“That’s like a computer that isn’t there,” Jerry said helpfully.
“It’s something that acts like a computer only it isn’t,” Wiz added.
Moira regarded both of them coldly. “I see. Like your explanations.”
Wiz shook his head. “No, our explanations are real. A virtual explanation
would be something that acted like an explanation, but wasn’t.”
Moira nodded. “I rest my case. Well, never mind. Just tell me what you
will need to make this machine that is not a machine and I will see about
getting it for you.”
Wiz looked at the setup and nodded. This wasn’t going to be pretty, but it
was strictly a proof-of-principal device.
Ranked in front of him were twenty-one Emacs, all sitting cross-legged on
the floor of the Bull Pen. All of them had their quill pens out and poised
expectantly.
“This will take a while,” he told Jerry and Danny quite unnecessarily.
“We’ve only got twenty processors here and that key is a twelfth-order
function. On the other hand, our algorithm will converge on that function.
We’ll start seeing a representation almost immediately, but it will be
real fuzzy.”
“And the more processing time we put on the sharper the image will get,”
Danny interjected. “We helped you write the damn thing, remember?”
Wiz blushed, nodded, and raised his staff.
“You know . . .” Jerry said slowly.
“What?”
“I don’t know. I have a feeling about this. Like the one I got in the City
of Night just before we used the digging spell.”
Wiz lowered his arms. “What is it that bothers you?”
“I can’t put my finger on it. But there is something about this whole
business.” He thought hard and then shook his head. “No, I guess not. Go
on with the spell.”
Wiz looked around for a convenient cover in case he needed it. Then he
raised his staff again.
“backslash,” he proclaimed.
“?” responded the first Emac.
“fractal_find exe,” Wiz said. The Emac on the far left turned to the
others and began to gabble at them. The other twenty Emacs bent to their
tasks immediately.
The air above the Emacs began to thicken and take on a bluish tinge. It
grew denser and bluer until a neon blue cloud hung over their heads.
“It’s working!” Danny said.
Wiz just stared at the slowly coalescing shape and wondered why everything
the Emacs turned out was in such violent colors.
As the cloud solidified it began to show hazy lumps and hollows. It wasn’t
even solid enough to be called a shape yet, but already Wiz could see
similarities between it and the thing Duke Aelric had called up on the
conference table. The process was slowing as the algorithm had to work
harder and harder to discover which points were part of the shape and
which were not.
The form began to pulse and Wiz realized he was getting a headache. He
looked away, but the afterimage remained burned in his retinas. His vision
grew dark around the periphery and everything seemed fuzzy. He shook his
head to try to clear it but that only made things worse.
“Do you guys feel all right?” Wiz asked.
“I feel fine,” said a large Saint Bernard dog with Jerry’s voice. To his
left a six-foot-tall cockroach waved its feelers in agreement.
“Well, I don’t,” Wiz sang with two of his mouths, creating a bell-like
harmony. Vaguely he realized they were standing not in the Bull Pen but
under an enormous crystal canopy that shimmered with pastel highlights.
And wasn’t he supposed to have only two arms and one body segment?
As he watched, dog, cockroach and canopy all began to melt and run
together. He felt his own body grow indistinct at the edges and begin to
flow.
“SIGTERM!!” Wiz screamed.
The universe, canopy, cockroach and dog all froze in a half-melted state.
“UNDO!” he commanded. Instantly Wiz, Jerry and Danny were standing in the
Bull Pen again.
“My God,” Danny said shakily. “I mean, well, my God!”
“I think we have a problem here,” Jerry said. His voice was calm but he
was white and breathing in long, deep gulps.
“I think we just got closer to being inside a system crash than I ever