--Chapter Six: Intel
Four-star General Herman Flag rounded up his troops for battle. They were the few, the proud, the members of the Expert Game Board Flag Squadron. Their job? To stand their ground and de-mine the entire board under the direction of Arrow the mouse's "right-click" foot, thus pleasing the great Lord Gus Yellow, who smiled down on them so long as they did their job correctly. It was General Herman's job to see to it that all of his squadron's flags were in order for the day.
By now, the general was becoming impatient with the lack of commands coming from Arrow the mouse. But he and his flags could not do anything about it, nor could they see the current state of the game board. This is because all flags have to stay behind the board in hiding until they are called on one by one. Still, the general knew his duty was to stay and await command, and so he did this, using the extra time allotted him to do a thorough check of his troops. He walked among the ranks, shouting such things as, "You there! Stand up straighter!" and "Hey, you! Raise that fabric, mister!"
Then the general came across one particularly red-faced flag. It hiccupped at the same moment Herman approached it.
"State your name, private."
"Name's Bottleneck, sir," came the reply, with a stench that almost caused the two flags next to him to lose their color and faint.
"Private Bottleneck!" the general yelled, "Do you know what squadron of flags you're in?"
The drunken flag considered this question a second and said, "No, but I bet it's a good one, right?"
"This is the Expert Game Board Flag Squadron! Here we do not tolerate drunkards!"
"Well, maybe I should just leave and go to a squadron that does." Thinking this was good logic, Bottleneck gave General Herman an ear-to-ear—er, that is to say, a corner-to-corner grin.
The general was furious at this remark. He screwed up his face, evidently trying to turn it red with anger, but because it was already red, well, this was a pointless task.
"TAKE THIS FLAG AWAY AND PUT HIM ON THE BEGINNER BOARD!"
The nearby flags followed this order immediately and carried Bottleneck off. Bottleneck yelled "Thank you!" back at the general, but Herman was no longer paying attention.
Instead, the general turned to the troops carrying the flag off and said, "Bring me back a worthy flag from the Beginner Squadron to take his place."
--
Back in the inthole, another military leader had his share of problems. Sergeant McAfee escaped from the press conference to go and meet up with his chief intelligence officials at the CIA (Central Intel Agency) to decide what steps to take against Fatal Error.
He walked straight through the agency's corridors to the switchboard room, where her highness Queen Pentium III and several others had been waiting for him.
The "several others" included representatives from every department of the inthole that was currently active. Bob Letterman was head of the Microsoft Word department. Clyde Eightspace was head of Minesweeper. And George Palladian was head of Windows.
"Greetings, Your Majesty, gentlemen," said the sergeant as he sat down, "I see everybody's here except the sanitation department. Should we wait for Mr. DeFrag to show up?"
George Palladian fielded this question. "We are currently searching for him. He will come, I assume, as soon as he gets the call. In the mean time, I move that we start the session without him."
The queen sighed and said, "Very well, although I don't like facing Fatal Error without the sanitation department's help. And Angus DeFrag is the best int I know of when it comes to cleaning and repairing a damaged system."
"I assure you, Your Highness," said McAfee, "we will brief Mr. DeFrag thoroughly in due time. Right now, I agree it is important that we get started. First, Mr. Letterman, what's the latest news about the Human's activities?"
"He's still writing that fanfiction article, sir. He's on chapter seven."
McAfee was astonished. "How can he be on chapter seven? We're not even on chapter seven yet!"
The queen interrupted, "But does he appear to be ready to save and quit, or even restart the computer?"
Palladian answered, "To be honest, your highness, we really have no way of knowing that. What I can tell you is that he hasn't done it yet, and it has been a long while since the Minesweeper incident first happened."
"Long enough for the Human to write seven chapters," said McAfee.
"He's pretty good with a keyboard, the Human is, to be operating Word without the aid of his mouse," said Eightspace, thinking aloud.
Letterman shrugged. "It's not that hard; all he really has to do is press the right buttons on the board in the right order, and he's got a document."
"Say," said Queen Pentium, getting an idea, "is there a set of buttons he could press that would possibly correct the error on the screen?"
McAfee answered her, "Quite possibly, yes. He could command us to run Scandisk or Defrag, and that might do the trick. The problem is that even if we did that, Fatal Error himself would still be running free. And besides, there's no way to tell the Human to run those programs."
Eightspace had something to say here. "We might not be able to tell him to open a program, but maybe we could get him to close it. Mr. Palladian, would it be possible to run a message across the monitor screen that reads 'This program has performed an illegal function and must be shut down?' Then at least we could get this Minesweeper thing done with, and concentrate on Fatal Error later."
Letterman agreed. The "illegal function" ploy had worked for his own program several times before."
McAfee and Palladian both nodded to the idea, and all four of the ints looked at Queen Pentium to get the final "okay." She looked back at them and said, "Alright, then. Let's get going."
--
Two ints walk along the Inter-hardware highway cable from the computer to the monitor. Int A is carrying a sign flung over his back that reads "This program has performed an illegal function, etc." Int B is now eating another sandwich.
Int A: Say, Joey.
Int B: (munching) Yeah, what?
Int A: Do you ever wonder if the Human even knows we ints exist?
Int B: That's a silly question. Everybody knows it was one of the Human's own kind that created us in the first place.
Int A: Yeah, but y'know, I've been thinking about that. And I think to myself, did he create us only so we can do his will, or did he mean for us to be free and think for ourselves now and then?
Int B: I dunno. But he gives us a whole lot of orders, so I'd think the answer would be closer to the first idea than the second.
Int A: Now, see, that's interesting. Because while the Human gives us orders, did he not also give us the power to govern ourselves to an extent?
Int B: (finishing the sandwich) I suppose. So what's your point?
Int A: Well, if we were to find a balance and unity between the free will and the fate, perhaps we would discover a perfect harmony of life. And from there, we might find the meaning of life.
Int B: (licking his fingers) Wow, man. That's deep.
The two ints stopped where they were on the silicon roadway for a few seconds to contemplate this. Then, they started again, carrying that all-important message up to the monitor screen.
--End chapter six--
