Chapter Six
1 + 1 = .5
As Megan 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 was 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 never 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 about how much work all your football and basketball practices were?”
“Yeah, so?”
“And what was the reward?”
“What?”
“The pay off! What did you get for all of 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 a 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 it wasn’t a 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 mid-western version, while Rosa’s mom served a spicier 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 Jenny Rush 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 Jenny 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. “There is a possibility 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 one of the last instructions toward 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 let out a sarcastic laugh. “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.
Whereas, the party of the first part...blah blah blah...ipso facto, the party of second part...blah...On execution of section CCXXXIV, sub-scetion D, paragraph 14...blah blah blah, is enforced...No obligations, stated or implied, are incumbent upon...blah blah blah, blah blah-blah...blah...The enforcement of said provisions...blah blah blah, blah blah-blah...hocus pocus, blah blah...Stipulations beyond those explicitly defined within this agreement...blah blah blah, blah-blah...
blah blah blah, blah blah-blah...for the term of his/her enrolment in the IHT Academy.
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 mathematics, 1 + 1 = .5”
Cameron smiled and nodded. Suddenly, his face exploded with an expression of discovery and 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 of?”
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 towards 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 thirty minutes. The 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 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.” MultiCom’s 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.
“Please!”
“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 wellbeing. 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.”
Despite their distance, their hearts pounded as one as they spoke their names and IDs.
The screen dissolved to an image of a length of glistening red satin tape stretched across an expanse of stars. A deep, pulsing hum could be heard, like the throbbing of a huge engine. Soon, a pair of gigantic scissors moved into view at the top of the screen.
“It’s just like the battle cruiser in the beginning of that old sci-fi movie, Star Wars,” said Cameron.
“And remember the welcome screen?” said Rosa. “How the letters scrolled across the star field?”
“Yeah, that’s right. Whoever’s running this acadamy is some kind of mega-geek.”
As it approached the stripe of red, the scissors rotated, opened wide, and cut through the red tape. As the tape snapped apart, an explosion filled the screen, and the room was washed with a triumphant flourish of trumpets. The explosion slowly faded as Cameron and Rosa came back into each other’s view.
“Incoming document,” Vee and Sam informed their users in perfect synchronization.
Rosa and Cameron waited impatiently as the pages came out of their respective printScans. It didn’t help matters that printScan pages came out facedown. Cameron drummed his fingers nervously on the desktop, and Rosa paced the short distance from her bedroom door to the multiCom. After what seemed like forever—it was actually only about 17 seconds —the documents finished printing, and the anxious applicants whipped the pages from the devices. Hearts still pounding, their eyes looked at the document in disbelief. They were colorful certificates with intricate scrolling borders and fancy lettering. As if of one thought, they turned towards their multiCom screens and held up the document for the other to see.
Both documents were labeled:
– End Chapter Six –
