Software Evolution

by John Fajo

  Nameless Andrew was quite confused for his part, deadlocked over what to do or what not to do. But he realized he had to do something before it was too late. He stared at the general, wondering. She looked at him and there was a glance of a smile on her face. Her eyes told a different story though, stained with anger and demand. He could always hear her telling him, whispering into his ear: “Kill Him! Kill!” She was waiting. The sect was waiting. His time was running out, he could read it in her eyes as she frowned. However, he had no intentions of keeping his promise, a promise he had made under enormous pressure. He was about to kill no one. Unless..., he couldn’t believe he was thinking this, if not her. On the other hand, she was hardly an angel; her hands were marked by blood. But had he the right to judge others? She wasn’t perfect, but perhaps there were details unknown to him, which could explain her actions, and mitigate her sentence. As long as she didn’t attack him overtly, he decided not to take any hasty action against her.

  “I suggest,” the scientist said, his silvery eyes filled with the expression of joy, “that we advance the deadline set forward in the document regarding its implementation.”

  “I agree,” answered the baron. “I see no reason...”

  “I can’t believe this,” the general peered at the baron scoldingly. “Give even more concessions and get nothing in return? I am afraid I can’t ratify the document as it is. I certainly disapprove of any more changes contrary to our interests. But you are right in that changes are needed, changes in our favour.”

  “Naturally the general is right,” said the vice; the businessman nodded in agreement.

  After this there was a sudden moment of silence followed by agitation unparalleled and not experienced on earlier meetings. There were more than two teams this time, everyone was his own team. Everyone had an idea of his own. The delegates gesticulated, articulated, spat incomprehensible words or half-sentences at each other or for that matter whatever they had in their mouths. The scientist and the baron looked at each other disappointed. Nameless Andrew knew they were disappointed of themselves, the ongoing shouting was proof in itself of the imminent turmoil. They were both powerless. He tried to quiet the delegates and return order, but his efforts were in vain. The room was soon in disarray, paper, pens and other articles covering the floor, some people grabbing others’ hair and fighting it out to the last drop of blood.

  “Call me,” the scientist told the baron.

  “That’s all?” the baron asked.

  “That’s all,” the scientist said before he and Nameless Andrew left the premises.

  ****

  Nameless Andrew was wandering in the underground complex. He still couldn’t map it entirely, it seemed to him that it was in continuous enlargement. He opened door after door, passed hallway after hallway, but there was no end to the labyrinth. It was difficult, if not impossible to tell which hallway he had been in earlier, because there were no signs, everything was of the same size and shape. He didn’t know what purpose this labyrinth had served, there were no instruments or laboratories except for a small inner circle. Sometimes he got lost, and the scientist had to come to his rescue. The scientist knew his way around, knew the precise location of every nook, corner and hallway. He gave no information though how such a mapping was possible without any gadgets. Perhaps the scientist memorized the details of the complex, Nameless Andrew thought. On the other hand, this notion appeared rather implausible to him, because the scientist found cramming to be absolutely undesirable and counter effective. He believed that useful ideas were the ones derived from simple common sense, and relied heavily on mathematics in everything he did. And mathematics seemed to work alright in the laboratory.

  “Lost again?” the scientist inquired, unexpectedly emerging at a crossing of two hallways, cutting his thread of thoughts. “Follow me,” he said, and Nameless Andrew did so as a robot, no questions asked. Although unaware of the exact location they were heading, Nameless Andrew was certain they were advancing to an outer ring he had never been to before. There was nothing to distinguish this part from the others of course; it was just his sixth sense telling him so. He also felt they were descending deeper and deeper, possibly to the deepest region of the labyrinth. At the end of their journey, a large and conical space awaited them, totally empty except for a stand in the middle. Their steps echoed from the walls as they went to this stand.

  “Here it is,” the scientist pointed to a red button on the surface of the rack. “The red button.”

  The scientist looked at him, his eyes showing ominous signs. They stared at each other for a while. This was the scientist he had seen raging. As he examined the smallest details of him, he was shaken to discover that this was a different person than the one who had drafted the compromise. Unrelenting and dangerous.

  “You think I am crazy, don’t you?” he asked. “Well, I am not. Only my patience is running out. I stretch out my hand and all they do is spit in it. Do you see that button? It decides between life and death. I punch it and it’s all over. The baron, the general and you vanish forever. Everyone disappears.”

  “But then you will be alone,” Nameless Andrew rejoined.

  “I have always been alone,” the scientist hissed. “No matter what I did, no matter how good I was I have always been unwanted,” he said with sorrow. “So much about being alone.”

  The scientist stooped over the red button, polished it with his sleeve. Nameless Andrew was ready to push him away before he could punch the button, if it was necessary. However, after circling the stand a couple of times, the scientist’s face lightened and his crooked back straightened. He wasn’t as frightening any more.

  “Anyway, I still haven’t given up hope. Strange, isn’t it? I still have hope, despite what I perceive as reality has provided me with no positive signs.” This was the countenance of the scientist more familiar to him, generously sombre, a man more likely to commit suicide than homicide. The emotionless character of his truly developed into a maze since they had first met, Nameless Andrew thought. Was he in any way responsible for this, or was he only an adequate scapegoat? It was certainly correct to say that his aggressiveness decreased drastically, but how this could be linked to the scientist’s mood swings seemed to him obscure. Perhaps he had always been like that, Nameless Andrew simply hadn’t noticed it in the beginning. In any case with the power the scientist was endowed these mood fluctuations represented a frightening possibility of destruction. Nameless Andrew thought he was surrounded by maniacs, depressed individuals with a great amount of self-loathing. They even made him consider things making him profoundly despise himself.

  “I have created something brilliant,” the scientist exclaimed smiling, his voice echoing, and then slowly dying away in the distance, reminding Nameless Andrew of a creek’s plashing. “I call it the perfect machine. Do not be misled by the word perfect. It isn’t supposed to mean a flawless machine. It is rather something capable of achieving its goals by trial and error, eventually succeeding. It can adapt to any situation.” The scientist wiped his glasses, allowed a light stream to be scattered on their surface, and then dropped them and stepped on them accompanied by a sigh of relief. He then said: “I am the perfect machine.” The scientist looked at Nameless Andrew expecting an expression of surprise, instead finding one of astonishment and fright.

  They stared at each other for a while. “My eyes will soon adapt,” the scientist said. “You see, I am not bound to my body longer, or to its deficiencies. This is the most primitive and inefficient lifeform I exist in. The others are much better.”

  “The others?”

  “Yes. Now I can exist at different places simultaneously, shape myself as I will. I can attend conferences and at the same time work. I don’t need sleep. I have an army of myselves.” The scientist went silent for an instant. “To destroy the perfect machine one has to destroy all its subunits simultaneously. If one unit survives, the machine continues to function normally and regenerates itself, because all
its subunits contain the complete knowledge of the whole. I am thus relatively invincible and immortal.”

  “But then why compromise?” Nameless Andrew asked. “You can do anything you wish.”

  “Not entirely. I have never so far sacrificed my notions for any objective. That is why I was ready to compromise. Not compromising would have meant that in order to achieve my aims I would have had to overrule my own rules of conduct, which would have had catastrophic consequences. As a person I would have been no longer.” The scientist stopped winking with his eyes. “The culmination of the perfect machine is that it can do anything it can imagine, but not necessarily doing everything it can imagine. I look at destruction as purposeless and abhorrent, yet when I perceive the way I’m treated I begin to wonder.” The scientist exceeded his arms towards him theatrically. “They refused the compromise. I’ve got another no. I’m tired of getting nos. That’s what I get all the time. No, no, no, no. No more nos.” The scientist went around the stand, his white cloak seemingly tightening on his body. Not quite, it was rather the other way around; the scientist was becoming bulkier, but still remaining very lean.

  Nameless Andrew watched in disbelief as his employer began to resemble him in physical appearance more and more, while treading on the shattered glasses as he was circling him. What if the scientist was to be stronger than him, Nameless Andrew asked himself, a fearful vision passing through him. It was an idea completely novel to him; he had never been weaker than anyone before. He had always been physically superior.

  The scientist looked deep into his eyes and smiled paternally. “You fear, you’re afraid all the time. Fear is an integral part of your existence. And you even accept it so. I don’t. Fear and pain must be dealt with. The perfect machine means no pain and no sorrow.” The scientist was nearly of his size now. “This is my only lifeform which feels pain and fear. I fear I shall eventually give up my notions, because I will have no other alternative to implement my ideas. I feel pain, because I am a man on the outside, a man who was excluded from society. You see, I did not search nor want loneliness, it was something inflicted upon me. I always tried to make the best use of what I’ve got, I grew on my weaknesses so to say. This was what I told myself for a long time. I also told myself that the day would come when I would be accepted and respected, even if not loved. The latter is something I believe I will never receive. But from the perspective of the perfect machine it doesn’t matter, since it is the one-man-state. Every function is fulfilled by it, it needs no one. This is the main reason why I called it perfect. In my past life I couldn’t rely on anyone, I was always cheated and from this my desire stemmed to become independent in every possible way. I created the island, the complex, energy sources. Everything. Until recently, I thought the payday would come sooner or later, I even agreed to a compromise. But now the likelihood of my acceptance is fading, and with it the machine is shifting from this lifeform in front of you to others, which are in no way attached to society nor wish to be nor deplore destruction. Of course, those lifeforms are me as well. Funny, isn’t it?”

  “Not exactly”, Nameless Andrew said, ascertaining that the scientist ceased growing.

  “Naturally it isn’t funny. It’s rather angering. Not as angering though as the way those little puppets handled the compromise.”

  Nameless Andrew babbled something incomprehensible. He wanted to tell the scientist about the general, but found his tongue lamed. He realized this was so for whatever he would have said the scientist wouldn’t have listened, being greatly biased. Besides, his employer didn’t seem to be a person one could feel sorry for, now he was strong, vital and dangerous. Nameless Andrew stood motionless and powerless; he was drifting on an unknown path towards an unknown location.

  ****

  The baron looked surprised and confused when seeing the new scientist barely leaner than Nameless Andrew. He himself had lost weight in the meantime; there were neither peanuts nor chips in front of him presently. His eyes were wrinkled; his forehead creased showing how little sleep he had had since their previous meeting. Nameless Andrew thought he resembled a withered apple from which the substance was completely gone. The baron reminded him of the way he had visualized great emperors of the past right before their execution. The glowing and suspicious eyes vibrating left to right, the shaking hands and the irregular breathing were all signs of total mental and consequently physical collapse.

  The baron folded his fingers to keep them from trembling and said hoarsely, making him sound almost as whispering: “After long and arduous negotiations, checking and double checking I have managed to convince all major parties about the necessity, urgency and correctness of the draft document we had made. However, there are some minor details which must be clarified, because of their ambiguous nature.”

  The baron’s scarlet eyes grazed on the few delegates, including the general, the businessman and the vice before continuing. “Also, in the first part relating to past activities one must make precise distinctions between the conduct of the Group of Five, later Three and the implementation by other subdivisions. These must not be mixed.”

  The scientist laughed heartily, his teeth shining white, not at all similar to the cavity stricken jaw he had been once so keen to hide. “That is to say you reject sharing blame for causing illegalities, constructional blunders and the like. You thereby want to achieve impunity, not only in a legal, but also in a moral sense. I am afraid I cannot agree to such a motion.”

  The baron’s cheeks lost the little ruddiness they still had, it seemed all the blood was pumped to his eyes due to the response from the scientist he hadn’t expected. Pale white, his whole career and reputation was in shambles. The general, quite alive and agile, was prepared opportunistically for this possibility, and saw her chance for tumbling the baron had arrived.

  “In that case,” she said charmingly in her most seductive manner, “I’m sorry, but the whole future of the compromise is in danger. We, and here I speak in the name of the whole organization, have already sacrificed so much that any more would jeopardize our future. The alteration of the first part of the document must therefore happen before we give our consent.”

  The rest of the delegates minus the baron nodded in agreement. The scientist made a whole range of faces, from listless to annoyed, his silvery eyes scanning the room, while his fingers tapping on the table. Nameless Andrew glanced at the general to discover no kind expressions on her countenance towards him. In fact she was as cold and distant as if they were total strangers. He felt sadness, something lost he could not retrieve.

  “I think, despite of the fact the conference has just commenced, holding a break now would be a very wise thing,” the scientist said, to which everyone consented.

  Nameless Andrew wanted to have some fresh air and so left the premises. He climbed to the top of the skyscraper, where the wind played a perpetual symphony. The roof was barren, there were only a few remnants of an attempt to cultivate some flowers or bush here; but the altitude was too great and the wind from the open sea too prevailing for the saplings to survive. Nameless Andrew glimpsed down at the mobile metropolis below, there was an effervescence of lights in the night sky and the blowing sound of wind. Then after a while with his teeth chattering, he returned to the conference hall just to experience the greatest disappointment of his lifetime.

  The general and the vice were having a very sensual chat. She was laughing and occasionally whispering into his ears, both of them very much enjoying themselves. The silence and tension around them were accentuating their blissful mood even more. Nameless Andrew felt he was losing his temper. He staggered to his chair while watching the two lovebirds very carefully. The general was frivolous and shameless. So, this was the way it was, he thought nearly swallowing his tongue.

  The scientist noticed him being upset immediately and told him: “People like power. They can hardly define what they mean by it, it’s something impalpable and yet mighty and awesome. The general sees power in the v
ice, and this makes him sexually very interesting.”

  Nameless Andrew nodded, infuriated; he tolerated rejection even less than the scientist did. And clearly, he was dumped by the general. He felt like a fool, a play doll, that once satisfied its user, but was now thrown away by the bored princess, who sought other adventures and challenges. Their relationship turned sour since the sect incident, that was true, but Nameless Andrew believed it could be revived somehow, in the worst case they would take farewell in dignity. It seemed the general had thought it out differently. In the middle of her love chat with the vice, she glimpsed at him conveying a message he could not misunderstand. The majestically condescending look, “the you wanted it so,” smile butchered his still existing hope, and incited aggressiveness in him not felt since he had become employed by the scientist. He was the man of yesterday, an ancient figure who resolved his differences with others by brute force, and kept his women under close surveillance. Someone who dealt with creatures believing they could play games with him. He wanted to kill the vice and make the general suffer.

  “After careful considerations,” the scientist said after all the delegates had found their way back, “I have come to the conclusion that a slight alteration of the now existing document would still be a better alternative than no compromise whatsoever. Therefore...”

  Nameless Andrew was petrified. He could hardly believe what the scientist was saying. How could he humble himself so much when he had the upper hand, the perfect machine? Why didn’t he use the perfect machine? Nameless Andrew certainly wouldn’t have contemplated punching the red button that instant. He wanted revenge, which was as sweet to him as a sexual intercourse. He stood up, leaned on the table and stuttered inarticulately: “No compromises, you little shit! You’ll pay.” The you’ll pay part was intended for the general and the vice, who certainly turned pale at once. “The perfect machine will take care of you.”