Love in a Cleanroom
LOVE IN A CLEANROOM – May 4, 2025 – Richardson, Texas, USA
When Zach described his work environment, he enjoyed saying it was like being in a spaceship. He began most days in the gowning room for a Texas Instruments chip-making plant. He slipped a loose, white jumpsuit over his clothes. The silicon chip people called it a bunnysuit. After donning the bunnysuit, he wriggled into shoe coverings that snapped tight and extended up his leg past mid-calf. He added a hood over his head, a face covering, safety glasses, and plastic gloves. By the time he was done, the shape of his body was blurred by the bunnysuit and he was unrecognizable except for his eyes.
When fully dressed, Zach passed through an air shower designed to blow off any microscopic particles. Shower complete, he walked through sliding doors and entered the enormous, artificial world of the Texas Instruments cleanroom. He breathed in the ultra-purified air that smelled like absolutely nothing. Overhead LED lighting reflected from the white tile floors and plastic walls. Zach’s ears instantly recognized the persistent hum of churning vacuum pumps, clicking electrical relays, and the whine of motors on the overhead robotic tracks.
Entering the cleanroom’s first work bay, a 200 feet long line of white-paneled machines stretched into the distance. Zach usually took a moment to stare at the blinking lights and the cases filled with silicon wafers moving between machines via the robot trains. He was the only visible human in the middle of all the automated activity. This was where he imagined himself walking through the engine room of an interstellar star cruiser. In the daydream, his bunnysuit/spacesuit provided earth-like gravity. If he could look out a window, he would see nothing but starlight and the black vastness of space.
After a moment, Zach always let reality catch up with him. He could not pretend for very long. He knew he was being watched. An army of unseen engineers monitored everything happening inside the cleanroom. Sensors packed into each machine relayed an endless stream of status updates. Cameras recorded Zach’s movements. He continued down the first bay until he reached an intersecting corridor which led to dozens of other identical-looking equipment bays. He turned left and found where he belonged.
Zach was not a direct employee of Texas Instruments. He was a contractor employed by Applied Materials, one of the companies that made the multi-million-dollar machines filling the cleanroom. He performed routine maintenance on sputter coaters that laid down thin metal layers on the silicon wafers they were fed. Zach knew all the tricks for disassembling, cleaning, and calibrating the Applied Materials tools. Sometimes he worked inside the cleanroom and sometimes underneath where vacuum pumps and gas lines connected to the machines. He was hired right out of trade school and had worked in other plants for three years. His assignment to Texas Instruments in Richardson was a promotion effective four weeks earlier.
When Zach did see other humans in the cleanroom, they were not all contractors like him. Some were Texas Instruments technicians routinely checking on equipment and stalled wafer carriers. Zach’s shift rarely seemed to align with the technicians so he did not interact with them before they were camouflaged by bunnysuits. That included one particular technician he nicknamed Eve. He did not know her real name but he was sure she was a woman because of her height and slender frame, although most of her shape remained hidden.
Zach mostly knew Eve from her eyes, eyebrows, and the way she walked, but he could recognize her from 100 feet away in a work bay. Every time they passed one another in the sterile walkways, she smiled with her eyes and raised a gloved hand in greeting. Zach took unnecessary walks around the maze of corridors hoping to run into her. He knew he was supposed to stay near his sputtering machines, but the chance to see Eve was worth the risk of a reprimand.
He thought about her more and more. While he found his job satisfying, seeing Eve became a major motivator to wake up each day. He dreamed about what she looked like under her bunnysuit and face shield. She was undoubtedly beautiful. Anyone with eyes like hers, had to be beautiful. She also had a sweet sense of humor. He could tell by the way she genuinely smiled back at him.
With each passing day, Zach’s adoration grew. Sometimes Eve felt so familiar, like he had known her for years. Four weeks after their first encounter, he was convinced he loved her. And based on her warm greetings, he thought there was a good chance she was attracted to him in return. But no matter how he altered his arrival and departure times, he could never seem to catch her in the gowning room where they could have their first conversation.
“Enough is enough,” Zach said to himself. “Today’s the day we really meet. I can’t stand the suspense.”
He left one of his sputtering machines disassembled and shuffled along the main corridor looking for Eve. He spotted someone holding an electronic tablet and gazing at a panel of warning lights. He instantly knew it was her by the way she stood.
As Zach walked toward her, a hundred nervous questions filled his mind. What if she was married or had a serious boyfriend? What if she was simply nice to everyone and not interested in him? What if she was nothing like the girl he idealized? He shook away his doubts. He had to find out. When he reached her, she returned her usual friendly smile and it gave him courage.
Zach leaned close to her ear and semi-shouted so she could hear above the cleanroom noise. “Would you like to grab coffee in the cafeteria?”
Eve smiled in return, and to Zach’s relief, raised one of her thumbs. She leaned toward his ear and shouted back, “I’ll meet you there in 30 minutes.”
Zach nodded and hurried back to his sputtering machine. He raced through the remainder of his calibration procedure and put the parts back together. He speed-walked straight to the gowning room and removed his bunnysuit. He hoped to catch Eve there doing the same thing. When he did not see her, he exited toward the cafeteria.
The onsite cafeteria was open to all Texas Instruments employees and contractors. Zach rarely visited because he preferred spending his lunch hour outside the building. The large room was filled with tables and chairs and had a wall of windows providing an outdoor view. A lunch counter served hot and cold drinks and made-to-order sandwiches.
When Zach walked in, only a few people sat huddled at cafeteria tables. He looked around hoping to find someone who met his assumed description of Eve. As he scanned, a voice to his right called his name.
“Zach! Hey Zach! Over here!”
Zach turned to find a young woman waving her arms. He took a few steps toward her and recognized her as his cousin, Heather. The two were almost the same age and had been great friends while growing up. Zach had not seen her since Thanksgiving.
“Wow, long time, no see,” Zach said as he greeted Heather with a hug. “Looks like we ended up working at the same place. This feels like high school when we were both at the same Taco Bell.”
Heather laughed and they sat at a table across from each other. She asked Zach where he was living and they shared updates on what different family members were doing. While Heather spoke, Zach continued to turn around toward the cafeteria entrance.
“Are you looking for someone?” Heather asked after noticing his obvious distraction.
“Oh, sorry. I’m supposed to meet this girl here.”
“Oh yeah? Who is she?”
A shy smile spread over Zach’s face. “Someone I met inside the cleanroom. We’ve never really talked before but I call her Eve. I barely know what she looks like. I know her mostly by her eyes, but it’s like we have this connection.”
Heather smiled in a teasing way. “Oh, so it’s that kind of meeting. You really like her, huh?”
“Yeah, you could say that,” Zach replied with a chuckle. “I know it sounds weird, but I think about her all the time. I’m totally nervous to actually meet her for real.”
“Now I’m excited to meet her. What a romantic story if you two end up falling in love and getting married.” Heather looked toward the entrance and giddily said, “Describe her so I can watch out for her too.”
“Not very tall. Beautiful eyes. I’ll know her when I see her.”
As each new woman arrived in the cafeteria, Heather asked if she might be the one. Zach dismissed them all and said, “I don’t know where she could be.” He checked his watch.
“She works inside the cleanroom?” Heather asked. “I must know her because that’s where I’m assigned. There aren’t that many of us girls. She’s about our age?”
“I’m pretty sure.”
Heather concentrated as she thought about her female colleagues. “And you saw her today?”
“Yeah.”
“Before or after you asked to meet me for coffee?”
“What do you mean?”
“Did you see her before or after you stopped me and asked about coffee?”
“I never . . .” Zach stopped mid-sentence and looked carefully into Heather’s eyes. After a flash of recognition, he instantly blushed bright red. When she saw his reaction, she suddenly knew what had happened and blushed almost as brightly as her cousin.
Zach bowed his shaking head and finally groaned out a laugh. He glanced up and said, “Now that you’re in front of me, it’s so obvious.”
“I thought you recognized me a long time ago,” Heather said with an embarrassed grin. “I thought that was why you were so friendly and kept tracking me down.”
“You knew it was me?”
“Yeah, right away,” Heather answered. Then she added in a teasing voice, “But I guess you were kind of blinded by cleanroom loneliness.”
“How about we don’t tell anyone else about this? Ever.”
“Yeah, okay. I guess this means you won’t be getting married to a cleanroom sweetheart anytime soon.”
Zach shook his head again. “Why do I get the feeling I’m going to spend the next ten years denying this?”
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