Waterfalls and Glass #2
Track 1, Sector 2
(Recap: https://paper-tiger.ghost.io/merrimac-murder-mystery-1/)
Monica began the process of rounding them up so she could explain to them how to press a plunger. After that, they would make little speeches, they would all press, and that would be that.
"Ok, ok. So the waterfall will start after the plungers are pressed. But you all have to press at the same time because only one of the plungers is connected as the trigger and even I don’t know which one it is. That’s a new change this time to keep anybody from being tempted to do a little grandstanding at the last minute. I guess we all live and learn. So that’s it. When I give you one finger, everybody put your hands on the plunger. When I give you two fingers, you all press at the same time."
They all nodded.
She didn’t trust that they really did understand but it didn’t matter. None of the plungers did anything. The wires just went under the table and were all bundled up around one of the legs. This was all Chuck’s doing.
Chuck proposed this arrangement as a way to fell three problems in one go. The first was that the electricians’ union contract was complicated and made it difficult to arrange temporary data connections on short notice. The union did make it very easy to figure out if Chuck and Monica could do it themselves. The answer was absolutely not. This is why most of the short-term data terminal connections on campus were patched through the older hydraulic data network. Nobody, not the electricians, the plumbers, the secretaries, the cooks, wanted a piece of it. Monica wondered if maybe the employees at the dryclean shop on campus would organize with the Merrimac operators someday. A union based on what people’s jobs smell like.
The second and third had to do with OMRD2.
At the appointed time, all six gave little speeches that Monica thought were just the kind of expository material you would want in a mystery story. They all just got up there and gave little versions of their backstory, little motives for why they would want to murder Monica’s program or one of the other plunger people. When ’Omer finally brought his story in for a landing, means and opportunity had been established for all and Monica gave them the single finger to place their hands on the plungers. When all six were ready, Monica gave a double finger to indicate that they should press. Five of the plungers went down smoothly. The sixth, still attached to OMRD2’s palms stayed resolutely up. For a moment, nothing happened.
Chuck was sitting at an old hydroterm at the back of the room and Monica saw OMRD2 beam him his thin, mean little smile. Then the smile widened and he shifted his gaze towards the centroid of the cocktailed mass. He wound himself up slightly as if he was about to deliver an overdue rejoinder to an ancient insult and, just as his lips parted to speak, the hall was filled with a Whoosh, and then the echo, and the echo of the echo. As the echo fell, so too did a curtain of foam apparently inside the glass partition, and then bubbles, then a constant hypnotic turbulent flow that must have involved polarizing the room light.
OMRD2 looked for a moment as if he actually was speechless but the mean smile returned.
"I see the machine has a mind of its own" he announced to the room and then depressed his plunger with a flourish.
The fountain and the bar ran for another hour and a half and then it was time to put everything to bed for the evening. People trickled out slowly enough that the loose kind of steer-by-feel driving that was a hallmark of these departmental apres-TTY didn’t turn into a messy Le Mans start. OMRD2 was uncharacteristically among the first out of the gate.
In the end, only Monica, Chuck, and a custodian were left. Chuck glanced again at the digital clock face on the hydroterm as the minute digit flipped silently. "All right, we have 8 minutes to be out of here so that Tickles can lock up. One past and Allen will be on us for the unauthorized double time."
Chuck typed
mntcmd ;off ;1,,6 + mntcnd ;drainopen 7,,12 + mntcmd ;wait 120 + mntcmd ;purgeon 13,,19 + mntcmd ;wait 10 + mntcmd ;purgeoff 13,,19 + mntcmd ;drainclose 7,,12
The keystrokes registered without sound and were echoed just as silently on the damp paper roll that spooled out of the machine. Echo wasn’t the right word. The letters seemed to haunt the paper, as each seemed to independently fade into a gray existence about a second after it had been committed.
Monica thought they wore their serifs about them like doomed text. The commands corresponded to a series of actions that were now happening to the waterfall. The flow stopped, the fluid drained for a couple of minutes until all that was left was some foam stuck to the inside of the glass. Then air jets seemed to blow inside the falls and the glass panels stirred a bit as the foam was blown down and away somewhere. Then it all stopped. The hydroterm clock read 23:55.
The hydroterm scroll now also said
Ok Ok Ok Ok Ok Ok Ok
"All set!" Said Chuck as he turned to head for the door.
"Hang on" . . . Monica said as she now typed
mntcmd ;wait 300 mntcmd ;status mntcmd ;date
"Let’s let it settle and confirm the status." and the scroll was duly haunted. They watched the scroll for around five minutes and the scroll moved and added:
Ok Pumps off Drains closed Purge off Pump Pressure: 6 kPa Main Supply Voltage: AN: 276V BN: 278V CN: 277V 00:00:12 Saturday 16 Jun 1962
"Sorry to keep you so late."
It was now Monica who turned for the door and Chuck followed without complaint. Tickles, who had just earned 2 hours of double time weekend pay, the minimum unit, shut the lights and locked up with a smile.
In the parking lot, Monica asked Chuck
"What happened? Why the delay starting the fall?"
"Oliver didn’t press."
"But Oliver was holding a plastic plunger that did nothing. You were the one starting it."
"It would have seemed fake and that’s a touchy point about the machine already." "So why did you start it at all?"
"Because any stunt of Oliver’s would have probably been worse."
"I’d like to think that’s right."