4.1 - The Conference

'Nineteen Eighty-Nine is a great year!'

'We hold the very stuff of science fiction in our hands.'

'What you will see today is going to blow your minds!'

'You may have heard about the furore over at the Royal Society a few months ago; this week you will be able to meet the famous Unicorn for yourselves!'

'So pay attention, gentlemen, for what you are about to hear will revolutionise the way society thinks about information and technology.'

'Please, discard for a moment the preposterous idea that we are all individuals, that we each possess a soul that defines who we are.'

'Consider the ant colony and the behaviour of the swarm compared to the humble worker.'

'Consider the role of the entire army in a war, not the lone gunman battling it out in the trenches.'

'We are a race, not a jumble of disparate parts.'

'You may be aware that in the last few years, due to massive investment from the American National Science Federation, several Universities in the U.S. have been able to come together and share information on an unprecedented scale.'

'And now, in nineteen eighty-nine, the 'Internet' has become a commercial entity -'

'It is no longer the playground of the military and private networks,'

'(Yes, thank you) - and with the adoption of TCP/IP into the CERN network we are now able to communicate with people all over the globe, instantly.'

'The speed of adoption and expansion means that within a few years, the internet will be available in almost every single household on the planet.'

'This is going to change the way you live,'

'It will change the way we all live,'

'It will change society itself...'

Jake apologised his way along the row of bored delegates and left the auditorium, pausing only to grab a coffee on his way out. In a dark corner full of cigarette butts and polystyrene cups just out of the rain, he sparked up, massaging his pounding temple and wishing that the pain would go away.

The previous day had been even worse, all those pointless technical arguments about the relative (and as far as Jake could see, largely irrelevant) merits of this and that protocol. The general impression he'd had of the conference so far, was that the Educated Classes did not believe that society was intelligent enough to grasp the concept, let alone understand the inner workings of such a complicated technology. They did not believe the general public could be trusted with this information and allowing the world to link together like this, unfettered and unpoliced was a recipe for disaster. Vaguely interesting, but hardly front page stuff. The editor was going to kill him.

'It's all a bit Sci-Fi, isn't it?' One of the waitresses had joined him. She looked about sixteen, the same age as his own daughter. Just a drone in an army of many - a conference like this needed a constant supply of caffeine and biscuits - the arguments would rage on late into the night, becoming more animated and ridiculous every hour.

'What?' He was caught off guard, 'Oh you mean the computer thing?'

'Yeah, you know - people behavin' like ants. Computers takin' over the world.'

'Hah.' Jake laughed. 'Given the average intelligence in there, I think that's pretty doubtful, don't you? Light?'

'Thanks. What do you mean?'

'Well maybe not intelligence as such, I mean they just have no fucking idea what is actually happening in the actual world, do they? Most of them can barely dress themselves and they think they have the right to say what you and me should think?'

'I wouldn't know about that.' She gave him a sly grin. 'I'm too stupid to know what they're talkin' about. You want more coffee, I'm your gal!'

'No computer yourself, then?'

'Do I look like the Queen? Know how much those things cost?'

'Sorry.'

'Don't sweat it. Wouldn't know what to do with one anyway. Not like I go to school or anythin' is it?'

'Why not?'

'Got kids to feed, ain't I?' She saw the look Jake was giving her and quickly added, 'Not MY kids!'

'You think it's all too far-fetched to be true, then?' Jake asked and the girl nodded.

'What did they say? The army's had this 'Internet' since the sixties? Reckon it does a lot more than they're lettin' on.'

'Oh yeah?'

'Yeah. I mean, why now? Why suddenly decide to let it all go public and how is it already so big? It's like they've been plannin' this for a long time.' Jake was surprised, but this was exactly what he had been thinking. The sudden emergence of these massive networks while half the planet didn't even have electricity? Sci-Fi, indeed.

'And I thought I was the one with the crazy theories,' he said. The girl gave him a friendly shove.

'Hey! I'm not crazy. What's your explanation then?'

'Well,' Jake said, 'I think that they are trying to push forward something that isn't ready yet. They are a bunch of dreamers and this whole thing will never take off. I mean, what are computers good for right now?'

'You think people won't want them?'

'You don't want one,' he pointed out.

'I know how my finances look already, thanks. I don't need a machine to tell me I'm up to my eyeballs in debt.'

'At the moment they don't seem to do much, sure, but the speed this technology is moving, who knows?'

'Computers are the future! One Race, One Mind!' the girl sang and they both laughed.

'Still,' Jake said, 'they say we'll have computers in every house soon so you might get lucky.'

'Why would I want one? These geeks want to run the world from our bedrooms!'

'They think once everybody has them they'll be more useful somehow. Indispensable, even.'

'Well I don't need any of that crap, I can live without it, thank you very much.'

'You wouldn't want to end up like that lot in there, anyway.'

'Yeah, right.' She finished her cigarette and made to go back inside.

'Wait,' Jake said. 'Want another?' He waved his cigarettes at her.

'No thanks, the boss will be after me. She's a right dragon, that one. Nice to meet you though.'

'What's your name? Mine's Jake.'

'Natalie. My friends call me Nat.'

'Nice to meet you, Nat. See you around?'

'Yeah, maybe.'

Jake watched the girl go. Tried to keep his thoughts clean. He had a daughter of his own, after all. Strange amount of interest for a waitress, there had been something disconcerting in the way she had looked at him, as if she were calculating how much he would be worth in the future. A future full of robots and sentient computers? Not likely, this was the Eighties after all.

He finished his cigarette, downed the rest of his coffee with a satisfied gasp and followed her back inside.