by Andrew Ives
All three considered the personal consequences. Only the distant scratching of a printer could be heard, until Bob introduced further concern.
"I had a letter this morning asking me to consider taking up a position near Frankfurt, 'Kreiz-somewhere-or-other' with some similar hardware manufacturer's R & D department. Do you think that somehow they knew that I might become available soon? It does seem more than a bit coincidental... It being our twin city, where our sister company is situated."
Gifford dropped his cotton bud. Picking it up, he asked if either of them needed their disk drives cleaning. He half-turned back to continue cleaning his drive, whilst keeping an ear to their conversation.
Karen noticed Gifford kick his computer's hot power supply along under the bench as it was touching a five-litre tank of ethanol he had temporarily put there, surprised at his nonchalance.
A beep from the terminal behind her interrupted her train of thought about this apparent hazard and after a quick glance back, she forgot what she was going to say. Realising that Bob's computer was turned off, she instead decided to change the subject as the atmosphere was becoming decidedly overcast.
"Eric, I've been meaning to ask you about my satellite telly. The film channel went scrambled last night and that hooky card you gave me says Invalid - ILLEGAL Card over the screen. Is that 'bad' as opposed to merely inconvenient?"
"Normally, but you mean the one I made, right?" asked Eric. Karen nodded, and Gifford took a renewed interest.
"Well that message only came up because I didn't get absolutely every detail right on the card. Cinema Lethe are becoming wise to us 'card sharks' and change the codes more often and more irregularly now. I have about thirty cards with all the different combinations on, so when one works I reformat the other twenty-nine. I've cracked Cinema One on Lethe satellite which you wanted, but I'm still working on the sport channel on the other satellite which Bob here is after." Bob turned round with sudden and full attention.
Eric turned to Bob momentarily, allaying his fears that he might have to actually pay for a channel.
"I want it too, Bob, but it's proving to be an unusually tough nut to crack. I hope I manage it before anything good comes on. I can do your card (without the sport) though Karen. I'll just copy my valid one and you can have that, but bring your duff one back. I need as many blank cards as I can get and I don't want my bent cards falling into the wrong hands."
"Yes of course, I'll bring it tomorrow. So they won't come round and confiscate my dish then? " asked Karen, slightly relieved.
"Naaaah." smirked Eric. Her naiveté amused him and he enjoyed Karen's gratitude for his help, unlike most people who just unashamedly used him for his knowledge. He realised that most people found him boring. People who didn't understand the sense of achievement found in cracking such codes. People who yawned when he rambled on about 'electronic tumblers' and 'gigabit combinations,' and then asked if they were going to be able to see Hell Creatures that night.
He was fond of Karen. She was not overtly beautiful, but she was the only female friend he had - the only friend he had if he was honest to himself. They had 'gelled' from day one; work and common interests bringing them closer together as time went on.
Years ago it might even have gone further, but he was too old to pursue her now and since Katarina was killed he never felt anyone could ever replace her. He had given up even looking, taking solace in his work instead. Writing illicit decoder cards kept him occupied too.
Eric was not at all conscientious about this fraud. He was far more reluctant to see his talents being used in military hardware than about defrauding some giant conglomerate out of small change.
He held somewhat hippy principles, converted by his late girlfriend into believing in conservation and ecology and all that goes with them, but like most people he wasn't going to decline a well-paid job like this and starve for his beliefs. Somewhere peripheral to these beliefs came the cyberpunk ideals of freedom of information. (In this case television broadcasts, but he was not averse to hacking, cracking or phreaking either.) His later years had seen a decrease in these illegitimate activities but old habits did die hard.
Karen smiled and thanked him. Feeling uncomfortable at Bob's jealous 'What about me?' look, she then turned back to her screen.
"Mail received from Node 052868 @ 10:21." had appeared on the screen amongst her carefully-crafted code. She moved the mouse around and the screen was refreshed, deciding to read the Email letter later.
She looked down at the mass of tangled wires on her bench and again its hideous complexity persuaded her she could do with another Maxpax.
Getting up, she walked towards the corridor where the dispenser stood and was called by Eric to get him another couple of '020s. She went to the stack of plastic drawers and looked down the labels - gold wire, 70000's, MLSI transputers, optoelectrical convertors, optical diodes, high-density drive mechanisms, 70020s... she opened the drawer, took out two from a pile of about thirty and went to get her drink. She was surprised again by the amount of money that stood idle in those drawers. 70000s alone were worth a good fifty each and '020s would be worth a fortune on the black market - no one had those.
On returning to the lab, she walked over to Eric and gave him the chips and found everyone reading their screens in unison. She chucked the chips onto his bench and he scarcely looked away from his monitor.
She sat down to the new email letter which had been delivered to her terminal. She read it as it explained in detail that Psi was to be disbanded and that they were all to be made redundant. They would be paid for the rest of this week but they should spend today salvaging spares and other useful parts for later shipment.
Karen, like the others, was speechless. She had no idea what she would do after this and it still came as a sudden shock, even if it was rumoured that this moment may soon come.
No redundancy pay - she couldn't believe it. She had little savings and they would barely tide her over to the end of the month.
Gifford ended their collective silence, loudly stating:
"I bet that bastard in there will be alright though." A vague murmur of agreement came from the nearby software developers.
Karen couldn't help but remember that he had a job lined up too. And Eric - he was a brilliant scientist, he would have no difficulty finding work. The others didn't exactly seem cut to the quick about it either.
But she might well have trouble. Jobs were scarce. She had been in this predicament before.
It was with this more heartfelt resentment and her naturally more argumentative character that she stormed into Sedgwick's Office.
Everyone around stared. Unwilling to join her - seemingly having their own individual futures assured - they listened.
A Woman Scorned
Karen was surprised to find she had caught Sedgwick unawares. Considering the widespread misery his news could be expected to have caused, it was anticipated that he would be ready with all the answers.
Instead she found him reaching up to a box high on the wall. He hurriedly closed it on her entry, locked it and sat down attentively.
She discarded this slightly odd behaviour and leaned with both hands on the back of the chair facing his desk. True, he was her governor, but she had little to lose by pulling out all the stops.
"So I've served my purpose here now have I? You're just going to..."
Her anger left her at a loss for words. She stared at Sedgwick. His slight grinning always annoyed her, but never as much as it did now in the face of such desperation.
Sedgwick was a portly man, reaching middle age. He had run Psi for as long as she had worked there even though he had often made it apparent he was underqualified for such a privileged position. Eric had often mentioned this to her, causing her to realise it too. She always begrudged him his better pay. He wore an expensive suit, drove expensive cars and she hated it intensely. Now was her chance to take this accumulated scorn out on him.
Sedgwick quickly
tried to calm the situation. He held the palms of his hands up towards her.
"Now, don't be like that. You knew, you all knew, right from the outset that this was contract work. You would see this project through from start to finish. Now - it is finished and your contract has ended. Simple as that." Sedgwick leaned back pleased at his justification.
"But it's not. We've still got problems to iron...";
"Exactly. Problems. We've been having more problems than we could imagine. You know better than most of us just how deep-rooted these problems are. I've just returned from yet another failed testing and head office are sure that the problems won't be ironed out. Every time it's ever been tested, PsiNapse has induced seizures. They say that if PsiNapse was ever going to work properly it already would be, at least partially. It's going to take major redesigning from scratch and they haven't the money, time or inclination to wait.”
Karen's rage had dissipated by now. Sedgwick seemed reasonable and almost decent for once, and underlying that he was talking sense. Just as she was beginning to trust him, she saw him slide a letter, printed in red ink, out of her view under more papers on his desk. Sedgwick continued as if he had done nothing.
"You understand how it is these days. Everyone wants results - fast. You don't get them - you're out." Sedgwick sensed Karen was about to give in without too much of a fight.
"But no redundancy money? No notice? You call that 'reasonable?'" Karen felt she would nail him on this point alone, even if she had rather conceded by now.
“No. I admit it's not 'reasonable'. But what do you expect? They can get people off the streets, desperate to do your jobs. Why should they pander to you? They don't have to pay you, so they don't. As for notice, well it all rested on yesterday's testing. If it had gone well, you would have been in work for another few months. It didn't and you're not. Simple as that. How could they give you any notice when they didn't even know themselves? They suspected, but they couldn't fire you on that basis, could they?" Sedgwick was again rather pleased at how well this was going.
"But just this week's pay? It wouldn't bankrupt them to stretch to another couple of weeks' would it? I'm going to be out on the street unless I can find another job sharpish." Karen knew she was clutching at straws; 'Sedgwick' and 'compassion' were not words you would use in the same sentence.
"I'm getting the same treatment - I'm no Aga Khan either. I don't have any job lined up like the others out there; we'll both be in the same boat. I sympathise with your grievances, but there's nothing I can do about it or I would be doing it already - for my sake." Sedgwick hoped she would go. He didn't want to let slip any hint of redundancy money.
Karen turned and left, mentally vowing that Psi hadn't heard the last from her, she firmly closed the smoked glass door behind her, muttering expletives.
"And make yourself useful - you haven't done anything today." Sedgwick called out after she had already left, realising it was an audacious request but saying it anyway.
Sedgwick hesitated for a moment, watched her silhouette grow blurred through the window and stood back up on his chair to finish his work in the alarms box.
Tactical Withdrawal
Karen returned to her work area, ignoring the surprised stares of the programmers on the way. Gifford was already pulling leads from the back of his computer and monitor. Eric was sorting through his notes, screwing up the occasional piece of number-ridden paper.
Karen was surprised at how easily everyone had conceded and seemed just to accept their sudden dismissal. She was not going to be so placid and did not intend letting her hard work be used later by any company that had treated her so badly.
She sat at her terminal and read the first email she had received, prior to the one that had just made her blood pressure rise so much.
Calming, she read:
"Any time now Karen,
Wilkins."
Message received @ 10:21 from Node 052868 on Monday, 18th November.
She quickly closed the window so nobody else saw the message and looked around to confirm such. She saw Gifford detaching his LAN connection and it brought some vengeful mischief to mind.
She exited her program - it was not going to get finished now anyway. She returned to CLI and searched through the directories on the LAN. She found the directories containing company accounts, individual employees' accounts, all with high authorization codes. She couldn't get into them and there was no point now anyway. The firm was about to be wound up in more ways than one.
She searched for all the resident programs, the clock, the calendar, the CLI commands, the partition allocator, everything. These were used in the day-to-day running of the whole network and everybody could access these. But best of all, she found the virus killer key code. She listed its size and details: 38K long.
This program was always present. It protected the company's files from outside invasion from hackers' viruses. Of course, the company wasn't daft enough to open their doors to hackers - they kept themselves isolated from outside phone systems. No hacker could ever get in - they weren't physically connected up in any way, but the virus killer was still a necessary precaution. Employees often sneaked the odd game or other suspect disks to work somewhere, and these disks might be the source of infection. This program stopped that from happening - and here it lay at Karen's mercy.
Being a programmer, with the means, opportunity and motive, she just couldn't stop herself. She made up a file of her own; any old junk. Completely random data - but with a slightly meaningful beginning. She wrote a short program to loop for a nanosecond then exit. To the outsider it would seem that the virus killer was working - it took about the same time to execute, it executed OK without hogging the processor etc, and if checked it was of the same length. Ten bytes of code plus 38,902 bytes of random rubbish made 38K as before. It should take someone a while to realise this, and with a bit of luck, the virus may already have taken its toll by then. She saved the dud virus killer under the filename "Eradicator" over the real file and turned her computer off, slightly happier in the knowledge that their successors would at least have some trouble to contend with. It wasn't much, but it was a start.
She swept the bench with her hands - small pieces of copper wire, blobs of solder, coloured bits of wire strippings, the odd sweet paper - and put the pieces in her empty Maxpax cup as a makeshift bin.
Sorting through the old drawers between their benches, Eric and Bob had removed various peripherals and obsolete computer parts. Karen was intrigued by one part which she had never seen before.
"What's that black and green thing, Bob?" Karen asked pointing.
"Oh, that's just some ol' trapper gadget." Seeing Karen was still puzzled, Bob elaborated.
"You stick this in the trapdoor under the computer - any PC like these - and it enables you to slow the processor down with this dial..." Bob twiddled a tiny black potentiometer. "...then you can stop code execution at any point and alter any of the code you want. It's used for bug-trapping, so we can stop our programs at the point they go wrong and fix them. You must have seen them before. They're no big deal." And with that, Bob put it in the top of a box for salvaging.
Karen had seem them before, but they were outlawed years ago in a vain attempt to keep hackers from running riot more than they already did. Karen hadn't seen another one since then and she was surprised that Bob had access to one and so undervalued it.
She stood up and walked to the bin, which as they were clearing out was just a large cardboard box in the middle of the room. She chucked in her Maxpax cup amongst the component catalogues, burnt fuses, corrupted disks and old printer paper inside. She smiled at a sizeable pile of paper covered in Dollar signs and random characters from when the printer went haywire on Sedgwick.
She saw an old pair of long-nosed pliers, discarded because the yellow grips had frayed. She herself had a stiff and rusty pair which were in a much worse condition and, as these were to be thrown away, she took them. She put them in her back jean
s pocket with the small screwdriver that she and all electrical types carry with them everywhere.
She returned to her bench to wind up her cool soldering iron flex ready for packing. As she was doing so, Eric asked her if she wanted a chip plunger he was about to throw away. She didn't and he continued, saying about the poor state he was to be left in now this job had ended.
Eric was a shy man. He wore the customary thick-lensed glasses associated with working with computers for too many years and the obligatory middle-aged spread that comes with sitting all day.
He obviously considered Karen more than just a platonic friend, and although she didn't exactly reciprocate his feelings, she still regarded him as a generous and kind-hearted friend, one she hoped to keep after Psi's demise.
Eric explained that unless he could find another job, and one as well-paid as this was, he would have no option but to sell his motorbike.
Karen had always kept an eye on his bike, intending to buy it from him when he moved on to a newer model. But she too had found herself suddenly thrust into financial turmoil and was in no position to make him any offer. He asked her to call him if she knew anyone who would be interested, and she agreed she would. He wrote all the details on a piece of paper which she put in her breast pocket, folding it up without reading it.
She was saddened by his obvious depression at the death of PsiNapse. It was Eric's brainchild, and apparently all he lived for. He was one of a board of six scientists who were called in by their secretive mother company to assess the project's feasibility. The same six eventually went on to invent and design the hardware.
Karen had worked on the project for six months. She started when it was already well underway, but Eric had worked on it for at least a further six officially, even longer unofficially. It was painful enough for Karen to see her work being thrown on the scrapheap, but it must have been torture for Eric. She tried to cheer him up saying things like "something'll come along," but she knew Eric could easily see through her thin veneer of optimism. He knew the grim reality, and he knew Karen really did too. She left him tearing up piles of paper and attended to her own packing.