Peyton sat with Austin, Devesh and Noah in the smoky A T 101 kitchen, solemnly eating Noah's burnt chicken. The overclocking explosion, not to mention the shocking appearance of Roger Martin, had left them speechless for 30 minutes.

Austin cracked a beer. "We wouldn't be eating this dog food if Beth hadn't taken off with Mr. Martin," he said, breaking the silence.

"Hey!" Noah said. "This isn't exactly charcoal - more like barbecued. You're lucky I stepped up."

"He's right," Peyton said. "It's not bad, Noah. And I like the noodles sort of chewy like this."

"Al dente," Devesh said, nodding.

"Whatever," Austin said. "Why don't you come clean, Peyton, and tell us how long you've known about them?"

Peyton stared at his torched chicken, feeling uncomfortable talking about Beth behind her back. "Not long - it's not like she tells me everything."

"Please. You two are like hand in glove up there," Austin said, motioning to the upstairs bedrooms. "How did she meet him?"

"Why don't you ask her yourself?" Noah said. Peyton appreciated that he could rely on Noah, who seemed to know how to handle Austin's cockiness.

"And why don't you concentrate on improving your cooking, Noah, since you're gonna be doing it full time soon?" Austin said, lighting up an e-cigarette.

Peyton had never considered the possibility that Beth could leave the hacker hostel. That would put an end to their project collaborations - and leave him with no one to really talk to. He stopped eating and put a few sticks of gum in his mouth. Beth had been trying to make him stop his chewing habit, which at least wasn't as annoying as Austin's vaping.

"Where does Beth go, anyway?" Devesh asked. "She's gone all the time. A very secretive lady."

"To tell you the truth, I don't know much," said Peyton, who was just as curious as his fellow hackers - and sad that Beth had not told him everything. He still could not get it out of his head that Beth had a thing going with the Jade Games CEO. How had this happened?

"Talk about winning the lottery," Austin said. "She must know her way around in bed."

"Do you have to be such a jerk?" Peyton said so loudly that it surprised everyone at the table, including himself. Devesh stopped eating, mid-bite. Noah glanced at Austin.

"You have no filter, Austin," Noah said.

"Geez. I'm sorry," Austin said to Peyton. "I didn't mean to trip on something so precious to you. I mean someone."

Peyton rose up from the table and left the room.

Peyton sipped his second whiskey soda at Trippin', a lounge in the Haight that served tofu kebabs and spiked soy chai.

He had ridden his bicycle there, hoping to clear his mind in a place that felt like a 1960s time warp in the context of all the upper-class folks - and yes, even tech types - living in the neighborhood. Why was Beth keeping so much from him? Why did she claim that she'd dumped Roger Martin (in so many words)?And why in the hell did Peyton care so much? Yes, the guys at the hostel shouldn't have been talking about Beth that way, but Peyton knew he had overreacted at the dinner table.

To make matters worse, while pedaling along Mission Street, someone had thrown a muffin at his head at close range, and it hurt. At least he was now in a safer haven for tech people in this Peace Love place in the city. Maybe.

Peyton made himself comfortable at the bar. His stool at the empty joint felt like a king's throne, in no small part because of the bar's mosque-like arched front door, curtained with beads that sparkled like rubies. It was a nice change of pace, though all the smoke he'd inhaled in the bar had gone to his head like sniffed glue.

"I'll have another," Peyton said, motioning to the bartender, who had long gray hair and wore a vest that was also adorned by beads.

The bartender approached. He seemed like a kind soul.

"What's a techie like you doing in a place like this?" the bartender asked.

"Techie's not a nice word," Peyton said. "Try hacker or coder - anything but techie. Or hipster, for that matter. I recently heard software American." He laughed and took a drink.

"You guys are too rich to be oppressed peoples," the bartender said.

"Not me - I'm a programmer prole," Peyton said. "It's the ones at the top who are giving us all a bad name. Hey, I guess techie is fine with me if you want. Whatever."

"You make it seem like there's something wrong with that," the bartender said. This guy, Peyton thought, knew how to console customers.

"Everyone in this town seems to think there's something wrong with that," Peyton said. "How did you know that I was a techie anyway?"

The bartender grinned. "The backpack was a dead giveaway. Just a bit of friendly advice: You're not gonna get laid carrying one of those things around."

"You got that right," Peyton said. "Though the backpack is the least of my problems."

The bartender filled up a glass of water for him. "I have to say, I wish I could print money the way you techies - excuse me, you hackers - can. When I was your age, I was so broke ... but God, the sex we had."

"The problem is," Peyton said, emptying his whiskey glass, "I'm a failure on both counts. Can you give me another?"

"Maybe it's time you went home, my friend."

Maybe he was right, Peyton thought. Drinking was not going to solve his confusion over Beth, let alone his confusion over everything else.

Saturday: A strange business dinner gets even stranger.

Fictional serial Click City runs Wednesdays and Saturdays in Datebook.

To read Click City online, go to

Heather Stallings is a Bay Area writer. E-mail: