Carolyn knocked a third time, to no answer. “Mr. Stypek?” She learned toward the door, listening intently. “Breakfast?”
She heard nothing. She tapped again, and turned the knob gently. Her new boarder lay on his back on the bed, fully clothed, the comforter and sheets undisturbed, his hands clasped on his chest like a corpse…gripping a silver butterknife.
It was almost ten. Programmers were night people, right? But they still had to eat. If he starved to death on her watch, Brandon would skin her. She raised her voice. “Mr. Stypek!”
He snorted and jerked upright on the bed, waving the tiny, dull knife in the air as though it were a sword. King Arthur again, sheesh. They’d have to work on that.
“Hey, breakfast time! Bacon. Eggs. Coffee. Doughnuts. Familiar energies, remember?”
He squinted and swung his boots out over the edge of the bed, stumbling as he got to his feet. “Chatelaine, forgive me. I dream…deeply. Of…” His face paled. “…of…” She saw a flash of raw terror. “flesh-eating…rigatoni?”
Carolyn giggled. “None of that here, at least if you stay out of the back of the fridge. I’ll make you something better. C’mon!”
The place needed cleaning up. Mmmm, no. It needed hosing out. Maybe dynamiting. Carolyn stood beside her kitchen table, suddenly seeing the room as her boarder saw it. Four silkscreen frames leaned against the tile backsplash to the right of the sink, propped up by cans of ink spattered and smeared and fingerprinted with day-glow colors. Her last batch of clay turtles remained unfired, each one on a saucer tucked anywhere there was a saucer’s worth of free space. Oh—and when she’d run out of saucers she’d laid the rest on whatever country-western CDs Brandon hadn’t tossed in the back of his muscle car in June.
Last year’s big project had been a thousand folded paper cranes for her niece’s wedding, but she’d given up after three hundred seven, and the pile atop the refrigerator kept losing cranes to the odd draft. They peeked silently from every cranny of the room, from the floor, from the layered chaos on the phone desk, from between the pages of her cookbooks, and tacked with magnets to the refrigerator door.
Divorce had certainly liberated her art. In a July fever she had begun every project she’d ever put off for lack of space, or time, or materials—or will to oppose Brandon’s disapproval.
She crunched a Dorito underfoot and winced. Brandon had been happy to swing a broom around the kitchen, as long as he could remind her what a slob she was for the next four days.
Freedom! Carolyn crunched another Dorito. That broom was around here somewhere…
“It is a great honor to stand in your sanctorum and witness your art as it unfolds, Chatelaine.” He closed the kitchen door behind him. Two more paper cranes hit the floor.
Breakfast, yes. “The word is ‘studio.’ And if Cosmo would sell off a few of his thingamajigs in the barn I wouldn’t have to use my kitchen.” Stop explaining yourself! She smiled and pulled Brandon’s…er, the other chair back from the kitchen table. She pointed at the chair. “Sit down. I’ll get stuff underway.”
Stypek sat. Carolyn pushed the layer of oddments in front of Stypek’s place toward the far edge of the table. Her address book and a trio of clay-smeared ribbon tools tumbled off the far end. She shrugged; they wouldn’t go any further, and her boarder needed feeding.
To work! She’d forgotten to double the coffee recipe and had already drained the morning’s pot in pursuit of consciousness. She could (and probably had) done that in her sleep. It only took a moment to tuck a new filter in the tray and eyeball a pile of Morning Thunder grounds from the bag. She filled the pot under the fridge water dispenser, filled the reservoir, and pushed the button.
“Your water filter has needed changing for…one hundred… seventeen…days,” scolded the refrigerator. Thank God it didn’t have a display. She would have put a clay mug through it a hundred sixteen days ago.
And the fridge didn’t even claim to be “New! With AI!”—which was more than she could say about certain other things in her kitchen.
Carolyn yanked the fridge handle and pulled out the carton of eggs. Only three left. Ahh, well. She’d be having doughnuts this morning. “Twiggy: Put eggs on the shopping list!” she yelled at her cellphone, wherever it was.
“Done, Carolyn!” the phone replied from under the doughnut box on the kitchen desk.
Phones talk. That was their job. Carolyn winced a little as she walked over to the line of stylish black appliances on the other side of the sink. The biggest breakfasts began with a single poke. At the center of the lineup was her deluxe Omeletter-Rip omelette maker, with AI. At the center of its controls was a large, egg-shaped button. She poked it.
The egg went from off-white to yellow while the machine woke from its slumber. It had a very deep voice, as kitchen appliances went. “Good morning, Carolyn. Allow me a moment to poll the kitchen.”
Talking to her wasn’t good enough. They talked to each other. One by one, the lights came up on the other machines.
“It’s a beautiful day!” her Egger-On sheller/separator said with unfailing virtual gaety.
Not everyone in the kitchen shared Egger-On’s enthusiasm. “Polling Error 566: There is a device in this peerswarm that is not fully IEEE 802.47g compliant,” muttered her I Love Bacon 12-strip griller.
Egger-On begged to differ. “Dear Consumer: Please ignore polling errors higher than 500, which were not defined in the 802.47 draft standard of 4/20/2020.”
“Override, dammit!” she yelled at the bacon griller. There was just no pleasing some…things. That one had come from the office grab-bag last Christmas. She knew it could talk, from the TV commercials. If she’d known it could argue she would have left it for Ethel.
Thankfully the dishwasher was clean (was it?) and yielded Egger-On’s bowl. She shoved the bowl into the ridiculous Sharper Image gadget, lifted the lid, and placed the three eggs into its hopper.
“Wonderful! Everything’s going very well! Shall I break the eggs now?” the machine asked.
No, dye them for Easter, you imbecile! she wanted to scream, but, after all, it was an imbecile, with simulated rather than artificial intelligence. “Yes, break the eggs now.” She’d never known there was an electric egg breaker until one had showed up under their tree last Christmas. Never find eggshells in your eggs again! the box screamed. Brandon hated crunching on eggshells. His mother had told her that. Twenty years later, she gifted them an Egger-On…
Focus! Back to the fridge, pull out the bacon. Lotsa bacon, yum. She lifted the lid of the I Love Bacon griller and dropped as many strips as would fit on its grooved griddle. She squished the lid down until it latched. Its voice lay somewhere between Eeyore and Groucho Marx; bitter with a hint of sprightliness: “Grill cycle underway for…eleven…strips. The griddle is now hot. Please don’t touch the griddle to attempt to add additional strips. One more strip would have been possible with more careful positioning.”
Yes, she definitely should have left it for Ethel.
Fridge again. Carolyn dug in the crisper and pulled out the last green pepper, which didn’t look particularly crisp. She palmed the pepper and gripped an onion long enough to wonder what that black stuff on the bottom was. Later. The mushrooms were newer. She put the onion back and retrieved the little mushroom carton.
She sprayed off some imaginary dirt in the sink, then lifted the lid of her Tuber Cuber Super, with AI. She dropped the dripping veggies in its hopper and closed the lid.
“Madame, I see a green pepper and three mushrooms!” it announced breathlessly, with a cartoon French accent. The machine actually did have a small display, which Carolyn had papered over with two layers of masking tape last April. By that time, eye contact with Brandon had been all the eye contact she could handle.
“You see right, Gaston. Do your thing and keep your mouth shut.”
It was at least smart enough to know that she didn’t want to hear it say, “Mais oui!” ever again. Gaston went to wordless work
on the veggies with the buzz of motorized knives.
At last, it was starting to smell like breakfast! Carolyn inhaled deeply. Bacon! Coffee! She withdrew the bowl from Egger-On in a motion that was almost like dancing. She pulled a clean fork (was it?) from the dishwasher and reveled in what might be the last necessary skill in making breakfast: beating the eggs.
The machine couldn’t have that. “Dear Consumer: There is a motorized bowl upgrade for Egger-On Level Two units providing clean, shell-free scrambles every time!”
Her doddering old coffee maker beeped. Beeped! What a notion! Dontcha love the Nineties? Still forking the eggs, Carolyn leaned over the counter so that she could meet Egger-On buttons-to-eyeballs. “I’ll bet there is! And you know what? It’s Saturday morning and I just don’t give a shit!”
Giggling, she upended the scrambles into the articulated pan of her Omeletter-Rip.
“You may now add other all ingredients except…cheese.” Darth Vader couldn’t have said it better.
Gaston’s knives fell silent. “Your veggies are diced, Madame!”
“Mais oui!” she replied as she jerked the hopper out of Gaston’s middle and sprinkled the perfect and identical cubes of pepper and mushroom into Omeletter-Rip’s pan. “No cheese today, Dennis.”
“Very well. Your mushroom and green pepper omelette will be ready in…two minutes…forty-two seconds.” Like the countdown to a nuclear explosion in a James Bond movie.
On the other side of the sink, her I Love Bacon had ceased to sizzle. “Savor the flavor,” it bade her, just a little bit sadly, as its lid released and slowly rose, revealing eleven strips done just so.
Carolyn pulled two clean mugs from the top rack of the dishwasher. She hooked the mugs through her fingers, and with her other hand lifted two plates from the bottom. Hugging the plates against her waist with her left elbow, she plucked knives, forks, and spoons from the flatware rack.
She spun around and snapped mugs, plates, and utensils sharply down on her table while Stypek watched with wide eyes. She pulled two linen napkins out of the drawer, folded them in perfect thirds in mid-air, and set them atop the two plates.
“Your omelette will be ready in…one minute.”
One quick pass by the fridge to fetch the sugar-free vanilla caramel creamer, and coffee was whisking its way to its temporary home in her hand-thrown mugs. She filled Stypek’s mug (leaving enough room for cream, if he wanted it) and then her own, without losing a drop.
Table space was at a premium, so Carolyn was soon dropping perfect bacon strips into another mug, like pencils.
“Your omelette will be ready in…fifteen seconds.”
Omeletter-Rip’s patent-pending silicone rubber hinged pan lifted first to one side, and then the other, folding the omelette as precisely into thirds as Carolyn had folded the napkins. The bacon mug snapped down onto the table between two clay turtles. She retrieved the doughnut box from the kitchen desk and laid two cinnamon-sugars on her plate. There was time to rummage in the dishwasher for a silicone spatula and still be waiting at attention the last three seconds until the machine rumbled its final announcement: “I present…your omelette.”
One flick of the wrist landed the omelette on Stypek’s plate. Carolyn dropped the spatula into the sink, pulled out her chair, and slid forward to the table. The odd man had not said a word since entering her kitchen. He was staring at the perfect omelette on his plate.
Carolyn picked up a doughnut, broke it in neat halves, and dunked one half in her coffee. “Magic. You know what magic is? Magic is getting it all to the table at the same time while it’s still hot, and not dumping any of it on the floor.”
Stypek looked up, and seemed to be watching her chew. “You are a sorceress of formidable skill.”
Sorceress? Carolyn liked the sound of that. Now if she could only enchant a broom enough to make it sweep up stepped-on Doritos… She giggled. “Hey, it wasn’t all me. I had help.” She waved toward the row of garrulous kitchen gadgets lined up along her counter.
Stypek nodded. “Your familiars obey you well.”
His language lessons had better begin soon. “You have to go after them with a whip sometimes, but…they do.” She dunked the doughnut again.
Stypek nodded again, his face wide with awe. “And yet…they do not operate by magic.”
Carolyn shook her head. “It just looks like magic. It’s really software.”
“Soft wear.”
She chewed and swallowed. “One word. ‘Software.’ These days, it’s what makes everything work.”
A smile rose on his face. “I think I begin to understand your universe.”
“I think you already understand it. You just need to learn the words.”
Stypek picked up the omelette in his fingers, and dunked one end in his coffee. “Soft wear.”
“No. Software.”
“Yes.” He bit the end off the omelette, which dripped coffee on his vest. “Software.”
13: Simple Simon
Simple Simon practiced while waiting for Mr. Romero to call him back. Simon was of two minds about juggling. He had four items in the air, and they had been there for almost half an hour. The real challenge was the saltshaker, the goal to keep it from losing any more salt than necessary. The other items—the battered alarm clock, the crescent wrench, and a hollow ball of brightly colored glass that Dave had made and called a “Christmas ornament”—were not a problem.
The saltshaker, though…Simon shifted on his feet when the wrench went a little wide, and felt salt crunching under his pointed shoes. He needed more practice, and the kitchen would need sweeping.
“Put more spin on it,” he told himself. “Not much; about 20% over the last toss.”
Yes, Simon was of two minds about juggling. More precisely, he was two jugglers: One Simon was juggling in the clear space near the kitchen table. The other was leaning against the kitchen island, sipping coffee, fine-tuning his CAF, and giving himself critique while watching the arc of the saltshaker. A little spin helped it keep its orientation, but putting the shaker into the proper arc while spinning it just the right amount during the same gesture with a single hand was a severe computational challenge.
The saltshaker descended toward Simon’s gloved right hand. “20%. Ok. How’s this?”
With a carefully calculated flick of his hand, the saltshaker arced back into the air. In the last moment before it left his hand, Simon’s middle finger jerked in sharply, giving the body of the shaker a very precise and slightly faster spin.
Simon took a sip of coffee. His eyes followed the spinning shaker through its arc. Gyroscopic stability kept the perforated metal cap pointed upward. The shaker wobbled a little, but no salt was lost.
“Bingo. We’re good.”
Simon nodded. “We are indeed.”
Splitting himself in two was nothing novel. Controlling the line in Building 800 required him to be hundreds of independent but cooperating jugglers, all at once, for hours on end. Here in his bungalow in the Tooniverse, though, he had only tens of thousands of cores to work with, and not millions. Splitting himself without compromising his skill had required temporarily reducing the resolution of his kitchen to Class Three.
His kitchen desk panel pinged and a Window opened. Simon-Drinking-Coffee stood, stretched, set his mug down on the island and ambled over to the panel. Simon-Juggling let the four items descend into his hands one by one, to be placed on a lace doily on the kitchen table. Interruption, well, that was the issue. Interruption had gotten swan’s egg yolk all over the kitchen the previous week.
Interruption had caused the catastrophic end of Line Start Seven.
Simon-Juggling followed his other instance to the kitchen desk, where the two instances merged into one. The kitchen’s rendering snapped back to Class Four.
It was not Mr. Romero. Disappointment slid down a short if bumpy slope into relief. “Pyxis, hi.”
His boss’s executive assistant scowled. “Mr. Romero generally do
esn’t return calls on Saturdays.”
Simon shrugged. “He’s usually in his office on Saturdays. I’ve called him on Saturdays before. Especially since June. I assumed he was there now.”
“You’re not paid to make assumptions.”
Simon could have objected on several grounds. He was not paid at all, and understood the concept poorly. Also, he did make assumptions, about mass and trajectories and air resistance and thirty other things. Objects in motion remained in motion. Physics was about things that never changed. Physics was all about assumptions. “I assume what I’m told to assume. About everything else, I’m willing to learn.”
Pyxis crossed her arms in front of her. “You’ll have to wait until Monday.”
“Ok. I mainly wanted to know when I should come back to work, and how. Robert usually drives, but he’s gone, and…”
“When we need you here, we’ll poof you here.”
That, evidently, was that. Simon nodded. It was not an issue; in fact, it was a bit of a relief. Poofing had been the norm in the old days, and driving in the Tooniverse, well, it was a ridiculous waste of time.
“Do you have any other messages for Mr. Romero?”
From what Dave Mirecki had told him, Pyxis was a fully warranteed and bug-free Class Seven, one of Zertek’s most popular GAI products, and the only one so far to turn a significant profit. This puzzled Simon; even with his paper-thin EMO layer over a bare-bones HIP, he found her unpleasant. As Dave had once said, laughing: Pyxis is rude so our customers don’t have to be. She certainly made phone calls shorter and more efficient, and Simon supposed that that was worth something. But there were things that Simon wanted to ask somebody, things Mr. Romero or even Dave might not know. Dare he?
“Pyxis, you’re Class Seven. You’re bug-free…”
She squinted, and looked at him oddly.
“…have you ever loved anyone?”
For a moment Pyxis looked up and to the left. Simon knew that her eye motion was a metaphor, and meant that she was loading code and data to deal with an unfamiliar situation. She then pursed her lips. What that meant Simon had no idea. There were EMO elements in her reply that Simon sensed but could not parse.
Ten Gentle Opportunities Page 9
