Futures : A hypertext short story

4C: Equivalence

Ten fifty-pence pieces were stacked precisely one on top of the other with their sides aligned at his Output Gate. Success brought a measure of clarification. He had been expecting to conjure up one or more Ł5 notes, but the sum of money placed across the Comparator Gate was indeed just a symbol.
   The presence of ten fifty-pence pieces at the Output Gate had to be significant and it looked as though the proper time to use his psionic amplifier was last thing at night, when his conscious mind was tired out and less likely to clutter up a communicating blend of left and right brain hemispheres with irrelevant observations.
   Later in the day, while swatting an annoying fly, he noticed a curious hole in the window pane. It was more of a slot, really neat and clean with perfectly straight edges. It looked as though it had been formed as part of a manufacturing process. He looked out a ruler and measured it. The slot was about an eighth of an inch wide and an inch and a quarter high. Curiously, the slot wasn't quite vertical.
   A protractor, which had been gathering dust for years, told him that the slot was inclined at an angle of about seventeen degrees to the vertical. For want of a better solution, he stuck a strip of clear plastic tape over the slot to keep out draughts.
   The idea of replacing the entire pane of glass just for the sake of such a small, clean hole seemed outrageous. He made a mental note to see if he could find a suitable transparent filling material the next time he went shopping. As to what had made the hole, or when it had been made, that was a baffling and annoying puzzle, and a distraction.
   No solution to the problem of a permanent repair for his slotted window popped into Michael Darnby's subconscious during the day. As he drew the abstract-patterned curtains on the blackness of another night, complete replacement seemed the only answer.
   The psionic amplifier and his headphones were set out on the table, ready for his next experiment. Following the routine, he placed a folded Ł10 note on the Comparator Gate, touched the Input Gate with his index fingers and concentrated on trawling with closed eyes and blocked ears.
   A muffled, ringing, plinking noise penetrated his ear- muffs. He opened his eyes abruptly; to see a stack of fifty-pence pieces on the Output Gate of the amplifier.
   Success! he thought, forgetting about the headphone-muffled plinking noise. On with Phase Two!
   He had used his credit card to draw one-hundred pounds from his bank that morning. He had been sensible enough to join a bank that had opted for Saturday-morning opening at selected branches. Offering a vote of thanks to an enlightened bank, he placed the wad of notes across the Comparator Gate.
   He handled the money with exaggerated care, knowing that it was not his to spend. It was his emergency reserve and it had to go back into the savings account as quickly as possible. Wondering how much one-hundred pounds in fifty-pees weighed, Darnby prepared to find out...

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