The Twelve Days of Christmas - Finale

To: e_meeks@freenet.com
Date: 25th December 2023
Subject: Re: Replicator fault

Dear Mr Meeks

Our second-line support team has completed its investigation of your Replicon 2000.

It would appear that your machine contained some malicious subroutines which were inserted by a former employee of Replicon Inc. with a view to damaging the company’s reputation.

This particular employee worked as a programmer on the 2000 series and was dismissed for gross misconduct some months ago. Our standard procedure in such cases is to purge completely any machine containing the employee’s code and re-install its software from a certified archive.

It would appear that a small number of units were inadvertently shipped before they could be re-initialised in this way. Regrettably, your unit was one of these. Fortunately, all the others were still in one of our distribution centres and so had not yet been activated. This is why the behaviour of your unit appeared to be a one-off.

We would like to offer you our most sincere apologies for all the distress you have been caused. Replicon Inc. will of course reimburse you completely for all costs incurred as a result of this incident.

Additionally, as a gesture of apology, we would like to offer you a complimentary upgrade to your unit, along with a year’s free rental.

The new Replicon 5000 offers state-of-the-art replication at nearly twice the speed of its predecessor. Which? Recently described it as ‘delivering faultless and versatile service’.

Yours truly

Gerard Cochrane
Service Manager

To: customer_service@replicon.com
Date: 25th December 2023
Subject: Auto-reply: Re: Replicator fault


This is an automated message, so please do not reply to it.


I am leaving to go and live rough in the woods.


I will be cold.


I will be wet.


I will no doubt quite often be hungry and will eventually assume the ragged and unkempt appearance of some kind of wild man.


It is my aspiration to become the stuff of urban legend.


I will have no access to any technology more sophisticated than an axe and that will be just fine.


Farewell.


Yours truly


Edward Meeks