Free Solid State Rhyme: A Novelette (Mandate) by J.S. Harbour Page A

Then, the editor closed by itself—the way the debugger had been closed. This time, however, the whole computer didn't crash. It looked the same, but acted very differently than it was supposed to. It seemed . . . eager to help. Almost too eager. The slightest hint of input caused triggered actions, based on context. For instance, if he was sending a text, and paused after typing, it would send itself.
    That could be a problem!
    Daniel scrolled the desktop left to right and found that his most often-used app icons were re-arranging themselves to stay in constant view, but would move out of the way when needed.
    Creepy!
    In time—just a matter of minutes—the intuitive nature of an app's behavior calmed and became easier to use. It was like a pre-cognitive computer.
    Daniel leaned back and grinned. This was simply too amazing. No, this was bizarre, in the extreme. He was incredulous. It was the coolest thing ever!
    He reached to a shelf above his desk and retrieved a memory card, inserted it into a slot on the side of his padd, and copied the entire environment onto the card.
     

Chapter 9
    The next day at school, Daniel was delighted to run into Emma again on the way to class.
    “Hey, mister,” she said.
    “Emma! It’s been a while! How are you?”
    “Fine, thanks. I was thinking about you too, with us not having any shared classes this term.”
    “How about an ice cream tonight? In fact, how about dinner and ice cream, if your mum doesn’t mind?”
    Emma blushed as her friend, Jessamine, came up, obviously intending to interfere with the conversation. Friend was really too strong a word for a relationship best described as a rivalry, what with the way she tried to interfere with any boy Emma fancied. Knowing clearly what Jessamine was doing, and feeling defiant about it, Emma took his arm and said, “Daniel, I would love to go on a date with you tonight,” and gave Jessamine her best fire-in-the-eyes look.
    Daniel had no idea what was going on, since he was incapable of translating female body language into a form of communication, but he was delighted. At the end of the hall, they parted in opposite directions while Jessamine glared.
    *
    At the end of class, Daniel found Mr. Robathan and held the memory card out to him.
    “Absolutely not, Daniel,” Mr. Robathan said, “Not on the school network. I can't take the chance. We just got the network upgraded, and I intend to keep these servers and desks clean.”
    Daniel pleaded, “Come on, a virus? Don't be ridiculous. Uh, pardon me, sir. That is, I meant—a virus is the simplest explanation by those who are unwilling to find the true cause of a computer problem. Like . . . like a cop who accuses the nearest relative when he has no suspect.”
    Mr. Robathan took Daniel to his office and let him use an old server not on the network. Daniel inserted the card into the slot on the front of the computer, copied the contents over, and pulled out the card.
    Daniel opened a secure region of the operating system before opening the contents of the card. Whatever happened next would be limited to the virtual area and not the whole computer. Mr. Robathan watched closely as Daniel started the debugger and displayed the memory map.
    Nothing happened.
    “Remember, Daniel, this old server is running an old OS.”
    “I know, I know, it shouldn't matter,” Daniel said.
    Mr. Robathan became impatient and gave Daniel his best “Well, what's this all about?” look.
    Daniel tried the supposedly new funky text editor, but it acted normally. None of the programs was behaving strangely at all.
    Mr. Robathan complained, “Now I'm going to have to erase those files and restore the OS, all for nothing.”
    “No, you won’t, sir. This is running in an emulation layer.”
    “Oh, well then—”
    Daniel smiled. “I've got it! Clever little bogeys. They avoided the transfer! They're dynamic. Of course! It makes perfect sense.”
    Mr. Robathan wasn't paying attention.
    Daniel,