Eric worked for a large computer corporation, one of the more prodigious names of the 1980s, second only to their big competitor whom they sometimes referred to as 'Inferior But Marketable'. While their business of selling few larger minicomputers would ultimately run dry as they failed to adapt to the new world of many smaller desktop machines, that time had not yet arrived.
Eric, blissfully unaware of what was to come, worked as a field technician. Today he had been sent out to see a client in an industrial estate somewhere around Newport.
As he approached it, he noticed a curiously derelict air to the building, although the same could be said for many other buildings in the estate, and there was certainly a light on in the reception.
It didn't seem to be a particularly large office, though... perhaps the number of terminals in the customer database was wrong. Most likely it had listed the entire organisation's installation rather than just the units in this local branch.
As he parked and entered the building, he was greeted by a rather bored-looking receptionist. "Mr. Peterson will see you shortly," she said. "If you'd like to take a seat..."
Eric did so, and his feeling of unease increased as he noticed that the building was quiet and empty. Very quiet and very empty.
S&I Limited, he thought. I wonder what they do?
A few moments later the pallid figure of a man strode through the door, and shook his hand warmly. "Mr. Dalton, I believe?" he said, "follow me, please."
As he led the way, Eric heard a noise and glanced behind him. Turning back, he saw the receptionist turn off the light and walk to the front door, locking it with a loud 'clunk'. Oh my God... he thought, but the worst was yet to come.
Turning a corner they entered an empty room. "Where's the VAX?" asked Eric.
"It's just through here," said Peterson, opening a door into a room so brightly-lit that Eric had to shield his eyes. He couldn't make out any internal details in the room at all. Turning around, he could see the receptionist following behind them.
"Come along," said Peterson, and the three of them stepped into the room.
There was a very strange sensation, and when Eric opened his eyes again, he saw a corridor decorated in pastel shades. What the hell? he thought, and turned to look at the room where they had come from. But it wasn't there.
Peterson led him into the machine room, where a VAX 11/785 stood purring away to itself. There were a pair of 9-track tape drives, a number of disk packs and he could faintly hear a lineprinter in an adjacent room.
The CPU module had the words "Property of the Succubus and Incubus Academy" etched into it by some curious means that Eric could not immediately determine.
"I should have asked you before," said Peterson. "But you do know why you're here, right? A couple of dead terminals, and I'd like the VAX upgraded to two hundred and fifty-six megabytes."
"Uh, yes..." mumbled Eric, "I.. I might have to get some of the parts from my van.."
"Damn," said Peterson. "Ah well. Check the terminals out first, then."
He gestured to a stack of three VT100 terminals, and Eric, in a desperate bid to take his mind off the strangeness and the horrible notion that they were most likely going to kill him as soon he had finished, forced himself to examine them.
Mr. Peterson stood back, watching what he did with an intent gaze. It was a curious thing, the circuitry was quite dusty for a machine that couldn't have been more than about six years old. Indeed, one of the terminals had failed because an electrolytic had dried up, and that usually took more than a decade.
Furthermore, there was an abundance of what appeared to be hairs. Now that he noticed it there were quite a few of them caught in the tiled carpet floor as well.
"Do you keep dogs in the computer rooms or something?" he asked. Peterson seemed to be rather taken aback by that question, but he answered almost immediately. The funny thing was that Eric couldn't quite remember what he actually said, but it made perfect sense at the time.
When the third terminal was dismantled, the door suddenly burst open and a figure entered, with the words "Hey Yakob, where did you put the..." followed by a scream of fear. No, two screams... Eric and the thing.
It was a tall cat-monster with wings coming out of its head. It looked at him with an expression of sheer terror, and backed against the wall.
"NO, Ashley!" yelled Peterson. "Did you not get the memo? I cordoned this area off to try and prevent this from happening! Human form ONLY until the upgrade is completed!"
Eric had never believed in demons before, although after his experiences on this callout so far, it made a warped kind of sense.
As he looked back at Mr. Peterson, he suddenly noticed that he had grown a tail. Peterson looked at him in alarm, and made a curious gesture. Then everything went dark.
"I'm sorry it had to be like this," I said gently to Eric as he came to. "I really was hoping we could do everything in human form, like the original installation. It was for your own comfort, really."
I looked into his mind, feeling his thoughts as his eyes focused upon me, seeing a wolf-like creature with a small pair of wings on its head (my head) and a large pair protruding from my back like some kind of twisted angel - or so it seemed to Eric. From my voyages into the human realm I knew that the human conception of Angels, Demons and Incubi came with rather different connotations than to someone who had been born and raised in Furrae.
I was wearing in the same kind of clothes that I had worn in my human form, mainly to give Eric something to latch onto. I had been forced to change the top though, because of my wings.
Behind me, Eric saw the other creature - the one with the lynx ears, was looking down at him worriedly.
"Please excuse me," said Ashley. "I thought we were going to do this next week. I have heard of humans, but I've never actually seen one. They are considered to be a dangerous mythical creature in our world."
"Your world? Where am I? And what are you?"
I briefly considered the pro's and con's of erasing his memory, but it was probably too far gone by now.
"'I mean you no harm' has always sounded rather trite to me," I said, "But on this occasion it is true. And before you ask, no, you are not in Hell.
You are in another plane, upon a world we call 'Furrae', which is lamentably behind yours when it comes to technological matters.
Hence, when I decided that the Being Technology department of our university required a computer system, rather than design my own I opted to purchase one from Digital Research Intergalactic - whom I chose on the grounds that they already had some experience dealing with extraterrestrials."
"That's not us. We are Digital Equipment Corporation."
"Indeed. It proved quite a disappointment, not least because they chose their name on a whimsy and not because of their target market. My appearance in base form at their UK office caused quite a stir and I was forced to erase their memories. They didn't even sell computer systems of the kind I require, so I came to you instead in the errant belief that your companies were related.
"Nonetheless I am reasonably satisfied with your computer - the sole exception being that more and more students are requiring access to it, and I will need the memory upgraded."
Upon realising that he was in no real danger, Eric resumed the job and soon enough the minicomputer was upgraded as I had intended. Warning him to leave DEC before 1992, I sent him on his way with a small protection charm as a tip.
All in all, the upgrade went rather well. There was just one problem. As a light came on in the security system, I realised that I hadn't closed the link with Earth properly.
Reverting to human form I raced back to the portal, and found three burly newcomers in dark blue clothing.
"You shouldn't be here," I said. "You're from the future." They ignored this.
"BSA. I have come to inspect your software licenses," their leader began.
"Really?" I smiled, "I hope you're good with TOPS-20 and VMS." He ignored this too.
"Listen," I said, "you are trespassing on private property. If you really must inspect the computer systems, then I suppose you can - but you do so at your own risk. Do you understand?" Indeed, no-one would ever find your corpse, I thought and then mentally slapped myself.
"Don't be difficult," he said. "I can have a warrant for this place at the drop of a hat."
"I'll take it that's a 'yes' then," I said with an air of resignation. "Come this way..." I led him and his two cohorts into the machine room.
"Where's the..." his voice trailed away as he saw the VAX. "You use that?"
"Yes. There is a 9000 series in the, er, next room," I faltered. The 'next room' was actually a hyperrealm I had created.
That installation had been quite a challenge, because we didn't have space for it inside and I couldn't do anything too magical that would upset the human installers. I had eventually settled on having it installed in a prefabricated building outside and dimensionally transposing it afterwards so that the interior of the shed was connected to the broom cupboard.
The outside of the shed had imploded, and I was not entirely sure what would happen if we drilled too far into the walls of the mainframe room, although the professor of dimensional mechanics assured me it was quite safe.
Sod it, I thought. If these goons get awkward, hyperdimensional geometry is going to be the least of their worries.
"Enough games. Where are the Windows machines?" he said in a furious voice. "Every business has at least one Windows box. Show me where they are."
"Are you threatening me, human?" I said, with what Eric would have called an angelic smile. I locked the door and when I turned back to face them, my smile had become what a Being might call an angelic smile - the smile of Johan Cross.
"The DEC engineer thought I was a werewolf," I said, enjoying their confused stares.
"Actually I'm a demon. An incubus if you want to get technical."
I love theatrics, so as I snapped my fingers the lights went out. I took a small gold cigarette lighter (inscribed with the name 'Keyser Soze') and lit it, raising it slowly until they could see my face. A human with head-wings was guaranteed to give me a tasty reaction, and I was not disappointed.
When the lights came back on, I was all fur and teeth and Ashley was standing next to me. I had cut a hole in my mind-shield so that he could tell what was going on.
"You know, Fa'Lina has been bugging me for years to try and get her a few human specimens," I said to him. "The problem is that most of the humans we get were invited, and dissecting guests would be downright rude."
"But these humans weren't invited, were they?" he said. "I think we might have a solution to that problem now."
One of the BSA agents made an almost canine whimpering sound.
"Oh look," I said. "A portal leading back to Earth has just opened up in that wall! Perhaps, if we close our eyes and count to ten, the humans will not be here anymore and we won't have to take them to the Headmistress who might want to find out whether eating a human's soul is any different."
"Good idea, Jakob," said Ashley, and began counting.
Two subjective days later we received an invoice from DEC and a certificate of compliance from the BSA.