THE BOARD OF Directors of the Academy of Sure Things was in a crisis meeting.
'Gentlemen,' one began and there were a couple of coughs that interrupted his speech. 'And ladies,' he added, having forgotten in his controlled panic to move with the times. 'We have a problem, the nature of which is a devil to unravel.'
'It's corruption, that's what it is,' one of the coughy ladies said, smashing her fist so hard upon the table a pencil she had brought to do her eyebrows with shot across the room and drew a gasp from an elderly member who now sported a monobrow in bright blue where it had grazed him and interrupted an afternoon nap all at the same time.
'Indeed it is,' said the chairman. 'Corruption of data. From whence has this deleterious infiltration commenced and how was it managed with such subtle all-pervasiveness that it seems to be just about everywhere.'
'Even the toilet paper has gone wonky,' someone observed.
'Quite. Certain universal constants appear out of alignment and this has resulted in catastrophic failure across multiple disciplines and industries. I shudder whenever I cross a bridge at present.'
'Try using a toilet hereabouts. That'll make you shudder,' came another observation.
There was a pause while an assistant brought up the grid-linked projector. The screen brightened, lights were lowered and everyone looked at what was being projected.
'Gentlemen,' there was some coughing, 'and ladies, we have here a possible answer to the question, though what that question might be needs answering in itself.'
The screen flickered.
'The question is,' someone jumped in, 'what does a pink inflatable have to do with it?'
'Ah, sorry, that's my Blossom Bay holiday sequence. Chive, change to the correct grid stream please.'
'Sorry boss, thought that was a nine when I punched the numbers in earlier. Musta been a zero.'
There was a bit of fiddling and a schematic appeared with wavy lines dancing on it like electromagnetic snakes in search of victims.
'Here we have a tree of knowledge,' the chairman explained. 'There at the root is the source of everything and then it all branches out with interconnectivity which is a pleasure to behold.'
'Unlike some in this room I have a social life,' a whisper intruded briefly.
A bit more fiddling and the schematic expanded, showing finer detail until it halted upon a particularly knotty bit.
'Physics, gravitation, gridology and applied mathematics all tangled up together,' the chairman said. 'Did my degree on that bit I did and my higher professorship on that particular tangle right there between intuitive methodology and fun with numbers.'
'That's when he must have missed out on a social life,' another whisper nipped in between breaths of air from the chairman.
'And here is the revered contribution from Professor , uh Mole.'
'Damnation,' one of the ladies swore. 'Where's my pencil got to? I feel an eyebrow slipping.'
'The point is, gentlemen, and ladies,' the chairman huffed, 'the source data in the archives may have been corrupted at some point. Text books printed off from the on-grid library would have therefore repeated such undetected errors and spread them across the knowledge base.'
'Like drinking from a poisoned river,' someone said. 'One of them on Mount Syzywyg that have notices which say 'Don't drink the water, as it's poisonous you bloody fool.''
'Alas such a useful and well emphasised warning did not exist when this particular poison entered the system,' the chairman acknowledged. 'If only it had.'
'Ha! You sound like a shareholder in the
Great Encyclopedia of All Sorts
publishing company,' someone sniggered.
'Get a life.'
'No, you get a life.' Things were threatening to get out of hand.
'Ladies, ladies, and uh, gentlemen, let us not lose our heads over this.'
'Or professorships,' someone grumbled.
'That too. Lights up Chive.'
There was a sudden flare of incandescence which sent everyone scurrying under the table for protection.
'Sorry boss, thought that was a zero. Musta been a nine.'
The light level resumed a tolerable level and everyone took their seats.
'What are you doing with my pencil?' one lady board member was heard to say as everyone settled again.
'Breaking it into small pieces,' came a gruff reply.
'Enough!' the chairman interrupted, taking command like a teacher in a classroom of rowdy pupils. It was an apt description. 'We must address this issue at the source. The source code for our on-grid library databases have to be incorruptible by necessity, yet corrupted in some subtle way it has been. The question is how did this happen?'
'That is what I intend to find out,' a voice chuckled off to one side.
Everyone looked to see who had spoken but no sooner had the words filtered across the restless room than the speaker had somehow managed to disappear from a convenient exit.
'Ghosts,' someone muttered.
'In the machinery,' another added.
'Damnation,' was the final conclusion to the meeting.