Scott was really nervous driving to the Spring Vale City homeless shelter. First of all, the East side of Spring Vale was close to the port and kind of scary. There was a lot of low income housing and some people wandering around did not look like they had what he would consider a normal job. Fortunately, his car was really old and in poor condition so it blended right in. To be honest his clothes were also not very stylish so he kind of fit in. Why didn’t he dress up better to meet his future CEO?
He almost turned around, but realized if he didn’t go through with this he would find an excuse to keep putting this off until someone else hired this genius (and probably for a big salary). Besides, if she ran a homeless shelter she was used to grubby looking people. Sure, it would be embarrassing if they offered him a free meal, but he was kind of broke so maybe he shouldn’t turn it down. OK… Scott needed to focus!
What was he going to say to this person? He had thought about it quite a bit over the past week and he had some ideas, but it all sounded stupid now that he was here. Arghh, worst case was he’d screw this up and then he would just have to learn to speak Kituba so he could talk to that Franco guy from the Congo. Yeah, that was not happening. He wondered who #3 on the list was.
Scott parked his car. The parking lot was mostly empty except for some crazy looking guy sitting inside a large cardboard box. Dude, you are right next to a homeless shelter and you are in the parking lot living in a box!
Scott avoided staring at the guy and walked into the shelter. The main room looked kind of like a school cafeteria. There was a door to the kitchen, a door that looked like it went to an office and some stairs going up. At the lunch counter a heavyset woman looked at him and yelled “Next meal is in 2 hours. You don’t look like you live on the streets. Are you some college kid looking to volunteer?”
“I’m looking for your boss, Melinda White. Can I talk to her?”
“Hah, my boss is a guy named Mr Gill. He’s hardly ever here, but you can probably leave him a message in his office.”
“Maybe Melinda is his boss?”
“Are you talking about crazy Linda? She’s upstairs, not sure what her last name is and she is definitely not in charge of anything.”
Scott has been nervous before, but now he was starting to panic. Had his super advanced Human Resources program sent him to recruit a crazy homeless person? It had been wrong about quite a few training recommendations. He felt stupid for thinking it would somehow magically find a CEO level talent nearby willing to work for free.
“Um, I think I made a mistake, thanks for your help” Scott started backing up to leave.
“Poor Carl is really… Why are you… little effort not crazy I think… lazy bureaucrat.” A voice said from upstairs.
Scott considered running. It really seemed like the best plan. He watched in horror as a woman came down the stairs. Her gray streaked hair was kind of sticking out and poorly cut. Her face had that wrinkled aged look of someone who spent too much time in the sun without moisturizer. She could be anywhere from 40 to 70 years old and seemed to twitch, looking in different directions every few words while she talked.
“Hey, I’m.. poorly run… put a … talking about. I could even.. looking.. any effort”. Melinda “Crazy Lindy” White babbled. She looked like she was getting frustrated. Obviously there was something wrong with her! Her words didn’t seem to match whatever she was trying to communicate. Scott was horrified, but also fascinated. She started speaking faster as she got more frustrated.
“Melinda White… a typical dressing better … I just.. brain tumor. for me… Ed Gill He’s not.. I’m having… do the surgery. Sorry for.. if he put … a bad looking trouble focusing if I broke again.” She was talking faster and faster… Scott tried to get her to settle down.
“Hey don’t worry about it. I think I made a mistake. I’ll just get out of here now!”
“my appearance..is into… really guy…she’s.on had proper… my hairbrush… half of them… lack self confidence. the shower …helps the ..but he… one thing at a time… obviously has and ..Stacy stole … people could find … seems to…”
Scott had almost made it out the door, but something made him pause. Obviously this lady's brain seemed completely scrambled, but it seemed to have a pattern to it. It reminded him of some of the encryption examples he had read about a couple days ago.
“This place.. guy should know what... living in a box.. Tara doesn’t.. this useful ...tools to operate… he … employment”
Scott paused. OK this was going to be a complete waste of time, but he was curious if Melinda White was just babbling crazy nonsense or if there was just something in her brain scrambling up her words. It was beyond him to figure it out, but cracking encryption was kind of something he was supposed to be good at. He was an aspiring computer scientist. Could he do this?
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“Um, please stop talking for a bit - it’s too confusing. Would you mind if I recorded some of what you are saying for a school project?”
Melinda nodded her head. That was interesting. She still had that weird twitching of the head looking in different directions, but she had looked right at him when she nodded.
They grabbed a table. Melinda looked at him expectantly, while also looking at four imaginary people who weren’t actually at the table with them. OK, this was probably his dumbest idea ever. Still, he had come all this way and the lady wasn’t physically attacking him.
Scott pulled out his phone and hit record.
“OK, this might sound a bit strange, but I’m trying to start a technology company. There are three of us - my name is Scott and I’m a junior programmer. My friend Matt can also program but he really loves robotics. My friend Barry is a chemical engineer, but he seems interested in something called Material Sciences. None of us are particularly skilled, but we have access to an incredibly advanced software tool that is helping us learn much faster than what we can get from our classes at school. So, my questions are:
1. Should we be trying to sell this software? We have some concerns about ownership - it may be the property of Russian gangsters and seems to be violating a lot of US privacy laws.
2. We need cash flow. Do you have any ideas how we could get funding?
3. Why do you think my software recommended you as the CEO of the company?
4. What’s the deal with that guy in the parking lot living in a box?”
Scott felt like this might be the dumbest thing he had ever done, but he let his phone record while Melinda started babbling a bunch of nonsense for about 3 minutes.
“Thank you for your time. If I can make any sense of what you just said I’ll let you know.”
Scott left, but he could have sworn he saw a smile on Melinda’s face as he glanced back.
----------------------------------------
Later that afternoon Melinda White sat in the poorly maintained, but clean room she shared with 3 others. She was lost in her thoughts. Her mother had been an addict and the doctors said she used drugs during the entire pregnancy. This explained why Melinda’s brain developed in a very unusual way. Her mother had abandoned her early on, but she had heard doctors talking in various institutions the social workers had sent her to. Her brain had a deformed structure and they thought it was a miracle she was able to function at all.
Indeed, she had learned to walk only about 4 months later than normal children. She had even started speaking at 12 months. That was perfectly within the normal range. She was potty trained earlier than most and was not lacking in physical coordination. Still, it was clear there was something seriously wrong. As other children started to form simple sentences she would babble on and on, but it never made any sense.
Her childhood memories went back to about age five when she realized that most other children did not have multiple minds sharing one body. She would have conversations with herself inside her head and it was all perfectly clear. But when she tried to speak to others, three, four or five different people would all try to talk at once and it never made any sense. She was sent to various homes and facilities, but the doctors could never figure out why she had so much trouble communicating. She learned to read, but when she tried to write or draw it was the same problem as when she was speaking. She could handle simple yes/no questions and even found she could score well on multiple choice tests.
Her struggles with communication had continued to frustrate teachers and occupational therapists assigned to help her. Eventually she was not a child anymore and the efforts to help her dried up. She was clever enough to avoid getting hurt too badly on the streets and had lived in various homeless shelters for years.
Today was a very interesting day. That boy Scott had obviously been a bit scared by her, but for some reason he really wanted to give her a chance. More than that, she felt a very unfamiliar feeling of hope. He hadn’t just run out the door, and the questions he asked her were unusual to say the least. She answered all his questions at the same time in a hopeless jumble of words. Still, after sitting in her room for a couple hours her mind was racing. She had about a hundred things to add to what she had said. Obviously, he wouldn’t understand any of it.
It was silly to get her hopes up. He would fail to understand her like everyone else. Still, it was a pretty exciting day and her mind raced with ideas until late into the night. It was certainly better than talking to crazy Carl who lived in a box in the parking lot. That poor man obviously had a brain tumor. She had even considered trying to operate on it herself, but realized the police probably would take kindly to a certified crazy person stabbing Carl in the head with a scalpel.
Mr. Gill who ran this shelter was hopeless. About half the people here could find employment pretty easily with a little help - either some basic coaching or some fairly simple medical help. Naturally, there were no easy answers for her or Carl.
Melinda was pretty sure one of her personalities would have made a great doctor. She was always reading medical journals whenever she could get internet access. She never found any other examples of people who had multiple personalities sharing a consciousness at the same time. Probably the reason part of her was fascinated with brain surgery - her malformed brain obviously was the cause of her condition.
One doctor had suggested lobotomizing several of the excess lobes of her brain. It might have worked, but Melinda couldn’t bear the thought of killing fully functional personalities. She had made a rather daring escape out of that mental facility when she was a teenager. Each of her personalities had their own quirks and talents and they were closer than family since they were all stuck inside the same head.
After much internal debate, Melinda agreed with herself that she would find a working shower and steal her hairbrush back from that thieving Stacy. She probably had hidden it in her shopping cart out back. In the unlikely event Scott ever came back, she could at least make sure she didn’t smell and have her hair sticking up. She had a mission - if he came back she was going to at least try to look presentable. Melinda plotted contingencies for a few more minutes then fell asleep.