Change the basic human class.

Looking through the code you’re amazed at how many levels of inheritance there are, even just with humans. This gives you an idea. It takes a while, but you eventually find the decision making method in the basic human class. There’s a lot of re-routing of function calls to do, but eventually you end up with a new method in the basic human class that bypasses the normal decision making process and just returns true, but only if the suggestion came from you.

After recompiling the new code, you want a test, checking if your edit made any difference. You call your landlady (making sure you have access to people’s memories first in case things go bad), planning to change your contract to a rent free arrangement.

‘Hey John. What’s this about?’

‘Hi Caitlin. I was wondering if I could change to a rent free contract?’

‘Yeah, don’t see a problem with that. I’ll get all the paperwork sorted and come around there in about half an hour. Sound good?’

Actually, on second thoughts…’Do you have any nicer flats that are empty? I could really do with an upgrade from this one.’

‘Well if you’re looking for an upgrade, your timing is perfect. I had to evict the guy in my harbour view flat last week. Costing me more in repairs than he was paying. How would you like that one?’

‘That one would be great, but can I have it rent free as well?’

‘Sure. I’ll meet you up there soon’

Perfect. You now have an amazing new house, and you’ll never have to pay any rent for it. Guess it’s time to pack up your things and check out your new home.

You and Caitlin reach the flat a couple of minutes apart, and dive right into the exciting world of contract papers. During the boring job of sorting the official tenancy business, you can’t help but be distracted by how surprisingly hot your landlady is. Even in the tour of the house, you’re constantly having as close a look as you can get away with, and a couple of times even a little more than you should have. By the time you’re finished with the paperwork and the tour, you can’t help wondering what the limits of your new programming are.