The Tree of Knowledge

by Daniel G. Miller

  “I’m sorry,” repeated Albert as he pushed past Eva and walked toward the station.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Into the police station to tell Detective Weatherspoon the truth.”

  Professor Puddles reached the door of the police station and grabbed the handle.

  “Dilbert,” Eva cried with a raw urgency.

  Albert stopped and turned, shaken by the sound.

  “Dilbert, I know you think you’re doing the right thing. And I respect that. But trust me. You have no idea what you’re dealing with. I haven’t forgotten what you did for me when I was a kid, and because of that, I’m giving you one last chance. Please trust me. Give me the game tree, tell the police it was stolen from your office, and just walk away. I’m trying to save you.”

  She paused and gazed at him, shallow breaths heaving from her chest.

  “If you turn your back on me now, you’re on your own.”

  Albert stared into Eva’s eyes. They were the same innocent, hopeful eyes that he had seen fourteen years ago in that Princeton lecture hall.

  And just as he had all those years ago, Albert Puddles turned away.

  Chapter 15

  Albert entered the waiting room of the police station. A steel door and a large pane of bulletproof glass separated the room from the main office. He found it disappointing. On the way there, he had pictured an elegant wood-paneled police station like in the Perry Mason episodes his mom used to watch. This was more akin to a tow lot. The clock showed five minutes after five. Most of the police and administrative personnel had gone for the day. He caught the eye of one of the remaining officers and gave him a limp wave.

  The officer waved him off. “We’re closed. Use the dispatch phone.” He pointed to the brown plastic phone on the wall.

  “Excuse me, Officer. I’m wondering if I could speak with Detective Weatherspoon. It’s a bit of an emergency.”

  The cop sized up Puddles, vacillating over whether this was someone he should take seriously. The hair and bow tie said no, but the suit said maybe. “Alright, I’ll grab him. Give me a minute.”

  ***

  While Albert navigated the police bureaucracy inside, Eva watched through the glass door and prepared to make her next move. This would not be easy.

  She closed her eyes and centered herself. She felt reality slow. Leaves rippled in the trees. A chime on someone’s front porch hummed in the distance. There were three objectives, each powered by a unique logic tree.

  First, disable the police station.

  She watched and waited for Albert to make contact with the officer at the front desk. As the officer went back to grab Weatherspoon, she pulled a pistol from her coat and pointed it at the power line that fed into the station. Three shots tore through the power line, sending the building into darkness.

  Now she controlled the chessboard. Speed chess. She had five minutes before the emergency generator kicked in and backup was called.

  Eva enjoyed these five minutes. When her mind worked through the Tree, the future became scripted and her actions like those of an actor in a play. And like an actor, Eva didn’t lament that she had five minutes in a scene; she reveled in the performance. Follow your blocking, deliver your lines. The role was defined. The joy was in the execution.

  Eva strode around the side of the building and stopped outside the rear entrance. There would be almost no one left in the station at this hour. The property room technician and maybe a couple of cops. Eva calculated how the tech would react sitting in that dark, windowless room with the power out.

  On cue, the tech opened the door and stepped outside. Eva wedged her foot in the door and slid behind her. She placed a gun to the technician’s head and whispered, “What’s your password?”

  Trembling, the woman whined, “Whaaat?”

  “What’s your password? To the evidence database.”

  “Uh-uh.”

  “Now, or you’re dead.”

  “Uh, it’s Princeton2020.”

  “Thank you.”

  Eva placed a chloroform rag over the woman’s mouth, guiding her to the ground, then checked her breathing to make sure she was alive. The mistake with Wally McCutcheon would not be repeated.

  Eva took the security keys off the woman. Peggy Johnston was her name. “It was a pleasure doing business with you, Peggy.”

  She opened the steel access door and crept down the rear hallway. Darkness covered the station. She had done her research this time. No mistakes. The Princeton police force had thirty-five officers and seven support staff. The support staff had gone home for the day, save the technician. Nearly all those officers should be done with their shift or on duty right now, but there could be a handful of stragglers. She had a few officers and a property room technician to disable in five minutes without being seen. The property room tech was already out. Now to the cops.

  With the power out, all the entrances were locked. The variables had been limited. The tree had been simplified. She placed her backpack on her shoulder, slid along the side wall of the rear entrance hallway, and edged around the corner. Two officers stood in the office bullpen. One officer was digging for his cell phone while the other reached for a radio.

  Eva smiled as she remembered what the general had taught her: “To disable a cop, don’t go for his gun, go for his radio. Their power is in their numbers, not in their guns.” She pulled out two devices from her pocket. The first was a handheld electromagnetic pulse generator. The device issued high-frequency waves that fried any electronic equipment within a fifty-foot radius. She pushed the button and watched the first officer’s phone screen flicker on and off in the darkness before finally settling to black. Next, she turned on a portable signal jammer and smirked with delight while the other officer’s radio crackled with static.

  Objective one was complete. The doors were locked, the power was out, the police communications equipment was disabled. Now it was time for objective two: Remove suspicion.

  This would be more difficult. Police logged evidence both physically and virtually. Hard evidence was bagged and sealed in a property room, and pictures of evidence were uploaded to a secure database. The evidence was organized by case number. A case number that Eva didn’t have. To find the evidence in the McCutcheon case by hand would take her hours. She needed the case number, and to find the case number, she needed access to the intake room computer, and for that, she needed the property technician’s password. Fortunately, “Princeton2020” gave her all the access she needed.

  Eva entered the intake room. A series of evidence lockers lined the right wall. In the darkness sat a lone steel desk and computer. The keys to the kingdom. She pulled out a portable charger and plugged the computer into it. The white screen jumped to life, brightening the room. Eva paused to see if anyone was coming, attracted by the light. Nothing.

  In the password field, she quietly typed the password that Peggy had given her, “Princeton2020.”

  “Incorrect password” showed on the screen.

  Eva’s forehead creased as she retyped the password, “Princeton2020.”

  “Incorrect password.”

  Eva typed again, this time in all caps. “PRINCETON2020.”

  “Incorrect password.”

  Eva pounded the desk with her fist and whispered to herself, “Ohhhhhhh, Peggy, you bitch.” She heard the footsteps of cops down the hall. They’d be coming soon.

  Once again, she closed her eyes and steadied herself. She imagined a tree of passwords spanning out into infinity. The possibilities were limitless, but that was the power of the tree . . . to take limitless possibilities and make them actionable probabilities. Eva calculated the probabilities.

  Twenty percent of all passwords are simple. “123456,” “Password,” and the like.

  She entered each password. “123456”:

 
; “Incorrect password.”

  “Password”: “Incorrect password.”

  The footsteps were coming closer now.

  Sixty percent of passwords use personal information. Thirty-three percent incorporate a pet’s name.

  Eva jumped on Facebook and navigated to Peggy’s page. She grinned. There in front of her was one of the fattest cats she’d ever seen and a post from Peggy: “Mr. Bubblesworth loves to cuddle.”

  She typed “MrBubblesworth,” in the password field and watched with glee as a database of police files opened before her.

  The footsteps came faster now. Whoever was coming could see the light. Eva rose from the desk and slid behind the door. She heard a single cop enter the room. The smell of aftershave overwhelmed her. Through the crack in the door, she saw him enter. He approached the desk and assessed the computer screen glowing in the darkness.

  Eva envisioned what he would do next.

  He will check the cord to see why it was on. He will look around to see who was here. He will check the hall. He will get backup. That can’t happen.

  The cop went behind the desk and looked at the computer. He fiddled with the cord to determine how a computer could be on in a powerless building. He reached for his radio, temporarily forgetting that it wasn’t working. He stepped toward the hallway, oblivious of Eva’s presence. She waited to see his neck enter her line of sight. The carotid artery and ten seconds were all she needed.

  As the officer passed, Eva took one step left and wrapped her right arm around the officer’s neck, driving her forearm into his carotid artery. The cop clawed at her black jacket. Eva secured her hold around the man’s neck by placing her left arm behind his head, squeezing the blood flow to his skull. Five, four, three, two, one. His body went limp. She deposited the cop’s body behind the door and resumed her seat at the desk. The backup generator would be on soon. She needed to hurry.

  She searched the database for Wally McCutcheon and found the case number. She opened the attachments in the case. Just a few pictures of the dead body and an autopsy report. Nothing incriminating. Then she saw it: a picture of the tree in Wally’s hand, evidence number 0127698.

  Eva took Peggy’s key to the evidence cage out of her pocket and opened the door. She scanned the boxes, looking for the details in the McCutcheon case. She opened the file and perused the evidence. There was almost nothing. A logic tree, some fiber samples, and notes on interviews with Puddles and Belial. She grabbed the logic tree and replaced it with the more innocuous version of the tree that Puddles had touched outside. With a tweezer, she then grabbed the few fibers and hairs that she had swiped off Albert’s coat and placed them in a bag.

  Objective two was complete. It was time for the final act.

  ***

  Albert paced and whistled in the waiting room of the Princeton police station in darkness, completely oblivious to the goings-on inside. He had tried to exit through the front door, but the electronic locks were disabled, trapping him inside. He wondered how long it would be before the power came on. How long it would be before Weatherspoon came out to meet him.

  He peered through the glass divider separating the front waiting room from the main office. Stained-oak receptionist desks dotted the front of the open office layout, and some type of command center anchored the rear. Through the darkness, Albert could barely make out two cops standing, heads down, futzing with their radios. They seemed to be having trouble with the signal.

  And then he noticed something else. Tiptoeing behind them. A figure in the shadows. Lean and light yet somehow familiar. He stepped closer to the glass to see what he could make out.

  The two cops continued to chat and play with their radios as the figure crept behind them. Albert pressed his hands against the glass. It was a woman. It was Eva! She was carrying something, a nightstick. Albert shouted and pounded on the glass, but his voice was muffled by the barrier.

  The cops looked up to see what the ruckus was.

  Albert shouted, “Look behind you!”

  The cops strained to hear.

  Albert banged his pointer finger against the glass, gesturing to the woman in black. But it was too late.

  With two swift swings of the baton, Eva cracked the officers’ skulls, dropping them to the ground. Her eyes met Puddles’s. They shined in the darkness. She smiled. She charged toward him.

  At that moment, Weatherspoon stepped out from the side hallway, through the steel door, and entered the waiting room.

  “What’s all this about, Puddles?”

  Albert rejoiced. “Detective, thank God you’re here. She’s attacking the station.”

  Eva continued to advance toward the waiting room.

  Weatherspoon stepped toward Albert, his back to the office door.

  “Slow down, Puddles. What are you talking about? Who’s attack—”

  But before the detective could finish, Eva burst through the steel door, leapt into the air, and plunged a needle dripping with Rohypnol into his neck. The giant officer cried out for a moment and then slammed to the ground. His body writhed, fighting against the darkness before finally succumbing.

  Eva reached out two gloved hands toward Albert. In one hand was a nightstick; in the other, the needle.

  “Hold these.”

  Without thinking, Albert complied.

  “Wait, what happened? What have you done?” shouted Puddles.

  The woman in black shook her head. “I didn’t do anything, Dilbert. In fact, I was never here. You, on the other hand . . . you just attacked a police station. And in a few seconds, the power to this building is going to come back on, and all these cameras are going to be recording you sitting in the front lobby with a club in one hand and a needle in the other.”

  Albert backpedaled, suddenly aware of his precarious position. “Why are you doing this?”

  Eva walked to the door. As the power flickered back on, she opened it, being sure to avoid the camera. She tapped on the door with her fingers and looked outside, avoiding his gaze. “You made me do this, Albert. I never wanted this,” she said in a voice barely above a whisper.

  “What do you want?” Albert begged.

  Eva paused and looked out at the sky, now dark and rippling with storm clouds.

  “I want you to run.”

  Chapter 16

  The table of Professor Turner’s living room was strewn with papers, each one containing a game tree sprawling out from a different goal.

  Turner paced the floor of his living room as he opined on the true power of the Tree of Knowledge.

  “Ms. Koh, what you have before you is a different way of seeing the world. It may be overwhelming at first, but you must understand that the Tree is nothing more than a modern extension of the work of the ancients.”

  “How so?”

  “Have you had the opportunity of taking Professor Puddles’s Classical Logic class yet?”

  “I haven’t,” said Ying with a blush.

  “Ah, what a shame. The classics are my favorites, and Albert shares my passion. As you may or may not know, the founder of classical logic was our good friend Aristotle, my personal hero.”

  “Really? Isn’t he a little outdated at this point?”

  Turner gasped and touched his chest as though Ying had attacked a family member. “The man was the quintessential Renaissance man. He was the first to determine that the sun was larger than the Earth. He extrapolated the tremendous evolution of the Earth from the minor geological changes of his time. He was the first person to lay out formal rules of logic. And, as a good friend of mine once said, ‘It is doubtful whether any human being has ever known as much as he did.’”

  Ying’s guard went up when she heard one old white man celebrating another old white man. “Yeah, but what does that have to do with your Tree?”

  “Quite simply, Aristotle provided the i
ntellectual foundation on which this Tree and all of modern logic and reasoning is built. You see, Aristotle outlined what he called the three laws of thought: the law of identity, the law of noncontradiction, and the law of the excluded middle. The idea behind these laws was to guide any rational discussion or inquiry.”

  Ying stood up and began wagging her finger.

  “Yaaaas . . . I’ve read this. It’s coming back to me now . . . The law of identity essentially says that something is indeed what you say it is. One must accept that before you can move forward with any rational discussion. For example, in order for us to discuss whether or not Albert Puddles is the most tidy man at Princeton, we must first agree that there is one Albert Puddles and he is who we both think he is.”

  Turner chuckled knowingly and nodded at her understanding.

  “The second law is the law of noncontradiction, which means you can’t say something that is both true and false at the same time. A classic example of a violation of this law is the statement ‘Everything I say is a lie.’ If it were true, then the statement would invalidate itself, but if it were a lie, then that would mean that at some point the person would have said something true.” Ying drew breath like an auctioneer at a cattle sale. “And last but not least is the law of the excluded middle, which states that in order to proceed in a well-reasoned argument, something either must be true or not; there can be nothing in between. A classic example violating this law is the question ‘Is the king of the United States bald?’ Since there is no king of the United States, the question and any argument stemming from it are, therefore, invalid.”

  Turner nodded, impressed. “So, for our trees to be sound, we need to make sure that we build upon these three laws. Now, here’s where we get to the good stuff—” At that moment, Albert Puddles burst through the door.