A Mind of Its Own

"No!" shouted Jason King. Suddenly he swerved to the right of a giant space cruiser. He groaned as the pirates shot out his rear stabilizer with a plasma cannon. With a sudden insight, he executed a perfect backflip in his elite fighter ship, and came around to the pirate's unprotected backside. He grinned as he exclaimed, "Death to Zork!" He focused full power into his proton guns. He locked on to the pirate ship's engine unit. Then he laughed out loud, "Yes!" And then he crashed into an asteroid. He watched in horror as his spacecraft exploded in a ball of flame. Then, across his view screen shot the dreaded words: Game Over.

"No! No! No!" Jason shouted as he threw down his joy-stick. "I almost beat it!" He turned off the computer and jumped onto his bed and grabbed a book.

Aside from working at his computer, Jason's favorite pastime was reading. Jason was fifteen, and a freshman at Woodside High. Electronics had fascinated him since he was seven years old. He had a Hewlett Packard computer with a 400 meg hard drive. His computer had 230 megs of RAM. His Super VGA capability made it possible for him to get the hottest games for his CD ROM, which was his pride and joy. His interaction with the Internet sometimes interfered with his basketball practice. He had taken Karate up to brown belt level, but had decided to go with track instead. His favorite classes were Basic programming and "C" for Windows. He also liked math, because it helped with his programming, but he loathed Latin with Mr. Frode. Mr. Frode hated computers and insisted that mankind was much better off without these "mechanized monsters." He never even went near a calculator!

Jason had totally forgotten about his game; he was involved with his book, which was, of course, a space-age science fiction adventure novel. He was so absorbed in his book, that he didn't notice his computer monitor flash on and his computer lock into the Internet. When Jason finished the chapter he was on, he looked up just long enough to see the document on his computer screen before it faded out and his computer switched off. "What in the world!" he shouted, as he threw down his book and rushed to his computer. Before he could turn it on, his father burst into the room.

"What is all this yelling about?" he demanded. Jason's father was a tall, muscular man who worked as an electronic business consultant, and was now employed by A.S.A.T., a semi-conductor company.

"Dad, come over here." Jason was a little surprised at his father's sudden entrance; he usually worked late. "My computer," he said perplexed, "it turned on by itself."

Jason was an honest boy, but this announcement was hard for his father to believe. "Are you sure you turned it off?" his father asked.

"You don't believe me, do you?" Jason asked, glancing at his father.

"Well," Mr. King paused, "did it do anything while it was on?"

"Let's find out," said Jason. He booted up his machine, loaded Windows, and in less than a minute was in the Internet. "Something was written on the screen before it switched off," he mused. "I wonder if anything is saved." he found an un-named file. "This wasn't here before." He loaded the file and part of the message he had seen before materialized on the monitor:

Jason stared blankly at the screen.

"The last phrase sounds familiar," said his father.

"Of course," said Jason. "That's what I said."

"Yelled," corrected Mr. King.

"Whatever," said Jason, his face pale.

Mr. King, noticing his son's strange expression, grinned reassuringly. "It could mean anything."

"But, Dad, the computer turned on by itself, and wrote something. It seems like it has a mind of its own. Maybe it can hear us or something." The thought made him shiver. He had read enough sci-fi books about machines with brains to be a little nervous. Suddenly Jason yelled again. The message had disappeared, and in its place was: "Maybe it can hear us or something." When Jason screamed, the message changed to "Aaaaaaaaaaa!"

Jason's father rushed forward to press the "off" switch but the computer remained on. Jason and his father, now both silent, stared at the computer monitor. The original message flashed across the screen again, accompanied by this: 6' 7' 5-1' 4' '1 6' 3' 2' '9

"Where did you get this computer?" Jason asked his father.

"At Fri's Electronics," answered Mr. King, thoughtfully, "and it was used. That's how I got it on sale."

"Hello?" said Jason, tentatively. The message remained the same. "Maybe it's a code."

"Could be," his father agreed. "Actually, that first number looks like a telephone number."

"But what are those little marks?"

"I dunno. Wait! Maybe it is a telephone number!"

"What do you mean?" asked Jason.

"I'll be right back," said his father excitedly.

Just then the doorbell rang. "I'll get it," said Jason. At the door was Jason's best friend, Zack Brown. In sharp contrast to Jason's tan skin and broad shoulders, Zack was thin and almost pale. Though Zack couldn't come close to his friend in athletics, he was a computer fanatic and a tough competitor on "Pirates of Zork."

"Come on in," said Jason enthusiastically. "I gotta show you something."

Zack grinned. "Don't tell me you beat that sapphire destroyer."

"No, I hit an asteroid in the Gire Galaxy. But I do have something I think you'll like, it's--"

"Ah! Don't tell me! You got 'Revenge of Gilmar'!"

"Uh, no, I didn't," said Jason, annoyed. "Take a look at this!" They walked into Jason's room.

"You cleaned your room?" asked Zack. "Gee, that's, uh, great Jase."

"No, no, no!" exclaimed Jason. He grabbed his friend's shoulders and turned him toward the computer.

"The Internet. Swell, Jase."

"Okay, Zack, now look at the writing on the computer screen."

"You've been communicating with an idiot," said Zack.

Just then, Jason's father rushed in. "I did it!" he grinned. "I broke the code!"

Zack jumped when Mr. King ran in. Now he stared blankly at Jason. "Code? What code?" Then it dawned on him. "Ya mean that junk on the screen is a code?" Jason wasn't listening. He was watching his father at the computer.

"Each of the numbers on a telephone keypad represent three letters. If it just shows the number, it means the middle letter; if it has an apostrophe on either side of the number, it's the letter to that side. That last message said 'run clarify'. I think it's a command." Mr. King's hands flew over the keys. "Aha! Here it is!" He executed the command, and suddenly all the coded letters were visible.

"Computer?" said Jason.

"What are you doing?" asked Zack. "Computers can't talk."

Yes? printed the computer. Zack's mouth flew open and he sat down on Jason's bed.

"What are you?" Jason asked slowly.

I am a computer.

"What did that message mean?" asked Mr. King.

It was a distress signal, printed the computer.

"Was someone hurt?" asked Jason.

Yes.

"Wow!" exclaimed Zack, regaining his senses.

"Who was hurt?" continued Jason.

Bob.

"Bob who?"

Bob.

"Who is Bob?"

Einstein.

Zack gawked at the screen. "Hey! Maybe this was Einstein's computer!"

"Einstein didn't have a computer," Jason glared at Zack.

"And anyway," Mr. King pointed out, "Einstein's name wasn't Bob."

"Oh, right," said Zack glumly.

"Hey, wait a second," said Jason's father. "That first message. Maybe there's a clue there." He brought up the original document.

"Yes!" shouted Zack, gleefully pointing to the computer monitor, knocking Jason in the back of the head in the process.

"Hey! Watch it!"

"Whoops! Sorry!"

"Well, boys," said Mr. King, "I think we've got him: Bob Town."

"Isn't that a city in Virginia?"

"No, Zack, it's a guy's name."

"You mean it was his name," interjected Mr. King. "Bob Town died in an auto accident two years ago. Nobody knows why. Maybe it was suicide."

" Who sold you this computer?" Jason asked his dad.

"A girl at Fri's named Lisa Cunningham, I think. Why?"

"Be right back!" Jason called as he ran out of the room. Jason picked up the phone receiver and dialed the number for Fri's Electronics. When he got back to his room, he confirmed that his computer had once been owned by Bob Town.

"Do you think his middle name was Einstein?" asked Zack.

"I guess so, unless he had an alternate life," agreed Jason.

"Or," mused his father, "maybe he did have an alternate life."

"How do you mean?"

"Well, Zack, many people go by false names, or code names, on the Internet."

"Maybe he called himself Einstein," laughed Zack.

"Well, why not?" said Jason. "He must have been a genius to construct this work of art." He pointed to the computer, which printed thank you, Jason.

Meanwhile, Mr. King had been looking through some files, and had come upon some very interesting information. "It seems," he said, "that Bob put quite a number of locks on this AI program."

"So that's why it took so long to come through."

"AI?" said Zack, confused.

"Artificial Intelligence," said Jason. Jason sat down at his computer. "If Bob sent a distress message, then he did it before the crash. Hmmm...He must have sent it to somebody, but who?"

"Maybe that 'who' didn't want Bob Town to live," said Mr. King.

"You think it was sabotage?" asked Zack incredulously.

"Could be." It was Jason who answered. He was reading another document on the computer screen. "I brought up a file named 'Journal'. The last entry made was the day before the crash. Bob wrote that he knew someone was out to get him!"

"He must have been on his way to the police station when he crashed," said Zack.

"The last message he transmitted is also on here," Jason announced, "and it's the distress signal!"

"Who was it sent to?" asked his father.

"We'll soon find out," Jason replied.

It turned out that the message was sent from Bob Town, a Hewlett Packard employee, to Nick Conners, an employee of a powerful rival company. "We've got our motive!" announced Mr. King. Both boys looked confused. "Okay, let's say I worked for Company X," he explained. Both boys nodded. "My friend, who works for Hewlett Packard, invents an AI program." The boys nodded again. "Company X doesn't have AI, so that means Hewlett Packard is ahead, right?" The boys nodded, and Jason broke in:

"So you have to eliminate the competition."

"Exactly," said Mr. King.

"Bingo!" said Zack, "We've got him!"

"We've got to tell the police!" said Mr. King. "Zack, you go to the police station. Tell them everything. Jason and I will find Nick."

Jason asked the AI program for directions, and they set out. Mr. King and his son found Mr. Conners' house easily. It was a weekend, so they figured he'd be home. When Jason rang the doorbell, a giant of a man answered the door.

"Yeah?" he said.

Jason's father stepped forward. "Are you Mr. Conners?"

"Depends on who's askin'," the big man answered nervously.

"We just want to talk to you," said Jason.

"What about?"

"Bob Town's murder," Mr. King said.

"Bob wasn't murdered," was the reply. "He died in a car accident."

"You should know that it was no accident." Mr. King's voice was hard.

"But it was my job at stake!" Mr. Conners' eyes widened as he broke down.

"Is a job worth a man's life?" Mr. King asked.

Everything after that happened very quickly. Nick Conner's fist flew out, knocking Jason's father to the ground. He shoved Jason aside and ran for his car. Jason looked at his father to make sure he was all right, then sprinted after the killer.

Suddenly, a police car careened around the corner, siren blaring. Mr. Conners had just enough time to see it before he fell to the ground, two feet from his car. Jason had caught him in a flying tackle. Zack jumped out of the police car, followed by two officers. Mr. King walked over to stand by Jason. Then Mr. Conners spoke:

"They can't prove a thing. It's my word against theirs!"

"He's right," said one of the officers. "We need solid proof."

Then, Mr. King pulled out the tape recorder he had concealed in his pocket. "Whoa! Good thinking, Dad!" said Jason.

"Okay, people," said the other officer, "time to head down to the station."

Jason, his father, and his friend had solved the mystery, but the damage had been done. Now AI is widely used, but it cost a man's life. Even if it isn't smart, greed can have a mind of its own.

©1994 Jamie Dame