The Infinite when it was Two Digits Old

by Allen Fleishman

  Marla Tisch raised her hand, “I need a reference for psychology try ‘Jungian Archetypes’”.

  Maurice was happily surprised that the answers were almost immediate. ‘The interface with the web is so much faster’, he thought.

  “Good one. Simple and to the point. There are many references, but the first few seem to hit it well. Notice the reference to Tolkien and to Art. A point for Ms. Tisch.”

  David passed a note to Andrea. The note said, ‘Play Time Warp, stanza two’.

  Another student raised his hand, “How about ‘calculus integral sine squared’.

  Andrea looked at David and she shook her head ‘no,’ David shook his head yes and pointed twice to the paper in her hand. He was smiling and nodding.

  Maurice entered ‘calculus integral sine squared’ and the first was a good hit as well. “Good job, Ms. Walker. A two points for you.”

  Andrea got another head jerk from David and she reluctantly raised her hand, “Professor,” she said slowly, “try ‘Play Time Warp, stanza two’ ”.

  Maurice knew that there was no way for that to work, but he typed it in. “I’m sorry, zero points, you see … .” All of a sudden, a movie began on the screen, it was obvious that singing was already underway, “♫You bring your knees in tight, now it’s the pelvic thrust. ♪” The professor quickly stopped the music, “That shouldn’t have happened, it shouldn’t have happened Uhh, three points Ms. Adriano for stumping the professor.” The professor was lost in thought for a few seconds then resumed the class.

  ***

  Maurice went to his office and sat down for a serious look at his new device. The first thing he did was click on the ‘My Computer then Drive c:’ icon, then properties. It was the properties of his new CompuHead hard drive. The drive looked like it was a third full. ‘That’s crazy; my files shouldn’t be that much. Not with this hard drive.’ He found the installation manual, located the help phone number and called.

  “WOW HQ,” a man’s deep voice answered.

  “Sorry, I thought this was CompuHead hot line.”

  “My apologies Professor Schwartzman, I don’t get many phone calls here. My name is Randy.”

  “You called me Professor Schwartzman, you’re right, but how did you know who I was?”

  “Oh, easy. The caller ID knows the area code and number, an automated fast reverse look-up says Birkhead College. It pointed out either Marty Thomas or yourself as CompuHead owners. The accent was the give-a-way. Sorry, I didn’t mean to be so familiar.”

  “No problem, I was taken aback for a second. Usually they ask for my phone number twice and then for the drive serial number at most companies.”

  “Ha ha, well CompuHead is not like most companies.”

  “You don’t get many phone calls?”

  “Nah, about one every three weeks. Most of the time I’m paid to play games, they even supply me with my own account. Otherwise, I’d go crazy.”

  Randy continued, “Most people who install the CompuHead drive have been upgrading drives for years, so they rarely look at the manual. Most of the questions are answered by the manual. The people who install the drives know all about the acronym RTFM.”

  Maurice chuckled. He knew all about ‘Read The Fucking Manual,’ then asked, “people don’t ask about any differences in features?”

  Randy’s voice took on a fake oriental accent. “Ahh grasshopper, you forget the magic key F1. Our help is totally context sensitive. In the old days when space was at a premium, there was no room to put messages or help. With our drives, it’s only laziness that prevents adequate help files. Have a question? Press the F1 key or hit the ‘help’ icon. By the way, you do know that there is a natural speech input mode? If you have a microphone, try saying ‘Command’ and it will try to understand what you want; you can also try the ‘Turing’ option or say ‘Computer’. You know about Turing?”

  “You mean the test proposed by Alan Turing, where the computer will be eventually indistinguishable from a human. They’re getting closer.”

  “Yup, that’s it. In my humble opinion, CompuHead passes that test. My favorite chatterbot is the ‘nurse’.”

  “Actually the reason I called was that my drive was about a third full. My programs shouldn’t be that large, about 400 Gig. Did I do something wrong?”

  “Probably, even if you backed up from a twenty terabyte drive, it would hardly take up any room on our drives. Let’s see, left click on computer, then ‘C’ drive, and right click on properties and tell me how much space is used and available.”

  “I see 39.65 EB for used and 127.6 EB for available.”

  Hesitantly Randy, with a slight bit of awe in his voice, said, “Uhhh, could you right click on My computer, then properties, hardware then device manager, tell me what it says for our disk drives, please.”

  “It’s a CompuHead Diamond v3.1”

  There was a pause, and then Randy started talking fast. Maurice could hear the excitement in his voice. “H-O-L-Y shit professor, you got the diamond! You got the diamond drive! That EB is Exabyte, each is a thousand Petabytes, a million terabytes, a billion gigabytes. Thirty nine billion gigs. You’re the first person I’ve ever talked to who actually had a diamond. A freaking diamond. And OS model 3.1, we’ve only had 2.1 for the last six years as the operating system.”

  Maurice was confused, “The diamond is different from the regular drive?”

  Randy was almost shouting with glee at the phone, “PROFESSOR, you have a diamond drive, a DIAMOND drive. You know the regular CompuHead drive uses a specially made perfect cube of salt, about a centimeter long, a third of an inch. Yours uses a diamond, a perfectly square clear diamond. Think Exabyte not terabyte. Your drive has about four orders of magnitude more capacity, and I think faster than our regular drives.”

  “You mean it’s a special drive?”

  “D’oh, yeah. I’m not supposed to even know about it, I heard a rumor about it from my boss, supposedly only a few were ever made, and the company’s head guy has them.”

  Maurice was slowly beginning to realize that this was no $7,000 drive, a perfectly square diamond, $70,000 or $700,000 or worth millions. He never bought a diamond and didn’t have any clue as to their worth, beyond very expensive. What would a third of an inch diamond weigh in carats? He thought of the speckles of diamonds in rings at the jewelry store ads.

  “What about the disk being a third full?”

  Randy slowed down his speech. He obviously was trying to get control over himself. “I, I’m Sorry, professor, I forgot. Right click on C colon again then click on properties and click on the size column button. It will sort directories by size, descending or ascending. What is the largest directory?”

  Maurice followed the instructions and a list of directories appeared, the largest was 39.64 EB its title was ‘Knowledge of the Human Race’.

  Maurice blinked, ‘this is some type of freaking joke. It has to be,’ he thought. Maurice muttered a quick lie, “It’s called EX7B63, listen I have to go.”

  “Yeah, sure, professor, please call me up and tell me what you found.”

  Maurice’s heart began to pound.

  Maurice adjusted a microphone and loudly said “COMMAND TURING”. A list of options appeared, including ‘Persona’. Maurice clicked on it and saw a list of entries: Nurse, Professor Kingsfield, Maynard G. Krebs, Teacher, and others. Maurice clicked on ‘Nurse,’ then ‘OK. A longhaired blond nurse with a stylized nurse’s cap and a white starched uniform, with a red cross above her heart appeared. She had a figure that made Laura Croft look like a scrawny boy. Maurice thought that the only way for her to stand up would be in zero gravity, otherwise, she’d tip over. She wore small glasses which made her light blue eyes and long lashes appear even larger. “Well, I’ll be,” whispered Maurice.

  “You’ll be what, Professor?” she cooed.

  Maurice said, “I’m ah sorry, I … I”

>   “No problem. How can I help you?” She looked directly into his eyes and he thought she coquettishly batted her eyelashes. She then flicked her hair so it landed on the front of her partially opened shirt and waited.

  Maurice asked, “Are, are you a real person?”

  The nurse put her finger in her mouth, smiled, and slowly shook her head ‘no’.

  Maurice back went to options and noticed some option bars. Going across the screen one said sexiness 0 to 100. It was set at 80. He moved it to 0 and pressed ‘OK’.

  Replacing the original nurse was another blond, but her hair was in a bun and her white uniform was replaced by green hospital scrubs. Her androgynous figure was almost indistinguishable under the loose fitting clothes. She had a small pair of stark, wired-rimed glasses. “How can I help you?” She said in a cool tone. She sounded like it was 4:45 at the department of motor vehicle office.

  Maurice couldn’t think of anything to ask, finally he said, “Search quote Maurice Schwartzman unquote and professor.” After five seconds the nurse said, “178,167 records were found. How do you want me to present them?”

  “Are they all for one person?”

  “Yes, you, of course.”

  “Ah, sort Chronologically.”

  A window appeared on the screen, the first few records were:

  Birth Certificate – Marcello von Schvartzmann

  Delivery Room – Vital Signs

  Delivery Room – Vital Signs

  Incubation Room – Vital Signs

  Marcello von Schvartzmann was Maurice’s actual name, before he anglicized it. Maurice clicked on the first record and an image popped up with a picture of his birth certificate in German it was obviously a photocopy. Maurice closed the image. “Sort reverse chronologically.”

  The window reappeared with

  Location: Birkhead College office – probability 100%

  Campus security monitor

  Campus security monitor

  Glancing at the second entry, Maurice felt a shiver of fear permeating his core. A picture appeared of him walking from the classroom to his office. It identified his location, it had records of him walking around campus, it knew where he was born, and perhaps it had all of his records stored on it.

  “Bank records Maurice Schwartzman.”

  A list of bank accounts appeared, including one that he opened as a student when he was ten that he must not have emptied. That account only had a few Euros. On the other hand, the records also contained his checking and his retirement accounts. His fear increased. Someone had entered all of his personal records into this hard disk. All of them! “How dare they,” he muttered. He paused; perhaps he was getting a bit paranoid. “Command Bank records President George Bush.”

  The nurse asked in a bored tone, “United States President Bush? Which one?”

  “W”

  A list of records appeared. The list included two Swiss numbered accounts, with their amounts. Maurice quickly closed the window, ‘What if I was caught?’ he thought.

  “Does anyone know I saw those records?”

  The nurse responded, “No.”

  Maurice needed to do something different. “Command, I’d like to know about the diamond CompuHead hard drive.” The window appeared. “There are 1,437 records, what about it?”, she asked in a bored voice. She looked through Maurice. Maurice asked, “How much is this drive worth?” She replied immediately, “There is no record of its price. It is not for sale.”

  Maurice went back to the option screen and noticed another slider. It also went from 0 to 100 but was labeled Brilliance – Search depth. It was currently set at 7. He also realized that this lady Gestapo persona was a bit too cold for him. He adjusted Brilliance to its maximum of 100 and moved the Sexiness to 30, and pressed OK. A nurse receptionist appeared with a cute pageboy haircut. As she smiled, he saw her dimples. She was wearing a very large pair of circular glasses. Maurice again asked, “How much it cost?”

  “Wholesale or retail?”

  “Wholesale, for the raw diamond.’

  “Hmmmm, I’ll need to get back to you on that one. She picked up a pencil and began tapping a tooth. A translucent clock appeared in one corner of the screen. It said ‘estimated time to completion 44 minutes’. She looked up, smiling and asked, “would you like to read your e-mails or a book, watch something like a movie or TV, or listen to something while I work?”

  “Ahh, my e-mails.” Maurice went about answering his correspondence he had neglected when Gertrude was down. Thirty two minutes later, the clock began solid. It showed some oscillation and then suddenly went to zero. Maurice heard the Nurse’s voice, “Oh, professor.”

  Maurice shrunk the e-mail window and said “Yes?”

  “Assuming you’re talking about this diamond drive and its size. If empty and sold as a mundane cube of diamond, its median cost is $1,571,263.27 with a range of prices from $472.48 to $2,897,032.34. Do you want to see my notes?”

  “No, thank you. What a minute, what was that low price?”

  The nurse answered, “$472.48”

  “What are the conditions for the low price?”

  “A flawless diamond of 15.71 carats, was manufactured, the unit can be made based on standard dimensions, and “

  “Stop. Explain ‘manufactured the diamond’ “.

  “A paper appeared in Journal of Metallurgy Engineering in 1929 by Wilhelm Knorb and Rudolf Weiss on building the matrix. A paper appeared in the Journal of Industrial Physics on high-pressure centrifuge with a nitrogen carbon arc heat source. The manual of the Thurman Walsh company specifications for their high-pressure centrifuge. The use of helium as an adjuvant in the process …”

  “Stop. Based on these articles and equipment, a 15 carat diamond can be grown for less than five hundred dollars?”

  “Actually, any diamond less than 453 carats could be grown for less than five hundred dollars.”

  “Who knows about this?”

  “Let me think about this.” A clock appeared again with a time of 11 minutes.

  “Computer: Brilliance 30.”

  The clock disappeared, and the glasses shrunk in size, as she spoke again, “As far as I know, only you.”

  He thought, ‘when I first asked her the worth of the drive, she didn’t know, only when I kicked it up to 100 did she come up with an answer. One that could make diamonds almost free. It did say depth of search.’

  “Are you sure that there’s a diamond in the drive?”

  The blond licked her lips and coquettishly smiled, “Very sure - 98%, given the case size, amount of memory available, the use of crystals in other CompuHead drives and the title of the drivers. However, it could be something more exotic than diamonds, like a diamond with some impurities for greater electrical transmission.”

  ‘Holy crap,’ thought Maurice, ‘a million and a half dollar gift, everyone’s financial and personal records and a way to make diamonds for free. What have I gotten into?’

  “Command what was the name of the centrifuge again?”

  “Thurman Walsh model A21, 5500 rpm industrial centrifuge”

  “Show me all purchase requisitions for the past ten years.”

  “419 records” A list of requisitions appeared, sorted chronologically. The first record was DuPont metallurgy division. Maurice quickly scanned the list.

  “Remove all metallurgy, university, and medical requisitions.” The computer paused for 2 seconds.

  “5 records” Two were from paint companies, one from Pure Heart Ink Company. The remaining invoices were for Kzrelky Metallurgy Company and CompuHead Corporation.

  “Computer: Why wasn’t the Kzrelky Metallurgy Company removed?

  “That company is not a metallurgy company, but a fake corporate entity to sell it to other groups.”

  “Who was the ultimate purchaser?”

  “Abdul ben Beswawee in Jerusalem.”

  “What company does he repre
sent?”

  “He does not represent any company, but is a terrorist. He plans on enriching uranium.”

  “You mean make an atomic bomb?”

  “Yes”

  “Does the CIA know about this?”

  The nurse glanced up for five seconds, and then said “No”.

  “Can you send your file linking this Kzrelky company and ben Beswawee to the CIA.”

  “Yes, shall I send it with your name and what is the subject?”

  Maurice felt the bottom of his stomach drop, “NO, NO, Don’t include my name.” Maurice smiled, “send it from ComHead and send it to the CIA, Mossad, and Interpol. Subject is ‘suspected atomic bomb uranium purification site’. Make sure that they can’t trace it back to me.”

  “Sent”

  “Tell me who signed for the CompuHead centrifuge and where the centrifuge was sent.”

  “The centrifuge was signed off by Martin Klein at 210 Brunswick Place in Larchmont New York.”

  “Please show me a recent picture of Mr. Klein”

  A picture appeared of Martin walking two feet from a very familiar looking boy on the Birkhead campus. On the boys sweatshirt it said ‘Act Normal and we’ll Pass’. “Martin Klein is the older man.”

  ‘Bingo,’ mused Maurice. The two had a strong family resemblance. “Identify younger man and show all records.”

  “237 records presented chronologically”

  Maurice scanned the records; the first was taken in the car at a tollbooth with a date of August of that year. All records had the name David Smith.

  “Identify all records for children of Martin Klein.”

  “128 records presented chronologically”

  The first record presented the birth certificate; there were a number of hospital records. After the hospital records there was only a few records. These included admission to kindergarten, a letter from a school psychologist and another from her supervisor.

  “What was the supervisor’s note about?”

  “I’m summarizing: The school psychologist’s ‘observed pattern of responses was impossible’. That perfect scores were seen on many scales was not possible. That the child perfectly mimicked the tester’s voice in French was very, very unlikely. The admonishment stated the psychologist had been drinking on duty. Finally, the psychologist had harassed the student’s family, causing the parent’s decision to remove the child from school.”

  There was only one other record past the age of 5 for David Klein, a set of SAT test scores.”