The Infinity Program

by Richard H Hardy

  “Jon, I’m worried sick about Harry. Something’s happened to him. I’ve never seen him like this before. He’s worked around the clock for the past four days and he’s not even doing the things he’s supposed to do. He’s responsible for the PIM programming for the RSFQT Version 2.0 for Big Moe. And I know for a fact he hasn’t written a single line of code for it. The initial load for Version 2 is supposed to happen this weekend and Harry’s holding up the whole damn project.”

  Jon had heard rumors about the RSFQT Version 2.0, but hadn’t realized that it was imminent. RSFQT stood for Rapid Single-Flux Quantum Technology and was a huge breakthrough in super computer technology. It utilized an entirely new kind of logic gate architecture for processing information. Theoretically, the processors for Version 2.0 could run 100 times faster than the conventional complementary metal oxide semi-conductor processors. Harry had been a key player in the development of its architecture. The final piece—the Processor in Memory programming that was needed to complete the project—had been sitting on Harry’s desk for the past six weeks. The PIM programming was a key piece since it allowed the high-speed processors to focus purely on high-level computations.

  “The initial load for this stuff is this weekend?” Jon asked, unable to believe the conclusions that were starting to form in the back of his mind.

  “This weekend,” said Lettie.

  “And who is in charge of the initial load?”

  “Harry. Didn’t you know that?”

  “Oh my God,” Jon said and slumped back in the chair.

  Lettie did not seem to notice his reaction. “Of course, everyone knows George Ludwig is maneuvering to get Harry tossed out. Rumor is, he’s gone to the Old Man himself.”

  Jon leaned forward and put his forearms on the table. George Ludwig was important enough to have the ear of the Old Man, Benton Reeves, who was the CEO of HTPS Industries. Jon was too new to be privy to the office gossip about these behind-the-scenes power plays and didn’t know how much of an influence George was capable of exerting.

  “Why does George Ludwig have it in for Harry?”

  “Harry has never told you?”

  Jon shook his head.

  “Well, for starters, Harry’s dad got George Ludwig fired from NASA about twenty years ago. Harry’s dad spotted a programming error in the software that ignited the space shuttle engines on re-entry. George Ludwig had done the programming. Something about ‘nested if-else conditions,’ according to Harry. If Harry’s dad hadn’t spotted the error, the space shuttle would have incinerated during re-entry. NASA canned Ludwig and it was a black mark on his reputation for years and years. George has had it in for Harry from the get-go as some sort of revenge against his dad. Of course, there are other reasons. Harry’s programming skills are so far ahead of Ludwig’s that Ludwig’s ego just can’t take it.”

  Just then a waiter interrupted them. Jon asked for another beer and Lettie ordered a soda water with lime.

  As the waiter retreated, Lettie leaned across the table and looked intently into Jon’s eyes.

  “Can I ask you something?”

  “Sure thing.” The way her eyes were riveted to his face made his palms grow sweaty.

  “Do you have any idea what Harry’s been working on for the past four days and nights?”

  Jon swallowed hard.

  “I need to know something before I can answer you. You see, I consider Harry to be my best friend. I would no more betray Harry than I would betray my mother or my father. Harry is the best person I’ve ever met and I don’t just mean his brains. I know he puts a lot of people off, but there’s something almost saint-like about the man. He can be irascible but he’s still as kind and decent as any man I’ve ever known. So I need to know this: if push came to shove, what choice would you make, your career at HTPS Industries or Harry?”

  “That’s a no-brainer,” said Lettie quickly. “Harry Sale is number one in my book any day.”

  “Why is that?” Jon asked. He wasn’t surprised but it was still strange to hear her say it.

  “Let’s just say I have personal reasons.”

  Jon could not help but notice how her face went completely red. Her interest in Harry was all too obvious. But the why of it still didn’t make any sense. Even though it was more or less what Jon expected, he felt a keen sense of disappointment. Somehow in the back of his mind he had been hoping Lettie’s interest in Harry was something other than romantic.

  The waiter arrived and they stopped talking as he placed their drinks on the table.

  He studied her face, noting the dark circles beneath her eyes. Harry’s irrational behavior was taking a serious toll on her. “If I tell you what Harry’s working on, will you promise not to tell anyone else?”

  Lettie nodded.

  “He’s working on an entirely new kind of operating system—something completely revolutionary. It’s designed to address all the problems associated with supercomputing. Latency, contention, load balancing—the whole kit and caboodle.”

  Lettie’s eyebrows squeezed closer together as she absorbed what he told her. Then her expression changed and Jon guessed she was forming the same conclusion he had reached a few minutes earlier.

  “You don’t think he’s considering ….” She broke off mid-sentence, unable to complete her thought.

  “Yes, that’s exactly what I think,” Jon said. Completing the sentence for her, he added, “Harry’s planning on loading his new operating system on Big Moe this weekend. The delay in the PIM programming is just a ruse. The fact that it’s not ready means they won’t be able to re-initialize Big Moe until Harry’s got all his ducks in a row.”

  Lettie looked stricken. “We can’t let him do that! They’d fire him and it would be the end of his programming career in hyper-computing. He’d be lucky to get a job programming amortization software in a small town bank.”

  “I agree,” said Jon as he ran a weary hand through his hair. “We’ve got to stop him before it’s too late.”

  “Maybe we can persuade him together. I know he won’t listen to me alone, but both of us working together might talk some sense into him.”

  “I agree. One-on-one I don’t think either of us would have a chance, but maybe together we could make him listen.”

  Lettie nodded.

  “One thing, though. I had an apple and a yogurt for lunch, so I’m absolutely starving. Why don’t we get some dinner here, then go back to HTPS and try to talk some sense into Harry?”

  “Great idea,” said Lettie. “I’m hungry, too. I need my energy level up when I deal with Harry. That guy is something else.”

  Jon stared at her for a moment as mixed emotions washed over him. He pushed them aside and smiled at Lettie as he flagged down a waiter.

  Chapter Seven

  When Lettie and Jon arrived back at HTPS Industries, it was after eight in the evening. Jon was worried that the security guards would give them problems but there was no need. Lettie was known to every security personnel since she often worked late and had clearance for every part of Building C. One of the guards personally escorted them to the Advanced Programming Division.

  Jon pointed at the floor. “Just follow the foot prints,” he said in jest.

  Lettie did not smile. “The Old Man was some kind of pissed off when he found out about that one. If it had been anyone but Harry tracking oil onto the new carpets, he probably would have fired them.”

  They walked down the corridor to Harry’s office. Jon knocked lightly on the door. When there was no response, Lettie called out, “Are you there, Harry?”

  Still no response.

  “Maybe he’s in the men’s room,” said Jon.

  Lettie looked into Harry’s office. “Oh, my God!” she said and rushed inside. Harry was lying unconscious on the floor in front of his desk.

  Lettie knelt beside Harry and propped up his head with her hand.

  Jon glanced at Harry’s computer before he knelt down beside Lettie. A single dialogue box w
as open. It read “Lexical Analysis Complete—Compile Successful.”

  Jon slapped Harry’s face and said in a loud voice, “Harry, can you hear me?”

  Harry opened his eyes. For an instant he seemed confused and unsure of what was going on. His eyes quickly focused and he looked up at them.

  “Lettie, Jon, what are you doing here?”

  “Just take it easy,” said Lettie in the soothing tone of a worried mother. “We’ll call an ambulance.”

  “You’ll do no such thing,” said Harry. “I just fell asleep, that’s all.”

  “You fell asleep on the floor?” Lettie asked.

  “I dozed off in my chair. I must have fallen somehow. I was so sound asleep I didn’t even wake.”

  “Let me help you up,” said Jon. He extended his hand. Harry took it, and both Lettie and Jon pulled him to his feet. He made for his chair and slumped back in it, letting out the loudest yawn Jon had ever heard.

  “Excuse me,” said Harry as he stifled the yawn with his hand. “I’ve never been so bone-tired in all my life.”

  “I don’t see why you’re tired.” Lettie’s voice dripped sarcasm. “You’ve only been working about eighty hours non-stop.”

  “I finished it!” said Harry in triumph. “After I compiled it, it was like someone turned the lights off. It was like wham! One moment I was awake and the next I was sound asleep.”

  Harry looked up at his two friends. There was an odd expression on his face that Jon couldn’t decipher. Then he stifled another yawn.

  “If you two don’t mind, I think I’m just going to take a little nap.”

  Harry shut his eyes and put his head back.

  “What? You can’t sleep here. You need to go home,” said Lettie. She took his left arm and started to pull him from his chair. “We’re taking you there,” she said. “And no arguments!”

  Once Harry was standing, Jon took his other arm and the two of them led their friend from his office. Although Harry complained bitterly, he did not resist.

  They put him in the backseat of Lettie’s Honda and he immediately stretched out and shut his eyes. Twenty minutes later, when they reached his condominium in Brookhaven, he was dead to the world and snoring loudly.

  “Have you been here before?” Lettie asked as they pulled into his driveway.

  “Many times,” said Jon.

  For a moment Lettie hesitated. “It’s odd that you two seem to hit it off so well. Harry’s so standoffish with everyone else at HTPS.”

  “Why is it odd?”

  Again Lettie hesitated. She obviously regretted her remark. “Well,” she said, “you two are just so different.”

  “Because Harry’s a world-class programmer and I write technical documents that no one wants to read?”

  Lettie flushed. “That’s not what I meant. You’re a very agreeable, friendly person. Harry seems to exist only in his own space. He’s so distant, as if there’s an impenetrable fog about him that no one can cut through but you.”

  Jon laughed and Lettie’s face resumed its normal color. She even smiled.

  “Well,” said Jon, “I won’t argue with the fact that he’s extremely introverted. But he is very much engaged, once you get to know him. He really cares about people, but in an abstract kind of way. Maybe it’s like the old joke: he loves the human race. It’s people he can’t stand.”

  Lettie laughed. “But why does a guy like you hang out with a guy like Harry?”

  “I like him. He’s good. Sometimes I think he’s sort of a corrective for me. Where I’m agreeable, he’s confrontational, where I’m team-oriented, he’s a lone wolf, where I’m cautious, he skates on the edge. And I’ve played it safe too much in my life. I think I need to be a little more like Harry.”

  Lettie smiled. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Jon, but I kind of like you the way you are.”

  When they pulled Harry out of the backseat of the Honda, he was a dead weight. As the cool night air began to revive him, he began to talk in a free, spontaneous way that was totally uncharacteristic. Neither Lettie nor Jon had ever seen him in such a loose, unguarded mood.

  “I just can’t believe it,” Harry said. “Twenty thousand lines of code in four days and four nights. And before I wrote a single line of it, I could see it all in my head like it was a three dimensional form rotating 360 degrees in front of me. The whole damn thing! I might have been transcribing something that had already been written. It was like a gift from above.”

  Harry’s monologue was interrupted when he fumbled for the keys in his pocket. The three of them entered his condo. Jon flipped the light switch on the wall and Harry’s living room was illuminated, causing Lettie to wrinkle her nose. “Don’t you believe in dusting?”

  Save for a large sofa, an overhead light and about five hundred books overflowing the available bookshelves, the room was empty. There were no plants, no photos, no mementos, no pictures, no knick-knacks and no personal touches. Jon watched as Lettie glanced at the titles on the bookshelf nearest to her. From past visits he knew the kinds of titles she would see: Tensor Calculus and General Relativity, A Commutative Approach to Boltzmann’s Statistical Mechanics, Transfinite Mathematics. There was not a single work of fiction on the shelf nor was there so much as a solitary title on any subject other than physics, mathematics, electronics and computer science. The one exception was Zen Flesh, Zen Bones. Several months ago, Jon had opened the book and was surprised to find an inscription. It read: ‘Harry, I hope this book helps you break out of your C++ mindset!’ It was signed Doug Sanderson. Sanderson, the only hardware engineer Harry ever spoke fondly of. He had died long before either Jon or Lettie had come to HTPS. As Lettie turned away from the bookshelf, Jon smiled at her. “Pretty good reading for a high school dropout, don’t you think?”

  “Harry dropped out of high school?” she asked incredulously, her wide eyes studying Harry as he collapsed onto the sofa.

  Harry was still in a bemused state, talking aloud almost more to himself than to Lettie and Jon. “The Old Man came to my office this afternoon—Benton Reeves himself.”

  Harry’s flat statement commanded their complete attention. Benton Reeves, the CEO of HTPS Industries, was known for his aloof management style. While he was a master at pulling the strings of his captains and lieutenants, he had a reputation for being completely hands-off with his army of programming and technical staff.

  “I felt like a goddamned salesman,” said Harry, laughing as though he had said something foolish. “I sold him on smoke and mirrors, just like I was one of our overweight salesmen. He came down to ask me about the PIM programming. I felt like telling him this whole concept of processor in memory programming was like trying to put a Kohler toilet in an outhouse—it makes the outhouse better than before, but it’s still not indoor plumbing. The PIM programming is nothing but a patch, a Band-Aid that doesn’t even address the real architectural considerations of a multi-threaded system. So I didn’t tell him I had created an entirely new Operating System, because I knew he wouldn’t bite on that. I told him I had a better approach than the previous PIM model and had that ready for the installation.”

  “Did he give his blessing?” Jon asked.

  “You better believe it,” said Harry. “I think I’ve got to get out of programming and become a snake-oil salesman.”

  “He had no reservations at all?” said Lettie.

  “Old Bennie-boy just gave me one condition—it’s got to work.”

  “But what if it doesn’t work?” Worry lines were etched on Lettie’s face.

  “Not to worry,” said Harry. “It will work. There’s no doubt in my mind.”

  Harry put his hands behind his head and leaned back against the arm of the sofa. A faraway look came into his eyes as he continued, “When I was compiling my new kernel I felt really relaxed, really loose. It was like I was in some sort of hypnogogic state. And a new idea came to me, fully blown. It was just like before. I could see all the code in my head at once—thousands
and thousands of lines of code, but they were like an object in my mind. I could turn this way and that, look at it from overhead or underneath, rotate it ninety degrees or one hundred eighty degrees or whatever.”

  “Code for what?” asked Jon.

  For a moment Harry didn’t respond. His eyes blinked rapidly and an odd smile formed on his face. He sighed and then spoke softly, “I can implement Shor’s Algorithm. I can factor numbers into primes in polynomial time.”

  Lettie and Jon waited expectantly for more on his new programming project but nothing was forthcoming. Then they noticed that his breathing had deepened and his eyes were shut. Harry had fallen asleep.

  “I think we better get out of here and let him get some rest,” Jon said.

  “You’re right. I think that would be best.” Lettie undid the laces on Harry’s shoes and then pulled them from his feet. Harry didn’t stir; he was dead to the world.

  Jon and Lettie moved quietly away, turning out the lights as they left.

  They seated themselves in Lettie’s Honda but neither said a word. Lettie did not start the car.

  After several minutes of contemplative silence, Lettie said, “Jon, I’m worried sick. He’s just not the same. Something’s happened to him.”

  Jon wrestled internally with himself. Should he tell Lettie what had happened in Tartan’s Crag? He decided that maybe he should tell her, but now was not the time. It would only fuel her worry and concern.

  “I’m worried about him, too. If his new OS doesn’t work as expected, Harry could be out on his ear.”

  “Do you think it will work?” Lettie asked.

  “Knowing Harry the way I do? Yes, I think it will work.”

  “I sure hope you’re right,” she said. “But what’s this other thing he was talking about? Factoring numbers into primes and Shor’s Algorithm?”

  “That’s the holy grail of cryptography,” said Jon. “Protocols for encryption are based on the factors of prime numbers. Cracking them would take a million years of processing time on a machine like Big Moe. If you could implement Shor’s Algorithm, you could crack into virtually any bank in the world and transfer electronic funds. You’d have access to all the computers in the defense industry or any other industry for that matter.”