New York City: The Original Plan

The lights of New York City could normally be seen at a distance, the distinct spiral pattern of intensity that everyone knew. The most power was located in the largest Trump building to date; in fact, the power plant was directly below it in the middle of the city. As the distance increased from the center-point, the power decreased and the edges of the city glowed little more than the light the stars provided.

New York was truly the city which never slept, because lights were built without a switch. The city board simply wouldn't allow it; one light off meant all lights off. The solution for every time the circuit was broken, was the creation of a program that was responsible for finding the "burnt bulb" so to speak. Sometimes it was an entire building, sometimes it was only one refrigerator bulb, but in the end it always found it and fixed it, quickly and efficiently.

This particular time was expected to be no different, and as the busy New Yorkers bustled along the streets, they gave no second thought to the darkness of the city, expecting it all to come back to life at any point.

The original plan had been to parallel circuit the city at the start, but somewhere along the line it became more trouble to change the power "spiral" than to simply keep it the way it was. This was the common human phenomenon that left dirty dishes in the sink until it was suddenly more worthwhile to buy new ones than spend the time cleaning all the old ones.

New York's dirty dishes were at the point where people, in desperation, start using the plastics for everything.

The complex computer program, Find Circuit Interference or Breakpoint of the Electric Relay or F-CIBER, once activated, shot itself off at exactly light speed (it used fiber optic cables to get where it needed to) to figure out the problem. If it had been self conscious it probably would have taken the time on the trip to the source of power to wonder why it had been named so poorly. The sad truth was that the programmers had thought of the acronym first and what it stood for after.

F-CIBER continued upon its fast travel to the Largest Trump Building. Tracing through the circuits of the center building, it detected no abnormalities, and still could not find any as it spiraled out to the very farthest edges of the city. It was the equivalent of I Swear This Was Working Five Minutes Ago, I Just Tested It! for a computer program. It was also a This Has Never Happened Before, So Don't Blame Me.

By this time (5 minutes later), New Yorkers were starting to panic. Worried glances were exchanged and the elderly started discussing whether anyone remembered that big blackout back in 2003, that yes, they still had the t-shirts, and I Bet They Wish They Had A T-shirt Now. The general sound of unhappy mutter from old and young alike could be heard from miles away, where it sounded a bit like a landslide about to happen.

F-CIBER ran in circles in the circuit, looking for the break point, the weak point. It knew it was there somewhere; it had to be. At the very edge of the city, it found an old battery charger plugged in that a child had removed the batteries from. F-CIBER pounced on it, ripping it from the rest of the city and resealed the circuit. It gave the equivalent of a satisfied growl, but stopped when it realized that nothing was coming back on. Puzzlement metaphorically crossed F-CIBER code.

10 minutes without power had sent New Yorkers into a frenzy. Humankind was never too good at getting along in the first place, and when people couldn't get their food hot, it was simply mass murder out there. Anyone who had batteries on them was mugged; in the next 3 minutes, the streets were selling the batteries back to the person they mugged. It would have been called the death of a city if it were not New York, but every time anything remotely unexpected happened, something like this took place. New York City is a city set firmly in its ways of convenience.

F-CIBER had no choice but to return back to its origin with the sad news of an error clutched in its metaphorical hand. It requested a print-interface with the worried programmers who had been standing in front of the screen, waiting for news. Everyone was nervous; F-CIBER had never failed to find the problem before. The paper printed slowly, almost deliberately, as everyone watched closely, displaying the words in large, bold letters: 404 Error Get Some Parallel Circuits Stupid Did You Honestly Think This Would Work As An Alternative To Common Sense.

Epilogue: From then on, all children were required to learn the difference between simple circuits and parallel circuits in school, and the importance of asking Is It Plugged In?