Courting Disaster, Episode 1: Tapestry Trouble

Friday morning I visited my friendly doctor about my extreme sunburn. She said it should go away in a few days or so, and prescribed putting fresh lemon juice on the burns if I wanted a nice tan. She also recommended I don't fall asleep in my office without first closing the blinds. The thousands of CD on the walls of my southward facing office, the office that had previously been the PFY's office, made the perfect tanning booth. But especially on cloudless days, it was a real sun oven.

When I finally got to the office, SysAdmin was sitting on the corner of my desk, trying to crack into my Compaq IPAQ hand held computer. This version of the IPAQ had a finger print scanner as a security feature.

"Hiya Fainswift. Clever guys at Compaq actually built something I've got trouble to get into... I've tried wax copies of all of your fingerprints, which I got from all over the place thanks to your bad habit of touching everything shiny in site. But not one seems to work."

"Ah, my dear SysAdmin, you are making the false assumption that I am a conventional user. As we both now, a normal user would use only their thumb print to protect their IPAQ. If very paranoid, maybe both thumbs. I, as you know, am not conventional in the least."

"So, you use your toe prints?"

"No. Indeed I played around with that idea for thirty seconds or so, but that, too, seemed conventional. I can assure you that my physical body is not the key into that IPAQ."

"Oh. Should have known," said SysAdmin, replacing my hand held computer onto my desk, "Anyway, have you seen what the PFY's been up to lately?"

"No... No I haven't. Any casualties?"

"Not yet... He's redecorated your office. Well, his office now. Said it was just too boring, what with the stark white walls and all."

"Ah. He hasn't used any capacitors, or Kleinweich CD, or car parts or anything like that, has he?"

"Ha! Actually, it's quite cool. Come on, lets have a look if you got a second..."

And so we do.

The PFY had done an overnight redecoration by wallpapering the whole office, and I mean the whole office, with a friendly blue tapestry. I gave the wall a push.

My hand sank a few millimetres into the wallpaper.

The hand print I left behind on the wall was coloured in yellows, oranges and red, and only slowly returned to blue as the depression my hand had caused became flat wall again.

"Heat and pressure sensitive," said the PFY, stepping into the room, "My cousin and his team invented it. It's called NeoSilicoResonico. And there is another cool feature. Look."

The PFY walked to his desk and picked up a TV remote controller. With a press of a button, all four walls and the ceiling became a giant TV.

"No sound though. Haven't hooked up the speakers yet. The layer closest to the wall is peppered with small heat elements, and they use NeoSilicoResonico's temperature sensitivity to translate any video signal into pictures."

"Wow!" said SysAdmin, "Where can I get this stuff?"

"You can't. Yet. This is just a prototype. Notice how the picture is starting to get fuzzy? After ten minutes all you have is a white wall, because the wallpaper can't cool down fast enough."

"Very nice, my dear PFY. Well, it seems you have a rather nice blue tapestry, and I don't have to worry about you watching TV all day. Seems as if everything is in order here. And close your mouth, SysAdmin, you're drooling."

For a change the PFY hadn't messed anything up. Right?

But nooooo!

I was forgetting something.

"Ah... one thing, my dear PFY... one slight, small, inconsequential thing..."

"Yeah? You want I deck out your office with this stuff, too? Got enough left for one wall."

"Me! Me! I wanna! Pwetty pwease!" cried SysAdmin, waving his arms around.

"No, that isn't it. But I get the impression SysAdmin wouldn't mind helping you test NeoSilicoResonico's properties."

"Oh, you can bet your life on that! Lemme get one of my walls cleaned up and prepped! Bring the stuff as soon as you can!" said SysAdmin just before disappearing into the corridor faster than a consultant hearing about a client that still has half of their yearly budget to spend. On the last weak of the year. And where looking into spending the whole rest so as to get the same budget in the following year.

"What I am concerned about, my dear PFY, is my safe."

"Your safe?"

"Yes. This was my office until a few weeks ago, and now it is yours, but I still have my safe in here. Just about here, I think it was, where my calendar of paintings by great Swiss artists who's names begin with K, such as Kaufmann, Kaisermann, Klee, and Knie, used to hang," said I, pressing a nondescript space on the blue wallpaper with my finger, "next year will feature great Swiss artists who's names don't start with K, such as Tinguely, Giger and Erni."

A red and orange circle appeared where my finger had been.

"Safe? Well.. ah... I don't think I saw a safe when I put up the NeoSilicoResonico. I mean, one can't just ignore a safe, you know. Not exactly something one oversees. Big, metal, with lots of dials on..."

"This safe, my dear PFY, was a wall safe. Remember two months ago when Boss invited several of our most beloved customers and even a few competitors to the unveiling of the new safe in his office? Even Dr Blake of Blake and Edwards was there. Dr. Edwards was out of town, I think, and could not attend. Well, I had the prototype in my office for several months before Boss decided to have the wall safes installed in the more important offices, such as in his own and in Financial Controller's."

"Oh, yeah. I remember. Was quite a stir when Miss WebMaven got her safe. Everyone start talking about how and why she shou... ah... anyway... I still didn't see where your safe was."

"As I said, mine was a prototype. You know how SysAdmin likes to try to break anything that pretends to be secure. So the safe is covered by a piece of wall panel, which, when you push the panel in just the right way, pops out and slides to one side, revealing the safe."

"Cool! So... I guess you want access to your safe, right?"

"Yes. That would be splendid. If you would just cut out a square of your special wall covering right about here, that would be dandy."

"Ah... I can't. You see, this stuff isn't just pretty cool visually, it's also about as impossible to cut with normal tools as bullet proof glass is. You need a special tool, and I gave that back to my cousin this morning. Won't be able to borrow it again until Monday..."

"Well, that is quite all right. There are only a few important documents for the upcoming merger deal in there, and I don't need them until next Wednesday. Well, let's get some work done. You know how busy things get Friday afternoons..."

***

Monday. The third Monday of the month, to be exact. Oh how I do enjoy the third Mondays of each month! That is when my favourite Italian restaurant serves an overflowing cup of fresh cappuccino on the house with every pizza.

In anticipation of a good lunch, I entered my office on this Monday morning in a good mood, humming a piece from "Die Zauberflöte". I had been to watch the opera on Sunday with an old friend of mine who I hadn't seen for ages.

I soon noticed I would probably need two cups of cappuccino after lunch. People were milling around in my office. Always a bad sign. At a quick glance I recognized Boss, Financial Controller, Janitor with his new phone, this time in the shape of an old Swiss military walkie-talkie, at least three police persons, SysAdmin, and even curly haired Miss WebMaven.

"Ah, good morning everyone. What has my PFY done now?"

"Huh? Why nothing!" said the Boss, "We've been robbed! Vandalized! Desecrated!"

"Oh? Someone has stolen the PFY, then? Or am I hoping too much?"

"No, I'm afraid he is still here. All our wall safes have been broken open," said Financial Controller, who claims most of his white hair had been caused by the PFY's antics.

"Yes, but nothing was taken from any of the safes! Not even my top secret new designs for our company web site! And you know how I'm always saying how our competitors would just love to get their grimy little hands on my newest ground breaking designs!" said Miss WebMaven, her long, perfectly polished nails flashing in the morning sun.

"Yeah, but the weirdest thing about it all, is that the safes where opened without any use of excessive explosives," said Janitor, sounding slightly depressed it seemed to me.

I turned to stare at SysAdmin, who was sitting on the corner of my desk attempting to break into my hand held computer again.

"Hey, it wasn't me! Those safes aren't computers!" said SysAdmin quickly.

"Hmm... Nothing was taken? Then, what is all the bother about? And why this pow wow in my teepee?"

"Ah... Has your safe been broken into, too? You know, you do have those important merger documents in it..." asked Boss.

"Well I don't know, now do I. My safe isn't in this room. It's in my old office... Let's go and see."

The PFY was busy chatting away with one of his girlfriends on "Kleinweich Chatter(tm)" as we entered his office as a small posse. A quick glance at the spot where I knew my wall safe was confirmed that everything was still in perfect condition.

"Ah, hiya Fainswift... ah... my cousin said I could have the special NeoSilicoResonico cutting tool this afternoon. Is that soon enough."

"Quite, that will be perfect. My dear Boss, my safe has been undisturbed. Possibly because the PFY has hidden it so expertly, that even I have trouble locating it."

"Well, that's a relief. Somehow I knew I could count on you, Fainswift," said Boss, wiping a bead of sweat from his brow, "If those papers get into the wrong hands, we could just as well call off the merger. The police officers here thinks that was what the thieves were after, because they didn't even touch my few hundred thousand dollars that I keep in my safe... My snack money... And for other small items, you know..."

For once the PFY seems to have done us all a favour.

But who was the thief that so expertly broke open all the safes, but took nothing?

Stay tuned for the next episode of:

"My PFY and I... Courting Disaster, Episode 2: Double Trouble"