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The first batch of Google servers had been so hastily assembled that the solder points on the motherboards touched the metal of the trays beneath them, so the engineers added corkboard liners as insulation. It looked cheap and flimsy, but it prevented the CPUs (central processing units) from shorting out. Next, Larry focused on using space more efficiently and cutting out as many expensive parts as possible. He, Urs, and a couple of other engineers dumped out all the components on a table and took turns arranging the pieces on the corkboard tray like a jigsaw puzzle.* Their goal was to squeeze in at least four motherboards per tray. Each tray would then slide into a slot on an eight-foot-tall metal rack. Since servers weren't normally connected to displays, they eliminated space-hogging monitor cards. Good riddance—except that when something died the ops staff had no way to figure out what had gone wrong, because they couldn't attach a monitor to the broken CPU. Well, they could, but they'd have to stick a monitor card in while the machine was live and running, because Larry had removed the switches that turned the machines off.

"Why would you ever want to turn a server off?" he wondered. Perhaps because plugging a monitor card into an active computer could easily short out the motherboard, killing the whole machine.

After the engineers crammed four boards onto each tray, the one in the back couldn't be reached from the front. To fix it the technician would have to pull the tray out of the rack, but the trays were packed so tightly that yanking on one would cause the trays directly above it and below it to start sliding. With cables wrapped around every surface like lovelorn anacondas, that could unplug everything and shut down the entire rack.

That's how my chance to perform bypass surgery on Google's still-beating heart came about. My comrades and I would be disconnecting the cables one by one and reconnecting them in tightly tied bundles running in plastic troughs along the side of the server trays instead of in front of them, making it easier to move the trays in and out of the racks. Even marketeers could use a twist-tie, so we were encouraged to get our hands dirty mucking out the server farm.

"CableFest '99 lays the groundwork for the frictionless exchange of information on a global scale and will increase the knowledge available to every sentient being on the planet," I assured my wife.

Kristen looked at me and sadly shook her head. She had a PhD in Soviet history, a job as a professor, and a very sensitive bullshit detector. She tried to be supportive, but her maternal instincts were primarily focused on the three children she now worried would see little of their father. "You took a giant pay cut, and now you're working weekends. You know, the Merc might still want you back."

Saturday morning came and I pulled into the almost empty parking lot of a large, gray, windowless edifice in Santa Clara. There was no sign in front, but it was Exodus, the co-lo that housed our data center.* I joined the movement of people straggling single file through a well-fortified security checkpoint. Marketing, finance, and facilities were all represented. Even Charlie Ayers, our newly hired chef, was there. Photo IDs were checked and badges issued. Stern warnings were given. We were not, repeat, not to touch anyone else's stuff.

And then we were in.

Unless you're a sysadmin, electrician, or NSA stenographer, you may never have been inside a server farm. Imagine an enormous, extremely well-kept zoo, with chain-link walls draped from floor to ceiling creating rows of large fenced cages vanishing somewhere in the far, dark reaches of the Matrix. Inside each cage is a mammoth case (or several mammoth cases) constructed of stylish black metal and glass, crouched on a raised white-tile floor into which cables dive and resurface like dolphins. Glowing green and red lights flicker as disks whir, whistle, and stop, but no human voices are ever heard as frigid air pours out of exposed ceiling vents and