Car Pool by Karin Kallmaker Read Free Book Online Page A

and lunchtime, but the powers that be at their site cared passionately about such things. The fact that she had gotten off on the wrong foot with Anthea, and that she seemed as changeable as helium isotopes, bothered Shay, but not nearly as much as the mere thought of one of Scott’s “punctuality is our friend” speeches.
    Anthea listened to the dwindling clip-click of Shay’s footsteps. Well, well, well, she thought. So we won’t be bosom buddies. But at least I have a car pool again. She permitted herself a smile that felt deliriously evil. And Lois doesn’t. It had been two months, so she supposed she shouldn’t still feel vindictive, but she did. The personnel registry said that Celia no longer worked for NOC-U. Which meant Lois was driving by herself.
    She sighed happily, then turned back to her computer. The good feelings seeped away as she resisted the urge to hit it. Taking a deep breath, she got back under the desk and managed to shimmy the cable up between the cube wall and the desktop. It wouldn’t work. RTS and their stupid advice. Changing the cabling had nothing to do with the DOS error she was getting.
    She flipped the computer on again. After an interminable amount of disk grinding the operating system launched and she gingerly typed in a request for a disk directory.
    PARITY.CHECK.50000, the computer said.
    The orange cursor went right on blinking in its predictable and perfectly timed way. With each blink of the cursor the machine counted down: 50000 blink 49999 blink 49998 blink. Supposedly, several centuries from now when it reached 00000 blink, the computer would be fine. Anthea knew better. She resisted the temptation to use her keyboard to forcibly reconfigure her C drive. Instead she applied a little more force than necessary to the keyboard combination she pressed to warm boot the computer.
    Without a disk directory there was no MASTERDB.123, and no report for the boss’s boss by two p.m. on the third-quarter operation cost centers. And Martin’s boss didn’t believe in computer problems. He was convinced that all the accountants had very straightforward computers that didn’t break, or could be fixed by inserting a couple of diskettes. He wouldn’t know a computer if one gave him a haircut.
    Methodically, as was her trademark, Anthea began down the list of her options. She didn’t care what RTS’s advice was.
    She replaced the COMMAND.COM file. PARITY.CHECK.50000. 49999. 49998. She warm-booted to try something else.
    She replaced the AUTOEXEC.BAT file. PARITY.CHECK.50000. 49999. 49998. Warm boot.
    She replaced her major software packages, hoping she didn’t wipe out any vital subdirectories. PARITY.CHECK.50000. 49999. 49998. Warm boot again. A cigarette would have really helped her think, but smoking was only permitted in private offices. Smoking in the cubes was not permitted.
    Anthea understood why, of course, but she still wished she had a cigarette.
    Finally, just short of calling refinery technical support again, she rapped the side of the drive with her ruler and said one of the words she used frequently to describe other drivers during her commute.
    “I hear heavy sighs,” Adrian said from the other side of the barrier. He sounded sympathetic, but she wasn’t fooled. Adrian delighted in the misfortunes of others with an across-the-board-everybody’s-equal malice. His total lack of sympathy during her breakup with Lois had probably saved her sanity because, if nothing else, he made her laugh.
    “I’m getting a parity check on the C drive. And of course the very next thing I was going to do after this stupid project —”
    “— was backup,” Adrian said, his voice unmistakably gleeful.
    “I spent all of last week on the new data formatting,” she admitted. She might as well let him enjoy the whole mess.
    “And you didn’t do backup? They’re paying you too much,” Adrian said.
    Anthea frowned. “If you have any helpful suggestions, make them. Otherwise,” she