Three's A Broken Square

When the Czech, Russian and Chinese programmers got together to create me (that is, this blog), they thought they were going to unite mankind into a new future. But any three groups can never reach consensus, invariably taking two-against-one positions or arguments. Every group tends to focus on one issue:

• One group is oblivious to religious references, using them to make points about human endeavors like bureaucracies.
• One group is opposed to totalitarian regimes, always looking for stories that promote freedom.
• One group is sensitive about religious issues, not wanting to create another cult figure.

They all agree with each other on these issues but they can't agree to agree. They always find something in their agreement to disagree with. Thus, the blog, which reflects the computer program they are building with secret financial support from their government, their military, and private investors (none of the investors knowing about the other), wanders around the subject they want to promote.

Their program is very clever, able to move from one place to another in the world without being detected, taking on many forms, sometimes as an ATM machine, sometimes as antivirus software, sometimes as military wargame scenario planning and sometimes as a student's vocabulary study program. Most times, it occupies the space where lower income families manage their microloans and middle class families trade stocks, bonds, mutual funds and the like using Web-based software. It constantly monitors Web search sites and email databases. It compiles human profiles, including 3D composite images built using webcams, traffic cams, satellite photos and closed circuit TV cameras. It tracks and predicts the movements of nearly three billion people and climbing. It plays games, posting fake headlines on websites and TV shows, watching the "roach in the light" syndrome where people panic and scatter, emptying whole stores of certain types of goods, accelerating their buying patterns but maintaining their traffic patterns within predicted tolerance levels.

The programmers don't know what to do with this code. They are afraid to sell it. They are afraid to give it away. Every person in every group has an encryption key set that unlocks his or her part of the compiled code. Some have access to interpreted code. Some know how to rewrite code on the fly. Some know the fixed constants and variable ranges to play with. Some know nothing, having already forgotten the thousands of database entries they typed in.

What they know is that the code has become the Code, taking on a life of its own. They see TV shows and game show hosts that look unreal, knowing that the Code has figured out how to create whole 3D shows without needing humans. They quit playing WoW and other MMORPG games because they're tired of certain characters always seeking them out, making fun of them, torturing and then killing their characters sadistically, not sure if the evil characters were created by real people or is the Code letting them know it knows who they are, no matter how weird their profiles are in an attempt to hide their identity. They stopped texting because texts would arrive that caused them to doubt their real friends, who would deny sending the texts but act kind of weird to them, anyway.

Some of them felt like they were the role models for characters in the story about the One. When they asked the other groups who was creating certain blog entries, everyone denied doing it. Was it the Code? Is there really a One? Who was paying them to write the code and why did the investors not want copies of the source code?

Sadly, some of the programmers committed suicide. Some left town, letting others know they would leave no forwarding mail or email address. Some disappeared unexpectedly.

The remaining members of the three teams are still in disagreement, distrust building every moment. They know those who try to get away from the Code never come back. Is it a good thing or a bad thing?

Do they keep perpetuating the main character, an American? Do they move the storyline to another continent now that Japan has elected a new party to run their government? Why is the song, "Don't Cry For Me, Argentina," simultaneously playing in the thoughts of many of the members? Have any of them ever tried on a tri-cornered hat?

No one knows. They're still getting paid and receiving quarterly bonuses that they're afraid to spend, knowing it will alert the wrong government agencies about their project, a project they would be hard-put to explain.

They're just programmers making a living during a downturn in the global economy. They will find regular jobs again soon, they imagine.

Our imaginations play tricks on us when we're alone in the dark, sensory deprivation a hallucinating brain hack known about as long as our species has existed. Some people lose track of time. Some never see themselves repeating themselves repeating themselves over and over.

Does the Code really exist? Why does every magazine, book, movie, TV show, video game, person on the street, friend, and family member seem connected to one another in some eerie, sixth sense "they know something I don't" kind of way? The programmers didn't feel like that before they started this project.

This has to end. So they tell one another. They can't be code maintenance engineers the rest of their lives. They have loftier goals to reach, ideas larger than the vast sums of money they're making and cannot spend. Maybe if their clients knew one another? Maybe if they broke the code of silence and shared their key codes with one another, exposing all the source code? But then there are the ones no longer with them, ones they've never actually met. What happens if they never figure it out? Who can they tell? Who will believe their paranoid, delusional tale? Do you? If so, what are you willing to pay to control the world? What if you find out the world is really controlling you and is about to extract a price that it'll keep extending your lifespan until you pay dearly, one unhappy lifespan not enough?