Chapter: Monday, Scene 11Chance meeting at the Robot

 "Hey, that's Lyre," said Sarba looking out the window. "Maybe she'll come in for a drink."

Sarba

Sarba fumbled in her purse and pulled out an EncephaCom pickup, which she pressed behind her right ear. "SHURPA Sassy? Are you connected?" she asked.

When there was no response, Sarba touched the pickup again and felt some stray hair underneath. After replacing the pickup carefully, she gave the voice command again.

"Ready damsire," responded Sassy.shurpa.

"Oh good. Sassy, would you please send a message to Lyre? Tha is in the new contacts from work. Importance: Low; Immediacy: High; Type: Invitation; Record: Lyre, I just saw you walking by on the sidewalk. Walf and I are in the Jolly Robot talking shop. And not. It would be so great if you could join us for a minute. See you soon? Stop recording."

"Message sent," said Sassy.shurpa, then "Message received. Invitation accepted. No reply."

Three minutes later Lyre appeared at the doorway of the Jolly Robot, scanning the roiling crowd of decompressing office workers. Sarba waved to catch thas eye, and Lyre slid into the booth opposite Walf.

Lyre

"So great to see you guys outside the office," said Lyre slipping out of her coat. "And thanks so much for calling me. I'm in an empty time slot."

"Lyre, this is Walf," said Sarba. "I thought it was important for you two to meet in person, especially since thas shurpa was having technical problems this morning in the meeting."

"Very pleased to meet you Walf," said Lyre, reaching across the table to touch Walf's hand, who smiled and nodded shyly. 

"Yeah, and what happened there?" continued Lyre. "It must have been so upsetting. I've never seen a shurpa fall apart like that before. Is it a really old model?"

"Uh, well no, uh, actually ...," managed Walf.

"Actually Walf has been braining up his shurpa," Sarba broke in. "It's really quite advanced what it can do, but sometimes that affects the visuals, and not in a good way."

"Right," replied Lyre. "You have to expect that kind of thing on the cutting edge. The good thing I guess is you can see right away something is wrong. My aunt had a shurpa that looked like a million creds, but was stuck in a self-help vortex. Everything it said was a tangent from Linguini Yoga."

"Technically, that's called a local minima trap," said Walf. "It's basically a problem with training."

"But isn't everything?" said Lyre. "I mean, smart people have smart shurpas. And people with problems ..."

"I'm sure the shurpa had a glitch and your aunt just loved yoga," said Sarba.

"Oh yeah, pathologically," said Lyre. "It definitely ended up warping her shurpa. She finally had to wipe it and restart from factory settings. Except for the display. She'd already spent a fortune -- and it was gorgeous."

"Speaking of gorgeous, what did you think of EagerShine?" asked Sarba.

"Isn't tha a knockout?" said Lyre. "Have you ever met Eager in person? Is EagerShine anything like tham?"

"That's what everyone wants to know," said Sarba.

"Well, tha probably never has to come in person, so we may never know," said Walf.

"I just don't think that would be a good idea. For tham or us. Or the BigCorp, for that matter," said Lyre, tapping the edge of thas coaster on the table."

"I couldn't agree more," said Sarba.

"Now you two are going to start ganging up on me. It's not fair." said Walf.

"Oh, sorry guys, I should go," said Lyre. "I just got a warning from my shurpa that I'll be late for my next if I don't get back on the FLO right now." Tha slipped back into her coat, waved and smiled, then was swallowed by the after work crowd.