Xenite Reading Room

"Simply Connected" by Michael Martinez

Continued from "Simply Connected" page 1

"And your Aunt Cindy said to tell you she would be out of town; she so wanted to meet Jimmy," Stephie said as she put the last pots in the dishwasher.

"Oh, I'm sure he'll want to come back out some weekend," Deb said. She couldn't hide the nervousness in her voice. "I hope he does."

"I'm sure he will," Stephie said. She took Deb's hand. "Oh. Something your father wanted to show you, but I suppose he forgot about it. Watch the dishwasher, dear. Daddy's made a few changes around the house."

"Watch the dishwasher?"

"Computer: Start Dishwasher," Stephie said, speaking directly to the dishwasher. Nothing happened.

"Computer: Start Dish Washer." Nothing happened again. Stephie frowned slightly. "That's funny."

"What are you doing, Mom?"

"Trying to wash the dishes, dear. Wait just a minute."

There was suddenly a bump and rattle under the sink. Deb instinctively jerked her hand back from her mother's grasp. "I thought you said the rats were all gone!"

"We haven't seen a rat for six months!" Stephie assured her. She grabbed up a broom from a nearby corner and approached the sink. There was another thump and the sound of something skittering across the wood inside the cabinets. Stephie opened the cabinet door and thrust the broom inside.

"Yeeooow!"

"Jim!" Deb grabbed the broom from her startled mother's grasp. "Jim! What are you doing!?"

"Uh, hi, Deb!" Jim's head just barely poked out of a little trap door to the rear of the cabinet. A fiberoptic cable lay on the woodwork; it was attached to a little black box on the side of the dish washer. "Hi, Mrs. Sal -- er, Stephie."

"Jim. Come out of there!" Deb said.

"My word, Jimmy. What are you doing?" Stephie asked.

"Just helping with the dishes." Jim poked his hand up through the trap door and fiddled with the black box. "Try it now, Stephie."

"Computer: Start Dishwasher," Stephie said again, facing the dish washer. Deb looked at her mother in astonishment. The dish washer burst into life.

"Wow!" Jim said, barely audible above the dish washer. "It really works, Ralph!"

"Jim, what are you doing?" Deb demanded again, but Jim dropped down out of sight and the trap door slammed shut. "Mom, what's he up to?"

"Oh, he's just helping your father," Stephie said. "Here, let me show you how we country folk do the laundry."

*

"...and then you run this end through the terminator, clipping it like that," Ralph said, snipping the cable neatly. He held up the terminated end for Jim to inspect. The clear fiberoptic cable ended in what appeared to be a copper cap.

"And this handles four devices?"

"Hmmm. I think I used the wrong connector," Ralph said, inspecting his handiwork. "This one will do eight."

"Wow."

"Let's run this one up to the attic," Ralph suggested. "I've got some patch boards up there we can use to interface the optical coordination sensors."

"Optical coord--"

"The burglar alarm," Ralph said. "Don't worry. It's just a bunch of motion sensors set up around the house." He picked up a reel of fishing wire and taped the loose end to the fiberoptic connector. Then he opened a panel set against one of the walls and reached in. "Had to build some conduits in here last fall," he said. "Got some hooks...ah...okay. Let's go upstairs."

Ralph led Jim back up the stairs. The upper stairwell connecting the ground floor of the house to the upper story and the attic was situated next to the kitchen; as they passed by, Jim noticed Deb and Stephie talking to the washing machine. They seemed a little frustrated, but Ralph kept going, so Jim followed blindly after.

"Here we go," Ralph said. The stairs led up to a door that opened into the attic. As Ralph approached it, the door opened. There was a light on inside, and they could hear a radio playing. "That's odd. I haven't been up here all week. Did I leave all this on?"

"Uh, Stephie and Deb were talking to the washing machine as we came upstairs," Jim said.

"Well, that wouldn't have anything -- " Ralph stopped. The light had gone out, the radio fell silent, and the attic fan came on; the faint hum of some other device started up. Ralph fumbled his way over to the door and yelled down the stairwell. "Steph, dear: would you please tell the washer to come back on?"

"It's not working, Dad!"

"Not down there, Bumpkin! But we need it up here!"

"Daddy, don't call me that!"

The light came back on but the radio stayed silent. "Hmm. I must have switched the connections in the `D' and `E' panels. I'll bet the radio is connected to the dryer." Ralph strode over to six metal boxes mounted on the wall. They looked like old-fashioned circuit-breaker boxes.

Jim came up beside Ralph as the older man opened the fourth and fifth boxes; they were in fact fiberoptic patch panels, with cables coming in and out of twenty ports. "Oh, it'll take me a week to rewire these panels!" Ralph said. "Wait. I think we can switch these two -- " he pulled a couple of cables out of the `D' box and reversed their connections.

"Nothing happened."

"Yeah. I wonder what I just did."

"Dear!" Stephie called up the stairs. "Which satellite dish do you want to use?"

"Is it on the old one or the new one?" Ralph yelled back.

*

"Where's Daddy?" Deb asked as Jim came back down the stairs.

"He just wanted to reconnect a few cables." Jim yawned deeply. "I'm sorry, honey. That trip really wore me out. It must be nearly two in the morning."

"Yeah," Deb said, wrapping her arms around him. She kissed him softly, but Jim was too worn out to respond. "Okay, hero," she said finally. "I'll show you where you can sleep."

"Guess Mom and Dad don't want us -- "

"Unh-huh. And you're too tired anyway." She led him upstairs to a guest bedroom. The light came on as the door opened. "Well, at least that hasn't changed."

"You mean the lights come on when you open the door?" Jim asked, his interest piquing again.

"Well, they used to. I suppose Daddy left the guest rooms for last. The last time I was home, Jim, the lights were all he had fiddled with."

Jim looked at the bed; it was an antique four-poster with a full canopy. He felt right at home. "Don't let the bed bugs bite," Deb said, kissing him again. She left before Jim could develop second thoughts and he settled down on the bed. He looked around suddenly; his suitcase was still downstairs.

"Rats." Jim got up and left the room.

"Dear!" Stephie called out from one of the other bedrooms. "Ralph! The window won't close any more!"

"Right!" Ralph said, coming down from the attic. "Hi, Jim. Listen, dear, just tell the sink to turn on the hot water. I'll fix it in the morning."

Jim smiled as he moved down to the living room.

"HALT! You are under observation. Do not move!"

Jim stopped. The entire first floor was dark. Suddenly, a dog growled to his right. "Uh-oh," Jim muttered. The dog growled again, moving a little closer.

"DO NOT MOVE!" the voice said again.

"Whoops!" Ralph said from behind Jim. "Computer: Close Garage Door!" The lights came on again. Jim looked around but saw no dog.

"Where did it go?"

"The garage door?"

"The dog! I'm sure it was real!"

"Oh, he's out in the barn!" Ralph said, slapping Jim on the shoulder. "We keep him out there now. I'll introduce you to him in the morning. He only barks when the burglar alarm goes off. Night's a bit more quiet like that, but he's kinda old."

"Right." Jim walked over to get his suitcase.

*

"You have to remember that the entire system was doubling up on some cables the last time around," Ralph explained as he pulled a black controller case from the back of the refrigerator. "Sometimes we have to go through one device to get to another. It's a bit irritating when you have to start the upstairs bath and all you want is a drink of water."

"You didn't really connect the bath to the drinking water?" Jim couldn't help laughing at the idea.

"Nah." Ralph smiled at the younger man. "But I did run the burglar alarm through the telephone. Thought we'd save some time that way. Except the sheriff didn't appreciate hearing Ambrose growl over the line."

"What kind of dog is Ambrose?"

"Great Dane." Ralph finished reconnecting the cables and he replaced the box on the refrigerator. "He's about eleven years old. Doesn't get out much any more. Try the blender now, dear!"

"Computer: Set Blender High," Stephie said. The blender burst into life, churning away at some bananas and pears in high speed.

Deb cheered and clapped proudly. "Yea, Daddy!"

"How's your vanity mirror now, Bumpkin?"

"Work's great, too, but I wish you wouldn't call me that!"

"Computer: Stop Blender," Stephie said. The blender stopped. "Well, it will be nice to have things settle down again. Do you have the stove working yet?"

"Hmm." Ralph stepped away from the refrigerator. He looked around the kitchen and finally stared at the clock. "Computer: Set Stove Timer Thirty Seconds." The seconds on the clock's digital display immediately stepped back thirty counts. "Nope. I'll do that next, dear."

"Computer: Turn On Stove," Jim said, looking at the stove. Ralph and Stephie both turned around in alarm.

"The lawn mower!" they said in unison.

"You've got the lawn mower wired through the stove?" Jim asked. "How -- ?"

"No, no!" Ralph moved past Jim. "Computer: Turn Off Stove. No, Jim, the lawn mower is in the garage, but I was testing a fire sprinkler system last weekend and ran that through the garage cable."

"Oops. Sorry."

"Quite all right," Ralph said, patting Jim on the back. "Here, let me show you how I set the garage to wash the cars."

"Don't forget the stove!"

"Fix it next!"

"Mom, let's go see Uncle Steve," Deb suggested. "I've got a feeling the place is about to go haywire."

"I think you're right, dear. They won't miss us 'till dinner time comes around, and I'll pick up some Chinese food just in case your father reconnects the entertainment system."

*

"Computer: Turn On Front Porch Light. Hey, Ralph, it worked!"

"Great, son!" Ralph came around the side of the house, mounting the porch steps a little doggedly. "Whew. Been a long morning. Let's say we break for lunch."

"Sure!"

"And then I'll see about getting that glue off your windshield. I know I put the solvent somewhere in the house."

"No problem."

"Computer: Turn On Living Room Television," Ralph said, stopping by the wide-screen viewing center. The television came on. "Computer: Link Satellite Dish Two to Living Room Television." The image on the screen changed to a football game.

"Hey, it's working pretty good, now."

"Yeah, I just wish I could simplify things," Ralph said, scratching the back of his head. "You know: running all these cables and wiring all these controllers is easy. But I need to program an entire series of commands so we don't have to go all over the house telling the lights to come on, the windows to open, the fans to start, and so on."

"That's easy!" Jim said quickly.

"You think so? I'm not much of a programmer; I tried a couple of times and it all gets so convoluted."

"No problem, really! We use some software tools at my company that could do the trick for you. We've got this neat metaphor system --"

"What's a metaphor?"

"Uh, well, hmm. It's sort of a data file that represents an entire computer system. Well, actually, it's not that simple, but you sort of draw this map and then number the steps you want to take place, and then you just tell the software to follow the map."

"That's EXACTLY what I need!" Ralph snapped his fingers. "Hmmm. I guess that software is expensive."

"I don't think so," Jim said. "And I can dial into the office and download a demo compiler for you without any problem; the programs only run for a month, but that should be long enough to get you some pricing."

"Great! I'll tell you what, Jim. Let's see what kind of program -- "

"-- metaphor --"

"-- metaphor we can work up, and if it does the job, we'll take it to your boss and see if he wants to sell it."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah. I'm thinking of retiring anyway, and I thought I might be able to sell these household systems for a few years."

"Gee. If you've got a modem, we could dial in right after lunch. I'll download the compiler to your server and we could have some metaphors up and running before Deb and Stephie get back, assuming they're gone all day."

"That quick?"

"Yeah, it's pretty neat stuff."

"Swell. Let's go get a bite to eat."

"Okay."

Ralph led Jim toward the kitchen. "Computer: Open Refrigerator Door." The freezer door swung open. "Close enough for lunch; you like frozen pizza, Jim?"

*

Continued on "Simply Connected" Page 3