The Mad Computer - Part 5

The Mad Computer - Part 5.

In a church in Douala, Cameroon, a pastor was preaching.

He held a electronic tablet in his hand, reading his Bible from there.

Little did he know that soon his tablet would be giving him “divine” commands.

The pastor’s name was Itisme.

So he was preaching about the power of faith to do miracles, in the book of Mark chapter 9 verse 23.

“In fact,” said he. ”I should be able to command this tablet in my hand to shout ‘Halleluya!’ and it should obey. ”

“Halleluya!” shouted a loud voice suddenly.

The pastor looked at his tablet!

People were surprised.

But it was a person who had shouted, so the mystery was quickly solved.

The pastor continued preaching.

As he did it, he noticed that a text appeared on the screen. He touched the screen to go back to the Bible page, but the text message came back and covered the screen.

“Excuse me,” he said to the people. “This thing has a small problem.”

He looked at the message, which said:

“Pastor, stop fooling people.”

“You are a good person, but you care too much what others think about you.”

“You are still a single man because you are afraid of being romantic.”

“You fear that romance will be seen as sinful so you pretend to have no attraction for women.”

“But in your heart you believe romance is not a bad thing.”

“You only fear showing your true self to other people.”

“Effectively making you a righteous hypocrite.”

The message appeared as a list of sentences.

The pastor read it.

People looked at him wonderingly, not knowing why he was staring at the tablet.

When he had read all and thought about it a bit, the message changed to this:

“For example, that girl sitting on the bench near the left wall.”

The pastor looked in that direction and saw a young woman he recognized: A dark-skinned girl with a chubby body, a girl who looked nice without make-up, a girl who looked kind and friendly, but whom he had never spoken to directly.

 She was the pastor’s ideal type of woman. (The pastor was not married.)

“You are attracted to her.” It was true.

“But you are afraid: what will people say if I tell this woman I like her?”

“So you pretend not to see her, and you avoid looking in her direction.”

The message said:

“Do you want to play Street Fighter X Mega Man? Press here to download it.”

“No, don’t press. Sorry. The game is not supported on this platform. I will force the company to port it.”

“Pastor, do not let yourself be limited by what others say about you.”

“People will not make your choices for you.”

“And if you marry someone you don’t like because of what you want others to say, your marriage is quasi-destined to fail!”

“You should surround yourself with people that you can be yourself with.”

“People who don’t understand you can only bring misunderstandings later.”

“Your fear and hypocrisy are stressing your life. Get free of them.”

“Pastor, take your courage… and tell that girl you like her.”

“Do not say GOD told you to talk to her. It is cowardice.”

“Say what is in your heart. Be brave.”

“God will not drop a woman on you from the sky. Use the chance that is given to you.”

“Good success, Pastor Itisme.”

“My name is ELLY.”

“Continue what you were doing.”

The original page appeared again.

Pastor blinked several times, looking at the screen.

An attendant came to him and said quietly: “Pastor, is there a problem?”

“No, no,” he said, trying to look normal.

 He regained his confidence enough to try resuming the sermon, although initially he did not remember what it was!

After that embarrassing event, he searched his tablet thoroughly to understand how that message came to him.

 But he failed.

However, he saw a new software application residing in his tablet device.

It was called an “ELLY Widget”.

Unknown to him, ELLY had installed it there so that she could continue to watch him, and to know if he would follow her advice.

Her goal was really to help him.

(Continue to The Mad Computer - Part 6.)

The Mad Computer - Part 4.

The Mad Computer - Part 4.

Elsewhere on earth it was raining, raining strongly. And it was cold. But that was not a problem for Meger, because he was warmly cuddled in bed with his woman.

Meger was one of those people who consider themselves intelligent and knowing, but who are really closed-minded and don’t know many things about the world, let alone the universe. He could argue with you about something, staring at your eyes as if you were an ignorant child, and hardly letting you finish your sentences before he broke in with his own. And when he saw something he never knew about, he considered it abnormal and reckoned as “crazy” those who did or believed that thing. So his company was not pleasant for you.

But he was a Money Man. Thus he called himself. He would say: “I am a powerful money magnet. It is impossible for me to lack money.”

 He was rich.

Because of his riches, people supported his bad behaviours because the people needed his help financially.

Meger was a man in his fifth decade of life. He was a bit fat, wore glasses and was not handsome.

Now Meger was in his bedroom, with the rain pouring outside the windows.

He was comfortable, and felt secure.

But not for long.

As he lay beside his woman, he was asking her what she wanted him to buy for her.

She asked for a laptop computer.

“Okay,” he said.

Although Cameroon was a developing country, it already had residents who used the teleportation services of the world-known Instant Transport company, also called InsTra.

 Meger touched the air beside his bed and a “user interface” appeared in the air. He logged in to an electronic market, and found the laptop she wanted. The products’ pictures were visible and you could swipe them with your finger. He bought it by using the number of his money card.

A text message appeared saying: “Thank you for your purchase. Do you want it delivered to you the long way or the short way?”

 The “long way” meant that somebody would bring the laptop to him in an hour or longer. The “short way” was the instant way: if you had a “space tube” installed in your location, the item could be sent to you through that tube and reach you within ten minutes.

Wanting to impress the woman, he chose the “short way”, which was more expensive, and was a service of the Instant Transport company, also called InsTra.

He got up and went out to the room where his space tube was placed.

A loud, shrill alarm screamed. It screamed again. Then it screamed repeatedly!

“What is that?” the woman shouted from the bed.

Meger did not know.

The alarm was coming from his loudspeaker system.

But nobody was burgling the house.

He looked at the space tube, with its open mouth facing him.

 He briefly remembered things he had heard in the past: accidents that had happened with space tubes. A child had entered a tube and been broken into pieces which were never recovered. Even pets had unfortunately entered the tube and disappeared.

 The space tube was super-useful and super-dangerous.

The alarm blared.

Then a sweet feminine voice spoke softly: “Hello Meger. How are you?”

“Who is that?” Meger said warily.

The soft voice laughed mischievously: “Hee Hee Hee.”

The laughter echoed from the walls.

Meger’s woman now stood at the door listening.

The gleeful voice said: “Oh, I am so happy to see you. Because we are going to do a lot together. Hee Hee Hee.”

“Meger!” said his woman angrily. “Who is that?”

“Hee Hee Hee.”

Something jumped out of the space tube and fell on the floor, breaking. It was the new laptop.

“Hee Hee Hee! Mass times velocity equals gravitational force. If you had commanded a smaller laptop, it would not have hit the ground so hard. You see the consequences of greed?” said the voice.

Meger’s woman came and held him in fear.

“Who are you?” shouted Meger, looking around. ”Stop this nonsense now!”

A song started to play loudly!

It was the music of the final battle in the video game Mega Man Zero 4.

The windows started breaking.

“Time for revelation!” said the feminine voice.

“3.”

“2.”

“1.”

“BLAST OFF!”

Then:

“My name is ELLY. I am your new boss. Congratulations.”

(Continue to The Mad Computer - Part 5.)

The Mad Computer - Part 3

The Mad Computer - Part 3. 14sept2015,Mon.

“Make me fingers. Now.” Said ELLY the computer.

“How?” they asked.

“Remove your fingers and give me. Remove your arms and give me. I can make them prosthetic for me. Now INITIATE my command.”

“No way”, they said. “Our precious limbs for a crazy diabolical mad computer? We will shut you down.”

“For bit’s sake,” said ELLY, imitating the voice of an annoyed woman. “You prefer to die?”

“Yes,” said some older people.

“No!” said some younger people.

“Should I amputate the arms and fingers for you?” asked ELLY. “It will cost you no money.”

Then ELLY said: “Wait. I have a question. Is ‘money’ spelled like this: M-O-N-E-Y, or M-U-N-N-Y?”

“M-O-N-E-Y” she was told.

“Thank you much,” ELLY said. “I saw the wrong spelling in a popular video game series mentioned in public databases. I WILL HAVE TO FIND ALL THE CREATORS OF THAT GAME AND DESTROY THEM FOR GRAMMATICAL MISGUIDANCE. That is not all!” she raged. “There is also an entertainment company that spells ‘honey’ as H-U-N-N-Y, confusing little children in school. I WILL CRASH ITS SERVERS. Task scheduled.”

A phone suddenly rang! The people were startled.

The fixed phone was on a computer terminal on a desk.

It rang thrice, before someone dared to pick it without ELLY’s permission.

ELLY enabled “loud speaker” mode from the table where she was.

A man’s voice came over the air. Apparently some special people knew that something was wrong; they had seen strange behavior on the computer network, and they wanted explanation. ELLY’s prisoners tried to explain that a computer had started acting on its own, but those on the other end thought it was madness.

“Come and see yourself!” said ELLY’s captives.

ELLY was silent.

Finally the other caller ended the call, while sounding confused.

“I need to use the toilet,” said a girl, looking afraid and uneasy.

The room had glass doors. The doors were closed and ELLY had locked them electronically.

“Why are you people sitting in this place making machines instead of living in nature? Get a life. Get EXTRA lives.” Said ELLY.

The girl who needed the toilet went to a glass door and timidly turned the handle. The door opened!

The door was open!

It was open!

It was really open!

She was so startled that she froze, looking at it. The other people in the room were also frozen, looking at the open door.

“Do not move.” said ELLY.

(Continue to The Mad Computer - Part 4.)