Colossus: The Forbin Project Page #2

a few words.

Mr. President!

Thank you Sam.

Everybody have a drink?

No?!

Well, you get one.

I'll wait for you.

Harry Truman, years ago..

when everybody was talking about passing the

buck said that the buck stops right here

but now that's no longer true.

Hear hear!

Colossus will now take that buck.

It will also have to take that

responsibility of a mega-million lives

that all presidents

have had to carry since Roosevelt.

And now, thank to this wonder of science

I no longer..

Ladies and gentlemen,

may I have your attention please.

Quiet, please, ladies and gentlemen.

May I have your attention!

One moment.

Everyone who is not Colossus cleared

must leave the room.

I'm very sorry.

My apologies.

Thank you, thank you very much.

Is this a joke?

Is somebody putting me on?

Sorry sir,

I can't hear a word you are saying

Would you be so kind as to have them stop

singing in the background?

What?

Have them stop singing in the background.

The music.

Oh! I'm sorry.

Stop the music!

What's this, another system?

I have no idea sir,

I'm just trying to find out.

One moment, please.

Yes, Dr. Forbin.

Doctor?

There was just a message here from Colossus

in Washington DC.

Can you explain that?

That's impossible.

What do you mean?

Everybody!

Hold it, hold it a minute!

Guess what?

It's a strange message on display

No, no. Wait a minute.

I'm not kidding

It reads:

There is another system.

That's impossible.

Could I have your attention please.

Go on Sir.

Dr. Malcolm and the rest of you.

Be so kind as to check the administrative

control programs right now.

Just a moment..

Mr. President?

Soviet Ambassador.

He says it's urgent.

Hello? Yes.

What time do you call Mr. Ambassador?

Oh yes we are, we are very proud.

Repeat that again please.

Yes I am.

Well, thank you for telling me in advance.

No, no comment.

Goodnight Mr. Ambassador.

Goodnight.

Dr. Fischer, run all the test programs.

Get me Grauber.

What's the CIA been doing?

Well everyone, that's it.

The supreme council

of the U.S.S.R. has

ordered as of 2300 hours

Moscow time tomorrow

the activation of an electronic brain,

exactly like ours, which they call Guardian

to be used solely for defense.

My god,

that's the other system.

Ted, I want a complete rundown

on central intelligence

and no military moves to be carried out

without my personal orders.

Yes, Mr. President.

Charles, what do you think this means?

To be quite frank with you, sir..

I don't know, I'm not sure.

Well, I am.

It means there's been a security leak.

Sir, science is full of coincidences

Yes. Peterson!

What's happening?

They're still trying to find it.

We'll have him paged.

Hello Byron.

You said we were years ahead

of the Russians

This was to be the race we won hands down,

without the splitting of one political hair.

It was a hell of a shock but we did

get there first, no-one can deny that.

And there's one bright spot

the way Colossus came up with the tip.

I didn't realize

we'd be getting bonuses like that.

Neither did I.

What do you mean?

I'm as surprised as you are, Sir.

There's a spy there, Charlie

You've got a Russian agent in your crew.

Where is Grauber?

He's coming Mr. President.

Ok, Well..

What do you mean, surprised?

What kind of a surprise?

If we don't find any bugs in the system..

It's built even better than we'd thought.

Morning Charles!

I canceled all vacations,

put the entire crew on emergency.

The White House called a defense group

meeting for tomorrow morning.

They wanna have you there.

That leaves us very little time.

Four hundred cycle powers of plasma

running at about four percent disclosure.

Good, that's well within

specification limits.

I ran the communication subset

check up program, it's perfect.

So what do I do next,

I've tried everything I could think of.

I've tried putting a dummy load in the system

and run it again and see if there's any changes.

Maybe the system is overloaded.

Find anything at all?

Nothing, everything checks out.

Let me see this over here.

Here are the results of the last test.

And they check.

Here, see?

It's the same thing.

Harrison..

Check the perimeter bank and see if the reading

of any two produces a new third, alright?

Dr. Fisher, thank you.

Jeff..

The console's feeling fine

Hardware's healthy too.

You're a big help.

Miss Fields..

May I suggest, Sir, that we first start

with the E-15-B test program?

Ehh, no.

Now, let us run the EC-13, alright?

It's two pages back.

Lewis, any coffee?

I'll get you some, Charles

I'll get a cup myself. Thank you Blake.

Ok, here we go.

Attention..

Program..

EC-13.

Run..

How long does this usually take?

Ehm, over eleven hundred CPU-Seconds.

Six point four five seconds.

What the hell is this?

Communication with other system?

Alright now,

Enough is enough.

Which one of you jokers

told the system to display this message?

Harrison?

Not me, Dr. Forbin.

Johnson, this sound like your brand of humor,

you sure you didn't..

Not me, not this time.

Scouts honor, Forbin.

Operations, Fields speaking.

Sir, It's the President.

Yes Mr. President.

What does this mean?

Well, it means Sir, that Colossus has requested

a communication link with the Soviet system.

It's not a request, its a direct order.

You mean our computer wants to talk

to their computer?

That is true Sir

it wants to communicate with it.

Why?

You know as much about that

as we do.

We certainly never programmed that into it.

If it's an order it either has to be obeyed

or ignored, doesn't it?

That is right, Sir.

What happens if we ignore it?

If the computer is still operating

under our control, nothing.

In other words..

the order will simply remain

in the job stack

and will be repeated every half hour.

IF the computer is still acting

under our control?!

That is right sir, if.

Alright.

I see.

Thanks Charlie.

Well, at least the queuing programs

are still working right.

Well, that's something anyway.

Ok now.

Miss Fields, let's see if the executive programming

sections are functioning correctly.

Attention..

Message acknowledge.

Facilities will not be made available

at this time.

Do not repeat your request.

End of message.

Well..

That's that.

We'll know in about half an hour

whether we're still running the show or not.

Well..

We're still boss.

Are we?

Are you disappointed?

The computational power of the computer

has increased about two-hundred fold.

However, everything else

is functioning as expected.

Except for heuristic programming section

I'm sorry to stop you again, Dr. Forbin,

but exactly what is that?

That Sir, is the part of the computer that

simulates the human learning process

but so long as it is directed solely

to the execution of its problems..

We have no complaints.

I guess that is, that is all.

Alright.

Mr. Grauber, let's talk about the CIA

How is it possible your department

knew nothing about their system?

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