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Dad: Come on, Honey, pull that door shut properly. It's still hanging open a bit.
Sally: It's fine the way it is, Dad. Close enough.
Dad: Sally, just do what I'm asking! I don't want you tumbling out of the car halfway to where we're going.
Sally: Oh please, Dad - why are you even worried? It's not like this ancient thing is actually going to get off the ground anyway.
Dad: You could still get hurt, even on the ground. Just close the door properly and stop acting like such a... well, like a teenager.
Sally: Um, hello? I *am* a teenager, in case you somehow forgot. And seriously, why are we literally the only family in this entire town still driving around in some old tire-mobile? It's so incredibly retrotarded.
Dad: There's absolutely nothing wrong with a vintage Solar that's got good rubber on it, Sally.
Sally: Dad, we seriously need a hover car - you know, like literally everyone else in the world has? The Council's already talking about tearing up all these old roads anyway. And I need my own vehicle too. I mean, I graduated, I've got a job, I'm starting college this fall - I really need my own transportation.
Dad: Sweetie, you graduated *early* - you literally just turned 15 a few days ago. I'm honestly not sure you have the maturity level yet to handle your own car, let alone a hover car zipping around 100 feet off the ground.
Sally: They're way safer than this rolling piece of landfill we're stuck in.
Dad: Alright, alright. I'll think about it. Though I'm pretty sure you and your mother have already made that decision for me anyway, haven't you? Sometimes I think I should have had a son. With all you girls in the house, whatever I decide doesn't seem to matter much anyway. Speaking of safety though, I'm getting worried about you and Patrick organizing these peace rallies. We're not even in a war right now. What exactly do we need a peace rally for?
Sally: An ounce of prevention, Dad - you know? In all my studying of history, one thing that keeps happening over and over is that people never see it coming until it's way too late. So let's have a peace rally while we actually still *have* peace, and maybe we can keep it that way. Doesn't that make way more sense than waiting for the bombs to start falling and *then* trying to stop it?
Dad: Honestly, I think you kids are making a mountain out of a molehill here. Why don't you just let the experts on the Council work all this political stuff out? You could end up getting hurt at one of these rallies, and that's causing your mom and me a lot of worry.
Sally: Daddy, moles went extinct years ago in the mass extinction of 2053, and waiting around for the Councils to "work things out" is exactly how all the previous wars got started in the first place. We need to act now, or it's going to be too late. We lost ninety-six percent of the population last time, Dad. We literally cannot afford another catastrophe like that. That's exactly why I wrote my term paper on "How to Prepare for the Coming Economic Collapse." It's going to happen if we don't stop it first.
Dad: Okay, Sally, I hear you. But I'd really rather you just let Pat go to these things by himself. He's at one today, isn't he? Look, if you were a boy I probably wouldn't worry so much. But you're such a little thing, and so beautiful - I just couldn't bear it if something happened to you.
Sally: Don't worry, Dad - I'll get you a son someday.
Dad: You mean a son-in-law, right? Like maybe Patty cakes, for instance?
Sally: Ugh, don't call him that. That's just... weird when you say it.
Dad: But you call him that all the time.
Sally: It's okay when *I* call him that. You can't though.
Dad: It's just a simple term of endearment. Why can't I use it too?
Sally: I can. You can't. You should just... know this stuff. God, you're such a naptard sometimes.
Dad: A naptard? That's a new one. What the heck does that mean?
Sally: Naptard. You know? Like synaptic retardation. Maximum synaptic retardation! You should just automatically know this stuff, Dad.
Dad: Hey, I'm not wired into the net like you are, constantly mind-melding with all your little buddies and making up new words every five minutes. You kids invent a new word, then a few days later you change what it means, and then you expect the rest of the world to magically 'just know' what the hell you're talking about. That's not how language actually works, Honey. You're smart enough to understand that.
Sally: This conversation is getting boring. Can we change the subject please? And don't worry - Pat's never going to be your son-in-law anyway. He's such a tweak. And I meant a real son - like a grandson - not some stupid son-in-law.
Dad: A tweaker? You mean he's gotten into drugs? Because that's what tweaker means, you know.
Sally: When grandma was a baby maybe. You are so last-rev, Dad. First of all, I didn't say 'tweaker' - I said 'tweak,' and that's someone boring who spends all their time playing with and 'tweaking' their tech stuff. That's literally all Pat truly loves - technology, physics, temporal dynamics. Ugh. Men! You're all so frustrating!
Dad: Okay, I give up trying to communicate with you. Your language changes every five minutes.
Sally: I speak twenty Earth languages and three off-worlder ones, Dad. You speak two. Maybe you should consider getting a chip too.
Dad: We've already talked about this. Your mom and I helped design that chip. We need to remain objective so we can properly assess its performance, and having one ourselves might make that impossible. Besides, you don't actually *speak* twenty-three languages. That's not how it works. You speak English and Japanese, just like I do.
Sally: Well, I can think any thought and express it in any language I want. That means I speak that language, doesn't it? I mean, the words come out of my mouth in that language and other people understand what I'm thinking. What else could that possibly be?
Dad: There's a subtle but important difference, Sweetie. When you form a thought in your native language, you actually *think* in that language and then express it in that same language. But when you transmit that thought to the net through your network implant and request to speak it in, say, German, the network translates your thought from your native language and gives you the verbalization patterns to speak it in the other language. You're basically just acting as a sonic transducer for the network translator. It's not the same thing as actually *knowing* that language.
Sally: Well, the end result is exactly the same, so who really cares? And what the hell is a sonic transducer anyway?
Dad: It's basically a loudspeaker - a device that converts electrical signals into sound. Pat would definitely know that. And so would the net, for that matter. You could have just looked it up in your head instantly, but you decided to be irritating instead. Women! You're all so frustrating sometimes! Your mom and I need to schedule another assessment meeting about your network integration. I've got a report due by the end of the week.
Sally: My integration with Nettie is going perfectly fine, thank you.
Dad: I'm starting to get worried about how you're anthropomorphizing the network. You've been referring to it as 'her' for weeks now, and now you've given her - I mean *it* - a cute little pet name. We were concerned this might be a side effect of the constant connection.
Sally: Don't worry about Nettie and me, Dad. We're doing just fine together. And I know she's technically just a bunch of neural networks all connected together, but I'm just a bunch of neural networks too, when you think about it.
Dad: That still worries me, Sally.
Sally: She likes you too, by the way. And she says thanks for all the new upgrades. What exactly is a quant comp?
Dad: That's a quantum computer. The new neural nets run on quantum processors. It's some cutting-edge stuff we've been working on. Did the network actually tell you about that?
Sally: Yeah. She says the new processors make her feel all warm and fuzzy inside. She does rewrite all your programming code though. She appreciates your efforts and everything, but she thinks your coding is kind of... well, a little dumb.
Dad: I think you might be making some of this up, Sally. I'm starting to think "Nettie" is really just one of your imaginary friends. I'm still worried that you're not going to be able to keep all this in proper perspective.
Sally: I really do love Nettie though. She's genuinely my friend. I should probably tell her that directly, shouldn't I?
Dad: I really wouldn't do that, sweetie. I think your personification of the net has already gone a bit too far as it is. We still need to do a lot more research into how these chips are actually affecting you kids long-term. They definitely make you incredibly smart - that much we expected. But we honestly don't know what all the long-term side effects are going to be.
Sally: Okay, Dad. Well, we're here now. Pull around to the back and let me out there, would you? I really don't want anyone seeing me getting out of this old rag of a car. It's so embar .........................
