The handshake began with a whistle. You dialed the number and the line rang once, and then a high, steady tone answered with small snaps buried in it, like static caught in fence wire. A flurry of quick chirps followed, two machines trading menus in a language pitched past the human ear. Then the chord came, a rank of test tones sounded together so each machine could hear what the line had done to the other. After it came the long hiss of training and then the silence. A small light on the modem’s face said the connection held. I heard that sequence most nights for five years in the 1990s, in a room lit by a beige monitor, and I learned to diagnose a call by ear the way a mechanic hears a bad bearing. The screech people mock was a ceremony. Two machines were introducing themselves, and we were allowed to listen.

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