The APP

What if you had the power to kill someone with just a computer App? would you use it like Arthur Harrison and live with the consequences?

The App

Before I moved to New York I lived in a small New England coast town called Newport, Rhode Island also known as America’s Society Capital and Queen of summer resorts. It has an average population of over twenty four thousand in any given year and a few past presidents like John F Kennedy and Dwight D Eisenhower were fond of spending their summers there while they were in office.

My parents John and Emily Harrison were originally from Idaho, Idaho Falls before buying a home on Blueberry Lane a few miles from Marsh Point, Charleston’s most southern tip before the Atlantic Ocean. My father was a good man and a good Dad; he was five years older than my Mother. I don’t remember her much; she was healthy most of her short life but died of a blood clot in the brain one wet November night a few days before thanksgiving. At least that’s what they told me, my dad and my grandparents- could have been a genetic defect they said. This was in 1985; I was only two years old. It was Dad’s ambition to open up a small bakery in town once they’d moved; Mother was to be the front of store selling and packaging the homemade bread, cakes and such like while he would work the ovens at the back. But after she died he didn’t want to stay in the same house any more so he found an outlet which had an apartment above it. We moved in just before Christmas, he called the place ‘Sweet Dreams’ Not long after he hired nanny, her name was Annette, nanny Annette Brown which was much too hard for me to get my tongue around so I just called her Nattie. Which she seemed to like.

Sweet Dreams had two bedrooms a small living area and a modest kitchen overlooking Rainbow Row downtown Charleston and a rear view of the Cooper River. In the heart of the peninsula area Dad was hopeful of its success with the footfall coming by on their way to and from the cruise ship terminal. On a lower floor the shop had once been used as a secondhand bookstore and still had the old proprietors name above the window when Dad got the keys. An elderly gentleman, according to the agents, by the name of Amos Gustrom who had ran it with his sister Gertrude since they fled from Poland after the liberation of Belzec concentration camp where both had been prisoners. Up until his death the year before his sister had to close the store Amos would hold court most days sitting in his big leather worn couch by the window reliving his time as a captive of the Nazi to any who would listen. Surrounded by his thousands of well read books, he was never short of an audience we heard and was lucky enough to just slip away in his sleep after enjoying one last matinee performance. Gertrude tried to manage on but was forced to give up the store after a bad bout of influenza seen her hospitalized for nearly two months. By the time she was able to come back and the rumor of Amos’s passing had got around interest had waned. Few patrons came to buy anymore without the added bonus of his graphic stories which he regularly embellished much to the disdain of Gertrude who was often seen glaring at him when he went a little off the truth. Amos I think was embedded in the fabric of the building and up until I went to collage I could still smell the distinctive musty aroma only old books have above the sweet fragrance of freshly baked bread. Maybe it was his ghostly influence which made my love of knowledge unfathomable and eventually steered me into my chosen career. I don’t know, but sometimes as I slept I thought I could hear him speaking, encouraging me to be the best I could be, telling me to never give up just like he had done in his moments of despair when he thought each night could be his last.

After moving in Dad partitioned part of the store by erecting a dry line wall between the rear entrance and a small counter which he fashioned himself from some of the stores old book shelves, He said it gave the shop a unique look. A sort of rustic oldie worldie feel which would appeal to all the tourists. Then he installed two new baking ovens and numerous cooling trays. Below the only window he put in a large sink with a steel draining board to accommodate the cleaning of the oven racks after each morning bake, and while all this was happening Nattie would be looking after me upstairs. I don’t remember much about the early days after mother died, and for me as I grew older Nattie was my mother. In the first few years of her employment she would get an early bus from her apartment located at Thomson Court, which dated back to the eighteen sixties and where almost two thirds of Charleston’s free persons of color lived in the upper wards on the neck at that time. Nattie was always proud of her ancestry roots and took great pleasure in retelling some of the old slave stories passed down through her family as my bedtime recreation while Dad had supper at the kitchen table. After clearing and washing his dishes she would leave to catch the bus back. However by the time I was ready for kindergarten Dad decided it would be better if Natte moved in, purely for convenience he said and made a point of how it was unreasonable for her to be paying rent and bus fares when she spent most of the day with.. Needless to say I was very happy with this new arrangement but it never crossed my mind as a child just where she would be sleeping, and when it did I said nothing. Maybe they found happiness between them, I hope they did, looking back I know they loved each other. Dad never married again, and Nattie up until he died in 2013 of a heart attack and I remember he was still baking bread the very morning it happened.

As for me I started my academic journey at Charleston Day school which was about five blocks from the store, on good days Nattie walked me while I swung my G I Joe lunchbox against one scabby knee dressed in my school colors of red polo shirt and blue short pants. In the winter Dad allowed her to take the Buick, but she wasn’t keen on driving, so much of the time we strolled along chanting some of the old gospel songs she liked to sing at church on a Sunday. We must have looked funny-this white kid with the beanpole black lady in her Mary Poppins hat and coat singing Amazing Grace how sweet the sound-and it was to me, those years we were together were the happiest in my life. When we approached the school gates Nattie would squeeze my hand just an extra bit tighter and smooth down my cowlick when we stopped and tell me ‘you be a good boy now Arthur’ then take me to the door.

One of my friends while I was at Charleston Day school was a girl, her name was Wendy Moore. Her father ran the Hominy Grill, a busy yet relaxed eatery famous for its spare ribs and light B.L.T’s, just across the street from the Waring Historical Library. It became our meeting place, our refectory as we moved though the grades. Soon we were joined at the hip and could be found either discussing the latest trend of the year, or which movie was worth going to see over an orange juice, gratis of course. As we passed though our senior years the conversation before long came round to what would be our choice of collages.

Wendy had developed from a dumpy little red head with ringlet curls and emerald eyes since we first met into a beautiful self confident woman with fiery long hair to match her equally scorching attitude. She was a lady who knew her own mind and made sure others did too. I however developed in the opposite direction, reserved and unassuming, we were chalk and cheese, the odd couple, but we were a pair and I liked it that way. Never the less like everything in life I’m afraid nothing stays the same. While I was happy to remain in Charleston and go to its local collage ( by this time I was helping Dad in the Bakery) Wendy wanted to spread her net further afield and told me so during one of our afternoon ‘dates’ which they weren’t of course because our relationship never moved into the sexual attraction realm. We did kiss once, I think we were fourteen and just got caught up in the atmosphere of our first prom dance, but some how it didn’t feel right so it never occurred again. No brother likes to kiss his sister, you know what I mean. So we made a pact, but agreed we’d always be there for each other if either needed help. Wendy’s talents lay in the art of drawing, sketching and painting. She had a flair for design even when we were children, creating paper clothes for her cardboard dolls which she would color in bright vibrant shades and cut out to dress them with. It was only natural I suppose she would set her sights on a similar career in fashion or the media arts. For her the only place to make this happen was at the Art institute of California.

By mid August of 2002 Wendy had left Charleston for San Francisco and I was on my own. In the first year my heart felt empty and to say I really missed Wendy would be an understatement. So during that time I buried myself in my studies throughout the day and in the evenings I helped Dad with the bakery mixing the dough’s for the different types of bread and cakes we supplied. Life was busy and I had no problem securing a place in Charleston Collage so things were going according to plan, that was until schools summer vacation of 2005. By now Nattie was part of the furniture and she and dad were getting on like an old married couple, the odd fight here and there but then the long happy periods of making up. I was doing well with my studies, majoring in maths, English and computer coding. It was my ambition to become a programmer for one of the big players in main frame design or micro-processing operating units such as with Windows or Apple or maybe even Google if I was lucky. I’d gone to see both Bill Gates and Steve Jobs when they did their tours across the collages of America; they talked about which operating systems they hoped to develop in the future and the emphasis being on mobility computing. It all sounded very exciting.

It was after the Steve Jobs promotion which ran on an hour over its expected time I decided to stop for a coffee on my way home and found myself instinctively heading to the Hominy Restaurant before I realized I hadn’t been there since Wendy had left. There had been no word from her in over a year and in her last letter she sort of hinted she was going out with some guy who’s name she never mentioned so I just figured she’d found love and was busy getting on with it. I nearly changed my mind because I didn’t want things to be awkward with Wendy’s dad. Not that there should be a reason for any uncomfortably between us; he knew how we felt about each other, Wendy and I, but something made me carry on. When I rounded the corner of Burns lane I expected to hear the sounds I’d become familiar with coming from inside. I anticipated seeing the warm white glow of its lights washing out onto the sidewalk and the smell of ground coffee and barbeque smoked ribs filling the air. The night was clear of clouds and a crescent moon hung just above the roof of the Galliard Auditorium, but there was nothing. No sounds, no people I found the building dark and vacant. I stood for a while just looking in the window I don’t know why, focusing my attention on the small worn couch near the window were Wendy and I mostly sat, and as I leaned against the cold glass with my hands cupping my eyes my mind began to conjure up a ghostly image of two young kids laughing and enjoying life not so long ago. Afterward I didn’t go directly home instead I got lost in my thoughts and soon found over an hour had passed while I’d meandered along the route Wendy and I used to walk to school. When I finally turned the key in the lock around midnight I was surprised to find Nattie still watching T.V, because she liked to read in bed before Dad came up. She rose from her seat after I’d put my coat over the dinning table chair and I knew right away something was wrong by the manner in which she held her hands over her lips, her face etched with melancholy.

‘What? What is it’ I asked ‘Is it dad, is he alright?’

Nattie came over and squeezed my arm lightly ‘Your Father’s fine Arthur, he’s downstairs in the bakery, why don’t you sit with me’ ‘Then I don’t understand?’ I said, immediately getting that feeling you sometimes have when you know someone is about to give you bad news you don’t want to hear but you know you must.

‘We’ve been trying to reach you on your cell phone (I remembered it going dead during the Steve Jobs promo)Its Wendy I’m afraid, she’s dead Arthur’ she said so softly, but it felt like someone punching me hard in the stomach.

I slumped down into the chair ‘What? no that can’t be right’ I whispered, but I knew she wasn’t lying, Nattie would never do that. Then it all made sense as to why the restaurant was closed. While Nattie and I were talking Dad came into the room with his face and clothes pock marked with white flour and cleaning his hands on his blue apron.

‘Nattie’s told you then’ he said, I nodded. ‘I’m sorry’

‘How did it happen?’

‘Wendy’s father called earlier just after you left for the convention, maybe you should sit down son’

‘Just tell me Dad’ I sighed, already feeling as if my brain had left my body.

‘Wendy was in the company of her new boyfriend a guy called Tommy Woods when the car crash happened’ he began, and it was if I was listening from under the surface of a lake with the weight of the water pressing down on my chest ‘She never mentioned him to Gary her Dad, and he no idea she was seeing him never mind shacked up with him. As far as he was aware Wendy was still on the campus in her dorm room. Apparently he was known by the local police, a real bad boy it seems. Rumor had it he was a notorious pusher around the collage grounds, why she hooked up with this low life he couldn’t understand, the guy was at least five years older than her for Christ sake. Some of her friends admitted to the police later she had been going out with him since they met at a frat party a few months before. He was high on coke when the fire service cut them both out of the wreckage. He was driving too fast, spun out on a bend and hit a tree. Wendy was declared dead at the scene, but Woods was suffering from only superficial face wounds and a suspected broken leg. He’s under police custody at the hospital’

‘What happens now?’ I asked Dad

Nattie began to cry and Dad slid a comforting arm around her shoulder. ‘He’ll go to jail for sure, how long for I don’t know Arthur’ he said, but by the time He’d had finished talking I was trembling all over. Nattie hugged me and said if I wanted to talk she would be there if I needed, both did, I lied however, I said I’d be fine before making excuses I was tired and needed to go to bed. I wasn’t, if anything I was never more awake. That night I lay thinking if only I could have prevented Wendy’s death. Of course that was impossible; no one can predict the future. Nobody knows what time or day their death is going to happen, and isn’t it better that way? Yet as I looked up at the ceiling I began to wonder if the right algorithms, input statistics based on a person’s gender, race and social background were entered into a data analyzer could a basic formula be computed to give at least a wide idea of how and possibly when they would die. Hell didn’t they even have lotto predictors online now to show you the odds against each numbered balls probability of being picked. So why not this, after all it was mostly the same type of coding. All it needed was a few tweaks.

Woods got four years; I couldn’t even look at him at the trial, he was a heavy metal long haired freak with tats up his arms and on his hands standing smirking in his orange prison overalls while his lawyer lathered on about his deprived up bringing. All bullshit of course, he pleaded no contest and admitted Wendy’s death by dangerous driving. Later I found out some deal was made over the drugs found in his system if he took a plea. No measure of justice I thought, not for Wendy at least.

In 2007 I finished collage graduating with honors in all my chosen subjects. Two years later I was living and working for a Californian company (I never made it to Google, Apple or Microsoft) who developed software for the Nasa space shuttle. They weren’t what you would call a big corporation like Bigelow Aerospace or Boeing of Texas but they were in my view equally important. If one of their tiny engine heat sensors failed then the whole craft would burn up on re-entry. My job was to program them, write the software monitoring codes and formulate new algorithms to enhance their capabilities. The job paid good money and it allowed me to live in small apartment near Coronado beach.

I’d heard from Wendy’s dad, we still kept in touch after the funeral and in one call he told me Woods was due for release mid July 2009. It made mad he’d soon be free but there was little or nothing I could do, but the thought of him walking around like nothing had happened stuck with me. It was the same year I met my future wife Pauline. By accident, literally, when she rear ended my car as I sat at the intersection traffic lights of Horton Street and Saxon Drive only two blocks from where I lived. When I got out to exchange insurance details she was already in a state and I immediately felt sorry for her. But it was her uncanny resemblance to Wendy which stopped me in my tracks. Her hair was fire red just like Wendy's, same button nose and wolfish emerald eyes with chalky pink lips I’d always longed to kiss but never did. She gave me a half smile which showed the natural gap between her less than perfect teeth and her face shone in the watery sunlight distracting me entirely from what had just happened. She began to apologize and I began to stutter, tongue tied by her beauty which made us both fall into a fit of laughter. When we finally got over our giggles and she got out to inspect the damage, which to be honest was minimal and should cost no more than a couple of hundred bucks to repair we agreed there was no point in getting the insurance company involved. Yet rather than let her just drive off into the sunset with just a phone number in my pocket I stuck my neck out and suggested we go for a coffee at the nearby Publix supermarket cafe at the Indian River Village shopping center. Just until she felt OK to drive again I said. To my surprise and delight she agreed. Ninety minutes later, with the accident a distant memory we’d made a dinner date for the following night at the Seascape Restaurant.

It was during the meal I told her about Wendy and her remarkable similarities and about all that had happened. The place was small but pleasant with gray wicker furniture and tables covered in neat blue linen tablecloths complete with white napkins. It overlooked the beach on South Atlantic Avenue. We were lucky to get a window seat. When we’d finished our entrée I asked her why she'd said yes to a nerdy boy like me, who even wore the proverbial dark specs and who was obviously low on muscle tone but at least I was high on brain power.

‘You seemed nice’ she said.

‘Maybe that was my problem’ I sighed.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, perhaps if I’d been more assertive more of a bad boy like Woods Wendy might never have left Charleston and gone to San Francisco. He must have been the sort of guy she liked. I described how she was didn’t I, so self confident, so sure of herself. We were chalk and cheese and it worked while we were kids, but she needed or wanted someone just like she was and that wasn’t me’

‘It not your fault you know’

I shrugged my shoulders ‘maybe not, but wouldn’t it be great if we could just fill in a box on our computer screen, take away the risk and ask it questions like-should I get in this car? If I take this ride will I get home safely? How and when will I die? Or is he or she the right person for me?’

‘You mean like an app?’

‘I screwed my face up ‘A what?’

‘An App, an Application’ Pauline said leaning into me ‘Apple have developed a few new programs for your cell phone, I’m surprised you haven’t heard of them what with your type of job. They can perform tasks like display media, facilitate communication, entertain you or provide a service. You can download them from their main frame’

‘Sounds a bit like the Psion organizer; it’s a digital assistant on the space shuttle’ I said ‘and how come you know all about this stuff?

Pauline rolled her eyes and wiped the corner of her mouth slowly with her napkin, I suddenly realized my question may not have sounded right and maybe I’d blown it. I wasn’t trying to put her down or make her think I was belittling what she’d just said, nothing like that. It was just I was so amazed how much we had in common and listening to her made my stomach tumble. Before I could apologize Pauline began to giggle. ‘I maybe just a dental assistant Arthur Harrison but I like Star trek, Deep space 9, Babylon 5 and all the techy stuff that goes with them. So you see I’m just as nerdy as you are, and I’d bet you could write a program like you talked about, just for fun of course’

‘Yeah, just for fun’ I agreed, but Pauline had sowed a seed in my head, a kernel of a thought which stayed with me well after we’d finished dinner and I’d left her home. There was nothing I could do but get on my P.C when I returned to my apartment and begin the first plan of coding which would form the basics of the application. By dawn the initial structure was complete, but something was missing. While the algorithms were easy to calculate like atoms and protons they were randomized and erratic I needed some type of software to coordinate them into some form of workable program.

Then I remembered the conversation Pauline and I had in the restaurant and how it came around to talking about Apple Mac’s new applications. I recalled I mentioned the Psion file organizer the space shuttle used. The software itself was conceived and designed by the top mathematicians America had at its disposal people like Eugen Sanger a Second World War German engineer and Irene Bredt a brilliant designer. Over the years since the beginning of the Apollo missions the crux of the program had changed though adding artificial intelligence meaning it learned from its own mistakes and self rewrote its individual coding to repair any anomalies it encountered saving Nasa time and money. In essence it was a living thinking virtual being of digital binary ones and zeros. I had no idea how my application would react to being fused with the Psion, it could become a Frankenstein of them both, but it would take me years to write a similar processing system so I decided to download the Psion’s software onto a disc at work which would allow me transfer it onto my own P.C later at home.

I phoned Pauline from my cell and invited her over as I drove along South Causeway back to my apartment around 6pm, crossing the bridge a light rain was drizzling on the Indian River creating a tiny rainbow over my shoulder on Chicken Island; it reminded me of the bedtime stories Nattie told me about pots of gold and Irish fairies. I was anxious to see her again after our dinner date and I thought she would be interested in the merging of the Psion and my own program which I’d named Wendy1. She couldn’t believe I’d chosen to go ahead and put together an application like I'd described and when I explained it was to be a hybrid of Wendy1 and the Space Shuttles file organizer she was a bit nervous if the whole thing was even legal, and a tad edgy in case someone would find out I’d ‘Borrowed’ the Governments software. I assured her no one would go to jail and no burly F.B.I agents would turn up at the door while we worked on my P.C, after all it was just for fun-wasn’t it?

Pauline arrived shortly before eight dressed in jeans and a white tee shirt carrying a bottle of Californian red. She was stood on the stoop when I opened the door holding it aloof, her emerald eyes bright with energy. ‘I hope you’ve have a cork screw and two clean glasses?’ she smiled. I knew I’d one somewhere, however finding it turned out to be harder than assimilating the two programs which I estimated would take about an hour. While we waited we sipped on the smooth wine and finally got round to sharing our first kiss. Which was all I imagined it would be and how I always dreamed it could have been with Wendy, only the sound of my Computer advising the merge was finished did we break apart.

‘Shall we see how it went?’ Pauline said getting up from the couch ‘Look there’s something blinking on the screen’ she pointed. I followed her over to my desk at the window and saw a white log in box on a dark blue background. Below it an intermittent instruction was asking for a password to be entered. ‘Mmnn! I don’t remember locking in a password on initial coding’ I said, suddenly wondering if it had all been a waste of time and knowing the chances of hacking an operating systems security protection is millions to one.

Pauline looked at me with the glow of the screen washing her face a shade of warm white, ‘Try writing in, one, two, three four’ she said. ‘Most lazy people use that, don’t they? She made me smile, I knew it wouldn’t be so simple but I keyed it in anyway. The machine let out a distinctive burp of rejection then warned me I had two tries left. ‘What about the one you use at work’ Pauline suggested, ‘maybe it will recognize that’

It was worth an attempt and actually sounded logical, but once more it spat it out, this time more loudly.

‘Last chance’ I said blowing out my cheeks ‘get this wrong and it could shut down for good or fry my circuit boards’

‘Seeing as how the principal program is the Psion organizer maybe whoever invented it wrote in a password which is only being asked for now that you have changed its original matrix, do you know who that was Arthur?’

‘Yeah, it was a guy named David Potter, from East London. He was the chairman of Psion in 1984 and now his company owns Teklogix who in turn owns the corporation I work for’

‘Was he married?’ Pauline asked.

‘What’s that got to do with anything’ I said wondering where she was going with her train of thought. ‘But yeah, his wife’s name was Elaine’

Pauline looked at me her eyebrows raised ‘You think?’ I said ‘Its possible I suppose, I know my friend at work uses his dogs name as a secret word, shall we try it?’

I keyed Elaine into the box and waited for another loud burp, instead the blue screen was replaced almost instantly with a series of slightly larger boxes over a living virtual image of planets revolving in the vastness of space. ‘What now?’ Pauline asked, I wasn’t sure but I said ‘Maybe we should use a simple question first, but what?’

‘How about something we already know the answer to’ Pauline said ‘That way we can tell if it works’

‘Ok, lets try this’ I agreed and moved the mouse positioning the curser so it was in the first write box, I typed in [Abraham Lincoln] the next requested a date of birth. Thank god I listened at school when they were teaching American history, so when I keyed in [02-12-1809] the screen blinked briefly before a document page appeared. Set out in the vein of Wikipedia it detailed the birthplace, history and assassination of the 16^th president of the United States by John Wilkes Booth.

I felt my shoulders drop ‘not much different than Google’ I sighed. ‘But then again I did ask it an easy question’

‘Try something else’ Pauline said. ‘Something a little more complicated’

I thought for moment then cleared the screen back to the question boxes, in one I typed [Emily Harrison] ‘There’s no way it will have any information on this’ I said moving to the next, filling in Mothers date of birth, and then where she was born.

Pauline and I sat and stared at the screen while it buffered for a few seconds, once again a document page appeared and my heart was thumping as I read it. {Emily Green born Idaho Falls 1961 married John Harrison 1982 died November 1985 of a Cardiogenic Embolism. Husband John due to die September 10^th twenty thirteen of a Myocardial infarction} {Do you wish to ask another question Y N}

‘Oh my God!’ I said getting up ‘I have to phone my Dad and warn him’

‘And tell him what exactly Arthur’ Pauline said ‘how you punched his name into a computer and it told you when he was going to die, don’t you think it’ll sound a little bit crazy’ I sat down again. ‘I guess’ I said, ‘maybe it’s wrong, of course its mistaken and besides how could a machine know the future, but maybe I should try just once more just to be sure’ I began to wonder as I wrote in Nattie’s name if this is how a drug addict feels with every pill they pop and every needle they put in their arms, frightened of what might happen if they overdose but compelled to carry on just to get another high. Once I’d finished the screen gave up a new page.

{Annette Brown born Charleston 1966 never married, no children, due to die December twenty fourteen of broken heart syndrome} {Do you wish to ask another question Y N}

It was all too much, now it was saying Nattie was to die of a broken heart one year after my fathers passing. Yet it made sense there was no way she could live without him. So now I was sure this wasn’t just some randomly generated mish mash of Google interpersonal information.

Pauline could see I was upset and slid her arms around my shoulders, which led to a kiss and us going into the bedroom. After making love we lay sipping our wine and talked for awhile, it reminded me of the times Wendy and I spent on the couch in her Fathers Cafe on those long afternoons when school was finished. Time had flown and when I checked my watch it was close to midnight when Pauline left, but even after the wine and lovemaking I wasn’t feeling tired. As I looked up at the ceiling I began to speculate just how far my application could go. After all I’d only used a few of the data boxes so I was beginning to get curious as to what the others were for. I needed to find out.

When I took my seat again at the computer I could feel a nervousness in the pit of my stomach much like I did when I had to speak in public or give presentations to my bosses of any new technology we had designed. It always gave me goosebumps and gas. The room was quiet other than the sound of my PC cooling fan which seemed to be working overtime and there was only the light from my screen. I touched the space bar and the monitor leaped into life still displaying its last content page. I cleared all the boxes and began to insert a new name.

{Wendy Moore} {04-13-1981} as before a page followed.

{Wendy Alice Moore daughter of Gary Moore proprietor of the Hominy Grill Charleston died in a road accident of multiple injuries August 10^th two thousand and five the car driver was a Thomas Woods recently released from prison due to die of a crystal Meth overdose July 5^th twenty thirty nine} {Do you wish to ask another question Y N}

I thumped my desk with my fist with disgust, from what I could read this s**t head was maybe not going to grow old but it was to be another thirty years before he would get to slip away in his sleep without any pain enjoying his last high, were was the fairness in that and did I want to ask another question?- Yes I did!

With my fingers trembling in the next clear box I wrote.

{Modify date of death} another box appeared below my request.

{Please specify the day and year- along with the type of fatality you would like to take place}

‘How about soon you son of a b***h’ I heard myself say, ‘ And lets see, how about getting hit by a truck, that’s bound to hurt, well for a moment or two anyway but at least you’ll be dead’

I wrote it all in a frenzy of detestation then pushed the return command button hard with my index finger. ‘Just for fun, isn’t that right Pauline’ I whispered as the screen went blank.

Not long after the high I’d worked up with the adrenalin rush of hate soon dissipated and I came down with an almighty crash which left me mentally exhausted. I pulled the computers power plug from the socket and went into my bedroom falling face down onto my covers. Slowly I began to drift off into an uneasy sleep which was filled with the nightmarish images of Wendy’s twisted broken body. In my dream I am standing over her on a lonely road, rain is falling from dark gray skies filled with rolling thunder and running down my face in torrents. Blinding me, almost drowning me to the point I’m gasping for air. All around there is the acrid smell of gasoline and burning rubber and when I try to scream her name no sound will come. Then I hear a cell phone ring, its resonance is so remote, so distant I am unsure from which direction it’s coming, but it’s a sound I recognize. A familiar ring tone, it’s my own and it tears me from my nightmare back into the reality of my room.

The sun is up; it’s breaking in though the small gap in the curtains onto my wall and my mouth is dry from the previous nights wine. The phone vibrates again on the bedside cabinet like some out of control robotic insect impelling me to answer. I think about ignoring it briefly but decide it could be Pauline looking after my welfare, however when I do it’s not her but Gary Moore, and he’s talking so fast I can’t make out what he’s saying.

‘Calm down Mr. Moore’ I tell him ‘Now repeat slowly what you just said’

‘Woods is dead' He stammers. 'He was riding his bike on highway 91 just after midnight, from what the police said when they called me. According to an eye witness a semi coming in the opposite direction veered out of control and ploughed through the meridian. Woods never stood a chance, he went under its front wheels, decapitating him.’

I felt the skin on my forehead go tight with tension as I tried to take in what he was saying and for one fleeting thought I expected Moore in his next breath to ask why I did it, how I did it. But was it me, is that where the magic came from? and did I really commit a murder with an App?

‘I’m happy he’s dead Arthur don’t get me wrong' Moore goes on 'and I hope he’s burning in hell, but there’s just one thing I cant get my head round’

‘What would that be?’ I inquired but still I wasn’t ready for what he said next

‘It’s the strangest thing, from what the Police reported the truck driver blacked out just before he crashed into Woods, his tachometer showed he’d been driving for two days straight without sleep. They found him dead on the road after he crashed thorough his windshield and broke his neck. But this is where it gets weird, after looking at his driver’s license the cops discovered he had the same name and was born on the same day as Woods. I’m mean what are the chances of that happening’

From over my shoulder I heard the familiar buzz of a computer cooling fan, I looked over and swallowed hard, even though it was still unplugged from the power socket its screen was displaying a scrolling list of what seemed to be names. Hundreds were rolling by, of the few I read. There was Thomas A Woods from Abington Va, Thomas A Woods from Acton, MA, Thomas B Woods from Acron OH, on and on the list went in alphabetical order, people from all across the country. According to the computer they all had died in road accidents at precisely 12.01am, the very moment I entered my command.

It was now becoming clear what had happened, in my fog of hate I failed to use all the filter boxes which would have enabled me to single out Wendy’s killer in detail. Instead to ensure my submission was completed the Application disposed of everyone whose personal information matched.

I thanked Mr. Moore for letting me know about Woods and for some time sat in a subdued silence contemplating what I had done. Was it worth it, did all those innocent men need to die just so I could quench my thirst for revenge. The answer of course was no, but I began to think of the power I had at my disposal. What if in the future someone came along who threatened the world with war, or child murders, rapists, evil people who deserved to die but slipped through the system? I could rid humanity of them and no one would weep over their demise. I decided not to say anything to Dad and Nattie just like Pauline had said. What would be the point of them knowing, ignorance is bliss isn’t that what they say and for them it was the right thing to do. So for now I will hide my machine, place it somewhere secure and just watch and hope I don’t have to use it again soon.

Will Neill 6,873 words August 2017

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Author's Note

Its been a while since I posted anything on WC-I hope you enjoy this story.
Will (Please dont skip-I know its long )

Reviews

[Tegon Maus]

Good story Will... and yes, no matter how you cut it - its still murder even if they had it coming.

[Will Neill]

Thanks Tegon, glad you liked it. Hows Dearheart? say hi for me ok, take care.
Will