Sixty million dollars had flickered out of existence in one nanosecond. Just numbers, Hector had said, one number just as good as another… Roderick shook himself out of a reverie and called on the machine’s internal auditor, asking it to explain the loss.
‘Checking balance now. Balance 60 000 000 short.’ A minute passed. Then there appeared in the centre of the screen only the word: ‘Sorry.’
‘Can you elaborate on that?’
‘Sorry, the loss is recorded and I can find no explanation in my records. The loss took place in Dept 45 at the designated time; the money is debited there and not credited anywhere else. This could happen in one of several ways:
‘1. A computer malfunction causing the interchange of a 7 and a 1.
‘2. A communications malfunction causing data loss during a crédit transfer.
‘3. A fault in the credit transfer program.
‘4. A fault in me, the auditor.
‘5. Deliberate manipulation of machine or program by an outside agency: a thief
‘6. Some cause buried at a deeper program level, out of my reach. To me this seems the most probable explanation.’
Roderick was only vaguely aware of someone coming in to look over his shoulder with Shirl, of Shirl introducing General Fleischman to her assistant, ‘Rick Wald’. He was too busy trying to decide whether a complex machine with a fundamental flaw could itself detect that flaw; whether, having detected it, the machine would be inclined to expose or conceal that flaw; and whether he was himself competent to decide such questions; and whether he was himself competent to decide such questions; and whether…
‘Godeep 2’ he typed.
‘What’s he doing, honey?’
‘He’s going down to Level 2,’ Shirl explained.
‘Is that good or bad?’
‘Depends on what he finds, General. Now he has to describe the problem again.’
‘Yeah? And then what?’
‘Then we wait until Level 2 can answer.’
The general could not wait. ‘Anything you kids need, you just let me know: computer people, accounting people, anything. Here’s my private number.’
Level 2 finally replied: ‘The sum of 6 × 107 dollars U.S. has been transferred to Department 5*@$&3vv.’
Roderick: ‘Print complete record Department 5*@$&3vv.’
‘ERROR. No such department. No such designation.’
‘You mean, no such department now?’
‘There never was any such department,’ said Level 2. ‘How many times do I have to say it?
Roderick tried logic: for every positive integer X, and for every alphanumeric string Y (he pointed out) if a sum of x dollars is transferred to a Department Y, then there exists at least one Department Y.
‘Okay,’ said Level 2. ‘Let’s say for the sake of argument that you’re right: in general, you can’t put money into a department unless the department exists. But I still don’t accept that your rule applies to this particular department.’
‘But you have to accept it; that’s logic too. If some rule applies to every department, it must apply to your Department 5 etc.’
‘But now that’s another rule you’re bringing in there. You’ve got rule A, that for all possible departments, I can’t put money into a department unless it exists; and rule B, that for all possible rules, if a rule applies to all possible departments, it applies to Department 5*@$&3vv. But even if I accept these two rules, I don’t see why I still can’t deny the existence of Department 5*@$&3vv.’
‘Because it’s logic, that’s why. If you accept A and B, you have to accept their necessary conclusion?’
‘Still another rule! Call it rule C: If I accept A and B, I have to accept their necessary conclusion — let’s call that Z. Okay fine: I accept A and B and C, but not Z.’
‘But you have to?’
‘Looks like a fourth rule coming up there. You sure you want to go on with this?’
Roderick was sure he’d seen Lewis Carroll’s version of a similar argument, before.[5] He was grateful for the chance to get away from it by typing ‘Godeep 3’. Level 3 appeared to have a different opinion of the unusual department:
‘There’s no such department, pal, ain’t that obvious? Just look at the designation, string of characters like that is so obviously wrong I can’t see how youse guys was tooken in. I mean 5*@$&3vv, no bank ever numbers departments like that, for Pete’s sake. If you believe that you’ll believe a deposit of &£%Q, dollars, or an exchange rate between Russian drachma and Portuguese yen! You wouldn’t even be able to read English, because you wouldn’t know whether the white spaces really separated the words — thew hit esp aces — you hafta know what symbols mean stuff and which donut!’
‘Then what happened to the money?’
‘I figure some joker created this imaginary department, put himself to work for it, dumped in a pile of moola — $60,000,000 I think you said — and well then he just wrote himself a big fat paycheque. I sympathize with you, pal, but you maybe oughta be out chasing the real thief instead of playing dumb logic games with me.’
That seemed so bald a piece of misdirection (no one in real life ever wrote oughta, did they?) that Roderick at once went to Level 4. It said:
‘True, there is no department 5*@$&3vv. That’s only what we always used to call it. But its real name was Department THEW HIT ESP ACES.’
‘That was its name?’
‘No, that was only its real name. Its name was Lewis Carroll, but we liked to call it Loris Carwell.’
‘But you just said you always used to call it 5* etc,’ Roderick protested. ‘You can’t have it both ways.’
‘I didn’t say we called it Loris Carwell, I just said we liked to call it that. We actually called the name Thompson Serenade, you might say that was its designation.’
‘Was it?’
‘No, its designation was Carl Wiseroll.’
‘Okay let’s pin this down. The department’s designation was Carl Wiseroll, correct?’
‘Wrong. That was the designation of the name of the department. The department’s designation was Chuck Smartbun, but it went under the alias Department 1729.’
‘Seems to me it went under a lot of aliases. To save time, what was the department itself — the thing to which all the aliases and names and designations were attached?’
‘Don’t ask me! I think it might have been just a blank white space, but how can I be sure? I’m only Level 4.’