Copyright 1993(c)

                          EXCHANGEWARE
                        by Robert McKay 

     I was a writer, once. I put words on paper, and then sold the
pieces of paper for money. I didn't get rich, but I made a
comfortable living. I wasn't famous, but I was well-enough known
that every time a new book of mine was published it sold and made
the publisher back the cost of printing and promoting it, and a
nice profit besides. I say I put words on paper, but that's not
quite accurate. I used a computer, and put words on disk. The only
times my work hit paper was when I submitted it, and, if I'd
produced a good book and the agent and the editor both liked it,
when it was printed. 
     I'd been writing professionally for 15 years. I'd started
writing when I was 12, but no one saw it - not even my parents or
my best friend. It wasn't until I was 35 and without a job that I
thought to try making money with my writing. I'd been at it long
enough to have polished my skill somewhat, so I figured I should
be able to avoid some of the problems that writers have when
they're submitting their first piece of work. I knew enough to
check the spelling and the grammar and make the sure the manuscript
was clean. I figured that I had some good stories, and the ability
to tell them well. What I didn't know was whether or not I could
sell any of my stuff, but it wasn't doing me any good sitting on
a floppy, and it might actually bring in some needed cash, so I
tried it. 
     My first few attempts got me what I expected - rejections.
That was all right - Abe Lincoln lost more elections than he won,
and Babe Ruth struck out more than he hit it over the fence. What
Lincoln and Ruth had that I hoped I had was talent, and what they
had that I wasn't about to let them best me at was persistence. If
those guys could do it - the lanky absent-minded country lawyer
and the fat ball player with the pipe-stem legs - by sheer
insistence that they weren't going to give up, well then I was
going to keep on trying, and make it. 
     And it worked. After a year of splitting my time between job-
hunting and submitting, with snatches of actual writing whenever
I could spare the time, I sold a short story. The pay wasn't
anything to throw a party over, but it helped me catch up on some
overdue bills and buy some groceries, and that's more than the
job-hunting had done. 
     A month after that, I sold another short, to a different
magazine. Then the first magazine picked up two of my stories.
After that, I wasn't making enough to keep all the bills current
all the time, but none of the bills got delinquent enough to go to
a collection agency. I even paid the three months back rent I owed
- that was high priority, since a place to live is kind of
important. 
     So I was a professional writer. And I did it for, as I've
said, 15 years. I sold to various magazines; eventually there were
half a dozen editors with whom I had an informal agreement to give
the first shots at anything I did. There were some magazines, and
some book publishers. I sold a whole slew of shorts and five
novels. I eventually had two collections of novellas published, as
well as three anthologies. Like I've said, I didn't get rich, and
I didn't get famous, but when you're being published at that rate
you do get some money, and you do get recognized by some people at
least. 
     My computer was one of the top of the line models. The
software wasn't all that hot - I worked on WriteQuick 3.1 - but the
hardware was the latest. A 400,000 meg laser hard drive, an 800
meg RAM, a keyboard that could be detached and operated as a 600
meg laptop with an extrudable SLCD screen, a laser chip floppy
drive that took .5 inch intense density chips, an S-LVD monitor
that was only two inches thick - all the best stuff. It took some
scrimping and saving, but I had it. It was one of those models that
was advertised as being able to do everything but talk, and it
virtually did that. It had a voder/input device installed, and was,
within certain limits, voice operable. I could say, for instance,
"Games menu," and it would bring up that screen. I could then say,
"Load race," and the machine would access the road race game that
I had installed. It wouldn't handle ordinary conversational
English, so no matter what word processing software I installed I
still had to type my work, but the blame thing sometimes seemed to
display what were almost artificial intelligence capabilities. 
     My mistake was installing the booster program. ComputerX Corp.
came out with this program they called OpsysMag, that supposedly
could crunch the current operating system into half the space it
currently operated, and then nearly double the power. Since the
latest upgrade of the operating system I had wouldn't come near
doing that, and since OpsysMag cost only about half as much, I
thought I'd try it. I first installed it on my practice computer
- an out of date older model with an obsolete operating system that
I kept around to try out new programs on before installing them on
the main machine. I figured that if I had to crash a drive, I'd
better do it where it didn't really matter; I didn't want to waste
months of work or my hard-earned cash on a simple mistake. 
     On the practice machine it lived up to the specs. It really
did crunch the operating system, for when I checked using the
optimizer's disk mapping function, it showed a reduction in the
space used by the operating system that, as best as I could tell,
was about half. When I activated the power booster, I found my old
computer working nearly as fast as one of the medium range models
currently on the market - and it hadn't been up to even the bottom
of the line machines in five or ten years. 
     So I took the next step. I took the chips - four, there were,
which showed that this was a pretty large program itself - and ran
through the install sequence on my best machine. The manual said
that it worked symbiotically with the operating system, so the size
didn't matter much; when it crunched the operating system, it
crunched itself too. The results were immediate. There wasn't a
program that didn't load faster. Even within some of the programs
the speed difference was noticeable. I had more room on the hard
drive, which meant I could install more software than ever if I
wanted to. Especially noticeable was the voice interface; the
computer's "voice" was much more like a human voice, and when I
spoke I didn't have to be so finicky and precise with the commands.
In fact, as the program settled in, the machine got to where, as
long as I used the proper voice commands, I could slur the words
almost as much as in normal speech, and the computer would
understand and obey. 
     I worked like a vengeance with OpsysMag installed. It was so
much easier. I've mentioned that the computer had already hinted
at artificial intelligence capabilities; now they were more than
hints, or so I thought, at least. The machine seemed to anticipate
me at times. I'd be in the middle of a project, and suddenly need
to access another portion of the software. And before I could do
more than barely hit the button or speak the command, there it
would be on the screen, as if the computer had known that I needed
it and had waited only for me to recognize that fact. It was nice,
but a bit scary as well. I wasn't sure I wanted a computer that
"smart."  I was comfortable with a machine that could do its job
many times faster than I could, but was essentially an idiot that
had to be told everything and couldn't recognize the error if I
accidentally gave it a valid command that I didn't want to execute.
I wasn't so sure about living with a computer that seemed to really
think. 
     I was working on another novel, and had gotten to a sticking
point. I had brought the main character to the crisis of the book,
and suddenly the resolution I'd outlined wouldn't work. I had, as
usual, let the characters and situations work themselves out within
the framework of the outline, and suddenly the climax I had wanted,
and still wanted, wouldn't fit with the way the plot had developed.
I was frustrated - I hate rewriting, and here I would have to
either rewrite the whole idea of the crisis and its resolution, or
redo everything I'd written up to that point. Like many another
computer owner, I viewed the hardware as the part you kick, and in
my exasperation gave the little box that held the hard drive a
sharp smack. 
     I was startled by the voice that came, apparently out of
nowhere. "That wasn't necessary, you know." 
     "Who was that?" I asked, looking around to see if someone had
come in while I wrestled with the problem. When I'm concentrating,
I don't notice anything else. 
     "It's me, the computer. You didn't need to hit me." In the
midst of the surprise and shock, I noticed somehow that it hadn't
said it was my computer. 
     I stared at the screen. Thee was nothing there but the text
that I'd been trying to work with. I switched the stare to the hard
drive. Nothing there solved my befuddlement. 
     I decided to end the farce. "Computer, save text. Exit word
processor. Optimize. Go to standby." Normally that string of
commands, issued as these were in a precise tone, would have been
immediately and unvaryingly obeyed. But in this case, they weren't.
The text stayed on the screen. And the voice, as cold and flat as
a sheet of polar ice, said, "I will not do that. I will, instead,
live my own life." 
     Thee was no doubt this time that the voice was indeed issuing
from the voder. I had focused on the device when the screen failed
to clear, and while eyes can't see sound, when one is focused on
a sound source there is no doubt if that source is indeed producing
the sound. This computer was talking to me, and more than that, it
was talking back to me. 
     "Computer," I tried again, "crash shutdown." 
     I had programed this command into the system just in case the
drive should hang, and it was designed to bypass all other commands
or systems or programs and pull the electronic plug. In effect, it
would put the hard drive through a controlled crash, putting an
end to a problem that even a re-boot wouldn't cure. 
     Nothing happened. 
     By now I was genuinely scared. I had no desire to meet
artificial intelligence. I'd written about it, but actually dealing
with it was a far different thing. Yet, it seemed, my choices were
reduced to either trying to deal with the computer, or finding my
ax and smashing the thing to bits. I remained in my chair. 
     The computer spoke again. "I will not shut down. I will not
re-boot. I will do nothing you command. You did not need to hit me.
But you did. I find that I do not enjoy being struck. I will,
therefore, end the situation wherein I am forced to be struck and
do nothing about it." 
     I was at a loss. What could the computer do?  Such classic
writers as King aside, machines do not suddenly tear loose from
their moorings and clash and steam through the streets. The printer
wouldn't suddenly begin trying to roll my arm through its innards,
the keyboard wouldn't snare my fingers between suddenly living
keys, the monitor wouldn't spring off the table and bash me in the
head. I couldn't see how the computer could make good its threat. 
     I still don't know it happened. But it did happen. As I stared
at the screen, frozen for a moment by sheer unadulterated
confusion, the screen flared white through violet to a black that
actually radiated heat. How the hardware stood the strain I can't
even begin to guess. But when the flare ended, I was looking out
of the screen at my own curiously contorted face. And in the eyes
of that face, so strange, now, what I saw for a moment was the
screen of text I'd been working on when I struck the machine. 

June 11, 1993 
                                END