A Trip in an Elevator
copyright John Townsend, September 29, 2017
Allen Baskins had followed his Mom into Police Headquarters, and to her office on the 14th floor. He wondered on the way up what had happened to the 13th floor, for there was no button to stop there. That, he decided, must be top-secret police research lab he had heard so much about.
Allen’s Mom was the Police Commissioner and had a luxurious office on the top floor of this modest building in the center of Central City. As they entered the reception area for the commissioner’s office the secretary rose, greeted them both and told Commissioner Baskins she needed to call the Mayor as soon as possible. Elaine Baskins acknowledged the request, turned to Allen and said she would be busy for the next half hour or so but would meet him down in the coffee shop after her call with the Mayor. She directed him to go back to the elevator, select B3 as the floor and the coffee shop would be on his left as he exited. She then gave him ten-dollars to buy a drink and a snack.
Allen was 14 and didn’t think he needed all the directions, he was certainly able to find his way to a coffee shop. He headed back to the elevator, stepped in when it arrived and pushed the button for B3. He accidentally pushed the B2 button at the same time. As the door closed the lights flickered and the elevator lurched. He was suddenly pushed against the wall as it seemed to move sideways and accelerated.
As the lights came on, Allen noticed the elevator didn’t look the same, it had seats and seemed to be more streamlined than the typical box he was used to finding in elevators. As he sat down the car moved through some sort of tube heading first left then right. A sign flashed telling Allen to fasten his seat-belt. No sooner had he done so then the car plunged straight down at alarming speed. On the way, it seemed to do a loop and a spin. Eventually, it came to rest. The lights flickered again, and when the door opened Allen was amazed to see a room filled with seemingly magical devices. A man in a white lab coat approached him and asked who he was. Allen could only stammer.
Finally, he summoned up the courage to say he was Allen Baskins, and his Mom was the Police Commissioner. The man chuckled, and said they had been expecting him, but not for another year or so, and with that, he introduced himself as Dr. Rex Ford, advanced concepts developments. “Welcome to the future,” he said as he took Allen’s arm and led him into the lab.
Once the door closed behind him, Allen focused his attention on the shining objects located in the distant corner of the room. It looked like a brand-new push cart with balloons of all colors and shapes attached. He asked Dr. Ford what that was? “In time, in time, was all he got in response.”
“First things first, shall we?” With that, Dr. Ford pressed a few buttons and a small door opened. I need you to step inside, close your eyes, and stay still for just a moment as we do a full body scan of you. Allen did as he was told, and was surprised when the floor rotated him around. There was no pain or heat, just a very slight tingling and an even slighter sound of something whirring. Within a few seconds the floor stopped and the door he had entered opened. Dr. Ford called him out.
Next, he was asked to stand next to a glass plate and put his hands on the glass and look into the mirror in the center. While he was doing this, Dr. Ford attached a couple of wires to his temples and one to the back of his head, where the neck joined it. Once he was all attached, Ford pushed a button and there was a small flash. Once that was done Dr. Ford removed the wires and told Allen he was free to remove his hands from the glass. Allen, his curiosity peaked, asked Ford to explain what was going on?
Ford said they would need a day or so to give him the complete orientation, and he didn’t want Allen’s mother to worry about him, so they were fabricating a stand-in to take Allen’s place. With that, another lab door opened and out walked Allen’s identical twin. Identical in every way, down to even his memories. Dr. Ford said to Allen, “meet Allen2, he will be standing in for you for the next couple of days.” Allen2 nodded his understanding, fist bumped the Doctor, and said hi and bye to Allen as he headed to the elevator to meet Allen’s mom. Allen could only stare, with his mouth open, as this all transpired. Dr. Ford called to Allen2, remember to press B2 and B3 to get back here day after tomorrow. With a quick wave, he stepped into the elevator and the door closed behind him.
“Now let’s get down to work.” Rex Ford said as they moved to a viewing screen. “It will be better if you put these on,” he said as he handed Allen something that looked like a combination headband and earbuds. “Before we start I’d better explain why you are here. A few years ago, your Mom started this advanced research lab to understand how technology could improve our police work and how far we could go in understanding the human psyche. Since then we have found a way to fund this research without touching the budget, so she’s kind of forgotten about us, except on the rare occasion when someone is hurt and she asks about something like protective clothing. When something like that happens, we put out a paper showing known research, and perhaps a sample of a new ballistic material to reduce injuries. As long as we aren’t asking for money though she pretty much forgets about us, which is just fine because we are onto much, much, bigger issues.”
Dr. Ford continued, “we have established a very specialized team of researchers and field agents. We recruit promising young people from around the country. About 15 years ago I figured out how to actually use the standardized tests for college to determine an individual’s ability to learn, adapt, and motivate themselves. A colleague and I figured out a way to bury a few key questions into the test that would point out key abilities WE were looking for, and a way to access the entire spectrum of responses. Then we looked into ways to search the records for those who won’t be going to college to see if we could identify the right people in that group. Since then we have been quietly recruiting team members. When we started to build the team, we thought this secret organization would ultimately grow to address the problems with our society and perhaps the world. Then about five- years ago we came to a stark realization, no organization can fix the world if individuals refuse to change themselves. So, we wrestled with how and what this collection of talent should do. Last year, at our semi-annual team meeting we decided we would become a crisis response force, quietly going into trouble spots, big and small, to make life just a little bit better.” Allen raised his hand to interrupt Ford, who was clearly on a roll, and asked how large the team was, and how did they find the money to operate. “We are about 200 strong, with one-third of the team operating as field agents, one half as researchers, and the remaining member in the financial management side,” he said. “As we’ve grown it has been increasingly difficult to keep the organization secret, but we have so far. I think we are at about the right size now and carefully screen new recruits to replace those who will be leaving the team for personal reasons. Now let’s get into your orientation, it will answer many of your questions and what it doesn’t we will cover with the key team members.”
With that, Allen settled into a comfortable chair, adjusted his headband, and watched as the viewing screen came to life. He was immediately shocked by what he saw. It wasn’t just a TV picture, but a three-dimensional image. He hadn’t put on any kind of glasses, but there it was moving, pointing and talking as if it was a real person.
Over the course of the next two hours, Allen sat almost motionless, totally wrapped up in the presentation that covered who was in the organization, what they were attempting to do, and how effective they had been in accomplishing their work so far. At the onset of the presentation the figure, who introduced herself as Helen, asked a few simple questions, “Do you need to go to college to be smart?” What does college do for you? Do the colleges of today make you smarter when you graduate?” She then went on to show how many of today’s richest people had not finished their degrees before setting out to acquire their wealth, or how some of the smartest scientists had not had extensive formal training before they discovered amazing things, driven by their own passion.
“Sometimes it is the smallest of things that will change the world,” she said. “Think about Jonas Salk, an Ashkenazy Jew born in NJ to poor parents, he attended CCNY and then NYU for medical school because the famous medical colleges of the day had strict quotas on the number of Jews they would accept. Yet he went on to discover a cure for one of the great plagues of mankind.” His passion was research and his medical degree was just the way to get into the field he loved most. He had to overcome discrimination and poverty but at the end of the day, the world is better for his humanity. “Those are the people we seek out.”
Allen sat up and asked the image, about why he was here, he wasn’t doing all that great in school, and wasn’t interested in science and sitting in a lab each day. Helen paused for just a moment as if she were processing his question. In fact, she was, the synthetic neural network that drove her image was essentially a big computer that sought out the correct set of responses. “Allen,” she said, “You are here because you do have a passion, and you do have an intelligence that has not been tapped. We are going to open your eyes to what you can do, and who you can be. Before we are done with you, you will perhaps change the world even more than Jonas Salk.”
Meanwhile, Allen2 was visiting with Commissioner Baskins, his Mom, or rather Allen’s Mom. It gets kind of confusing when you are identical to your counterpart. Mrs. Baskins had completed her phone call with the Mayor and joined Allen2 as promised about 30 minutes after Allen had first stepped into the elevator. Allen2 made it to the coffee shop about 3 minutes before she arrived and had ordered a snack and some juice. Commissioner Baskins was surprised he had only just ordered and asked him what was going on. Allen2 was prepared for this and said he had been wandering around the basement just a bit to see what all was kept there. “Unfortunately,” he said, “most of the doors were locked, so I came back to the shop to wait.”
Elaine Baskins ordered a double chi caramel latte and a small coconut cookie, once it was paid for she came over to sit with Allen2 and discuss his latest problem with school, and the reason he was with her today. Since it was a school day, it was the normal expectation that Allen should be in school, but the principal had called and “suggested” that Allen take a couple of days off to consider how he should act around some of the teachers. There had been complaints from his history and science teachers that he was not paying attention in class and they went so far as to suggest he had some mental issues and should be on some sort of mood drug. A suggestion the Principle immediately rejected and took what he viewed as the lesser option of an informal suspension. It was never a good idea to get on the wrong side of someone as important as the Police Commissioner.
It bothered Elaine that Allen was not a straight-A student like his older brother Todd, or he did not seem to excel at sports like his father had. Allen was much more introverted than the rest of his family and seemed to retreat to books and video games whenever possible. His lack of study was something Elaine discussed frequently with her husband and with Allen himself.
While she dreaded the confrontation, it was unavoidable, but she had learned these problems didn’t resolve themselves and waiting would only make the challenges greater, so taking a sip of her drink she cleared her throat. “Allen, dear, your principle says you are having problems with your history and science teachers, why don’t you tell me about them?” This caught Allen2 by surprise and was not something he had prepared for as his programming was coming up to speed. He searched his data bank for how his original had dealt with this type of question in the past.
The first response he found was to lower his head, shrug his shoulders and mumble something about not knowing what his mother was talking about. As he did, Elaine grabbed him by the shoulders and gave him a shake. “Look at me when we talk,” she said. “You have nothing to bury your head and feel sorry for yourself about.” If you are having problems in school they won’t go away by themselves. We, you, your father, and I have to figure out what the problem is and what we can do about it, but we can’t begin that unless you are honest with us.” Allen2 was in a real pickle. His programming hadn’t prepared him for confrontation and conflict resolution, certainly not to the degree he was facing right now. With few program options available, Allen2 fell to the only one that seemed at all reasonable. He began to share the memories of class that were resident in Allen’s memory banks. “The teachers talk down to me, they are covering things I’ve known about for a long time and I get really bored in their classes.” There is no challenge in the material and I can get by without effort. I am afraid I don’t learn very much from either of them.”
Elaine’s shock was clearly visible as she thought about what she had just heard. This was the first time in a very long time when her son seemed to be completely honest with her. “What about your grades? If you can do the work why aren’t you getting A’s in their classes?” Now it was Allen2’s turn to consider how best to answer. “I guess the answer would be that I do what I have to do to get by. If the minimum isn’t good enough, why is it the minimum?”
While Allen2 was busy with Elaine Baskins, the original Allen was just finishing up on orientation film. Viewing the film Allen learned the scientists and field agents of Dr. Ford’s team had set about to quietly make right the worst problems of the city, the state, the nation, and hopefully the world. To do this, they had put their intellectual power to work and in the course of those efforts had patented and sold some of the most impressive improvements in recent years. This gave the team a growing supply of funds to expand their capabilities.
For example, have you ever wondered how small independent companies like Space-X or Tesla could develop such groundbreaking new technologies, while government scientists couldn’t? It is because they are unfettered by a top-heavy bureaucracy, and assisted by the talents of Dr. Ford’s team, they could approach the problems from a completely different direction. Instead of saying something was impossible, the first question was always, why can’t we?” Instead of saying something was too risky, the approach was how to understand the risk. For those reasons, Dr. Ford had named his group – Infinity. He and the team world risk much to reach for infinity.
One of the first things the earliest members of the group discovered was how to improve the global communication systems with a small but simple device that was installed in all the central communication hubs and eventually into controls of the world-wide-web. Once the communication giants like AT&T, Verizon, Telefónica, the Russian Ministry of Communications and Mass Media, China Mobile, and a host of others got on board the funds quietly flowed in. The unfortunate, and perhaps unintended consequence of this small device was that privacy on the circuits was no longer possible, and the owners could, and Ford assumed they would, monitor everything that was said.
For that reason, the team's next project was to build a completely independent communication system and network for themselves. Their concept was not too different than the ARPAnet that was the origin of the internet, but it worked with completely different protocols and unless someone knew what to look for their transmissions and signals looked exactly like the background noise that surrounds us daily, and whose ubiquitous presences causes our senses to dismiss it.
As impressive as the stuff the team was capable of doing what, Allen had to stop the spiel for a minute to digest it, and in that minute the questions began to flood into his consciousness. If the team's goal was to fix the problems of the city, why was there still so much crime? Why was there still poverty? Why was there still racial tension? And most importantly, why were there still dumb teachers in school? All these questions came tumbling out at once, and with a chuckle, Dr. Ford held up his hand and said: “One at a time please!”
Okay said Allen, here is the big question first. “Why is there still crime? If you have all this technology, then why don’t you stop the violence and the crime in this city and elsewhere?” “Hmmm,” Dr. Ford responded. “You want to start with the big questions first? Okay, let’s see if we can work through this together, shall we?” Allen shook his head, a little in bewilderment, what did he know about crime? But in the end, all he said was “okay.”
“Okay then,” Dr. Ford began. “Why is there crime in the first place? Before we can fix something, we have to know why it exists, otherwise, we would just be throwing things at the wall and hoping something sticks. Isn’t that what our governments and law enforcement are doing now?”
Now it was Allen’s turn to think, and after just a bit he said. “Yes, I guess that’s true, but is there a single root cause for crime, or can it be caused by a lot of things, and if you fixed all those things wouldn’t crime go away?”
“Maybe,” said Ford. “But first off, how do you know you can fix everything, or how do you even decide what everything is?” “We’ve been putting a lot of thought into this whole crime problem, and do you know it has been around for as long as mankind has kept records?” “It is not something that just came up, like getting a flat tire on your car. Before cars, and before inflatable tires, no one had a problem with flat tires. That kind of problem is easy to understand, and pretty easy to fix.” “But understanding why a human being does something, eliminating all the variables, and getting to the true root cause is much harder. For example, let’s say we give everyone a million dollars, would that eliminate poverty, or would it just make everything cost more? Would some people know how to make their million dollars grow to be two million, while others would soon lose it all?” “What do you think Allen?” “If the answer is yes, some would lose their million dollars, then why would they lose it?” Ford continued. “How about education? Why do we have people who don’t do well on tests, or who act up in class, or who drop out of school? If you look at your classmates why do some get A’s while you seem to struggle to get a C?”
As if something exploded in his head, Allen shot straight up in his chair. What did Ford mean he struggled to get a C, he didn’t struggle, he just didn’t study. Wait a minute he thought, how does Dr. Ford know what kind of grades he gets? So, Allen asked him, “How do you know my grades?” Dr. Ford chuckled. “Allen, didn’t I say we were expecting you, and you just arrived a bit early when we first met at the elevator? We have been following you because we know some stuff about you that you have not yet come to understand.” Ford looked squarely at Allen and said, “you get average grades because you are bored and don’t know what to do with yourself. Others though struggle with grades because they are wired differently and the ‘one size fits all’ education system does not know how to adapt to them and thus the system accepts a certain percentage will fall away. Oh sure, we may talk about how bad that is for those who drop out, but so far no one has recognized that the more we standardize education the more likely we are to increase failure rates among those who don’t conform.”
“But what can we do” asked Allen, “is it because teachers aren’t paid enough?”
Ford, shook his head, “No, pay is a byproduct, when pay becomes the measure of worth, we lose sight of the real purpose of a teacher. If I might steal a line from Goldilocks and the Three Bears; some teachers are far underpaid, some far overpaid, and some are paid just right.”
“Some have figured out how to motivate and educate children despite the rules and regulations from various departments, boards, and supervisors.” They put their heart and soul into the job and the product of their efforts is watching the light turn on for the kids and see them take off to reach their potential.” Ford paused to catch his breath as he let that tidbit sink in. “Not every teacher is a teacher” he continued. “This clearly can be understood two ways. First, not every person who is called a teacher really teaches. You, yourself, can attest to this. Don’t you have a couple of people who just seem to tolerate you at school, but who do nothing to motivate and teach? Allen nodded.
The second way this can be approached is that learning can come from many sources and not everyone who has something to teach you has the title of teacher.” Ford paused a minute to let that sink in. “For example, right now I am a teacher, even though that is not my job, I know some things that are important for you to know, so how best can I educate you? Do you understand that?”
“The challenge for you, and it is a lifelong one, is to know who to learn from, and what you need to learn. Our education system conditions us to trust teachers and to learn from them, but often what they teach, how they teach, or who they truly are as people, may conflict with what our parents teach, or maybe we don’t have parents, but we have friends, and it conflicts with what we learn from them?”
“It becomes very, very, confusing for someone to figure out what are the real lessons to be learned. When that happens, the student will always turn to those they trust the most. Unfortunately for too many those they trust are ill-prepared to teach them what they truly need to know to be a successful adult, they teach them how to be like themselves. Does that make sense?”
Allen looked at Ford with a confused look, “So you’re telling me that just paying teachers more won’t fix the problem of education? Y0u just laid out a whole set of other problems, are you saying this is too big a problem to fix?”
“No Allen, I’m not,” said Dr. Ford. “What I am telling you is, it is extremely complex and there is no simple solution, no ‘do this one thing’ and everything else is magically fixed. I can also tell you the average person does not like problems that are very complex and our challenge, yours and mine, will be to figure out how to tackle a complex problem in small logical steps that make sense to the most people, and how to address those who will argue for their own solutions.”
Now it was Allen’s turn to weigh in on the whole question of purpose. What was the real purpose of the team, and more specifically, what was his purpose for being on the team? So, he asked “If we have a hard time fixing problems like the crime rate, then what good is this effort, and why am I here? So far, I’ve not seen anything that I am good at or anything that would help me make a difference.”
Ford looked at him for a moment and then walked over to a small object sitting on a corner shelf. As he walked back to Allen he was tossing it, much like a little leaguer tosses a baseball, for it was about the same size. Once he was within a few feet of Allen he tossed to him and said, “Okay, we have this device, I don’t know what it does, or how to make it work. Why don’t you take it into the lab over there and see what you can figure out?” Take as long as you’d like, we have plenty of time, but I really do need to sort out if this is worth keeping and so far, no one on the team seems to think it is really anything important.
Allen looked at the object, it was about 8 inches in circumference, with a series of protrusions and indentations of different colors. He pushed one of the bumps and the thing vibrated in his hand. While he was full of doubts he could do anything with it, he had always been good at puzzles and this certainly was one. He thought back to the day when he was about four and his father had brought home a new two-wheel bike with training wheels. He left it in the garage and suggested Allen might enjoy riding it. He then headed into the house. Allen looked at the bike for a time and wondered how it worked. When his father came back out a half hour later the bike lay in pieces on the garage floor. Allen had climbed up on the workbench, found his Dad’s tools and systematically disassembled the machine down to the axels. Everything was laid out in a precise pattern.
After his Dad recovered from the shock of seeing the pieces – he said to Allen, okay now put it back together if you can. It took Allen about 15 minutes to reassemble the bike, and then it took him about another 15 minutes to learn to ride it. At the end of that first day, Allen could not only ride his bike but could repair anything that broke and explain why it broke or what it did. And that was when he was four.
For the next four years, Allen’s father had a nightmare of a time trying to keep Allen from disassembling the lawnmower, the go-cart, or the cars they owned. Finally, when Allen turned eight he bought him a full toolkit and told him to ask before he tore anything apart and to be sure to put everything back together when he was done. He then headed back into the house leaving Allen alone with a window air conditioner that had seen better days.
Allen took the unit apart, at least all the parts that would come apart, and arranged the various pieces on his workbench. They were covered with dirt and grime from years of use and neglect. He spent a happy couple of hours transferring the dirt and grime from the parts to himself. Once apart he realized he wasn’t sure how an air conditioner worked so he cleaned himself up and went in to do some research.
Using the family’s computer, he spent a few minutes reading about how an air conditioner worked and then asked his Dad if he would buy some refrigerant. His father asked what kind and Allen was back at the computer trying to figure that out. He came out and told him R-113. His father said he would see what he could do and if possible pick some up the next day.
When he got home after school the next day a can of R-123 was on the workbench with a note from his father. “The store said R-113 wasn’t used anymore, will this work?”
Back to the computer to find out. At the end of the day, it was probably going to work, if he could figure out how to get it into the tubing.
For the next three days, Allen happily spent every spare moment at the workbench figuring out how to test and fix everything on the unit from the controls to the compressor. When it came time for cutting, soldering, or welding he called on his father for some help. In each and every case they worked together, with his Dad doing only what Allen couldn’t do for himself while he taught him how do safely use those tools as well.
As the door closed behind him, Allen surveyed the lab. It was filled with tools, both powered and manual, as well as electronic test equipment that he could only imagine did all kinds of strange things. He stood in awe, as we surveyed the room, and had no idea on how to proceed. Suddenly, a small electronic voice asked, “Welcome to the lab Allen, I am your autonomous neural network interface element or ANNIE for short. I am here to assist you in the setup and use of your lab. Shall we begin?”
“Great” responded Allen. “Wait a minute, what do you mean – My lab?”
“Well you have been given a task and this lab to complete the task, so for now this is your lab, isn’t it?”
“Hmmm, okay I guess that makes sense,” Allen said. “ANNIE I need a magnifying glass.” ANNIE responded, “okay what power?” This surprised Allen since he wasn’t that familiar with there being different levels of magnification. “How about something that makes things appear four-times larger than they are?”
“Go to the cabinet marked ‘Blue 29’ and look in ‘drawer 7,’ you will see a series of magnifying glasses, the 4X one is labeled and should be easy to find.”
Allen looked around the lab, saw the various cabinets were all color-coded red, blue, green, and brown. He headed over to the blue one, opened it up, found the number 7 drawer and pulled it open. Just as ANNIE said, there were a number of magnifying glasses of various sizes and shapes. He pulled out the one labeled 4X and the one labeled 10X and headed over to the workbench, where he had left the orb.
When he got back to the workbench he asked ANNIE if there was a notepad so he could take notes as he worked? ANNIE said, “we can get you a pad and a pen, or if you prefer I will record your notes for you. All you need for me to do that is assign this a project number and then say ‘take a note’ I will record for either playback, or I will print out so you can refer back. Your choice.”
Allen considered this for a moment and said, “Okay, let’s call this ‘Allen Baskins project 1,’ and ANNIE take a note. Magnifying glasses 4X and 10X taken from Blue 29, drawer 7. The object being examined is a sphere about 8 inches around covered with bumps and round dents of various colors. The colors of the bumps are red, blue and yellow. The colors of the dents are orange, green and purple. Endnote 1.”
It was at this point Allen heard his stomach rumble and realized it was well into the middle of the afternoon and he hadn’t had lunch. “ANNIE, how can I get a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a coke?”
“Look inside the door marked ‘Refreshments’ inside cabinet Red 1” was ANNIE’s response.
Allen went over the Red 1, opened the door, found the second door marked Refreshments and inside was a fresh PB&J sandwich on Artisan white bread, a can of Coke sitting on a tray with a napkin next to them. He took out the tray set it on his workbench and had a late lunch. As he chewed his sandwich, he wondered how the food got there, and how they knew what he would want?
Once he was done, he took the tray and returned it to the cabinet, and washed his hands in the sink next to Red 3. He then headed back to his project.
Using the magnifying glass, he examined the object looking for any seams or cracks where he might open it to see what was inside. He gave this up after about 10 minutes since there didn’t seem to be anything that he could pry or twist to open it.
He then decided to see if all the buttons and dents did something or anything. He knew from when he first picked it up that pressing a button would make it vibrate, but what button did he push? Let’s be a little more methodical, Allen thought. So, he picked up the sphere and decided to keep track of his testing. He found pressing the yellow buttons all made the sphere vibrate, but each button caused a slightly different frequency vibration. The red buttons warmed up the sphere with temps ranging from warm to hot, and the blue buttons chilled the orb from cool to cold.
“ANNIE, do we have something I can use to measure the frequency and temperature changes in this thing when I press a button?”
“Yes, of course, we do. Go to the cabinet marked Red 4 and pull out the box marked SMALL ISOLATION CHAMBER, bring it to the workbench and set the test article inside. When you want to record something just say ‘capture data.’”
Allen did as he was instructed and was soon involved with pushing buttons when he realized he wouldn’t remember which button did exactly what since all the yellows looked alike. “ANNIE can tell which button had which response?” “Yes, I assigned a grid reference when you put the sphere in the chamber. If you hold it up I will show you.” Allen held the sphere up and there appeared to be lines running north and south and around the circumference. As he rotated the sphere the lines seemed to remain fixed on it. When he pulled it from the chamber they all disappeared.
“Great” Allen said, now let’s start on the dents. After another couple of hours of tinkering and recording results, ANNIE asked him “Are you getting hungry?” “A little” was his response, “but before we do anything else what did we learn today?” ANNIE pulled up the notes she had captured. The buttons made the thing vibrate, warm and cool. The dents seemed to be a combination of the buttons, it would vibrate and warm, or vibrate and cool, in direct relationship to the nearest buttons. He still didn’t have a clue on what it did, or what it was for, or even how to open it. Putting it down, he decided maybe some supper would be a good chance to think about it. He would resume after supper.
“Annie” I am ready for supper, what do we have?”
“What would you like?” ANNIE responded.
“How about a thick crust pepperoni pizza with extra cheese, some buffalo chicken wings, not too hot, and some coke?”
“Okay, check the refreshment cabinet in Red 1, it will be there when you arrive.”
Allen went to the cabinet, found his food and settled down to eat supper. While he chewed on the pizza he considered how the buttons and dents might work in combination, but what combination? How many possible options were there?
“Annie, how many combinations of button or indention pushes are there on this ball?”
“With the number of buttons and indents, there are 7 billion, 500 million, 350 thousand, and 162 combinations,” ANNIE responded.
“Gosh, where do I go from here?” Allen wondered. Then it occurred to him that perhaps pushing all of one color at the same time might do something, but he didn’t have enough fingers to do that. “Annie, is there a way I can push all the yellow buttons at once?”
“Yes, place the object in the chamber, and direct that all the yellow buttons be depressed at the same time.”
Allen did as ANNIE suggested, and to his amazement, the object doubled in size. Fortunately, the small chamber expanded as well. Well, that was totally unexpected he thought. With a little trepidation over what would happen next, he directed ANNIE to push all the blue buttons. Once that was done the ball seemed to spin and come apart. Oh no, I broke it was his first thought, but then he realized that was what he was trying to do in the first place.
Reaching into the chamber he extracted the pieces of the ball, now looking much like puzzle pieces. On the back of each piece was a single word. The words were: grow, to, you, you, successful, your, congratulations, obvious, have, have, puzzle, few, want, solved, been, this, this, talent, it, do, is.
Oh great, another puzzle, was the first thought that flashed through his head. What did it say?
After some trial and error, Allen had what he thought were a few reasonable sentences. YOU HAVE SOLVED THIS PUZZLE. FEW HAVE BEEN THIS SUCCESSFUL. YOUR TALENT IS OBVIOUS. CONGRATULATIONS DO YOU WANT TO GROW?
Allen read the sentences to himself, realized they made sense and thought yes, he did want to grow. He looked around and wondered what next? So, he asked ANNIE, what next? Her answer confused him for just a bit. She said, “Let the world know.”
But how Allen thought? How do I let the world know I want to grow? Then it occurred to him, no one could read his mind, so he looked at the door of the lab and said, “I want to grow.” Within a second or two the door slid open and standing on the other side was Dr. Ford.
“Well done Allen, well done indeed. You solved this challenge faster than I expected, and in fact faster than any of the other candidates I’ve tested. Come join me for a snack and we can talk. I’m afraid we can’t send you home tonight but will make the switch tomorrow when your Mother comes to work. I’ll notify Allen2 to ask her to let him come. He will have to promise to stay out of the way, but that shouldn’t be too hard.”
Ford took Allen by the arm and guided him to a small table where some coffee, milk, and cookies were arranged.
“Allen, if you want it, the job of field agent for this city will be yours, until you complete High School and head off to MIT. It will involve you looking into the problems you see around the city, anything and everything from poor street lighting to corruption. You will then sort out the causes of these problems and propose three possible solutions to the team. The team will then consider the options you propose, and begin to implement the ones we think have merit and can improve the problem. Keep in mind we probably won’t solve the problem, for we can’t alter the nature of man, but we can hopefully help some in this effort.”
“Well, what do you think?”
Allen had to take a sip of his milk, munch on a cookie, and rethink what Dr. Ford had said because his mind stopped working when Ford had mentioned he was going to MIT. “What did you mean when you said I was going to MIT?” Allen finally mumbled through a mouthful of cookie.
Dr. Ford laughed. “Oh that. It is a given you have the talent, we just need to improve your skills in conforming to the expectations of your teachers. That will become your cover story, a struggling student improves his grades and to do so throws himself into researching his city.”
“Now, what do you think of the job I’m offering?”
Allen considered it for a moment, he was filled with self-doubt. Finally, he said he would try.
“Great,” said Dr. Ford. “We will get you outfitted with the team communication hardware and the other tools you will need first thing in the morning. For tonight we have a guest room with all the essentials you will need. Get yourself ready and turn in. We will be piping in some subliminal instructions on how to match your reporting to our protocols so that in the morning you can test the system and head off when your Mom shows up for work. The alarm will wake you at 7 am. Good night!” And with that two doors opened. Dr. Ford pointed to one, as he rose and headed out through the other.
Allen thought he would never get to sleep but in reality, it took him about 20 minutes until he was soundly into the REM portion of his first sleep cycle. When he awoke in the morning he was surprised at how well rested he felt. He washed his face, brushed his teeth, and dressed in his clothes. Then it dawned on him his mother would know this was not what he wore when he came with her today. Oh well, there must be some solution to this that would become obvious soon.
When he emerged from his room, there was Dr. Ford and a young woman. “Hello Allen, I’d like you to meet Ms. Angel Harris. She is the team’s communication expert and will equip you with our inter-team communication system.” Ms. Harris rose, shook Allen’s hand and said in the softest, sweetest voice Allen had ever heard, “welcome aboard, I hope we will be solving many problems together.” Allen felt his knees start to buckle, as he shook her hand. “Me too!” was all he managed to blurt out. She smiled and reached behind Allen and held him by the neck. He felt a slight prick and pulled back. “Hey, what are you doing?” he stammered.
“Sorry, I just injected the teams Nano-crystal communication system. The prick you felt was all the pain you will experience. The Nano-crystals will migrate to your nerve system and network with your visual, aural, and olfactory systems. When you learn to activate it, we can pick up what you’re seeing, hearing and smelling to help you analyze what is going on around you. It will take about a day for the system to fully integrate. After that, it will be very easy to interface with the team or ANNIE.” With that Angel headed out the door.
“Welcome aboard Allen, we have much to talk about for the next hour. By 9 am Allen2 should be here, you will trade clothes with him and then you are off. We will push some standard operating instructions or what we call SOI to you through both your newly acquired communication system or this watch.” With that, he handed Allen something that looked to be a cheap watch that looked as old and beat-up as his watch. “Here swap this out with the one you’re wearing. It has a linking capability that pairs with these glasses and will display text on them. The lenses of the glasses will darken in bright sun so they can be used as sunglasses as well.”
Allen asked Ford when he would meet the rest of the team. “Oh, that!” “You will meet them if, and only if, there is a need to. We are a rather compartmentalized organization, so if something is compromised the whole organization is not at risk.”
They talked for the next hour and then the elevator door opened and there was Allen2. He said his Mom, or rather Allen’s Mom, would be joining him at the coffee shop in just 10 minutes so they had to hurry. They quickly exchanged clothes and Allen entered the elevator. Dr. Ford’s last words before the door shut were “Good luck Allen, we will be in touch.” With that, the door closed and the elevator took off the B3 level.
-- To be continued - (sometime in the future) --
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