A little voice in my head told me that if I were a better typist, I wouldn’t have to look at my hands at all, but I dismissed that noise immediately. Manicures were way more fun than typing lessons.

  Dial M for Murder was the afternoon TV movie, which I had on for company as I primped. If getting dolled up meant I could look like Grace Kelly, I would be all over this girlie stuff. As it was, makeup had never been a big thing with me. I had been blessed with clear skin and nice straight eyebrows, so there had never been much reason to fixate on the mirror as a teen. I think that’s what kept me from using makeup as an adult. My makeup routine consisted of washing my face when I shampooed my hair in the morning and adding mascara on days when I had to do any lecturing in big classrooms.

  On a big night like tonight, though, I would break out the eyeshadow and the lipstick as well. Denise had said it was a gala, and I couldn’t remember the last time Steve had seen me dressed up. Since I did it so seldom, it held a sort of Hallowe’en quality for me. I was becoming something I was not. I wondered if anyone would recognize me, or, better yet, give me candy.

  I slipped the dress on about 5:30, and a sense of delight at being in the right clothes for the right occasion made the rest of the preparations easy. My hair was full and wavy, and I braided one thin section from above my left ear and drew it over the top of my head in place of a tiara, nailing it
behind my right ear with a bobby pin. Now my loose hair wouldn’t be falling forward into my face.

  I laced up my little black witch boots, minding my shiny nails. I was as ready as it was possible to be, and it was still half an hour before Steve was due to pick me up. Out of habit, or perhaps addiction, I logged into Babel.

  Carlin was cheering the grades Evangeline had received on her mid-terms, and Eros and Ghandhi were still awake, which was unusual for them. Maybe there was some sort of European holiday on and they didn’t have to work the next day. Most of the Europeans were well in bed by the time I logged on in western Canada.

  Alchemist sent me a quick PM, wondering if my plans had changed. I told him, a bit abashed, that I was still intending to go out but that I couldn’t seem to keep away from the place.

  As Chimera I made my hellos and replied to Maia’s cheery greeting of “what’s up?” with the information that I was all dressed up to go out tonight.

  Chimera: I don’t normally dress up, so this is feeling a bit weird, but nice weird.

  Maia: What are you wearing? Inquiring minds want to know! *giggle*

  Chimera: Well, it’s not the fanciest dress in the world, but it’s pretty fancy for me.

  Sanders: I’m all dressed up, too! Maybe this is an international evening out! Maia, are you going out, too? I am off to a gala for the university.

  Oh my lord. I was so relieved I hadn’t mentioned the color of my dress. Sanders was going to be at the gala. My mouth went dry.

  Maia: So, are you wearing a tux, Sanders? I am going nowhere, I’m afraid. Just me and my keyboard, strolling down the avenue. . . .

  Sanders: Nope, just a navy suit. My budget doesn’t run to tuxedos, I’m afraid. Anyhow, this will likely be an eclectic bunch, not your average formals, I’m guessing. It’s for the Writer in Residence program. They bring in a writer each year to sit in an office and write, when not being interrupted by students and the public to read their manuscripts and give them advice.