Programmed for Peril

“Anything could happen to your business or your people, say next week, next month....”
    Her hackles rose. “What do you mean?”
    “I mean you take my money, put it in your pocket, you’re done. You stay in business, you’re always taking a risk.”
    “Rocco, that sounds like a threat. Are you threatening my business? Threatening me?”
    “I don’t threaten nobody. I’m making you an offer, that’s all.”
    Trish swallowed. “An offer that expires... maybe September first?” She remembered her computer screen’s line of yellow letters. Reconsider...
    “You want September first? You got it.”
    “I don’t want”—Trish took a deep breath—“Rocco, did you arrange to have a message show up on my computer this morning, telling me to reconsider?”
    Another moment of chill silence during which her mind paraded out of its warehouse all the trite Mafia/godfather/ offer-she-can’t-refuse nonsense. Finally he said, “Maybe.” Trish clutched the phone like a lifeline. “Well, I’m not going to sell anyway!” She hung up, knowing as she did that she wasn’t certain whether or not he... Her palms were damp, and she could feel the ooze of sweat atop her brow. She hurried out of the office and into the repair lab. “Guys!” Fred, Puck, and Tran looked up from circuit boards and scopes. Something in her tone got their complete attention. “I want to know if one of you has been playing joker with my PC. Like making it run a message when I booted this morning.”
    Seventeen-year-old Fred Purdom, who was quick and impatient, shook his head. “I don’t joke,” he said. His narrow face that so seldom stretched itself into either a smile or a frown fit his serious-mindedness like a custom-made shirt.
    Puck’s thick glasses turned his inquisitive glance into a small blue-marbled squint. “You mean like ‘Have a nice day’?” he said.
    “Something like that,” she said. “Ran once, and the file self-erased. Know anything about it?”
    "Nada, Trish.”
    She looked at the third man, a slightly built Vietnamese. A puckered white scar curved like a scythe from below the white jumpsuit collar up the neck to the back of his cheek. Where shrapnel had tom tracks in his flesh Tran’s sense of humor had leaked out forever. His head moved negatively, barely a wriggle. He looked back down at his solder gun. Tran was odd. Everybody who had been in Vietnam back then was odd. He worked like an animal. He had been an inspired hire, even if in no way chatty.
    With two sobersides like Fred and Tran, Puck was a necessity. Every business needed at least one wise guy. “You men see anyone fooling with my machine?” she said.
    They hadn’t. Puck frowned at her. “You look spooked, boss. What was on the screen?”
    “ ‘Reconsider before September first.’ ”
    The three looked at her blankly, shrugging.
    She went to the reception area, where multitalented Michelle Amritz pounded on a keyboard, entering fresh information into a data base, head cocked to hold the phone to her chin. She spoke into it in rushed, choppy sentences. Michelle was a jane-of-all-softwares. She handled word processing and spread-sheeting; controlled data; ran payroll, accounts payable, and general ledger; and did desktop publishing—when she wasn’t playing receptionist and secretary-to-all. After she hung up, Trish said, “You see anybody around here lately who doesn’t belong? Somebody who might have messed with my PC?”
    Michelle thought a moment, tapping a large white front tooth with a nibbled nail. “Negative.” She looked up inquisitively at Trish. Michelle wore her black hair long and straight. Her glasses had gold metal rims that suited her dimpled cheeks. Her only other adornment was cherry-flavored lip balm that she applied in moments of stress.
    “Anything else?”
    Trish shook her head. Samantha Swords and Teresa Stakos, her two-woman sales force, were seldom in the office. There remained only “Leftover” Lewis—Charles Lewis, really, who so often said he handled whatever the other six left over that the name stuck. He was on a van route that afternoon, after which it wasn’t always necessary for him to come all the way back to the building. Today, though, he appeared. She asked him about the message. He knew nothing. He cocked his hairy head. “Something funny going on?” he said.
    “Maybe. Why do you ask?”
    “Funny things maybe out on the road, too.”
    Trish’s heart thumped with a little extra