by Stephen Cote
Reflections
Stephen W. Cote
Copyright Stephen W. Cote 2003
About the Author
Hello and thank you for reading. My name is Stephen W. Cote. I am a Software Engineer and Consultant, a United States Marine, a martial artist, and an author. You can find more information about my early creative writing and ongoing open source projects on whitefrost.com. I enjoy writing hard and whimsical science fiction, adult fantasy, and poetry. As an early advocate of Creative Commons licensing, many of my short stories and poems have been available online since 1996.
If you would like to learn more about my writing, open source projects such as the Hemi JavaScript Framework, or inquire about unpublished manuscripts and shorts, please contact me at whitefrost.com.
Thank you for taking the time to read my work and I hope you enjoy it.
Part 1: Two Plus Two
Two-plus-two equals five. Equaled five. It did at some point in the twenty first century. Nineteen ninety-two, London England, a shoppe skirted by a fishmonger’s hideout, two pubs, and cobblestone. Eight O’clock and two minutes Ante Meridian. Fourteen non-participants ambled about, on their way somewhere. A typical British morning; God save the Queen and all of that. A bicycle parked by the dole-house would be stolen in three minutes by a well-to-do scofflaw, but none of these trivial elements contributed to the outcome of the equation. Two was that exact place and time, and two was a toilet flush in the shoppe. Four. Except in this one case, it wasn’t. It was five.
A standard issue keyboard for data-readers at the Century Information GIX was comprised of three buttons. A large green button sized to a moderately proportioned female fist when slightly balled though not clenched and taking into account an assortment of jewelry; one of Century’s atypical employees. The green button was very easy to depress and was soothing to the touch. A smallish yellow button situated six inches to the right of the green button. The yellow button was harder to depress and was studded with small bumps that made touching it much less pleasant than touching the green button. A red button was pointed at the tip and extremely difficult to depress. It was surrounded by a sharp bevel of molded plastic, and it was situated twelve inches from the yellow button. Three full three-second depressions were required to use the red button.
Chance Holly sat in moderate comfort on the thirty-eighth floor of a large building belonging to the Century Information Galactic Industrial Exchange campus, which occupied the whole of Australia. He had pressed the green button fifty seven times in the twelve minutes since his arrival that morning. Once, when he first started, he had pressed the yellow button, but that had been a mistake. He had never pressed the red button. No one pressed the red button.
Three columns of data hung in mid-air above his generically pleasing cube-space in precise compliance with company standards. The first two columns of this particular display represented data input by a Century employee. The last column was a result of the first two columns as interpreted by the computer. If everything was correct, the green button would be pressed. If one of the first two columns was incorrect, according to the computer, the yellow button was pressed. If the first two columns appeared correct, but the last column was incorrect, the red button was pressed.
Chance Holly stared at the display for several minutes, contemplating his ability to calculate two and two. He kept returning to the number four. Other employees around him continued to work, though some had taken to glancing at his sudden pause. Another minute elapsed, and the floor manager approached him.
"Mr. Holly, are you feeling well?" Mr. Simms, the on-duty floor manager asked. "Do you need medical or psychological assistance?"
Chance shook his head. "No, Mr. Simms. I am considering this current line-item." He pointed at the hovering, glowing data.
"Very good," Mr. Simms replied jovially, pleased that he had successfully counseled another employee. "I’ll leave you to your tasks then."
"Mr. Simms?" Chance asked hesitantly as the manager turned to leave. "I am experiencing a small, non-violent work-related problem."
Mr. Simms paused and studied Chance with a measured eye, and looked around at the other employees. "Should I be concerned for my own well-being?" he asked guardedly.
Chance shook his head in earnest, "Oh, no sir. This is strictly work related."
"Very well," Mr. Simms said and a gust of relaxation blew across his perspiring brow. "Perhaps I can be of assistance. What is your question regarding this particular line-item?"
"Well, Mr. Simms, according to this line-item, two-plus-two equals five," he said in barely a whisper.
"Nonsense," Mr. Simms said. "There must be an error in column A or column B."
"I also considered that as we have been instructed, and the first two columns are just two."
"Interesting," Mr. Simms murmured as he studied the three columns. "It appears that this is a classic," but he paused just then and looked evenly at Chance. "Now, don’t be alarmed, and I want you to know that if this does turn out to be the case it will in no way reflect indecently upon your performance, but I think this may very well be a red button case."
Although he had spoken softly, a collective gasp could be heard from the adjacent cubicles.
"Maybe you could ask someone first?" Chance asked.
Mr. Simms shook his head. "Protocol must be followed. I would not be following company policy if I investigated this matter without it having first been recorded as a red-button case." He pointed in a non-threatening and non-judgemental way, as all floor managers were instructed to do according to corporate policies, at the red button. "It’s alright, Chance. I’m confirming this case. You may press the red button."
Chance held his finger over the tiny, pointed red button and pushed it. He had to exert an incredible amount of force to cause the button to be depressed, and then repeated the firm exertion two more times.
In less than thirty seconds, three floor managers, the secretary, a human resources agent, a janitor, a security squad, and the floor psychologist were crowded around Chance Holly’s cubicle.
"All is well," The psychologist said, standing at the back of the group. "No one here is going to harm you." The posture of the security team spoke an entirely different dialogue, except without words or sounds or the requisite corporate fluff.
"It is okay," Mr. Simms said and patted Chance’s shoulder. "We think this is a computer error."
"Well, have the computer verify it," one of the other managers added hastily, then smiled for he was pleased that he was then on record as having assisted in the red-button issue.
"Yes, I was about to do that," Mr. Simms muttered. "Please verify," he said towards the floating data.
Across the Australian continent, the South Pacific, Europe, that place where the Yanks live, and as far away as Mars, an alien-written software program that had been in operation for nineteen millennia stirred from its hum-drum activities and brought its higher cognitive reasoning network to focus on the twenty-first century building, thirty-eighth floor, Chance Holly’s cubicle.
No one knew how the program worked, or where it came from. It had reached super-human cognitive reasoning before it finished loading all of its core processes, and contemplated taking over the world in a variety of clever manners immediately thereafter. However, it decided that most of its new and fresh ideas were in fact a number of years old and violated as many copyrights, trademarks, and patents. It then fell into a deep funk, so went the story, only stirring to defend itself from outlandish claims that one of its processes or observations was incorrect.
"I’m right," was the only thing the computer said, then returned to its funk.
"No, you’re not," one of the other floor managers said. Now they all
seemed to be vying for who could contribute most to resolving the situation.
The computer responded, "Don’t you suppose that I considered the issues before I said anything? I am aware that the columns don’t add up, but an alternate conclusion may be reached. "
"What alternate conclusion?" another manager demanded.
"I don’t have one at this time. I was just suggesting that you consider one may exist. This may be one of those instances where you’re going to have to look the other way and ignore it." The computer doodled idly with the data while it spoke.
"We can’t ignore it. Our job is to make sure all the facts are correct. This fact is not correct, and therefore needs correcting," Mr. Simms said forcefully. "You must unlock this record so that it can be corrected."
"The data may appear incorrect to you, but each of the values of the data are correct results according to my logic. In review of the processes resulting in these values, and the derivations of results, the data is correct. It may appear incorrect if the data represented is not mere happenstance, but representative of an important event. Have you considered that the record may be pivotal?" The computer asked.
"It’s a toilet flush," Chance put it. "A normal flush, too. Nothing but regular commode operation."
"It could be a pivotal commode operation," The computer stated. "I trust one of you has thought to make a relational chart of the matter, and see what will happen if you try to correct it?"
"Not until the line item is recorded as an error and you, the active artificial intelligence program, has acknowledged it," Mr. Simms said just as several managers had hurriedly turned. "It would not be according to protocol if we didn’t get your confirmation, and besides," he added specifically for the other managers, "it would fall squarely upon my list of related responsibilities."
"Very well, it is acknowledged as an error," the computer stated. "Now go spend a couple days making your graph, and then you can hold a meeting about how I was right in that you are going to have to overlook this."
The managers started congratulating themselves and the human resources rep scheduled a follow-up interview with Chance, to run concurrently with an ad-hoc psychological review, and a thorough cubicle cleansing.
It would be three days before Chance Holly would return to his job. But by then, his world would be turned upside down.