Never the Twain

  ***

  Operator Bartel looked slightly out of place in his own office, he was the pine scent in an all too modern office. Joel thought, for a brief moment, that Operator Bartel would be happier in an oak panelled office, with carpet, perhaps with an old fashioned pipe-thing people put in their mouths and made smoke come out.

  Bartel took a deep breath, and began. 'You must promise, Joel, that you won't discuss with any of your classmates what I'm about to tell you.' Bartel sounded serious, like he was about to give away the world's greatest secret.

  'Okay,' said Joel. He was waiting for explanation of what dire fate would befall him if he did discuss it.

  Bartel just continued. 'We don't discuss the Great Divide with Junior Assistant Operators, we normally wait until you've achieved the rank of Senior Assistant. But since Online saw fit to raise the topic in your presence it's only fair I explain it to you.'

  'Was Online playing a joke then?' Joel still wasn't sure if this was a joke, a misunderstanding, or something going on between Bartel and Online. He did, though, feel quite out of his depth, not a good feeling for his first morning at work.

  'Not a joke,' said Bartel.' As you know, Online and Athena are the two computers which run the entire city, meaning they control the lives of nearly half the population of the country. But they are separate and are kept separate. Athena makes the policies, decides what should happen and when and how. Athena publishes these in notices and puts them into the news feeds. Online picks up these policies from the news feeds, government broadcasts and the like and then puts them into effect. Online actually controls all the city's systems.'

  'So why are they kept separate?' asked Joel.

  'That separation is the Great Divide. Each computer is so powerful that they are sentient, maybe not alive but certainly intelligent. If we were to allow them to connect with each other they would make one computer so vast in its intelligence it would be beyond our control and yet it would have total and complete control over all of us and every aspect of our lives. We can't allow that to happen.'

  That explained a lot. Joel had always wondered why there were two computers and not one super-huge computer. Everyone knew that there was Online and there was Athena, but for the most part people just accepted that together they ran the city, and therefore most of the country. But something didn't quite fit. Joel wasn't sure what, but something he'd heard didn't quite square up. Then it came to him.

  'But Online gets information from Athena via the newsfeeds. Isn't that a connection?'

  Bartel smiled, maybe he was pleased Joel had joined two of the dots. 'No, the Great Divide prevents direct connection between their central processing cores. Their subsystems connect, as you say Athena will connect to Online's newsfeed, but the two central cores aren't connected. They can communicate, but they can't connect.'

  'So does Online try and get people like me to breach the Divide?'

  Bartel sighed, sounding like a parent fretting over an errant child. 'Oh yes, all the time, and so does Athena. Much of your training as a Junior Assistant Operator will be in monitoring the diagnostic routines which keep watch over the Divide. Later, as your training progresses you'll learn how to control the diagnostic routines and prevent any attempt by Online or by Athena to circumvent the controls.'

  'That's what Jenna does.' Joel had said it almost before he realised it, and then thought that maybe it hadn't been the smartest thing to say.

  'Who's Jenna?' asked Bartel. There was a tone in his voice, the tone that a school teacher had used when he asked 'is there anything you'd like to tell me?' Meaning, confess now and your punishment will be less awful than if you hold out and hope that I don't already know what you've done. Too late, Joel had said it now, so he'd have to answer. Anyway, he hadn't done anything wrong. Had he?

  'Jenna's my girlfriend, my fiancée. She's a Junior Assistant Administrator at Athena's control centre.' Joel was proud of Jenna. She had a more senior position, and she'd been so pleased for him when Joel got onto the programme to be an operator for Online.

  Bartel looked at him for a moment. 'That's curious, we don't normally allow members of the same family to work in both control centres. How did she get the job at Athena control?'

  'She was working there while I was still at University. I saw an article in a magazine, I can't remember which one, about the Graduate scheme here. I applied and got the position.'

  There was a very long and uncomfortable pause, as though Bartel was figuring out how best to rip a hole in Joel's explanation.

  'But there's a disclaimer on the application form,' said Bartel, 'you have to sign to say that no-one else in your family works for the other control centre.'

  Joel thought for a moment. 'Not in the form I signed, we read the form on the screen, filled it in, tapped the console with my digital signing card. There was nothing about family members not working at centres.'

  'I wonder what else was missing from the forms you signed,' said Bartel.

  Another long pause. Joel had had such high hopes for this job, and now on his first day it was feeling like it was all about to fall apart.

  'So does this mean I've been tricked?' Joel asked.

  'I rather think it means we've both been tricked,' Bartel said.

  Bartel looked Joel in the eye, and smiled.

  'I think Online is learning to be even more sneaky. So, back to work for you.'

  Joel couldn't believe his luck, he had thought he was going to be suspended. 'Really?'

  'Yes, you've done nothing wrong. It's your first day and you've lots to do. I'll have one of the other Operators show you what to do, and I'll make a note in my log of what Online has been up to.'