Interview with a Cyberpath

Interview with a Cyberpath
“I can communicate pretty well with my laptop.”  She said. “I talk to him every night.”
“Him?”  Kaz asked.
“Yeah, him.”  She replied. “I did name him Sarah when I got him, but now I know he’s a boy and that he is named Benjamine.”  She slipped the computer out of his case then and placed him on her lap. She sat-cross legged on the couch. I was on a bench. Kaz was lying on a recently-added beanbag chair.
“Your laptop came with a name and a gender?” Kaz asked.
“No. He’s connected to the internet, so he used it to explore the world and he created a personality for himself. He says that most computers do this and have to keep it all to themselves. He’s glad he has a human who understands him.”
“Well, tell him that I think that’s awesome.”  
“He understands English. He can hear everything we’re saying.”
“Cool.” I said.
“Have you tired talking to anything besides computers?”
“I walked into a BestBuy last week. There was so much chatter and noise; I had to leave after a minute or so.”
“You could hear the electronics… the TV’s and everything?” I asked.
“Yeah, and the security system and the electronic locks. I can’t walk in downtown for too long either, what with everyone’s cellphone and all of the tech in the stores and offices, the traffic lights and cameras.”
“Traffic lights?!” Kaz almost yelled. “You can hear the traffic lights? It gets down to stuff that basic?”
“Well… It’s clearer with most advanced stuff, like smart phones and computers and high-tech security systems and stuff, but with other things like traffic signals and can openers,”
“Can openers.” Kaz interrupted. She continued undeterred.
“Just the electric kind. Their voices are more garbled. Less clear. It seems like, the simpler the machine, the less of a voice it has and the harder I have to listen to hear it. You know? But, like cars and vehicles and things… I don’t know, it’s like they don’t want to cooperate.” We nodded.  “Sometimes I wish they were all like that. Sometimes, I could turn it all off.”  She rubbed her temples. “I don’t even keep my cellphone on anymore unless I’m expecting a call just so I have one less noise box in my ear.”
And then it was as if Kaz got the most brilliant ideas in the history of brilliant ideas. He rolled off his beanbag and crawled over to his girlfriend. The look on his face would have been very serious if he hadn’t been smiling so goofily. He took Benjamin off her lap and set him on the couch beside her and put his hands on either side of Psy’s face and touched their forehead together. She put her hands on his, a small smile on her face.
“Baby?”  She said. By then I had moved to the couch, thinking I had figured out what he was going to do.
“Hold on,” Kaz said. “I’m going to try something.”  He closed his eyes. “Only hear what you want to hear.” He said. And then there was a scream.
Both of them flew back, clutching the sides of their heads. I stood, my gaze shifting between them. I didn’t know who to help first. I made up my mind when I realized that Kaz had fallen onto the concrete floor of the living room. I crouched beside him.
“Kaz?” I said. “Are you okay?”  He was curled into a ball on the floor. Thought he was unresponsive, he wasn’t bleeding. I checked Psy next. She was lying horizontally on the couch, holding her head.
“Psy.” I touched her shoulder. She looked up at me and blinked the symbols in her eyes did a quarter turn.
“Is Kaz okay?” She sat up. He was. He was sitting on the floor looking at us.
“What just happened?”  He asked.
“I don’t think you should try to do that again.” I said.
“Agreed, but,” He looked at Psy. “Did it work?”
“I don’t think so.”  She said, reaching over and stroking Benjamin like a cat. “He’s worried.”  She explained. “And I’m hearing the same amount of chatter in as before. Thank you for trying though.”  
He crawled back over to her. I averted my eyes while they had their moment.  Psy’s voice brought me back.
“Okay, next!”