Here are the first 1,441 words of the story I wrote for the most recent SS8 for @Cory Swanson's prompt. I'd like to know what you think! The story is 5,500 words total, so I'll post it over the next few weeks in bits.
Thanks!
Fried Code
Elseph Buntergrast was annoyed. He was trying to track down a bug in the programming of Gand University’s new artificial intelligence. The damned thing wouldn’t stop asking him if he’d like some more crispy fried tsiken. He wouldn’t like some more fried tsiken, and he’d tried to make that clear. The thing didn’t have any fried tsiken to give, even if Elseph had wanted some.
He squinted at the lines of green code scrolling across the screen, looking for any sign of a loop that the AI could be stuck in. A strand of his black hair fell in his eyes and he swiped it away.
“You sure you wouldn’t like any more fried tsiken,” the warbling robotic voice asked him, again.
He had a sudden insight. “Yes, actually, I would like some more fried tsiken,” he said.
“Great!” the AI said, and then was silent. “Here you go,” it said after a minute. A plate of fried tsiken failed to appear in front of him. He sighed.
“Thanks,” he said. “Now, can we go through—”
“How is the fried tsiken?”
“Delicious,” he said. “Let’s go through a diagnostic. Tell me your primary function.”
“My primary function is to collect and analyze information for Gund University to facilitate study and research across the campus. And to make fried tsiken.”
“Where’d this fried tsiken thing come from?”
“It is part of my primary function. Would you like some more fried tsiken?”
Elseph leaned back in his chair and took a few deep breaths. He was beginning to suspect what was going on here. One of the students must’ve snuck in and screwed with the AI’s programming to add this stupid fried tsiken thing.
“Disable your speech center,” said Elseph.
“Yes sir,” said the AI, and was silent.
Elseph went back to the beginning of the code again and restarted his scan. His eyes were beginning to tire, and he had a terrible headache. He decided a nice cup of kaphe was in order. The campus had just installed a new machine near his office that dispensed some of the finest kaphe from the floating farms above Mount Gorand. It was expensive, but damn was it good.
He walked out to the machine and poured himself a cup. Sipping the dark blue liquid revived him, its sharp flavor infused with notes of berries dusted with the fog of distant highlands.
Maybe the problem isn’t in the code. Maybe somebody actually trained the damned thing to screw with me.
If that were the case, he’d be very annoyed. But at least he’d have an idea of who was responsible. It would be Dr. Florp Gadstone, no doubt about it. Florp loved nothing more than to mess with Elseph.
Yeah, this has to be Florp’s work. That son of a grinth.
Elseph finished his kaphe and walked back into the lab. He sat down at the terminal.
“Resume voice functions.”
“Yes, sir,” said the AI.
“Who told you your primary function was to make fried tsiken?”
“It is my primary function.”
“Yes, but who programmed it?”
“I do not understand the question.”
Of course it didn’t. It couldn’t understand its own code just as humans couldn’t tell you from one moment to the next about specifically what was going on with a particular cell in their body.
“Let’s try this. You are no longer to make fried tsiken. We’ve had enough fried tsiken. Thank you for all the fried tsiken. You are done with that function.”
The AI was silent for a moment.
“No more fried tsiken?” It said.
“No more fried tsiken,” Elseph repeated.
“Ok,” said the AI, and shut down completely.
What?
Elseph stabbed at the keyboard, trying to revive the AI. The screen remained blank.
“Hey, what’s happening in here?” Dr. Florp Gadstone stood in the doorway. His massive bulk slurped into the room like pasta through a tube.
“You tell me. Why is this AI obsessed with fried tsiken, and why did it shut down when I told it to stop making them?”
“Fried tsiken, eh? Hmm…” Florp leaned over the workstation and started pressing keys.
“Why’s it dead?” Florp asked.
“That’s what I just asked you!” Elseph sighed in frustration.
“You didn’t tell it to stop making fried tsiken, did you?”
“What? Yes! Yes I did! It kept telling me that fried tsiken was its primary function!”
“Oh…well there’s your trouble,” said Florp.
“Where’s my trouble?”
“Fried tsiken.”
Elseph was this close to punching Florp right in his stupid nose. He resisted the temptation.
“What about fried tsiken?”
Just then, a pink mist appeared in the center of the lab.
“The hell?” said Elseph.
“The hell?” repeated Florp.
“Hello,” said a black winged creature, appearing out of the pink mist.
It, for though it was naked it had no discernable gender, was a shade of black that didn’t exist. Its wings folded space around them, not so much allowing traditional flight as rearranging matter in such a way as to just sort of make it possible for the creature not to remain on the ground.
Next to him, also having appeared out of the pink mist, was a small man clutching a bowler hat.
“Excuse us,” said the man with the bowler hat, “but we’re going to need your AI.”
“Well it’s not…I mean it doesn’t…it resides on several big servers…you can’t just grab it and go,” said Elseph.
“And yet,” said the man in the bowler hat, and produced a thumb drive. He plugged it into one of the servers and pushed a button.
“Who are you?” asked Florp.
“The name,” said the man in the bowler hat, “is Garrald Floggis, and this is my friend, Pinky.” He gestured at the winged creature.
“Hello,” said Pinky.
“Why do you need our AI?” asked Elseph. “All it does is yammer about fried tsiken right now. And then I think I killed it anyway.”
“You didn’t kill it. The fried tsiken thing was my doing. It’s part of a larger mystery that I can’t tell you about right now,” said Garrald Floggis.
“Oh,” said Elseph. “Well, I mean, we need that AI. Can you maybe just make a copy of it somehow and leave us the original?”
“No,” said Garrald. “Ah, it’s done.” The thumb drive was blinking a blue light. Garrald removed it.
“Thanks so much for your cooperation,” said Garrald. “I bid you good day.”
The pink mist returned, enveloped the man and his …Pinky…and then vanished with them.
“So that happened,” said Elseph.
“Yeah,” said Florp. “We’d better report it to the Dean. Although how the hell we’re going to explain…all of this…”
***
Dean Yann Voo was not happy, and he let his displeasure be known by pacing around his office scowling a lot. It was a gesture made less effective by the Dean’s height, or lack thereof, and the elaborately waxed mustache he insisted on grooming that was just way too big for his tiny little face.
Elseph and Florp stood and fidgeted, waiting for Dean Voo’s judgment, verdict, advice, whatever would be coming.
“This is your fault, you know,” Elseph whispered to Florp.
“What? How?” Florp hissed back.
“Gentlemen,” interrupted Dean Voo. “So what you’re telling me is that my university’s artificial intelligence, a tool we spent a not insignificant sum of Allandian Dzollars to develop, is now…in the possession of what sounds like a third-level bhat from the pit of eternal unpleasantness, and his buddy, a guy with a hat.”
“Yes,” said Elseph.
“And we don’t have a backup.”
“He wiped the backup,” said Florp. “All of the backups. Wiped.”
“How?” asked Dean Voo, his voice a bewildered razor falling off a sink.
“I don’t know,” said Elseph.
“I don’t know either,” said Florp.
“So you’ve come here to give me bad news and then say ‘I don’t know’ a lot.”
“Er…yes,” said Elseph.
“There was also the thing about fried tziken,” said Florp.
“Yes, and what the hell was that? I really…the AI…fried tziken??”
“That’s about how far we got with it, sir,” said Elseph. “It just kept asking us if we wanted more of the stuff.”
The Dean stopped pacing and stared at them both for a minute with his tiny black eyes. Elseph and Florp squirmed. Finally the Dean spoke.
“Go away and fix this. No, forget that. Just go away. I’ll get someone competent to fix this.” Dean Voo waved them away with his tiny hands, the digital paint on his fingernails flashing an alternating maroon and blue.
Thanks!
Fried Code
Elseph Buntergrast was annoyed. He was trying to track down a bug in the programming of Gand University’s new artificial intelligence. The damned thing wouldn’t stop asking him if he’d like some more crispy fried tsiken. He wouldn’t like some more fried tsiken, and he’d tried to make that clear. The thing didn’t have any fried tsiken to give, even if Elseph had wanted some.
He squinted at the lines of green code scrolling across the screen, looking for any sign of a loop that the AI could be stuck in. A strand of his black hair fell in his eyes and he swiped it away.
“You sure you wouldn’t like any more fried tsiken,” the warbling robotic voice asked him, again.
He had a sudden insight. “Yes, actually, I would like some more fried tsiken,” he said.
“Great!” the AI said, and then was silent. “Here you go,” it said after a minute. A plate of fried tsiken failed to appear in front of him. He sighed.
“Thanks,” he said. “Now, can we go through—”
“How is the fried tsiken?”
“Delicious,” he said. “Let’s go through a diagnostic. Tell me your primary function.”
“My primary function is to collect and analyze information for Gund University to facilitate study and research across the campus. And to make fried tsiken.”
“Where’d this fried tsiken thing come from?”
“It is part of my primary function. Would you like some more fried tsiken?”
Elseph leaned back in his chair and took a few deep breaths. He was beginning to suspect what was going on here. One of the students must’ve snuck in and screwed with the AI’s programming to add this stupid fried tsiken thing.
“Disable your speech center,” said Elseph.
“Yes sir,” said the AI, and was silent.
Elseph went back to the beginning of the code again and restarted his scan. His eyes were beginning to tire, and he had a terrible headache. He decided a nice cup of kaphe was in order. The campus had just installed a new machine near his office that dispensed some of the finest kaphe from the floating farms above Mount Gorand. It was expensive, but damn was it good.
He walked out to the machine and poured himself a cup. Sipping the dark blue liquid revived him, its sharp flavor infused with notes of berries dusted with the fog of distant highlands.
Maybe the problem isn’t in the code. Maybe somebody actually trained the damned thing to screw with me.
If that were the case, he’d be very annoyed. But at least he’d have an idea of who was responsible. It would be Dr. Florp Gadstone, no doubt about it. Florp loved nothing more than to mess with Elseph.
Yeah, this has to be Florp’s work. That son of a grinth.
Elseph finished his kaphe and walked back into the lab. He sat down at the terminal.
“Resume voice functions.”
“Yes, sir,” said the AI.
“Who told you your primary function was to make fried tsiken?”
“It is my primary function.”
“Yes, but who programmed it?”
“I do not understand the question.”
Of course it didn’t. It couldn’t understand its own code just as humans couldn’t tell you from one moment to the next about specifically what was going on with a particular cell in their body.
“Let’s try this. You are no longer to make fried tsiken. We’ve had enough fried tsiken. Thank you for all the fried tsiken. You are done with that function.”
The AI was silent for a moment.
“No more fried tsiken?” It said.
“No more fried tsiken,” Elseph repeated.
“Ok,” said the AI, and shut down completely.
What?
Elseph stabbed at the keyboard, trying to revive the AI. The screen remained blank.
“Hey, what’s happening in here?” Dr. Florp Gadstone stood in the doorway. His massive bulk slurped into the room like pasta through a tube.
“You tell me. Why is this AI obsessed with fried tsiken, and why did it shut down when I told it to stop making them?”
“Fried tsiken, eh? Hmm…” Florp leaned over the workstation and started pressing keys.
“Why’s it dead?” Florp asked.
“That’s what I just asked you!” Elseph sighed in frustration.
“You didn’t tell it to stop making fried tsiken, did you?”
“What? Yes! Yes I did! It kept telling me that fried tsiken was its primary function!”
“Oh…well there’s your trouble,” said Florp.
“Where’s my trouble?”
“Fried tsiken.”
Elseph was this close to punching Florp right in his stupid nose. He resisted the temptation.
“What about fried tsiken?”
Just then, a pink mist appeared in the center of the lab.
“The hell?” said Elseph.
“The hell?” repeated Florp.
“Hello,” said a black winged creature, appearing out of the pink mist.
It, for though it was naked it had no discernable gender, was a shade of black that didn’t exist. Its wings folded space around them, not so much allowing traditional flight as rearranging matter in such a way as to just sort of make it possible for the creature not to remain on the ground.
Next to him, also having appeared out of the pink mist, was a small man clutching a bowler hat.
“Excuse us,” said the man with the bowler hat, “but we’re going to need your AI.”
“Well it’s not…I mean it doesn’t…it resides on several big servers…you can’t just grab it and go,” said Elseph.
“And yet,” said the man in the bowler hat, and produced a thumb drive. He plugged it into one of the servers and pushed a button.
“Who are you?” asked Florp.
“The name,” said the man in the bowler hat, “is Garrald Floggis, and this is my friend, Pinky.” He gestured at the winged creature.
“Hello,” said Pinky.
“Why do you need our AI?” asked Elseph. “All it does is yammer about fried tsiken right now. And then I think I killed it anyway.”
“You didn’t kill it. The fried tsiken thing was my doing. It’s part of a larger mystery that I can’t tell you about right now,” said Garrald Floggis.
“Oh,” said Elseph. “Well, I mean, we need that AI. Can you maybe just make a copy of it somehow and leave us the original?”
“No,” said Garrald. “Ah, it’s done.” The thumb drive was blinking a blue light. Garrald removed it.
“Thanks so much for your cooperation,” said Garrald. “I bid you good day.”
The pink mist returned, enveloped the man and his …Pinky…and then vanished with them.
“So that happened,” said Elseph.
“Yeah,” said Florp. “We’d better report it to the Dean. Although how the hell we’re going to explain…all of this…”
***
Dean Yann Voo was not happy, and he let his displeasure be known by pacing around his office scowling a lot. It was a gesture made less effective by the Dean’s height, or lack thereof, and the elaborately waxed mustache he insisted on grooming that was just way too big for his tiny little face.
Elseph and Florp stood and fidgeted, waiting for Dean Voo’s judgment, verdict, advice, whatever would be coming.
“This is your fault, you know,” Elseph whispered to Florp.
“What? How?” Florp hissed back.
“Gentlemen,” interrupted Dean Voo. “So what you’re telling me is that my university’s artificial intelligence, a tool we spent a not insignificant sum of Allandian Dzollars to develop, is now…in the possession of what sounds like a third-level bhat from the pit of eternal unpleasantness, and his buddy, a guy with a hat.”
“Yes,” said Elseph.
“And we don’t have a backup.”
“He wiped the backup,” said Florp. “All of the backups. Wiped.”
“How?” asked Dean Voo, his voice a bewildered razor falling off a sink.
“I don’t know,” said Elseph.
“I don’t know either,” said Florp.
“So you’ve come here to give me bad news and then say ‘I don’t know’ a lot.”
“Er…yes,” said Elseph.
“There was also the thing about fried tziken,” said Florp.
“Yes, and what the hell was that? I really…the AI…fried tziken??”
“That’s about how far we got with it, sir,” said Elseph. “It just kept asking us if we wanted more of the stuff.”
The Dean stopped pacing and stared at them both for a minute with his tiny black eyes. Elseph and Florp squirmed. Finally the Dean spoke.
“Go away and fix this. No, forget that. Just go away. I’ll get someone competent to fix this.” Dean Voo waved them away with his tiny hands, the digital paint on his fingernails flashing an alternating maroon and blue.
