Science Fiction, Fantasy |
Reading Room | Ill Logic, an original science fiction story |
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Science Fiction, Fantasy |
Reading Room | Ill Logic, an original science fiction story |
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This story is copyright © 1991, 1999 by Michael Martinez. See the notice at the bottom of the page for reproduction information.The telephone had been ringing all day; it was ringing again and as usual no one was in the office besides Jim Curtis, a frustrated, sweat-drenched young man in a two-year-old suit that was getting too small for him. Or he was getting too big -- like all the programmers and tech people, Jim had a passion for long days, longer nights, and cheap junk food from the vending machine in the break room on the second floor. His exercise each day consisted of several trips down the stairway to the break room. But the telephone kept ringing, so he finally pushed a few buttons on his new multiline set until the lights stopped blinking. He immediatly assumed a professional attitude and voice. "Computer Caterers!" he sang sweetly, eye glancing heavenward for relief. "Hi, my computer's broken -- can you fix it?" a worried and feminine voice said coldly. "Can you tell me what's wrong with it?" Jim asked with feigned but practiced patience. "Who are you?" Jim asked quickly, but there was no response. He waited through a moment of dead silence. "Hi, this is Tom," a handsome, masculine voice oozed over the receiver. Jim could see the pearly whites on this salesman's face. "Listen, dude -- our system's got a wire loose or something. Can you come out and fix it today?" "What company are you with?" Jim asked fearfully. "We have a standard contract rate with our customers but everyone else has to pay two hundred dollars an hour, plus travel expenses if you're more than 30 miles away." "Two hundred dollars!" Tom's voice cracked. "Listen, I think I see the problem. Let me call you back, okay?" "Sure, Tom, I'll be right here," Jim promised. The phone clicked and the line went dead -- or buzzed in his ear. "God, I wish I had a date," Jim muttered unhappily. "It's been so long I forget what you do on a date -- or why people date at all. Do dates take place?" He saved his work and called up the mail system. Sudden inspiration demanded he let everyone else know that dates do not exist -- they only the figments of demented imaginations spawned in people who have too much time and money on their hands. Jim was into his fourth memo, discoursing on the magnetic properties of ballpoint pens, which are inevitably drawn to the farthest place from your easiest reach, when the telephone rang again. A quick glance at the clock on the wall told him the same thing the clock on his desk stubbornly insisted was true: everyone would remain at lunch -- in the break room -- for at least another five minutes. Maybe longer, if the boss really had another appointment. The phone rang again and he sighed, saving his memo. "Computer caterers!" "Hi, this is Deb again." "Hi, Deb -- did you call before?" "Remember, my computer was broken?" "Right; listen, Deb -- can you hold on for a moment?" He put her on hold before she could reply. He stormed over to the closest where the refrigerator had been stored next to the diskettes and extra binders. It was the only dedicated circuit left in the office, but there were still some drinks left from the day before. He gratefully stole one from some nameless person who undoubtedly had forgotten they were there and was planning on donating them to the office for everyone's use anyway. "Hi, Deb -- now where were we?" he slid into his seat as Emily -- the secretary -- came through the door a full two minutes early and a full two minutes late. "Well, Tom couldn't fix the computer," Deb said warily. "So he said I could call you back." "Is Tom still there?" "-- he left --" "That's okay, Deb," Jim breathed a sigh of relief. "I'm sure we can do something with just the two of us." He called up the office menu on his terminal and dove into the trouble log system. "So, what did you say the name of your company was?" "Passion Flowers," Deb said weakly. He keyed in the name and waited. Yeah. "How do you spell that, Deb?" "P-A-S-H-O-N F-L-O-U-R-S." "Gotcha, Deb!" he shook his head. Where do people come up with the names for their businesses? "Listen, I'm showing no activity on your account for a couple of years -- I can give you help over the phone, but if I come out there, it's gonna cost you." "Can't you fix it over the phone?" Deb was terrified. "I don't know," he warned. "What seems to be wrong?" "It's not working right," Deb replied. "I put some figures into the system yesterday but they aren't there any more. They're missing, somehow." "Well, that may be normal," he explained. "You see, there are two kinds of data: temporary data and permanent data. Permanent data is usually things like names and addresses and temporary data is usually things like how much you sold someone or how much you bought." "Well, it was supposed to be permanent data," Deb declared quickly. "Why do you say that, Deb?" "Because I saw a name on the screen when I keyed in the figures for the sales." "Okay, Deb -- listen; what screen are you on now?" "Oh, I'm not at the computer." "Is there a telephone by the computer, Deb?" "Yes, but we don't use it any more." "Why is that?" "It doesn't work. They said the box was broken and the computer phone isn't used any more." He looked out the window and mouthed, "computer phone?" "Listen, Deb -- did they call that box a modem?" "That's right." "Okay, your modem is broken," Jim concluded happily. "Is there another phone close by the computer?" "No, but there's one at the desk next to mine," Deb said excitedly. "Do you want me to go there?" "Is that where the computer is?" "No, but I have a terminal at my desk. I'm getting a telephone tomorrow morning sometime." "Deb," Jim tried to contain himself -- she sounded kind of cute. "The phone next to your desk -- can your use it and sit at your terminal, too?" "Sure -- do you want me to do that?" "Yeah, I think that would help tremendously." He was put on hold so he risked taking a swallow from his drink. The liquid was already getting warm so he decided to go for a second swallow. "Hi, Jim," Mike said as he walked into the office. It is carven in lead somewhere that exactly one third of the software industry at any time consists of guys named Mike. Mike ducked his head over the partition -- he was, of course, the tallest and best looking guy in the office -- and smiled. "Mind if I take one of your drinks?" "My drinks?" Jim echoed sadly. "Hi, I'm back!" "Hold on, Deb," Jim put the phone down and nodded wearily to Mike. The tall guy sauntered off, dreaming in his own world about his latest girlfriend or piece of equipment. "Hi, Deb -- it's Jim again." "Hi, Jim." "Hi, Deb -- listen: what's on your screen now?" "My data." "What?" "My data is back. It's got the right name, the sales figures are back, and everything is okay." "Deb, what's at the top of the screen?" "A note." "A note?" "Yes, it says: 'To log on --'" "No, Deb -- I mean what's displayed on your screen at the top by the computer program?" "It says: 'Master Entry Screen'." "What?" Jim sank back into his chair. He knew what was coming next. "Master Entry Screen. You want to hear what comes next?" "I'll bet it says 'Computer Caterers'." "It does -- and something about a copyright." "Deb, have you ever thought about upgrading your software?" "I just started here, remember?" "Yeah -- right." "Listen, Jim -- why did my data disappear?" "Data doesn't just disappear and reppear, Deb." "Mine did. It was gone for at least twenty minutes." "Was the entire screen blank?" "No, a lot of the data was there -- just the data I keyed in was missing, but most was there." "What do you mean? Can you read me some of the data that didn't go away?" "Sure: name, salesman --" "Whoa, Deb -- that's not data." "It's not?" "Aren't those words fainter than the others?" "Yeah! I tried to brighten the screen, but the other words just got brighter, too. And then I tried to dim -- oh! Do you think that's it, Jim? Did I dim the screen too much? That must be it! I must have dimmed the screen. Listen, Jim -- I'm sorry I took your time with such a stupid mistake. Are you going to send me a bill for this?" "No, I guess not," Jim sighed. "Great, thanks a lot, Jim!" "Bye." "-- so then she decided she had dimmed the screen too much," Jim finished. Mike smiled and shook his head. "You never can tell, kid," he said condescendingly. "In this business, everyone thinks it's a disaster -- some hacker has gotten into their system and the world's going to end -- and then they find they tripped over the plug or something like that. All of a sudden, they don't want to spend the money." "It's funny, though," Jim said unpleasantly. "She didn't actually say she had brightened the screen again." "They often do things they don't mention," Mike warned. "That software must be five or six years old," Jim added thoughtfully. "Were you around then?" "Yeah, I think they're using a system we stopped selling about two years ago. Had a lot of problems." "Don't we support them any more?" "Most of the people who had them upgraded -- or they were picked up by our competitors," Mike mused. He shrugged and finished off a second drink. "It doesn't matter. That old code was full of holes -- it was a nightmare." "Why'd we sell it?" "Because they wanted it," Mike asserted. "I told Carl and the others the package had serious problems, but they said the clients didn't care. They wanted computers." "That's pretty stupid," Jim complained. "That's business, kid," Mike shrugged again. "But Carl always gave them thirty hours of free support -- he knew there were bug fixes and he never cheated a client." "Do you remember anything like that happening?" "You know," Mike said thoughtfully, "that does sort of sound familiar, now I think about it. Maybe we fixed a bug on most systems but they never complained." "Is there a record of the bug fix?" "Around here?" Mike said, spreading his arms. "Good luck. Carl is a packrat. He never throws anything away. Emily walked up and smiled at the fellows. She was very much overweight -- but had lost thirty pounds on her latest diet -- and she had a crush on Mike, who loved her like a kid sister. "Did either of you speak with a Tom at Passion Flowers, this morning?" she asked. "I did," Jim volunteered. "Are you busy?" Emily asked legitimately. "He's on the telephone right now and he's kind of upset." "Put him on the speaker phone," Mike suggested. Emily led them to the conference room and adjusted the phone set to accept Tom's call. "Are you there, Mr. Harald?" "Yes -- is Jim available?" slickness oozed through the speaker, making Jim cringe and Mike smile knowlingly. "I'm here," Jim responded warily. "You sound strange -- are you having phone trouble? Should I call back?" "We put you on the speaker phone, Tom," Mike chimed in with his deep, rich voice. Jim hated that -- people always trusted anything Mike said. "Oh, good. Listen, fellas -- we've got a problem here. Jim helped Deb with the computer this morning and I think he's made the trouble worse." "Why do you say that, Tom?" Jim tried not to sound irritated. "What's wrong?" "Now everyone in the office has the same problem," Tom complained. He almost had a whine in his voice. "But I didn't do anything," Jim pointed out. "You must have done something," Tom insisted. "We weren't having this trouble yesterday." "If there is a problem with the system, it sounds like one of us will have to come out there," Mike said sternly. "We don't mind helping an old customer from time to time if it's quick and easy, but we have a business to run. I'm sure you understand that, Tom." "I understand -- but we need our computer," Tom said. "We could put them back on account," Emily suggested. "I'm sure Carl won't object -- that would save them some money and Jim could go out there this afternoon." "Is Carl around?" Tom inquired. "He's at a client site," Jim volunteered. "All right," Tom sighed. "Put us back on account." "Okay," Mike said happily. "I'll send Jim right out to you. He should arrive in about half an hour." "Great," sugar dripped from Tom's voice. "We'll be expecting you, Jim." He hung up and Emily quickly turned off the speaker phone. "Carl is going to be UPSET," Mike whispered. "Why?" Jim and Emily asked in unison. "He never liked this guy," Mike told them. "I think they kept calling with complaints about the system." "Great," Jim groaned. "Should I put them on account?" Emily asked. "Do it," Mike insisted. "I'll speak with Carl. Maybe we can sell them a new system. They probably need one." "I've never worked on that package," Jim complained. "Don't worry -- you had the language in college," Mike assured him. "It's just a little bit hairier than what you are used to." "What do you mean?" Jim demanded suspiciously. "It was souped up for business programming," Mike told him. "We did some funky things in those days. You should get a kick out of it." "Are you saying they have the source code?" "It's an interactive system, Jim. There's an interpreter built into the operating system -- the code has to be there." "It must be slow," Jim mused. "Not really," Mike shook his head. "The engineers who designed that thing made it very procedural. The operating system does most of the work, and the file structures were way ahead of their time. You'll be impressed by what that old dinosaur can do." Pashon Flours was located in a light industrial complex. There were about a dozen trucks with the company name and logo pasted on their sides in a row in a side parking lot. Jim found the corporate offcies in a small brick annex barely attached to the end warehouse. He mounted the steps to the front entrance with trepidation, checking his tie for the fifth time and slapping his sweaty palms against his legs to dry them. The foyer was plain and stained with time; a bored receptionist sat watching a television on her counter. "I'm Jim from Computer Caterers," he said nervously. "I'm here to see Tom -- I think." The receptionist picked up her phone, pressed a paging button, and spoke with the voice of Authority: "TOM, YOUR APPOINTMENT IS HERE." Jim jumped aside, looking up to see he had stood directly under a speaker. "Hi, you must be Jim," a smooth, creamy voice said unexpectedly. Jim turned to look at the tallest, blondest man in all creation. He was square-jawed and had a set of teeth the Cheshire Cat would envy. His hand was extended and Jim shook it with the greatest of care. Tom seemed not to notice Jim's writhing as he crushed the programmer's most vital organ, but he quickly turned and led the little guy into the back area, where about eight men and women were seated at terminals, some working, some not. "Everything seems to be working fine," Tom said in perplexion. "I thought you could sit with Deb for a while to see what happens next." "Suppose nothing goes wrong while I'm here?" Jim asked. That never fails to happen on the first through fourth visits for hard-to-pin-down problems. "I don't want you to leave until this is fixed," Tom said authoritatively. He led Jim over to a pair of desks. One desk was empty but a smart-looking and extremely cute young blond was sitting forlornly at the other. "Deb, this is Jim, from Computer Caterers." The cute young blond brightened visibly and smiled warmly. "I am so glad you are here," she said with a very slight yet noticeable southern accent. "It's happening again. Come see." Jim strolled professionally around the corner of the desk, barely missing the corner and carefully recovering from a slight stumble to view a completely blank screen. "See?" Jim tapped the terminal with a heavy finger, eliciting a dark look from Tom. "I'll just leave you two," the boss said with sudden decision. "Stop by my office on the way out." "Sure," Jim said quickly. He glanced at Deb, whose legs were nicely revealed by her skirt. "Could I take your place?" he asked. She smiled and got up. "I have some filing I need to do," she said. He sighed and watched her leave, draming of days when he could afford to violate staff-client protocols like Mike did regularly. The screen remained blank, but a startled cry rose from the far end of the room. Jim looked up and saw a male clerk staring furiously at his screen. "It just went blank!" he stormed. "What is going on here? Can't you fix it?" Jim diplomatically rose and went over to the offending terminal. The screen was blank. "That's a blank screen," he confirmed. "I'll be right back." He returned to Deb's desk and called the office. "Hi, Em -- it's me. Is Mike in? "Mike -- it's the damndest thing. Two screens just went blank. I'm looking straight at them. I tried that. Oh -- okay -- wait a moment." He turned the terminal off and back on again. The screen flashed and then went blank. "Nothing. This is spooky. There are three other people here who are using it right now." "Make that two!" a middle-aged woman said suddenly. She stood up, grabbed a cigarette and lighter, and stormed away to the company break room. "Another one just died, Mike." "That's really strange -- " Mike returned. "-- Let me call Carl. Hold on --" After what seemed like hours Mike came back. "-- Can you talk to me from the console? --" Jim looked around and saw the console houses beside the actual computer against a wall behind a partition. There was a small box beside the console and a telephone sitting on the box. "Let me call you back," Jim said with firm resolution. He went over to the console and tried the telephone. The line was active. He called Mike. "I'm on." "-- Log on as the system manager --" "Our login doesn't work." "-- oh -- Carl says to type in S-U-S-A-N. The password is 'bwanabear' -- that sounds unique, Carl --" "I'm in." "-- Check the system activity --" "Nothing." "-- What do you mean? --" "Just the scheduler and a couple of system jobs," Jim insisted. He turned around and saw the last two people staring at him accusingly. "Uh, I'm running a diagnostic," he said quickly. "Maybe you should take a break." "-- What are the jobs --" "Hold on, I lost them," he turned back to the console. "Wait a minute -- there's about fifty jobs running." "-- What are their names? --" "Weird stuff, Mike. Things like R-E-P-Q-M-1-A and things like that," Jim breathed softly. Mike repeated the name to Carl. "-- Yeah, that does sound familiar. You know, I think you're right --" "What is it?" Jim intoned. "-- You're not gonna believe this --" "I promise, I will!" "-- Okay, Carl. I'll let you know what happens --" "Mike." "-- Listen, kid. There's something I forgot to tell you about this system. It's dynamic --" "What do you mean?" "-- The software rewrites itself --" Jim held the phone away from his ear and stared at it. He could not help but silently mouth what Mike had just said. "How can software rewrite itself?" he demanded. "-- The language supports dynamic code changes at run time. There's a bug that sometimes causes that package to run amok and suck up all the system resources --" "Great." "-- No sweat, kid. I'll tell you how to fix it --" "Error trapping," Mike answered his question. There were no complaints from Pashon Flours now and Jim and Mike were deep into their daily office wrap-up session, which would last from four P.M. until about six, when they would go get dinner and then return to the office. "You see, that interpretive stuff can stop when an error occurs and it'll wait for a programmer to come fix it." "All interpreters are like that," Jim pointed out. "Yeah, but this business language can actually fix its own errors, if you know how to set it up." "Logic errors?" "Sometimes," Mike shrugged. "But that's hard. Most of the errors those systems get are data-oriented; so, if you know what the usual causes for one of the errors are, you can write a program to deal with them, and set your software to invoke that program whenever the error occurs." "That's not so unusual," Jim concluded. "Yeah, except we kept finding new ways to generate the same errors," Mike added. "Those old fixit programs could get pretty big. Especially on that system." "Why?" "Because the lunatic who wrote that software decided he could compensate for bad programming," Mike wheezed, his smile broadening into derisive laughter. "You mean his software fixes logical errors?" "Creates them, really -- but it tries." "That's incredible!" Jim burst out. "Did it ever work?" "Sometimes," Mike shrugged, giving credit where due. "But it really takes chutzpah to think you can write software that analyzes itself and its activity to determine if it's being used or working efficiently. Real chutzpah." "That sounds sort of neat," Jim was enthusiastic. "Why don't we try to write something like that?" "We'd spend too much time in R & D, Jim. Carl wants to make a profit occasionally." "Do we have any documentation for that software?" Mike frowned. "I don't think so," he said. "It was supposed to be fool-proof. All we ever got was user manuals." "Too bad," Jim was disappointed. Jim was feeling pretty good the next morning. He woke up early and got to the office by 8:30. He even beat Emily through the door by several minutes, so he called the service and took the messages. Deb from Pashon Flours had called three times in the past hour. "Hi, Deb -- this is Jim at Computer Caterers?" "Hi, Jim." "You called us this morning?" "Well, it's sort of funny, Jim -- but we're getting that same problem again, only with different data, today." Jim was silent for a moment. "What exactly are you trying to do today, Deb?" "We were running an update -- you know, where it takes all our sales records and puts them together?" "Yeah," Jim silently counted to three. "So, all of a sudden, the computer stopped," Deb said increduously. "I mean, everything stopped. Tom hasn't come in yet and we were afraid to let him know you hadn't fixed the computer -- so I called you." "Well, this might not be the same problem, Deb." "But nothing went wrong until yesterday," Deb argued. "I know you think we're dumb about computers --" "Whoa, Deb -- no one here thinks anybody is dumb," Jim interrupted. "I don't know anything about your business, so I might make mistakes if I tried to do your job. Okay?" "Okay," she sighed. "But that doesn't fix the problem." "Tell you what, Deb -- how about if I come out again?" "Can you come out now?" Deb was excited. "Tom won't be in until this afternoon." "Sure, I'll be there in about thirty minutes." "Great!" This time he walked past the receptionist and went straight to Deb's desk. After all, same problem, the old invitation was still good. Deb was sitting there with a worried look on her face. She was dressed in a pleasant red suit. "Hi, Jim," she said meekly. "You're not going to believe this, but it's working." "Already?" "I tried to call you, but they said you had already left your office," Deb apologized. "I'm really not dumb, Jim -- I made good grades in school. But I just don't understand computers." "Don't worry," Jim assured her. "You're not supposed to be an expert -- that's my job. I'll tell you what. Since I'm here anyway, I'll just go over to the console and take a look at the system. Maybe I can figure out what happened." "Great!" Deb was relieved. She smiled broadly and he couldn't help but smile back as he tried to saunter over to the console. The disk drives, the old stand-up models with packs of platters, were going wild, rocking and clacking furiously with activity, but it didn't sound like a crash. "Are you running an update, Deb?" he asked casually. "No," she said, puzzled. She walked over to join him. "As a matter of fact, we finished everything we needed to do this morning and everyone signed off." Jim gave the computer a surprised look and sat down. Deb leaned over his shoulder to watch what he was doing and he was very distracted by her presence. But even though Jim felt his cheeks blushing he decided he rather liked having her there so he said nothing. He logged on as the system manager and looked at the schedule. About thirdly weirdly named programs were running, several of them with lots of processor time tagged in their activity columns. "I don't know," Jim replied distantly. He pulled up the program he had fixed the day before and looked for his correction. The code was not there. "I know I saved that change, yesterday," he muttered. He looked at Deb. "Do you back up your system every day?" "Maggie does," Deb told him. "Would you like me to get her for you?" "Yeah." Maggie brought out the backup packs while Jim shut down the system. It seemed a little sliggish but finally went into a dormant state. They mounted the software backup pack and he brought the system up in its maintenance mode. The equipment was very quiet. In seconds, Jim found his program and saw the changes he had keyed in the day before. "What does it mean?" Deb asked wonderingly. "It's rewriting itself," Jim whispered in awe. "I knew it!" Maggie screamed, lighting up a cigarette. "We bought the computer from Hell! I told Tom to replace this system five years ago -- but he's too cheap!" "How much did it cost?" Jim asked unhappily. "Forty thousand dollars!" Maggie cried. "What a waste!" "Listen, let me call Carl -- I'm sure he knows how to take care of this," Jim tried to reassure the women. Deb smiled and looked at him supportively. Maggie shook her and stormed off to return to her business. Jim picked up the modem phone and called his office. "Hi, Em -- it's me. Is Carl in? Until Friday? What about Mike? Great. "Mike, I'm down here at Pashon Flours, and boy is this weird. I'm looking at the backup pack to make sure I saved the change yesterday? And it's there. but the main pack doesn't have it any more. "They were running an update -- sales registers, I think. Really? You sure? Okay." He hung up and Deb gave him a worried look. "He's coming out here," Jim said simply. When Mike came in all the women in the office turned to pay him notice; but as Jim felt envy rise in his heart he saw that Deb didn't seem to think much of Mike, and Maggie just had a look of disgust. Mike was worried as he sat down next to Jim. "Carl is gonna go through the roof if we don't fix this today," he said quietly. "I think I know what happened," Jim suggested. Mike gave that, Okay Kid -- I'm all ears, look. "Okay, kid. I'm all ears." "No one has worked on this package for at least two years, right?" Jim asked him. "But the people here must have been putting in tons of data -- getting errors on a fairly regular basis. You know, typos -- invalid amounts, and all that other stuff data entry people can do." "Sounds plausible," Mike conceded. His face lit up. "And the damned system's been trying to fix them!" "Rewriting itself all along," Jim added. "Good lord, there's no telling what that junk looks like, now," Mike said worriedly, glancing at the console with a shadow of fear and doubt. "God, it could be trying to do anything, kid. What about when the disks filled up? What did it do to their data?" "And bad sectors," Jim added. "Power surges," Mike continued. "Or failures. They're on a dedicated circuit, I think -- but still. Every little thing that's gone wrong has helped reprogram this monster." "Can we fix it?" "You got a shotgun?" Mike asked sincerely. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully, a gesture he seldom used except in the toughest cases. "Carl wasn't happy when I took these guys back on to account, kid. Now we gotta fix this thing." "Should I bring it up?" "Yeah, we better see what the damage is," Mike said with a sinking heart. Jim remounted the main pack and took the system into full operational mode. The disk drives at once began rattling and shaking furiously. "Sounds like its compacting the disk space," Mike observed. "Is that good?" Jim inquired. "I guess," Mike shrugged. He starting typing in the login sequence and sat back with a curse. "Now we're in deep pickle juice, kid. I can't log in." "As the system manager?" "Yeah." "How about as a user?" He looked around and saw Deb sitting at her desk, watching them with a puzzled expression. "Deb, what's your login code?" "D-E-B-R-A," she said. "I don't have a password." "I'm in, kid," Mike said with relief. "Let me see if I can drop down to the system manager's level. Yeah, it took the password." He started typing in commands so fast Jim lost track of what the senior programmer was trying to do. Information displays scroleld up on the screen rapidly and Mike kept shaking his head worriedly. "It's all different," he said. "Damn, Joe must have changed stuff around." "Who was Joe?" Jim asked. "The worst programmer you've ever seen," Mike said with a deep breath. "He worked for Carl for about three weeks and screwed up every system he touched. I just remembered --" The screen suddenly blanked and the words "I WANT TO LIVE!" began flashing on the screen. Deb screamed and they turned to see her staring at her terminal, petrified. Jim rushed over to see the words, "HI DEBRA. YOUR HARD DRIVE IS ABOUT TO DIE!" flashing on the screen. "This isn't funny!" she cried, looking at him accusingly. "Mike, it's gone haywire!" Jim yelled. "Calm down, kid -- you'll panic the office," Mike warned. He came over to look at the terminal. The message stopped flashing and the screen became completely white; the video was in full reverse display. The words, "AUTOMATIC DESTRUCT SEQUENCE SET. ALL TERMINALS, SAY BYE-BYE" appeared. "That son of a bitch!" Mike burst out. The screen suddenly blanked and a standard error trapping routine cut in, throwing up a pleasant explanation and a list of instructions fof the operator. "This is weird," Deb said softly. "What's happening, Mike?" Jim asked worriedly. Mike took him aside and made sure no one was close enough to hear them. "Joe put time bombs in the software," he whispered. "Carl ran him out of town." "This is all just Joe's tricks?" Jim was disappointed. "Not exactly," Mike said. "The software must have developed some checks and balances. When the time bombs started kicking in, the system noticed something was wrong." "It's fighting the bad software!" Jim concluded. They heard a beeping from the console and turned to see large numbers counting down from 35. "I don't like the looks of this, Mike." The countdown was interrupted at 15 and the standard error routine kicked in. Within minutes every terminal had the same message displayed, but the disk drives were still rocking and clattering svaagely. Maggie came storming over to the two programmers. "What the hell did you do to our computer?" she demanded. "It's just going through a phase," Mike explained. "Phase?" Maggie yelled. "In five years it's never gone through a phase! Stop it!" "We can't," Jim pleaded. "It's got to clean itself out before we can do anything." Every terminal that had the capacity began beeping and flashing startling messages throughout the room. Two printers suddenly sprang to life and began spewing out pages of test patterns. Mike and Jim rushed over to turn them off. "We can't have all this racket," Maggie complained. "Turn off the terminals, too!" "No!" Mike and Jim said in unison. Maggie gave them a frightened look. "Let it finish," Jim pleaded. "It's your only chance to save your data." "I'm going out for coffee!" Maggie stormed, and she left. "Tom isn't going to like this," Deb said, coming up to stand beside Jim. He liked that very much. "How long do you think it will take?" Jim asked. Mike just shrugged and sat down at Deb's desk. Her terminal was now striated with alternating normal and reverse video displays of character-derived plot-charts. The console displayed the words, "DOOMSDAY HAS ARRIVED" and started beeping again. The disk drives rattled and clattered and banged and beeped and rocked in their casings. Several people came in to stand and watch as the two programmers did nothing. Deb blushed with embarassment. By one o'clock it was all over. The terminals were all functioning normally, reports were printed on demand without a hitch, and every user in the office was able to acces data without delay or interruption. Mike had to reinstate the system manager's login, but otherwise there were no new problems, and the data seemed to be completely intact. "For a package that was a nightmare, it did a great job of fighting off Joe's viruses," Jim said as he and Deb finished off a submarine sandwich. Mike shook his head. "I guess that nutty software earned its price today," he conceded. "You people are pretty lucky," he added to Deb. She smiled and patted Jim's hand. "I guess we are," she said meaningfully. Jim's heart sank within him, even though he knew Mike was silently urging him to go for it. There was a commotion and they looked up to see Tom coming in with a guy who must have been his twin brother. "This is it," Tom said with swaggering disgust. His twin was dressed in an expensive suit, and he looked around the office at all the equipment. "Yeah, it is pretty old," he observed. "I can give you a great deal on terminals, too." "Swell," Tom said with a smile. "Why don't you wait for me in my office and we'll sign the contract?" "Great," the salesman replied, shaking Tom's hand. Tom walked over to Mike and Jim. "Listen, guys -- I don't think we'll be needing you any more," he said apologetically. "I've decided to buy a real computer that can do a lot more than this one." "Okay," Mike said with a shrug. "But, Tom --" Deb started to argue "Listen, honey -- you've got to understand that a business has to change with the times," Tom said patronizingly. "Computers just don't do that. You'll like the new one." "But, Tom --" "You know," Mike interrupted her. "I'm sure you do deserve a new system," he said to Tom. "I can see how it would be hard for you to appreciate this old babe." "Yeah, that pile of junk has caused me enough trouble," Tom agreed, smiling now that he knew Mike was on his side. "And it's not that I don't appreciate what Carl has done for me through the years --" "But you gotta grow," Mike finished. He shrugged generously. "You need to make the right decision for your company, Tom -- we understand that. Who knows, maybe in a few years we'll have the right system for you again?" "Yeah," Tom said uncertainly. "Right. Well, listen. I'm sure you guys know the way out." "Sure," Mike admitted. "And, listen -- if they don't give you a good deal on the trade-in value for this old computer, I'll take it off your hands." "Really?" Tom said, surprised. "I'll call you." He walked off with a happy smile. "What are you doing?" Jim asked as he picked up his jacket and cleaned up his lunch. "Kid, we're gonna make a fortune!" Mike whispered. "You know what I'm gonna do with that pile of junk? I'm gonna dissect it! The software can't be anything like the original package any more, so we don't even have to worry about copyright violations. Just think about it: software that can't be infected with viruses or bombs!" "Yeah, that's right," Jim said thoughtfully. He saw Deb looking at him a little forlornly. "I guess this is good-bye," she said softly. "We're not going to be your customers any more." "I suppose not," Jim admitted. Mike winked at him and jerked his head slightly toward the girl. "Uh, listen, Deb," Jim said quickly. "Are you, like, free for dinner sometime?" |
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