"I can't tell you my password," she answers, burying her face in her bookbag to avoid his grin.

"I understand," he says. "It's personal." She follows him to the terminal in silence.

"I'm finished!" says one beaming student, waving twenty pages of computer print out in the air. "Shoot, I think I'm going to get out of here, maybe into that movie over there."

The terminal monitor has gone off with his date and most of the students are gathering up their notebooks and leaving. Silence pervades the room now. Only the light tapping of fingers on the terminal keys and the hum of a fan can be heard. There are five people still working at midnight, three of them are undergrads. A student sits at the center table screwing up his face and dragging his hand through his hair repeatedly while figuring out a problem in his notebook. A woman jiggles her foot, causing her stool to squeak in rhythm.

"Shit," an agitated student groans, rifling through his notes. No one notices; people keep typing.

The hallways of the Science Center are cold and darkened. The security guard, reading at his desk, is interrupted by a hand-holding couple searching for a bathroom. There is a light on in the director's office where a man sits with his coat on, tapping away at a computer terminal. In the cafeteria a radio speaker has been playing classical music all night to an empty room. At midnight the music yields to a recording of two comedians performing live. They're telling jokes and singing folk songs in a thick Yiddish accent. Applause and laughter echo from the radio into the darkness.

A bearded man enters the computer room from the back door, his coat on and books in hand. He walks to the blackboard and begins to write. Hearing the scraping chalk, every head turns to see him writing: "sys problems tonite call JRS 8-5868"

Then all eyes return to the terminal screens. The student's arms are poised, and like marionettes whose strings are controlled by a higher power, they are set in motion again, tapping on the keys. The bearded man exits.

The woman hesitates a long time before explaining why she's here on Saturday night. She glances several times at the absorbed student beside her and finally says, "I'm with him--we're on a date.