Cascade Point

"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, sca

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."

"Down the hall, second door on the right," she said, her voice noticeably cooler.

"Thank you." Wondering what he'd said, Charley left the room and headed down the corridor.

The sign on the door said Employment Office, and the young man behind the anteroom desk had the busy look of a man clawing his way up the corporate ladder. "Yes?" he said as Charley stepped up. "Name, please?"

"Charles Addison. I was called yesterday—"

"Right." The junior exec took a piece of paper from a stack beside him and handed it over. "Sign it and you can have your chit."

Frowning, Charley took it and read the first paragraph. It was a contract stating that he was withdrawing from the lottery for job #442-0761-3228-764 in exchange for a cash payment. "I think there's been a mistake," he said. "I'm here about the programmer job."

The other looked up, mild irritation on his face. "And there's your release. Sign it and you'll get your money."

"But I don't want any moneys—I want the job."

The younger man stared up at him in disbelief. "What are you trying to pull?" he demanded.

"Nothing. But I'm number eight in the lottery and I'm qualified for the job, so I'd like to take a shot at it."

"But—" the other sputtered. "You can't; we've already hired the woman we wanted."

"Then why did you call me? Wait a minute. What was her lottery number?" Anger was begi

The junior exec hesitated, then took refuge in his intercom. "Mr. Girard; there's someone here I think you'd better see."

A moment later the i

"This man refuses to sign the lottery release," his subordinate said, pointing at Charley.

Girard's eyebrows rose fractionally. "Is that true, Mr.—?"

"Addison; Charles Addison. Yes, it is. I've worked in computers since I was twenty-three, and I want to take this job."

"I see. Would you step into my office, please?" Charley followed him inside, sat down in the proffered seat. "Now, Mr. Addison," Girard said, perching on a corner of his desk, "I'm sure you understand the computer industry these days; how fast things are changing and all. I don't doubt that you're an excellent worker, but we need someone fresh from the leading edge of research in the field."