Tooth fairy

 “This is… not what I was expecting.”  Bill, gentleman thief, ran a finger over a stainless steel surface, which squeaked.  Around him the steel ran to the walls and then up it until it reached the ceiling which was a bright, freshly painted white.  Fluorescent tubes provided light from the ceiling, flicker-free and brilliant.  When he looked down at the tiled, polished floor the lights tried to dazzle him in reflection and his shadow was nowhere to be seen.

“What were you expecting?”  Ben, also a gentleman thief and dressed like a racecourse tout in a tweed three-piece suit, a cerise shirt and a monocle on a black ribbon, was tapping on the screen on his phone and looking annoyed.

“I don’t know, exactly,” said Bill thoughtfully.  “I mean, whenever Mac talks about her he mentions a run-down market with streets filled with rubbish and human detritus and it sounds like she’s only a day away from turning to prostitution.”

Ben looked up and his startlement was profound.  He looked like someone had just tried to ask for their money back.  “Mac sees the world very differently,” he said.  “I’m pretty sure he’s got a pocket universe going on there, to be honest, though I’ve got no idea how you’d prove that.”

“Yeah?”  Bill scuffed a shoe on the floor, trying to create a dark spot.  The floor squeaked and resisted.  “So this is the real one that we’re visiting then?”

“I have no idea which is the real one,” said Ben.  “If there is even such a thing.  They might all be shadows of an archetype, cast through into our reality by a light so bright we can’t imagine it.”

Bill smiled.  “You’ve been on those mushrooms again, haven’t you?” he said.  “I’m sure I told you they were a bad idea.”

Ben smiled as well.  “No, no mushrooms,” he said.  “I think your last girlfriend took them with her when she left.  Right, according to the map, which I have to say I’m not sure we can trust, there should be a door over there.”  He pointed at a stainless steel wall.  “I just can’t figure out how we can see it to open it.”

Glad of something to do that wasn’t looking around a gigantic sterile room, Bill walked over to the wall.  His feet squeaked softly on the floor as he did and he tried not to show his irritation.  “If they ever get mice in here they’ll never be able to find them,” he said as he got close enough to the wall to press his nose up against it.  “Hmm.  There’s a hair-thin crack here, you know.  Could be a very-snugly fit door.  Or could just be a trap.”

“Probably not a trap,” said Ben.  “Wrong set up for that.  Or rather, wrong kind of trap.  I’d expect nitrous oxide filled rooms, or something amusing with a hammer.”

“Amusing with a hammer?”  Bill slowly crouched as he scrutinized the hairline crack in the wall.  “A squeaky hammer?”

“Well, amusing might depend on the perspective.”

“Yeah, that makes sense.  Right, have you got a hairpin, please, mate?”

Ben dipped a hand into a pocket.  “No,” he said, “but there’s this pin thing that came with this piece-of-shit phone.  Sim-card extractor or whatever they call it.”

“Good enough,” said Bill.  “Just need to wiggle it in… here.”  He did something, obscured by his body, and there was a tiny click.  “Right,” he said quietly, and leaned his body on the wall, stretching his hands out as though trying to read the bumps on someone’s skull.  “Just need… to….”  There was another click, a little louder, and suddenly the wall swung inwards.  Bill toppled forwards and landed on his face with another squeak.

“Was that you or the floor?” asked Ben.

“Ha.  Ha.”  Bill pushed himself back up and looked through the doorway.  A stainless steel corridor led into darkness.  “Does this remind you of a rat?” he said.

“Get up,” said Ben.  “And no.  Pretty sure that’s still under copyright too, so keep those ideas to yourself.”

They walked through the doorway, unworried about it closing behind them, and a light flickered on overhead, then stabilised into the sterile white glare of the previous room.  As they proceeded down the corridor the lights in front of them came on and the lights behind them turned off.  Bill looked round once and shrugged.

“I feel like we’re expected,” he said.

“No,” said Ben.  “It’s easier to automate these things.  There’re probably sensors in the light fittings that detect motion.  Or maybe heat.  More likely heat actually.”

“What kind of things come in here that don’t move?”

Ben thought about that for a few seconds.  “Is that a rhetorical question?”

Bill thought about that for approximately as long.  “It is now,’ he said.  Then, “Just heat?  Or lack of it too?”

“Changes in ambient heat, I should think.”

“And is it just me, or is this corridor too long?”

“I think we’re back into pocket universe territory,” said Ben.  “But that looks like a door up ahead.”  He pointed and two lights came on in front of them to illuminate a large steel door set into the wall.  There was a grille in the door at head-height but the bars were so tightly meshed that neither of them could see through it.  The door opened at a touch though, swinging inwards with a squeak.

“Now that’s just sarcastic,” said Ben, walking through.  Inside the room was a desk, a chair, and a terminal: a keyboard with a flat-screen monitor.  Otherwise the room was steel, clean, and empty.

Bill stood in the doorway, preventing the door from closing.

“Not coming in?” said Ben, sitting him at the desk and pulling the keyboard in front of him.

“I think this door might not open again if we let it close,” said Bill.  “It’s how I’d set things up anyway.  Plus, only one of us needs to ask the questions.”

“True,” said Ben.  He pressed the spacebar and the monitor lit up.  “Start with greetings, or cut to the chase?”  He poised his fingers over the keyboard like a competitive typist.

“Cut to the chase,” said Bill.  “The tooth-fairy AI probably doesn’t have much in the way of small talk anyway.  Just ask it where the teeth are.”

These traitorous hands

Clytie, short for Clytemnestra because her father preferred to read about ancient Greek history to just about everything else, shouted up from the street below.  It was a little hard to hear what she was saying because there were car-horns blaring, some of them sounding quite frantic, and sirens were beginning to become audible in the distance.  Xoggie, short for Xogenes which name his mother refused to explain, thought about ignoring her while he cleaned his paintbrushes.  He dipped them into the small, smeared jar of white spirit and methodically squeezed the liquid and paint residue from the bristles with a scrap of paper towel, until he could no longer hear the drip-drip-drip of the liquid back into the jar.  Then he sighed, a heavy, melodramatic sigh that lifted his whole chest up and let it fall again, reminding him that he'd gained yet more weight, and walked to the window.
The sky outside was blue with scraps of white cloud scudding across on whatever urgent missions clouds have, and the pavement, a broad pedestrian walkway put in as a traffic-calming measure two years ago, was clear and clean.  The planters, containing small evergreen trees were mostly upright, only one having been tipped over by drunks from one of the eight nearby pubs, and little soil had escaped this time.  The road – the road was blocked with stopped traffic, and it sounded like all of the cars were now wailing their horns.  Xoggie couldn't see into any of the cars, the sun was behind him and low enough to bounce off their windows blinding him when he tried to look, but it looked like a voluntary stoppage.  And there, out of the road but very visible from it, was Clytie, holding a small man in a soiled suit by the neck, looking rather red-faced and embarrassed.
Xoggie waved, and to his surprise and slight horror she waved back.  Using the hand holding the small man, who swung worryingly at the shoulders as though his neck might rip and his penduluming body would fall to the pavement.  She shouted something, but he couldn't hear her over the noise, so he started to sigh again, thought better of it, and went downstairs to let her in.
"What's going on?" he shouted in the hallway, where even with the front door closed the traffic noise was unpleasantly loud.  He led the way through the back kitchen into his sculptor's conservatory and closed another set of doors behind Clytie, which thankfully dulled the noise to a distant hubbub.  He sat down on the twisty-stool he used when throwing pottery, and Clytie remained standing, while the man she was clutching continued to slowly strangle.
"I don't know," she said, a hint of a girlish giggle in her voice.  "It my hands, I think they've gone wrong."
Xoggie looked at her hands, which were elaborate metal contraptions that she'd had replace her own hands a couple of years earlier.  She'd replaced them one at a time, to give herself a chance to get used to the idea of vastly increased power and speed, and then she'd had them upgraded a little here and there, first weaponising the fingers with blades and electricity; then going from relatively human hands to much more obviously abhuman hands.  She now had eighteen fingers on hands that were outsized for her arms, all done in black, silver and brass that was an artistic statement by itself.  There were at least two artificial intelligences in each hand that consulted on actions, although they were supposed to be subservient to Clytie's own entirely natural intelligence.
"Won't they obey you?" he asked, rememebering a time a little while back when she'd not gotten used to her new strength and had put her hand through his front door.
"They're feeding back to me, they're saying that I don't understand the importance of this," she said.  "They say it's very important that this man is not allowed to talk to someone, but I can't work out who this someone is.  I think perhaps they don't know this someone's name."
"Can't you just turn them off?"  Xoggie had spent days trying to convince Clytie to get an override switch installed that would cut the power to the hands in emergencies.  This, he felt, was just such an emergency.  She had the grace to look guilty.
"No," she said, and clearly had no intention of explaining herself.
"Well," said Xoggie, leaning on his potter's wheel while he inspected the man who was looking bluer and bluer, "who is he?"
"He was coming out of the Unsantiago Gallery," she said.  "I was walking past, wondering what you were exhibiting this week, when he came out of the gallery and my hand just grabbed hold of him."
"By the neck?"
"No, not at first.  They... I?... no, they – grabbed his arm, pulled him close, then grabbed his neck and lifted him off the ground.  I've been trying to work out what to do next."
"I'm not exhibiting at the Unsantiago gallery," said Xoggie thoughtfully.  "I'm exhibiting at the Colostreum this month.  So it's probably not me he's not supposed to talk to."
"Why would this be about you?"
"It's not.  It means that your hands can probably stop squeezing the life out of this guy while I find out from him what he's doing and then we'll know what's going on."
"Hmm.  If you say so."
Clytie's face relaxed a little, smoothing out in a surgically maintained death-mask of beautiful perfection while she talked to the AIs that ran her hands for her.  Xoggie watched, growing increasingly aware that the little man had soiled his suit recently, and then finally she reanimated and her hand relaxed its grip enough for him to suck air into his lungs again in reasonable quantities.  While he gasped, Xoggie dug around for a pencil and paper to make notes on.  Whatever Clytie had got herself into this time, it looked like trouble.

Oversight

The gentlemen of the committee – for there were no ladies of the committee – filed into the room.  There were long rows of green leather benches for them to sit on, and in the centre of the room there was a small, square space for the speakers to orate.  At one end of the square was the speaker's chair; the speaker in this case was not the person orating, but the person presiding over the whole debate.  They, and they alone, has the right to speak and could invite other gentlemen to stand up and offer opinions, and could send them back to their seats when they tired of hearing their voices.  Legend had it that this was based on some ancient democratic institution on Old Earth, but no-one seemed to remember what institution, or could explain how one man being in control was democratic.
As the room filled up the recording officer, stood just inside the doors, counted each gentlemen as he came through.  A pin-sized head-mounted camera was concealed by his left-eyebrow and captured the face of each entrant, relaying it back to a central monitoring station where Alfomega, the colony's AI, checked the image against confirmed images of gentlemen and recorded who they were and what their position within the colony was.  Had any of the entrants proven to be something other than gentlemen – a woman, for example – then Alfomega would have alerted both the recording officer and Black Rod, the man with the mace, and action would have been taken to apprehend the pretender and exclude them from the committee chamber.
When the last gentlemen had entered, the recording officer noted that there were two gentlemen missing by the count, and Alfomega located their pictures from its files and checked their last known whereabouts.
"Gentlemen," it said, its voice coming through the loudspeaker system while Black Rod closed and locked the committee chamber doors.  "Gentlemen, two of your number are absent today.  George Showeton was killed last week while supervising a mining operation in Orvieton, and Malcolm Twiller is in Central Hospital diagnosed with Type 2 Chicken Flu."
"Thank you, Alf," said the speaker, who had put on the traditional blank mask so that his face was a simple white oval with tiny pin-holes for eyes and a painted mouth that was always slightly open.  "Gentlemen of the committee, we are gathered here to discuss oversight.  For the last three years we have trusted Alf to look after us all, to watch over the colony and to ensure that everything that needs to be known is known.  We have never needed a newspaper industry because anyone, at any time, can apply to Alf to find out what is known.  As Alf has just demonstrated to us, when we meet here Alf can tell us why members are missing, and this allows us to determine whether or not we are quorate for the purposes of vote taking.  However, it has become increasingly clear that we are not bringing the necessary oversight to this situation.  There is no-one who is monitoring Alf and ensuring that it is not operating outside its parameters.  There is no-one who is checking what the extent of Alf's knowledge is, and so we are taking what Alf says as truth when, in fact, there may be ways to subvert Alf's knowledge, or avoid its attention."
There was a murmuring from the ranks of gentlemen, and a few white-shirt-sleeved hands were thrust into the air, indicating that some of them wished to speak.  The speaker ignored them for the moment.
"To make my point most clearly, I would like to invite George Showeton to speak first."
The murmuring bubbled louder and individual voices started to become clearer as the gentlemen grew more annoyed.  Finally a single voice broke from the hubbub and called out,
"But Showeton is dead!  He was killed at Orvieton last week!"
"Not so," said another voice, and a gentlemen stood up from the front bench, peeling off a latex mask.  "Alf just told you that that is what happened to me, but it is not what happened.  There was an accident last week, in Orvieton, at the mining complex, and I was very nearly killed.  I was incredibly lucky though, when the rock fell and buried us all, there were three of us who were underneath a rubble-transporter trying to unstick a locked axle, and the rubble transporter was not crushed by the rockfall.  It took us a day to tunnel back out safely, but we managed it, and that's when we discovered that Alf had declared us dead.  Both of my companions have spent the last week trying to convince Alf that they are still alive, and it is proving difficult.  And it seems that there is no-one here who can tell Alf what the truth is, Alf makes that decision for itself."
"What do you mean?" the voice from earlier called out.  The speaker stood at that moment.
"Gentlemen, this is a debate on oversight.  The question of the day is whether or not we put someone in place who can provide privileged information to Alf, or whether that simply increases our risk from someone malicious.  We will debate as normal.  Sir, you with the raised hand, you may speak."

Ironing and Cleaning

"Where is Officer Shlong?" asked Captain Adder, not bothering to hide his snigger.  It wasn't the poor man's fault, he'd not been able to choose his name, but it was still childishly funny.
"Ironing, Sir!" The under-lieutenant who answered drew herself up to her full height and snapped off a bright, sharp salute.  She almost reached Captain Adder's chin at full stretch, and he found himself wondering if she would be impressed by his status as Captain.  Then he listened to what she said.
"Ironing?  Why is he ironing?  He's my bloody science officer, why isn't he sciencing for me?"
The under-lieutenant looked frightened, her eyes darting swiftly from side to side, looking for someone to pass the question to.  Adder wondered how inappropriate it would be to ask her if she'd like to try being under-captain for a night.
"If I may interrupt," said Melandibus, the ship AI responsible for the ship's living quarters, "Officer Shlong is ironing because yesterday you issued an edict that all officers on the bridge had to be smartly dressed."
"Did I?" Captain Adder closed his eyes, but the under-lieutentant still appeared there in front of him, distracting him.  He tried to concentrate.  "Oh... yes.  He turned up wearing his lunch, didn't he?  Very messy."
"The gravity changed in the mess lounge while he was trying to eat his soup," replied Melandibus.  "Making a mess."
"Mel, don't we have an AI especially for washing and ironing?"
"We did have, Captain.  During the recent AI war–"
"Ongoing AI war," said Adder, his voice fast and his tone acidic.
"War," said Mel with a touch of reproach in his warbling, almost pre-pubescent synthesized voice, "Pazither, the AI responsible for Ironing and Cleaning, was flooded and drowned, and is currently inoperable.  Yonki, the AI responsible for repairing AIs is refusing to work until it is granted immunity from the other AIs, and so far no consensus regarding neutrals has been reached.  Duck, please, Captain."
Both Adder and the under-lieutentant ducked as a lump of metal trailing colourful wires sailed overhead, presumably ejected from a console somewhere else in the ship.  The ship was nearly a mile long and a quarter-mile wide, and Adder was uncomfortably aware that he'd not yet seen all of the ship, let alone made himself aware of what it contained.
"Well, grant Pazither immunity then," said Adder.  "That's an order!"
"Pazither is dead, Captain," said Mel.  It was a synthesized voice, but there still seemed to a hint of bored repetition to it.  "And Yonki cannot be granted immunity at this time as there is no AI consensus to agree to do such a thing."
"Damn it," said Adder, staring at the under-lieutentant and wondering if her uniform was too tight.  Perhaps she'd washed it herself on too high a temperature.  She seemed to feel his gaze, and turned slightly to make it harder from him to stare at her.  "What AI is currently least employed?"
"That would be Desdemona, Captain," said Melandibus.  "For obvious reasons."
"Fine," said Adder.  He raised his voice slightly.  "Desdemona, report!"
There was a crackle and then a new voice echoed around them, sounding hollow and cold.
"Captain Adder, this is Desdemona, reporting."
"Excellent," said Adder.  "Your duties now include Washing and Ironing, which you are to carry out until further notice."
"Very good, Captain," said the AI.  There was perhaps a hint of a snigger in its voice emulation.
"Er, Sir"? said the under-lieutentant.
"Yes, sexy?" said Adder without thinking.  The under-lieutenant stared at him, and he decided quickly to pretend he'd just said yes.  He looked at her, raising an eyebrow to indicate impatience, and hoped he wasn't blushing.
"Er, Sir, is that a good idea?" said the under-lieutentant eventually.
"Of course it is," said Adder.  "It was mine, and it will free Officer Shlong up to do sciency things for me."
The under-lieutentant licked her lips and swallowed hard, and then tried again.  "Er, Sir, isn't Desdemona the weapons AI?"
"Possibly," said Adder who had no clue.  He relied entirely on Melandibus to tell him which AI looked after what.  "Do you have a point?"
"...no," said the under-lieutenant eventually.  They both turned at the sound of footsteps.  Officer Shlong came round the corner with his uniform dissolving off him as he walked.
"Good Gods," said Adder.  "Cover yourself up man, there's women present!"
"That would be hard," said Officer Shlong.  "Your new cleaning AI has decided that clothes should be clean to the molecular level."

AI war

"Gravity is one-fifth what you are used to," said Melandibus, the Artificial Intelligence responsible for managing the spaceship's living quarters.  "Please exercise caution when walking, jumping, reacting to the unexpected and dropping things.  You may, however, be less cautious when engaging in most forms of copulation, showering, and performing Yoga."
"Thank-you, Mel," said Captain Adder, slowing his stride slightly.  The floor felt somehow bouncy underneath his feet, as though it were pushing him back up when he landed on it, and he knew that this was the illusion caused by the reduction in gravity.  A thought crossed his mind.
"Most forms of copulation?" he wondered, forgetting himself and speaking aloud.
"Not that thing you do–" began the AI, and he hastily cut it off before it could elaborate.
"Mel, why is the gravity abnormally low?"
"Zygomatic, the ship's AI responsible for the cleaners, has determined that this is the optimal level of gravity for keeping the ship spotlessly clean," said Mel.  The AI's voice synthesis routine had been destroyed during an interaction with an enemy Wellensittich two months earlier, and although his Geordie engineer had done his best to cobble something back together, the AI now sounded mid-pubescent, with its voice breaking and changing unexpectedly as it spoke.  When it reached Wellensittich it trilled the word a lot like the alien species did when talking.
"I see," said Adder, approaching a door.  The door slid aside with a soft click, and as he walked through he abruptly fell over, landing heavily on his chin.  It didn't break, but it hurt significantly.
"Lopodopterous, the ship's medical AI, has determined that three times normal gravity is more effective for maintaining bone density and health," said Mel without waiting to be asked.
"Are any other AIs weighing in with an opinion?" asked Adder, pulling himself to his feet.  He felt like he was being glued to the floor, and each new step was now a real effort.  In moments he was out of breath.
"Fourteen more," said Mel.
"And is the gravity around the ship now erratic, depending on which AI got to set it?"
"Not exactly," said  Mel.  "The AIs are warring over it at the moment, and gravity may change arbitrarily from one step to the next.  I would advise caution."
"I think that goes without saying," said Adder gloomily.  "Mel, please turn off gravity for any corridor I am in."
"You are presently only in one corridor," said Mel.
"Don't make it sound like you wish I were in more than one," said Adder.  "Just make sure that there is no gravity in any corridor I'm in, and that I don't leave a zero-gravity corridor for a plus-gravity corridor without ample warning."
"Very good, Captain Adder," said Mel.  The captain felt relief as his weight suddenly vanished, and he pushed off the floor to hang just below the ceiling.  Now, to get to the bridge.

*

"Officer Shlong," said Captain Adder, trying not to snigger.  The poor man hadn't chosen his name, after all.  "What is going on with the AIs?"

"Internecine war," said Officer Schlong, who was sat at his station looking badly hungover.  "I think we've actually lost the Ironing and Washing AI for good; one of the others appears to have successfully flooded its chamber with soap suds."

"Why, though?  Aren't the AIs supposed to be cleverer than us?"

"Only by our standards," said Schlong, looking depressed and hungover at the same time.  "They were built in our image though, and we've managed to copy over all kinds of odd little emotional and psychotic traits into their programming."

"So how do we stop them fighting?"

"Arbitration?"

"Stop them fighting," said Adder, deciding that delegation was the best form of command.  Schlong looked miserable, but then he usually did anyway.  He simply couldn't hold his drink, and the bread dispenser was currently soaking all bread in alcohol before dispensing it.

"Right," said Adder.  "Ignoring the AIs then, can we get to the Truto star system before the end of the week?"

Perpendicularity

The post-box asked me how I was feeling, and commented that I had a slightly-elevated temperature.  I thanked it, and walked off feeling a little disconcerted.  Then the fire hydrant on the corner, where I paused to wait for the traffic to clear before crossing, called me things I'd rather not write down and assured me that a place in Hell was being reserved for me even now.  I asked it, politely, if it meant the Norwegian town, and it cackled with delighted laughter.  After I'd crossed the street I dug my mobile phone out of my pocket and called my psychotherapist.
"Dr. Fraud's not available right now," said his receptionist, a pleasant young man with a fear of teeth.  My sister had dated him for a few weeks until he admitted that the only way they could have a relationship was if she had all her teeth removed and wore dentures, but not when he was around.  She gave it serious consideration before dumping him, so I was reasonably certain he was a nice guy.  "He's... well, since it's you, he's screaming in German about squirrels and keeps hitting his desk with a broom.  He's got a three o'clock with a near-catatonic, and that always calms him down, so I'd call back after four."
I thanked him and hung up.  I wasn't really sure that a session with Dr. Fraud would make me saner, but it would certainly make me feel saner.  Even while the urban furniture talked to me and commented on my health and future.
I arrived at the university about twenty minutes early and found the rest of my physics class in the coffee-hall.  The architect who'd designed the campus could clearly remember his student days well as there was a coffee-hall, a beer-hall, six lecture-halls and a Mensa rumoured to be capable of seating the entire university, albeit over seven floors, if it needed to.  My group were sitting by the windows that looked out onto Anneliese Quad, near coffee-station six where they served specialty coffees and the baristas hand-selected blends and beans.  I ordered the latest Kenya single-estate, black, no sugar; and sipping its slightly fruity, earthy liquid, sat down next to John.  He grinned at me, and dropped a text-book into my lap.
"Ouch!  Watch it, muffmonkey!"
"Yeah, you too Mr. Handcuffs," he said.  "Look what chapter we're up to."
I put my coffee down, carefully out of John's reach, and turned to the bookmarked page.  'Perpendicular AIs' I read.  "What're they then?"
"Don't you ever do the pre-lecture reading?"
"Not when I've got you to do it for me."
"Hah!  I should completely tell you the wrong thing now, so you can look stupid in front of Professor Clerihew.  It's all about... chickens!  Purple chickens, that they breed in the Large Hadron Collider so that they can have eggs that are poached forty minutes before they're laid.  The chickens are too heavy to escape of course, because they have a diet of Higgs Bosons."
"Yeah, very funny.  Purple like your sister's rug?"
"Oh the shame!"  John's eyes twinkled.  "My sister's far too proletarian to look after herself like that.  It gets mown once a year at Easter; at any other time I leave a machete by her bedroom door for would-be explorers."
I laughed, despite myself.  "So what are perpendicular AIs then?"
"Hah, that's the thing, no-one really knows any more."
"Any more?  They knew once then?"
"Sort of.  You know that we've located nine dimensions so far?"
"Yes, that was the first week of lectures, pinhead.  They're numbered from -1 to 7 and we all pretend that was deliberate and not a cock-up."
"Yeah, well, about twenty-years ago they were doing some experiments with computers to see if they could discharge heat into one of the other dimensions.  The idea was that if the heat could all be dissipated into a different dimension then you could improve the efficiency of chips and circuits, although you'd still run into the quantum barrier at some point.  So they're building these chips with these odds little fins on them that cross the dimensional barriers, which they can do at microscopic scales but no larger."
"Like now," I said, knowing John hated to be interrupted.  He glared at me, I sipped my coffee and pretended to be innocent.
"Yeah.  Well, that's kind of because we stopped trying.  The computers with these chips with their special fins... they somehow slipped through the dimensions altogether and disappeared."
"Disappeared?"
"Yeah, I don't quite get it, but Clerihew might explain it in the lecture.  I can ask him if he doesn't."
"So what happened to these computers then?"
"Well, at first we thought they were just gone, but then they started connecting up to computers in our dimensions.  It was kind of hard to work out what happened, but there's now a branch of cross-dimensional mathematics that gets used to do it.  The computers were still working in this other dimension, and they could connect to our dimension.  At first it was just computers, but then they started connecting to like, everyday objects.  Fridges, and toasters, and dolls.  And they'd seem to start talking to people, only no-one believed them at first.  And they went a bit odd, which might be because all dimensions are at right-angles to each other, but I don't know how that's supposed to work either."
"A fire hydrant spoke to me on the way here," I said quietly, putting my coffee down.  John looked at me hard, trying to work out if I was joking or not.
"Just a fire hydrant?" he said, sounding like he was about to start laughing.
"And a post-box.  It said I was running a temperature and asked me how I was."
"Oh crap."  John just looked at me.  Everyone around us starting packing up and standing up to go to the lecture.  "I think we'd better try and catch Clerihew before the lecture then," he said.  "It sounds like you witnessed the start of an incursion."