Jack Forman is shopping at a Crate and Barrel near his home in San Jose, California, when his wife, Julia, calls to say she’ll be late. She works for Xymos Technology, a company that is developing “molecular manufacturing” (8), or nanotechnology. Jack has been out of work for six months and takes most of the responsibility for caring for their children: Nicole is twelve, Eric is eight, and Amanda is nine months old.

Prior to this, Jack was a software programmer at MediaTronics, where he worked on parallel processing, or agent-based programs. He helped create agents that could solve problems from within computers. Some of his programs mimicked the behavior of swarming insects like ants, bees, and termites. His division’s source code was stolen before Jack took charge of security. Upon discovering that Don Gross, the head of the company, was having an affair with a young girl in accounting, in addition to enriching himself in various unethical ways while using the company’s resources, Jack told a board member about his concerns and was fired the next day. Now no one in Silicon Valley will interview him.

That night, Julia comes home and immediately begins arguing with Nicole about her bedtime.