[ WP ] You 've managed to create a `` what-if '' machine . This allows users to analyze past decisions and receive a read out of alternative events .

My biggest mistake was n't making the WHIM ( WHat-If Machine ). It was proving to the world that it was no joke. After I'd sobered up from the worst hangover of my life—the one I had the day after I received a court summons thicker than a telephone book—I ran a few scenarios on a WHIM. There were a few worse choices I could have made, but a greater number of better choices. 
 
 I should have pretended the WHIM was a joke, something akin to a Magic 8-Ball or a Ouija board. The results were certain for that scenario: I would have still been sued, yes, but the public would laugh at everyone who tried to squeeze money from my pockets. 
 
 But I wanted to *change the world*. I wanted to *make a name for myself*. 
 
 Well, I made one. 
 
 The market was a lot higher for something guaranteed, proven legitimate. I learned that it was way too high. I sold more units than there are homes in the country, than the entire North American continent. This machine was as close as humanity could come, at the time, to time travel and fortune-telling, and it was scientifically proven. 
 
 So when a father of three learned that he would have been happier had he married his most recent ex—and more importantly, when his wife saw the readout carelessly tossed in the trash—he added his name to the class action suit against me. When a couple in Vermont found their teenage son hanging in his closet and his note explaining that he'd learned that his ex-girlfriend had indeed taken her life because he'd left her, they signed their names to the cause. When a lonely wife found encouragement from a WHIM that told her she would have had more fun with her boss and decided to act on the unfeeling machine's advice, her husband made his dissatisfaction with my product quite clear. 
 
 I do n't know all the stories. There are too many of them. I simply stopped reading. 
 
 If only I'd told them all it was a gag gift. But I did n't. And now I sit on a hard wooden chair next to a man who despises me. I know he bought a WHIM. I know the only reason he's representing me is because he's ethically bound to serve his client to the best of his ability. But I know he wo n't be too disappointed if we lose. 
 
 A door opens. `` All rise,'' the bailiff says as the Honorable Judge Richard Parman enters the courtroom. 
 
 Judge Parman does n't bother to conceal his contempt.
