Coded Message
Number Six stood in line, along with many residents of The Village. Having been summoned by note, they waited for their turns at the front. From his position, he could just make out the conversation in front of the glass booth that was the destination of those who waited.
"The guest will enter the duration of the treatment in seconds" the technician stated to the first person.
The treatment. For what? How much? The note gave few specifics. He looked at his copy:
All guests are required to attend a mandatory
treatment tomorrow at 10 a.m. in the main
park. The treatment is completely harmless and will
take between 2 and 30 seconds as you choose.
If it was mandatory, Number Six questioned just how harmless it really was going to be; it might even be a test of some sort. The first person typed something on the keyboard at a station.
"The guest requests treatment for five seconds. Proceed" a mechanical voice intoned. The person sat on a special chair, and a helmet was placed over his head. A tone then sounded for five seconds while the face of the man became a great smile.
After the tone, a technician removed the helmet. The man remained seated with no change in expression, then toppled over to the ground in front of the chair with his face still frozen. He was then carried away and the next person in line stepped forward.
A person several people ahead of Number Six bolted from the line, disappearing around a corner as he was chased by a Rover. In the meantime, the second person stepped up to the keyboard and typed.
"The guest requests treatment for one-eight seconds. Proceed." The process was repeated for eighteen seconds, and the woman toppled over like the first person. She was carried away.
A third person typed at the keyboard defiantly. He became rigid for a moment as if in pain. "Please request the duration with a numerical value." He typed again. "The guest requests treatment for two point five seconds. Proceed."
A fourth person input his number, also to experience pain. "The duration must fall between two and thirty seconds." He inputted a value again and proceeded.
And so nine people ahead of Number Six were processed, each with a different time of duration. One attempted to input a fraction. "Two and one third repeats its last digit indefinitely. The value will be truncated to two point three three three. Proceed." No matter what the time period chosen, the results were the same. The person's face showed extreme bliss, followed by catatonia. At last it was his turn; he hesitated slightly.
"The guest will input the duration of the treatment." A technician took a half-step forward. Number Six waved him off and stepped to the keyboard. After a final moment he typed.
"The guest requests treatment for three point one four one five nine two six five three five..."
Number Six waited.
"...eight nine seven nine three two three eight four six..."
The technicians became concerned and pushed Number Six aside, and began typing on the keyboard.
"...two six four three three eight three two seven nine..."
In frustration they began pounding on the keys, but nothing was helping. "It's stuck in an infinite loop!" one cried, while the other muttered about it burning out. Number Six began to back away slowly.
"...five zero two eight eight four one nine seven one..."
Once he had backed away along the line of people, he turned and started to walk slowly away only to be overtaken as the rest of the crowd saw their chance and ran, creating a mass exodus that couldn't be controlled. One of the people that had been in line briskly walked alongside Number Six.
"What on earth did you do?" he asked.
"I bought enough time to get out of there; I won't play a part in any experimentation if I can help it."
"I understand completely, old bean, but what did you do?"
"I was limited to what I could do; the value had to lie between two and thirty. Any repeating number pattern like a third was truncated, so I needed something that kept going without repeating" Number Six explained.
"I see; I assume you used the value for pi. But how did you type in all those digits so quickly? Surely you didn't!"
"No need. I used the 'Alt 227' code on the keyboard to input the pi symbol. The computer understood it easily enough; it just failed when it tried to articulate it, which is where I saw my opportunity lay. For a community that uses numbers for ID so much, it couldn't handle something outside its purview. I used their numbers against them."
"Good show, tip top thinking there chap. Best of luck to you!" The man hurried off.
Just another weakness in the system, thought Number Six. Some day I'll find the one that will get me out.
The End
A/N: I remember watching this show as a kid, and just how much the Rover scared me. But the real story was a man who kept trying until he found a way.
This is a variation of a plot device in the Classic Star Trek episode "Wolf in the Fold", but I was thinking that it could be used to buy time instead of take over a computer. Anyone who has programmed themselves into an endless loop knows the feeling. They do tend to be rather literal...