Computer Dreaming
Synopsis
Robbie is an alcoholic dying in a small shack on a
freezing, snowy night. His last hours are attended by a
priest, Father Mackey, who has known Robbie for many
years at the mission he runs for indigents. As Robbie
struggles through the near delirium of his final time, he
tells Father Mackey a story of his life as a man named
Anderson Jones.
Robbie's tale begins in the earliest years of the
computer industry. Anderson Jones, among the first
programmers, is key to the many scientific successes
being achieved at the newly founded Computer
Sciences Division of the government’s National Studies
Agency. The goal of the Division's head man, Dr. Aaron
Goldman, is to be indispensable to any future history of
computing. To achieve this he has confronted his
fledgling division with a problem that the infant
computer industry has only begun to fantasize; the
creation of a mechanical intellect.
Anderson's intuition tells him that a mechanical intellect
is not possible, but he believes there is great value in
pursuing it because they are uncovering and solving other, real problems that are fundamental to
computing science. Working with his mentor, Dr. Charles Baker, a world class applied mathematician,
Anderson and his small cadre of programmers begin to produce results that lead Goldman to bet
everything on a radical expansion of the Division with the backing of the military.
Goldman's vision of the Division's future requires that it be covered with the highest government security
clearance. This creates a different and far more pragmatic problem for Anderson, for he must put
'unknown' into the security questionnaire's space for Father's Name. It is Goldman who forces the
security system to accept him, but for Anderson it is always a reluctant acceptance, made tenuous by his
apparently irreconcilable differences with the head of the Agency's security system, George Hamblin.
It was just as he was about to embark on his career after finishing graduate school that he met the
Bordinas, Clara and Mateo. He finds in them surrogate parents, and in Mateo a driving mystery that has
shadowed his life.
To his surprise, Anderson's computer experiments begin to suggest that it may indeed be possible to
produce a mechanical intellect. Far more surprising is the discovery that he has, buried deep within
himself, fundamental objections to its realization. And frightening is the discovery that Goldman has
painted him into a corner so that he can leave the Agency only at the price of never again working in the
computer industry.
Anderson's wife, Aggie, and their son Mark are the primary underpinnings in his life. Deeply in love with
his wife and fully committed to his family, his need to be husband, father and provider are in direct
conflict with the impossible position his computing talents have put him in. Anderson's solution to the
dilemma is to ignore it. However, it is Mateo who, even in death, is the father behind him, urging him
forward toward his convictions.
When Goldman reveals his grand plan to breach the last technical barriers, Anderson finally and
conclusively rebels, becoming a victim, unheralded and unknown; becoming Robbie with computer
dreams.