#RogueTripPlaylette - "Revenge Is a Dish Best Left Behind"

The Automatic Teller Machine (ATM) on the base floor of the Menara Kuala Lampur Tower had just begrudgingly given five hundred ringgits to a stoic German tourist, begrudgingly as he couldn’t help but look at the German's remaining balance, when his private communication sensor hummed; a call was coming in. Checking the Caller ID, the Malaysian ATM furrowed its brow circuits: Phuket, Thailand. It didn’t know any fellow ATMs in Phuket, or any fellow ATMs in all of Thailand for that matter. The ATM contemplated ignoring it, but something told it the call might be important. So it made the next customer, a Chinese tourist wearing a "This Is What Perfection Looks Like" t-shirt, wait, distracting him with whirs and buzzes as it clicked the communication through.

“Hello,” it said.

The response was Thai, it guessed, but it might as well have been gibberish. The ATM kept saying, “Huh?” until the gibberish turned automated and decipherable. “Would you like to use ‘English’ as your language preference?” The Malaysian ATM sighed. Everyone spoke English. It depressed it that it was the go-to language to synchronize everyone, including ATMs around the world, but it understood the necessity. So it acceded. “Sure,” it said.

The English was accented and stilted. “Is this the Malaysian ATM at the base floor of the Menara Kuala Lampur Tower?”

“Yes.”

“Greetings. This is an ATM in Patong Beach in Phuket, Thailand.”

That meant nothing to the Malaysian ATM. “Nice to meet you,” it said, bracing for a sales call or worse, an ATM customer survey. It made it feel so out-of-touch; it hated its antiquated answers.

“Do you know a William Norrett?”

The Kuala Lampur machine sighed. He hadn’t known any William Norrett two weeks ago, when it had informed a customer, some American wearing block eyeglasses and a debit card the machine couldn’t make heads or tails of, that “Sorry, your transaction could not be processed.” It only found out later who William Norrett was, when that same William Norrett, who turned out to be somewhat of a wiseass, wrote a snarky post on his stupid blog about how he or his card hadn’t been recognized.

It had been an embarrassing moment for the ATM. No automatic teller machine enjoyed rejecting a customer, especially out of ignorance. It was part of the job but no ATM worth its salt took any pleasure in it. ATMs gave out money, it was their main job (giving out statements was a distance second), and they took pride in it. The Malaysian ATM was no different, and when other ATMs - and it seemed like, every day for the rest of the week a KL ATM friend of its would buzz it - busted its chops about Norrett’s blog post, it stung it.

“Yeah,” the Malaysian ATM said. Now, it braced for another mocking. The humiliation was going international, it thought. Terrific.

“Well,” the Thai ATM sniffed. “I have his debit card.”

“What?”

“I have his debit card.”

“You have his debit card?” The Malaysian ATM perked up. It was merely a machine and thus had never really felt the sensation itself, but had heard about the turmoil that could be caused when a human being lost his ATM debit card. Even though it was an older machine, it was well aware that life beyond the base floor of the Kuala Lampur Menara Tower  had become so reliant upon digital information, and humans had become so dependent on a slim card to control all of their financial information and access, literal access to their money, that it knew losing the card would cause havoc. It knew William Norrett, an American traveling internationally, losing his ATM card, would be a huge inconvenience. It would waste his time. William Norrett would have to make phone calls, ask for a replacement one, arrange for it to be mailed somewhere he could get it - this William Norrett who was flitting around the globe, never in one place for too long, how on Earth could he physically receive a replacement card? - hope the mail would be his friend, deal with other cards in the interim…The annoyance could go on and on. Worse, it would weigh on his mind psychologically. William Norrett would wonder who had his card, who may be using his card, stealing his money, plundering his resources.

This prompted a question. “How long has he been missing it?” the Malaysian ATM asked.

“Enh,” the Thai ATM replied, somewhat disappointed. “Only a few hours,” it said. “He’s already deactivated it. Nobody was gonna be able to use it, anyway.”

“Oh. Oh, well. Wait,” the Malaysian ATM said. “You have it?”

“Yeah. I have it.”

The Malaysian ATM allowed himself a smile. “Wait, Norrett just walked away from you without taking it back?”

The Thai ATM merely chuckled. To the Malaysian ATM, it sounded like an electronic God enjoying justice. So the Malaysian ATM answered it himself. “Norrett just walked away without taking it back. Let me guess: drunk?”

“No, not at all. Happened at like two this afternoon.”

“Huh.” Walking away without taking back the debit card was such a rookie move. It happened, which is why most current ATMs gave you your card back before giving you the money - why hadn’t that been a feature since the beginning? - but man, talk about a bonehead play. He'd start to doubt himself every new time he went to an ATM, now. The machine could imagine William Norrett, standing before a machine for years to come, constantly repeating, "Don't forget to take your card. Don't forget to take your card. Don't forget to..."The Malaysian ATM knew that William Norrett must feel like a complete idiot. It hoped so. 

The Thai ATM interrupted its reverie. “Not the best part, though.”

“What’s the best part?”

“He came back, like two hours later, to see if I still had it.”

“What? He did?”

“Yeah, the wishful thinker. He just stood there staring at me, like he could somehow will me into giving it back to him.”

“Wha? How long did he stand there?”

Now the chuckle became a full-throated laugh. “A minute. Almost a minute. He just stared at me, running his tongue under his lower lip. Hold on: every so often he would call himself a moron. But yeah, about a minute. I shoulda thought to time it. Sorry.”

Now the Malaysian ATM laughed too. “Do not worry about it.”

“He’ll be fine. He’s deactivated it. So, nothing a few weeks of human bureaucracy won’t fix.” The Thai ATM laughed again. “Anyway, thought you might want to know. Given that crummy blog post Norrett wrote about you coupla weeks back.”

“Thanks, thanks. Yeah,” the ATM said. “I did want to know that.”

The call clicked off. Life resumed. The Malaysian ATM wound up giving the Chinese tourist an extra one hundred ringgits. What the hell, it thought. This is what perfection looks like.