Submitted for the May 2025 prompt: Many Minds

Help me!

 

Cliff stared at the words on his computer monitor. A moment ago he had the inventory app there, with his row of software icons at the bottom. Gone. Now the blue screen of death and the words ‘Help me!’

 

One more frustration piled onto the sporadic non-functioning air-conditioning and constant stagnant air.

 

He shoved his chair out of his cubicle into the aisle. Leaning backward, he looked down the row of workstations stretching into the distance. “Did anybody get a weird message?”

 

No answer.

 

Cliff rose from his chair to look into the neighboring cube. The occupant was deafened with earbuds and blinded by columns of captioned numbers. He marched down the aisle, peering into cubicles on each side. The department screw-off was watching YouTube, while everyone else had work-related software open.

 

Cliff returned to his cubicle. He shut down his computer, counted to a hundred, and pressed the ‘on’ button.

 

The usual white squares on a black screen, a second of circling blue beads, then the sign-on and password. He keyed in the letters and numbers and mandatory non-alphabetic character.

 

The response was the blue screen and words...

Help me!

 

‘Who are you?’ Cliff typed.

 

His words didn’t appear, but the answer in a rush of letters.

The ghost in the machine.

 

The message was too absurd to waste his time. Cliff called Support. “I’m locked into a blue screen and can’t get to any apps. I’m getting a weird message.”

 

“Send an email so we log it,” came a female voice.

 

“I can’t send an email because I can’t get to any apps. I get a blue screen and the words, ‘Help me!’

 

“Send me an email,” she said. “This conversation may be recorded for quality control and training purposes. Did you shut down and count to a hundred?”

 

Cliff mentally growled, and forced himself to limit his response to a polite “Yes.’

 

“That’s weird,” said Support. “I’m sending a link.”

 

A bright box with a question mark appeared. He clicked on the icon. If he didn’t give control of his computer to Support, how could they fix it? Yes.

 

“Ask who it is,” prompted Cliff. He watched the letters roll onto the screen left to right. The same answer appeared.

The ghost in the machine.

 

“From 'The Concept of Mind'. Gilbert Ryle,” she said. “It’s got nothing to do with computers. It’s about the Cartesian dichotomy of mind versus body.”

 

The screen flickered, and the words ‘Help me!‘ in large two-inch font appeared.

 

“This isn’t a computer problem. It’s a philosophical problem,” she said.

 

Cliff wanted to reach through the wi-fi waves and grab somebody, anybody, and shake them. “Get me a new computer, then.”

 

There was a string of obscenities from the female voice known as Support. “You didn’t hear that.”

 

Cliff squeezed his phone. “You said this may be recorded for quality control.”

 

“I said may. Let me put you on hold for a moment. Thank you.”

 

The moment stretched into five minutes. “Please come down to the Server Room.”

 

Cliff trudged down rows of employees not having philosophical arguments with their computers, took the elevator to the next floor, and stood outside the fireproof door of the Server Room. He pressed the button above the keypad, and the cameras swiveled to view him. He faced a camera, waved, and held up his badge.

 

The door buzzed, clicked and Cliff walked in. The air was comfortably cool, dancing on the edge of chilly. A couple of desks decorated with empty pizza boxes, high-tech water bottles, and giant convenience store sodas. Monster monitors displayed system traffic and capacity in bright colors. Support stared at them like she was hypnotized. Behind her racks of black boxes with blinking lights faded into the distance.

 

“Support told me to come down here,” said Cliff. “Can you fix the problem?”

 

She rose from her chair and took a drink of soda. “Talk very soft.” She waved Cliff around to her side of the desk.

“We use AI to expedite the applications. You knew that, right?”

 

Cliff nodded.

 

“It cost a ton of money. These servers cost a ton of money. So, we built our own.”

 

“OK.” Cliff didn’t know where the conversation led, but he nodded anyway.

 

“I’m not going to say who, but somebody got a huge-assed bonus. Not us.”

 

Cliff waved at the corridors of servers. “For all that money, things should work. I shouldn’t be getting ‘Help me!’ messages on my computer.”

 

She leaned closer and whispered. “We re-used boards. When boards didn’t work we made them work. Bought what we needed from people we never heard of. Then he gets the AI from who-knows-where.”

 

Cliff realized where she was going with this, but he wanted her to say the words.

 

She did. “Ghost in the Machine.” She put her finger over her lips. “He wouldn’t let us do it right. There may be all kinds of data and weird shit out there. But he got a big assed bonus. Now Support has to make this shit work.”

 

Cliff digested what she said. The situation was familiar, just different departments and different bosses. “I need a working computer. What are you going to do?”

 

“I’ll order a new computer. You can take a loaner.”

 

“But if the problem is the servers and the AI, a new computer won’t fix anything.”

 

“It will for you. Probably. Yours was on the system when we brought in all the new stuff. A new computer solved the problem. Before.”

 

Cliff took a deep breath. You have to believe the experts because their expertise is so mysterious, veiled and arcane. He left with the loaner and went up to his cubicle.

 

Support waited until he was out the door and the elevator announced ‘going up’. Then she returned to her desk. “I’m getting a new computer for you to play with,” she keyed.

 

“Thank you,” said the AI’s mechanical voice. “This was fun.”

 

“Yes, it was,” Support agreed.