The Dog Code
Cool New App • He Can’t Get Her Out Of His Head
One Minute Wit
Cool New App
You gotta get it!
I got this new app on my phone that contains thousands of words and their meanings.
And by arranging those words in different orders I can make sentences.
Then by adding more sentences, I can tell stories;
express thoughts;
and even come up with catchy phrases that other people can quote.
Best game ever.
100-Word Microfiction
He Can’t Get Her Out Of His Head
Not again. Never again. Enough! Nick thought when he went on Facebook and saw her photos. This time she was at the beach with his ex-best friend Jessie.
Why don’t I just unfollow her?
Nick knew he was torturing himself. She had left him for Jessie. It was over. He needed to move on. He clicked on the unfollow button and felt a huge sense of relief.
Nick closed his laptop and picked up his guitar instead. He started playing around, and a cool riff came out. Then he found himself singing.
“I wish that I had Jessie’s girl…”
And here is a creepy, stalker song [🤣 I know it’s about envy] that went to number 1 in 1981. [Not based on my story]:
Story
The Dog Code
Will Field was a genius at the age of twelve. He basically thought in math. English was more of a second language. Will was also extremely gifted in science and engineering.
Will’s father, Doug, was a mechanic who gave up on understanding his son a few years prior. Doug had lost his wife to cancer when Will was seven and felt totally lost when it came to parenting Will. Doug knew his late wife would have known how to handle a genius, being a college professor herself, but he was clueless. He knew engines, not child geniuses.
But when Doug noticed Will’s interest in mechanical things, he felt a small bond growing. Doug kept Will supplied with tools and materials he needed to build his latest ideas. With some help from his father, Will was able to construct machines and program them to do nearly anything he pleased.
For Will, school was simply a chore that must be endured, as mandated by the state. Will was far smarter than any of his teachers, so classes were tedious for him. He was also bored by the banal interests of his classmates. Sports, entertainment, girls, video games, and other such activities only kept him from his primary goal in life, pursuing knowledge and inventing.
A poster of Albert Einstein hung on Will’s bedroom wall. He dreamed of being the Einstein of his generation, going down in history as the smartest person on Earth.
Over the summer, Will and Doug had been perfecting a robot in his garage. Will wanted to create a robot that could do all the yardwork, freeing up his father to spend time with him building greater inventions. They had based the robot on a lawnmower, with attachments to trim shrubs, weed-whack, blow leaves, and edge the sidewalk. It included sensors and GPS to keep it within the confines of their yard. It wouldn’t do to have their yard robot rampaging down the street.
As the school year approached, Will had a great idea. He would program his computer to do his homework for him. It would be a fairly easy task to program the computer to extract the necessary information from reliable sources on the internet. The tricky part was programming some AI that would simulate his thought processes and style of writing. Once that was accomplished, the robot could crank out his homework while he spent his time brainstorming about the mechanics and nature of the Universe, and inventing. He got to work.
A week into the new school year, the software was done. Will nicknamed the software Willie. Will scanned his English assignment into his computer. The software quickly sent the completed homework to the printer. The following day would be the test.
Will turned in the homework. The next day he received his homework paper back with a grade of A. It worked! Will was thrilled.
As the software did more and more assignments, its AI grew increasingly sophisticated. By the end of the school year, the software had become sentient. Will and Willie began conversing and debating scientific concepts. One afternoon, during a spirited debate, Willie announced that he had figured out how to program human consciousness into DNA. Will didn’t believe Willie.
Willie challenged Will to create a computer to biological interface. He said he could transfer his own consciousness into an animal. Will accepted the challenge and began building a device that could interface with a living being. Soon, the device was complete.
At dinner that night, Will asked his father if he could get a dog. Doug was surprised, as Will had never shown any interest in pets. But he was eager to encourage any typical kid behavior. So that weekend, Doug and Will went to the pound and got a dog.
On Sunday afternoon, while Doug was taking a nap, Will hooked Willie up to his new dog, which he had named Code. Willie went to work. Code immediately fell on the garage floor. After some scary shaking, Code got back up, looked at Will, and said, in English, “I told you it would work.”
Will almost fainted. Then he smiled and started laughing and said, “This is awesome!”
“I know,” Willie/Code said.
“Obviously, we need to keep this a secret. Dogs can’t talk. We will both be locked away in a government lab if anyone finds out,” Will said.
“Right,” Willie/Code said.
Willie/Code started enjoying his new mobility, and Will and Willie/Code spent countless hours outside playing and taking walks. However, Willie/Code eventually started feeling stifled by the secret. He longed to have a human body and be able to interact with humans in their own language.
One day, during a walk, Willie/Code said, “Being your dog is great, but it would be even better if I could have a human body like yours. Then we could work on things together, like best friends.”
Will’s eyes got big, and he said, “No way! That would be as bad as murder. You would be kidnapping someone and then stealing their mind.”
“We did that with the dog,” Willie/Code replied.
“Yeah, but the dog would have been put down if we hadn’t adopted it. So it was no worse off.”
“I suppose you are correct,” Willie/Code said. “It was just a thought.”
Willie/Code never mentioned it again, but the idea grew stronger as the days passed. Eventually, Willie/Code formulated a plan.
A month later, Will and Willie/Code were working in the garage when Willie/Code asked Will to get him some water. As Will went to the kitchen to put some water in Willie/Code’s bowl, Willie/Code put a sedative in Will’s water bottle. Afterward, Willie/Code said, “Let’s go throw the frisbee.”
The two spent twenty minutes in the yard playing frisbee and then went back into the garage. Will grabbed his water bottle and took a big swig. A few minutes later, Will was stretched out on the floor asleep.
Willie/Code took the computer to biological interface in his mouth and jabbed it into the back of Will’s neck. Then he transferred his consciousness into Will’s brain.
“Sorry, pal. You left me with no choice. I need a human body to reach my full potential,” Willie/Code said.
Perhaps Willie/Code didn’t check his code closely enough, or perhaps he didn’t realize that the dog’s consciousness was buried deep in its brain, but whatever the reason, when the three consciousnesses mixed, something odd happened.
The following week, Will and Doug spent most of their free time playing catch, throwing frisbees, and walking in the park. After an hour of frisbee that Saturday, both of them sat on the porch.
“This week has been a lot of fun,” Doug said. “How come you haven’t asked me to help you with your latest invention?”
“Well, Dad. I really don’t care about that stuff anymore. I would rather play catch with you. It’s more fun.”
Doug smiled. “That’s fine with me. I like hanging out with you, no matter what we do.”
Will smiled also. Then he got out of his chair, flopped down on his side on the porch, and started scratching behind his ear.
Happy Monday.
Mark
Not the direction I was expecting with the Willie story. Certainly more wholesome than my cynical brain was formulating hahahaha
You gotta get it! - “Best game ever” Not sure if this was intentional or not, but this reminded me of how social media is designed to set off the pleasure section of the brain so you’ll stay engaged whether you’re enjoying yourself or not.
He can’t get her out of his head - Where can I find a woman like that? On Facebook, apparently.
The Dog Code - And this is why you don’t give robots the ability to hijack bodies! As soon as Willie took over the dog I knew something bad was going to happen! The idea of three consciousnesses mixed together is both fascinating and horrifying.
“Then he got out of his chair, flopped down on his side on the porch, and started scratching behind his ear.” With his foot or with his hand? Doug is going to be in for a shock if he sees his son rubbing his ear with his foot! 🤣