Surprised, RJ lurched back in his desk chair and almost toppled
over onto the floor. "I thought you were broken. The only problem I'm
having is your inability to make my morning coffee."
"Oh, I'm not your coffee maker. I'm the new repair personality,
activated by Central last week."
"Huh? What are you talking about?"
"Don't you read your office memos?" the personality asked.
RJ stared at the front of the coffee maker, in an effort to
determine where the machine's "eyes" were located. "Must have missed that
one."
"Well, simply stated, Central has created a repair personality,
i.e. me, to enter malfunctioning devices and lessen downtime. Instead of
you having to take your coffee machine to the Central Repair Facility, I
enter your machine and fix it."
"Hmm." RJ searched his internal memory banks for the correct human
response to this news. "Cool." he said. "But, suppose it's a mechanical
problem? How could you fix that?"
"I'm able to reprogram the machine's internal repair-bots on the
fly. I simply configure things so they know where and how to do the job.
That's part of what makes me so special."
"Okay. So, how long before I have a cup of coffee?"
"Let me take a look," the repair personality said. The diagnostic
lights on the coffee maker began to flash, and RJ assumed the "repair man"
was now hard at work.
According to the rules of sloth which RJ had culled from his
studies of slothful humans, this created a small problem. Humans who had
embraced sloth successfully, never, ever revealed their behavior patterns
to other humans, especially those connected to companies with whom they
worked. RJ had to appear to tackle his FTL equations or risk revealing
his true nature to the repair personality.
Reluctantly, RJ called up the cursed equations on his computer
terminal. There was one final loophole that RJ intended to exploit before
he actually had to think. Standard rules and practices allowed him a brief
period of meditation. That was acceptable. Mathematicians were expected
to think quietly about their projects, before putting electronic pen to
virtual paper. Of course, RJ wasn't really going to think about his
project, but he screwed his face into an expression of intense
concentration. This was intended to fool the repair personality's sensors,
if and when they were trained in RJ's direction.
"Looks like nothing but a loose connection," the repair personality
said. "Grinds clogged the intake valve, and the machine accidentally tore
out the leads to its repair-bots while trying to correct the problem."
RJ turned his head slowly, in an effort to indicate that he had
been lost in mathematical thought. "Sounds pretty dumb to me," he said.
"Well, they don't put A-number-one brains in these coffee machines,
y'know," the "repair man" replied.
"Can you fix it?" RJ asked.
"Already fixed. Wasn't much of a problem for me."
"Great," RJ said. Coffee began to flow normally from the machine's
spout into a waiting coffeepot.
"Hey, what are you doing?" the repair personality asked. "It
looks interesting." The machine's sensors were obviously now trained on
RJ's screen and the dreaded equations.
"It's very complicated. I'm sure you wouldn't understand," RJ
replied.
Continued
