Logic Bug | Previous Challenge Entry

how it works

TITLE: Logic Bug | Previous Challenge Entry
By Maclean Patrick Sibat
01/29/06
LEAVE COMMENT ON ARTICLE
SEND A PRIVATE COMMENT
ADD TO MY FAVORITES

A gentle hum greeted Stanley as he walked through the door. He made his way around the computer racks and headed towards the far end of the room. It was late and he was missing his sleep but his two friends had called him to join them at the computer lab. Something in the voice of his friend Gordon told Stanley that something was wrong and he had to fix it.

"Dudes, we need to clean up this room."

"No way man, it's my organized mess. It's my mess and I like it that way. Got the pizza?"

"All three boxes," answered Stanley as he placed them on the table.

The three were programmers. They were Elites, a group comprising the best computer science minds of the country. Programming code was their language, computers were family and logic was god. But tonight the gods had thrown them a curve ball.

Their research was coming to an end but the last piece of the puzzle just refused to fit into the whole picture. The heart of the project rested in the software that the three had nurtured for the past four years. They were building a virtual brain. A brain formed from a building block they had created, the logical stem. Their code would instruct the logical stems to form meaningful connections with one another, without their code the stems would just be grabbing empty space.

"It should work" said Harvey, "I've checked the algorithms a gazillion times!" continued Harvey as he collapsed into his chair. Tall, thin and sporting wavy long hair; he was a throwback to the hippy era an image that he was proud of.

"It's in there somewhere, damn logic bug." said Gordon patting Harvey's shoulder as he shook his head.

"Where's the pizza?" asked Gordon. Slightly overweight and constantly hungry, he reminded you of Fred Flintstone.

The three were quiet; Stanley had his gaze fixed to the computer screen as Harvey buried his head in his hands while Gordon finished off his second piece of pizza.

"God hates us"

"I thought you did not believe in God?" asked Stanley as he turned his attention to Harvey.

"I went to Sunday school when I was a kid. My parents went to church and everything." answered Harvey "Didn't God create man in six days or something?" asked Harvey as he pried his fingers from his face.

"Yeah, God split space and time to create the earth" interjected Gordon surprising both Stanley and Harvey. "I went to Sunday school too" he continued.

"God created man from space matter, from dust and cosmic stuff and here we are creating a thinking person using bits and numbers from the space of human ingenuity,” said Harvey, "God took seven days and we took four years. Man, they should stop calling us Elite, they should call us Trinity."

"Like in the creation story?" ask Gordon.

"Like the creation story" answered Harvey, "Four years dude and the bloody code choose not to work a week before presentation. God must hate us!" continued Harvey with a mock punch towards heaven.

Space

Stanley heard it, a whisper. A thought spoken in a manner that only he could hear it. Harvey moved out of the way as Stanley took his place in front of the computer screen. Harvey and Gordon had isolated the problem to a block of code buried deep in the core logical stem. Somewhere in that tangle of numbers was a bug waiting to be removed.

Space

"Space" said Stanley as he scrolled through the numbers. Slowly and carefully he began to check each block of numbers.

Pulsating blue neon lights started glowing within the racks. The humming was now interlaid with beeps as the room came alive. Something had happened.

"Dude, what did you do?"

"There was a missing space between your seventh function call" answered Stanley, "How could you miss that?"

The question went unanswered as the two friends picked Stanley off his chair and a victory dance followed. Yes, their creation was now ready. They were now truly masters of time and space. They had become creators.

They did not notice the dark figure walking out of the room, a creature of darkness that shunned the Majesty of God. Seeking instead to elevate himself as master of the universe. Nor did they hear his laughter as the Tormentor of Job reveled in his plan to make men creators of their own destiny.

PREVIOUS ENTRY | NEXT ENTRY
SUBMIT YOUR ENTRY FOR THIS WEEK'S CHALLENGE

The opinions expressed by authors may not necessarily reflect the opinion of FaithWriters.com.

If you died today, are you absolutely certain that you would go to heaven? You can be right now. CLICK HERE

JOIN US at FaithWriters for Free. Grow as a Writer and Spread the Gospel.