Timothy Zahn - Cascade Point

"Well... I guess so. You really think I should try for that accounting job?"

"Absolutely." She scanned the listing. "The one's up to thirty-two people; the others hit thirty now, Only six hours to go for each one, too—unless a bunch of people notice how empty they are you should have a good shot at making some money on either one." "How do you know about that six hours?" Charley asked, squinting at the screen.

She tapped a number with her pen. "Here's the closing date and time: May 8, 1700 hours. This column gives the opening date and time; this one's the job ID number; this one's the yearly salary; and here's the current number of people on the list. Now, what'll it be—one or both?"

Charley pursed his lips. After all, he was just looking for something to tide him over until he could get back with KDS. "I guess I'll sign up just on the shorter list."

"Okay." She showed him how to line up the display pointer on the proper job and then how to officially get on the list. "You've got two more chances coming to you. Any preferences?"

He chose two computer programming jobs that would also close at five that evening, ignoring her warning that with three hundred people already signed up for each one he had little hope of making any money from either of them. When he had finished, she showed him how to confirm he was properly registered by calling up his Secure Government Personal File and checking his newly acquired job list. "You can drop out of contention for any of the jobs at any time, by using the display pointer and 'cancel' key. And don't forget, once you've been out of work one to three weeks you can be on five lists at a time."

"Right." Charley made a mental note to find a quiet corner at the library later and read over all these regulations more carefully. "What do I do now?"

"Go home and wait, I guess," she shrugged. "If you've got a computer tie-in on your phone you'll be able to find out your standing on the lottery lists as soon as they close; otherwise, you can find out on the terminals downstairs. If you're high enough, the company'll contact you. If you're really low on the lists, you might as well drop out and sign up on a new list; you'll be automatically dropped as soon as the job is permanently filled, anyway. Any other questions?"

"Well... I guess not. Thanks for your help."

"Oh, no problem." She smiled brightly, shaking her head. "Imagine—thirtyfive whole years in the same job."

She was still clucking with amazement as she opened up her thin-screen again and settled back to watch.

—

It was almost lunchtime when Charley left the National Employment Office building, feeling something like a worn-out paper towel. Not really hungry yet, he decided it would be a good time to do some research on the lottery. A municipal lot was right around the corner, with a handful of the little in-town cars still available. Presenting his driver's-credit card to the attendant, he watched to make sure it was logged correctly into the computer and then drove out of the lot, heading for the nearest branch of the venerable Enoch Pratt Library. Traffic was brisk, but with the city-wide ban on internal combustion engines finally in effect, fighting the crowds was at least no longer a suffocatingly noisy task. Remembering the city of his youth, Charley's irritation at the government eased somewhat. Occasionally, their schemes made life a bit easier.

He emerged from the library about two hours later, slightly boggled at the number of laws and regulations the lottery had generated over the years and completely discouraged as to his chances of finding a loophole he could use. His one half-formed idea—that of setting himself up as a one-man "consulting firm" which KDS could exclusively retain—was scotched early in his reading, and he hadn't been able to come up with anything else that offered even a spark of hope. The National Employment Office had had two decades to close the loopholes, and they'd done a good job. Squinting up at the early-afternoon sun, Charley flipped a mental coin. Lunch lost; climbing into his car, he headed back to KDS.

Will Whitney was off somewhere when Charley arrived, but was expected back momentarily. "I'll wait," Charley told Whitney's secretary. "I haven't got much else to do."

"I heard," she said sympathetically. "We're all pretty upset about it. I hear the people in Programming are missing you already."

"Thanks," Charley grunted. "It's nice to be needed."

Whitney barreled through about ten minutes later. "Charley, hi; come on in," he called as he passed.

"I just stopped by to see if you had anything new," Charley said as he sat down across from Whitney's desk.

"Afraid not," Whitney said distractedly, shuffling through a mound of papers on his desk. "Damn GM chip's got a glitch in it Sanders can't find. Did you give me the preliminary stat sheet yet?"

"Last week," Charley told him. "Look, why don't I go and give Sanders a hand with the debugging?"

"Great. No—wait." Whitney looked up, frowning. "No, you'd better not. I mean, you're no longer on the payroll...." He trailed off.

"You don't need to pay me," Charley assured him. "Come on, Will—I want to help. Consider it a public service to keep my brain from atrophying."

"Believe me, I wish I could let you. But... I don't think we can risk it. If someone found out—I mean, there's no way we could prove I wasn't going to pay you under the table."

Charley sighed. "Yeah; and then blam goes a big government fine. I suppose you're right." He stood up awkwardly. "Well, then, I guess I might as well go on home."

"Okay." Whitney had found the paper he wanted. Clutching it, he headed for the door, his free hand sweeping Charley along with him. "Look, I'm still trying to get you back, so keep in touch, okay?"

"Right." Standing in the corridor, Charley watched his boss—his ex-boss— hurry away. Feeling vaguely as if he'd just lost part of his family, Charley turned and trudged toward the exit. A short time later, having turned in his car to the lot at the train station, he was on his way home.

At exactly 5:01 that evening he keyed his phones computer tie-in and, holding his breath, checked his standings. The list for the accounting position had swelled to one hundred seventy-six since he'd signed up; the computer job rosters hovered near the five-hundred mark. On none of them had he even made it above a hundred.

—

The next few days settled easily—too easily—into a dull routine. Each morning Charley headed into the city—cursing the fact that the job lottery wasn't accessible from home tie-ins—and fought the crowds at the National Employment Office building. After a few disappointing experiences with the high-paying jobs that attracted lots of applicants, he became adept at flipping through page after page of job listings, scanning for medium-paying ones that were being largely ignored. As a matter of pride, though, he made sure he was always listed for at least one computer-oriented job, even though they were generally long shots. Once signed up, his "work" was done for the day. At first he spent his new free time constructively: catching up on all the journals he'd been promising himself to read, working out at the fleeball courts, and carrying out needed maintenance on his condo. But as the days went by he found himself drifting from self-improvement toward self-indulgence. The trend didn't worry him particularly; sitting in front of his wall thin-screen, he told himself that things would be all right again once he was back at work.

And exactly one week after losing his job, a break finally came. Not the one he'd hoped for, but a break nevertheless.

—

The receptionist at Dundalk Electronics looked up as Charley came in. "May I help you?" she asked pleasantly.

"My name's Charles Addison; I'm here about the programmer job."