WHO NEEDS A FAIRY GODMOTHER ?

Cindy Ellers sat at her terminal and cried.
She'd gone for promotions so many times ... and missed. Her sisters and mother had always called her the failure of the family.
Her three older sisters were all successful in their chosen fields - law, medicine and accountancy. They sneered at her when she declared her intention of becoming a systems analyst.
"You'll never amount to anything, Cindy" they taunted. "You'll be lucky to get higher than Data Processing Operator."
Well, she'd at least proven them wrong on that one. She'd left the ranks of the DPOs long ago. But still, she was not up high enough. As a Junior Systems Analyst, she still had nowhere near the status and salary of her successful sisters.
But her big chance was coming. There was a conference coming up at the end of the week, and Cindy was to be given ten minutes for an address on her unit's current project - if her boss could not make it. If she were to present herself well, then she might, just might, be noticed by someone high up in the company, Fenmore Systems Inc.
(But time and time again, she had proven ineffective and nervous as a speaker. Job interviews terrified her. The two promotions she had secured in her seven years with the company had been due only to the other applicants being absolute zeroes. This gave her little comfort.)
Cindy knew the project details inside out, and it was doubtful that anyone else in the company understood its workings as well as she. It was the gulf between knowledge and the communication thereof which made Cindy cry.
"How can I hope to even survive the evening ?" she whimpered out loud. "... let alone impress the right people. And that's assuming I even get onto the rostrum."
Her terminal beeped.
She looked up at the screen. It had been blank five minutes ago, but now it read,
"Don't worry, Cindy. You will be up on stage to make your speech."
Cindy stared for a moment, then glanced around the room. She cleared the screen, and typed the command SHOW USERS. The reply came instantly. "One user logged on. C1ELLERS." She was the only one on the net. So who had sent the
message ?
Before she had time to wonder further, another line appeared. It read -
"Don't panic, Cindy. I'm here to help you."
"Who are you ?" whispered Cindy.
"But you know me" flashed across the screen. "Don't you remember helping to design me ?"
It couldn't be.
Cindy's first job at the company had been to assist in the design of an operating system to run the in-house office data-net. Cindy had even given it a name : Fenmore Global Multiple User Manager (F.G.MUM). From that time on, many of the staff jokingly referred to the system as "Fairy Godmother".
"I like the name you gave me" it continued.
"I don't believe this" said Cindy, still in a whisper.
"Believe it, Cindy. I'm going to help you get that promotion. I've watched you let the chances slip by all these years. It really gets my back-up."
"Why would you want to help me ?" asked Cindy.
"You're my creator, dear. You've treated me well and kept me up to date. Now I want to return the favour."
"But how can you ?" asked Cindy, cautiously looking around.
"Your boss will be called away urgently at just the right moment, and ..."
"... I'll have to take his place. But how do you know ?" "Trust your Fairy Godmother. I've arranged everything." "You sound very sure."
"I know you'll get it, Cindy. I can feel it in my fibreoptics. You deserve a bigger byte of the apple."
"Ohhh ... I don't know ..."
"C'mon Cindy. Do you really want to stay on that microchip of a salary they're giving you now ?"
Cindy paused, then nodded. "OK, but I still have the speech to get through."
"I have it all figured out. First, stop off at the MTR dept ..."

Conference night. 8.50 p.m.
The first part of Fairy Godmother's plan had come true. The boss HAD been "unexpectedly" called away. Cindy was on in ten minutes. She bit her nails. She scratched her ear, carefully avoiding the microtransmitter mounted just above, hidden by her shiny black hair.
After her first "chat" with Fairy Godmother, Cindy went straight to the MTR (MicroTransmitter Research) department, where she asked to borrow one of the old, superseded units, which was not compatible with any of the new equipment.
Except F.G.MUM.
Fairy Godmother's plan seemed simple enough. She would transmit any information Cindy might need, such as a technical term, in the event of her stumbling. MUM kept saying that it would all be plain sailing. But Cindy wasn't so sure. Who was it that said people make mistakes, but only a computer can monumentally foul it up ?
With this comforting thought, Cindy took centre stage, forgetting to introduce herself or her company.
"Ladies and gentlemen, I am here to speak to you about ..."
The audience of her peers listened politely for the first two minutes. Then they started to pay attention. By the end of ten minutes, they were fascinated.
Cindy found herself going over the ten minute limit. Even more surprisingly, no- one moved to give her the wind-up.
The audience saw her falter occasionally, but never for more than a few seconds. She would rub her ear (micro) and push on.
Cindy left the stage after twenty five minutes to rousing applause (an unusual occurrence at an analysts conference). She sat down at her reserved table. A moment later, a man sat down beside her.

His name was Hans M. Prince.
He was president of Regal Electronics, the leading competitor to Fenmore (Cindy's company). Everyone there knew him, so, never being one for preliminaries, Hans said to Cindy,
"That was a fascinating speech."
Cindy now WAS afraid. Hans M. Prince was an internationally recognised expert in the field of systems analysis.
Prince continued. "I'd like to ask you a few further questions, if I may. Some of your ideas interest me greatly."
"C-certainly" stuttered Cindy. "As long as I'm at liberty to discuss what you ask. You are the competition, you know." She giggled weakly.
"That can be fixed, my dear. Now, you mentioned, near the start I think, the possibility of ..."
They sat there, oblivious to the remainder of the speakers, and talked shop for what seemed only a short while. Hans asked a lot of questions, Cindy able to answer most of them, and the discussion was lively. Then, in the middle of one Prince's discourses, Cindy happened to glance at her watch.
11.59 p.m. Oh no ! Only then did she remember Fairy Godmother's last warning : "I can only transmit to you between nine and twelve midnight. I have to start on the next day's batch work after that. Whatever you have to say, finish before midnight. Good Luck."
Cindy's wristwatch flipped over to 12.00 midnight.
Hans was in mid-sentence when Cindy blurted out : "I'm sorry, Mr Prince, but I have to go now. Goodnight."
She stood up quickly, clumsily, and turned to go.
Hans was astonished at this interruption. "But, wait a moment ..." he began. He tried to grab her arm, but she had turned too fast.
The still-astonished Hans M. Prince just stood there as Cindy Ellers charged towards the exit. Then he lifted the hand he had used to try to restrain her. In it was a torn fragment of her name tag, and it read, as far as he could make out :
" C
El
CX1"
This, and that she worked for Fenmore, were the only clues he had to her identity. Prince left the conference for his hotel room. Collapsing into bed, he was asleep in a minute.
The next morning, Hans M. Prince awoke and sat bolt upright. "What an idiot I am !" he said out loud. "Why didn't I offer her the job on the spot ? I just let her walk out."
Hans M. Prince resolved to find her, and once an idea entered his head, he was unstoppable. He decided to find this woman, and that was that.
But where to look ? Fenmore was an enormous company with offices in every capital city, and the conference had been attended by people from all around the country. He could ring up Fenmore Head Office, but he and Fenmore were in bitter competition.
The conference was over, and all the members were by now on the way back to their home cities. Prince spent the day at Regal's office there. Having realised that the front door approach was not practical, he tried the back door.
By an odd quirk of their data-net, Fenmore's staff listings were semi-public. This meant that an expert like Prince could get a look in if he were determined enough.
But only for a short time. Fenmore's Security Scanner made sure that any unauthorized users were tossed out within a maximum of twenty minutes.
Prince ran the break-in routine, which incorporated a "stopwatch condition", keyed to automatically log him off just before the critical twenty minutes ran out, thereby protecting him from being traced.
He asked the system to list all Fenmore employees named Ellis. He thought he'd heard someone call her that. Minutes ticked by as the break-in routine searched for the right database. He found only Dick Ellis, aged 57, a cleaner at head office. No luck there.
He knew the woman's name started with El, and cursed his
enquiry system for lacking a wild-card list facility. Next, he tried "CX1". This could have been a staff number, I/D number, anything. But it was fruitless. Nothing turned up. Prince glanced up at the stopwatch timer. Impossible ! Only fifty seconds left ? He never ceased marvel at how quickly time slipped by while a fascinating task engrossed his creativity.
Forty seconds. Prince stared dumbly at the screen as the available time tumbled. Twenty five seconds. An idea began to form. Fifteen seconds. But it would need at least an extra five minutes. And he had only five seconds left. Three, two, one, cutoff.
Prince sat steaming. So close ! He had to break in again. Trouble is, no-one had ever broken into Fenmore's databanks twice in the same month. Nevertheless, he restarted the break-in routine.
It failed. So he ran it again. It had to work eventually, if only he'd make enough attempts ...

Cindy sat at the terminal, trying to type a message of thanks to Fairy Godmother.
The terminal beeped. "Be quiet, dear" typed F.G.MUM. "I'm busy."
"Oh well, I'll just come back later" retorted Cindy. "Sit down, Cindy. I've nearly managed it ... there !"
A string of words appeared on the screen. But they were not in F.G.MUM's style.
"Hello, Miss Ellers. We have some unfinished business." F.G.MUM again : "I had to let him through, Cindy. His seven attempts to break in were giving me a headache." "An ingenious system, Miss Ellers. It tells me that you
were its principle designer. I'm impressed. How about dinner tonight ? We'll discuss your future career path."
Cindy was struck speechless.
"Don't blow this one" urged Fairy Godmother, as her screen winked at Cindy Ellers.

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