Read Programmed for Peril for Free Online Page A

ferret—danger jammed into a small package. She had stalked Foster hard and determinedly. Then, poised to pounce, she found Trish had stolen away her prey. Far from swallowing her disappointment, she prowled about on the periphery of Foster’s life. She saw to it that she ran into him “accidentally” now and then, called him on neutral business, then did personal prying. She had on the occasion of her broken engagement come to speak personally to Trish. Trish took a deep breath and wrenched her mind away from the memory. When reviewing that scene it was best to be in a strong-minded mood.
    This evening Trish felt far from strong-minded. As Foster pressed kisses on her yielding but unresponsive lips a flash of insight illuminated her present life. She had spent the past three years building not a career and a relationship to last the rest of her days, but a house of cards that rising winds were gathering to destroy.
     
    Three days later Michelle Amritz stopped Trish as she entered the PC-Pros’ offices. “Got an angry customer for you, chief. Lester O’Day, Pristine Cleaners. I forwarded him into your phone mail. You better put on your asbestos earpiece.”
    “What’s his problem?”
    “He lost files. A lot of files. And he’s in a real hurry to talk to you.”
    In her office Trish pulled up the file on Pristine. PC-Pros had set up a network among Pristine’s six stores scattered across the city. Last week PC-Pros had installed a loaner at one of the locations and brought a sick machine back, and... let’s see, she thought... Tran had replaced a blown motherboard. Yesterday he had returned the original Machine. Trish frowned. How had any of that led to files being lost? Why was Lester O’Day angry?
    The moment Trish heard his voice she realized she was talking to a new Luddite. Overnight he had turned against all computers. Back to pencils and order pads, back to the abacus! Tactful Trish heard him out. Deal with the emotions first, she remembered being told. Then go ahead to handle the real problem. She imagined Lester at the other end of the line, bald and red-faced, wearing one of his incredibly loud! neckties. When he seemed to have run down for the moment, she said, “I don’t see how your file losses are connected to our work.”
    “You don’t? Well, my nephew knows something about I computers. He says the machine you brought back camel I with a virus. You know what that is, Ms. Morley?”
    “Yes, I do.” A virus was renegade software that went; I about its own destructive business damaging “healthy” files. Depending on what type of virus was involved, it could infect and cripple one machine, dozens, or thousands. “But I I’m sure PC-Pros had nothing to do with it.”
    “Like hell, woman! I’m sitting here with six stores that can’t take in any work. There was no trouble in the two years; we’ve been running on computers. Then you people get hold of one machine and— whammo —we’re dead in the water!”
    “Mr. O’Day—”
    “Forget arguing with me. Just do something to get me going again. Or my next call is to my attorney.”
    Trish struggled to hold on to her professional voice— I forget that fishwife inside begging to be heard. “I suggest I instead that you call your software vendor and—”
    “They went belly-up six months ago. They shoulda called I themselves ‘Fly-by-Night-Systems.’ You computer types are I all alike. You promise everything—and deliver crapola!”
    “Maybe if I could speak with whoever on your staff is responsible for the system—”
    “It was a college kid we had. He’s been gone so long he’s as much history as Abe Lincoln.”
    “What about your nephew?”
    Lester O’Day’s voice ground deeper into harshness. “No way. No way! You get him tangled up in it, pretty soon it’s all his fault!”
    “Mr. O’Day, listen to me. Someone is going to have to reinstall backup software onto your central processor.”
    Silence.
    “Mr. O’Day, do