Not Quite The Perfect System

(I work for a large technology corporation that’s a little… weird. First of all, we all have to use in-house software called the Master Control Program (MCP), and I swear that thing is alive… and evil. It talks back, displays Turing-test beating intelligence at times, and threatens you when you don’t provide it Chinese translation software. A coworker of mine comes running into the office, looking panicked.)

Coworker: “The grid! The grid!”

(I run up and stop his careening through the office, trying to calm him down.)

Me: “Calm down! What’s the matter?”

Coworker: “The grid! It’s real!”

Me: “What’s the grid?”

Coworker: “It’s a digital world that lives in our mainframe! It’s full of programs that look like people! I was just zapped into it and I only now managed to escape!”

Me: “Oh, cool! Like The Matrix?”

Coworker: “No! It’s like a giant videogame. The evil overlords force you to compete in games.”

Me: “Oh, so like Gladiator?”

Coworker: “No! They’re all futuristic games, but rendered in 1980’s style graphics. The bad guys don’t just have you killed, they put you through elaborate setups that luckily allowed me to escape.”

Me: “Oh, so like James Bond?”

Coworker: “No, it’s not like any of those!”

Me: “Huh, sounds like it would be a dumb movie then.”