[Writingworkshop] Alternatron D11

[Antony Nigel Donovan]

I really liked this one.  The ending was perfect.

The form is also very nice.

Antony

PS - Your prolificacy and quality are starting to bum me out!


On Sat, 2008-02-16 at 11:46 -0500, Neale Morison wrote:
> Alternatron D11
> 
> 
> I wish to make a complaint.
> 
> Select Department: Sales/Billing, Technical Support, Pre-purchase
> 
> Technical Support.
> 
> Product: Eternitizer 3000, Alternatron D11, MixWhizz 98
> 
> Alternatron D11.
> 
> Priority: Low, Medium, High, Emergency, Critical
> 
> Critical.
> 
> Problem Area: Response time, Scan precision, Matter transfer integrity, 
> None of the above
> 
> None of the above.
> 
> Please briefly describe the problem.
> 
> Like it says in the manual I scan for an alternate and when one comes up 
> green I press Transfer, Enter but nothing happens.
> 
> Submit.
> 
> Your support enquiry is being assigned. Please wait.
> 
> My name is Troy. How may I help you today?
> 
> Is your name really Troy?
> 
> No.
> 
> Do you look anything like that photograph?
> 
> No.
> 
> Ok. I just wanted to establish an honest relationship.
> 
> Understood.
> 
> Did you read my description?
> 
> Yes.
> 
> So any ideas?
> 
> Have you got it plugged in?
> 
> Yes, I've got it plugged in. It comes up green.
> 
> Sorry. You wouldn't believe the people I get.
> 
> I get a green, I press Transfer, Enter, zilch.
> 
> Do you have it there?
> 
> Yes.
> 
> Can you press Transfer, then hold down Enter for three seconds, then 
> release Transfer and press it quickly two more times?
> 
> Ok, hang on. Wow, there's all this scrolling text and flashing lights.
> 
> That's right, now scroll right down to the bottom. What do you see?
> 
> The portal has rejected your application for access.
> 
> Ok, good.
> 
> What does that mean? How can it reject my application?
> 
> It's just the message that gets logged, what's really happening is 
> they've shut down the portal.
> 
> They? Which they?
> 
> The guys in the other universe.
> 
> How can they do that?
> 
> It happens in the preferred alternate universes. There's going to be 
> ones that are really crap and ones that are really cool, you know, like 
> they have world peace and cake grows on trees and they still have 
> unicorns and the dolphins can really talk. They end up with all these 
> people arriving with attitudes from bad universes and bringing them all 
> down. So they figure out how to close the portal.
> 
> I mean how can they do it? You can't close a wormhole can you?
> 
> No, I don't know, they do something with gravitons, we haven't figured 
> it out yet.  
> 
> But it came up green.
> 
> We know, the next version fixes it.
> 
> When's that out?
> 
> We haven't announced the release date yet, that thing has so many bugs, 
> I tell you.
> 
> Well, I don't want to upgrade, anyway.
> 
> Ok, there's this workaround.
> 
> I'm listening.
> 
> What you do, you get your green, then you save the code in your favourites.
> 
> Ok.
> 
> Then you go to your favourites menu and select the one you just saved.
> 
> Got it.
> 
> Then you choose Show Me More Like This.
> 
> Right.
> 
> Then you choose the second one from the bottom every time.
> 
> Second one from the bottom.
> 
> And you keep doing that until you find one that's open.
> 
> That's going to take a while.
> 
> It doesn't take too long, there's some quantum statistical effect, I 
> forget what it's called. Helmholtz?
> 
> That's when someone's choking, isn't it?
> 
> Heidegger?
> 
> Never mind. So the second one from the bottom?
> 
> Yeah, and oh, when you find one that's open, right, so you press 
> Transfer, Enter, and it goes yellow and says Confirm?
> 
> Yeah?
> 
> Press Enter again right away. I mean don't even hesitate for a second.
> 
> Why?
> 
> Just take my word for it.
> 
> Come on, Troy. Why?
> 
> Well, there's this possibility that they're going to shut the portal 
> between the time you press the Transfer Enter, and the Confirm Enter. So 
> you leave, but you don't arrive.
> 
> How likely is that?
> 
> We don't really know. Not very. Maybe in some universes it happens every 
> time. Skip that universe, right?
> 
> And where are you, if you don't arrive?
> 
> Don't ask me.
> 
> Well can you get back?
> 
> It's hard to tell, we're trying to find someone who did it and came back 
> so we can put it in the manual.
> 
> What do you think happens?
> 
> We were talking about it next to the coffee maker and this one girl, 
> Ray, says maybe you disperse into an evenly distributed interstitial net 
> with psychic access to all universes simultaneously.
> 
> What made her say that?
> 
> She's always saying stuff like that.
> 
> That would be great.
> 
> It would be kind of cool.
> 
> So you just wait a while before you press Confirm Enter?
> 
> Yeah, but you don't know how long you're going to have to wait. And I'm 
> not saying it does that anyway, you know, Ray is pretty weird.
> 
> Anyway, I wasn't trying to turn myself into some kind of Star Child or 
> anything, I just wanted to find a store where they haven't run out of 
> Ginseng and Lemon tea.
> 
> They have that in the MegaHealth downstairs.
> 
> Oh, really. Where are you?
> 
> Three blocks down in Main Street.
> 
> Ok, I'm just going to zap over. Why don't we meet for a coffee? Wait a 
> minute, it's not coming up green.
> 
> What isn't?
> 
> This universe. What does that mean?
> 
> -
> 
> Troy?
> 
>  
> 
> 
>