Take a break and join us for a little fiction. Mark West struggling with an unfulfilling job soon embarks on adventures he never thought he would have. Join Mark on his adventures into the new west where the law is upheld with a revolver and programming skill.
By : Thomas Ham
I sat in my cubicle looking through a window, across the way, at a busy consumer driven city drenched in rain. My life was a bore with repetitive work. I was a coder of useless technology. The company I worked for, C-Byte, developed programs that could be planted inexpensively into children's clothes to record their vital signs. That was the company's one and only project and it was quite boring. I needed excitement, challenge and ever changing scenery. But, I only had my white cubical and an adventure calendar, which always showed some fit athletic person climbing on something. So, I sat reviewing the company's programs, looking for something to improve upon.
I remember my last upgrade to the clothing line. For some reason the code I wrote caused all the fibers in the clothes to heat up and the kids went crazy trying to get them off. It was an accident, I think, that's what I told my bosses. All the parents went crazy and I almost lost my job, not that I would have minded. I mean what moron wouldn't want to sit in a small box and go mindless all day long.
That rainy, especially boring day would hold some surprises for me.
"Beep, Beep", "My phone is ringing?". "Who would be calling me, maybe some clothes are going haywire". I picked up the phone "This is Mark". There was a pause.
"Is this Mark West", the voice on the other end said, in a deep slightly gruff voice. "Mark I ran into a program you wrote on one of the forums on the internet. Listen I would like it if you could come to my office. I would like to speak with you about a few possibilities for the program.".
I paused, "Ok, I can come over after work, where's your office?", I said ,very interested to find out why this person wants to talk about some simple program I wrote.
"435 Fleck Street, Office G2. See you around 6:30". He said, I told him yes and hung up.
"Well at least it will be a little change", I thought.
I made my way down town, past all the housing structures, and people begging for money. The rain was still coming down hard and I stopped at an intersection. As soon as I did an old bum, tan and leathery with no shirt and a few missing teeth started to wipe my windows, "Can't you see it's raining you old fool" I thought to myself. The man finally walked away after he realized I wasn't going to pay him. The light turned green and I was on my way heading towards my destination.
I turned on Fleck Street and found a run down old office building. All the lights were off except for one office, "That must be it", I thought. I climbed up a rickety old stairway that looked like one more step might collapse it. I got to a puke green poorly painted door and knocked.
A voice came from inside "Its open Mark". I stepped in and was amazed. The office was rundown, wallpaper was coming undone on most of the corners. There were no decorations, except for an iron lamp that had no shade in a far corner and was a bit bright. The scratched hardwood floor had crumbs and some dead bugs on it. Now, of course this was not the amazing part, no, this person's computer system was amazing. I had never seen such machines in one place. Top of the line, extremely expensive computers. The wall was lined with thin rack mounted servers. Each rack looked like it had about 5 servers in it, with wires and monitors mixed throughout the system. Something like this I would probably only see in a large company with a big IT budget. I closed my gaping mouth, "How did you know it was me?", I said. "No one ever comes up here, you were the only person I expected to see all day". "Oh", I mumbled still gazing at the wonderful machines buzzing and humming away.
"Listen, sit, let's get down to some business, I am Dr. Victor Gehtle , I am owner and operator of this consulting company Gehtle Enterprises."
"Original", I thought.
"I am not really a doctor, nor do I have a PHD it just sounds good when I say it." He said. Laughing slightly he continued while my eyes tried to focus on him and his deep gruff voice but they were far too impressed with the equipment in the room and my mind was trying to figure out why it was up there in a dumpy little office on the bad side of town.
"Anyway, my company helps other companies and individuals fix their computer problems.".
"I see", I mumbled, "So why all the equipment".
"Awe yes my equipment" he said with great enthusiasm as he stood up and wiped some dust of one of the machines with his finger.
Now I focused on him, I was very interested in what he was doing with this kind of equipment. I also finally noticed what he looked like, the computers got my attention when I first entered, he was tall, thick build, athletic, pale skin do to the lack of sun probably, thin glasses, brown short cut hair and a large pointy beard.
"I use a program to look at a file system and make it into a three dimensional world, called "OpenVu". You can see all the programs working together, the folders become shacks or tall buildings depending on what's inside them, you can take your hands and create or destroy programs. The process' and functions of a computer living and breathing before your very eyes. It's amazing.".
"Why do all that to fix programs, wouldn't be easier to just fix it using a terminal program or something?" I asked.
"Let me ask you something, would you open a door or create a robot to open the door for you?", he responded.
"I would just open the door" I said.
"Precisely the point, it is easier to just use our eyes and take our hands to manipulate matter. That's what the program does, it takes a filesystem and turns it into something we can manipulate with our hands, eyes and tools.".
"Interesting" I thought as I nodded. "So what about my program?" I asked him.
"Ah yes, the Postal Fix." He said as he sat down, "I occasionally run into areas out of my expertise and need assistance. Your program was one of the best fixes, at least that's what the reviews I read said. So I figured you're the man I need to help fix a problem with one of my clients machines. You seem to understand the mail program. And the fact that you were in the area helped. I'm not sure what we're going to find. Your fix may work or we may need some variation. So are you in.".
I hesitated but said "Sure", I was very interested in what this OpenVu program did.
"Great let's get started", he said as he handed me a pair of goggles, wired gloves, and a pair of headphones that had a small microphone built in to one side. We sat down at a large wooden table with a monitor that had just a white command prompt on it. He typed in a command.
End of Part 1. Stay tuned, next month will bring Part 2!
About the Author
Tom Ham has been programming on and maintaining Linux servers for over 4 years. You can reach him at tom AT generalministries DOT com.
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