by Galen T. Pickett.
Your call is important to us. Please remain on the line. Your call will be answered in the order in which it was received. You are caller 2,178,309. We will be with you shortly.
The recorded voice cut off and was replaced by an eighty-nine-string orchestra playing selections from The Fiddler on the Roof and The Good Boy and the Roog. After a short wait of a century and a half the line came alive, “Hi! My name is Sophia. Thank you for waiting. Can I have your creator-number please?”
He looked about the cluttered workbench for the slip of paper. After brushing away a pile of metal shavings and sawdust he recovered a notepad emblazoned with his department’s seal and motto: Omni Potens, Ignoro. He held it under a gooseneck lamp. Squinting, he gave a string of numbers and letters starting with “alpha” and ending with “omega”.
“And is this about the open ticket for the …” there was a pause while the operator looked through her log “… Okapi?”
“No, I figured out how to get that one running. Finally. I had to make a few judgement calls, and I still have half a box of leftover parts, but that thing is ready to go out into the creation. My problem is with subproject Ornithorhynchus anatinus. ‘Platypus’ is the subtitle. The plans just don’t make sense. Again.”
The operator knew to tread carefully at this point. The planning department was, in its very nature, omniscient and their plans were guaranteed flawless. The building department, however, was omnipotent in its nature but could only build according to what it understood and was touchy on the point. “Well, let us see if we can help you understand the perfect intentions of the planning department. What seems to be the problem?”
The builder knew to tread carefully at this point. They had the power to build just about anything. The Okapi was proof enough of that. But the Platypus plans he had just been assigned defied all understanding. The planners were very touchy when confronted with their total powerlessness to do anything, and questioning their work was a sure recipe for fire and brimstone and the gnashing of teeth. “Well. For one thing, is this thing really supposed to be eight-foot tall, with razor-sharp fangs, wings, and subsist on a diet of worms, insects, and shrimp?”
“As you know, the planning department is endowed with knowledge of all things. The plans cannot be anything other than correct in every detail. Omni Scienta, Impotens is their motto. I can open a ticket if you wish, but,” there was a pause, “seventeen-thousand-seven-hundred-eleven closed tickets from you along these lines all have the same final notation from planning.”
“Yes,” the builder said, “I guess I knew that was coming. ‘The plans as submitted take account of the builder’s inability to understand them. We advise the builder to carry on.’ I guess I can go with something about half a meter in size, and I have some leftover bills and venom glands. To make everything fit, it is going to have to lay eggs. I suppose it is too much to ask for an ‘ok’ on that before I get to work?”
“Well, I could ask, but you know the backlog up here, and you also know what the response will be, so …”
“Ok, thanks. I guess I am on my own.”
“Oh, no! You can always come back to our department for understanding, if nothing else. We understand everything. Sapientia in Omnibus! We really are quite limited in what we can do from a telephone, but the complaints department is endowed with perfect understanding … so please call back if you think we can help.”
“Thanks.” The builder hung up. “I guess,” he finished once the line was dead.
He moved over to the drafting table and marked up the plans for the platypus as well as he could, rolled them up and deposited them into a protective tube, and marked it for delivery to the shop floor.
There was just one more subproject in his inbox to draft, and then he could get some rest. These specs looked sane, at least. Bipedal, mammal, walks upright – eventually. This was to be a social creature, but he ran out of parts for the empathy / sympathy / telepathy submodule after overindulging himself in building out termites, ants, bees and wasps.
“Well,” he said aloud, “if the helpline is so keen on understanding, I am going to go ahead and replace the empathy module with a helpline transceiver. Let’s see how things go with a small still voice in their heads.” He marked up the plans, rolled them up, and placed them next to the platypus tube. He then stood his full height, with hands on his hips, and stretched his aching back. Time for a long-deferred rest.
The owner of the factory at that moment looked up toward the three monitors dominating his rich mahogany desk. On his right-hand monitor, he watched as the builder stretched and cleared his workspace. In the middle monitor, Sophia was animatedly speaking into a headset while typing furiously, mediating a call from another department. In the final monitor the planners were floating with eyes closed in the lotus position, as they had been for as long as he could remember. They gave no indication they had any awareness of their surroundings, but nonetheless emitted an air of self-satisfaction, as if everything had gone and would ever go according to their plans.
He gave a half-smile and blew gently and sipped from a mug labeled “The Big Cheese”. “Helpline transceiver! Why didn’t I think of that?” Scanning his attention across the monitors and the three departments he leaned back in his chair, laced his fingers behind his head and said, “Yes. It is good.”
END
