Bitter Ch. 516-520 (Patreon)

Britta returned to school on Monday full of excitement. She was looking forward to class, not because of all the important and interesting things she would learn, but because she wanted that wonderful warm feeling of being ahead of everyone else.

Lots of people went to tutors, of course. The teachers at school didn’t have the time and if they did, it would just mean listening to the same incomprehensible examples you’d heard in class. Having a teaching certificate didn’t make you good at teaching.

But not many people had as many tutors as Britta, and they were all for subjects she was already good at. It was hard not to feel a little superior.

Nobody would really care if they knew, most likely just call her a swot or some other meaningless insults. Being smart was no longer the put down it once was. You could be the richest most powerful person in the word and be a nerd. It was almost compulsory these days.

It only took a few minutes into her first class, maths, for the shine to wear off her smugness. Yes, she had a full understanding of what they were learning, but so did a lot of people. Life didn’t just transform overnight because you got +1 in Int. You had to accumulate those attributes.

Britta shook the idea out of her head. This wasn’t a game.

It was hard to separate the two sometimes. She was a gnome in one, but people looked at her the same in both worlds, which was a bit demoralising.

She heard people discussing the game in class and around the school. She had expected the interest to die down once the initial hype died down — none of them had access to the game, so it was a bit pointless — but like the elevated interest online, people at school were also becoming more curious about what the game would be like once they got the chance to join.

There was a lot of talk of new cheaper helmets being made available soon, and even though there was nothing confirmed and no set date, anticipation was high. They had all seen footage by now, and it was far superior to anything they had experienced with any other gaming system. For once, the game might live up to the cinematic.

Mobile gaming had been the last big phenomenon, with high-quality graphics making it on to small screens and allowing you to play anywhere, with anyone. But it was a limited experience. The battle between large visuals and something that would fit in your pocket had never been properly resolved. Folding screens and built-in projectors weren’t very convenient to use.

But New World was a completely immersive experience. It didn’t try to integrate itself into your already crammed life, it was a separate thing that took you out of your life. That was the most appealing thing about it.

Britta listened in on a few conversations, smiling to herself. She was one of the lucky few who had experienced it first hand, but playing the game had made her more interested in pushing for a more engaging existence IRL. It had shown her how far short she was of a life she found satisfactory. Escaping into a virtual world was not the solution.

She sat through French in a daydream, thinking about university and what she would study. She had initially been attracted to something scientific, chemistry perhaps. It felt like a field where she could discover new and exciting things while winning plaudits for her daring research, but it was a bit of a vague ambition. You should have a genuine passion for the thing you intended spending the rest of your life doing. Nothing gave Britta that kind of feeling.

But now she was thinking about doing something business-related. Something in technology. If the world was headed into the kind of AI-infused environment like the game indicated, then the more rational disciplines, the ones that could be worked out from first principles, would be better handled by computers. Even learning languages would be less valuable as instant translation became more common.

It was dealing with those AI that would be the next boom, at least in Britta’s estimation. Too much restriction and they would be like very advanced calculators. Too much freedom, and… it was hard to know where the world would end up.

Business, to deal with the people, and hard logic to deal with the AI, those were the key areas to get into. She considered learning programming, but that was maybe a step too far. The use of nuclear power didn’t require mining the uranium yourself.

Sitting at her desk, pondering her exciting future at some top university — perhaps abroad, maybe even in China (she wouldn’t even have to learn the language) — it took a moment for her to realise the teacher was talking to her. She sat up and answered, apologising for her wandering mind.

The rest of the class was staring at her, which was odd. She had spoken in French without realising and the lack of concern had made her speech sound very relaxed and casual. It was like she was having a chat with the teacher over a cup of coffee and a nice pastry in a Parisian restaurant.

The teacher continued the conversation, and Britta responded a little more formally, but still well enough to give the rest of the class something to think about. It was a pleasant feeling to make them realise they were two steps behind her.

On her way to lunch, she overheard some excited boys talk about the game, same as everyone else all morning, but it caught her by surprise when she heard them talk about someone who actually had a helmet.

“What, in this school? This school?”

“Yeah, man.”

“Which class?”

“I dunno.”

“Then how do you know they have the game.”

Britta’s immediate reaction was to think someone had found out about her. But after hanging around the boys talking — her natural talent for being overlooked and ignored coming in handy for once — she realised they were talking about a boy.

“He’s had it since before the launch, apparently.”

“Beta player?”

“That’s what I heard. Not saying it’s true.”

“Probably lying. Got to be, right?”

It could just be talk, but talking to another player, one she knew in real life, would be interesting. How was he finding the game? Did APE do proper testing to see how teenage boys reacted to the difficulty level? If there was someone here who played, perhaps she could discover vital info for them.

Britta met Rashida in the cafeteria for lunch and was met with a wall of sound from another bunch of boys. This group was crowded around one end of a table where Lewis was sitting with his laptop.

“What’s going on over there?” she asked Rashida.

“They’ve found a website that shows lots of videos from some new game,” said Rashida. “The excessive hormone release from their pituitary glands is causing their brains to shrivel.” She took a bite of her sandwich. “Watch, it’s fascinating. Like evolution in reverse.”

Britta wondered if they were watching Dad’s videos. She walked over, ignoring Rashida’s disapproving look, and peeked through the crowd. No one would notice one more person.

The video wasn’t one of Dad’s, it was on a Chinese website with Chinese writing all over it. The video was of a group of players destroying an army of monsters. The players wore armour that looked like nothing Britta had seen before. They had to be the mystery experts Dad was looking for.

Britta watched along with everyone else who was standing, sitting or leaning around Lewis. The quality of the picture on the small laptop screen wasn’t like one of Dad’s videos, this was blurry like a copy of a copy. The image from the game should have been the same quality as Dad’s, although the website might be degrading it. Or perhaps they had found a way to make videos without APE’s consent.

Whatever method they’d used, it was clear enough to be able to tell that these players were different to anything Britta had seen so far in the game.

She’d been in enough battles to have seen strong fighters take on various monsters. No one had moved around like these players or engaged monsters in such an impressively brutal manner.

Limbs flew across the screen as the boys watching sucked in their breath and made the sounds boys make when impressed by gore and violence.

“What site is that?” she heard herself say. Normally, she wouldn’t speak up in a group, it would only attract attention and not in a good way. Then again, normally she wouldn’t join a group so brazenly. Since that line had already been crossed, she had decided to go all in.

She was ignored.

“Hey, Lewis! What site?” She spoke louder and firmer, a tone which could easily rile teenage boys into turning on her. But they were too immersed in the fighting, their joyous swears and slaps on the back drowning her out. They were thoroughly entertained by the sight of the death ballet performed in front of them.

Lewis turned and caught sight of Britta, catching the tone if not the question.

“Hey!” he said. “I want to talk to you.” He tried to stand up, but the boy-sounds turned from hoots of pleasure to hoots of derision. He was trying to take their entertainment away.

Realising it would be more trouble than it was worth, he shoved his laptop, which was only slightly larger than a tablet, into the hands of one of the nearest boy and squeezed out of the throng.

Britta backed away as he approached, not wanting to be overheard. She didn’t think he would intentionally reveal anything, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t let something slip by accident.

“Do you know who those people fighting are?” she asked him in a lowered voice.

“That’s what I was going to ask you,” he said, dropping his voice to match hers.

“How would I know?” She said it with surprise, impressing herself with how genuine she sounded. It helped that she still didn’t think of herself as a real gamer, so her first reaction to anything game-related was to assume she had no idea, even when she did.

“They’re awesome.” Lewis had stars in his eyes, the way a girl did when a teenage popstar hit a high note especially for them. “Is this what it’s like in the game for your dad?”

He had at least made an effort to keep his voice down.

“I have no idea. I doubt it. He isn’t really a ‘jump around and kick you in the face’ type of person.”

“He might be, in the game, I mean,” said Lewis.

It was true, the game could transform you into an ass-kicking superhero. It was what made these boys so excited, the idea of being as tough and violent as they were in their dreams. Britta suspected they would be in for a shock if they ever got in the game, though. The fights weren’t as easy as the mystery experts made them look.

“They’ve been releasing these videos on Chinese websites, so I guess they’re Chinese. Doesn’t help I can’t understand anything on the site. I tried translating it using free software, you can get online, but it mostly comes out as nonsense. They don’t think the same as us in different parts of the world.”

Britta was inclined to agree. Her experience with the Chinese people she’d met so far was that they communicated with Westerners by adjusting their natural behaviour so they could be understood. They didn’t act like that towards each other.

Not that she was an expert on such matters. She was even less proficient in the international world of business than she was in the game world. APE and the people in President Wu’s company would probably be aware of this site already — it might even belong to them — but she would like to know for herself exactly what was going on. Were these really Chinese players? Had they been given permission to upload videos like Dad? And if that was the case, why had they been allowed to switch regions?

Britta took out her phone. “What’s the name of the site?” she asked again. She actually had contacts who spoke Chinese.

“I have no idea. I can’t even make sense of the alphabet.”

“Can you send me the name or a screenshot or something?” It was surprisingly hard to communicate something in a really foreign language. She couldn’t even type in the characters.

“Sure. Give me your number.”

As they exchanged details, there was an even louder uproar. Britta assumed someone in the video had done an overhead flip or something, but when she looked over they were all rushing off, leaving Lewis’s laptop behind.

“What’s going on?” said Lewis, grabbing his laptop from the table. Nothing on the screen had changed, although it would be hard to tell with so much Chinese obscuring the action.

“They found him,” said a boy sitting a few chairs down, trying to get his lunch finished as quickly as possible. “The guy with the game. They found out who it is.”

The rumours about someone at school having the game were apparently true. Britta wasn’t sure why everyone had run off, though. What were they going to do? They couldn’t ask him to let them have a go.

“Quick,” said the boy, getting up while still shovelling food into his mouth, “or we’ll miss the fight.”

“What fight?” said Britta. “Why is there going to be a fight?”

“They’re going to beat the crap out of him,” said Lewis, like it was a perfectly normal thing. He seemed far more concerned that there might be a scratch on his laptop.

“Why? Because he’s got the game and they haven’t?” It was ridiculous. The idea a boy would be beaten up because he had a toy and the other kids were jealous, it made Britta feel angry.

It wasn’t just that she had experienced bullying and empathised with this boy’s predicament — she had no intention of running to his rescue like a hero defending the weak — it was the sheer stupidity of it. How did inflicting pain on someone make your life any better?

“He’s been leaving messages on the school boards,” said Lewis, “telling everyone they’re losers and how he’s going to be a master mage by the time the rest of us get to play, and he’ll wipe the floor with us all. Haven’t you seen the posts? He’s been spamming all the forums with them. Thought he was being clever by using a smurf account.”

Britta’s indignation faded somewhat. If the boy had been taunting and trying to provoke people, it became a little easier to understand why they might want to use him as a punching bag. It still wasn’t right, of course, but it became less of a mystery.

“No, I don’t use the forums.” It wasn’t surprising Britta had been unaware of this campaign of abuse. The school had its own social media platform, a place for kids to chat in a safe and friendly environment. Britta avoided it. There were nuclear dump sites that were less toxic.

“I’m going to have a look,” said Lewis. Britta was horrified he would want to go spectate and her face must have indicated as much. “I just want to see who it is. He might be willing to talk about the game, I mean after the teachers come and break it up.” He checked his watch. “Should still be plenty of time.”

He headed off in the same direction as the others. Britta followed him, not really sure why, perhaps a morbid fascination with the art of bullying that seemed to be so ingrained in school life. And outside school too, maybe.

She wanted to see how this kid handled it. Maybe she’d pick up a few pointers.

“You’re going to be nice to him so he thinks you're his friend, aren’t you?”

Lewis looked offended for a moment, but then he realised there was no point. “So what if I am? Most people like talking about their interests. It’s not like I’m going to hate on him for being one of the lucky ones. You know, you could invite me round to yours for tea or something.”

“Why would I do that?” said Britta, startled by the sudden attempt at socialising. No one had ever asked to come to her house before. “Oh, wait, you mean to meet my dad.” Obviously, there would be a simple reason for it.

“Yeah,” said Lewis, like it was inconceivable there’d be any other reason. “It wouldn’t take long. I’d have all my questions ready.”

She almost felt sorry for him. He was so desperately keen on the game, and the sad thing was that it would not only live up to all of his expectation, it would exceed them.

“No,” said Britta. Indulging his obsession wouldn’t do him any good. Plus, the idea of him and Dad sitting at the kitchen table nerding out filled her with unease.

When you made as much effort as Britta to control your life so that people couldn’t be mean to you, letting your defences down for even someone as harmless as Lewis just wasn’t worth the risk.

“What if I wrote some questions down? Do you think he’d respond?”

Britta was sure Dad would not only answer the questions, he would do so in essay form with citations (referencing other posts he’d made in the past).

“Maybe,” said Britta. “Write them up and I’ll give them to him. I can’t promise anything. And you can’t tell anyone.”

Lewis’s eyes lit up. “No, of course not. Thanks, Britta.”

Doing people favours was also risky. They were never as grateful as you’d thought they’d be. Somehow, owing a debt, even if it was something trivial, became an issue. But in this case, she was curious to know what kind of questions he’d ask.

There was noise coming from up ahead. Shouting and laughing and people freaking out in high-pitched voices. It didn’t sound like actual physical fighting, which was a relief.

As they turned the corner the doors to the outdoor basketball court were open and a crowd had formed under one of the nets. One boy’s voice rose over the rest.

“Think you’re a wizard, do you? Going to cast a spell on me, are you?” Bet you wish you could turn invisible now.” The speaker was a tall blond boy. He was very pink in the face and he had tight curly hair, the kind that would turn into an afro if he let it grow out. Toby — Britta knew him from the school sports teams. He was on all of them. Winning teams went up on stage during assemblies to receive their medals and shown-off as something to aspire to.

The crowd was very much on his side, shouting abuse. The target of which was a boy from the year below Britta’s. His name was Rick, that was all she knew about him, and the only reason she knew that was because he was sort of famous. Every school had one, the kid that was so weird you couldn’t help but notice.

He had greasy black hair that couldn’t possibly be from natural causes, he had to apply oil to it every morning, probably from a chip pan. Dandruff coated his shoulders like a blizzard had just passed through. His glasses were from some previous decade, but not retro cool. These were large and an odd fleshy colour. They looked like he’d got them out of his nan’s handbag. His clothes were too tight, his shoes were too big, and his front two teeth stuck out like he was doing a rabbit cosplay. And, of course, he smelled weird. Not stinky, more like an old closet that hadn’t been opened in a long time.

Everything you’d want in that one kid at school who everyone remembers and no one ever talked to in case whatever he had was contagious.

Britta couldn’t recall anyone giving him a hard time, though. He was so weird, everyone left him alone. Even bullies felt sorry for him.

At least, that was Britta’s impression. Apparently, Rick had issues. If he had been posting messages mocking other students, even if he had good reason to be upset, things wouldn’t improve from this kind of behaviour.

Of course, he did have an escape route. No matter how bad it got here, he could run away to the virtual world and live his life however he wanted. It was a sad way to avoid facing your problems, but Britta understood the appeal. It was exactly what she had done.

The boy who was the target of everyone’s anger — possibly deservedly so — said nothing. He just stared out from his gigantic spectacles, cowering and hunched up, shivering. It was a bit chilly out on the court, but that wasn’t the cause.

No one was hitting him or pushing him around, not physically, but the pressure of the crowd, and particularly from the guy shouting into his face, was having an effect. Britta knew how hard it was to stand up against that kind of one-sided barrage. He was doing well to have not burst into tears.

“Come on, let’s see you wipe the floor with me now,” said Toby, raging like he was only just getting started.

Shivering Rick said nothing but his stare was defiant flintiness to it. Deep in the pupil, he was holding onto whatever resentment he held against all the people who made him miserable. Pressure only hardened it, like a chunk of coal being compressed into a diamond. Britta understood it, but she didn’t think it was a good idea to let it be seen like that.

“Who do you think you’re looking at?” said Toby. “You want to try it? Come on then.”

There was a shove, two-handed and hard enough to send Rick slamming into the wall behind the net. The crowd shouted encouragement. Britta wasn’t sure what it was they wanted. An actual fight would be over very quickly.

“Hey, cut it out, Toby!” The voice was loud and clear, cutting through the noise of the excited gathering.

Everyone turned to look, expecting it to be a teacher. It was another student, one Britta recognised, as did everyone. Lucas Garrat. Headboy, captain of the basketball team, swimming team and cricket first team. He was a tall boy with wavy brown hair that looked like he had a fan blowing in his face all the time. He looked exactly how the headboy of a school should look, ready to go on the poster for a movie about school life.

“What the hell are you doing, you twerp?” he shouted at Toby.

Toby was the type to start swinging at the slightest provocation, and he was charged up so it wouldn’t have taken much to set him off, but he was a jackal facing a lion. Britta watched with fascination as the alphas clashed.

“It’s him,” said Toby, sounding whiny. “He’s the one who’s been writing those posts online.” He pointed at Rick, who continued to cower and glare at the same time.

Luas waved his hand like Toby’s words were meaningless. “Why weren’t you at practice last week? We’ve got a championship game on Friday. This online crap is meaningless. Did he hurt your feelings? Is that the problem? Look at you, you’re all soft and out of shape. Have you been running at all?”

Toby looked embarrassed, his pink cheeks flushing pinker. “I am. I will. I was ill.” He shook his head. “This is the guy who’s been messing with everyone. He wrote the posts, we have proof. We can’t let him get away with it.” Toby was trying to shift the attention back onto Rick, but not getting very far.

“What are you even talking about?” said Lucas. “Posts? What? Who cares? Look at him.” He pointed at Rick. “A strong wind would blow him over. You actually want to fight him?” The disgust in his voice was evenly distributed between the two. Toby, for choosing such a weak opponent, and Rick, for being such a weak opponent.

“No,” said Toby defensively and still very much whining. “I was just putting him straight so he wouldn’t do it again.”

“Do what again? Say mean things online? What are you, twelve?” Lucas seemed to have a very low opinion of internet culture and all those who dwelt in it.

He was one of those outdoor types who believed in doing things for real. He had a bunch of school records to his name, and a few county one. Whenever he spoke in assembly, giving out information about upcoming sports events and encouraging (actually demanding) people to come along and support, he made it seem like the most important thing in the world.

Britta had never gone to any of those meets, because sitting on your own in a giant sports arena was not a very fun experience, but she always felt like she would like to after hearing him speak.

The crowd had quieted and Toby was struggling to justify himself. Lucas looked ready to strike down any excuses even if Toby could think of some. People began to wander off.

“Now’s my chance,” muttered Lewis as he moved towards Rick, a friend to offer support, and also ask a few game-related questions. He was shameless.

“Did you even consider,” said Lucas in a calmer voice, “the kind of life he has to live? The only way he can feel noticed is to post shit online, and you’re proving him right. This is probably exactly what he wanted. You want to make him feel bad? Ignore him. No one knows who he is without you pointing him out.”

Despite intervening and preventing Rick from getting hurt, Lucas was doing a pretty good job of tearing Rick to pieces himself. The casual dismissal of his character and worth were far more vicious than anything Toby had said. Britta sighed and turned to leave.

“He’s out of your league,” said Rashida, who had been standing behind her for who knows how long.

“What? No, I didn’t even… Who are you talking about?”

Rashida smiled knowingly, which was always infuriating. “Tall, dark and handsome. He’s going out with the blonde girl whose legs are longer than you. Not even in your dreams.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I was just looking.”

“You were drooling and imaging names of babies,” said Rashida.

Logically, Rashida can’t have seen what she was doing from behind, but she had a look of such certainty on her face, Britta couldn’t help wonder if she had been doing what she’d been accused of.

Britta shook her head and walked off, quietly hoping Rashida would let it drop. She didn’t, but it was just small snide comments for the rest of the day, which Britta had no problem ignoring. It was what she’d been trained to do.

Even if she had entertained the idea of going out with the best-looking and most athletic boy in the school, so what? People were allowed to have their silly fantasies, that’s what imaginations were for.

And there was something comforting in knowing he wouldn’t reject her solely based on the way she looked, she didn’t measure up in so many other areas.

When Britta got home, she went to her room and opened the laptop Lin had given her. She had the name of the Chinese site in a message from Lewis. It was a screenshot of Lewis’s laptop screen, so she couldn’t copy/paste the text into a browser. She could try to match the Chinese characters by sight, but that would take forever. The Chinese alphabet seemed to go on forever.

The laptop was a very high-end piece of kit, plus it was Chinese. It had to have a Chinese keyboard or some way to convert the text to something she could put into a browser.

But this was a really, really high-end machine. Perhaps she shouldn’t think so small.

Britta peeled off the sticker covering the laptop’s webcam.

“Can you find this website?” she asked the computer, holding up her phone.

An image of her phone appeared on the laptop’s screen. The focus blurred and sharpened. It shook a little, but that was Britta’s hand. White lines formed boxes around certain parts of the image, capturing the text, it looked like. The screen went blank and returned to its original state.

“Yes,” said the laptop in a smooth and silky voice. Nothing happened. Did she have to download the screenshot onto the laptop’s hard drive so it could be analysed? It seemed to have all the information it needed.

“Would you like me to open the website?” asked the computer. Britta realised she had only asked if it could find the website, not if it would. It was taking her literally.

“Yes, please,” she said.

A browser opened, Chinese characters appeared in the bar, the site appeared just as it had on Lewis’ laptop, with flashing text and images all over the place, and the video in the middle of the page.

“Can you play the video?”

“Yes,” said the computer.

Britta sighed. “Play the video.”

The video started. It looked much higher quality than what she’d seen on Lewis’ laptop. She could also hear what the players were saying in the video. When she’d seen it before, the whole site had been making noise, music and sound effects. This time, only the video’s audio could be heard.

The players were shouting at each other in what sounded like Chinese. She could also make out the sounds of weapons clashing, spells going off, and monsters roaring. Even though it was utter chaos and she didn’t know what was going on she couldn’t stop watching.

These players moved like they were on wires, jumping around and striking in huge swings that sent numbers flying off the monsters they faced. It was wild and savage, but also beautiful like a dance.

The screen went black. “Intruder detected,” said the laptop.

Britta turned her head to find Dad peering around the door. “What you got there, sweetheart?” He smiled at her, fishing for an invite.

“Your mystery team, they’re on a Chinese website.” The screen was still black. “You can show him, this isn’t sensitive information.”

“Advise discretion,” said the computer.

“Noted. Now turn it back on.”

The screen flickered — somewhat reluctantly, thought Britta, but maybe she imagined it — and came back to life with the video playing.

Dad came closer and watched from over her shoulder. “Wow, look at them. They’re good. I mean, really good.”

“Shame we don’t speak Chinese,” said Britta. “I might ask Lin for help translating all this text.”

“Translate text to English?” asked the computer.

“Oh, okay. Yes.”

The screen shimmered. The text all transformed into English. The site’s name was Green Turtle Heart. The title of the video was: Peerless Online Warriors Strike Again!!!

Most of the text plastered on and around the video were messages of encouragement from fans.

“Amazing!”

“Super good, you guys are the ones! POW Power!”

“Kill them all! POW. POW. POW. Only you are god tier. Much love!”

The mystery team were called Peerless Online Warriors, apparently. POW for short.

Around the borders, there were adverts for pills with chemical names Britta had never heard of. Some kind of microchips were also available for a very low price. Energy drinks, pens that glowed, cuddly toys —it kept changing from one to another. The sounds had gone, but the flashing lights and animated text were still annoying.

“Video full screen,” said Britta. The video enlarged but the text stayed where it was, covering the pictures.

“I’d like all the extra text not related to the video removed if possible,” said Britta.

The text faded and stopped jumping around. It was still there, but in the background. Not even her supercomputer could stop the endless rise of Chinese capitalism, but it was a lot easier to watch the video now. Technology, the cause of and cure to all of life’s problems.

The video was about an hour long judging by the running time at the bottom, although it could be fifty minutes of adverts at the end. The players were running around, working together to take out groups of monsters at a time. The way they cooperated was eye-opening. Could they keep up this pace for a whole hour?

One of them seemed to be doing most of the talking, screaming at the others.

“I wish I could understand what he was saying,” Britta muttered to herself.

The video stuttered, the volume dropped and a new voice spoke over the top in English.

“Pick up that jewel. Pick it up.” It was the soft computer voice with no emotion or inflexion. “I will rip your ears off if you don’t pick it up. I don’t care, let the thing hit you, pick it up.” It was very odd, hearing the English be so calm while the original voice under it screamed itself hoarse.

Britta turned around. “Look, pretty cool… Dad? Are you okay?”

Dad was sitting on her bed, his hand over his mouth and what looked like tears in his eyes.

“Oh, Britta. Oh…” He moved his hand away from his mouth so he could wipe his eyes. “I never thought I’d see it. Maybe a glimpse before I kicked the bucket, but not like this. Born too early to really live through it, I thought. The future, it’s here. It’s really here. Not just for the super rich, but for people like us. Everything I dreamt it might be, right in my own house. It’s... beautiful.”

Britta didn’t know what he was going on about. Yes, the laptop was impressive, but it was hardly going to change the world. No one was going to work in a flying car quite yet. She turned around so he could have his moment in private.

“Next time you tell me to not let him watch,” she said to the computer, “I’m going to listen.”

“Assessment supported,” said the computer.

AN: Don't forget to vote on TWF. Cheers.