remaining until her holiday, Myra counted princes and came to only 1, Sven couldn’t
count, and Maurice didn’t want to count. He left that to computers.
On their second chat Gwendoline told Hilde about Flavia’s remark on workload
multiplying, not adding, under certain circumstances. Hilde reflected upon this:
“So she says: Twenty-four times more work, not feasible, really, or is it? But then she’s so right and then not, because the worst of it is, it IS feasible. With bad consequences, but it is feasible. But there is no time left for global actions, PROACTIVE actions, which could help mend the whole situation. It’s such a vicious circle, an endless story, as Lexi likes to say lately. As Leo said: “There may be an end, but at what level? Maybe at the
famous N! level only.”
“How does hierarchy not want to see this? But of course maybe hierarchy is a ghost
concept which does not truly exist; only in our imagination.”
“Flavia is an intelligent woman,” said Gwendoline, “she seems a bit like she was
diving at times, but maybe being underwater helps one find things. And maybe she’s
- 214 -
The Crazy HelpDesk
right about imagining the end of the world at times. She’s very mathematical. And
don’t forget she speaks Japanese; wherever she learnt that.”
Sven was furious because a user, female, not even of his own MOU, but of one he was
just passing by, first asked him to help her with a ‘search and replace’ function, than
bade him to carry her screen over to another office for her, even if it was a flat screen, and thus not very heavy, and finally asked him where the day care nursery was. He
helped her and then, in an ill mood for having been abused, he had asked her:
“How come YOU don’t have all these gifts” and she had answered, slightly pursing her
lips:
”I guess I’m just lucky.”
- 215 -
The Crazy HelpDesk
The midnight fair
To help the Paranormal WG (freshly renamed and ex-Telepathy) finish yet another
report, Hilde had expected to spend another night at the office. The new application
programmes Kaleidoscope and Elements 112 were just too difficult to be handled by
the users all alone just right away. ‘Codename’ was, what else, a very important report.
There is no unimportant report. Important and report are pleonasms. The Paranormal
WG had been working on it for months and this was the night to finalise it. They had
gotten their deadline for it as usual only yesterday. The deadline, like all others, had been set by some cruel and unthinking Anonymous which made it impossible to inform
anyone about the danger of setting it so close. But the report was vital to the House.
Indeed the House felt really under pressure because of it and needed to get this through quickly. ‘Codename’ was, maybe really, a key report. And it was also a very secret
report, as one could see from its name. Hilde had really been quite afraid of unexpected and unforeseen problems in the application programmes and the report itself that would
have delayed until the early hours in the morning.
But as if by magic, they finished the report not too late, and sent it off at the stroke of midnight. At the same moment, as if to emphasise this, somewhere, not too far away,
they heard the clatter of an up-starting firework. The little group dashed ran across the corridor and the hall in front of the elevators and then over to the opposite side of the building, where they saw it unfolding at the other side of the river. When it lit, it
illuminated a fair that suddenly seemed to have materialised at the ground. None of
them of course had known about its being there nor coming. For being informed of
such sorts of happenings, they had all far too much to do. But a fair it was, proving its existence by a fairly giant wheel.
The firework and the fair beneath appeared to really have popped out of nowhere as if
by magic and fatigue increased this feeling. At the same time they were highly amused
and clapped their hands like children at each new burst of sparks and flames. The
familiar but at the same time forever renewing shapes burst up in the sky; fumes,
smokes, gerbs, fountains, rockets, flowers, weeping willows, waterfalls, wheels, cakes
of al sizes, comets and serpents, mines exploding and even a face. An imagery
combined with bangs and whistles, crackles and hummers. Every single Pang! had
another sound and seemed beautifully matched to each kind of sparkle.
The group let out little shrieks of delight, and soon hunger and thirst for something else than crackers and water began to make itself feel. None of them had eaten since at least lunch.
A Midnight lunch
- 216 -
The Crazy HelpDesk
“I’m hungry,” said Larry Wolf, the CLA, as if discovering this just now.
“So am I,” said Paola.
“Yes”, said Hilde and Gerhard in one voice.
“Let’s visit the fair and find something there,” suggested Umberto.
“Wie lustig – how funny,” grinned Gerhard. He had such a sweet sunny grin, Hilde
marvelled each time she saw it. She was not the only one. Lut had already admitted to
her too, that she would at least like to paint him, but had to leave that to Leo who
would not be interested.
“It will be my treat,” offered Larry.
Without any further discussion they took their coats and started off for their little
journey.
They had to first go east, cross the Einstein and Newton building, then take the bridge
to the Watson & Crick building, go down with the elevators which’s ground doors
opened into the Einstein, cross the Hall of Elements and the Flower Bar, which directly
adjoined the main reception hall with its row of flags and red carpet. This main room
strangely enough had no official but just a nickname: ‘Science Main’. From Science
Main they took the Galileo Galilei bridge which joined the north and south parts of the
House where they finally had almost reached their destination, because Umberto knew
a shortcut: Just take the first left after the footbridge, first door right down there, cross a narrow corridor and then small and empty office, descend a flight of stairs and they
found themselves in the open air. Otherwise they would have had to cross two more
buildings and two more bridges in order to reach the south main entrance and then do
another five hundred meters back to join the fair. Don’t try to understand the ways of
the House, they make no sense. Only shortcuts do.
House-Shortcuts were a jealously guarded secret, because, if too well known, they
risked being closed, as certainly this one would have been, so don’t tell anyone about
it. Hilde was of the opinion that probably again even security knew nothing about it.
You could open the door just like that from the inside as well as from the outside and it wasn’t guarded.
The fair was now but a few steps away, just across the street in fact, and in a second
they found themselves at its entrance.
Larry, the little troupe at his trail, was taking large steps, proudly passing coloured
balloons, teddy bears, giant dolls, shotguns, Russian mountains, the maze, the horror
gallery, the mirror cabinet, carrousels, the Merry-Go-Round, race and bump cars, pop
corn, cotton candy, candy apples. But Larry showed no interest. The kids were a bit
disappointed. Umberto gave a longing look in the direction of little round cabins which
swirled around with the speed of some two hundred kilometres or miles a second,
Hilde grinned at the cotton candy, Christa and Paola at the love apple and Gerhard
smiled at a teddy bear who smiled back. One just couldn’t resist Gerhard’s smile.
It seemed like a very nice kermes, very much at the image of the House. Creatures out
- 217 -
The Crazy HelpDesk
of all sorts of fairy tales, ancient ones like Red Riding Hood, Snowy White and her
seven little colleagues and modern ones like Donald Duck or Mickey Mouse wandered
around.
But Larry only wanted a beer and some sustainable food. He was not much of a
romantic, especially after a report he had worked on for months even if it was now
fortunately finished.
Artificial Intelligence, Biometrics
Finally they found an open air tavern and sat down at the last free table.
Beer and sausages were ordered and arrived at the twinkle of the eye. A miracle again.
It must have been the fairy who did it. The public seemed to be mostly Bohatian, they
recognised none of their colleagues among it.
After having swallowed - or rather devoured – an impressive amount of French fries,
sausages and Mischel-beer, they felt a bit less famished and made a review of the
report, and its subject.
It was typical, but no one but maybe Larry had really read the report. It were a very
chosen few only who would read a report. The others just didn’t have the time. They
had to type it, print it, photocopy it, distribute it, keep the programmes working that
helped with its layout, correct the bugs in the software that pretended to help make it, even write it, but not read it. Reading it was not their business. The report could have contained: “And if you have read up to that point, let’s say page 70, then come to see
me I’ll offer you a luxury Safari for two persons,” and no one would have consciously
grasped the offer, and no one would have come. But of course some of it had entered
some of their minds and this was the moment of reward, the moment to know what it
was all about.
“Do you really believe it’s that bad, Larry, are those new computer system really that
much dangerous?”
Larry looked sombre:
“No. It’s only worse. ‘They’ have means we don’t even know about. (‘They’ again)
Their computers are not computers anymore in the sense we believe to know. The
concept of AI, artificial intelligence is not a concept anymore. It has become very real.
They can simulate the process of the human mind, only better. Reasoning, learning,
self-correction, all those qualities we pride ourselves on are now brought to sheer
perfection. Those systems contain an initial formula that can develop itself, and does
not need additional development from human side anymore. It’s running all by itself
now, and might soon escape us, even ‘them’. DNA or our neurological circuits replace
the conventional chip. The human brain, with his natural talent for statistics and
intuition is now integrated and used at will by the initial creators of those systems.
Biometrics, which could initially analyse fingerprints, iris, voice and other human parameters for authentication purposes can now recognise and find someone at great
distances. It’s not a TV satellite or something innocent and simple like that. It goes to
- 218 -
The Crazy HelpDesk
the extend of being able to read our thoughts. Those computers capture the waves our
brain sends out and are able to convert our thoughts into the written word, on screen or printer. Telepathy? Of course. Not believing in it is to not being scientific. Our brain captures and visualises images, but it sends them too. Like radio waves or those from
TV. They just convert it into a film, a soundtrack they can visualise and listen to later, at home, while having a sandwich. Yes, THEY have studied the Paranormal. They at
least have taken the phenomena seriously. The House prides itself to be scientific, and
thus believes to be smart by dismissing the topic as superstition, childish belief. But it’s the House which is immature with its attitude. The House might get into trouble, if it
refuses the most precious and innermost gifts of the human mind and race. The soul.
We might loose ourselves. They know about our report, they have probably read it
maybe before I even finished it. Maybe they made me write it, haha.”
His speech gave everyone the shivers. Larry had really gotten too deep into this! He
must have lost his toolbar somewhere on the way of finalising this report. Never
REALLY read a report, that much was obvious. They all liked Larry, but what nonsense!
“Swell,” said Gerhard. Telepathy will replace the phone, it will be much less
expensive, and in consequence communication will go deeper. Teleportation will
replace cars and planes and telekinesis will build houses. We will be making astral
voyages.”
“But it would indeed be nice to be able to fly to work!” said Paola.
Or to marry a computer, thought Hilde, at least a computer has a soul, whereas Egon -
well had an Ego.
“Sure. And you will have the man you are chatting with on the Net leave his chat room,
come out of your screen and jump at you.” said Larry. “Yes and more: He might be
nice and friendly, but at the end you will be sleeping with Big Brother.” said Larry.
“We will need a new firewall system then, to keep big brother and other men of his sort
out,” said Hilde, whom this latest idea made visibly very much ill at ease. It was the
same for Paola:
“Do you really believe it is that bad? That we are so much lied and spied at? That they
hide everything from us, but know everything about us and we not much about them?
That they spy upon us all the same time?”
“It’s worse. As I said: Those computers are not computers anymore. They are made
using DNA chains, and imitate neurological circuits. They are human beings with the
brain of computers, or the opposite. They have a soul. They have … well ... sort of
feelings.”
Maybe more noble ones than ours. Never forget that a computer can feel, thought Hilde
happily.
“It could have some advantages. A nice sensitive feeling computer.”
“This is good no? It cannot be said about all human beings.”
“Depends on the feelings, Gerhard. Feelings of greed, yes.”
- 219 -
The Crazy HelpDesk
“What do you mean Larry,” asked Hilde, shocked. Her nice computers! Feelings of
greed! What more?! Her computers, her darlings, feelings of greed? But feelings
maybe, feelings for sure, but good feelings no?"
"Feelings, but directed by those who conceived them. Hilde. This only means power.
They see us as objects to be bought and sold at will. We cannot make a move anymore
without their knowing, and soon they will want to control those same moves. Not only
is every phone call, fax or Email message captured and analysed, but every room, even
a private one, is being observed. We’re being observed NOW, right now.”
The little group gave out a shudder. Surely, Larry was overworked, getting paranoid
himself. Poor Larry.
“How would they do that?” asked Hilde soothingly.
“Why does no one ever read reports? Read the report and what it says. Everything is
recorded. Every phone conversation is listened too. We’re listened to right now. Spied
at. Every thought is being intercepted; they just capture the Morse our brain sends out.
Some satellite is looking at us, filming, recording.”
“But they do not even know who and where we are! No one is supposed to know where
Bohatia is!”
Larry looked even more sombre. His dark moustache and fine black hair appeared light
against his thoughts.
“But surely we cannot be interesting enough. Not me at least,” said Gerhard. He felt
stupid now. He really should have read this report. But he had just collected the
material, never finding the time to really grasp its content.
“But why would they do all this? Where is the advantage?” asked Christa who
otherwise rarely spoke. She had typed the major part of the report, but hadn’t taken in a single word, no time for that. Not at the House.
“Yes, what are they looking for?” said Paola, bewildered.
“Read the newspapers. Thy want to spy on us, know our consumer habits better than
ourselves, they want us to buy from them, they want our money, they want to take
power over us. They want to control the world.”
“But surely they cannot listen to everything; it would take billions of years.”
“No indeed. They are looking for keywords. When the computer finds a keyword, he
will point it out to them. Imagine a nice talk between two terrorists planning
something. What would they say?”
“Pois! I will write some Emails from my dummy hotmail box to other dummy mail
boxes, and use some keywords I imagine to sound bad, and then wait and see what
happens.” said Hilde. She loved that word: “Pois” which could mean just about
everything. Maybe ‘Pois’ was one of those keywords.
Incognito Mailboxes
“Why do you have a dummy mail box Hilde?”
- 220 -
The Crazy HelpDesk
“Because when I surf and am asked to give my work or private Email address, I never
do so, because I of course fear to get spammed and have my mailbox filled with
Viagra, loans, cars and naked people. I only give out the Email account I have created
on Hotmail. Just type ‘hotmail’ in the Search box of your browser or type
http://www.hotmail.com in the address bar. There you can register for an Email account. The only problem is finding a free name. If you want to use your first name
even adding a 1,2,3, …99, 112345 to it, it will be taken already.
“Ach so. You went on Hotmail and just invented a name to get a free mailbox, which
only stands for being filled with trash.”
“Yes, and then, if I have to give a ‘valid’ Email address while I surf, I give this
‘dummy’ address. In that way I must not miss all of the fun stuff they are offering on
the web, like greeting cards, screensavers, clipart, icons, and some games. But anyway
never install anything from the Internet without being sure it’s an ‘honest’ site.”
“Yes Hilde!” answered the group in Chorus.
“But Hilde, don’t do this at all,” said Larry, “you know better than me that they can
easily find out who you are even with a dummy mailbox.”
Hilde nodded: “It’s true they could find out from which PC I send something, with
tracking systems, ‘ tracert’ and so forth. But made better. If I understand well, those tracking systems are innocent compared to what the Codename report says about what
one can do nowadays. If we have to believe Larry, they’re recording what I say right
now and are mind-reading my email.”
“But doesn’t your Internet provider have a good firewall for that?”
“I think mine does. I have Othello, a local Bohatian provider. He’s for free and I never get spam nor annoying pop-ups and publicity. Maurice advised him to me. Says he’s
brilliant He swears he’s a mastermind, unequalled. Says there is no one better than him.
I mean: Maurice says: No one is better than me, but Othello. Maurice tried to meet him
once, but he wouldn’t. A mystery man.
“Hope he won’t commit suicide.”
“But it was Hamlet who committed suicide.”
“Are you sure?”
This made them go back to their previous topic:
“And Lionel’s disappearance too can leave one thoughtful.”
Lionel had been working for the Codename report too.
“Well he didn’t exactly disappear. He left the House just a month ago. But it was
‘official’. He resigned,” said Paola.
To this, Larry looked dismal, and said nothing.
“On what grounds?”
“Another job, more money, more real science, and of course, less work.,” supplied
Umberto. Larry remained silent, but with something on his lips.
- 221 -
The Crazy HelpDesk
“He may have read the report, used the info in it, and just wished himself away. If you
know what I mean.”
Larry shook his head, but it looked like in Nepal, where shaking one’s head means
‘Yes’.
“Any news of him?”
No one answered and Larry continued to look sombre. He did not say a word for a
while, but his troop waited for him to again speak his mind and he finally did:
“It’s full of spies everywhere. Look at Mrko Mrnsk, who’s working ITPOL in MOUIT.
His wife is Russian. She’s supposed to study for a piano career. Ok she plays quite
well, but I think all this is just a cover. She goes back there all the time. To Moscow.
Mrko Mrnsk has all the means in the world to access all the confidential information of
the House and give her little info packages on her way, in sandwich boxes or so. Info
about the House. One day they will know what they want to know, and discover our
real name and identity.”
Hilde was doubtful. She was positive the cold war was over, hadn’t known that Mrko
Mrnsk had a wife and even less that she was Russian. And she had thought Mrko
Mrnsk didn’t like women. Though men not either. He just seemed to like no one.
Asexual really, he seemed to have just one main aim: Ignore everyone and especially
users. He was certainly not one of ‘them’, observing others all the time. And now Larry
imagining him devising much more sombre schemes still than even ‘them’. ‘Ignore’
was Mrko Mrnsk’s sole motto. Spying would mean showing interest in someone else.
She didn’t believe all of this. But maybe Gwendoline or Myra would. Gwendoline
believed in everything. Myra believed in other things.
After that, Larry, Christa and Paola, really sleepy, went home. Hilde, Umberto and
Gerhard stayed at the fair. But not for long, they were just too tired. But they had some love apples and took the merry-go-around for adults, where they sat in little round
boxes which span around at light speed. The apples however, stayed in their stomachs.
And the stars blinked at them gently, and if they were satellites, they were well
disguised and looked like friendly guys.
One should never read a report, even if one has written it oneself.
- 222 -
The Crazy HelpDesk
Birthday databases
The next morning, at ‘WG Coffee’, as usual prepared by motherly Johanna, Hilde told
her story of the Midnight fair and the firework. Johanna had forgotten to buy the sugar.
No one else ever thought of it. But yes, Myra had thought of buying some milk.
Most of them, just like Hilde herself before, hadn’t even known that there was a fair.
They thanked Hilde for the info, and said they would take their own kids to visit it next Sunday. Maurice kidded Hilde because he thought Larry had a soft spot for her. This
went on a while and was typical for Maurice. He was always listing all the guys he
thought had a soft spot for her. Why did he always have to do this?
Unless he meant to say she had a soft spot for Larry, but this he would never say. After all, the only soft spot a girl could have was for himself. Hilde left the room, laughing at Maurice, inwardly wondering. And about Larry. Ok he was nice, but a bit too much,
well, sombre. One by one the others followed her and went to take up their work.
The first call came from Flavia.
“Gwendoline I absolutely need delegate access to my new CLA’s mailbox. If I
don’t...” Flavia had changed CLA three times already in a few months.
“Flavia ...”
“have it I will not be able to read his Emails.”
“That is obvious, but...”
“nor send them. But he will be away on mission and I really must look at his Email
because he’s expecting an important Email from his correspondent in Washington and
when this Email comes in I have to phone him because he will be in Africa with no
Email there and...”
“Yes but Flavia, I gave you...”
“And I will have to phone him and ask him what to answer the correspondent, because
the decision he will have to take at the meeting depends on his answer, and it might
have very bad consequences because the whole thing is already late, they badly need
funds for reconstruction and if I don’t have the delegate access then it might really end in a disaster and the whole country...”
Why in the hell did Flavia always think that CHD wouldn’t give her what she needed
and moreover, why must she always imagine the end of the world:
“FLAVIA!”
“Hilde, please understand, I need this delegate access, if possible don’t wait too long
before giving it to me, because…”
“FLAAAAVIA. You HAVE this access already!”
“But no I don’t.”
- 223 -
The Crazy HelpDesk
“Yes you do. You must only implement it. I send you an Email when you took on your
new job: How to install my delegate mailbox.”
“Does that mean I have it? I thought it was automatic once you gave it to me. Hilde,
you really must tell me, otherwise...”
“It is not automatic Flavia, You must install it. It's like you were having the key to a flat, but didn't turn it to open the door. I already send you the instructions of how to do it."
"Really?"
"Yes, in an