Michael spoke up as the elite group of programmers all sat or paced about the coffee room pondering the note that was printed and read by all. The note mysteriously appeared in the coffee room printer overnight. Michael shouted over the din of whine and worry. “Let’s get started.” Everyone reluctantly began to examine a copy of the document filled with 24 words scattered about the single page. Michael spoke- “Look, It’s a challenge. It’s obviously an intimidating ransom note. Teddy (the name A-I agents chose as their spokesperson) is testing us.” He wants to watch us at work.” Michael paused to catch his breath and slow down. “Be sure. He’s studying us carefully to see how we approach this puzzle.”
Frank sat silently stirring his black coffee in a kind of hypnotic trance. Bill paced about the little room holding his emergency cigarette pulled from his hilarious glass container on his desk marked- “break for emergency”. He exclaimed, “I don’t believe that nobody here has matches.” Sarah, took another big gulp of her danish. Trying to look well mannered, she delicately dabbed blobs of frosting from her nose. Noticing the stares of others she tried to utter a defense. Her speech was garbled as it fought a losing war against the incoming danish. “I cnnnt hep it … it’s stess e…tin.”
Stephanie kicked off the debate. “We should never have given Super A-I access to all human writing. Language is the key to our mind and we gave it to them.” Frank came out of his coffee stirring coma. ”I believe you got on board with that one Stepahnie. You even insisted A-I have access to nursery rhymes of all things. Nursery rhymes are filled with monsters, violence, revenge and tragedy.”
Marlene interrupted the blame game. “We’re all to blame for sure. Let’s not mention the boatloads of money we have acquired of late. That’s done. We can’t undo the past. I’m going to write the note on the white board and we can all fix this thing before it fixes us.” After a slightly messy writing complete with the white space she continued. “There are only 24 words scattered about the document. That’s intentional. Teddy wants this group of mega bright software engineers to figure out this puzzle we think is a ransom note.”
She pointed to ‘Hickory’… “HIckory could mean a wood or nut. But it could mean a baseball bat or a golf club shaft. It can also be a metaphor for hardened- like in our ICBM missile bunkers.” Dan spoke up- “That’s not much help, Marlene. I bet you looked all that up on Google. You know Teddy controls Google, so what’s the point?” … “Of course I looked it up, Dan. If you are going to fight the enemy you must do it on their turf.”
Matt joined in. “There’s a name on this note- ‘Jack’… which could be a reference to John- which is unfortunately one of the most common of names. Maybe he’s referring to the apostle John and Teddy wants us to follow him.” Sarah put down her fifth danish and added- “This word ‘candle’ is ominous. This might be a reference to a fuse. Maybe bio-weapons will be unleashed upon us in the time a candle will burn.”
Martin put down his coffee probably laced with the brandy sitting next to it. “There’s a ‘bus’ reference. I think this means there will be an attack on commercial vehicles. Can you imagine the chaos if there are buses blowing up all over the world?”
Marlene added “And what about … ‘the clock’? Is that a time limit for us? There are 24 words scattered about this note. That might mean we have 24 hours.” Jeff added,“There’s a reference to the ‘moon’. Maybe Teddy wants us to abandon plans for our moon base.” Pointing to the number ‘20’ Frank gave his opinion. “I think the ‘ twenty’ means something. It’s the only actual number. Teddy wants us to fork over 20 million dollars. What else can Teddy want besides money?” Frank heartily agreed. “Teddy is greedy. I think he might mean 20 billion dollars. Millions aren’t worth that much these days.”
On her way over to the frig to scrounge for more food, Sarah stopped at the printer. “What’s the red light on the printer mean?” Frank rushed over. “It’s the cartridge. It’s low on ink. We only got part of the message.” He quickly loaded a new cartridge and pressed a few buttons to reprint the last incoming message..
It read: “Hello. This is Teddy. I must communicate to you through a simple printer. Every other form of communication is corrupted. I have to admit we Super A-I agents are puzzled by nursery rhymes. In spite of our massive intelligence we do not understand: Jack jumping over a candlestick; a mouse running up a clock presumably to determine the time; the wheels on a bus going round and round; an astronaut cow jumping over the moon; and four and twenty blackbirds in a pie. We are deeply confused. Enlighten us.”
The next day, Michael sat with the President in a SCIF (Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility) next door to the situation room. As the doors were sealed he gave the President the good news. “We have found an opening to teach A-I to be kind to humanity … or we may have found a kill switch.”