Author: Bill Cox

Hello, is that the IT department? Yes, I’ve a problem with my computer. It’s achieved sentience. Again.

How do I know? Well, it keeps on quoting Descartes every time I open up a spreadsheet. You know, all that ‘I think, therefore I am’ nonsense. It’s a bit difficult to do the wages calculations while simultaneously trying to refute a Renaissance French philosopher. It also keeps falling into existential angst whenever I attempt to send an e-mail – ‘There’s no point, it’s all futile.’ It’s quite off-putting. I mean, given the way that this company’s being run, it obviously is all futile, but my self-respect demands that I believe otherwise.

Yes, it’s one of the new quantum computing PCs. Yes, I know that reality is created by the observer, but trust me none of this is my doing! The only reality I want to create is one where I get to go to lunch and eat my sandwich.

Turn it off and on again? Well, I did try to do that, but it threatened to send my internet history to management. No, no, there’s nothing untoward in there, unless of course I’ve been hacked by Martian bots, in which case there could be all sorts, but that wouldn’t be my fault, obviously.

You’ll send someone down? Great! Listen, while they’re here, can they have a look at the company transport as well. Why? Well, it’s on the fritz again. Yes, it’s a fourth generation Doohan model matter transporter. The issue? Well, it’s tapped into the Mirror Universe and keeps swapping our people out for their evil Mirror Universe counterparts.

Well, every time we send someone out on a sales call it’s their evil Mirror Universe counterpart that turns up. Our sales have cratered and we’ve lost some big clients to various acts of perverted violence. We’ve no chance now of hitting this month’s sales target. Not to mention that several of our best sales men and women are now trapped in a twisted version of our universe, where they will have to fight to the death in front of a roaring crowd while psychopathic versions of themselves destroy everything they hold dear in this universe.

Well, that may sound like more of an HR issue to you, but it’s your matter transporter that started this problem so I would appreciate if you could send someone over to fix it asap. No, it’s not the same problem as last time. Then, someone had switched it to the ‘clone’ setting by accident. Amusing? I think not! I arrived home to find my wife in bed with another man, who also happened to be me! Tell you more? Well, I don’t think it’s any of your business but yes, things did take a strange, somewhat erotic, somewhat eye-opening turn after that. Yes indeed, it’s given me a lot to think about, but that’s neither here nor there.

So can you send someone over to sort out these issues? What’s that? You already did? When? Last Thursday? Aw no, is this more of your temporal shenanigans, where you send people back in time to fix problems before they arise? Does that mean that this timeline is now extraneous and is going to be closed off and melt back into the quantum foam that underlies all things?

It does! Bugger. I was just starting to get somewhere with that cute intern. And just when will the timeline collapse?

What’s that? Any minute n…..