Until we run out of cake

Sunday, October 14, 2007

New entry: Monday, June 17, 2013

So. Yates, Simon and Travailler are gone. Or, not gone, but placed on "temporary administrative leave," which means, "we don't have the money for salaries right now but we can't afford to fire them." That makes me the only one left in the entire programming department who isn't an intern. I'm a pseudo-manager now, which would be swell if I got a raise or anything except more responsibilities such as keeping this stupid journal. I guess I'll edit it down later to keep the admins happy. This place is going to fall apart if we don't get any more funding.

Great, the first sign of my new management persona kicking in: I'm concerned about the budget. I guess I'll use this space to keep track of every time I'm pulled aside to deal with some other department's problems. It should make a good paper trail when the Feds come knocking, looking for what they've been funding (or not funding) for the last ten years.

Dr. Vargo was the first one to start bugging me. He was having a problem with the supercolliding superbuttons, he said. Always the descriptive one, I couldn't get him to say what was wrong with the buttons; he insisted I visit and observe the issue first-hand. Whatever. Probably just a broken spring or something, I thought. These scientists get so fussy over a simple mechanical failure.

I met him halfway to test chamber four. He was shaking a bit, asking me about the wife and kids, oblivious that no programmer here ever had time to obtain such important accessories. I told him they were doing well.

At one end of test chamber four was the supercolliding superbutton: a large, circular red button about four feet across that rose out of the floor. Starting at the base of the button were a series of lights that led to a door. It was one of the first things the test subjects learned: depress the button and the door opens. Dr. Vargo was visibly unnerved; he couldn't look at the button, instead studying his toes.

"Is this it?" I asked, genuinely hoping for a different answer so I could get back to my work.

"Yes," squeaked Dr. Vargo.

I put my foot on the button and pressed. The lights lit up in sequence and the door opened across the room.

After a few moments of silence Dr. Vargo peeked up from the floor into my powerfully bored face.

"Well, Dr. Vargo? You press the big red button and the door opens. Am I missing something?"

"White," he managed.

"Huh?"

"That button was shipped to us white."

I started to lift my foot from the button and got something of a shock. The button's rebound from its depressed position was intense, sending my leg sailing above my head like a kickboxer. It was then that I noticed a dark splotch on the chamber's otherwise white ceiling. It looked fairly ground in, but some of the red color was dripping onto the button below. I could also see bits of orange, the color of the jumpsuits our test subjects wore.

"How many have you lost to this button?" I asked the still-quaking scientist.

"Six."

"Fine," I said, ready to use my new delegation authority to solve this problem. I smartly yanked my phone from its holster and called the brightest Indian intern in our lab.

"Rohan, we've got a situation in test chamber four. Send a tech down here with a screwdriver to loosen the springs on superbutton 4a. Then call Baker Industrial Buttons and Dials and tell them we're not paying for this unpainted button." I glanced at Dr. Vargo and saw a mask of horror on his face. I grunted softly; did the man think I had forgotten him? "Oh, and call personnel and ask them for six more test subjects for Dr. Vargo."

Problem resolved, I marched crisply out of the chamber and clapped Dr. Vargo on the shoulder as I left.

"Don't worry, doc. We'll get reimbursed for that unfinished button."

His jaw was hanging open, mouthing simple vowels. Honestly, these scientists get so worked up over a simple mechanical failure.

New entry: Tuesday, June 18, 2013

I don't know if this warrants a new entry, but I may as well fill up space in this damn thing. Note to self: erase previous line before turning in this journal.

Anyway, I was helping Rohan with sorting the test subject debriefings. They were getting depressing and downright crazy as time went on. For instance, we had a seven point Likert scale on "I would recommend this experiment to my friends (1 = strongly disagree, 7 = strongly agree)." Instead of circling a number, several test subjects had drawn snakes coiling in the gaps, flicking their forked tongues upward as diseased rats leapt across the top of each number, sometimes falling into the den of a hungry snake.

I told Rohan to count the number of snakes and use that as the test subject's response.

Sometimes Rohan would call me over to read one of the free-form answers. To the question "Please describe the method you used to solve test chamber sixteen," test subject 804 wrote: "Blacker than the pits of hell, darkening, darkening, gone! I am surrounded by white walls of blackness, denying me everything: purchase, comfort, softness, warmth. THE WALLS BURN! Not padded but not hard, no number of blows sends me into the sweet unconscious. The glass never shatters: no blade for my wrists, no shiv for my tormentors, no hugs, no love, nothing, nothing, nothing."

He and I got a good laugh out of that one. I'm sure none of the test subjects would rather be here, looking at spreadsheets all day and sipping lukewarm tea. We ran out of Earl Grey today; what misery!

New entry: Friday, June 21, 2013

Finally got a few days of real work in before the latest disturbance, but it won’t amount to much. I don't know why they'd hire a programmer and expect me to get anything done as a hostage negotiator. Yeah, that's right. I spend three days working on a new I/O stack and suddenly I get a call from Dr. Slate telling me to get to test chamber seventeen. For once I got a reason out of these pencil necks: "they've got Dr. Smith," he breathlessly declared. Wonderful. The cascading file deletion is going to be seriously screwy if I don't get any time to work on it, but off I went.

Dr. Slate was waiting for me near the exit of test chamber seventeen. There was a crowd of interns near a jutted out section of wall, all of them positively terrified. With file operations dancing in my brain I was in no mood to deal with this tomfoolery, but I tried to be a good sport and changed my face from disgusted to merely indifferent.

"All right, where's the mouse? One of you guys leave a lab rat running loose?"

"That's not it!" screamed Dr. Slate, now seriously getting on my nerves by grabbing my jacket. "Some of the test subjects have holed up in there and taken Dr. Smith hostage!"

I looked through the gap in the wall and saw a tiny room containing three orange-suited test subjects, obviously malnourished, one of whom had some triangular serving utensil pressed hard to Dr. Smith's neck. Our good doctor remained calm, but his captor was shaking severely and had a terrible, terrible grin that split his face unevenly.

"We got him! Uweee hee hee!" screamed the man, about to eat up my last crumb of patience. "We want a chopper out of here, and ten million dollars apiece, and some cake, and... what's so funny?!"

I couldn't help myself, I was laughing so hard. Ten million dollars was more funding than we got in a year, and every bit of it was sucked up by the various departments like a pack of dogs ravishing a cherry pie. I couldn't believe doctors Slate and Smith had gone to such trouble just to entertain me. Even the test subjects were in on it! What a performance! Still, I wanted to play along and see where they were going with this. I put a hand over my mouth to try and stop my giggles and leaned on the extension of wall next to their "lair."

"So, you guys captured Dr. Smith, have you? Well, bravo, bravo," I said, clapping theatrically. "He's certainly a valued member of our research team and it would be a shame if you had to, um, carve him up with that knife of yours." It was becoming difficult to keep a straight face; I could feel my chest shuddering with suppressed laughter. But they must have worked so hard; I tried to recall what the negotiators said in those old Bruce Willis movies. "Uh, what are your demands again?"

The man holding Dr. Smith bristled. "You'd better listen to me!" he bellowed. "I said I want a chopper, and ten million dollars..."

While the guy was ranting I turned to Dr. Slate and gave him a conspiratorial wink. "This guy's a fantastic actor," I said in a stage whisper. "I'm surprised you found time to practice this routine. Guess you scientists aren't stogy old fogies after all. He sounds like a true lunatic!"

The lunatic's demands of safe transport to Columbia or something ended in a strangled gasp of indignation. I looked at the wide-eyed, ashen face of Dr. Slate and the horrified expressions of the surrounding interns and experienced a moment of doubt. Had I been wrong all this time? Was I dealing with these people in the wrong way? Dr. Slate's pleading eyes and the sweat tricking down Dr. Smith's face convinced me. I had been a fool.

"You two really are my friends!" I exploded joyously, enjoying Dr. Smith’s nervous smile. "This is such a great show; you must have been practicing for weeks!" I never knew how much they cared. I pointed to the lunatic holding Dr. Smith. "You there, what's your name?" The man stepped back shakily, still dragging Dr. Smith with him, but said nothing. "Wait a second, I remember now. You're Fernando Rodriguez from New Mexico, right? Oh man, your family has got to see this performance."

Fernando tumbled to the far wall as though struck. "No! Don't bring my family to this horrible place! Anything but that!" He was suddenly sweating more than Dr. Smith. I gave him a comforting look. Obviously the man was just shy. Simple stage fright could be cured if he had relatives in the audience.

"You there." I snapped my fingers at an intern. "Run down to personnel and tell them to get this guy's family on the next plane out here." Fernando wailed with fright, but I did the proper thing and ignored him.

The intern was still standing around, glancing anxiously between myself and Dr. Slate. "Go on, shoo," I said encouragingly. "Oh, and make sure his wife is put on the list for our experiments after their visit."

That appeared to be the final straw for Fernando. He dropped the knife he was holding to Dr. Smith's neck and pushed him out. "Take him! I give up! I'll do anything! Just don't bring my family here!!"

Instantly our dozen interns rushed the three test subjects, arms raised and fists balled. I assumed they all wanted to give Fernando a high five for his incredible performance. Dr. Slate handed Dr. Smith a blanket and a bottle of water; the other man was still quivering slightly. That's a true actor at work, I thought. Look at how deeply immersed he was in that role. They both thanked me several times for what I had done, but I tried to shrug it off. How talented and committed was Dr. Smith to have to deal with that neck scar just for a five minute show. Such professionalism!

As the two men slowly left the test chambers, one of the interns came back from Fernando's sudden congratulations. His hands were thoroughly red; obviously one of the ketchup packets had burst in the commotion. I patted him on the shoulder. "Rehearsal’s over," I said. "Now get down to personnel and fly his folks out here. They've got to see this."

The intern looked down at his hands dripping with victory ketchup, and then looked back up at me. He grinned, saluted messily, and sped off towards the personnel department. I was pleased. Now there's someone who knows how to deal with a delicate situation.

---

Too obscure for you?

Thematically an homage to the Dynamars articles at Something Awful, this story is based on Valve Software's Portal, a game included in The Orange Box. In Portal you play as a woman trapped in the Aperture Laboratories Science Enrichment Center, testing their new "portal gun" technology. Throughout the game you are instructed by a chilling computerized woman who sounds a lot like Shodan before she went mad. Along the way you discover that there may have been other people in the facility who met a terrible fate. If you don't mind some slight spoilerification, I recommend listening to the hysterical end credits song.