When the Dreamer Dreamed

6

6"Hey Roger, Sue. What's the progress, my prize-winning students?" The Precept entered the small programming studio through the portal behind our two factors without announcement, making both of these grad-students jump.

Sue broke the sudden silence. "Well, he hasn't done other than nibbled at the bait. If we throw too much at him, he then just backs up as it's all unreal and figures it's just another dream."

"A real tough nut," Roger chimed in, "getting him back to taking this all seriously is eating serious holes in our resources."

The academic studied their screens over the shoulders of the two Factors. "Well, it's a good thing I've reallocated some of my research budget to you. That should carry this study through if you use them well."

As the figures changed on the screen, Roger relaxed. "That gives us a bit more breathing space, but we aren't out of the woods by any means."

"The deal is that he's got a hold of some oddball code and swallowed it wholesale - and this is just playing Hobbes with our regular algorithms," Sue explained. "We're having to code on the fly just to keep ahead of him."

"And I can see you are doing a great job with this. No kidding, it's a tough assignment. But that's why you two are on it. I don't have time with all my lectures and interviews to hand-code the loops we need for this. And it's all good practice for you two. Some day you'll run into another like this. You'll already have the code snippets you need to solve them. Carry on, fine job so far."

With that the Precept glided out of the room, the portal swishing shut and leaving the room again silent, except for the low-pitched humming of various drives and electronics, plus the breathing and heartbeats of the two grad students as they began to relax again.

"I really hate it when he just shows up like that." Roger complained.

"And then crowds it on by leaning over our desks right on top of us. I liked it better to just watch him across the room as he lectured. A bit more privacy," added Sue.

"Well, Sue, it looks like our patient is stabilized now. At least he's interested in this hospital scene. Time for some new characters."

"OK, Rog. We're going to have to increase the familiarity a bit to keep him going."

"But we don't have much other choice. Too many new characters and he'll jump again."