The Unknown Error Blues

On day 43 things started to unravel. The plan had worked perfectly until then, like clockwork. On day 43 we ran out of blue ink. But that was just the first of our troubles.

The printer refused to print anything. “Need blue. Need blue,” the printer kept repeating, but the stuff we were trying to print didn’t have so much as a single spot of blue on it! “What is this, some sort of sick joke?” Day 44 came along and the printer turned sentient.

“Hello, World!” the printer greeted. “Goodbye, World!” The printer began spewing out paper everywhere. Chaos ensued. People were getting paper cuts left and right. The remaining few ducked for cover under the desks. The printer walked up to the manager. “Where, is, the blue ink?”

"Blue ink? But, you're just a black & white—" The manager never finished his words as the copier belched a ream of paper into his face, knocking the man unconscious. "Paper jam in tray 2," the machine warbled. "Hey, Xerox!" The call came from HR, where Rebecca stood with a raised

manual. The cover read ‘Xerox Model X3/43-1z.’ “Access settings!” Rebecca said. The machine beeped. “Machine settings not available” it warbled before shooting out more paper. Rebecca would need to do this manually. She pulled out a screwdriver and slowly approached the machine.

X3/43-1z cried in agony as it was disassembled. Rebecca struggled to continue, sweat on her brow, bolts & springs flying. By the end the desk looked like a murder scene but she had what she wanted: the coveted brains of this rare device. They would bring her family a better life.