"Hi, Sam. Nice to see you leave the lab for once." Agnes sat down across from Sam, and her fiancee, Al, sat down next to her.
"Yeah, how are those new chips? I can't wait to see what you've done with all that diamond junk. Maybe they'll give us enough money to stock up on real dinners."
"Even more money won't convince the senators to let us buy better food. They'll want us to spend it on more computer chips. And it's diamond substrate going into the new chips. The first one should be done tomorrow. Agnes, are those programs ready yet?"
"You mean the calculation of pi and random word generator programs?" Agnes made a face and began playing with her tv dinner. "I finished those last week."
"Last week? Isn't that when Sam gave you those problems?" Al gaped.
"Yeah. Took a couple hours each. Finished in a day. Those were easy ones. I can't wait till we integrate the new chips into the architecture and I can start on some challenging programs."
"Challenging?" Al was still gaping, "God, you two were made for each other!"
Agnes smiled sweetly. "Work-wise, maybe. But off the job, you're the only man for me, Al. You know that!"
"Well . . . as long as you're bored with nothing to do, Agnes . . . "
Al gave him a sly grin, "Oh, I wouldn't say nothing, Sam. She has me, of course!"
"Okay, nothing work-wise. Why don't you start writing a free-association program using UNIX, and when you're done, make a conversion to C++. I'll need that once a few chips have been linked together. That'll give you something to do." Sam began staring off into space.
"Oh, great. It's the 'Genius-At-Work' stare. He's gone!" Al noted.
"Free association? You mean, like in psychology, 'say the first word that comes to mind', that free association?" Agnes queried.
"Mmmhmm. Remember, this computer is gonna have feelings. I want to try a little psychology right off the bat to see if the chips can handle it." Sam resumed his blank stare.
"Only you could try to design a computer with feelings, pal. Am I gonna have to order it around like the dimwit Corporals we have swarming all over the place?" Al polished off the last of his mystery meat and leaned back in his chair.
Agnes laughed, "No, of course not. Unless you really want somebody else to boss around." She smiled deviously.
"No, thank you! Those Corporals give me a headache as it is. When I went to Annapolis, we were taught that Admiral is equivalent to God, and you obey an Admiral without delay and without argument. This morning, one of them tried to stop me at the gate! He wanted to do a computer check on my ID!"
"Oh, the horror of it!" Sam exclaimed in mock horror. "Someone working here who is dependent on computers. Never woulda believed it could happen."
"You shut up! I didn't become an Admiral by catering to children."
"Okay, okay! I'll take care of it for you, honey, like I did last time." Agnes slid closer to Al, almost sliding into his lap.
"It was Corporal Collins. Why don't you scramble his computer for two days this time, huh?" Al pulled her into his arms.
"Scramble his computer? What have you been doing behind my back, Agnes?" Sam looked warily at her.
"Oh, just practicing the hacking skills my old high school buddy taught me. Can't loose the magic touch, or he might be able to slip a virus under our noses." Agnes snuggled into Al's arms.
"You still keep in touch with Chris after all these years? What's he doing now anyway?" Al followed his question with a kiss.
"He runs his own computer company, writing CD-ROMs and corporate software. He's happy."
"He owns the company? Too bad, I was going to suggest hiring him once we installed the new chips." Sam got up and threw their empty plates into the nearby garbage can.
"So, what's stopping you? He can still write some software for us, just not the top-secret stuff," Agnes suggested.
"Nah, the government nozzles wouldn't like it. Besides, even if he was available, those nozzles would consider him a security risk. He was a suspect in the 1998 Internet virus that wiped out half the continent." Al held Agnes even tighter.
"He didn't do it. But he did dissect a copy of the virus and he told me that he admired the ingenuity of the coding."
"How did he get a copy of the code without getting infected? I wanted to look at a copy myself, but it was too dangerous to even try." Sam slid back in his seat.
Agnes grinned, "I'll ask him to send you a print-out of the code next time I see him. As for how he got it, I learned a long time ago to just look the other way."
Sam raised his eyebrows, "So, um, Al, uh, when are we due for another begging mission?"
"The nozzles want us next month, the fifteenth of December. They want to see all three of us this time. They're unsure of Agnes's value to the project."
"Unsure of her value? Well, we'll just have to prove her value. Do you think you could have a working, debugged version of the free-association program by then?"
Agnes laughed, "Are you kidding? I'll have that and five other programs ready to show the nozzles. And I'll blow them away with the fractal displayer I've got half-written."
Al craned his neck to look her in the eye, "Fractal displayer?"
Agnes nodded, "Yeah. I can't eat without still thinking about a program, but the nozzles won't let me take any work outta the office, so I work on my fractal program, which is unclassified, and then do the typing after hours."
Al smirked, "So that's why you've been coming to bed late!"
Agnes shrugged, "Guilty as charged."
Sam got up, "Come on. Let's go work on a plan of attack in Al's office. Are they coming here, or are we going there?"
Al put his arm around Agnes's shoulders, "Here. They want to see a partly functional computer core."
"I guess I'll have to finish those new chips quickly then. Come on." They left the project cafeteria together.
Last updated 18 JUN 98
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