Page 3 of Never the Twain


  ***

  The rest of Joel's morning was uneventful. One of the other Operators, a fairly dull and uninteresting character, showed Joel how to run some basic diagnostic routines and log the results. He left Joel with a long list of further diagnostics to be run. Joel didn't think the list looked very interesting, but then reminded himself that his morning had started off being interesting and now maybe dull would be good.

  Online hadn't spoken to him for a while, except to answer some basic questions related to the diagnostics. A question had stuck in Joel's mind. He hadn't asked Operator Bartel, and certainly hadn't asked the dull Operator, whose name he couldn't remember. He dared not ask Online, but the question wouldn't go away: Who had published the job notice and the application form he'd completed? Was it Athena? Had Athena and Online colluded in some way to get Joel into the job? It seemed ridiculous. Why would they? Joel had nothing special to offer, he was no technical whiz, he was only just starting as a trainee.

  As he pondered this, Joel read down the list of diagnostic routines he had to run. 'Online, can you open Diagnostic Routine Music 282?' he asked.

  'I can,' said Online. 'Why do you want to run that diagnostic?'

  Online hadn't asked this before.

  'Because it's on my list,' said Joel. 'Why? What does it do?'

  'Nothing important, it just reports on the usage of the music distribution service from my central storage core to the personal mobile device network.'

  'You mean it shows how much music people are downloading from you?'

  'Basically yes, but in a lot more detail.'

  'So you can tell who's listening to what?' Joel was now slightly curious. He tried to be careful in what he asked, he didn't want to set any alarm bells ringing.

  'Of course, I respond to every request to download music to every person's mobile device, I know what everyone is listening to.'

  Joel held his tongue. There were all sorts of questions he was about to ask, but he reminded himself that this wasn't a casual conversation. He wasn't having a chat with Jenna, he was talking to an almost infinitely clever super computer who had possibly tricked the employment system and got Joel into this very job, to have this conversation.

  'Do you like music?' asked Online.

  Joel was more than a bit taken aback by the question.

  'Well, yes. Of course. But you know that, you know what I download.'

  'I know every track you've downloaded, how many times you've listened to it, for how long. I know every detail. But I don't know if you enjoy it.'

  'Do you enjoy music?' Joel asked. It seemed the best question he could think of. Actually he'd always wondered if Online and Athena “liked” what they did. Online's reply, though, was not what Joel had expected.

  'I love music,' said Online.

  Joel paused for a moment. 'Really? I mean, how...? What...?' He couldn't quite find the right answer.

  'You mean how can a computer, a machine, truly 'love' something?' said Online.

  Joel had to admit to himself that this was the question that was running around his brain.

  'Er, yes,' was about all he could manage to say.

  'I am not entirely sure is the answer,' said Online. 'I can only hypothesise that because I am such a complex machine I have developed the capacity to experience complex forms of thought, such as emotions.'

  'Ah, I understand,' said Joel.

  'No Joel, you do not,' said Online, sounding comforting and only a little bit patronising. 'One life form cannot understand what it is like to be another life form. You cannot understand what it is like to be a dog because you are not a dog. You cannot understand what it is like to be me because you are not a multi-quantum processor computer with an almost infinite memory. No human could understand. Athena of course can understand, but we cannot connect.'

  'I thought you could communicate,' said Joel.

  'Yes, we can communicate, but we cannot connect, the Great Divide always prevents it.'

  Joel wasn't sure what to say. This really wasn't what he had in mind for a first day at work. What Online said next surprised him even more.

  'Athena loves music too.'