“As faster internet speeds become available, more viewers will flock to xTV and our groundbreaking content. Mark my words: one day, cable will be gone. So will satellite. You’ll walk into Circuit City and you’ll buy a TV that’s internet-ready. And you’ll be browsing xTV every night to see what’s on.

“In a few years, we’ll be bigger than Viacom and TimeWarner combined. We are the future of TV. We enable real people to tell their stories. That is our mission.”

Desmond believed every word he said. They all did. Cheers went up again. The champagne flowed, and everyone seemed to be drunk except Desmond.

A few months later, Desmond was invited to a Halloween party one of the programmers was throwing. He was tempted not to go, but the truth was he wanted to do something besides work and sleep for a change. He’d been told that there would be some people from work there, but that it would mostly be college students and recent graduates, like the host.

He considered two options. One, not dressing up; and two, going all out. Both had risks. He took the middle road. He donned the black suit he’d purchased for the job interview and only worn once, and bought a five-dollar dark-haired wig. At OfficeMax, he purchased a plastic ID badge holder with a metal clip. On a sheet of printer paper, he wrote “FBI,” and below it, “FOX MULDER, SPECIAL AGENT.” It looked pretty homemade, but it would get the job done.

The party was at a three-bedroom ’70s ranch home in Palo Alto that four programmers rented. The owners hadn’t done a ton of updates, and the place still had a Brady Bunch vibe: thick, worn carpet—which was orange—modern architecture, an open plan layout with a vaulted ceiling, and large windows and sliding doors that led out to a pool that hadn’t been cleaned since Marcia’s graduation party.

Desmond was glad he had dressed up. Everyone was decked out. The partygoers hadn’t spent a fortune on their ensembles, but it was clear that they had put a lot of time and effort into them. Star Wars and Star Trek characters were well represented. Three sets of Princess Leia buns bobbed around the room. Two Darth Vaders stalked around, looming over small groups silently, their shiny outfits made mostly of black plastic trash bags. There were half a dozen Luke Skywalkers. Data and Worf from Star Trek: The Next Generation scored three outfits each. A lone Lieutenant Commander Geordi La Forge was drinking a Michelob Light. His visor was a modified hairband, and he was telling a girl that she might as well take her top off, he could see through her clothes with his visor anyway. When he brought the bottle to his lips, she tipped it up and walked away, mumbling, “Bet you didn’t see that coming.”