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Need To Know

Adam Brinckerhoff

    Sometimes knowing everything is still not enough.
    I was the director of IT at an anti-terrorism think tank. The executive director had top secret clearance, so I did too. I knew every keystroke and click that every employee made. On nights and weekends, I researched new tech developments. And yet women were still a befuddling mystery.
    Sure, I had dated. I even had a few long-term girlfriends. But the more I tried to understand them, the more they pulled away. They said they needed space, a break, or some other vague excuse. It was like they were punishing me for caring. I tried really hard to be a good boyfriend, but it seemed like the act of trying itself was my downfall.
    The first time I met Lauren, she seemed different. It was her first day and I was setting up her work station.
    “Wow, how do you know all of this stuff about computers without even looking at a manual?” she asked, in awe.
    “Oh, I’ve just done it a bunch of times,” I said, trying to sound humble.
    “Well, I’ve worked at a lot of places, and their IT people didn’t know half as much as you. Combined.”
    “Well, I’ve helped a lot of people set up their computers,” I whispered. “And they haven’t been half as nice as you. Combined.”
    She looked right into my eyes and smiled. My knees literally buckled, but luckily I caught myself on her cubicle wall. I told myself that she was just trying to make a good first impression. And yet, it still felt like something more.

***

    First we crossed paths by the coffee machine. Then Lauren asked to sit with me at lunch. After that, I asked her to go to lunch with me off-site. Pretty soon, we talked for at least an hour almost every day.
    I tried my best to play it cool. But even when I slipped up and asked a personal question, Lauren seemed to bask in the attention. Initially we just talked about work, but we quickly moved on to our private lives. Soon, she knew me better than most of my family and friends.
    As I learned more about her, I became increasingly fascinated. Lauren was adopted, but she didn’t hold it against her birth parents. She viewed work as just a paycheck, and valued her hobbies far more than her career. And she was deeply spiritual, but fervently against religious denominations.
    “I swear that I was into records long before they became cool again,” I said playfully. “My apartment even has the musty smell to prove it.”
    We were taking a long lunch a few blocks away from work. At that moment, we didn’t even feel like colleagues.
    She chuckled in a cute and sincere way. “You’re so funny. But in all seriousness, I’d love to see your collection sometime. I’m completely music illiterate, but maybe you could teach me.”
    “I’d be happy to.”
    She was flirting, right? What she basically said was that she wanted to come over to my place. I know I had read too much into female behavior in the past, but this had to be the real thing.
    I decided to ask her out to dinner the next day. Workplace relationships were frowned upon, but they weren’t strictly forbidden. So we would just be extra discreet.

***

    But that’s when it all stopped.
    No more long conversations. She canceled all of our lunches, with no effort to reschedule. When I saw her by the coffee machine, she looked away, said a polite greeting, and quickly left.
    What happened? It must have been something I said. But it seemed to be going so well. Maybe I talked about myself too much. What did she want me to ask her?
    At first, I vowed to give her space. I specifically didn’t stop by her desk so that she wouldn’t feel trapped in a conversation. Something probably happened outside of our friendship to cause her to pull away. A death in the family. Or a financial problem.
    But as the days and weeks piled up, I couldn’t stand it anymore. I had to know what I did wrong. Realistically, my chances with Lauren were gone. But what about the next woman? If I never learned from my mistakes, I’d keep inadvertently sabotaging my relationships.
    I couldn’t just talk to her directly because too many things could go wrong. I was a director and she was an analyst. That type of male/female power imbalance could quickly go off the rails. In the past, I’d had coworkers get the wrong idea from my well-intentioned communication, and I couldn’t risk that happening again.
    So I got creative. I had read about experimental nanobots on the dark web. Rumor had it that the CIA had developed them for interrogating suspects. But schematics had leaked, and now I could buy a set at a fairly reasonable price.
    The nanobots were designed to travel through a target’s bloodstream and take up residence in their brain. Once there, they’d transmit a local signal with data from their stream of consciousness. It was a mish-mash of words, numbers, and feelings, but enough to get a decent sense of what they were thinking.
    So I casually added some to her leftovers in the staff fridge and waited. The next day, I noticed her eating the meal in question. I hurried back to my office, shut the door, and stared anxiously at my computer. An hour later, the first message came through:

    “Sorry to disappoint you, but Lauren didn’t ingest your nanobots. In fact, she doesn’t work for you, she works for us. Her name’s not even Lauren. Anyway, we know you’ve done this to other women, but we didn’t have enough evidence then. Now we do. Especially since we’re watching you read this right now. See you soon.”

    I silently cursed myself while frantically looking for the camera in my office.
    That’s when I heard the knock at my door.

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