Out of the archives #2

[fbhjr]

Jack saw the warning message come up on the screen just before it went blank, taking two hours of his work with it.
“Stupid computer!” he yelled, whacking the side of the monitor. “That was half my project.”
“Problems Jack?” Bob asked.
“The machine just crashed,” Jack told his officemate. “I spent all morning loading the figures for today’s meeting into it. I was three lines from the end when it went down. I can’t load the backup since I did all the work this morning.”
“Bad fate,” Bob said. “Reboot and let me look at it.”
Jack hit the combination of keys that he knew so well. The machine began to hum through it’s start up procedure.
A few minutes later the machine was back up and running. A quick check showed that it hadn’t saved any of the data before crashing.
“I should have set it for automatic saving,” Jack said. “But I hate how it keeps interrupting me to save every ten minutes.”
“Open up the control panel,” Bob said. “I want to see what your fate drivers are set for.”
“Fate drivers?” Jack asked, opening up the control panel. “What are they?”
“You don’t have fate drivers?” Bob said, astonished. “No wonder your machine keeps crashing.”
He sat back down at his machine, and opened the control panel there. One of the icons there was shaped like a four leaf clover. Bob shoved a disk into the drive, and copied the driver onto a floppy.
“Load this at once,” Bob said, handing the floppy over. “If you don’t have it, there’s no telling what may happen.”
Jack put the flopping into his drive, and copied the program into the appropriate directory. When he opened up his control panel again, the four leaf clover was sitting there waiting.
“They’ve found that luck comes from small quantum fluctuations,” Bob said, opening the program and adjusting the settings. “There have to be as many good fluctuations that happen as bad. This program sends small pulses through the processor in a way that makes sure they come out bad. The more that are forced to be bad by this program, the more that are left to be good for you.”
“That’s impossible,” Jack said, looking at the controls. They had slider knobs for data saving, disk errors, program compatibility and general good luck. There was another gauge that showed the amount of good fate remaining. Bob set all four sliders at three quarters of the way to best. The amount of fate remaining very slowly began to creep towards the zero point.
“Lots of things on the quantum level seem impossible,” Bob said. “How many times have you seen my computer crash?”
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen it crash,” Jack said, thinking. “And, I don’t ever remember you complaining about loosing data.”
“That’s right,” he said, clicking the OK button to start the driver. “And this is the reason why.”
Jack looked at the little clover in the corner of his screen, then looked around the office. As far as he could see, no one was watching or laughing at them.
“You’re serious about this?” he asked as Bob sat back down.
“Perfectly,” Bob said. “It’s the greatest thing ever invented for computers. And it’s shrewder. I down loaded this from the web.”
“I guess I can try it,” Jack said. “It certainly can’t make things any worse than they are.”
“Just make sure you send in your money,” Bob said. “It’s only a five dollar payment. And, it’s worth a lot more than that.”
Bob turned back to his own screen, and went back to work.
Jack clicked the clover again and looked at the controls. There underneath them was a request for five dollars to use the program.
“We’ll see if it works first,” he said to himself. He set the controls to best and closed the panel again. He closed it without noticing that the amount of fate remaining began to move towards zero much quicker. As he got back to work, the right petal of the clover slowly began to disappear.
The rest of the morning flew by. It seemed to Jack that every click of the mouse finished another project for him. He had the data he lost back in the system with enough time to take a long lunch before coming back for the afternoon.
“Thanks for the fate drivers,” he told Bob. “You were right, they’re great.”
“Best thing that ever happened to computers,” Bob said. “Just make sure you send in the five dollars.”
“Not a problem,” Jack said, sitting down. As he started his afternoon’s work, he didn’t notice that the clover was down to two petals.
At four, Jack got up and grabbed his coat.
“I’m done with all my work,” he told Bob. “And, I’m taking off early.”
“Have a good one,” Bob said as he left. “But, remember to send in the money for the fate drivers. I’ve heard stories about what happens to people who don’t.”
“Not a problem,” Jack said, walking out of the cubical. “I’ll write a check tonight.”
Bob nodded and went back to his terminal. A minute later, he heard Jack’s computer chime. He turned around and looked at the screen. The clover on the screen droped the last of it’s leaves, its stalk turn brown and message popped up on the screen.
“Good luck is not free,” it said. “And does not last forever.”
“Jack wait,” he shouted down the corridor. He leapt up and ran towards the parking lot. Just as he reached the door he heard a loud crash and saw Jack’s car go through the guard rail into the swamp behind the plant.
Bob rushed out into the parking lot. He raced to the rail, and followed the car’s path into the swamp.
He could see the car sitting in a pool of water, the inside slowly filling with the black liquid. Jack was pounding at the window trying to get out, but the door and window stayed in place.
Bob slid down the hill and jumped to the car. He grabbed the door handle and the door pulled open for him. He reached in and grabbed Jack as the black water reached his neck.
“Undo the seat belt,” Bob said. Jack nodded, and the belt went slack. Bob pulled him out of the car and onto the ground by the edge of the swamp.
“Thanks,” Jack panted. “I’d have drown if you hadn’t seen me. I sure was lucky.”
“No you weren’t,” Bob said. “You’re luck ran out.”
“Then why were you able to save me?” Jack asked.
“If something happens to you,” Bob said. “My work load doubles. I don’t want that, and I paid for the software.”
“Lucky bastard.”

Comments

[capt-amos.livejournal.com]

Did you ever submit these to be published?
I know there is not a lot of outlets for short stories, but I have certainly read a lot worse!

Thanks for posting...I enjoyed them.

[fbhjr.livejournal.com]

I actually did get a couple published. It was in an online webzine when such things were new.
I can't find those stories. There were two of them. I must have filed them elsewhere....

[evrgreen.livejournal.com]

I think that I can recall reading this story many years ago - perhaps you sent it to me in an email or something? In any case, it would make a good basis for one of those "Twilight Zone" or "Amazing stories" screenplays.

I enjoyed it very much - but as I look at the lower right hand task bar string of icons that runs halfway across the bottom of my computer screen, I don't see any four leaf clover - guess that I'd better get on it !

[fbhjr.livejournal.com]

As you were one of my test readers when I used to write these, there is a good chance you read several of them.

I wrote most of them in the 94 time frame. We were taking an evening writing class and I hated that telecom place. So, each lunch (weather permitting) I'd grab my laptop and sit at the picnic tables outside and write.

I was always a big fan of the "Zone" so I appreciate your saying that.