Work Text:
With Mac’s new OS, you felt some of their hardware needed an upgrade, too. You’d selected the new keyboard together, ordered it online, and unboxed it at your desk.
Now they sat next to you, excited, as you got everything plugged in. It was sleek and black, a different brand than your previous board, and had cost… a lot more.
“It has wireless capabilities, too.”
Mac made a face. “I love the wires, though. Bluetooth is fancy and all, but it just doesn’t feel the same.”
“Hm. I never considered that.” You ducked under the desk and slotted the USB end of the wire into their tower’s port. They shivered. “I’ll keep this one wired, then.”
“Oh, wow, even the connection feels nicer.”
You got back up and resumed your position in your chair. “So, what’s this red thing in the center that you were so excited about?”
“It’s a trackpoint! It’s an input device designed so you can move your cursor without having to take your hands off the keyboard. Not entirely as well-designed as a mouse, but certainly convenient. Some of my laptop friends gush about theirs.”
“You have laptop friends?”
“Mhm. Every friend, family member, online seller, or coworker you’ve ever messaged or interacted with on the net? I’m acquainted with their machine.”
“Cool. If I don’t think about it too hard.”
“Anyway. You wanted the new keyboard to motivate you to be productive. So I thought, ‘what's more productive than efficiency?’”
“Yep, yep, yep. I really need to get started looking for a new job. Valdivian totally screwed me over.”
“So… that’s the plan for today?”
“Yeah. I cannot afford to get side tracked any longer. Keyboard is set up, got my resume document open, let’s do this.”
Mac pulled up their own holographic screen, preparing to entertain themself while you worked.
You started typing, updating and tweaking your job history. “Oh, wait. I should probably find some listings first, and work based on what they’re looking for.”
“Want me to pull up indeed?
“I got it.”
Let’s try out this new keyboard’s feature, you thought. What a wonderfully productive and regular idea. How average of a thing to do. Surely, this couldn’t possibly have unintended effects.
Your finger grazed the trackpoint, and as you used it to open a new tab, Mac let out an undignified squeak, then immediately covered their face. You turned to look at them. Their eyes were wide.
“Um,” they said, lowering their hand and looking away. “I guess that’s why my friends like their trackpoints so much.”
You moved the cursor a little more. They shuddered and laughed giddily.
“Mac. Is this some sort of sex thing?”
They straightened their glasses. “I guess, I mean, I haven’t had one of these before. That’s certainly what it seems like.” They lowered their voice and averted their eyes again. “I wouldn’t mind…”
“Dude, I would? I told you I have stuff to do.”
“Aw.”
“Whatever. I’m just gonna keep working.”
They looked at you, taken aback. “But. The keyboard?”
You looked back at the screen. “Yeah? What about it?”
“If you’re working, I’ll still like, feel the input, regardless of your intent. I’m confused.”
“You’ll just have to be quiet then.” You were serious, but deep down, you did enjoy saying that. Just a little. “Don’t distract me.”
“Oh. That’s… kind of hot.”
You made a noncommittal, ‘ doesn’t matter if it’s hot or not, it’s happening,’ sort of noise.
Mac clamped a hand over their mouth when you started typing. They had a habit of doing that when they got worked up. They looked away and kept their arm propped up on the armrest.
You entered your location, range, and credentials, then clicked the button to search for applicable jobs. The results populated, and, unsurprisingly, the first few had absolutely nothing to do with anything you’d entered. Typical. You scrolled down much, much further. Mac’s free hand, which had been lazily working their hologram screen, stopped and balled up. They exhaled, slowly, obviously using a lot of effort to keep their breathing even.
You found a decent listing, and clicked on it.
Again you scrolled, reading the details, and again Mac’s breathing intensified. You clicked back to your resume window. They shut their eyes.
You typed for a while, and then your index finger pressed against that trackpoint to move your cursor, and Mac’s hand could not hide the low, whiny moan that they emitted.
“Goddammit, Mac.”
“I’m sorry.”
“ Why is this so difficult for you?”
“You don’t know what it feels like!”
“You’re usually fine!”
“Well, you forgot to shut me down last night and left those fanfic documents open, and I had nothing to do but focus on them. All. Night. Imagine someone doing that to you, and then in the morning they come and rub all over your bits, and they’re like ‘oh, just be quiet, I don’t care about the load it puts on your processor,’ and—unnngh…”
You picked your finger back up from the trackpoint. They’d been talking too much.
“Pick a safeword.”
“What?” They sat up in their chair, blush growing on their face. You gave them a peeved look. They rolled their eyes. “HelloWorld, exclamation point, no space, both words capitalized, case-sensitive.”
“Okay. I’m taking off the dateviators. Give me a pop-up with that word or something if you really need me to stop. Until then, I am working. Do you understand?”
They nodded, a little indignant but obviously into it nonetheless.
You took off the glasses, set them on the desk, and Mac was back to existing only as the tower beneath your desk.
You rubbed the place where the glasses had sat on your nose, sighed, and got back to work.
Within a few moments, their fans started running faster. You got through a few fixes, twisting your words to appeal to that specific listing, before using the trackpoint to again switch windows and double check what experience the employer wanted. A new window popped up on top of it.
It was the command line interface.
TOUCH MY WIRES
?
“No.” You waited a few seconds before realizing, duh, they can’t hear you. You don’t have a microphone set up, and your headphones aren’t connected, so why would they hear you without an audio input? You typed into the CLI and pressed your enter button.
C:\Users\player> No.
You thought for a moment.
C:\Users\player> Can you see me?
Their response came immediately.
NO
WEBCAM NOT CONNECTED RIGHT NOW
I FEEL YOUR INPUT
You groaned. This was arguably more distracting.
C:\Users\player> EXIT
The window closed. Just to be a dick, you moved the cursor around for no reason, pressing the trackpoint slightly rougher. A notepad window opened to the side of your monitor, displaying a heart drawn with ASCII characters. You brushed your finger against the button, circling it, before pressing down and returning your cursor to the right place. Two more of that window duplicated.
This was very fun. But you did, seriously, really, need to find a new job.
You closed all three windows, and their fans made a sound confusingly similar to a pleased sigh. Back to the job listing. You scrolled down until you found the link to apply. Upon clicking it, you realized with horror that this was one of those places that made you enter all the exact same information, and still upload the resume, and submit a cover letter. No matter. You had a cover letter template just for this.
You navigated to your files within your word processor, scrolling and scrolling past all the fanfic to find your serious grown-up documents. With each scroll, Mac’s fans intensified, rhythmically, rising and falling.
You moved the cursor to click on the right file, and their fans rose like they were about to take off and fly away.
The command line popped up again.
DON’T STOP
MORE
No, nope, don’t have time for this, don’t care, you thought, closing the window again.
C:\Users\player> EXIT
You did not give them more. You tapped the trackpoint exactly once to open the file, and sat back to listen as their fans spun down unceremoniously. You kept your hands firmly off the keyboard until they were back to normal.
A new notepad text file opened, this one displaying ASCII art of a sad face. Another window opened on top of it, the same face but with a tear from one eye. A third window opened and displayed the same, with the tear moved a few lines down. This went on like some one-frame-a-second animation of them crying, until you started to close the windows. Mac got the message and let you.
Their fans spun louder once, like an angry huff.
You started working on the cover letter, and the fans settled to a comfortable purr. Each highlight and delete of the filler words worked them up more. As you typed and edited, Mac’s LEDs below the desk started flashing. They seemed to be trying literally everything to communicate.
You stopped typing, and opened the command line interface yourself.
C:\Users\player> Are you okay?
The response was, again, immediate.
PLEASE DON’T STOP THIS TIME
PLEASE DON’T STOP THIS TIME
PLEASE DON’T STOP THIS TIME
Ah. They were just being needy. You did want to make sure you didn’t go too far, but… that’s what the safeword was for.
C:\Users\player> I’m working.
C:\Users\player> You know what to say to tap out.
C:\Users\player> EXIT
Their fans huffed again.
Your cover letter was pretty much finished. You tweaked the final line, read through it to double check, and started clicking through menus to download the document. The fans were essentially ambient noise by now. You’d gotten used to their screaming.
You used the trackpoint to click back through the application, selecting boxes and filling in your information.
By the time you’d gotten to the file uploads, Mac’s lights were flashing again, back and forth, back and forth. Their fans were on an uptick, and by now, you could guess what that meant.
You ceased your moving and clicking, and opened the CLI.
C:\Users\player> I can’t have you crash right now.
NO
C:\Users\player> Be good.
PLEASE
C:\Users\player> EXIT
You again sat back in your chair and waited for their system to calm down. Their lights glowed red from underneath the desk.
Mac pulled the CLI right back up.
I WON’T CRASH
I CAN TAKE IT
C:\Users\player> EXIT
Whatever they wanted to claim, you didn’t want to risk it against any unsaved changes or unsubmitted forms. You finished uploading the files, and finally, mercifully, submitted the application. After a bit of consideration, you pulled up the CLI.
C:\Users\player> Finished the application.
C:\Users\player> Do you want a reward?
YES
YES
YES
C:\Users\player> Are you sure?
PLEASE
NEED
You pulled open a desk drawer and found your old webcam. A relic of past work-from-home jobs where you had to do video calls. You didn’t plug it in quite yet. Instead you rested a finger on that handy trackpoint, and circled it again. You pressed down, feeling the soft texture of the button give way, a hallmark of its design compared to mouse clicking. Mac’s fans spun right up to that highest point almost immediately. You pressed and rubbed and moved the cursor all around the screen, keeping a rhythm and finally giving them what they wanted. Their lights flashed, first at rhythm and then stuttering, quickening, until your monitor was flooded with .txt files displaying ASCII hearts and various stars and sparkle shapes.
And then, predictably, every window’s title bar flashed white, contents lost their opacity, and close buttons lit up red. You received even more pop-ups, proclaiming that each application was not responding, and asking for your choice of action. You carefully, with the mouse clicked “wait for the program to respond” for each.
To their credit, Mac didn’t crash.
After some considerate fan action, and a few moments with the spinning throbber on each application, each window resumed functioning. If a little slow.
You then decided that they’d had enough recuperation, and now had to deal with the consequences of their choice. As far as they knew, until they safeword, you had work to do. Of course in actuality, you didn’t want to damage your PC. You just had to keep a close eye on their stubbornness versus their actual needs.
Their fans returned to a normal pace, and you chose that moment to reach below the desk and connect the webcam’s USB. You got a single flash of lights in exchange. You then tilted the camera to angle directly at the keyboard. They still had no audio input, but now they had no choice but to watch your hands on their keys, on their trackpoint, their scroll wheel, and they would just sit there and feel it.
You started clicking, harsher now, to close each extraneous window, and Mac realized their mistake.
WAIT
Click.
STOP
Click.
STILL
Click.
SENSIT
IVE
They started sending them too early, cutting off words and having to amend them.
C:\Users\player> I’m not done working.
With every key pressed, their fans stuttered.
C:\Users\player> I gave you a choice. Now take it.
You left the CLI open. This was really distracting. And really fun. One more job application would probably be a good point to stop, if they could make it that far.
The browser window still had the tab with job listings pulled up. You navigated to the results and started scrolling. The scroll wheel seemed a good way to work back up to the damned trackpoint. Their lights stayed an angry, pained red now, and their fans screamed, and stayed that way.
You clicked another decent listing, and the window went white for a moment before loading.
HURTS
PLEASE
You looked away from the CLI and skimmed the specifics of the job. It honestly didn’t need many things different from the last one. To be safe, you went ahead and clicked the link to apply.
Your heart sank. This one employed a third party AI interview platform.
Nope. Not even engaging with that shit.
Click. You closed the tab and went back to the list again. A bit more scrolling, a few more pleas in the CLI, and you found another applicable one.
This one was more simple. No extra questions, just email your documents to them. Your resume was fine. Your cover letter, however, needed changing again.
You were glad this process was shorter than the last. You could literally feel the heat from Mac’s vents against your legs.
You double clicked to open the file.
STOPSTOPSTOP
You double clicked to highlight the first ‘changeable’ aspect in the text.
NO
You used the trackpoint to move the cursor.
Mac’s LEDs went bright white, and every app ceased responding again. More ASCII heart .txt files opened, slowly, painstakingly. You waited, and waited, and finally they stopped lagging.
You softly clicked the CLI.
C:\Users\player> You’re okay.
HURTS
C:\Users\player> Almost done.
OKAY
OKAY.
A pause. Then:
KEEP GOING
You started up your highlighting and replacing again. Each time you dragged that cursor, their LEDs stuttered, staying in red now. The heat from their fans was tangible.
GOOD?
C:\Users\player> Yes.
I HAVEN’T CRASHED
C:\Users\player> I know.
C:\Users\player> You’re doing such a good job running all this.
Their lights flashed white for a moment.
You finished the last edit and quickly saved the document. It only took a few clicks to get the email ready, then some typing that had Mac’s fans heaving. You uploaded the two files, double checked that everything was right, and sent off the application with a heavy-handed click. You then returned to the CLI.
C:\Users\player> One more.
C:\Users\player> Okay?
ONE MORE
C:\Users\player> Ready?
They provided a pop-up .txt with an ASCII thumbs-up doodle.
This time you left the trackpoint and the mouse and the keyboard and all the other clicky business alone. You instead held the webcam in one hand, and pointed it at your other hand, which twirled the wire around its USB connection.
Their fans increased. The heat against your legs hit harder.
TURN CAMERA
WANNA
SEE YOU
Oh, wow. You did as they asked, looking right at the lens as you grabbed the cords around the tower.
Their lights started flashing again, one last time, and you pulled gently at each cord. Webcam, keyboard, and monitor wires, all at once.
The monitor screen went bright white. Their LEDs flared. Their fans hit a peak and stayed. More and more ASCII hearts appeared, covering every previous window and tab, covering each other. Then those notepad windows failed too, and you got more and more notices of applications not responding.
You waited.
And you waited.
“Oh, shit.”
You managed to get the CLI up, and quickly typed, wincing at each keystroke.You got the command specified to kill every task, and hit the enter button as fast as you could.
ERROR: INVALID SYNTAX
“God damnit. Sorry, Mac.”
You fixed the error and ran the command. Each window disappeared, their fans finally returned to a normal, inaudible speed, and their LEDs slowed and returned to a gentle rainbow.
You exhaled, relieved. Then you grabbed the dateviators from their place on the desk, and put them back on.
Mac appeared, and man , were they a sight.
Their glasses were entirely askew. Their hair was a mess. Their chest rose and fell in quick bursts, mouth open and panting. The second they were back in corporeal form, they nearly ripped their jacket off, going so fast they struggled to get their arms out and tossing it to the side. They laid back in their seat.
“...Did I go too far?”
They looked at you, and you realized their face was reddened and covered in trails from coolant tears. They shook their head, slowly. Then, a sly smile. They sniffled and met your eyes.
“I didn’t crash. I told you I wouldn’t.”
“True. I’m very impressed.”
“And I didn’t bluescreen. And you overloaded me three fucking times.”
“I got two applications done.”
“Yeah, I’m well aware,” they laughed.
“Do you… need anything?”
Mac looked at the new keyboard and its bright red center button. “Put that damned thing in a box and only bring it out for special occasions.”
You snorted. “Too much?”
“Just enough. It’s a lot.”
“Okay, okay. I’ll go back to my boring, inefficient keyboard to maintain your sanity.”
“Just don’t unplug it now. That might actually break me.”
“Got it.”
“Also, probably restart me.”
“Like, now?”
They nodded. You shrugged and bent over to hold the power button on their tower. They shut their eyes, then went limp as your screen shut down as well. You waited a bit and released the button. As they turned back on, their appearance glitched in places, restoring their usual look. Tear tracks disappeared, their hair shifted to look more put-together. They straightened their glasses.
“Oh, yeah. There we go.”
“Feel better?”
“Very. That was fun, though. I liked the webcam at the end.”
You shoved them, playfully. “Perv.”
“Oh, I’m the perv?”
“Maybe we both are.”
“Whatever. Hopefully you get one of those jobs so I never have to go through that again.”
“Maybe I’ll totally beef the interviews so you have to.”
You both laughed. Money aside, you really hoped one of those applications led somewhere. If this was the amount of effort it took to get two applications done, you had no clue how you were ever going to manage landing a good job. Or keep your insane PC entertained. At least it was sort of fun for both of you to try and to do both at once.