The Tank

I wrote this in 2005 - probably for World Connections (man, that was a while ago) - I found it recently with a bit of google-fu.

Strobe lights blinked rapidly and loud sirens screamed throughout the Department. The surroundings created a sense of tension in the atmosphere; it felt as if chaos might break out into the modern-style office building at any moment. Technicians bustled through the hallways, barely stopping to acknowledge one another with the exception of a terse comment.

“The readings on this meter don’t look good. Seems that the level in the tank is plummeting pretty rapidly. Zak, are you getting the same data?” a short technician by the name of Bek looked up from a computer screen to query one of his coworkers.

“It’s not just you. Look outside; the whole place is going bonkers” replied the only slightly taller technician seated at the next terminal. He was motioning towards the soundproof window which overlooked the rest of the Department and the pandemonium occurring down below. From their lofty position in the main observation room, the two could observe the flashing warning lights, yet the sirens were a mere whisper. Bek made a mental note to remind the boss to install sirens in the observation room, although he would soon forget this as more important concerns surfaced.

“Warning: dangerously low tank level. The volume has decreased by 60. Repeat. Warning: dangerously low tank level.” a female voice announced in monotone over the PA system, reminding Zak of bad science fiction movies. Just as quickly, however, Zak remembered that this was not a movie; it was real life and he ought to do something before the tank levels dropped any further.

“Bek, what do we do? We’ve never lost this much so fast, they never trained us for things like this.” Zak asked in a panic. Bek was just as nervous and frightened, although he remained composed and suggested that they telephone the boss.

“The boss?” Zak asked, “I thought we were only supposed to call him in an extreme emergency.”

“Sadly, I think this is exactly what he meant” Bek answered, and pressed a large red button on his console telephone. It was a button which he had hoped he would never have to use. As he lifted the phone, the monotonic female voice issued another warning.

““Warning: dangerously low tank level. The volume has decreased by 65. Repeat. Warning: dangerously low tank level.” Bek wished there was some way to turn the PA system off so that he could think in silence. As he glanced down through the window, he observed that the number of bustling technicians had multiplied at least fivefold. However, this train of thought was soon broken as a gruff voice answered the phone.

“Dr. Russo speaking.”

“Hey, uh… Doc. This is Bek speaking, the technician. And, err… I know we’re not supposed to call you except for in a crisis, but it seems that we’ve got one.”

“The tank levels?”

“Well… yes, Doc. It seems we’ve got a little problem with those.” Quite fittingly, the female monotone issued yet another warning at that exact moment declaring that the levels had now dropped to 70. The sirens were blaring now, a dull roar inside the soundproof observation room.

“Seventy percent! That’s more than a little problem! This is a catastrophe, you should have called me days ago!” the doctor exclaimed loudly into the phone, then calmed a bit, “You have another technician there with you?”

“Yes, Doc. Why?”

“Tell him to start writing.”

“Writing?”

“Yes, writing. Anything he knows. Euclid’s geometry, Homer’s Odyssey, the square root of 121… and quickly, as much as he can. This is urgent, and I’m not sure how much time we have.” Bek was very confused. Geometry? The Odyssey? Shouldn’t Zak be doing something to fill the tank instead of idling at a time like this? Come to think of it, Bek wasn’t even sure exactly what was in the tank. It had not been a part of his training and he had never thought to ask. He would soon find out that there was no need to.

“I suppose I ought to tell you now what’s in the tank, so listen carefully. I won’t have time to repeat myself.” Bek almost nodded in agreement before he remembered that his phone was not equipped with a video conferencing screen, most likely for security purposes. Nor was it equipped with any recording and playback devices, for the same reasons, so Bek really would have to listen carefully. In the meanwhile, Zak had unquestioningly begun to scribble out the little he could remember of basic chemistry and physics onto a pad of paper which he had found in a cabinet marked “EMERGENCY SUPPLIES.”

“Have you ever wondered how you know the things you know? The things you never learned in your technician’s training?” Dr. Russo asked Bek, who did not understand the question and needed clarification.

“Let me give you an example. When did you learn how to read?” Dr. Russo then paused for a second before continuing on, “You didn’t, did you? You say you always knew? I thought so. You’re a lucky kid, Bek. It wasn’t like that for everybody.” Bek was very surprised to hear this, although he still was unsure how this new information related to the crisis at hand, and allowed Dr. Russo to proceed in his explanation.

“A long time ago, people had to be educated to learn. They went to a place called school where they spent hours, for years, reading, writing and memorizing. Nobody was born knowing anything; all knowledge had to be carefully taught. I can’t even begin to explain the system.”

“But wasn’t that a horrible waste of time? It sounds pretty inefficient to me,” Bek replied. He was still unsure of the direction this conversation was taking.

“Exactly, which is why we’ve since developed a better system. This brings me now to what’s in the tank: knowledge. Human knowledge. Several millennias’ worth. About fifty years ago, scientists developed a system where knowledge could be liquidated, stored, and distributed in order to increase the efficiency of the educational system. Originally, they only placed the most difficult and abstruse knowledge in the tank, to save professionals precious time. However, as the system became more popular, all sorts of knowledge became liquidated for the cause.”

Bek glanced over at Zak, who was struggling to remember the complete works of Shakespeare. Words continuously flowed from his pen, but they were almost completely illegible as a result of never being forced to practice proper handwriting technique. At last, Bek was starting to comprehend the basics of the situation and prayed that his friend would scribble faster.

“Incorporating more data led to more end users, correct? Could you give me the specifics on the methods of distribution?” Bek asked. For the first time in this conversation, he was beginning to feel somewhat competent, as if his years working in the Department doing routine systems maintenance had been preparing him for this one situation. Dr. Russo seemed to agree, replying “You’ve been trained well, my friend. The data was distributed in a gaseous form, burned to evaporate into the air and then be inhaled by the end users. We created an elaborate system of collection pipes to funnel the data back to the tank once it precipitated out of the air.”

“But you didn’t account for the popularity of the system, did you? Too many end users became dependent on the system, and resources were being depleted from the tank faster than it could be refilled, correct? So all we have to do is refill the tank.”

“Unfortunately, you’re only partially correct there. You’ve evaluated the problem, but I’m afraid the solution will not be so simple. Right now we’ve got approximately the entire nation dependent on the knowledge from this tank. If we had more time and a bureau of intellectuals, we might be able to stop this before its too late. But as it is, most people in this society are unable to function properly without constantly inhaling pure knowledge. If people start breathing in the stuff from the dregs…” Dr. Russo stopped abruptly, as he did not wish to admit such an unfortunate truth, but then forced himself to continue speaking.

“The tank doesn’t just hold beneficial knowledge, you know. There are other things too, things I ought not speak of. Methods of waging nuclear war, for example, or designing biological weapons. There are ideas about plagiarism, racism, terrorism, every frightening –ism that you could never imagine. All of this usually gets filtered through and never makes it into the open air, thus leaving it at the bottom of the tank. But if there is nothing else left to circulate…” Dr. Russo stopped again, he could explain no more, there was no need. Bek understood, and Zak had heard enough bits and pieces of the conversation to piece things together on his own.

Outside the observation room, the sirens grew louder and the number of technicians had once again multiplied. The flashing lights were nearly blinding as a female voice began to speak in monotone.

“Warning: dangerously low tank level. The volume has decreased by 75. Initiating emergency filter-disabling response. Repeat. Warning: dangerously low tank level. Initiating emergency filter-disabling response.”

Bek realized in horror that whoever had written such a response could not have dreamed that it would ever actually be used. He began to formulate a question his mind for Dr. Russo regarding shutting down the system entirely when an uncanny sense of futility overcame him. Why should he be responsible for solving this problem? Couldn’t somebody else deal with it? After a few minutes, Bek could barely remember what the problem was. Zak had begun doodling in the margins of his paper. Bek watched him idly for a few moments, but then a gruff voice reminded him that he was still on the phone.

“Hey, Bek. Have you ever heard the song It’s the End of the World as We Know It by R.E.M.?”

“I don’t think so, Doc. Why?”

“It’s a good song, kid. It’s a good song. Anyways, I’ve got to go now, talk to you later. Give me a ring sometime” replied Dr. Russo. He had nothing more profound to say, and the irony of the aforementioned song title failed to strike him at all.

The Bus (Continued)

As the vehicle's engine slowly thawed and the bus pulled away from the stop, Lindy began to take in her surroundings. The interior of the bus was similar, for the most part, to the other BPTA buses that contstantly cycled through the city on their seemingly endless routes. It was similar, except for one thing.

"Hey, is that a GPS device?" Lindy asked the driver, glancing at the small screen positioned next to the steering wheel. She was seated too far away to actually see it's contents, but could tell that the driver was referring to it as he drove.
"Nghh." It seemed the driver didn't have much to say on this topic, either.

Lindy shifted in her seat, mildly annoyed by the silent driver, and just beginning to defrost from the cold outside. She wasn't eager to leave the warm safety of the public bus, but she could see that she would soon have to face the icy winds again, as they were rapidly approaching her stop and . In fact, they were approaching a bit too rapidly; the bus didn't appear to be slowing at all.

"Excuse me, mister. I think you just passed my stop!"
"Nghh." Oh God, not this again.
"But I have to get off the bus! I have data at the lab that needs to be collected at exactly 4:30!" She prayed that this idiot driver wouldn't make her so late that she would have to run her experiment all over again.
"Don't worry, it's been taken care of." Lindy was shocked, she had expected another grunt.
"Wait, what?"
"Don't worry, it's been taken care of." He simply repeated himself, a bit incredulous that she had not understood him the first time. Lindy did not respond, she simply stood there with her blue eyes wide and her mouth agape.
"Sit down, Lindy. You've got a bit of a ride still ahead of you."
"Who are you? And how do you know my name?" Lindy asked accusingly. But it seemed that whatever spell had animated the driver for those few moments had already been broken, and his eyes were fixed once more on the road ahead of him.
"Nghh."
Lindy sighed in response.

The Bus

Lindy McAbel made her way to the bus stop slowly, fighting the frigid January winds which whistled loudly and numbed her face with each step. She tucked her head in to her jacket, shielding herself from the chilly blows as she sat down on the bench to wait, hoping that the public transport would arrive quickly and spare her from this misery. She sat for about five minutes, but it felt more like twenty-five, and since moving her hands to glance at her watch would have rendered her head vulnerable, Lindy would never know for sure.

She heaved a sigh of relief as the large vehicle rolled to a stop in front of her. It was the same model and make as the other public transport buses, the same distinctive shade that was somewhere between periwinkle and gray, and in her haste to escape the cold Lindy did not notice that the bus did not bear the standard seal of the Boston Public Transport Authority. In fact, the bus was completely unmarked, and on any other day Lindy would have found this quite disconcerting. But today, she was far too preoccupied with the weather.

"Thank you," she whispered hurridly to the bus driver as she made her way to the back of the big blue bus.
"Nghh." He grunted noncomittally in response. Not much of a talker, this one, Lindy thought to herself as she plopped herself down on one of the many vacant seats. She didn't question the fact that she was the vehicle's only passenger; she knew that four o'clock in the morning was not exactly a peak time for traveling.

A Complex Tale

Meta: This is the introduction to what was going to be a blog-based story; the narrator (Ziv), like me, is an avid blogger - and so the storyline would alternate between standard first-person narration and blog-narration, but with only the blog-narration being available accessible to the other characters in the story. I also wrote this prior to NaNoWriMo 2006, but I abandoned it before it ever really got off the ground.

September 07, 2006

Any girl who knows anything about anything (which immediately discounts a large segment of our population, I’m afraid) knows that every calculus class has to have at least one cute guy in it. Seriously, it’s become such a cliché they even used it in Mean Girls. Yes, I saw Mean Girls, stop giving me that look. Okay, so there’s no way anybody could take that argument seriously (and if you did, I think there’s something seriously wrong with you), but with a little estimation and the Pigeonhole principle it makes a decent amount of sense. Think of it this way, if there are n calculus classes and “All Students Take Calculus” (that’s not just a mnemonic here at MIT, it’s actually true, at least for the freshmen), than so long as the number of cute male freshmen is greater than or equal to n, each freshman girl is virtually guaranteed to have someone to stare at when taking derivatives starts to get dull. Now, if the freshman class has approximately 1000 students, that’s about 500 males, and let’s say about x% of them are cute. So long as x is a reasonable number and you don’t have ridiculously high standards, x% of 500 > n. Q.E.D.

Now, if you turned in a proof like that for 18.100B, you probably wouldn’t get much credit unless your TA had a good sense of humor, but this isn’t 18.100B (Analysis I) – I’m not taking that until next semester. No, I’m taking good old 18.02, that’s Multivariable Calc, for those of you who don’t speak MITese, and I’m loving every minute of it… even when taking derivatives starts to get dull. In short, I’ve found ample evidence in support of my hypothesis.

His name is Connor Wheatley, and he actually lives just down the hall from me, but I never would’ve known it if he hadn’t told me. He’s one of those crazy overachievers who can solve their 8.012 p-set problems in their head while playing a concerto on the violin and rowing a single down the Charles at the same time. In other words, he’s pretty much never in the dorm, and the only time I ever see him is during 18.02 lecture. I don’t know what he’s doing taking 18.02 anyways, you would think someone like him would have advanced standing credit or at least be taking 18.022 (Math for Masochists), but it’s nice to have him around. He’s good to bounce ideas off of.

“Your proof is crap, Ziv.”

“What? What are you talking about, Connor? Everybody knows that when you cross two perpendicular vectors the result is zero.” Well, okay, not everybody. But Connor wasn’t everybody, and he of all people should’ve known that.

“No, not that proof, the one you posted on your blog. You know, about the Pigeonhole Principle.” My blog? Connor found my blog?

Love Story (continued)

Meta: Special thanks to everybody who sat with me in the lounge last night and went through my story over and over again, rehashing all the possibilities for the characters and helping me to cure my writer's block so I could churn out this next paragraph.

Four years later, a heart with the correct set of names mysteriously appeared one Saturday morning carved into the sidewalk directly outside Lobby 7 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Well... perhaps "mysteriously" isn't quite the right word; we certainly knew where it came from, Steve and I. And the rest of the world would probably pass it by without giving it a moment's thought; after all, both Steve and Amanda are relatively common names: so common, in fact, that the laws of probability would strongly favor there being at least three more college age Steve/Amanda pairings in the Boston area.

We had been on our way back from the Luau Party at Zeta Psi, draped with plastic leis and a bit drunk on both love and cheap beer. We were walking hand in hand, arm in arm, down Mass Ave, lost in a world that only the two of us shared and giggling at jokes that nobody had told aloud. That was when we saw the cement, freshly poured and still a bit wet, just the right consistancy for a small act of vandalism. It was something that neither of us would have done while sober, but somehow at the moment it just seemed right. It never occurred to either of us that we might regret it.

Drive (continued)

As she pulled into the cinema parking lot, she glanced at the digital clock display which glowed brightly beneath the spot where the small amulet had hung before. It was a quarter past six, forty-five minutes before she was supposed to meet her friends at the theater, and it was still raining heavily. ka-thunk, drizzle, ka-thunk, drizzle. She sighed. If only Donny had let her drop him off at practice on her way here, then she wouldn't have been so early. But then she remembered a lesson her father had taught her long ago:

"If you are running late, or you get caught at a red light, never worry. Don't try to speed up, or rush through life, because maybe the delay is meant to be. One day, that red light might save you from a car crash or who knows what else."

She wondered if the same thing applied to being early. Was she avoiding some awful, unknown fate by waiting patiently in her car in the local cinema parking lot? The rain was still pouring down around her, and as she shut the engine she pondered this as she watched other movie-goers clamber out of their cars and rush frantically through the parking lot. Why are they in such a hurry? What are they running from? She watched them with a mixed expression of mild interest and pity until the ka-thunk of the wipers quietly dwindled to a stop and her windshield was flooded with rain.

Meta: I'm No Eggers

During my senior year of high school, my English class read A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers. It was, at times, both heartbreaking and a work of staggering genius, and it's author made no show of being modest. To the contrary, AHWSG, as we came to call it, was a memior that blurred the line between fact and fiction. It was autobiographical in nature, and yet there were things that could not, or at least should not (we hoped not, as readers, for Eggers' sake) be true. But that was alright, because in addition to making no claims towards modesty, Eggers also made no claims toward truth. His stories may have begun in fact, but ultimately ended in fabrication. In essence, he gave himself the license to say whatever he wanted.

And this, in essence, is what I wanted to do here; the problem is that I am no Dave Eggers, and no matter how much I say otherwise, there will be those of you who believe that my work is just a thinly veiled collection of Mary Sues. In fact, the fact that I deny this over and over again has caused me to question it myself. But then I wonder, if these were really all Mary Sues, why wouldn't I just give every story a happy ending?

Ultimately, I think it comes down to what I want, since I am the author, and you are the reader. I don't want to be the characters in my stories; I don't want to be the girl behind the wheel in Drive or the one who crosses campus at midnight in search of love and adventure in my NaNoWriMo piece. Nor do I want to be the slightly strange but mostly harmless boy in Bad News (though nobody has accused me of that one, yet) or one of the chatty middle schoolers in Love Story and The Beginning of Something? All of these characters are a part of me, in some sense - they came out of my heart - but they are not me, and they live out a seperate existance from me.

Now, once again, happy reading!