Human Error

 "Shit. Shit Shit Shit Shit Shit Shit."

"What's wrong?"

"I dropped coffee on the 5430 machine."

"Well wipe it off real quick. It's probably just on the casing."

"Yeah, you're right."

"Here. I've got some napkins. Use that."

"Thanks. I guess it only got....shit."

"What?"

"It got in."

"In the casing?"

"Yeah. Shit. What should I do?"

"Um. Pop open the casing. Let's see how bad it is."

"Ok. Here, grab that light."

"Ooh. Yeah, that's not great."

"Shit. What do we need to do?"

"Well how far along was it? Maybe we can call it a total destruction and close the file on it."

"May 21st, 2011."

"That's all?"

"Yeah, they had barely gotten to solar power. It's a bit early for a total destruction claim." 

"Did they...was this one with the climate change patch?" 

"Yeah, but it hadn't really progressed that far yet. They probably had another 20 to 50 years before we could feasibly blame it on that."

"Mm. That's...not great. Maybe just take the hard drive out and put in on rice for a few hours?" 

"You think that will work?" 

"I mean, it's not like you have a lot of other options right now, do you?" 

"Ok. Fair. Shit. Alright, let me pull them offline. We'll call it...temperature maintenance. They never check those anyway." 

"Good idea."

"Can you run to the breakroom and materialize some dry rice?"

"Yeah, hang on."

"Thanks. Shit. I hope this works." 

"I'm sure it'll be fine. Be right back." 

_______

"Do you think it's been long enough?" 

"Yeah, probably. Plug it in, see what we get." 

"Ok. A little snap, tighten the thread, and....Oh!" 

"Working?" 

"Yeah! I'm kinda surprised, but it seems to be booting up fine." 

"Nice. See? Nothing to worry about." 

"Yeah, I guess so. I'm gonna run a quick diagnostic, just make sure it's all in tact." 

"Mm. Good idea." 

"Looks good so far, nothing out of the ordinary through the pre-history sections." 

"Yeah it's probably all fine." 

"Yeah. Neolithic looks good, Bronze...iron....dark....Renn....uh..yeah, so far so good." 

"Yeah, I think the rice probably..."

"Shit."

"What?"

"I think something's off."

"How off?" 

"I mean, it's...small things so far." 

"Like?" 

"Well, that Mandela guy is still alive somehow. The spelling of that kid's book is different now. A monkey lost it's tail in some cartoon."

"Oh. Well, that's not that big of a deal."

"They changed who played a genie in some kids movie..."

"Nothing serious though, right?" 

"I mean...I guess not. We'll just let it move forward at half speed for a little while and see what happens."

"Probably smart. I doubt it will make a difference, though."

"Ok, nothing terribly off course yet. The Americans re-elected that one guy. The internet keeps growing in popularity, but slowly, that's a promising sign."

"Sounds like it's all back on track, yeah? You just need to be careful with the coffee from now on. Try one of those new dark matter mugs with..."

"Shit. No. Shit." 

"What happened?" 

"They killed the gorilla." 

"They kill gorillas all the time, though, don't they?" 

"No. THE gorilla. The one we put the patch in. This one was the stability nexus for this phase. It kept everything from....oh...shit." 

"What?"

"It's causing problems already. They took to the internet faster than they should have. They're flooding themselves with information. Not even good information. Just....whatever they see. What's a meme?"

"Never heard of it. So what does that mean?" 

"Oh. It's...shit. It's not good." 

"Why?" 

"Half of the sims are abandoning most of their programming. More than half actually. And....fuck. They elected the celebrity guy."

"There's a lot of those, which one?" 

"The 'you're fired' dude." 

"Wait, really?" 

"Yeah, they....I don't know why. And a lot of them are actively refusing basic healthcare?" 

"They made the schmoozy guy president though?" 

"Yes, and refusing vaccines. Keep up. This is bad. What...do I restart the whole thing? Or?" 

"I honestly have no idea. Let's see if maybe it fixes itself?" 

"Its uh.....No. No there's a pandemic now and they won't wear masks. Like the whole planet is making it harder than the last one." 

"Well that and the planes they have now."

"Fair. But it's only gonna get worse when they get to personal flight if they can't stop these things now."

"Good point." 

"Shit. I may have ruined the entire batch. What do I do?" 

"Check the manual. See if there's a section on compromised or contaminated sims?" 

"Ok. Ok, let me look."

"Oh, hey look at this. They have this thing on their internet now. 'The Mandela Effect'. Ha! The little guys figured it out pretty quick, huh?" 

"Shit. You're right, look here. 'Simulation theory.'"

"Oh, that's....that's actually bad I think. Look back in the manual under advanced self awareness. I think that's a destroy on sight protocol." 

"Uh...advanced dinosaur progressions, advanced myopia, advaaaanced....self awareness. Here. Shit. You're right. We have to incenerate the hard drive before sentience safety finds out."

"It's fine, it happens. And it covers up the coffee incident for you. Just throw it in."

"In where?" 

"Have...have you never had to burn one of these?" 

"No. I try to avoid things like this." 

"You take this job way too seriously, don't you? Here. See that slot?" 

"Yeah."

"Take out the drive and put it in there, press the red button."

"Ok. Drive....slot. Like this?"

"Yeah. "

"And then....red button. "

"There you go. You just destroyed an entire universe full of sentient beings. "

"Shit.''