Prescription for Chaos (22 page)

The customer ripped the card across three times, threw the pieces on the floor, and went out. The automatic door closer shut the door gently.

Randy exhaled, murmured, "Cretin," and picked up the pieces. He went around back of a software display to the wastebasket.

Across the room, Mort, the part-time salesman, came out from behind a display of desk, portable, and lapsize computers. "What's her problem?"

"Oh, she bought a Sharke Superbyte here a few weeks ago. Now she's got a Shomizota printer with a serial interface, I suppose from Barricuda Byte Shop. Naturally, she doesn't know a bit from a detachable keyboard, so she figures it's our job to mate the printer with the Sharke."

"Stupid. But that Shomizota's a sweet little printer. You can't blame her for getting it."

"Naturally, I don't blame her. It's cheaper than ours, you don't have to be a weightlifter to move it, and people don't run for cover when it prints. The problem is, who's going to get it working for free? It's standard with the Barricuda. Of course, the Barricuda—"

Mort looked knowledgeable. "Oh, it's not so bad."

Randy stared at him. "It's got the reset button next to the left-hand shift key. And the keyboard's got an extra-light touch."

"It's a fast keyboard."

"I saw a guy demonstrate the Barricuda, with a big crowd around him, and about halfway through he accidentally bumped the reset. Everything on the screen disappeared. Then it lit up with, 'KINDLY INSERT YOUR SYSTEM DISK IN DRIVE A.' You like losing everything you've done because you bump the wrong key?"

"There are—ah—one or two bugs—" Mort glanced at the door. "I'll straighten the magazines." Randy glanced around.

Through the glare appeared an unshaven, strongly built man wearing a sweat-soaked T-shirt. His left hand flung open the door. His voice was rough.

"Somebody here named Curtis?"

Randy quickly thrust out one of his cards. "Mort, whatever became of Curtis?"

Mort's voice came from back of the magazine rack.

"Working over at Wolfe Computer, the last I heard."

Randy nodded and turned back.

"Wolfe Computer is out on Industrial Way. You take a left, just up the—"

"He was working here when he sold my kid a Gnat computer. When it quit, Curtis says you can't fix it, the company's broke."

"Well, I'm sure Curtis—"

"It's the store's guarantee. When do we bring it in?"

"Well, I—I'm not quite sure of our policy on Gnat repairs, and—"

"Don't hand me that."

"Sir, I'll tell you what. The store manager is out today. He should be in tomorrow morning around eleven."

"I'm working at eleven."

"Then I'm afraid I don't see—"

"I'm here now."

"There's—"

"The kid worked all summer to buy that Gnat. You're going to fix it."

Randy glanced at his watch. "Mort, will you take care of this? I have to get over to the seminar." Mort's disembodied voice said miserably, "What can I do?"

Their visitor glanced around. "The thing is guaranteed, Buddy. You can fix it."

Randy stepped behind the long counter with its software display, featuring dragons, dwarfs, chests of gold, spaceships belching fire, competing captains of industry shaking their fists at one another, columns of stock prices, charts, graphs, tax forms, spreadsheets—and then he was going down the hall past a door with a window beside it that looked into the repair shop, where a technician in gray laboratory-style coat beckoned urgently. Randy stepped in, closed the door tightly behind him, and nodded.

"Mike. I'm just headed for the seminar. I have to give a talk on—heh—The Future of Computing."

"Who's that out front?"

"You remember the kid that bought our last Gnat computer? The kid that knew all about processors, operating systems, machine code, assembly language, higher level languages—you name it?"

"I remember him."

"Stewart guaranteed the Gnat for ninety days. That's the kid's father out there."

"Randy, that Gnat was full of bugs!"

"I tried to tell Stew—"

"That's the sixth one to come back on us. You almost need psychic powers to even get into the case without wrecking something. Once you get inside, there's stuff labeled 'Made in Sarabanga.' I can't find anyone even knows where that is. Not to mention there's eighteen little screws that hold down the cover, and all those screws are soft."

"I guess the margin was such—Look, I've got to be going."

"Who's talking to the kid's father?"

"Mort is—ah—trying to calm the storm, and—"

"Mort? That wimp! Look, Randy, I'm better than two weeks behind, thanks to that Gnat guarantee. I can't keep up, much less honor this 48-hour fix you guys are offering. Get rid of this guy! Three of them came in a few weeks ago, and Curtis ran them out. Randy, if you've got to sell junk, that's your business. But I can't fix all this stuff! I didn't plan on a big scene, but you've got to know there's a limit!"

"I know. I know how it is, Mike." Randy sighed. "I never dreamed—" He paused, shoved his thoughts back on the track, and groped behind him for the doorknob. "I'm sure Mort will—"

A newly familiar voice echoed down the hall: "Twenty-one day guarantee, hell! I've got a copy of your ninety-day guarantee right here. The original's in my lawyer's office! Now, you going to make this right, or—"

Randy slid out into the hall, walked fast, stepped outside, and paused as the heat of the asphalt parking lot hit him. He opened his car door, staggered in the bake-oven blast, peeled off his jacket, and began to mentally review what he would say at the seminar.

Randy, two hours later, stood, chilled by the air-conditioning, before the blank-faced attendees of the Sharke Computing Systems Biennial Free Seminar on Home, Professional, and Personal Computing. He concentrated on the speech's conclusion:

"In conclusion, as you will remember, we have discussed the factors of density of circuit elements on the chip, number of chips to the system, architecture, assembly and machine-language programming, LSI and VLSI, higher level languages, operating systems, and applications programs. The improvement in all of these factors must be understood to truly appreciate the change that is rapidly overtaking us—the change to a Fully Computerized Environment, or FCE, as we may call it."

He smiled. If anyone in the crowd smiled back, he didn't notice it.

"I am sure," he finished, speaking the hopeful lie that had the virtue of tying things up and ending on a note of optimism: "I am sure everyone in this audience today will enter the FCE willingly, and will successfully ride the wave of the future."

There was empty silence, then a thin scattering of applause. Then, as people sat up, perhaps jarring others awake, the applause briefly strengthened. Then there was a rush for the exit.

Randy looked on moodily. "If there are any questions—"

The room continued to empty. Well, now he had to get back to the store. Hopefully, Mort would have outlasted the indignant father. That was the thing, he told himself—outlast the opposition. Maybe then things will start to look up again.

Once parked behind the store, he got out onto the familiar soft asphalt, let himself in, and listened alertly. There was a murmur from somewhere. A furtive glance showed Mike, the technician, hard at work.

Up front, Mort was speaking hesitantly. "I can see this new program might be revolutionary, but I'm not quite sure we could sell it. I mean—"

"Oh," said an unfamiliar voice, "everybody will be going for it. Of course, I could take it over to the Sharke compatibles first. Or—"

Randy stepped around the counter, and held out one of his cards. Their visitor promptly held out one bearing the name of the company, "Armagast Software."

Mort looked at his watch. "Well, about time for me to go home."

Randy said, "How did it work out with the—ah—the boy's father?"

"Stew came in after you left, and agreed to fix the Gnat. Then after the kid's father left, Stew blew up and said you and I should have gotten rid of him. Then he claimed Curtis should never have sold the Gnat to the kid. Next he said it was your fault we ever stocked the Gnat in the first place."

"Me?"

"He said he relies on your technical judgment."

"I told him for bugs the Gnat was an ants' nest! He said the margin was fifteen percent higher than the competition. Now he blames me?"

"I'm just repeating what he said. I thought you'd want to know. Well, see you on Tuesday."

Randy glanced at the avidly listening salesman. "I'm not sure we need to add anything to our line. Who did you say wrote it?"

"Armagast."

"Armagast of Armagast Software, not Armagast of Future Designs?"

"Same person."

"What's the program?"

"A problem-solving program. Very unusual. I could say revolutionary. You'll understand if you've heard of Armagast."

"Have you run it?"

"I—ah—It's so new—"

"How much?"

"Only two hundred fifty. A bargain."

"I'll take one for the store, and one for me personally."

"And your personal computer?—What make?"

"Well—I have a Model 3 Cougar."

"No problem. We could supply ENIAC, if it had disk drives."

It took Randy a moment to remember that ENIAC dated from the forties. He could feel his cheeks burn, and was still mad after he was home, settling down at the Cougar's keyboard, his wife watching worriedly.

"Randy—I hope that's a disk you borrowed from the store."

"Since when did the store stock anything for Cougar?"

She hesitated. "How did the seminar go?"

"Horrible."

"Hard questions?"

"They didn't ask questions. After I got through, I guess they figured they'd never understand. And at the store—Well, we had a woman who wanted us to interface a Barricuda printer to her Sharke computer, and if my guess is right, next she'll want to run a program set up for something else. Then we had a guy whose kid bought a Gnat from us, and it's dead already, and Mike, our technician, is swamped, and then there was the lecture, and finally—let's see—" He brightened. "Then there was a software salesman, and he had this program."

"What's the program?"

"I'm not sure. It's supposed to solve problems."

She hesitated. "How much was it?"

"Two-fifty."

She looked at him.

"Two hundred and fifty dollars?"

"Plus tax. So now I'm guilty."

"You don't know what it will do, and you spent two hundred dollars for it?"

He got up carefully, stepped to a table separate from the table holding the computer, and brought his clenched fist down on the table.

"A call went out a while back, remember? It said, 'The future is computers. Anyone who wants to earn his keep should study computer science.' I don't mean to make a federal case out of it, but I did do the work and I did earn the piece of paper. And now how do I spend my time? Answering the same questions over and over, wrangling with customers, trying to suck people into buying when for all I know it will ruin them, and, to vary the monotony, I get to deliver lectures to people who think Sanskrit while I talk Greek. We were headed for the Moon! How did we end up in this swamp? Do you know how many companies are going broke, and what the rest are doing to stay afloat?"

"I just know I can't hold a job and at the same time be in the hospital with a baby. And I can't go right back afterward. If the job is even there."

"I know. But the dream is dying! Why?"

She looked at him, frowning. "At least you do have a job."

"Thanks. I know what it is."

"But, Randy, why did you spend two hundred dollars? We need it!"

He sighed. "Armagast wrote this program."

For just an instant, he thought the room wavered. She stared at him. Then, for some reason, she came over and kissed his cheek.

He looked at her blankly.

"Okay," she said. "But please, Randy, don't get another program—unless Armagast wrote it."

"I didn't know you knew about him."

"I don't."

"He wrote Control—it's the operating system for the 99000. He's one of the giants. They drove him out of business for a while. But he's still fighting. There are rumors he's coming out with a new machine that will beat them all."

"Maybe that's why the prices are being cut? And the dream—"

"No. As long as he's there, the dream's still alive. And this is his first program, so far as I know, since Control!"

She nodded uncertainly. "All right. You go ahead. When you're through, I'll get you something to eat. I hope the program won't disappoint you."

He looked after her, puzzled. The money was still spent, wasn't it? And she was right, they did need it. He turned back, frowning, to the computer, ran his thumb affectionately across the stylized chrome cougar-head design with its big curved fangs and the horrible motto: "We Byte." He slid the disk in, listened to the familiar hum-rumble-clunk, waited, and then the screen lit with a swirl of curving lines as if he were falling into a whirlpool.

SOLUTIONS
by
Armagast Software
 

There was a dizzying pause, and then successive lines of print flashed onto the screen:

"This is not a problem-solving program.

"This is a program to help speed your solving of problems.

"The mind is in many ways the most practical problem-solving device.

"What it needs is facts. We will assume you have the facts, though you may not be aware of it.

"What it needs is concentration. We will strengthen that concentration.

"What is needed is to see the possible combinations of facts that, as they join and rejoin in all conceivable patterns, occasionally offer practical solutions.

"The program you are about to experience makes use of certain as yet unappreciated aspects of the nature of microprocessors and of the human brain and the human mind.

"Because this program involves factors which may not be fully understood, you should, BEFORE you run this program, carefully read our Customer Agreement. This may be informally summarized as follows: