The Hat Club

Eve Trevert pulled into the McBucky-Mayer Gigacorp Southwell car park. She engaged the brake and paused for a moment before continuing. This pause allowed her to emerge from the dreamlike alpha state induced by the drive across the vastness of the Los Angeles metropolitan area.

Every morning was the same. The first part of the drive, through rush-hour urban traffic, often demanded her full attention. But it was the last few miles, through the flatter-than-flat San Fernando Valley on that final arrow-straight stretch of the 405 Freeway, that had the hypnotic effect. The only distraction was one particular animated billboard, two miles before her turnoff, that changed every few months. At the moment it was advertising PimpMyDeadendCareer.Com and featured a perkily smiling young woman, dressed in a smart red blazer over a tailored white blouse and a tight black skirt, and she was juggling three hats. Her pose, with one heel kicked sideways into the air, looked improbable for such a feat of balance and dexterity; but she never dropped the airline pilot’s cap, the safety hard hat, or the bowler hat. It amused Eve every morning as she contemplated just what kind of job this woman was seeking that would require her to wear a bowler hat.

She turned the volume down on the CD—currently the latest release by Exploding Iguanas—and opened the window a crack, allowing an onrush of hot air to force its way into the air-conditioned interior, and quickly closed it again. Then she manoeuvred around the car parks—Lot 3 into Lot 2B and finally into a space in Lot 2A. Prepared for the heat she climbed out of her cool refuge into the blast furnace of the day and made her way toward the windowless building where she worked.

As she approached the entrance things felt so unreal that she began to doubt her own awareness. Had she truly awakened this morning, or was she still dreaming from under her tiger-striped sheets? To assure herself that she was in fact awake she compulsively checked her flies. And then she remembered she was wearing the jeggings with the mock zipper on the side, unlike her usual jeans. She generally preferred the symmetry of center flies, or the absence of any flies at all. But today the touch of the zipper gave her a feeling of materiality, the uniqueness of asymmetric clothing. It was the anchor that convinced her she was not about to walk into her workplace half-dressed or without her handbag or her—did she put her keys in her handbag? Yes, there they were. The desert-dry Santa Ana conditions weren't helping matters, either. A gust of cool rain-cleansed air would be such a stimulating treat. But, alas, this was LA—or La Ciudad de Nuestra Mujer La Reina De Los Angeles, as she liked to think of it. But no matter what she called it, it was still damn predictable: the forecast was nearly always for clear skies with highs of 80 to 90 degrees. Perhaps La Ciudad de Nuestro Tiempo Monótono would be more appropriate.

Yes, she did in fact crawl out from under the sheets, and she did have the bowlful of Oat Stars and the double short cappuccino—and yes, she did add more water to the espresso machine reservoir, and as she was about to leave she did quickly discourage yet another telephone caller offering to remotely fix her PC. So yes, she was awake. It was merely another Tuesday—or was it Wednesday?—and here she was, her desk and her computer and the Evolvit Smart 3D Printer/Scanner/Copier website revisions all waiting for her.

At 2:11 in the afternoon Eve was still sitting at her desk staring at the revised marketing copy on the screen.

The McBucky-Mayer Gigacorp Evolvit™ Smart 3D Printer/Scanner/Copier is the next step forward in cloud manufacturing. The Evolvit™ works like a regular combination printer/scanner/copier in that it can scan 2-dimensional drawings and documents and then print them as 2-dimensional drawings and documents. But it also has features of a top-range 3D printer in that it can print 3-dimensional objects in a variety of materials.

But the Evolvit™ goes further than this. Not only can it print 3-dimensional objects from 2-dimensional drawings, but it can also scan existing 3-dimensional objects and print out exact replicas. The resulting scan files are then instantly available, through the AtomCloud™, to other Evolvits™ around the world which can then print the identical objects. Using IoT (Internet of Things) technology, the smart software automatically implants a UID, or unique individual identifier, inside every object it prints.

Was it clear enough, she wondered. Had she gone overboard with the trademark symbols?

Evie, it's almost Twaddle Hour. She looked up bleary-eyed from the screen. Desta Moore was jingling her car keys enticingly as if Eve were a cat.

I'm sneaking over to Coffee Fix to get a latte, she said. Do you want anything?

Oh god, it's Tuesday again. Eve reached into her drawer for her handbag. Can you get me a double cappuccino? She handed a five-dollar bill to Desta. You're a star, Des. Desta grinned.

I know, girlfriend.

Twaddle Hour was the term the Evolvit team had coined for the weekly staff meeting chaired by their manager Bob Jibble, whom Eve and her friends referred to as Bibble. Little was ever accomplished at this weekly exercise in office-speak blather. It was a good opportunity for Eve to practice her cartooning and caricatures, and for software engineer and meteorology enthusiast Thanh Tran to browse world weather reports on his phone. Coffee Fix, the nearby coffee shop, always experienced a temporary increase in sales on Tuesdays, as caffeine was a requisite component in staying awake during Bob's ineloquent espousals, malapropistic metaphors, and irrelevant sports references.

Eve and Desta took the two seats around the large oblong table between Thanh and the group’s ever-cheerful CAD designer, Rachel.

Hi, guys, Rachel chirped. Gorgeous day, isn't it?

If you like the heat, Eve replied. I’d prefer something a bit more refreshing.

And less smoggy, added Desta as she fanned her neck with her notebook. It’s toxic out there right now.

Once everyone else was seated Bob Jibble hurried into the room. He settled his slightly stocky frame into his usual chair, shifted his buttocks until he was comfortable, adjusted his tie, opened his laptop, and brought up a SilverBullet agenda.

Okay, team, he started. We've got a plethora of items to action in this limited timeframe, so let’s get the ball rolling and identify the players from the start. With no further ado I’ll get on board with the first item on the agenda to action.

Bob paused and glanced around the table.

"Now, I’m not going to make a mountain out of a ball of wax and run it all the way up the flagpole, but somebody forgot the doughnuts again."

The room was silent for a moment, and then Ernie spoke up. It was Ed’s turn this week, wasn’t it? he said.

I brought them last week, replied Ed. Don’t you remember? I couldn’t have done it this morning anyway.

But I’m always bringing them. Why can’t somebody else bring them for a change?

I brought them two weeks ago, piped up Sarah. Remember? I even remembered to get a couple of plain buttermilk ones for Rachel. So don’t put the blame on everybody else, Ernie. It was definitely your turn.

And now we don’t have any doughnuts, huffed Ed.

Perhaps we should work out a rota, suggested Sarah.

That’s an awesome idea, Sarah, said Bob. I'm down with you. So can you get that actioned ASAP?

Why me? said Sarah. Right now I’m under a lot of pressure to finish the RealityWorks contract.

But you’re the rota whiz, said Ed. "You always do the rotas. And it won’t take long."

Sarah glared at Ed and sighed her practiced long-suffering sigh.

All right, all right, I’ll do it. But only if I get some sort of dispensation, like not having to go pick up the doughnuts as well. Remember, I have to drop my daughter off at preschool. I can’t do everything.

But who else is going to remember to get the plain buttermilk doughnuts? said Rachel.

What about my pistachio white chocolate doughnuts? Kevin suddenly said. When Sarah gets the doughnuts she never brings any of those back. So how come Rachel rates more than I do?

They don't do pistachio white chocolate at Mel's Doughnuts, sighed Sarah. That's only at Doughnut Experience, and that's way out of my way.

And Doughnut Experience doesn't do plain buttermilk, added Rachel.

Eve glanced over at Desta who was shaking her head and trying not to laugh. Eve turned her attention back to the mountain of doughnuts she was sketching.

Sarah, continued Bob, let’s touch base about this and get our ducks in a row offline. He consulted his bullet list. Now, moving on to the next bullet point. According to Sales we're in the process of finalising the procurement of two more Evolvits, pumping the total number of global sales since the last drill-down to twelve units. So I'd like to extend a hearty thanks, guys, for pushing the cheese and not letting the grass grow under it. It's all about being professionals and sprinkling our awesome magic once again—and of course plenty of blue sky thinking. I have one final thing to say about this and that's 'Wicked, dudes!'

By this point Eve had sketched a full notebook page featuring Bob Jibble flying away in a hot-air balloon, casting doughnuts as ballast onto an Escheresque staircase that Ed and Ernie were attempting to climb while idea showers rained from the clouds. She again glanced at Desta, who was tracing the decorations on her latte cup with her pen as she tried not to yawn. On the other side of her Thanh was contentedly trawling African precipitation statistics on his phone. When he caught Eve looking at him he peeked over his glasses and gave her a wink.

Now, continued Bob, let's move on to the final bullet point: Ralph's retirement lunch on Friday. We have three options: Donny's Pizza, Los Zapatos, or the Brooklyn Burger and Barbecue Barn.

"Well, what do you prefer, Ralph?" said Desta.

Oh, I don't mind, said Ralph, smiling meekly. Whatever everybody else is happy with.

All right, continued Bob. So chew on this, guys. I'll have Jason cascade down a voting sheet, so you can opt for your preference by the close of play. Oh, and don’t forget that Rachel’s choir is performing at the Hollywood Bowl Thursday night, is it?

That’s right, Bob, said Rachel, nodding energetically. We’re doing an Andrew Lloyd Weber retrospective. I’ve still got a few tickets left.

Thanks for walking us through that, Rachel. So any questions, comments, good jokes?

Kevin cleared his throat.

Yes, Kevin?

Um, so I just wanted to mention that I’m doing the Tour de Costa SoCal, um, Cycle Challenge next weekend. It's 115 miles from Los Angeles to Santa Barbara, and it’s for rectal cancer, so I was sort of hoping everybody could sponsor me. I’ve got the sponsor sheet on my desk.

Okay, Kevin, thanks for cascading that. So everybody reach in your pockets and support Kevin. Okay, anything else?

The room was silent.

All right then, Bob concluded, in lieu of doughnuts, grab your towels and hit those idea showers!

At least it was relatively short this time, said Eve as they left the room.

Yeah, said Desta mid-yawn. Proof there is a God.

Hey, said Thanh. If y'all can manage to stay awake, ya gotta check out my latest HollowBladder print. He was referring to HoloGrammik, a 3D photo app created by Ed, who was the team’s chief app developer and whose surname was Blatter. Thanh was enthusiastic about HoloGrammik’s potential, but he considered the name ridiculous.

Is this a new one or a revision? said Desta.

Brand spankin' new.

Cool, said Eve. There’s something I wanna try, anyway.

The three of them entered the printer room. On one side, on a large raised base, stood the prototype Evolvit E-1. The scanner section looked no different than the best quality scanner on the market other than the fact that a second scanner carriage could be raised vertically to scan three-dimensional objects. The printer consisted of a flat staging bed for the final product, a reel of PLA filament as well as a vat for liquid and ground materials, and the laser-powered printing nozzles.

So where is it? said Eve.

It's over here, said Thanh. I moved it off the bed just in time for the meetin’. Didn't particularly want Bibble to find it.

He led them to a shelf on the side where objects were rested after printing. In the back was a tiny figure of Bob Jibble with two doughnuts crammed in his mouth. The photolike realism was startling.

Absolutely brilliant! exclaimed Eve. The detail’s perfect. You've really captured him this time. It’s the best Bibblet yet.

You should make him a bit pudgier, said Desta, considering all the doughnuts he eats.

I can add that to the design algorithm, said Thanh. Add on a couple pounds with each printin’.

Which reminds me, said Eve. Let me get something out of my desk. She ran out and brought back what looked like an engineering drawing of an industrial fork.

What the hell is it? said Desta, intrigued by the strange proportions.

It's called an impossible trident, explained Eve as she laid it out on the scanner bed. It’s also called the Devil’s tuning fork. My dad gave this to me a few years ago. He’s always liked drawings with impossible proportions. He once gave me a book of drawings by MC Escher, and they’re basically two-dimensional drawings of four-dimensional places and objects. And this is also a two-dimensional drawing of a four-dimensional object.

I don't know about this, said Desta doubtfully. I mean, you're just gonna confuse the poor scanner. What do you think, Thanh?

Thanh was staring at the drawing with a slight smile on his face.

It'll be interestin’ to see what happens, he said. We haven't allowed for four-dimensional representations, and I'm just wonderin’ how the algorithm'll rewrite itself. The worst that'll happen is it'll just return an error.

So shall we try it? said Eve, her eyes twinkling with excitement.

Let's use PLA to start, said Desta. If it actually works we can try it with a more interesting medium.

Okie-dokie, said Thanh. As he prepared the nozzles Eve repositioned the drawing on the scanner bed and switched on the scanner. The three-dimensional scanner carriages moved quickly and easily over the drawing, returning and retracing their course three times at slightly different angles. Then the printer fired itself up, the PLA reel moved into place, and the nozzles positioned themselves.

And then the indicator lights went out one by one and the entire assembly went dead. In the resulting silence the ambient hum of the overhead lights seemed deafening.

Evie.... whispered Desta. I think...you broke it.

Calm down, y'all, said Thanh. It crashed. Just needs rebootin'. He turned the unit off, waited a moment, and then turned it back on. Indicator lights flashed and the entire unit made gurgling sounds as if it were resetting...and then it crashed again. After a moment Eve broke the silence.

Oops, she said quietly. Was Desta right? Had they actually broken it, this $50,000 piece of ground-breaking equipment?

Listen, said Thanh. This baby is a powerhouse. It can't be broken that easily. I'm sure the software is just feelin’ a little bit confused, that's all.

Eve took the drawing off the scanner bed. I hope you're right, Thanh, she said nervously.

Don't ya worry. I'll go check through the code, see how it's evolved, and figure it out. After all, it's a smart machine. It's probably just thinkin’.

Chapter 2. The Impossible Trident

Thanh stepped from the already-warm morning air into the air-conditioned room. He relished this time of the morning, the quiet hour before the influx of the 8:00am arrivers. The early morning was the only guaranteed time of the work day when he could be in complete command of his thoughts. He had learned to be an early riser back in Texas, taking advantage of the fresh calm hours before the inevitable heat became oppressive. So he wasn't alarmed by the thought of rising before the sun started to crack the nighttime, the time when his peers, if they could afford the luxury, would still be wallowing in the comfort of their bedcovers like contented infants.

Thanh's parents were among the first wave of Vietnamese migrants to the United States after the fall of Saigon in 1975. Born in Dallas nine years later, Thanh grew up in nearby Garland where his mother bought him his first computer when he was ten and his father instilled in him a deep respect for the science of weather reporting. After Thanh got his degree in software engineering at the University of Texas he moved to Los Angeles to work at McBucky-Mayer, and he was now Chief Software Scientist on the Evolvit project. He’d had plenty of time to acclimate himself to Southern California and could easily pass himself off as a native Angeleno if he wanted to; but he still liked to milk his Texas accent and dialect for effect. It was a natural-born way to establish himself as a unique entity—a Vietnamese Texan—in the vast faceless megalopolis.

Thanh switched on his computer and headed for the printer room. He’d stayed an hour late last night, but he hadn't managed to isolate the problem with the Evolvit. After a bit of tweaking of the initial object file he'd restarted the Evolvit twice, only to have it crash again. He finally decided to have a look at the output code that the scan would have produced. And what he found was completely mysterious and incomprehensible to his trained eyes. Yet it was strangely beautiful, as if a genius of an artist had created layer upon layer of code in a completely unknown language with no purpose other than to mystify.

But perhaps it was just fatigue on his part. As he knew well, programming is a Zen discipline: when a problem seems unsolvable, the programmer must step away and spend some time concentrating on things completely unrelated to the problem. Today was a new day, and he was looking forward to tackling the problem with fresh eyes and a fresh mind.

Before he started examining the code again he wanted to prepare the printer for a new test. He thought it strange that the PLA reel was nearly empty. But it was even stranger when he tried to wipe the print bed and knocked his hand on what felt like a solid object. But there was nothing there.

Repulsed by the sensation, he yanked his hand away and stared at the empty bed for a moment. Maybe it's electrical