by KB Shaw
Simply put, AI technology allowed computers to think for themselves and to have personalities. The first primitive use of the GundTech AI technology came in a few online games programmed for existing WiFi connected devices which had grown smaller and more mobile over the years. Soon, GundTech was producing its own game console, which was as large as an old desktop computer, but could take full advantage of GundTech’s AI features. Within three years, the company introduced the smaller multiCom, a fully functional, artificially intelligent computer. There were only two multiCom models: the corporate and the home versions.
Now GundTech produced both hardware and software, and it dominated the artificial intelligence technology market. It could easily have kept the technology for itself, yet it licensed its technology to any competitor that wanted it—for a healthy royalty, of course. It even provided schools around the world with multiCom equipment for less than cost. On the surface, GundTech appeared to be a gentle giant of a company, content to “do good.” However, Meagan Fletcher knew large companies rarely did good deeds just for the sake of doing them. Her mind was a jumble of questions.
What is GundTech up to?
How can it afford to practically give away its products to schools?
And why? Is it out of true concern for children, or is there a more sinister motivation?
Was GundTech trying to control what kids learned? Trying to turn them into loyal consumers? To control their minds?
Meagan turned away from the window, sat down at her desk, and tapped the digital screen embedded in her desktop. There was a slight hum as a heavy curtain was drawn across the window, casting the office in deep shadows. She tapped the screen again and a panel on the wall opposite her desk slid open, revealing a large-screen multiCom. This was a high-powered corporate model, not a home model like Sam and Vee. “Power,” she said.
“Good afternoon, Ms. Fletcher,” said the not-quite-male, not-quite-female multiCom voice.
“Manual mode. No vidCap, please.” she said to the nameless AI.
“Manual mode. No vidCap,” the multiCom confirmed.
Did she hear a note of disappointment in the synthetic voice of the multiCom? Meagan was suspicious of AIs. It irritated her to have to be polite to a machine and she refused to name her multiCom—“like some pet,” as she put it. Consequently, she almost always requested manual mode. The “no vidCap” command turned off the multiCom’s ability to capture and transmit her image.
The WBN technology reporter wondered what her viewers would think if they knew she was paranoid about technology. They would undoubtedly think she was ignorant of the capabilities of these modern marvels. The fact was, Meagan feared technology because she did know its vast capabilities. But it was more than a fear of technology. It was her need to be independent, to get by on her own, to not need other people.
Meagan accepted the fact she was a loner and knew why. She was neither pretty nor popular in high school—high schools, plural—to be more accurate. She had gone to three different schools in four years, thanks to her father’s military career. Still, she was intelligent, smart, and savvy enough to know there was a difference between smartness and intelligence. Growing up without a mother and with a father who was often distant geographically, and always distant emotionally, made it difficult for her to develop lasting relationships with humans, pets, house plants or, God forbid, a machine with a mind of its own.
So, rather than relying on her AI, Meagan typed her commands on the screen embedded in the desktop.
SEARCH: GundTech + “corporate info”
In seconds, Meagan’s screen was filled with links to data and video files about GundTech. She selected a file labeled “Corporate Structure.” She expected it to tell her who owned the company. To her surprise, the document was brief. GundTech was a privately owned company, meaning there were no investors to whom the company must answer. There were no public documents that could give her clues to what GundTech was doing. Most large companies are owned by thousands of people who invest in them by purchasing shares. Companies sell these shares to raise the money they need to build and expand. However, GundTech shares were all owned by one person—no, not a person, a foundation called “The Gund Fund.” Like GundTech itself, the fund was based in Oslo, Norway.
She again typed on the embedded desk screen.
SEARCH: “The Gund Fund” + Oslo
The results of the search flashed onto the screen.
No match found. Refine SEARCH?
Curiouser and curiouser, thought the reporter. If I can find out what GundTech is up to, that would be real news.
Chapter 6:
1 + 1 = .5
AS MEAGAN FLETCHER was beginning her investigation of GundTech, Rosa and Cameron were beginning to delve into the voluminous academy application.
“Look at the size of this print!” said Rosa. She was leafing through the ream of paper that comprised the IHT Academy application. “It’s in maybe a seven to nine point machine font. Machine fonts are horrible on the eyes. What were they thinking? Really, it’ll take forever to get through this thing. Any bright ideas, Cheese Boy?”
Cameron was incredulous. “Maybe it’s not worth the bother.” His voice had a tone of finality Rosa had never heard before.
“You don’t mean it, do you?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I do.”
“Cameron Rush! I’ve never seen you give up. Remember telling me how much work all your football and basketball practices were?”
“Yeah, so?”
“And what was the reward?”
“What?”
“The payoff! What did you get for all your efforts? How many times did you carry the ball last season? In a game, I mean.”
“None.”
“And how many minutes did you play during basketball season?”
“A few—here and there.”
“Still, you went to practice every day, didn’t you?”
Cameron nodded.
“You never gave up.”
“I wanted to be part of the team.”
“Exactly! The academy is a team we can both be part of, Cameron. Don’t give up on me.”
“I’m just… I don’t know… discouraged, I guess.”
“Just a few minutes ago you were amused by the academy’s sense of humor in using the red tape.”
Cameron pulled himself up in his seat. He scratched his head as he mulled over a thought that had just occurred to him. “You know…”
“¿Qué?”
“Maybe the package wasn’t someone’s sense of humor. Maybe it was meant to tell us something.”
Rosa started to pick up on Cameron’s thought. “The red tape involved in filling out more than 700 pages of forms was meant to discourage us.”
“To keep us out,” said Cameron.
“It was meant as a challenge.” Rosa looked intently at Cameron on her view screen. “Are you game?”
“As we’re fond of saying up here in the north woods, yah sure, yabetcha!”
“¿Qué?”
“That was Wisconsinese for ‘yes.’”
“¡O Dios! Sometimes I worry about you, Cheese Boy.”
Rosa could hear Cameron’s dad calling him to dinner. “Sounds like you have to go eat. What’s the plan?”
“The plan is: we need to think up a plan. Call me as soon as you’re done with supper, okay? We’ll talk about it then.”
“After dinner then! Adios.” Rosa dissolved from the screen.
“Power off, please, Sam.” The screen went dark as Cameron walked out of his room. A second later, he leaned back through the bedroom door and spoke, “Sorry, Sam. I almost forgot. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” replied Sam.
• • •
BECAUSE OF the time difference, the Costas family ate an hour later than the Rush family. Coincidentally, both Rosa and Cameron enjoyed chicken and dumplings for dinner. Cameron’s father prepared a traditional midwestern version, while Rosa’s mom served a sp
icier southwestern recipe. Likewise, they both discussed the problem of the 700-page application with their parents.
Why such a large document?
Was it meant to discourage applicants?
Was it a sign of how much work the academy would be?
What about the red tape with which the package was bound?
Was it someone’s sense of humor or was it a challenge of some sort?
“Well, I guess you’ll just have to read it to find out,” said Cameron’s sister in a snooty tone. “What a geek!”
“Jenny!” said Mrs. Rush.
“But he is a…”
Mrs. Rush, who was a prosecuting attorney for the county, shot her daughter a reprimanding look. Jenny withered under her mother’s gaze. She looked down at her plate, stabbed a large lump of dumpling, and stuffed it into her mouth.
Mrs. Rush turned to Cameron. “You know, when I was in high school, there was always the story of the test some teacher, somewhere, had given. The beginning of the test said, ‘Read all instructions before starting.’ One of the last instructions in the test supposedly said, ‘You do not have to take this test. Please close the test, put down your pencil, and fold your hands on the desk in front of you.’ I don’t know if the story was true or not, but the point is, there must be a purpose to the size of the application. And Jenny was right about one thing. You’ll just have to read it to find out.”
• • •
SOME SIXTY MINUTES later, in New Mexico, Mrs. Costas gave her husband a look. “Bernie, do you remember that one class we had together at NAU? You know—that trick test?”
His wife’s question caused Bernie Costas to pause in thought, a forkful of dumpling frozen about two inches in front of his half-open mouth. Suddenly, his eyes lit up with remembrance. He lowered the dumpling to his plate and turned to Rosa. “I think there is a chance that the application is a challenge of some sort. You tell her about the test, Mama.”
“The beginning of the test said, ‘Read all instructions before starting,’” said Mama. “And the last instruction at the end of the test said, ‘You do not have to take this test. Please close the test, put down your pencil, and fold your hands on the desk in front of you.’”
“I guess,” said Mr. Costas, “what we’re trying to say is, you’ll have to read it to find out.”
• • •
CAMERON HURRIED up to his bedroom as soon as he and Jenny finished doing the dishes. He puzzled over the problem of the mammoth application form for almost three-quarters of an hour before Sam’s voice interrupted.
“Incoming transmission, Cameron. It’s Miss Costas.”
“Thank you, Sam. Full screen, please.”
“Any ideas, Cheese Boy?”
“Actually, I have had a ‘Gouda’ idea.”
“Ah, that cheesy Wisconsin humor.” Rosa groaned dramatically and then laughed. “So, what’s the idea?”
“My mom was telling me a story about this trick test…”
“The ‘You don’t have to take this test’ test?” Rosa saw Cameron’s expression of surprise. “My folks told me about the same test.”
“D’you think…?” asked Cameron.
In an instant, they had both grabbed their application packets and were reading the last page. The print was so small it seemed to take forever to read just the one page. It appeared to be a lot of legal mumbo-jumbo.
Rosa’s head hurt by the time she finished reading. She looked up at her multiCom screen. Cameron’s forehead was supported in his hand as he struggled to finish the page.
“Don’t bother.” Rosa’s voice was tinged with discouragement. “It’s not there.”
It seemed hopeless.
“Well, it could be on the page before the last page, I guess,” offered Cameron.
“Or the one before that, or…” said Rosa.
“…not on any page,” Cameron finished.
There was a prolonged silence before Rosa spoke again,
“Guess we’ll just have to read it to find out.”
“You realize how long that will take?”
“Yeah, I do. But, if we work as a team, only half as long as any other applicant. You read one half, and I read the other. It’s simple math, 1 + 1 = .5, right?”
Cameron smiled and nodded. Suddenly, his face exploded with an expression of realization. “I’ve got it! It’s so simple. You said it yourself…”
“¿Qué? What did I say?”
“When we first looked at the application you commented on how small the type was. A seven to nine point machine font, you said.”
“Yeah, what were they thinking?”
Cameron stared back at Rosa, “Go on. What were they thinking?”
It all clicked in Rosa’s head. Machine fonts were hard on the eyes, particularly when they were smaller than 12 points in size. They were horrible to read—unless, of course, you were a machine. “The printScan!” exclaimed Rosa.
Cameron dug into his pants pocket, pulled out a quarter, and flipped it in the air. Catching it with his left hand, he slapped it against the top of his right. “Heads, I do the first half. Tails, you do it.” He lifted his left hand and angled the quarter toward the screen. Rosa could clearly see it was heads.
The idea was indeed simple. Cameron would feed the first half of the application document through Sam’s printScan interface, a small wireless device that sat on his desk. Rosa would feed the second half through Vee’s printScan. They would have to hand-feed the document in sections of about 30 pages. Linked in their effort, Vee and Sam could read, analyze, and summarize the document in less than 30 minutes. Their excitement rose as they fed in the first batches of the document, then the second, then…
“Rosa?” It was Vee.
“What is it, Vee?”
“I am instructed…”
“Instructed?” asked Rosa. “Instructed by whom?”
“By the GundTech programming that I just downloaded.”
“¡Caray!”
Cameron saw that Rosa was frantic. “What programming, Vee?” he inquired in a calm tone, giving Rosa time to collect herself.
“The program was embedded on pages 397 through 401 of the document I have been instructed to scan.” MultiComs had the ability to analyze their user’s expressions and voice patterns, but Vee was confused by the look on Rosa’s face and the tone of her voice. Did Rosa doubt what Vee was telling her? Or was it fear Vee sensed? It was not like any emotion matrix Vee had previously logged in her database.
“Perhaps Sam can verify,” said Vee.
Could a multiCom have hurt feelings? Rosa thought she detected sadness in the suggestion. “I have no doubt what you have said is true, Vee,” said Rosa in a reassuring voice, “but Cameron and I are both concerned about a program being downloaded into you without our consent. Do you understand?”
Vee computed for a nanosecond. “You are concerned about a virus, or a worm, or a Trojan horse, perhaps?”
“Those are all possibilities,” Cameron conceded.
“Suspend all operations related to the new program, please, Vee,” said Rosa. “Cameron?”
“Sam, I’m going to feed the pages that contain the programming into your printScan. Can you load the code without accepting it as an executable?”
“Yes, Cameron. I can then safely analyze the purpose and intent of the code.”
“Proceed, please,” said Cameron.
Within a few seconds the pages were scanned and analyzed. There was a sense of surprise in Sam’s not-quite-human voice. “I have been instructed…”
“What?!” asked Cameron and Rosa in unison.
“You were not to execute the program,” Cameron said sternly.
“I did as requested, Cameron,” said Sam, “but buried in the code in question was a very low-level override directive, which I had to accept as an executable.”
“Erase all input from the scan!” Cameron commanded frantically.
“I cannot, Cameron,” said Sam.
“P
lease!”
“You misunderstand me, Cameron,” Sam stated. “I cannot because the program called up code at the very heart of my programming. There are many bits of extraneous code within my programming that serve no purpose to my general health and well-being. They are often called Easter eggs. For instance, if you were to say to me, ‘Strike, Shadow, strike! And see his good deeds springing from the wound,’ I’d be compelled to suspend all other functions and recite the complete works of Charles Dickens until you said the last line of A Tale of Two Cities, ‘It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done…’”
“Okay, okay!” Cameron interrupted. “I can file that bit of useless information away.”
“I sense anxiety in your voice, Cameron,” said Sam. “I told you about the Easter egg in an effort to explain. You should have no fear. The code that the application has triggered is, to my best analysis, benign. May I suggest Miss Costas instruct Vee to execute directive xb41c3?”
Rosa returned Cameron’s look of concern.
“I can proceed without Vee, Cameron, but I know how closely you and Miss Costas work,” Sam prompted. The ‘c3’ of the directive will synchronize Vee with me.”
Cameron looked at Rosa and shrugged his shoulders. “It’s your call, Rosa.”
“Vee,” Rosa started, then hesitated a second before committing. “Please execute directive x-b…uh?”
“4-1-c-3,” said Sam.
“4-1-c-3,” echoed Rosa.
In a flash, Rosa’s screen was filled with her multiCom Net identification information.
“Cameron, do you have on your screen what I have on mine?”
“I have my ID info and a vidCap of my ugly mug.”
“Me too. Wish I had brushed my hair!”
“Welcome, applicants,” announced a synthetic voice. “To apply for the IHT International Academy, please verbally confirm your identity by stating your name and multiCom node ID.”