Art Pact 49
"This is some sorcerer's apprentice bullshit," Simon said, stepping backwards through the ever-growing pile of bolts at his feet. The trickle of parts falling off the end of the conveyor belt continued relentlessly. "Did you try pressing the button again?"
Alice rolled her eyes and made an exaggerated show of pressing the emergency stop button - once, twice, and with a final flourish a third time. The machine buzzed each time the little red mushroom was pushed into its housing, but body of the machine was still hissing and clunking and the conveyor belt kept churning out more and more of the little hexagonal bolts.
"We can get another container in," she suggested. "I saw three more of the things out the- Eek!" She was cut off in a shriek as the waxing cone of bolts underwent a major landslide on its near side, spilling out a great torrent of tailings that swept around her toes. "OK, this is getting ridiculous. I'll get a container in."
"Then what?" Simon asked.
They took it in turns to wheel the containers in and out, letting one fill up with bolts before quickly swapping it out with another and emptying the full containers into the service trench outside the door. Alice pointed out that if the process went on long enough they might be able to walk across the trench to freedom and just leave the factory to run itself to pieces, but they both knew that that would only be a temporary solution to their problems.
"Besides which," Simon added "I don't trust these things to hold our weight. There's something weird about how they're coming out." He held up one of the bolts for Alice to see - unlike the first batch that had poured out of the machine, the bolts were less strictly hexagonal. They still had six sides, but they seemed more rounded rather than flat, as though the bolts had fattened up - but at the same time they were smaller than the original bolts, the threaded lengths much shorter. It was as if they were getting confused, Alice thought, trying to turn into ball bearings rather than bolts. She scooped up a handful and let them run out through her fingers. They felt slightly oily, and they flowed much more easily than she would have expected for metal bolts. If they tried to run across a dam made of these things, she realised, they would sink in and disappear never to be seen again.
"Here, let me try something," she suggested, bracing her back against the machine and kicking the container away from its position near the end of the belt. As she'd feared, the bolts began to pour onto the floor and immediately roll away. The neat conical pile they'd formed before was no more - just a low mound where the bolts were coming in more quickly than they could escape at the edges. Now it didn't resemble a mountain, just a sludge-pile in the middle of a lake. "We'd better go and look in the control room again."
The little booth on the gantry was still unpleasant to be in - the emergency lights blinking on suddenly every few seconds with blinding flashes - but they found a couple of ear defenders hanging in a safety station by the top of the ladder which meant that they could at least hear themselves think. Alice looked at the controls, tried to use them to get the conveyor to stop, failed as before, then set to examining the screens above. The left hand screen still had the picture of the prototype bolt on it (complete with a nut which the screen said was being churned out on line 5 - one thing at a time, she thought to herself), but the right hand screen was showing a tiny silver sphere.
"A ball-bearing," she said, "just like I thought."
"What?"
"A ball-bearing!" she shouted.
"What?"
"A ball-bearing," she repeated, when she'd dragged Simon back out along the gantry to a safe distance and plucked the ear-defenders off his head. "The machine's got confused somehow, or it's been programmed oddly. They control computer is trying to make two things at once - the ball-bearings and the bolts - and for some reason it can't just make them in batches. It's like it's been told to make them both forever, so it can't start making ball-bearings because that would violate the command it's received to continue making bolts. But it can't just keep making bolts because that would mean it would be disobeying the order to make ball-bearings. So it's trying to make both at once, something that can be used either as a ball-bearing or a bolt."
"But that's impossible," said Simon.
"True," she agreed. "But the machine doesn't know that."
"What are we going to do?"
"I'm not sure."
"Well whatever it is, we'd better do it fast," he said, pointing down. As far as Alice could see, the floor of the factory was covered in a foot-deep layer of ball-boltings. "Otherwise we're going to have to swim out of here!"
Alice rolled her eyes and made an exaggerated show of pressing the emergency stop button - once, twice, and with a final flourish a third time. The machine buzzed each time the little red mushroom was pushed into its housing, but body of the machine was still hissing and clunking and the conveyor belt kept churning out more and more of the little hexagonal bolts.
"We can get another container in," she suggested. "I saw three more of the things out the- Eek!" She was cut off in a shriek as the waxing cone of bolts underwent a major landslide on its near side, spilling out a great torrent of tailings that swept around her toes. "OK, this is getting ridiculous. I'll get a container in."
"Then what?" Simon asked.
They took it in turns to wheel the containers in and out, letting one fill up with bolts before quickly swapping it out with another and emptying the full containers into the service trench outside the door. Alice pointed out that if the process went on long enough they might be able to walk across the trench to freedom and just leave the factory to run itself to pieces, but they both knew that that would only be a temporary solution to their problems.
"Besides which," Simon added "I don't trust these things to hold our weight. There's something weird about how they're coming out." He held up one of the bolts for Alice to see - unlike the first batch that had poured out of the machine, the bolts were less strictly hexagonal. They still had six sides, but they seemed more rounded rather than flat, as though the bolts had fattened up - but at the same time they were smaller than the original bolts, the threaded lengths much shorter. It was as if they were getting confused, Alice thought, trying to turn into ball bearings rather than bolts. She scooped up a handful and let them run out through her fingers. They felt slightly oily, and they flowed much more easily than she would have expected for metal bolts. If they tried to run across a dam made of these things, she realised, they would sink in and disappear never to be seen again.
"Here, let me try something," she suggested, bracing her back against the machine and kicking the container away from its position near the end of the belt. As she'd feared, the bolts began to pour onto the floor and immediately roll away. The neat conical pile they'd formed before was no more - just a low mound where the bolts were coming in more quickly than they could escape at the edges. Now it didn't resemble a mountain, just a sludge-pile in the middle of a lake. "We'd better go and look in the control room again."
The little booth on the gantry was still unpleasant to be in - the emergency lights blinking on suddenly every few seconds with blinding flashes - but they found a couple of ear defenders hanging in a safety station by the top of the ladder which meant that they could at least hear themselves think. Alice looked at the controls, tried to use them to get the conveyor to stop, failed as before, then set to examining the screens above. The left hand screen still had the picture of the prototype bolt on it (complete with a nut which the screen said was being churned out on line 5 - one thing at a time, she thought to herself), but the right hand screen was showing a tiny silver sphere.
"A ball-bearing," she said, "just like I thought."
"What?"
"A ball-bearing!" she shouted.
"What?"
"A ball-bearing," she repeated, when she'd dragged Simon back out along the gantry to a safe distance and plucked the ear-defenders off his head. "The machine's got confused somehow, or it's been programmed oddly. They control computer is trying to make two things at once - the ball-bearings and the bolts - and for some reason it can't just make them in batches. It's like it's been told to make them both forever, so it can't start making ball-bearings because that would violate the command it's received to continue making bolts. But it can't just keep making bolts because that would mean it would be disobeying the order to make ball-bearings. So it's trying to make both at once, something that can be used either as a ball-bearing or a bolt."
"But that's impossible," said Simon.
"True," she agreed. "But the machine doesn't know that."
"What are we going to do?"
"I'm not sure."
"Well whatever it is, we'd better do it fast," he said, pointing down. As far as Alice could see, the floor of the factory was covered in a foot-deep layer of ball-boltings. "Otherwise we're going to have to swim out of here!"
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