The Prefect would have stormed into the room if it didn't take so long for the doorway to dilate. Visibly angry, his brows furrowed and eyes narrowed to small, intense beams. "What is going on here? REPORT!"
Roger, startled, was somewhat prepared. "The Anomaly has gotten worse, with longer and longer stretches of non-responsive behavior. You can see in this report we sent you..."
"Yes, I've read the report and had to drop everything to come and see what you two have been up to. I just don't know why such a routine problem has been made so complicated."
Sue interjected, rattled by his thunder, "But Prefect, you'd said we had been chosen because of the complexity of this problem and because of our skills..."
While the Prefect softened at this, he continued on with a growl, "Your job was to get this back to being simpler, to reduce the complexity back to norms. It was a simple anomaly, where the subject had introduced a repeating inconsistency which should have been able to be resolved with some slight modifications to existing algorithms."
He motioned Roger to give up his seat, and sat down in his place, typing. "Your texts are very clear on this. The structure of the human mind was determined years ago, and the math surrounding it's control and manipulation are precise. If you two need a refresher course, I'm sure it can be arranged..." The prefect lost himself into studying the code on the screen.
Roger and Sue glanced at each other with alarm. Having to repeat classes would set back their grad date and force them to start their final projects over from scratch. Their lives would be in shambles. Sue slumped back in her seat. Roger leaned against the control room wall, almost in a daze, but concentrating on reviewing his code mentally to see where things had turned wrong, something he had missed...
"Ah, here it is. Simpler than I thought, but more that we didn't throw enough at this scene. Look you should have asked for more help instead of trying it all on your own. Okay. We're piling more onto this one."
The Prefect rose and paused for a minute, gathering his thoughts. "You know this used to be a much larger room, but was closed down as we had computers take over more of the routine functions. The deal with this subject is that he's much more involved than usual. Most of the subroutines require custom coding just to keep up with his changes. He's taken this anomaly and spread it into the core functions. This is what is causing the perceptics problems."
"You mean the white screens."
"Precisely. Our sensors can't interpret the data, as they are based on established models, which this subject is altering, almost on the fly. So we have to set up a team again for this one."
As the professor stood there he again paused, considering all the options and resources he had. "Here's what we are going to do. Start the Tanslinksy Solution and keep it up until he mutes and goes offline. That should fill up his dreams with multiple scenarios and keep him from reflecting on anything but those. I'll borrow some other grad students from other projects and we'll get this other equipment back online. Hope they don't bother you much. Just stay focused on getting him into a Tanslinksy and that should give us time. Meanwhile, just ignore the white screens. He's still getting what we are sending him, but we can't always read the response. Start sending on a Level 8 frequency and increase this as needed."
With that the Prefect spun on his heel and quickly left the small space.
Roger slunk into his customary seat, his heartbeat starting to slow as he forced himself to take deep breaths.
Sue reached over to touch his arm. "If he's using that method, he's pulling out all the stops."
Roger looked at her, also concerned. "And he's planning something which looks huge. But he can't let a dreamer get away from him. It would look bad on him and the university as well. Last one which got away almost got that prefect sacked and the department lost most of their budget."
"And the grad students were transferred, having to start over. Some transferred to a completely different major."
Both realized their own future plans were now completely riding on how this one dreamer-project turned out. With a pale face, Sue put both hands in her lap, staring through the screen to an unfocused object beyond.
Roger moved first. "Well, let's get this solution implemented. Start the timer. Let me pull up the code."
Keyboards started clattering, the only noise in a room which seemed suddenly smaller.