Floppyshop 2/Floppyshop - 2.zip/Floppyshop - 2.iso/diskmags/0022-3.564/dmg-3557/news.txt/s_story.asc

Text File | 1997-06-21 | 28KB | 484 lines

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                      §                           §
                      §  RODNEY'S RAYGUN REVENGE  §
                      §                           §
                      §   A Technological Tale    §
                      §     by Dave Henniker      §
                      §                           §
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     It  was  over  a month since Rodney had started his new  job  on  the
outskirts of town.  For years he'd worked as a Technical Salesman, driving
anything  up  to 200 miles a day as he travelled from town  to  town.  His
employer  was a manufacturer of medical electronics equipment  and  Rodney
had  had  a fairly cushy number - as his company was  virtually  the  only
supplier to the various Health Boards.

     Over  the years Rodney had made quite a few business friends  but  it
was  unlikely  he'd  see  them again.  The  job  had  become  increasingly
difficult  due to competition from the far east.  'Why is everything  made
in Taiwan?' he had often wondered.  His boss put more and more pressure on
him  to sell the equipment,  but although Rodney was a Technical  Salesman
he wasn't really very technical.  Also he was too honest to be a very good
travelling  salesman.   When  the  firm  announced  it  wanted  redundancy
volunteers, Rodney decided he'd had enough and put his name forward.

     His new job was at an out-of-town garden centre,  one of those 'mega'
complexes  where  they  have everything from a kiddies'  play  area  to  a
computerised  Landscape  Design Centre.  It was here that  Rodney  worked,
mostly  behind  a  counter,  selling expensive garden  machinery  such  as
lawnmowers that you sit on and drive.  He also operated the Apple Mac  and
Roland  Plotter  to  try and sell 'Complete Landscape  Solutions'  to  the
wealthier customers.

     He  didn't miss the driving at all,  really.  Once in a while he  was
allowed  to demonstrate the 'ride-on' lawnmowers.  His new job  paid  less
and no company car was provided.  He didn't mind as he was very  contented
here  - and lucky to find employment in his late thirties.  He  no  longer
had  the  hassle of searching for a parking space near his flat  in  town.
These  days he got the bus to work and now he'd had a week or two  to  get
used to public transport,  it was OK,  mostly. After an embarrassing first
morning when he offered the bus driver a ten pound note,  holding up other
passengers  (and  the  following traffic),  he  bought  himself  a  season
ticket.  He  caught the same bus every morning and after a while began  to
recognise quite a few of his fellow passengers.

     The  bus  he  got on was always mobbed  with  hordes  of  schoolkids.
'Precocious  young  brats' Rodney would think to himself as  they  chatted
loudly and squirmed about in their seats.  Thankfully they all got off two
stops after the one Rodney got on at.  Rodney had reached that time in his
life   where   he  felt  threatened  and  insecure  near   young   people,
particularly  adolescents.   He  observed  that  all  the  schoolkids  had
designer-label  clothes,  bags and trainers.  'Must cost their  parents  a
fortune...' he mused. 'Probably all made in Taiwan anyway...'

     He  never  spoke to the other regulars on the bus,  but  he  observed
them  slyly.  There was the businessman who always read the Telegraph  and
opened  the  paper out wide,  presumably to discourage  fellow  passengers
from sitting next to him.  There were some rather attractive female office
workers of different ages,  but they never sat next to Rodney, even if the
bus  was crowded.  People mostly kept themselves  to  themselves,  looking
glum  and preoccupied.  Occasionally he was disturbed by someone  with  an
'impersonal stereo' as he called them.

     This  morning,   as  Rodney's  bus  approached  the  stop  where  the
schoolkids  got off,  Darren was waiting to board the  bus.  Darren,  like
Rodney,  had a job on the edge of town.  He was 19 years old, wore a black
leather jacket with a crudely painted logo across the back,   and had  one
of  those aggressively short haircuts which Rodney used to associate  with
old  cloth-capped  men  - the 'short back and sides' look  as  imposed  by
Rodney's parents when he was young.  Darren sported a personal stereo  and
played  it at a level which blotted out any risk of having to  communicate
with his fellow human beings.

     As  Darren  came  upstairs on the bus Rodney  heard  the  dischordant
'TSSSH,  TSSSH'  noise  and glared pointedly at  the  perpetrator.  Darren
seemed  oblivious to the accusing stare and sat down two or three rows  in
front of Rodney.  A few stops further on, the bus became quite crowded but
amazingly nobody complained about the insistent  'TSSSH,  TSSSH,  TSSSSH!'
emanating  from  the earphones plugged into Darren's  ears.  The  business
types stared blankly ahead into space and one or two others  halfheartedly
rubbed  at the condensation on the windows.  'How the hell can people  put
up  with  this?' Rodney asked himself.  He'd had rather a late  night  the
previous night and wasn't feeling very tolerant.  He wished he was a  more
physically  threatening  figure,  or  knew martial  arts.  He  lacked  the
confidence  to tap Darren on the shoulder and say something like  'I  say,
would you mind awfully turning down your personal stereo...?',  or perhaps
just plain 'Shut the fuck up!'.

     By  the time Rodney got to his stop,  he was seething with  rage  but
feeling  helpless.  His  journey to work had been ruined by  this  cretin.
'Noise  pollution  is  the  worst form of  pollution...'  he  muttered  to
himself as he got off the bus at Q & B's Mega Garden World.  'You can shut
your  eyes or look away,  but you can't shut your ears!' He said out  loud
as  he crossed the footbridge over the bypass.  By the time he'd  had  his
second  cup of coffee he felt better.  In the mail there was a  letter  of
acceptance  from  Major Ponsonby-Smythe with regard  to  the  computerised
landscape  design  tendered  by  Rodney.   Rodney  stood  to  receive   1%
commission  on  the  sale  - which meant £300 bonus  on  his  next  salary
cheque.

     Rodney  smiled  peacefully as he lunched in the  staff  canteen.  The
muzak  which  played softly in the background actually soothed him  as  he
ate.  He had no dessert but had a cup of tea, declining the alleged coffee
and  Diet Pepsi.  The muzak changed to Herb Alpert And His Tijuana  Brass.
Rodney  hated  the tinny trumpet noise,  made worse by the fact  that  the
sound was distorted.  It was at times like this he wished he hadn't  given
up smoking.  He couldn't half do with a fag.  He gulped his  tea,  burning
his tongue in the process, and left.

     The  afternoon at work was very quiet and Rodney had plenty  of  time
to  daydream.  He was fascinated by technical things but didn't have  more
than  a passing interest in how they worked.  What they could achieve  was
much  more interesting.  He liked to impress the customers with the  Apple
Mac and Roland Plotter.  For a while he'd bought electronics magazines and
tried to build one or two gadgets.  After the incident with the  soldering
iron  and the Persian carpet he lost interest.  He began to wonder  if  it
would be possible to design a 'personal stereo zapper'.

     In the evening,  after his meal,  he dragged a cardboard box out from
the  back of a cupboard and looked through the old  electronics  magazines
he'd never been able to bring himself to throw out.  He paused briefly  at
an  article  in  Elektor which gave constructional  details  of  an  anti-
parking  ticket  device.  This involved fitting magnetic  sensors  to  the
hinges of the windscreen wipers.  The idea was that when a traffic  warden
lifted a wiper blade to attach a parking ticket,  the sensor would  detect
this and trigger a circuit to switch on the wipers at maximum speed in  an
attempt to frustrate the forces of Law And Order.

     Rodney  then  found  a  copy  of  Alternative  Electronics,   a   USA
publication  which  had been banned for giving circuit  designs  for  stun
guns.  These gave a severe electric shock to the victim,  powerful  enough
to paralyse the poor unfortunate for minutes.  He flipped over a page  and
found  an article about Kirlian photography whereby,  it was  claimed,  it
was  possible  to  photograph the 'aura' or electrostatic  field  round  a
person.  He  turned  a few more pages over and found an  article  entitled
'Focussed Electro-Magnetic Pulse - CIA Secret Experiments (part two)'.  He
read  on  with interest.  There had been various magazine  articles  about
'EMP'  a few years ago,  Rodney remembered vaguely.  According to this  it
was  possible  to  induce sound (undetectably) in  a  loudspeaker  from  a
distance of up to five yards,  without any wiring whatsoever,  if you  had
the  right equipment.  'Hmmm..' he pondered,  'maybe I could zap  personal
stereos with this!'

     Unfortunately  Rodney didn't have part one of the  two-part  article.
He  was  rather  sceptical of the reference to the power  source  for  the
gadget.  Dilithium  crystals were,  as far as Rodney knew,  mere  fiction.
'Trekkies',  or Star Trek freaks might think differently.  Part two of the
article  did however give details of a suggested circuit.  A 200 watt  car
stereo  booster  amplifier  was 'utilized' (sic) for the  driver  for  the
output  device.  The  left and right channels were connected in  a  bridge
configuration  to double the strength of the focussed magnetic pulse  sent
out.  Rodney  didn't  really  understand all this  but  continued  reading
anyway.  He  poured himself another glass of Southern Comfort and  settled
back in his easy chair.

     The  200 Watt amplifier was greedy on electricity and a  car  battery
was obviously not portable.  The amp was no problem, he had one spare, now
that  he no longer drove a car.  He found it in a cupboard and noticed  it
was  made  in Taiwan.   The magazine article referred quite  seriously  to
dilithium  crystals   but  further  information was  in  part  one  -  and
unavailable. Rodney  put down the magazine and looked on a  bookshelf  for
scientific reference books.  He sat down,  poured himself another Southern
Comfort  (it was his day off tomorrow,  after all) and thumbed over  pages
looking for mention of dilithium crystals.  His search was in vain; all he
found was plain old lithium.  'Lithium - a silvery white  metal.  Lightest
of all metals.' was all it said.

     He  decided  it was a waste of time pursuing this  idea  and  instead
browsed  at a copy of Computer Shopper he'd bought that  morning.  Amongst
the  ads for peripherals and accessories he kept noticing ads for  lithium
batteries.  Then he remembered that his broken digital watch had a  7 year
lithium  battery.  Actually,  the watch still worked but the black  rubber
strap  had split apart soon after he'd bought it.  Rodney  poured  another
drink and recalled that his old Amstrad computer had a lithium battery  in
it,  too.  He  robbed  the  computer of its battery and  sat  down  again,
turning   the battery over in one hand,  as he sipped his drink  with  the
other.

     Rodney was rather drunk by now and not thinking very clearly.  He was
convinced there was a way of turning lithium into dilithium crystals,  but
he had no idea how.  He wandered unsteadily into the kitchen and  wondered
what  would happen if he put the lithium battery into the electric  coffee
grinder.  He dismissed such a notion as dangerous (he wasn't stupid, after
all) and instead put it in the microwave cooker.  Not wearing his glasses,
he  misread the digital display and set the timer to  11  minutes,  rather
than  the  minute  he'd intended.  He pressed the 'cook'  button  and  the
microwave  thumped  into  life.  The battery  pirhouetted  slowly  as  the
turntable revolved and the fluorescent display counted down.

     Rodney  suddenly realised that he'd been dying on a pee for ages  and
stormed  off to the bathroom.  'Aah,  the relief!' He was zipping his  fly
when suddenly a very loud bang rattled the bathroom door.  'HOLY SHIT!' he
exclaimed when he saw the shattered remains of the kitchen.  The microwave
had  been completely blown apart and shards of ragged metal hung over  the
worktop.  Bits  of metal and plastic had embedded themselves in the  walls
and  broken dishes lay scattered on the floor.  He decided he'd  clear  up
the  mess in the morning and switched off the light.  Then he  noticed  an
unfamiliar  green  glow  coming from the centre of  the  former  microwave
cooker.  What's more,  the green glow was pulsing slowly,  getting  bright
and dim, bright and dim.

     It was the remains of the lithium battery.  The rush of adrenalin had
sobered  Rodney up somewhat and he had the presence of mind to use a  pair
of  tongs  to  pick  it up with.  He put it on a  saucer  and  carried  it
(somewhat  shakily) through to the living room.  He filled up  his  glass,
dimmed  the  lights  and sat staring at  the  eerie  green  glow,  pulsing
rhythmically.  After  about an hour,  when the bottle of Southern  Comfort
was empty,  he finally went to bed. Tomorrow he would go and visit his old
chum Jack, the technical whizzkid.

     Jack  was a self-employed electronics engineer Rodney had  known  for
years.  His  workshop  was a shed attached to his house,  a sort  of  home
extension.

     'What's  all  this nonsense about dilithium crystals?' said  Jack  as
Rodney  sat down on top of an enormous TV set.

     'Here,  take a look at this then!' replied Rodney as he handed him an
old tobacco tin.

     Jack  pulled off the lid and looked inside.  Sure enough,  the  eerie
green  glow continued to pulse and throb. Jack went to pour out  two  mugs
of  tea  and Rodney's gaze wandered round the interior  of  the  workshop.
There were TV's,  video recorders and audio components everywhere.  Rodney
was puzzled by a home-made looking gadget with multi-coloured LED's.  Jack
came back and put the hot mugs of tea on the  Pacman arcade machine  which
served as a table.

     'What's that?' asked Rodney, pointing at the home-made gadget.

     'That's a dry joint simulator.' answered Jack.

     'What's  it  for?'  queried  Rodney.

     'It's for testing dry joint testers.' said Jack.

     'Oh..., I see' said Rodney.

     Jack  studied  the dilithium crystal closely,  not  touching  it.  He
noticed  that  the  crystal  was slightly different  shades  of  green  at
opposite  ends.  He  reached over for his new  Fluke  digital  multimeter,
switched  it to voltage and carefully applied its probes to either end  of
the crystal.

     'Hmmm,  thirteen point eight volts exactly...' he  muttered.  'That's
the  same as you get from a car battery.  I wonder how much  current  this
baby  can  deliver...'  He dug around and found an old  car  headlamp  and
wired  it  up to the crystal which he'd fitted in a  battery  holder.  The
headlamp shone brightly. Impressed by this,  Jack got an old starter motor
which still had its heavy cables attached. The motor turned briskly.

     'Good God!' gasped Jack, 'These things take hundreds of amps!'

     Rodney  handed Jack the tattered copy of Alternative Electronics  and
said   'Could you make one of these ...?',  pointing to  the  article.  'I
want  to  be able to zap those impersonal stereos on the  bus.'

     Jack  said  he'd  give it a try and Rodney  left.  A  week  later  he
returned to see if Jack had made any progress.

     'It works.' Jack confirmed.  'I used the enamelled wire from this old
degaussing  coil,  and  these S-correction capacitors to tune  it  to  the
right frequency.  See that loudspeaker over there; no wires connected. Now
listen...  I'll just turn the power up slightly.'

     Jack  clicked  the  trigger switch and the speaker  emitted  a  short
sharp  high-pitched  pulse  of sound.  'That's a sine wave  at  about  ten
kilohertz' Jack informed Rodney.  Jack fitted the device into the body  of
an  old Weller soldering gun and presented it to Rodney.  'Just  pull  the
trigger to activate it,  keep this knob turned well to the left. You won't
need  much  power  just to make someone think  their  personal  stereo  is
knackered.' advised Jack.

     'Didn't you need the booster amp then?' asked Rodney.

     'Just  the output chips' said Jack.  'You don't want to carry  a  big
box around,  do you?   The crystal is in the handle.  There's no need  for
heatsinks as the power cuts off after a hundred milliseconds.'

     Rodney  was  very  impressed  and grateful  and  promised  to  buy  a
secondhand  microwave  from  Jack  as soon as he  got  the  bonus  he  was
expecting.  He  caught  the  bus home but there were  no  passengers  with
personal stereos.

     Back in his flat he had a closer look at his new gadget.  It felt and
looked  rather like a ray gun.  It was satisfyingly heavy and Rodney  felt
strangely  powerful holding it.  He kept the power turned low and  clicked
the  trigger.  A  short piercing blast of noise came from  the  transistor
radio at the other side of the room.  He increased the power and tried  it
again.  The speaker made the same noise but louder.  He tried it on the TV
set  and  somehow  managed  to make a purple blob in  the  corner  of  the
screen.   It  was  later  that  day  that  he  found  that  his   databank
calculator's  LCD  display  had turned black all  over.  He  thought  he'd
save the lithium batteries and when he turned it over he saw a tiny  label
saying 'Made in Taiwan'.  The next time he tried to withdraw cash he would
find that he had also erased the magnetic strip on his Cashline card.

     When  Rodney got ready for work next day he put the gun in  his  coat
pocket.  He left for work at the usual time but had to run for the bus  as
it was early,  probably because it was a school holiday.  He went upstairs
and  chose  a  seat  near the back of the bus on  the  left.  As  the  bus
approached the next bus stop,  Rodney could see Darren getting on, wearing
his personal stereo. 'TSSHH - TSSHH - TSSSHHH!' it went as Darren sat down
several rows in front of Rodney.

     Rodney looked around at the other passengers and found that they were
all apparently preoccupied.  Confident that nobody would know what he  was
up  to,  he pulled the zapper out of his pocket,  aimed it it the back  of
Darren's head and squeezed the trigger.  Sure enough, Rodney plainly heard
a short pulse of high frequency sound.  Simultaneously,  Darren gasped and
yanked the earphones out of his ears. Rodney slid the zapper back into his
coat pocket and tried not to smirk as he stared down at his knees.

     Darren was puzzled.  He unplugged the earphone jack and plugged it in
again.  He  whacked the personal stereo violently then shook  it.  He  re-
inserted the earphones in his ears but with the volume turned much  lower.
He blamed 'feedback' for the painful blast of noise;  he'd heard  feedback
before with rock groups.

     Rodney was satisfied.  He had punished the reprobate who had  invaded
his privacy and was no longer disturbed by the noise of 'thrash metal'  or
whatever that so-called music was.

     Several  days passed and Rodney's journeys to and from work  remained
undisturbed.  Meanwhile Darren was looking for a new personal stereo.  His
old  one  still worked but he'd been talking to his mate Drew  who  had  a
much fancier personal stereo.  This one had light-action touch buttons,  a
radio  with  a tuning memory and a very  impressive  LCD  display.  Darren
looked  through  his  mother's  new Argos catalogue and  saw  the  one  he
wanted.  It  had all the features of Drew's one but also had  'Mega  Bass'
and  even a remote control built into the earphone cord.  It was  made  in
Taiwan.

     The  following  Monday  Rodney  observed  Darren  boarding  the  bus.
'TSSZZ!  - TSSZZ! - TSSZZ!' went the earphones as Darren sat down only two
rows in front of Rodney.  Darren admired the LCD display. When the machine
was switched on, a flickery scrolling message appeared saying 'Conglations
on owning this Minimedia™ Pelsonar Sterio'.  He played with the sliders on
the tiny remote control and watched the bargraph display.   Rodney noticed
one of his fellow commuters grimace in discomfort at the invasive noise.

     'Right,  here goes' thought Rodney.  He slipped the zapper out of his
coat  pocket and rested its business end on the back of the seat in  front
of  him.  Failing  to notice that the power control knob had  somehow  got
turned right up to maximum,  he aimed at Darren and squeezed the  trigger.
A particularly loud pulse of high frequency noise,  followed instantly  by
a  loud  'POP!'  reverberated round the upper  deck  of  the  bus.  Darren
wrenched  the  earphones  from his ears and  smoke  was  plainly  visible,
curling  out of his earringed ears.  He was in considerable pain  and  was
furious  to  find  that the LCD display on his pride and  joy  had  turned
totally black. Furthermore, the earphones had melted as their speech-coils
had burned out.

     He whipped around in his seat and noticed that one of the  passengers
was smiling and looking across at Rodney.  Darren turned further round  in
his seat and saw a rather frightened-looking Rodney gazing  unconvincingly
out of the window.  Darren stared at Rodney for a moment then turned round
again,  facing the front of the bus. Rodney's heart stopped pounding after
a  while  and  he prayed that Darren didn't  suspect  him.  When  the  bus
approached Q & B's Mega Garden World,  Rodney didn't notice Darren getting
off the bus behind him.

     He was half way across the footbridge over the bypass when he felt  a
hand on his shoulder.  He was turned violently around to find himself face
to  face  with  Darren.   Rodney  looked  in  vain  for  help  from  other
pedestrians. There was no-one else on the footbridge, and not likely to be
until the next bus came.

     'You done that!' shouted Darren as he thrust the damaged stereo under
Rodney's nose, 'Didn't ya!'

     'I beg your pardon..' responded Rodney.

     'You fucked my Walkman, you yuppy bastard' rasped Darren.

     'No I didn't' replied Rodney.

     'You  fucking-well  did!'  shouted  Darren,  simultaneously  smashing
Rodney in the face with the Walkman and kneeing him in the  groin.  Rodney
fell down amongst the broken glass and litter on the  footbridge,  doubled
up in pain.  Then he blacked out.  He was only very vaguely aware that  he
was being bodily lifted into the air.  He thought it was a bad dream. When
he  felt weightless he knew it was a bad dream;  he'd had the  same  dream
before - falling off a cliff or a building and he knew he'd wake up,  just
before he hit the ground. Only he never did hit the ground.

     Darren  had  heaved  Rodney's semi-conscious  body  over  the  bridge
parapet, seemingly intent on murder. By sheer chance one of Q & B's pickup
trucks was passing under the bridge and Rodney landed on it,  cushioned to
some  extent  by the bags of peat on board.  The driver  turned  into  the
garden  centre  unaware of what had happened.  Darren ran back  along  the
bridge and disappeared.

     Later  that  morning  the pickup driver  found  Rodney's  body  lying
comatose on the peat bags in his truck.  The ambulance driver confirmed he
was  still  alive  (just)  and raced off  to  the  hospital,  blue  lights
flashing  and sirens wailing.  Rodney was wheeled into Intensive Care  and
put  on a life support machine.  He was in a deep  coma.  Consultants  and
nurses came and went but Rodney was unaware of all this.

     Days  passed  and finally he began  to  approach  consciousness.  The
electroencephalograph  indicated increased brain activity,  and the  heart
monitor  showed  a  faster  pulse.  He felt awful as  he  awoke  and  very
cautiously  opened  his eyes a little.  'God,  what a weird  dream...'  he
thought.  He thought he must have dreamt about dilithium crystals and  the
exploding microwave.  He sat up a little and rubbed his eyes.  He focussed
blearily on the life support machine,  which he recognised as the type  he
once  sold.  Loss  of memory had made him forget that he  no  longer  sold
medical  equipment.  He was startled to find that this particular  machine
was  connected  to his body by wires and plastic tubes.  Had he  woken  up
yet?  He  wasn't  sure...  He had experienced this  feeling  once  before,
dreams  within dreams,  when he'd been ill with gastric  flu.  He  flopped
back onto his pillow and fell asleep again.

     His activity had been enough to trigger an alarm,  however.  A  nurse
came into his room,  made a brief phone call and a consultant arrived. The
nurse  gave  him  an injection and he woke up to  see  friendly  concerned
faces.

     'How are you, Rodney?' asked the nurse.

     'What happened?' asked Rodney.

     'You had an accident' said the consultant.

     'My microwave blew up' confirmed Rodney.

     'Your microwave blew up?' said the nurse and consultant in unison.

     'I was making dilithium crystals' explained Rodney. 'I sell these for
a living' he added, pointing to the life support machine.

     The  nurse  and  consultant withdrew to the corner of  the  room  and
conferred before returning to Rodney's bedside.

     'Actually,  old  chap' said the consultant,  'you were found  in  the
back of one of Q & B's pickup trucks.  That's who you work for. The police
think you were thrown from the footbridge over the bypass.'

     Rodney remembered none of this.

     'OK,  you'd  better  go back to sleep now' said the  nurse  and  gave
Rodney another injection.

     'Better keep him hooked up to the hardware' advised the consultant to
the nurse. 'He's not a well man.'

     Rodney  was  alone  when  he woke up  again.  He  felt  confused  but
physically stronger.  He sat up on the edge of his bed, taking care not to
disturb the tubes and cables attaching him to the machine.  Rodney had  an
amazing  memory  for numbers and recognised the model number of  the  life
support machine.  He pulled one end of the trolley supporting it and had a
peek  round the back of the machine.  He  was slightly surprised  to  find
that  he had sold this actual machine.  He actually remembered the  serial
number - but still couldn't remember much else, though.

     He pressed a buzzer and the nurse returned with the consultant.

     'We  found this in your coat pocket' said the  consultant.  'What  is
it?  It looks like a soldering gun that's been modified.'

     Rodney remembered. 'It's a personal stereo zapper' he replied.

     'Really?' said the consultant. 'How does it work?'

     'You just point it and pull the trigger' Rodney answered.

     'Like  this?' said the consultant,  not really believing  Rodney  and
pointing it at the life support machine.

     'No - Don't!' said Rodney,  but it was too late. He saw sparks coming
from the life support machine,  followed by a cloud of smoke and that  was
all he saw.  He passed out into a deep coma and dreamt more dreams  within
dreams. Eventually he awoke again to see a shiny new life support machine.
He  didn't recognise this one;  it was a type he'd never seen  before.  In
one corner he saw a label. It said 'Made in Taiwan ROC'.



                              ~~~~~eof~~~~~