Fatal Error

      The skeleton towered over him as he walked by, its steel members reaching for the slate gray sky. For the last several months Hal had passed by this construction site on his walk from the parking garage. Most days he never gave the partially completed sky-scraper a second glance. Today though, he paused.
      Soon enough these red girders would be covered in concrete and glass, and this skeleton would become full of people making their mindless way through its bowels. It would be a living, breathing office building, complete with drones.
      When finished, it would be like every other building in the city; tall, impersonal, and gray. The entire city was gray. The sidewalks were gray. The buildings were of polished gray granite. Their mirrored windows reflected the gray overcast sky.
      Hal realized just how depressing the whole city was. He looked about the rush-hour street, looking for a friendly face; knowing he'd be surprised as hell if he found one. He didn't of course. No one cared about a single man, slightly over-weight, staring up at a skeletal building.

      The morning passed as it always did, in a blur of meaningless trivia. Unimportant matters at the office seemed to eat all of Hal's time. That was why his wife had left him, and taken their children. She had moved to a larger city, where she would continue her meaningless life and raise their children to be drones. Hal stared lifelessly at the report sitting on his desk. Society didn't want individuals, society wanted clones. Efficient clones who would do their jobs efficiently, go home and make love efficiently enough to reproduce, and return to their jobs.
      Like some self-replicating machine programmed to do whatever its designers deemed necessary. Like a Von Neumann machine.
      Hal looked out the window and watched the construction workers busily putting together whatever they were working on that day. He idly wondered just what the point was. After all, the building would eventually go out of style, be sold, or torn down. It might be burned down by some over-zealous kid with a match. Some maladjusted kid with a match could light a can of gasoline and torch the magnificent new building.
      Some mis-programmed Von Neumann machine.

      The drive home took hours. Traffic was slowed to a crawl whenever there was an accident downtown. A delivery truck had crashed into a car. So Hal waited as the police and emergency response personnel cleaned up the shattered remains of a life and carted it off to the hospital. Hal shook his head. One life, changed forever by a stupid decision. How many people were maimed or killed by stupidity each day? Thousands? Hundreds of thousands?
      Hal listened without interest as a nearby billboard blared its advertisement at him.
      "Buy Clean-X! Gets clothes twice as clean, with only half the effort. Save more, buy Clean-X! Only $19.99 a box!"
      He laughed. How many people even bothered to listen to advertisements anymore? Everyone was so inundated with advertisements that no one really paid any attention to them. They were everywhere, and what was the point of them if they didn't really sell anything? Then again, what would happen if you removed the advertisements from society?
      A lot of drones would be out of work, that's what.
      Hal's introspection was shattered as a man in ragged clothes banged his fist on his window. He tried not to look at the man, but he could hear the man screaming something at him. The man pounded again, and Hal rolled down the window a crack.
      "We're all trapped in the machine, man!" the man screamed at Hal, "We're all just little cogs in some grand computer. We build and fix the computer, and the user doesn't think twice about us."
      The man's stench was overpowering, and there was a mad look in the man's eyes that disturbed Hal. He shuddered and rolled up the window. The traffic began moving again, and Hal pulled away from the still screaming man.
      "There's no God, man! Only the machine!"

      Hal awoke alone in his living room. Outside it was dark. Inside it was dim, with the only illumination coming fron the static on the television set. In the flickering light he could see his dog curled up on the carpet. Hal blinked several times and looked around for the clock, wondering just how long he'd been asleep on the couch. The VCR flickered a baleful 19:99 at him, reminding Hal that he had to reset the clock on the infernal machine some day. Ignoring the blinking VCR, Hal stood and shuffled into the kitchen. The dog looked up, but made no move to follow.
      The fluorescent light flickered several times before bathing the kitchen in white light. He squinted as darkness was banished.
      "There's no God, man! Only the machine!"
      Hal shook his head. That street crazy had gotten inside him more than he wanted to admit. It was disturbing somehow. Hal toyed with the idea that the bum was right. Wasn't it always the bums who became prophets? Not that it mattered, if the crazy fellow was right, then there wasn't a God. The bum's 'divine' visions would be coming from who? The machine?
      Hal chuckled. God was a VCR.

      He passed the skeleton again. Today there was more to it. They were slowly closing it in, and soon enough, Hal thought, the drones would be inside. He shrugged and continued on.
      As he walked to his office he thought again about the bum who had accosted him yesterday. Hal had hoped that he wouldn't see the fellow again, especially on the walk from the garage to the office. The bum however wasn't the only concern that Hal had. Last night, Hal had dreamt that he was sitting in front of a computer screen; only he wasn't inputting commands. The commands were being input into him.

      >LOGIN? User
      >PASSWORD? *****
      Hello user. This is Unit HAL-1965-M.
      >EDIT HALPARM.COM
      Welcome to the HAL Parameters Command file.
      >INSERT ITEM: renfrew.act

      "Hal? Are you all right?"
      Hal started as he realized he'd been day dreaming. He coughed and nodded. The CEO gave him a strange look, and then continued.
      "As you're one of my best people, I've decided we need your expertise on a new account we've picked up. You have to deal with these people very carefully though Hal, Renfrew's is a well-established company, and their people are very specific about what they want. This is a long term contract Hal, through to 1999, and it's very important to us."
      The rest of the CEO's words went unheard as snippets of his odd dream floated back to Hal. There couldn't possibly be a connection. His mind was just playing tricks on him. That's all it was, just mind tricks.
      Hal stood.
      "Maybe you should ask someone else sir."

      It was at lunch, in the shadow of the skeleton, that the bum visited Hal again. Hal saw him coming across the street, and wanted to duck away before the other man caught up, but the only place to go was the construction site.
      The bum smiled with broken teeth. The stench of the man was almost visible as he took Hal by the arm and steered him out of the crowd.
      "You know don't ya?" the man with the broken teeth asked. Hal shrugged, "I don't know what you mean." The bum laughed. It was a wheezing, hacking sound that rattled.
      "I can see it in your eyes. You saw the machine. You felt the user." He smiled and Hal winced.
      "Look, I don't know what you're talking about." Hal said pulling away, "You're loony."
      The bum narrowed his eyes, "Let me ask you this, friend. Why do you work where you do? Huh? Why do these buildings keep being put up? Why? What's our reason for being here?"
      The bum moved closer, and Hal could smell garlic on his breath. "I'll tell you why friend. We're all just software and hardware in some massive computer. Cogs in the machine. We're here to calculate some problem for the user."
      "No."
      The bum nodded, "Why not? What's wrong with that? At least then we know we're here for a reason."
      Hal shook his head. "I'm not a cog in some user's machine."
      The bum laughed again as Hal strode away.
      "Look at yourself friend. You already are."

      Hello user. This is Unit HAL-1965-F.
      >EDIT GLFILE.COB
      404. File not Found
      >DIR \HAL\GLFILE.*
      404. File not Found
      >DIR \HAL\*.*
      FAMILY.COB
      HAL.EXE
      WORK.COB
      >GET \USER\MASTER\GLFILE.COB
      File Received
      >EDIT GLFILE.COB
      File Open.
      >INPUT var date.conversion=3
      Accepted.
      >CALCULATE current.date + date.conversion Error. Division by Zero.
      >RESET

      Hal woke in a sweat, his starched bed sheets wrapped about his legs. The dog looked up lazily from its spot on the floor, licked itself, and went back to sleep. Hal closed his eyes and swallowed. He felt his heart pounding in his ears. In the darkness a dim light blinked a crimson warning
      His alarm clock flashed 12:00. The power must have cut out. Hal reached to reset it.
      He paused, holding the clock in his hands.
      RESET.
      He shook his head and set the clock to six in the morning. When he tried to get back to sleep however, he found he couldn't. He ended up tossing and turning, a vague unease making his flesh creep. He soon realized he was afraid to sleep. He was afraid of the nightmare that awaited him there. He was afraid of what he might find.
      >CALCULATE current.date + date.conversion
      Error. Division by Zero.
      Hal snapped out of bed, startling the dog. He rushed to his small desk, where he kept his calendar. The last year printed there was 1999. Hal quickly rifled through his papers hoping that he could find some indication of the strange year he'd seen in his dream. The highest number he could find was 1999. There weren't any years after 1999 anywhere. Hal himself couldn't conceive of a year past 1999.
      If that's all there was, what then was 2000? Logically, it should follow 1999 in a decimal based system, but it didn't exist. Hal tried to think of the year 2000, but it was like a fog floating just outside of his sight.
      He grabbed his watch and mtried to set it to 1/1/00.
      DIVISION BY ZERO.
      The watch couldn't do it. The year which should exist beyond 1999 didn't.
      Hal gasped, as he realized the consequences.
      It was October 13, 1998.

      It was in the shadow of the skeleton that Hal met the bum for the last time. Hal had left work to look for the toothless man amidst the papers and rubbish of the alley by the construction site.
      "Now you understand?" the bum wheezed as Hal woke him. Hal nodded, frantic with his new-found discovery. He dragged the bum to the wooden fence of the construction site and drew a two with three zeros following it.
      "What year is that?" Hal demanded.
      The bum shrugged, "No year I guess."
      "So it doesn't exist?"
      "Not so far as I seen."
      "But it should!"
      The bum shrugged. "Why?"
      Hal looked at the man. Hal didn't know why it should exist. All night he'd been driven by this terror at seeing this new year, but didn't know why.
      Unless...
      "The user tried to show me that number last night, and I didn't understand it. Maybe its important to the user that we understand it."
      The bum shrugged. "So."
      Hal blew his breath out in frustration, "Don't you see? This year should come after 1999 right?"
      "Sure."
      "But it doesn't! Our calendar will only go up to 1999. We've got another year until we run out of years!"
      The bum shrugged, "Then what?"
      Hal didn't know. Maybe no one knew.
      It could be the end of everything.

      Hal stood on top of the skeleton. From where he was he could see all the little people on the ground scurry about their business. They looked tiny; each of them had their own worries and concerns. They walked through the city like drones.
      Hal stood on a narrow girder and watched them. It was a long way down to where they were. It was a long way down to where they walked unconcerned. Hal laughed, knowing now that it was all pointless. Even if his dull life had meaning, it was going to be snuffed out when the world ended.
      Hal would be terminated by a number. How ironic.
      With a shrug, Hal jumped.

      //PROGRAM GLFILE.EXE HAS CAUSED A PERMANENT FATAL ERROR IN UNIT HAL-1965-M//

      The programmer looked up at his companion and sighed. "See, still no good. Every time I run the program it crashes another unit."
      Percy rubbed his chin and cursed. "The way things look, this Millennium bug is going to crash the entire mainframe. Is there any way to migrate the data?"
      The programmer nodded, "Sure, but it's an old machine, we'll probably lose some data in the conversion to UNIX."
      Percy shrugged, "Oh well. Do your best."
      The programmer nodded.
      "There's no really important data in there anyway."
      The programmer looked up at his companion and sighed. "See, still no good. Every time I run the program it crashes another unit."
      Percy rubbed his chin and cursed. "The way things look, this Millennium bug is going to crash the entire mainframe. Is there any way to migrate the data?"
      The programmer nodded, "Sure, but it's an old machine, we'll probably lose some data in the conversion to UNIX."
      Percy shrugged, "Oh well. Do your best."
      The programmer nodded.
      "There's no really important data in there anyway."