The Bankrobber I Knew - Part Six

For the entire story, click the Bankrobber topic at the end of this post, in the sidebar to your right, or just click here.

Westley took pieces of a dozen printers and combined the travel rods.  What that meant is that he created an assembly and sits above a table and runs back and forth along the width and length of a sheet of paper with a print head.  He ran cables to them and together we wrote the programs to control the belts so that the printer could go back and forth over the paper, then we programmed in every millimeter of a twenty dollar bill. It was this practice that really taught me how to control machines with sensors and a bit of good code.  It was also this project that taught me how to wire motors directly to a printer port and make things happen.  Computers are pretty cool, I thought.  I learned how to engineer by counterfeiting money.

It was a pretty fun exercise.  After than, Westley experimented with different inks and  papers until he got a pretty good counterfeit. 

“What are you going to do with them?” I asked. 

“Spend them,” he said. 

I didn't argue with him about the legality.  In fact, I wished I had the courage to try and spend those bills also, but I didn't.  I was scared of being caught.  By this time however, there was no way I was going to tell Treasury, the FBI, or anyone else about Westley's activities.  Good thing they never came back to chat about it.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

During this time, I'd taken a job working for a company that made bottled vegetable oils and shortenings.  I was in charge of transportation – arranging trucking for all our products all over the country.  I didn't really like the work and the factory smelled like dead animals all the time, but the hours were good and the pay was fine. 

One day my boss called me into his office and told me that they were having problems with some of the programming on the lines.  I'd done some minor stuff, but this was pretty major troubleshooting and was probably way over my head, but because of all the controls work I'd been doing with Westley, I gave the standard Rick reply to challenges:  “No problem.”

It turns out that I had a knack for it. I found the errors, corrected them and started improving things, which resulted in a major time and money savings.  It was a new job for me and more experience for home projects, of which there were many.

We figured out how to reprogram a remote control to open and close blinds and curtains, dim the lights, and control the thermostat.  After that we made individual macros for ourselves to optimize convenience.  I like to think that we were super-geeks, but aside from the computer and automation activities we appeared more like Hell's Angel's bikers than nerds with band-aids across the bridge of our glasses. 

Rhonda was over a lot more now, hiding her relationship with Westley less now.  But her most common statement to anything we were doing was, “I don't want to know.” Every Wednesday Morning at 9:00 AM when Westley went in for his probation appointment must have been quite the acting job for both of them.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

I was in a meeting one Wednesday morning in our small conference room. We were working on a proposal to separate out all of our vegetable processes from the animal ones in order to get a Kosher certificate from the National Jewish Inspection Agency or some such organization.  It was 9:02 and the building shook like the shockwave from an atomic explosion washed over it.  Windows shattered on the entire eastern side of the offices and factory.

Our building had been built to be a meat packing plant.  It was concrete and brick, a huge structure.  To shake it required earthquake forces, yet the entire building shook. The table slid to a wall and the lights flickered and then went out. All power to the facility stopped and I ran out to the main control room to shut off our generators because with an earthquake of that magnitude I didn't know if the cables were damaged or detached.

We were running about and trying to figure out the damage and what had happened when the sirens started. No one thought bomb.  Sewer main explosion, earthquake, or something else, but not bomb.  That was until one of the secretaries called out the shattered window to the main yard.

“It was a bomb.  Someone blew up the Federal Building.”

9:02.

Westley was in Rhonda's office in the Federal Building - the Murrah Building - at 9:00

That was my morning, April 19th, 1995.

 

- rick, less than two miles from the explosion

Comments

[a rose is a rose]

why do you insist on making me cry? i knew it had to end this way too (not where or how) because you used names.

damn, i like your friends but it seems some of them do not meet with good ends.

by the way, westley is smiling at your retelling just like alma

[Cherise]

What!?!? He was SUPPOSED to be there but him and Rhonda were off bouncing somewhere, right? Damn it I need a happy ending, I plan on finding Westley!:)

[Sugar]

After 10 years living with Rick, I wake up each morning thankful to have to made it another day. ;)

Really, not all us end in tragic stories...of course, I am writing this from a secluded north wood and we are planning a long hike later. Well, if I don't return - I know he will at least write nice things about me.

[Success Warrior]

Sugar, you and me both.

Ask him about DoSB for more information but here's the very short version of the story: David is cursed and everyone around him dies over time except for two people, the woman he loves (who doesn't take any crap from him and is a reality check against his greatness) and the do-gooder knight (who seems so out of place traveling with him and yet they make a perfect team somehow).

[CV Rick]

David of Sea Barons was one of my major roleplaying characters in the adventures (both D&D and Integrated Story if I remember rightly). He seemed to be immortal but everyone else met the most unfortunate, brutal, and ironic ends. The story revolved around him because he's the only one who lived longer than all of them.

There are two more bankrobber episodes. Even I can't do two-episode epilogues. Hang on, more to come.

[Sister Mary Lisa]

Cliff ~ why must you always leave us hanging??

Hope your vacation is going well for you guys.

[mark]

Rick, I'm glad I am a boring part of your circle of friends...I don't know if I'd want to be high profile.

Again, you've lived ONE INTERESTING life so far my friend.

I just got back from my vacation...I need to do that more often

[hm-uk]

Jeezus, I remember that day very clearly! I had just been in OKC for my grandfather's funeral two weeks previously and two weeks after that my grandmother died, too. My cousin and I drove downtown just to see if it was as bad as it was reported in the news. It was...

[Sideon]

I'm glad I read the comments too, or I'd have kept sitting here, all agape and stupid.

[a rose is a rose]

whew, perhaps i DIDN'T have to cry

[Reg]

You magnificent bastard.

[jane]

I am so glad I requested this story.

I hope Westley (and Rhonda?) were off doing something sneaky and not in the blown-up building. With all the awfulness of Sept. 11, 2001, I did wonder about those who were not in the building but were supposed to be. So many hundreds of people worked there, I'm sure there were at least a dozen who were off philandering or just playing hooky from work that day... or sitting waiting for the cable guy or whatever. Or robbing a bank. Whatever!