Chapter 11

On Sunday, December 17, the great 767 swept in to land again at Prague’s international airport. Although this time there was no formal greeting, the Sloans along with Karla were swept through immigration and customs. Barb particularly noted the very smart salutes everyone rendered to welcome Major Kosta home.

Although neither Maria nor Anna were at the airport to greet them, no one thought anything of it since they hadn’t known their arrival time until they were in the air. That was the middle of the night in the Czech Republic. While Steve and Barbara rode in the dark green Rolls limousine, to her delight Karla was told to drive the white Rolls convertible back to the hotel. Despite the early-winter cold, Karla put the top down so she could savor all the sights and smells of her home.

Knowing the roads better, she arrived at the Ritz ahead of the Sloans and raced up to the apartment. Although she still had her key, she knocked on the door and waited. While waiting, she looked around and whistled softly at what she saw. The entire penthouse elevator lobby had been redone. Now there was even a special elevator that had whisked her up. The elevator car was paneled in furniture-grade cherry and the paneling was continued in the penthouse lobby which was now beautifully decorated for Christmas.

When the door opened, she looked at Anna and Maria in their uniforms and softly whistled. Now they were utterly gorgeous! There was not the slightest trace of whip marks from their beatings. Both had deep tans and perfect figures. In an instant she had Maria in her arms and was melting her lips to hers.

“I’ve missed you so!” Maria whispered. “Welcome home, Princess!”

Then she did the same with Anna. In both cases their kisses were powerful — so powerful they would have killed a lesser person — and filled with love, joy and grace. So engrossed were they in one another that they hadn’t even entered the apartment when the elevator door opened with the Sloans inside. Again kisses were exchanged and finally they were all inside with the doors closed.

This time it was Barbara who let out a low whistle. The apartment had been totally redecorated and was as beautiful and homy as their apartment in Los Angeles. “This is utterly magnificent!” she exclaimed. “Did you two do this all yourselves?”

“We wish we had, Mistress,” Maria replied, “but we did not. A great deal of it — and most of the ideas and colors — came from Paula. But do you really like it?”

“I love it!” Barb exclaimed. After touring the apartment they went out on the terrace where Steve exclaimed over the evergreens, now sporting lights for Christmas, growing in large pots on the brand-new pool terrace. A few minutes later, Barb and Karla were naked and running out to try the pool. After doing laps, then sweating in the sauna, they jumped into the refrigerated pool beside the sauna door and raced shivering for the shower.

The girls wouldn’t allow them to leave without giving them both massages. Anna, working on Karla, exclaimed at how perfect the girl now was. The only marks showing on her body were the faintest lines remaining from her torture at the hands of the Russians. There were no marks at all from her whipping at Barbara’s hands. While the girls had been swimming, Steve had taken a nap.

Now the whole family gathered in the magnificent living room for drinks. Although it was early in the afternoon, since it was so close to the winter solstice and Prague was at 51 degrees north latitude, the day was very short, so it was already growing dark.

In honor of their return, the girls served Dom Pérignon with caviar. After drinking a toast and admiring each other, Steve said, “Okay, Slaves! Out with it! What have you two been doing?” While his wife and Karla had been preoccupied with their physical beauty, Steve had sensed an unease on Maria and Anna’s part from the very beginning. “You two look like little girls who’ve been caught with their hands in the cookie jar. Now out with it!”

“There’s hope for him yet!” Barb teased. “Who would have ever believed it? Steve... ? Being sensitive... ?” Then she instantly reverted to normal and added, “Thank you, my darling, for noticing.” Then with a little grin and a wink she stuck her nose in the air and said, “Of course, I would have noticed it, too ... in a week or two ... maybe.” Pretending to glare at the girls she said, “You heard your master. What have you two been doing?”

Anna left the room and came back a moment later with a stack of paper. It appeared to be a magazine, yet it was printed on the paper their printers used. When Steve raised a eye in an unspoken question, she said, “It’s the cover story from the next issue of PC Computing that will be on the newsstands Monday. It came to us over the Internet this morning.”

Steve was sitting on the sofa with Barb on his right. He motioned to Karla who took a seat at his left and the three started to read the material. Their eyes widened as they looked at what was obviously the cover of the upcoming issue. It said under the magazine’s logo, “Mayday: The finest software in history! Buy it!” Then in smaller type it said, “PC Computing tests the finest software ever developed by anyone for use on any computer!”

While still holding the papers closed he looked at the girls and said, “Mayday is yours, isn’t it?” The two girls just nodded sheepishly. “Another one of your little bitty applications?” he asked. Again the girls nodded, but with the tiniest smiles this time.

Turning the page he read, “‘The First Test of the World’s Most Remarkable Software’, by Dan Carter.” His eyes — and Barb’s and Karla’s as well — widened as they read the incredible story:

I got my first copy of Mayday about a month ago. The only instructions were to install it in a Windows 95-equipped machine and wait a week or so. Being the guy I am, I installed it, left the machine up, and checked it in the morning. What had happened? Not much. Of course I had about three times the available disk space I had had when I left it the night before. A couple of aggravating — and constant — software conflicts weren’t there anymore. The machine seemed to run about three times faster than it ever had before. But aside from that, there wasn’t much to say about this software. It’s sort of the standard stuff you get whenever you load new software. [Not!]

Then I started to use it. At this point in the article I was going to say that the damned thing can do anything short of making coffee in the morning. I was going to say it, too. But when I typed the words, up popped a little box in the corner of my display giving full instructions on how to set the computer up to make coffee. But then, of course, it ended with the question, “But if you would rather, sir, I could do it for you.” And it did. In about half a second. So now my computer has my coffee ready for me in the morning ... usually.

What I mean by that is that it’s usually morning. But, for example, the other night when Nancy, my significant other, and I had a particularly active night in bed together, I didn’t get up until noon. I go out to the computer — it’s never shut down now — and find the coffee was just finishing. George — the name I’ve given to Mayday and to which he now answers — had made a timing adjustment so the coffee would be neither stale nor cold. (For the women in our reading public, please don’t think I’m being sexist, or George is. Betsy — Nancy’s copy of Mayday — is very feminine. It used to address her as “ma’am,” but now, since Betsy is her friend, adviser, and confidante, it’s become Nan and Bets.)

What’s George done for me? Not a whole helluva lot. Of course, Nancy and I are getting married (finally) next weekend. (Our two computers are hooked together for communications, of course.) When I told George we were getting married, he congratulated me. Verbally. He uses the computer’s sound system to talk, but I guess you had already figured that out. Then he said that he was so happy because he and Betsy were very close.

At that point I checked the “About Mayday” box and found that he and Betsy were only a single digit apart in their serial numbers so I guess they always have been close. Literally. But I found out something else. You know how the “About” file gives the copyright date, the version number, and that sort of good stuff? Well, Mayday’s does, too. But it does something else. It displays a photo of two of the most beautiful girls in the world, leaning against each other’s back, wearing the tiniest white bikinis you’ve ever seen. It says, “Maria and Anna, the creators of Mayday.”

But when I went to print the picture, nothing happened. And there was no way I could make anything happen. (George said that it was just the way it was.) However, it did say that I could get a poster-sized full-color duplicate if I sent $10 to a post office box in Prague, or $50 for a hand-signed copy. Since I’m getting married, I have to save my money, so I only sent $10. But I’m counting on meeting the girls at COMDEX in Las Vegas in January. Why am I counting on meeting them? Because they’re going to be there to receive the award for the finest software of the decade, is why. (And Nancy and I will be honeymooning there, too.)

At this point Steve stopped reading and said, “The picture? May we see it?” Both girls got off the floor where they had been sitting and went to the office. Returning they had a rolled-up paper that Anna passed to Steve as if she were giving him a bomb.

Unrolling it, Steve’s eyes widened and he let out a low whistle. The two girls were utterly exquisite. “You look so gorgeously regal,” he commented. “Hon, what do you and Karla think?”

“It’s not polite to whistle, or I would, too, is what I think,” Barb replied. Then she asked, “Are you really getting any orders?”

Grimacing, Maria replied, “We picked up about 300 from the post office—”

“That’s neat!” Barb exclaimed.

“— this morning,” Maria concluded. “Most are for the $50 one and Anna and I are sort of getting tired signing our names.” Then she brightened and added, “But we’ve set up a special bank account for you, Mistress, and it’s growing fast!”

“For me?” Barbara exclaimed. “What, on earth, for?”

“Because we are your slaves,” Anna replied simply. “This is for you. After all, Mistress, a slave may not own anything.”

Steve murmured, “My God! What incredible genius!” Returning to the article, they continued to read:

Incidentally, Mayday is from Noble Software, a subsidiary of Kendy Company (whatever the hell that is!). It’s the same house — and these are the same girls — who produced Helper which is taking the computer world by storm. These girls have come up with two of the greatest pieces of software in the world in less than six months! It’s certainly fair to say they’re the very best in the world.

At least that’s what Bill Gates said when I spoke to him for this article. And Gates indicated he is waiting with bated breath to meet them, too. Since I never said a word to Bill Gates on this subject, I’m free to speculate. On the basis of my pure speculation, I believe Bill Gates would sign over a substantial fraction of the total stock of Microsoft Corporation to those girls if they would be willing to join his company. And needless to say, beyond the stock, they could have absolutely anything they wanted.

I wondered about the name, Mayday. After all, it is the international radio distress call. But a colleague pointed out that Mayday is the phonetic pronunciation of the French, M’aidez, or “help me.” Well, I’m here to tell you that Mayday sure as hell will help you!

But what else can George do? Well, he monitors the whole system and keeps it running. What do I mean? One morning I was working and George told me to shut down my application at once. There was a major problem on my “C” drive. I did, and a moment later George had activated Norton’s Disk Doctor. Now Disk Doctor is a super piece of software, but it takes a good deal of time to run, particularly on a giant hard drive like mine. With George? Naah! He directed Disk Doctor to a particular sector where the utility found a sector going bad. It moved the files that were about to be affected, then shut down after permanently marking the sector as bad.

What else? Well, on another morning George told me that my second hard drive was about to die. He had already relocated all the data files to the main drive. Did he stop there? Of course not! He had a list of replacement suppliers, with the best vendor circled. When I agreed, he wired in an order and charged it to my credit card.

More? Nancy used to complain about being, like so many female computer nerds, big hipped, heavy-thighed, and flat chested. I don’t know if it was ever true, but it’s certainly not true now. I freely admit — and so would she — that she’s not in the same league with Anna or Maria, but on the other hand, I don’t share my bed with them. (That’s another thing. More in a moment.) In just the month or so that George and Betsy have been with us, she’s lost inches around her hips and thighs and added inches — and wonderful firmness — to her chest. She admits she would have been a bra burner before but needed the support. Now she doesn’t have the attitudes anymore, or the bras either.

“What did you put in that software?” Karla demanded. “What are you doing?”

Wide-eyed, Anna replied, “Only the things our mistress has taught us. We sort of thought we could help someone. Or something...”

I mentioned a bed, didn’t I? I think it was Betsy, but I’m not really sure. Anyway, Nancy and I were told in no uncertain terms to get a new mattress and box spring. It was to ensure that our bedroom exercise didn’t cause back problems. Anyway, we did, and have been sleeping like babies ever since.

More? Well, although my editors often disagree on this point, I am a professional writer. And I’m addicted to WordPerfect. As many of you know, it has a grammar checker that, as far as it goes, is pretty good. But it’s not nearly good enough for George. Now it changes repetitions, poor phraseology — everything. And it never gives erroneous messages anymore, like incomplete quotes when you’re looking at a pair.

In connection with WordPerfect — and other software — George claims to do something that no utility can do: he cleans up corrupted data files. I can’t say for sure, but I do know I’ve never had to rewrite something because the printer couldn’t read a file. However, being honest, I have to take George’s word on this one.

How does Mayday work? I have no idea. Moreover, none of the techies in the shop know, either. In fact, they tell me it’s the most remarkable software they’ve ever seen. For openers, once installed, they can’t find it. They literally cannot find it in the computer. They’ve looked over the software disks, and the program is there, although in a language they can’t read. But once installed, it just seems to disappear. Maybe it buries itself in Windows 95. It’s possible, I suppose. But you know how much room on your hard drive Windows 95 takes up? And software like Perfect Office? Now they take up about one-third the space they used to, and run faster, better, and with never a conflict. Maybe Mayday is hiding, but it’s shrinking its world while it does.

What does it do? How does it do it? No one knows! The experts (?) insist that it is the most sophisticated software ever written based on direct observations of what it does. But they can’t even read the damned code! They have no idea what programming language the girls are using, but whatever it is, it works! Good grief, does it ever work! The two girls are true geniuses, and now they’re undoubtedly very rich geniuses!

To that point, we learned that all the Mayday-equipped computers work together somehow, in a private after-hours network of computers talking with other computers with no human action or intervention. It’s a worldwide link among all of these computers that have communications access. How do they link? No one has a clue. But you’ll never see a thing on a phone bill, either, yet we know they routinely link worldwide.

There is one top-priority for them all, you see. Every single one of them is on the lookout for a guy good enough for their creators. When I ask George about them, he just says they’re perfect. That’s all. Just perfect! Betsy? She sighs and says she gets all warm and snugly just thinking about them. So if you’re brilliant, athletic, handsome, and rich, buy Mayday. If you’re incredibly lucky, you might pass their internal screen and be put in touch with Anna or Maria.

Security! I almost forgot. One day I hit two keys on Nancy’s machine. Honest to God, just two crummy keys! Instantly the screen blacks out — not even the “Start” icon showing — and Betsy announces, “Dan, you have your own damned machine. Now use it! And keep your grubby paws off Nan’s computer. (But please keep them on Nancy. She loves your touch on her body ... everywhere!) Now goodbye!” Only two damned keys but she knew I wasn’t Nancy. But it’s okay. George won’t let Nan touch my computer, either.

Oh, I nearly forgot. I’ve lost pounds and inches, too. That was George. Nancy loves me because I’m always so thoughtfully sending her little gifts. They arrive by FedEx or UPS Air, and almost always from the Czech Republic. They always come with a neat little note thanking her for something very intimate she did for me. (It’s George, of course. Complete to writing the accompanying note!) Of course, I’m tiring a little because Nancy loves to thank me with her legs spread wide, if you understand what I mean. George orders the gifts and charges them to one of my credit cards.

Where does he find out about the little gift items? (They’re all utterly incredible on a price-to-value scale, too.) I guess he gets some from the Internet, but I really think some of the stuff is actually in the software. And, as I said, it’s definitely Czech software. There’s obviously a soft spot in its silicon heart for its mother country. But as I said, the price is always right, and in every case the gift is both classy and very different.

I guess the gift business is Anna and Maria’s gift to the economy of their native land. Aside from their royalties that have to be rolling in with the volume and inevitability of the tide, that is! I’m a writer, not a businessman, but there’s one thing I do know: Mayday will outsell every software title in history, and might sell as many copies as all other software titles combined! There’s just not enough good I can say about it, even with the assistance of George and the thesaurus.

That’s another thing: There have been a few intimate things that interested me, but not Nancy. Now she’ll try anything. And you know something else I found out? Some of these repressed female computer geeks have simply amazing daydreams, so look out! (By the way — and in consultation with George who, in turn, consulted with Betsy, so it’s all right) on a scale of 1 to 10, Nance has gone from about a 3 to a 9.75. And coupled with her vivid imagination... !)

A few days ago, I looked in my color printer and found a sheet of paper for me. On it was a perfect full-color likeness of Nancy, bare, and on her hands and knees with her back to me, looking over her shoulder. Get the picture? Anyway, she’s saying, “Darling, it was even better for me than it was for you. I’m so glad! When can we do it again?” I thought it was a photograph but found out it was a drawing Betsy made using CorelDRAW 7.

It should go without saying that George and Betsy can operate any of our software far better than either of us. So Betsy not only produces recipes, she prints out our shopping lists. She keeps track of what we like and don’t like. And she coaches Nancy, so she’s now a stupendous cook. All I can say is our life together has never been better.

Oh, yes. Another thing. It seems like both George and Betsy believe in God. The two of them started nearly kicking us out of apartment on Sunday to go to church. (They wouldn’t even allow the computers to boot up until we did!) And I guess that contributed to our decision to get married. Right now Nance is wearing an engagement ring that George ordered with Betsy’s help. Nancy adores it. And adores them.

Another point: children. Friends of ours have a four-year-old named Bobby. Bobby loves to play with the computer. Now with Mayday, the computer really plays with him. First of all, the instant he touches the keys, the computer does two things: First, it says, “Hi, Bobby! Do you want to play?” Simultaneously, it locks up everything else, so Bobby can’t get into, or in any way harm, anything else on the machine. Mayday only lets him into software that it selects as being appropriate for him. It plays with him, and it educates him. The damned thing is uncanny! I’ve heard it say, “Yesterday, we went to Africa, Bobby, and studied the elephants. How about going to India today and looking at Asian elephants?” And off they go on an adventure, with Bobby actively participating every step of the way.

Any more? After about 45 minutes the computer says, “You’ve been here for 45 minutes, Bobby. You should find Jimmy (the boy next door) and play on the swings.” Then it shuts down the computer while Bobby goes off to get Jimmy. It won’t allow the little boy to get glassy eyed starting at the CRT. Now his parents are almost certain that they’ll home-school Bobby. It was an idea they had had, but previously rejected as impractical. With Mayday it now seems not only practical, but very easy.

Another point: singles. There’s a guy in the office who’s a career loser. He couldn’t get a date if his life depended on it. Mayday to the rescue! Like all the rest of us who have it, he never turns off his computer. Now, when he checks it in the morning, there’s a list of names and E-mail addresses of girls he might like and who might like him. Yesterday, he was glowing. He just met Pam, a girl who works in the same office building. I can see their copies of Mayday working with them the way George and Betsy do with us.

The last word? If there’s anything Mayday can’t do, it can’t be worth doing. As I write this, the price is a suggested retail of $69. That’s a price that usually results in a street price of less than $50. With Mayday? Hah! Our advertising people tell me there are ads in this issue for Mayday. We have Mayday, the ads, say, at only $100 — plus shipping, etc. It’s clear to me that the mail-order boys know a winner when they see one. This is a solid-gold winner. It is the finest software in the whole world! Buy it! Right now!