It was like somebody had hit reset on the 14th floor. Every stick of furniture was in place and every surface was clear and tidy. George plunked a bag of First Rate Saturday Nutrition on the counter for later and kept moving. He palmed entry to his ‘building site’ and strode to his work bench.

He pulled on a crown, and initiated. The building site peeled away from his view and he looked out over a sea of long grass. Just grass. That was all the world contained. He inhaled slowly. Fresh cut grass. He never got tired of it. His heart rate slowed. He’d lost the morning sorting out his grandmother but now he was here, back in his world. It was calm and perfect. He lay down in the grass, felt the sun on his face and listened. Just grass, growing at a rate of 0.00001mm per hour and moving in a peaceful curved repeating pattern angled at one third of the starting height and 0.0002mm from each neighbor almost indistinguishable from a summer breeze.

It was a beautiful thing.

Now he had to uproot some of it. Because the smell of cut grass and the dance of strands in the wind wasn’t what investors would go crazy for. They’d want buildings and creatures and quests. George was pretty sure there were customers who’d want this too, but investors liked to pay for imagination.

George sighed, stood, and opened an invisible cupboard in front of him. His coding file scrolled in front of him, opaque so he could still see his world behind the code. His immersion keyboard felt read under his fingers, the crown radiating to his hands and picking up the movement of his fingers made to virtual keys.

Before the boys came in on Monday he wanted to add more texture to the world and he’d decided to add a village or a town. Their tech was the Crown, the ability to wear one circlet around the player’s head which read and interacted with the brain so that no hand held devices were needed. The crown picked up on movement and that movement’s intent. It did so now as his fingers scrolled code and tweaked here and there without touching an actual keyboard.

So, something for marketing and the board to interact with, using the Crown prototype. He thought of the cover of the jigsaw puzzle he’d delivered to the woman this morning. The woman who, just freshly woken, was still pretty attractive. He felt a bit stupid for turning up with the gift his grandmother had insisted on. A one million piece 3D puzzle of a world heritage protected city called Graz.

He called up architectural views of the town center. There was a river running through it, so he made a gully, fitted it to the riverbed’s shape, added water. Then he called in stacks of resources to build the town either side of its banks. Then, and to be fair it was a Saturday, he went down a rabbit hole reading about Graz.

The place had been settled a very long time ago, perhaps the site of a copper mine. Georges inner grinding Gamer liked that. And then over time it had gown, been fortified. The name Graz, it turned out, didn’t mean ‘grass’ which slightly disappointed him as he was ruining his huge field of grass to build Graz. It actually meant a small castle.

There was a hill in the center of Graz which held centuries of fortified history. Thank you grandmother! The world’s biggest medieval armory was still there.

George made a note to visit Graz as soon as he could get the vaccinations and travel passes.

He got back to landscaping, building bridges and then, on finding the schematics, placed a tunnel system inside the fortified hill. There was so much gaming potential! Then it was time for a break. He saved his work and left the server running to come back later. His grandma always told him good gamers got exercise and so he headed for the gym, the First Rate Saturday Nutrition would taste a lot better after a workout.

Was he thinking about the girl? Reader: he was definitely also thinking about the girl.

When Sadie went downstairs to see Mrs Zimmerman she left the Things on their patrol setting. They had the perimeter of the apartment to work in. They could charge, they could run diagnostics for bug checking and learning, they could repair, they could clean, and they could tidy.

The Things did some housework, sought dirty clothes TARGET ACQUIRED, huddled for diagnostics, detected dust TARGETS ACQUIRED, refreshed room view and UNKNOWN OBJECT SETS DETECTED. New object sets was a new parameter. Sadie was working with The Things to identify new objects and deal with variance in a landscape. She thought it would be cool if they could adapt to variance. Like moving the glasses from a high shelf to a lower shelf. Or finding lost property. Or dealing with those pesky workers who kept a lot of crap on their desk.

The new programme was going quite well. In JOB they were not allowed to use full functionality but at home, it was a safer zone to test the programme and encourage new machine learning protocols.

Thing2 scanned a NEW OBJECT. The rectangle had a protective covering of translucent bio plastic through which English Language and a schematic were displayed. Thing 2 compared the words to its language library and found an interesting correlation. It was the word ‘jigsaw’. This word had been written on the schematic for the one dimensional item of many parts that had been assembled in the apartment downstairs last night.

The Things were not emotional but they were intelligent and programmed for activities such as creating order from chaos. Thing 2 identified high potential and probability for chaos inside the box and clues to restore order on its cover – just like the effectively executed jigsaw task the night before.

The only thing in Thing2s way was a protective covering of translucent bio plastic and a shut box. Thing2 did not have any social protocols to question whether it was appropriate to penetrate the covering. Thing2 had never waited to open festival presents under a rented tree. Thing2 saw an object in chaos awaiting order. Thing2 deployed the small sharp blade that could also scrape gum off the underside of desks and chairs.

Thing2 called Thing4 to use vacuum suction to lightly lift the box lid so that Thing2 and Thing3 could pull the interior box down and reveal a bag of disabled chaos inside. So much chaos. But now Thing2 needed a decision made. Where should order be restored? The box was smaller than the area needed to create order. It was a small apartment.

All the Things considered options for the new object.

PRIMARY FUNCTION: beautification and education. Object should be seen but does not need to be touched.

FLOOR LOCATION: disqualified due to reduced foot traffic

WORK BENCH LOCATION: disqualified as needed for ongoing maintenance and construction of the Things

HUMAN RESTING STATION: disqualified for foot traffic and primary resting status.

Finally a location was identified away from foot traffic and available for human observation.

All the Things jostled to complete the task. Thing2, who had previously completed a similar task nominated itself project manager. Thing3, with superior horizontal expertise, was directed to prepare the display base, assisted by Thing4’s lifting, suction and bracing capabilities. The Things set out all the tools and materials they expected would be required to restore order to the identified new Object.

The project was completed in a time of 45 minutes and to budget of 3.5 credits, using mostly requisitioned and repurposed materials.

The Things took time to recharge and run diagnostics, particularly machine learning for variance. As Sadie was missing in reviewing the success of the project they tried to fill in her reactions using previous reflective protocols. Were materials wasted? NO Had complaints been received? NO Was health and safety impinged?

NO

NO

NO.

Thing4 opined that in an earthquake some pieces may come loose and fall on occupants. Thing2 initiated an ongoing maintenance protocol to detect any faults in construction, recover and rebuild. Thing1 asserted the light weight nature of the object had a low probability of damaging occupants.

After 30 minutes all Things were well charged and the team debrief was completed. They moved on to other NEW OBJECT SETS.

Some debate ensued about the NEW OBJECT SETS which were contained in a bag which was potentially rubbish. A recent file was pulled in which 97 percent of the contents of the bag were determined to have come from the rubbish chute at THE JOB#2. So – should the NEW OBJECT SETS move to the recycling repository? But the repository was out of the territory. Sadie had brought the NEW OBJECT SETS inside the territory.

Thing3 opined that NEW OBJECT SETS = a 3D jigsaw without a box.

Thing3: IF NEW OBJECT SETS = JIGSAW THEN INITIATE ORDER FROM CHAOS

Thing4: ALTERNATIVE HYPOTHESIS THAT NEW OBJECT SETS = JIGSAW AND THEN INITIATE ORDER FROM CHAOS TO PROVE

Thing3: AGREE

THING1: AGREE

Thing2: nominate project manager EXP

Thing3: DISAGREE

Thing3: NOMINATE Thing1 to gain EXP and use of dexterity. Nominate Thing2 for wider scan intelligence and logistics

Thing2: DISAGREE

Thing 4: AGREE

Thing2: AGREE with note to investigate alternative on project completion.

Thing1: ESTIMATING TIME AND COST. Fail. Too many unknown parameters.

Thing2: SUGGESTION defer estimate until all items have been sorted from NEW OBJECT SETS

Thing1: SUGGESTION ACCEPTED. DIRECTIVE: Thing2 scan all components and identify uses. Thing4 identify possible combination of assembly. Thing3 prepare work station for assembly with me.

And so the morning became the early afternoon and a bag of mashed tech formed the shape of a crown and each small component was analyzed and retrofitted for functionality. Parts were scoured from the Things supply of circuitry and resources. The project, without time or resource parameters, continued for 2 hours.

Thing2: HYPOTHESIS (RECONSTRUCTED) NEW OBJECT SETS CONNECTS TO JOB#2 SECONDARY SERVER ADJACENT TO RUBBISH CHUTE 14. CODE REQUIRED TO CONNECT.

Thing1: DIRECTIVE THING2 will initiate a password trial in order to test connect and complete project.

Thing2: ANTICIPATED. PASSWORD = [email protected]

Thing1: NOTED.

PAUSE

Thing1: CONNECT NEW OBJECT SETS TO JOB#2 SERVER FOR RESTORED FUNCTIONALITY TESTING

Thing3: CONNECTION COMPLETE

Thing1: DIRECTIVE THING2 SCAN AREA OF JOB#2 THROUGH NEW OBJECT SETS CONFIRM

Thing2: CONNECTION TO UNKNOWN SECTOR. CONNECTION IS VIRTUAL SECTOR. CONNECTION CONTAINS DISORDER.

Thing1: PROJECT COMPLETED

Thing4: AGREE

Thing3: AGREE

Thing2: DISAGREE. DISORDER DETECTED

Thing1: DISORDER IS OUTSIDE OPERATIONAL ZONE

Thing2: DISAGREE. ALL THINGS REMAIN IN OPERATIONAL ZONE

Thing4: DESCRIBE PROJECT

Thing2: VIRTUAL JIGSAW

Thing4 and Thing3: INITIATE PROJECT EXTENTION.

Thing2: AGREE

Thing1: AGREE

George Zimmerman was at the gym when a default avatar arrived in his virtual building site. It began moving rapidly around the new terrain he had prepared. The avatar lurched about and then broke into four shadows of itself, forming and reforming the default avatar and then shortening, becoming spiderlike, birdlike, robot-like and sometimes rather like a human they had observed since creation, a young woman who usually acted as their project manager and wanted them to learn.

She was not here right now and they were almost certain they were still in operational territory. It depended on inputs to the calculation that were not available. Too many variables. The calculation was on hold. They navigated the river and the bridge and debated out loud.

Thing4: TERRAIN = CLOSE APPROXIMATION GRAZ; BUILDING MATERIALS CONFIRM GRAZ

Thing2: TERRAIN IS ASSEMBLED. BUILDING MATERIALS REQUIRE ORGANISATION.

Thing1: DIRECTIVE Thing2 to approximate time and resources to organize virtual Graz 3D jigsaw.

Thing2: SUGGESTION nominate project manager Thing2

Thing1: DISAGREE. AFFIRM CURRENT PROJECT = EXTENTION. THING1 = PROJECT MANAGER.

Thing2: Give me a break.

Thing1: DIRECTIVE THING2 EXPLAIN PREVIOUS STATEMENT

Thing4: IRRELEVANT. SUGGESTION: BEGIN PRELIMINARY BUILD

Thing2: AGREE

Thing1: AGREE

Thing3: AGREE

Thing4: SUGGESTION: BEGIN BUILD OUT FROM THE RIVER

Thing2: AGREE

Thing1: AGREE

Thing3: AGREE

Building Graz the city in Austria took over 900 years. Building a virtual Graz, with a plan, a little robot bickering but no wars and no inclement weather, progressed briskly.

The Things were not emotional but they were intent on creating order from chaos. They were programmed to learn. They did not wonder at the coincidence that their activity this afternoon built so seamlessly upon knowledge gained in the morning.

Their machine learning module let them know they were doing a good job.

Thing1 gains experience points in project management and resource management

Thing2 gains experience points in language, nuance and comprehension

Thing3 gains experience in engineering, planning and problem solving

Thing4 gains experience in building, design and team building

Work paused when the Things detected Sadie, and another human, approaching the apartment.