Chapter 7: Unless
Monkeying your way into anomalies, bugs, malware, and the occasional viruses would seem unappealing just to any other person who wants a smooth operation in their devices.
Who would want inexplicable glitches as they watched an episode of Stranger Things? Maybe the people who troll Millie Bobbie Brown.
Who would want to play games when major bugs still aren't fixed by the developers? Maybe the people who can use the game bug to their advantage.
Who would want malicious software invading into their company systems or home systems? Any victim wouldn't but the ones who can profit or take advantage of it are the ones laughing.
Who would want the computer equivalent of AIDS or Corona inside their computers? Perhaps no one but it would bring joy to the trolls who unleashed or made it. Maybe one day, they'll be hired by the Pentagon as their cyber liason but it would be most unfortunate if they ended up in prison.
Of course, Alexander hadn't used all of his monkey-typed discoveries to any use. He was just admiring their capabilities and the fact that they came into existence because of his sheer dumb luck.
The Infinite Monkey Theorem would probably cease being a theorem if it was changed into Creed's Absentminded Law.
He just stored what could be stored and added it to his collection. Bugs and viruses are among the hardest to isolate, emulate, or replicate so there were only a few drives that he has on them.
Even the billions of characters in his code sequence have been corrected a hundred times. Backup copies and backup computers have been discarded or in the ready.
Aside from CREED being a store that holds a collection of his memorabilia to remember his past and family, it also holds his collection of bogging storage devices that when uploaded to a computer, could cause disrepair.
Even before Sandra Bullock's The Net movie from 1995 introduced a character that collects dysfunctional programs, Alexander was already living his collection habits ever since the AIDS incident, the Morris Worm, and the Ghostball.
Grabbing hold of rarities and legends was nigh impossible unless you can have programming connections that you have accumulated in a span of a colorful career.
Frankly, Alexander might have mingled on Silicon Valley because of a collector's urge.
Aside from his fascination with the orderly development of programs, he had much more appreciation for the things that made that chaotic and unruly.
Chaos Theory had been ingrained in his head and as much as he looked forward to the orderly progression of a company's major program, he also kept his eyes open to all those abnormalities that always pop out.
He himself believes that they happened because the programmers came dangerously close to something that natural order doesn't want them to touch, hence natural chaos is unleashed.
Even his disorderly and absentminded monkey typing birthed chaotic codes, so instead of opting to slow down, he pushed forward after getting rid and admiring the push back.
His freelancing as a program support guy is another way to anticipate malfunctions and be ready for them. Like the necessary flu to have so one can become immune to major diseases in the future.
It was unfortunate that even Alexander could tell that he was unlikely to reach the endpoint of what the malfunctions tell him not to approach.
He has billions of characters and millions of incoherent command codes embedded in the program he is looking at on his computer yet that took 20 years to reach.
He was already 47-years-old and it was doubtful that the root of what chaos wants him to avoid is within reach after another billion characters by the time he is 65.
The process couldn't be automated as well as the produced malfunctions could most likely corrupt high-processing simulations.
It was a manual and continuous process that may never see its end by the time he reaches the end of his life.
It was a futile attempt but exciting nonetheless for the reclusive Alexander Creed.
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It was laborious and the results may be tantamount to nothing...
"Unless..." Alexander's absentminded mind spun fast as it kicked its gears into calculative and scheming.
"Unless what?" Sandra groggily asked as she stretched on the bed from just waking up.
"Not something you should consider but there is breakfast in the kitchen if you're hungry." Alexander dismissed her as his eyes consciously darted to the pile of flash drives, floppy disks, and CDs in his lifelong collection.
Sandra pouted at the man's disregard for her but she knew it was useless to complain so she just got dressed to fill her stomach.
Taking off the sticky note in her head, she headed down while Alexander transferred his line of sight towards his computer system. "I hope that this computer can take the strain."
Procrastinating wasn't among his options in this sudden lightbulb moment, so he made haste.
The messy blanket and beddings were thrown to the floor and Sandra who heard the noise from below could only shrug and enjoy the French toast.
"Interchangers, glitchers, multipliers, deleters, offers, penetrators, destroyers, and the specials." Alexander iterated his classifications as he tossed his malfunction code drive collections to whichever pile they fit into.
Trojans and all the bugs are intermixed among piles and all of them number to 200 or so.
He could have procured more but all that he came across from freelancing are just a repeat or a slight deviation from what he has.
The 232 in his collection are what he considers to be truly unique in their functions or would be disfunction that they can cause.
One can delete an entire coding sequence. One can delete a specific character in a coding sequence. One can delete specific commands in a coding sequence. The other ones can mostly delete in some ways different than the others.
Whether anomaly, malware core, translated bug, or virus as long as they fit the description of a deleter they belong in that pile.
Interchangers, glitchers, multipliers, and the rest follow the same deviation as deleters.
Perhaps special malfunctions like screen splitting, blurs, and all that are among the number fillers in the pile.
It was fortunate that Alexander made some contemporary labels of classifications and names to make his job easier.
Even the newest addition, the interchanger bug from Jessica Barry was labeled within a day or two of procurement.
By the time he was done, Sandra was already full and went back upstairs to see the mess on the bed. She remembered their activities on the bed and assumed this was another role play.
"I thought we were going to do it in a pile of dollars but I can go with an appliance kink if you want." She nodded her head at him to convey that she understands what he wants.
Her misunderstanding was registered in his mind but 'Unless' was also ringing in his thoughts.