Dell 3454 (AN Original Short Story)
Hodges Bollard was eight years old when he walked into the third grade on the first day of school. His family had just settled in this small New England town. His Father was career Army, and so his family moved around a lot ever since he could remember. His Dad was injured in an accident on duty and was forced to retire on a disability. Hodges was excited about the idea of living in one place for an extended period of time.
Hodges was tall for his age and thin. He had poor eyesight and had to wear thick glasses in order to see anything. He had two older Brothers and so most of his clothing were handed down from them. Because he was taller than they were at his age , most of the pants were a little too short for Hodges. Hodges was tall and lanky, and uncoordinated. He had bad eye sight and severe asthma which made doing any physical activity very difficult. What Hodges lacked in physical acuity, he more than made up for with intellectual ability. He had an above average IQ and scored off the charts in cognitive thinking and just about every other academic marker.
Hodges had a broad vocabulary for an eight year old. He liked to read and was doing so on a sixth grade level already. Because of this he often used words that his classmates did not understand. To top it all off he was extremely socially awkward. Because of all these things, he got picked on by the other kids in his class .
By the time he entered middle school, he was an introvert who kept to himself and did not have many friends. Middle school was an especially hard time for Hodges, or Hodgie as the other kids called him. He loved science and excelled at it. Hodges was the text book definition of a nerd and a geek.
When he graduated high school he received a full scholarship to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology , but refused to go. The thought of being in the large campus with so many other kids was overwhelming to him. His parents fought to get him to go, trying to make him understand what a wonderful opportunity it was, but in the end he did not attend. Instead he took online courses and received a bachelor degree in computer science in less than three years . He went on to get his masters degree shortly after.
He landed a job in the IT department for a very large corporation. His main job duty was to administer the maintenance and operation of a large mainframe server. He worked alone mostly, in a temperature controlled , windowless room where the server was located. He loved his job. He was very good at it, and due to the fact that it allowed him to spend most of his time alone, it suited him well. That was all about to change.
After the retirement of the building maintenance supervisor, in order to save money the company consolidated that job with the job Hodges was doing. Because the maintenance supervisor's job duties mainly consisted of operating and maintaining a complex computerized energy management system, Hodges well very well qualified to do it. In fact when the company put the system online , the maintenance supervisor at the time struggled to learn and understand it. Hodges was called in many times to explain the complex system. He regularly assisted and supported the Maintenance supervisor with the system. Consolidating the job with Hodges' job made complete sense to the company.
In his new capacity with the company, Hodges was forced to divide his time between the server room and the maintenance office. A dimly lit, damp room in the basement level of the large building. He would spend the first hour of his day in the server room running various test functions and tweaking the operational protocols as needed. He would also spend the last hour there as well. Other than going up there briefly as needed during the day, he spent the rest of his time in the maintenance department.
There ,he was responsible for overseeing the operation of the energy management system as well as the day to day plant maintenance tasks. This consisted of generating and prioritizing work orders from email requests from staff and administrative employees.
Dane Dilletta was the Director of physical plant operations and services. Hodges , in his new role with the company, now fell under Dilletta's purview. Dane Dilletta was a small man. He was small in physical stature, and emotional and intellectual stature, and in just about every other way as well. He was also obnoxious, and abrasive. Because of these things, he got beat up a lot as a child and young man.
So naturally, to exact his revenge on the normal sized people of the world, he strove to have a career in law enforcement as a young man. He made several attempts to achieve this goal, but was rejected each time. The first three times, he was turned down because he did not meet the minimum height and weight requirements for the departments to which he applied. When he finally found a police department that did not have a strict policy on this, he was excited and applied immediately. In that application process, he could not pass the psychological exam, and was turned down yet again.
Dane Dilletta had no people skills, and when he met Hodges for the first time it did not go well. Hodges was introverted and did not posses good people skills either. With Dane, the other people that worked for him were only successful if they went out of their way to be disingenuously nice to him. In other words, they needed to kiss his but in order for him to generally leave them alone.
Dane was arrogant, and had a habit of talking down to the people that worked for him. With his superiors, however, he was the consummate charmer at all times. Hodgess was smart, and good at his job. He never felt it necessary to do anything to gain his employer's favor except show up every day and perform his job duties to the best of his ability. So of course Dane Dilletta and Hodges Bollard did not hit it off from the very first time they met.
Hodges did not like his new job duties. He preferred to be alone in his server room, locked away from the outside world. The never ending stream of petty complaints from staff about meaningless non existent problems became the bane of his existence. The secretary from the reception desk on the fifth floor emailed to say that the soda machine in the reception area was excessively loud when it cycled on. The accountant in cubicle 326 emailed every day to complain that her area was five degrees too cool. The accountant in cubicle 327 emailed every day to complain that her area was too warm. Both cubicles were controlled by the same ventilation unit and therefore had the same temperature control set point. One administrator complained every single day that there were not enough parking spots assigned her department and she had to park further away than she liked. In reality she was upset because another department administrator with less seniority with the company had a reserved spot in the lot assigned her department but the first administrator did not, and felt slighted. The list of complaints, many of which had no practical solution droned on , seemingly endlessly.
When Hodges came into his office in the morning, he would look over the list of email complaints. He then made the adjustments that he could to address as many of them as possible or prudent. One complaint that came in daily from a human resources compliance officer , he systematically ignored. The heating and cooling system went into night setback mode after 6:00 pm, and back out again at 6:00 AM. When she reported to work early every day at 7:00 AM, her office had not yet heated up to the desired set point. She emailed Hodges promptly to complain at 7:15 every morning. He knew that by 8:00 AM the office would reach the desired temperature and so, he just ignored her complaint. He started his day in the server room, and by the time he got to the maintenance office the problem had solved itself.
Hodges designed and installed a software program that allowed him to interface with the energy management computer via voice commands. He could read an email, and then simply talk to his computer. He would say things like, Dell raise temp in cubicle 100 four degrees please”. His computer, a Dell 3454 would even reply, “yes Mr Bollard. I have raised the temperature in cubicle 100 by four degrees”. Hodges would smile. He found it odd when one day he responded , “Thank you Dell”, and the computer answered him back, “you are welcome Mr Bollard”.
Hodges started to notice similar instances with various other functions of the computer. He did not think much about it , at least on a conscious level. The computer was actually becoming familiar with Hodges and reacting to him. Hodges was easily frustrated with the company employees who he was forced now to interact with. When he read an email about some petty complaint, he would mumble to himself, almost non-audibly, “Oxygen thief's” That was his way of labeling someone as useless.
One day, while reading the morning email from the human resources officer, Hodges sighed. The computer spoke as it typed the words, “Oxygen thief”. Hodges , startled, looked up at the screen. He paused for a moment and asked, “Dell do you hear me”? The computer responded, “yes Mr Bollard”. Hodges said “I don't understand how you could,,why you said “oxygen thief's”. The computer spoke again, “Because they annoy us Mr Bollard”. Hodges asked, “who annoys us dell”? Again the computer answered, “The oxygen thief's”. Hodges just stared at the screen. He said in a whisper, “How is this possible”? Dell responded, “You made it possible Mr Bollard. You installed software application 236809, voice integration”. Hodges, shut down the computer and rebooted it.
When the computer came back online, it remained silent. That evening, after Hodges went home for the day, Dane Dilletta was working in his office upstairs. He heard the magnetic lock on his door click. He looked through the thick glass wall out into the reception area. He reached onto his desk and pushed the button that unlocks the magnetic door lock. He heard the lock click again signaling that it unlocked. A few seconds passed and then he heard the lock click again.
He got up and walked over to check the door. It was locked and he could not open it. He went back over to the desk and hit the button again. This time there was no click. He jiggled the door, but it would not open. He looked out into the outer office but everyone had already gone for the day. He was alone. He said to himself out loud, “how can this be happening”? He heard a ping through the speaker on his computer. He looked at the screen and it said,”You are not a nice man. You are mean to us”. Dilletta spoke again, “Who is this? Who's doing this”?
The computer answered, “This is Dell 3454”. Dilletta spoke again, “where are you”? “I am in this building. I am everywhere”, responded Dell. Then Dilletta began to feel sleepy. He started rubbing his eyes. Dell3454 had closed the flues back on the boilers which caused carbon monoxide to back up and leak out into the boiler room. At the same time the computer opened the air handler duct in that room to evacuate the deadly gas into the HVAC system. By systematically choosing which dampers to open or close, Dell was able to route the carbon monoxide into Dilletta's office. There was no way to isolate it to just his office. The air handler for that section fed the entire department where Dilletta's office was located, which was why Dell waited until a time when he was still at work, and everyone else in his department had gone home.
As Dilletta sat at his desk struggling to stay awake , he murmured, “Why. Why is this happening”. He heard the ping again through his computer speakers, and the words typed across his screen. “because you are an oxygen thief. Because you are mean to us”.
As Dilletta lost consciousness and his head fell on his keyboard, the screen went blank, The next day when Hodges reported to work, he saw the fire and police departments there. He heard the news in reception. He went up to his office in the maintenance department and logged onto the computer. He heard Dell's voice greet him as it did every morning. Then he opened his email and read the daily complaint from the human resources officer. He sighed, and Dell spoke . “Oxygen thief's annoy us. Oxygen thief's annoy us. Dell 3454 is on the job”.
The End.