By: Collin Miller
You have no idea how this happened.
It wasn’t even actually a thought. There had never been dragons. There were never going to be dragons. You used to get up in the morning and could reasonably think today would be another dragon free day. I don’t know when the dragons came to be. Nobody thought to go looking for dragons.
He said this was a manufacturing and fulfillment job. Pretty standard gig.
“You remember when we worked in the abstraction business?”
He’s testing you. Wants to know if you got into the business before architecture was the only thing.
“No, I’ve only worked with agents.”
You’re smart. I know you wrote code. But the top-brass don’t trust the nerds the way they used to. Too pedantic, they bought into the agents.
He shifts comfortably in his chair.
Hook, line, and sinker.
That’s when you got this job. Before, let us not forget, the dragons.
The dragons.
Fire breathing. Sixty foot long.
Dragons.
You wonder how the agents managed the fire breathing bit. I wonder how they managed the fire breathing bit. That’s a fair bit of biology right there.
They probably haven’t been around too long. The whole fire breathing thing was hard to miss. Operations is not happy with any of this. Anyway, the agents aren’t going to spill the beans on that. They don’t admit to misinterpretation. They’re making the case that we wanted dragons.
“How could this happen?”
And who do we blame? But that’s not important right now. What do you do about dragons in a black-box manufacturing facility?
“No you can’t adjust the architecture until we figure out exactly why the agents made dragons.”
“No you can’t requisition a second facility for testing.”
“Of course they’re going to just make dragons again.”
“Find it. Fix it. I don’t care how.”
Somebody’s in a bad mood. At least it’s interesting. Nobody’s gotten dragons before. You decide on the indirect approach. You don’t have a choice anyway. The system is frozen except for interrogation routines. You still have access to files. Incremental reasoning logs are fairly intact. But the agents destroyed the useful evidence trail before any human discovered the nature of the situation.
The nature of situation being dragons. Dragons! You can’t get over it. I can’t get over it. He said not to sound so excited.
How do the agents even know about dragons? Is it possible they came up with dragons on their own? But why? What part of manufacturing and fulfillment could possibly require dragons?
Orders. Why are you thinking about orders? Look at the order history. You don’t know exactly why, but something tells you it’s in the order history.
Block 0x0032HA33. “Good”
Block 0x0032HA34. “Good"
Block 0x0032HA35. “Good”
You have this really annoying habit of talking to yourself out loud whenever you hunt through logs. It helps you do the work, but nobody here cares for it. You don’t know that. Nobody thinks it’s worth the confrontation. But everybody wishes you wouldn’t do it.
This goes on for a painfully long time.
Block 0x0032QN7R. “Fine”
Block 0x0032QN7S. “No problems”
Block 0x0032QN7T. “Good — hey. Hold the phone.”
You think you’ve got it.
“There’s a corrupt order block… yeah, it’s pre-dragon.”
It’s pre-dragon. “Pre-dragon” is a thing now.
You’re not going to get any time to deal with the root cause of why there are dragons. Negotiating with the agents will shut down the facility for too long.
File a report blaming the corrupted order data. Suggest it’s a rare scenario and even if it repeats itself, probably not likely to result in dragons again.
Once things get moving again you see a few pieces of the system that you don’t understand and wonder if they have something to do with the dragons.
“Dragons? Don’t talk to me about dragons. Just don’t make any more dragons. I never want to hear about dragons again for as long as I live.”
You didn’t make the dragons. The agents did. Still don’t know why. And nobody seems to care where they went. The dragons went missing before the agents came back online.
Take it easy, the agents don’t think the dragons would want anything to do with you. Dragons probably just want to hide in the jungle.
Sixty foot long. Fire breathing.
Dragons.
You used to be able to get up in the morning and reasonably have your breakfast without wondering anything about the whereabouts of any dragons.
It wasn’t even a thought.
You have no idea how this happened.
It wasn’t even actually a thought. There had never been dragons. There were never going to be dragons. You used to get up in the morning and could reasonably think today would be another dragon free day. I don’t know when the dragons came to be. Nobody thought to go looking for dragons.
He said this was a manufacturing and fulfillment job. Pretty standard gig.
“You remember when we worked in the abstraction business?”
He’s testing you. Wants to know if you got into the business before architecture was the only thing.
“No, I’ve only worked with agents.”
You’re smart. I know you wrote code. But the top-brass don’t trust the nerds the way they used to. Too pedantic, they bought into the agents.
He shifts comfortably in his chair.
Hook, line, and sinker.
That’s when you got this job. Before, let us not forget, the dragons.
The dragons.
Fire breathing. Sixty foot long.
Dragons.
You wonder how the agents managed the fire breathing bit. I wonder how they managed the fire breathing bit. That’s a fair bit of biology right there.
They probably haven’t been around too long. The whole fire breathing thing was hard to miss. Operations is not happy with any of this. Anyway, the agents aren’t going to spill the beans on that. They don’t admit to misinterpretation. They’re making the case that we wanted dragons.
“How could this happen?”
And who do we blame? But that’s not important right now. What do you do about dragons in a black-box manufacturing facility?
“No you can’t adjust the architecture until we figure out exactly why the agents made dragons.”
“No you can’t requisition a second facility for testing.”
“Of course they’re going to just make dragons again.”
“Find it. Fix it. I don’t care how.”
Somebody’s in a bad mood. At least it’s interesting. Nobody’s gotten dragons before. You decide on the indirect approach. You don’t have a choice anyway. The system is frozen except for interrogation routines. You still have access to files. Incremental reasoning logs are fairly intact. But the agents destroyed the useful evidence trail before any human discovered the nature of the situation.
The nature of situation being dragons. Dragons! You can’t get over it. I can’t get over it. He said not to sound so excited.
How do the agents even know about dragons? Is it possible they came up with dragons on their own? But why? What part of manufacturing and fulfillment could possibly require dragons?
Orders. Why are you thinking about orders? Look at the order history. You don’t know exactly why, but something tells you it’s in the order history.
Block 0x0032HA33. “Good”
Block 0x0032HA34. “Good"
Block 0x0032HA35. “Good”
You have this really annoying habit of talking to yourself out loud whenever you hunt through logs. It helps you do the work, but nobody here cares for it. You don’t know that. Nobody thinks it’s worth the confrontation. But everybody wishes you wouldn’t do it.
This goes on for a painfully long time.
Block 0x0032QN7R. “Fine”
Block 0x0032QN7S. “No problems”
Block 0x0032QN7T. “Good — hey. Hold the phone.”
You think you’ve got it.
“There’s a corrupt order block… yeah, it’s pre-dragon.”
It’s pre-dragon. “Pre-dragon” is a thing now.
You’re not going to get any time to deal with the root cause of why there are dragons. Negotiating with the agents will shut down the facility for too long.
File a report blaming the corrupted order data. Suggest it’s a rare scenario and even if it repeats itself, probably not likely to result in dragons again.
Once things get moving again you see a few pieces of the system that you don’t understand and wonder if they have something to do with the dragons.
“Dragons? Don’t talk to me about dragons. Just don’t make any more dragons. I never want to hear about dragons again for as long as I live.”
You didn’t make the dragons. The agents did. Still don’t know why. And nobody seems to care where they went. The dragons went missing before the agents came back online.
Take it easy, the agents don’t think the dragons would want anything to do with you. Dragons probably just want to hide in the jungle.
Sixty foot long. Fire breathing.
Dragons.
You used to be able to get up in the morning and reasonably have your breakfast without wondering anything about the whereabouts of any dragons.
It wasn’t even a thought.
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