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eBook Category: Science Fiction AnLab Award Runner-up
eBook Description: There's a settlement down under Crater Billy, and it's home to some five hundred souls who all have one thing in common: they are abnotechs, people who by their very nature cause all devices in their immediate vicinity to break down, malfunction, spin out of control, or just plain die. These people have not been banished there, instead they spend their difficult and sometimes dangerous lives as product safety testers. Dave is Chief Safety Officer in this chaotic enclave, and his life is already difficult enough when Crater Billy is sent a new nanotech-based airlock to test. His sometimes girlfriend Gloria, who is also Chief Testing Officer, is eager to begin testing it. Dave sees nothing but danger and doom, and does his best to devise a test which will let it fail--as he is sure it will do because all devices fail eventually around abnotechs--without killing anyone. The testing goes well for a time, until a failure in some totally unrelated device causes a situation where the life of a young girl is on the line.

eBook Publisher: Fictionwise.com, Published: Analog, 1995
Fictionwise Release Date: October 2002

69 Reader Ratings: Great Good OK Poor

Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [154 KB], eReader (PDB) [57 KB], Palm Doc (PDB) [46 KB], Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [42 KB], Microsoft Reader (LIT) [85 KB] - PocketPC 1.0+ Compatible, Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [115 KB], hiebook (KML) [127 KB], Sony Reader (LRF) [77 KB], iSilo (PDB) [38 KB], Mobipocket (PRC) [48 KB], Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [75 KB], OEBFF Format (IMP) [66 KB]
Words: 13431
Reading time: 38-53 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Format:  Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud DISABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED

It began with the office routine of Binkovitch telling me, "C'mon, Dave, this baby's absolutely foolproof."

Then the schmuck laughed at this several hundredth-odd iteration of a joke that was stump stupid the first time he told it. As usual, that aggravating, annoying, sludgeforbrains haw! haw! haw! made me wish I could reach through the commscreen and whack him one on the top of his pointy head. Preferably with something like a nice big hammer in my hand.

Once again I vowed to actually take one of my unused leaves, venture the hundreds of klicks north to Copernicus Down, visit the UN level, casually drop by UNNTSTOA's section, pop into his office for our first face to face ever, and proceed to beat the living crap out of him. Since I had no plans to ever risk the ride back to Earth and then visit some tropical paradise like Tahiti, that was--and is--my dream vacation.

I took another look at the invoice inset at the bottom of the screen under Binkovitch's ugly ferret face. Half a dozen different new items were listed, but one in particular was giving me the sort of sinking feeling the mammoths must have felt when they visited sunny La Brea.

"Well, at least it was manufactured by Mercedes-Motorola Microwerks," I said, trying to slow my mood's descent into the tarpit. "Their stuff hardly ever goes screwlzy."

"Hardly ever," Binkovitch agreed with an evil grin.

As Chief Safety Officer I had theoretical refusal of any item. But the priority tag the thing carried suggested that trying to navigate the bureaucratic maze it took to do so might be a Voyage of No Return. Aside from that, as CSO it was my job to have those bad feelings--and then translate them into safe testing protocols. My recurring ulcer and chronic insomnia were just fringe benefits.

I sighed. "So when's it coming?" I was still clinging hopefully to my one fallback position. Maybe I could stall it in the manufacturer's own testing department for a while longer.

Binkovitch's grin grew even more hatefully gleeful. "Your Chief of Testing took delivery on it about twenty minutes ago."

There was no way for me to avoid dealing with the damned thing. Not if Gloria already had her hands on it.