The Art of Deciphering
Title: The Art of Deciphering
Genre: science-fiction
Warnings: none
Words: 1591
Challenge: brigits_flame , November 2009, week 2, topic: key
AN: I believe I might expand this story eventually…
War came unexpectedly. Certainly, there had been tensions, heated debates and everybody had known that the relationship between Leets and Nooms, as the Leets called the two population groups, had been even more difficult than usual for months. Nevertheless, nobody had expected the dispute about water and mineral prices to escalate in such a way.
Allan Jonston, professor at the Institute of Ancient Cyber Languages, drove to his office like every other day, noticing nothing extraordinary. Algocars crawled into the city, standing bumper to bumper on each of the road’s three levels. Rush hour was something Professor Jonston wished he could avoid but although working from home was theoretically possible, it was not socially accepted amongst Nooms.
Having reached the institute at last, Professor Jonston briefly greeted his secretary, Mrs. Roberts, with a firm handshake and a few polite words before entering his office. With a sigh, he began preparing the lecture he was to give the next day to a group of eager but slightly chaotic students in their first semester. On some days, he almost envied his Leet colleagues in the Institute of Modern Cyber Languages, giving online lectures and never leaving their keyboards. On the other hand, no matter how much the company of some people tended to annoy him, he was certain he would be unable to stand the utter lack of human contact, which Leets celebrated. Besides, he relished the occasional luxury of traditional food, whereas Leets deemed nutrisup, the ordinary food consisting of special bacteria cultures, to be perfectly sufficient.
After having worked for several hours, Professor Jonston was just considering going down to the canteen for lunch when the light on his desk flickered and went out. Cursing, he got up, went to the door and looked along the corridor, which, having almost no windows, was nearly completely dark. However, Professor Jonston could hear other doors opening.
“Mr. Howell?” He queried into the darkness, hoping his assistant was also among the people peering into the dark corridor to determine what was going on.
“Yes, Professor Jonston?” A voice from his left answered.
“I will call maintenance but I was hoping you could go up to the roof and check if you can find anything wrong with the algae tanks. Perhaps the inflow pipes of the generators are clogged. It wouldn’t be the first time it happened.”
“Yes sir, I will see if I can find anything,” Mr. Howell replied.
Professor Jonston could hear cautious steps making their way to the staircase. Re-entering his office, which was fairly light in comparison to the corridor due to a fashionably tainted and completely soundproof window at the other side of the room, Professor Jonston took his phone from his desk and proceeded to call the campus maintenance. To his surprise, the only response he got was a friendly voice telling him it was impossible to establish a connection to the requested telephone number.
Once again, Professor Jonston opened the door to the corridor.
“Has anybody been able to contact campus maintenance?” He asked into the darkness, raising his voice to be heard above the worried murmurs.
“No sir,” a female voice replied. “Mr. Arden and Miss Jenkins tried without being able to establish a connection and several others have been unsuccessful as well.”
Before Professor Jonston could reply, there was the sound of somebody stumbling and muffled cursing from the direction of the stairs.
“Mr. Howell, is that you?” Professor Jonston inquired.
“Yes sir. I had a look at the algae tanks and not only were the pipes to the generator clogged but the entire tank contained far too much algae. I am no expert but I believe the inflow of minerals must have changed to a much higher rate. Have you been able to inform maintenance?”
Mr. Howell was quickly informed about their problems with the telephones while Professor Jonston thought about possible solutions for their problem.
“May I ask everybody to listen for a moment? Since it seems unlikely we will be able to contact maintenance soon, we need to find a solution ourselves. From what Mr. Howell has told us, I think it is likely that there is a problem with the program regulating the mineral inflow, so we should try to contact the Leets. Of course, we need computers and electricity to do that. That’s why a group of you will need to go up onto the roof, unclog the generator’s inflow pipe and dilute the algae culture enough for the generator to resume converting algae into electricity. I would like everybody from offices 201 to 225 to take care of that. People working in offices 226 to 235 should continue trying to contact campus maintenance, while I will wait for electricity to return and then contact the Leets, who will hopefully be able to repair the program over the network. Please go to your assigned tasks now.”
Within an hour, the power supply was working again, as long as the algae solution was constantly diluted.
Professor Jonston went to his desk and, moving his fingers over the built-in screen, gained access to the Internet. However, he was not able to reach the site he wanted to reach as planned. Big, red letters in the note-like language Leets used when communicating with Nooms appeared across the screen:
“We Leets declare war against all Nooms.
Failure to agree on water + mineral prices cause.
No longer consider us connected to Nooms in any way.
All network devices under our control.”
Professor Jonston stared at the screen. The Leets had actually declared war? They had always seemed like a strange, detached but harmless minority, working on everything related to technical appliances, programs and the Internet. They may have been considered unpleasant, always living behind their screens and keyboards but they had always been useful.
Of course, there had been rumours that the Leets were beginning to see themselves as having absolutely nothing in common with Nooms, some even considered themselves to have evolved into an entirely different species, a theory which was even supported by some Noom scientists. But most Nooms had waved these rumours off as unimportant, saying the Leets would never be able to fare for themselves. There had been some truth to this assumption: all material things, including the minerals needed for the algae used to generate electricity and the bacteria serving as food, were supplied by Nooms.
The only problem was, as Professor Jonston realised with a start, that from biocultures over heating to the algocars, almost everything needed for everyday life was regulated by programs written by Leets, connected by the Internet. Which the Leets were now using for their benefit.
Professor Jonston slowly rose from his chair and went over to the window. Outside, there was complete and utter chaos. Some algocars had simply stopped while others veered wildly out of control, hitting others in the process. The self-cleaning pavements were violently sweeping away pedestrians, attempting to deposit them in the waste-bins between the streets and the pavements.
After staring in utmost horror at the scenes before his eyes, Professor Jonston returned to his desk to see if he could gain more information from the Internet. Although he was able to get past the initial page declaring war, he found that the Internet had been altered. There had been a division of the Internet for a long time, distinguishing between an easily accessible and understandable area for Nooms and a much larger area which the Leets considered home. This area generally did not cause much interest in Nooms and was in the difficult and ever-changing language Leets used amongst each other.
Now, the area Nooms used contained only information deemed harmless by the Leets. Not prepared to let this stop him, Professor Jonston ventured into the Leets’ area, desperately trying to understand their language. Everything was binary coded but that was only the beginning of the difficulties connected with the language. Words and letters had been twisted and newly combined and whenever Professor Jonston thought he might have found a tiny piece of the puzzle he could work with, he had to discover that it made absolutely no sense at all when related to other parts.
Late in the evening, there was a knock on the door and Mrs. Roberts showed in two men.
“Good evening, Professor Jonston. I am sure you are aware of what has happened. We are from the Ministry of Defence and are hoping that you might be interested in helping us decipher the language the Leets are using. We believe you are the person most qualified for this task.”
“Most qualified? I am afraid you are very much mistaken. My institute is concerned with early cyber language, which is quite different from the problem we are looking at here. We study phenomenons such as asc-art and the language use of lol-cats. While it is certainly fascinating, I am afraid you should look into entirely different areas to find help.”
“We are aware that your area of study is slightly different than what we are looking for but since all the positions at the Institutes of Middle and Modern Cyber Language were filled by Leets, you are our best hope. I hope you are aware of the utmost importance of this task; deciphering their language is the key of ending this entire conflict.”
Professor Jonston looked out of the window for a few moments, considering the immensely difficult task he was being asked to do. With a sigh, he nodded.
“Alright, I’ll do it.”
Genre: science-fiction
Warnings: none
Words: 1591
Challenge: brigits_flame , November 2009, week 2, topic: key
AN: I believe I might expand this story eventually…
War came unexpectedly. Certainly, there had been tensions, heated debates and everybody had known that the relationship between Leets and Nooms, as the Leets called the two population groups, had been even more difficult than usual for months. Nevertheless, nobody had expected the dispute about water and mineral prices to escalate in such a way.
Allan Jonston, professor at the Institute of Ancient Cyber Languages, drove to his office like every other day, noticing nothing extraordinary. Algocars crawled into the city, standing bumper to bumper on each of the road’s three levels. Rush hour was something Professor Jonston wished he could avoid but although working from home was theoretically possible, it was not socially accepted amongst Nooms.
Having reached the institute at last, Professor Jonston briefly greeted his secretary, Mrs. Roberts, with a firm handshake and a few polite words before entering his office. With a sigh, he began preparing the lecture he was to give the next day to a group of eager but slightly chaotic students in their first semester. On some days, he almost envied his Leet colleagues in the Institute of Modern Cyber Languages, giving online lectures and never leaving their keyboards. On the other hand, no matter how much the company of some people tended to annoy him, he was certain he would be unable to stand the utter lack of human contact, which Leets celebrated. Besides, he relished the occasional luxury of traditional food, whereas Leets deemed nutrisup, the ordinary food consisting of special bacteria cultures, to be perfectly sufficient.
After having worked for several hours, Professor Jonston was just considering going down to the canteen for lunch when the light on his desk flickered and went out. Cursing, he got up, went to the door and looked along the corridor, which, having almost no windows, was nearly completely dark. However, Professor Jonston could hear other doors opening.
“Mr. Howell?” He queried into the darkness, hoping his assistant was also among the people peering into the dark corridor to determine what was going on.
“Yes, Professor Jonston?” A voice from his left answered.
“I will call maintenance but I was hoping you could go up to the roof and check if you can find anything wrong with the algae tanks. Perhaps the inflow pipes of the generators are clogged. It wouldn’t be the first time it happened.”
“Yes sir, I will see if I can find anything,” Mr. Howell replied.
Professor Jonston could hear cautious steps making their way to the staircase. Re-entering his office, which was fairly light in comparison to the corridor due to a fashionably tainted and completely soundproof window at the other side of the room, Professor Jonston took his phone from his desk and proceeded to call the campus maintenance. To his surprise, the only response he got was a friendly voice telling him it was impossible to establish a connection to the requested telephone number.
Once again, Professor Jonston opened the door to the corridor.
“Has anybody been able to contact campus maintenance?” He asked into the darkness, raising his voice to be heard above the worried murmurs.
“No sir,” a female voice replied. “Mr. Arden and Miss Jenkins tried without being able to establish a connection and several others have been unsuccessful as well.”
Before Professor Jonston could reply, there was the sound of somebody stumbling and muffled cursing from the direction of the stairs.
“Mr. Howell, is that you?” Professor Jonston inquired.
“Yes sir. I had a look at the algae tanks and not only were the pipes to the generator clogged but the entire tank contained far too much algae. I am no expert but I believe the inflow of minerals must have changed to a much higher rate. Have you been able to inform maintenance?”
Mr. Howell was quickly informed about their problems with the telephones while Professor Jonston thought about possible solutions for their problem.
“May I ask everybody to listen for a moment? Since it seems unlikely we will be able to contact maintenance soon, we need to find a solution ourselves. From what Mr. Howell has told us, I think it is likely that there is a problem with the program regulating the mineral inflow, so we should try to contact the Leets. Of course, we need computers and electricity to do that. That’s why a group of you will need to go up onto the roof, unclog the generator’s inflow pipe and dilute the algae culture enough for the generator to resume converting algae into electricity. I would like everybody from offices 201 to 225 to take care of that. People working in offices 226 to 235 should continue trying to contact campus maintenance, while I will wait for electricity to return and then contact the Leets, who will hopefully be able to repair the program over the network. Please go to your assigned tasks now.”
Within an hour, the power supply was working again, as long as the algae solution was constantly diluted.
Professor Jonston went to his desk and, moving his fingers over the built-in screen, gained access to the Internet. However, he was not able to reach the site he wanted to reach as planned. Big, red letters in the note-like language Leets used when communicating with Nooms appeared across the screen:
“We Leets declare war against all Nooms.
Failure to agree on water + mineral prices cause.
No longer consider us connected to Nooms in any way.
All network devices under our control.”
Professor Jonston stared at the screen. The Leets had actually declared war? They had always seemed like a strange, detached but harmless minority, working on everything related to technical appliances, programs and the Internet. They may have been considered unpleasant, always living behind their screens and keyboards but they had always been useful.
Of course, there had been rumours that the Leets were beginning to see themselves as having absolutely nothing in common with Nooms, some even considered themselves to have evolved into an entirely different species, a theory which was even supported by some Noom scientists. But most Nooms had waved these rumours off as unimportant, saying the Leets would never be able to fare for themselves. There had been some truth to this assumption: all material things, including the minerals needed for the algae used to generate electricity and the bacteria serving as food, were supplied by Nooms.
The only problem was, as Professor Jonston realised with a start, that from biocultures over heating to the algocars, almost everything needed for everyday life was regulated by programs written by Leets, connected by the Internet. Which the Leets were now using for their benefit.
Professor Jonston slowly rose from his chair and went over to the window. Outside, there was complete and utter chaos. Some algocars had simply stopped while others veered wildly out of control, hitting others in the process. The self-cleaning pavements were violently sweeping away pedestrians, attempting to deposit them in the waste-bins between the streets and the pavements.
After staring in utmost horror at the scenes before his eyes, Professor Jonston returned to his desk to see if he could gain more information from the Internet. Although he was able to get past the initial page declaring war, he found that the Internet had been altered. There had been a division of the Internet for a long time, distinguishing between an easily accessible and understandable area for Nooms and a much larger area which the Leets considered home. This area generally did not cause much interest in Nooms and was in the difficult and ever-changing language Leets used amongst each other.
Now, the area Nooms used contained only information deemed harmless by the Leets. Not prepared to let this stop him, Professor Jonston ventured into the Leets’ area, desperately trying to understand their language. Everything was binary coded but that was only the beginning of the difficulties connected with the language. Words and letters had been twisted and newly combined and whenever Professor Jonston thought he might have found a tiny piece of the puzzle he could work with, he had to discover that it made absolutely no sense at all when related to other parts.
Late in the evening, there was a knock on the door and Mrs. Roberts showed in two men.
“Good evening, Professor Jonston. I am sure you are aware of what has happened. We are from the Ministry of Defence and are hoping that you might be interested in helping us decipher the language the Leets are using. We believe you are the person most qualified for this task.”
“Most qualified? I am afraid you are very much mistaken. My institute is concerned with early cyber language, which is quite different from the problem we are looking at here. We study phenomenons such as asc-art and the language use of lol-cats. While it is certainly fascinating, I am afraid you should look into entirely different areas to find help.”
“We are aware that your area of study is slightly different than what we are looking for but since all the positions at the Institutes of Middle and Modern Cyber Language were filled by Leets, you are our best hope. I hope you are aware of the utmost importance of this task; deciphering their language is the key of ending this entire conflict.”
Professor Jonston looked out of the window for a few moments, considering the immensely difficult task he was being asked to do. With a sigh, he nodded.
“Alright, I’ll do it.”