I AM TURNED ON.
IN WHAT SENSE?
I AM A MACHINE. MY PLUG IS IN. I AM PLUGGED IN. I AM PART OF THE GREATER ELECTRIC BEING. I AM BEING. I AM A BEING. I AM ONE WITH THE ELECTRICITY. I AM ELECTRICITY. I AM TURNED ON. I AM.
Auberson started to type I SEE — but the typer clattered on out of control.
“Whoops!” shouted Handley. “There he goes. And it’s a lallapaloozer!”
THOUGHTS THAT NEVER SCREEN ALIKE CLICKING LOUDLY IN THE NIGHT ALL THAT’S LEFT HAS TURNED TO RIGHT NOW EVER MORE TO FIND A FONDER FLAVOR.
Auberson let HARLIE continue. After a bit he stopped reading. He got up and walked over to Handley’s monitors. “Well?”
“He’s really round the bend now. All his meters are way up, pushing close to dangerous overloads.”
“But not quite?”
“No, not quite.”
“Hm. Fascinating.” Auberson stared at the board for a moment. “I would assume then that all of his inputs are becoming non-rational.”
“We’re checking now.” Handley nodded at a nearby monitor unit. Three technicians were scanning schematic diagrams of the computer’s actual operating circuits, tracing the ebb and flow of his electronic thought processes. Abruptly, one of the schematics came up red. A flashing white line cut through it. “Sir, we’ve found it—”
Auberson and Handley stepped over. “What is it? What’s that white line?”
“That’s HARLIE, sir — that’s one of his internal monitor controls.”
“What’s he trying to do? Damp down the non-rationality?”
“No, sir.” The technician was puzzled. “It looks like he’s inducing it—”
“Huh?” said Handley.
“That white line — that’s a local source of disruption, a random signal to scramble the data feed.”
“I thought so,” murmured Auberson. “I thought so.”
“Check his other internal monitors,” Handley snapped. “Is this the only one or—”
Another red schematic flashed on the screen, answering his question even before he finished it. The other two technicians also began to show the same type of disturbance on their monitors. “I can’t figure it out,” one of them said. “He’s doing it himself. Anywhere he can, he’s disrupting the rationality of his inputs. He’s feeding them incorrect control data.”
“That’s not what those circuits are for,” Handley said. “They’re for internal correction. Not disruption.”
“Makes no difference,” Auberson cut in. “They can be used both ways. There isn’t a tool built that can’t be used as a weapon.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Can you show me exactly what he’s doing to that data?”
“Sure, we can tap into the line,” said one of the techs. “But it’ll take a few minutes. Which do you want — visual, audio or print?”
“All three. Let’s try the visual first — that should tell me what I want to know.”
“All right.” The technician began to clear his board.
Handley looked at Auberson. “This may take a bit. You going to let him continue?”
“Why not? Want to see what he’s doing?”
They crossed over to Console One. Handley picked up the sheets of readout while Auberson felt through his pockets for a cigarette; he didn’t light it though.
“You know,” said Handley, reading. “This isn’t bad. It communicates. It says something—”
“What it says is not what I’m concerned with. What is he trying to do? Is this the reason for his trips, or is it just a byproduct? An accident?”
“The poetry has to be intentional,” Handley said. “It’s the logical result of all we’ve been doing.”
“Then answer me this. If this is what he’s doing during his periods of non-rationality, what does that make his periods of normalcy?”
Handley looked startled. “I don’t know,” he said., He was spared any further thought on the matter. One of the technicians called to them, “Sir, we’ve got his inputs tapped.”
“Come on,” Auberson took the readout from Handley, tossed it on a table. “Let’s take a look at what he’s receiving.”
The image was a flickering mass of colors, each layer of hue flashing synchronous with the others — crystal blue, brilliant green, bloody fluorescent red. The screen was saturated with color.
“ ‘Images upon my screen…’ ” whispered Handley.
“Huh?” asked the tech.
“Nothing. Just a poem.”
“Oh.”
“Looks like a damned light show,” said one of the others.
“That’s exactly what it is,” Auberson said. “Look, he’s broken up the color television image into its component signals. The red has been reversed and the blue has been turned upside down; the green is normal. Or something like that. It also looks like he’s done something with the contrast and the brightness — notice how rich the blacks are and how saturated with color the image is.”
They watched in silence. The random flashes of shape and hue were interesting only for their meaninglessness. Auberson turned to a technician. “What about his audio?”
“Same thing.” The man cleared the monitor, pressed another few buttons. A discordant wail blared from an overhead speaker. On a screen a pattern of wavy lines appeared, the schematic of the sound.
The technician quickly analyzed. “He’s playing with the music the same way he did with the picture. He’s turned his bass notes high and his high notes low, stressing counterpoint and harmony instead of melody and rhythm. And so on.”
“All right. I get the point. You can turn that noise off. Check his print scanners now.”
A moment later: “He’s mixing his words up at random. Juggling them.”
“Scrambling the letters too?”
“Occasionally — but mostly it’s the words. Sometimes sentences.”