The Revenge of the Supercomputer

by John Nyman

I walked briskly to the board room to meet with the other executives of the company, mentally reviewing the issues I had to cover. There wasn’t much in the way of finances; everything had been going up since the breakthrough in our private technology wing. However, the new technology left me conflicted, and as I made my way through the halls my conscious struggled immensely with the dilemma it caused. I was, though, a businessman first and foremost, so I shook off such thoughts as I entered the board room.

The other top executives sat around the room’s large table, bathed in the dim light of the evening meeting, awaiting my arrival. They stared at me, waiting for my speech to begin, so I shoved away that last hints of doubt in my mind and began casually. “Ok, I think I can keep this short. Hello everyone, I’m just going to give a quick report on our profits of the week. As you all know our research department has recently created a new supercomputer that has replaced our outdated models. The system has much better capability for handling data, and our management operations have increased in speed and efficiency by a wide margin. Our research department informs me that the system has not yet been perfected, and as an added bit of good news, the computer’s efficiency is constantly increasing from the work being done on it. This system has contributed to a recent rise in profits for this week, however you can see from this visual that profits have increased exponentially during the course of the week, so in conclusion, it looks like we can expect some good things to come. Are there any other issues?”

One of the executives spoke up from my left, “Yeah, just one thing sir, we’ve discovered there is a financial problem in the actual disposal of the outdated computer equipment. I need to request that we add a small, temporary addition to our information systems budget so we can clear out our facilities.”

I responded, “I think that sounds reasonable, are we in agreement?” A positive response was heard around the room. “Alright then, if there’s nothing else, this meeting is done, but Jim, can I talk to you just a little bit?”

As the rest of the room cleared out I walked over to the right side of the table where Jim stood up and watched me approach. The executives were able to work together on a personal level, of course, but Jim had been one of my closest advisors and best companions since I had gained control of the company. For this reason, I decided to talk to him as my conflicting thoughts on the new supercomputer re-entered my mind following the close of the meeting.

“Jim, I have to be honest with you, I’m having some problems with the new supercomputer,” I said slowly, still approaching, and looking solemnly towards the floor. Jim, however, jerked upward with inquiry and scepticism, “What’s wrong with it? Why didn’t you tell the rest of the board?”

“Calm down Jim…sorry, I mean there’s nothing wrong with it, just that, the whole thing just seems wrong to me. Did you ever consider that, I mean what they’re doing? It just seems so…monstrous, sometimes.”

“Brian, there’s nothing wrong with it, we all agreed on that when we decided to pursue the technology. Besides, as you said, it’s increasing efficiency and profits, and isn’t that enough? Just try to think about something else.”

As Jim said this he stood up, patted me stiffly on the back, and walked out of the room on the heels of the other executives, unwilling to hear another word from me. I however, remained, my head bent downward in gruesome contemplation. As I walked the halls back towards my office I thought about the computer, and Jim’s opinion. I knew that the business world, the life I had chosen, was indeed a cold one, and I had honestly not considered myself to be a warm or particularly thoughtful person on my way to the top. I had made many sacrifices for my work, never having started a family, or spending much time with my friends. I knew the other executives were like me in that sense, and, predictably, they had no problems with the supercomputer.

Yet, I had serious problems with the device. I wondered obsessively how the other executives could be so cold to the idea, how they could bypass their morals on such an issue, this time, I felt, we had gone too far, and I was at the top of the operation. At the same time, though, I felt the weakness of my emotion growing within me. I cringed at the thought that I, the CEO of one of the largest and most successful corporations on Earth, would not only question the morals of cutting edge technology, but give my worries the opportunity to completely ruin my career. These thoughts became fear, and I increased the speed of my movement down the dim, looming hallway, moving quickly to my office, where I could immerse myself in my routine paperwork.

I did so for several hours as the evening shifted to the night, yet as the time dwindled, my thoughts continued to weigh on the back of my mind, slowly corrupting my brain. The thoughts morphed themselves too, to horrific forms. The fear that I felt from my worry transformed itself as my brain floundered with the anxiety of my extreme distress. Soon, it malfunctioned, and as my working slowed to complete stagnation I was made a slave to its rambling. Voices entered my mind, the voices of dead souls and the supernatural. Rippling outward from the great machine, the voices entered my brain from theirs, the ramblings of thousands of lost souls, all asking questions and submitting condemnations. The sounds flooded me, permeating my every moment, sewn against the visual backdrop of the supercomputer itself, oscillating with my growing insanity and chasing me into submission while the last ounces of my mind’s cold logic were defeated. I ran, going nowhere.

As I awoke partially from my trance I found myself dashing through the halls in the middle of the night. Suddenly the pressures my brain had faced culminated with a burning sense that there was something horribly wrong with the machine. I knew that the souls of it, the unjustly treated minds that filled its vast recesses of data processing would break the cruel command of the supercomputer and regain their free will. I had to get to the machine as fast as I could to save them and halt the mounting destruction, and finally, at a full running speed, I charged through the doors of the hall housing the supercomputer.

The room was dark and quiet, lit only by a few electric light bulbs that hung from the high ceiling, lined with the unfurnished metal beams of its construction. The floor was shadowy, filthy riveted steel, and led a long way from the door to the centre of the dome, where the supercomputer rose up in a great mushroom shape. The stalk was a giant steel cylinder, sleek and polished, unlike the rest of the room. On its surface, facing me as I entered, was a screen, filled by the passing of uncountable pieces of data, all documented with inconceivably fast motion. Extending outwards from the top of the cylinder towards the edges of the dome, filling out the mushroom shape, was a large, clear vat of a dank, clear liquid. This chemical housed, densely packed among its volume, a network of connected electric wires and hundreds of human brains, held in place and together by electric transmitters to slave away at the work of the supercomputer.

As I stood at the door, panting, they seemed to all stare at me in unison, ready to break free of the web, regain their free will, and cause the havoc that would avenge their inhumane imprisonment. As the fear built within me, and the brains seemed to rattle with discontent, moments away from breaking free, I saw the head of our research team working quietly on a platform at the side of the cylinder. Drenched in sweat, and shrieking with fear, I yelled to him, “Alex! What’s wrong with the brains?”

He replied slowly, turning calmly from his work to look at me, “Nothing’s wrong, Brian, everything’s working perfectly.”