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Laser Light Show

Guard Unit DR-26 emitted blinding scanning beams from its neon blue eyes, and waved them to and fro, willy-nilly, illuminating the hallway. ARI had uploaded several repeatable guard routines, and this was none of them. DR-26’s circuits were unpredictable, with certain NAND and NOR gates reversed, and with certain memory sectors accessible but corrupt. This latest of DR-26’s homebrews, this laser light-show, was the result of a positive feedback loop generated from a routine garbage collection task.

With the bright display still playing on the walls, DR-26 finally rolled into ARI’s second routine – step to the end of the hall, turn left at the corner, continue until the first fork, then trace back to the robotics shop. Hall, corner, and even “left” were all understood and accomplished admirably. Unfortunately, Unit 26’s definition of fork was corrupt – he thus continued on, past the fork, turning this way and that throughout the ship, flickering blue light beams all about, and searching for a pronged utensil.

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