An unemployed man has to make a mortgage payment at an Automated Teller Machine (ATM). On a whim he scribbles a message on the input card and soon receives a communication from the computer. The man and the ATM develop a ‘relationship’ which solves his financial worries, gives him important information about the bank, and leads to employment - with the bank. But can the relationship last?An unemployed man has to make a mortgage payment outside his bank using an early model Automated Teller Machine (ATM). On a whim he scribbles a message on the input card and soon receives a communication from the computer. The man and the ATM develop a ‘relationship’ which solves his financial worries, gives him important information about the bank, and leads to executive employment – with the bank. But, as can happen, it is difficult to maintain a relationship indefinitely. The story was published in 1983 and also broadcast as a radio story. Although the story is set in the ‘historical’ context of an earlier generation of bank computing, the plot is still plausible as it involves the moral values of Big Banking as they were to be revealed over the decades.

An archaeologist working in modern Egypt, near Luxor, wonders if she is an incarnation from the time of the Pharaohs. Perhaps she had once been a stately Queen who died while in youthful beauty. On a solitary walk towards the Valley of The Tombs of The Queens she does bridge time – and she gains insight.The great span of Egyptian history stimulates a Canadian archaeologist working in the Theban hills near the modern city of Luxor. Her original interest in archaeology had come from romantic notions of getting closer to the people of the past – of bridging time by treading the same ground, by touching the same stones as those people. In the Canadian Plains of her childhood a building was considered ancient if it had been built last century, and such antiquity was not usually considered at all desirable. Perhaps she herself was a reincarnation from the time of the Pharaohs. Perhaps she had once been a stately Queen. One who had died while in youthful beauty and had been buried in the Royal Tombs nearby. On a solitary walk towards the Valley of The Tombs of The Queens she does bridge time – and she gains insight.