This was how things
should be. In the past couple of months his wife had calmed down,
just as he had known she would, and was off again doing her
projects and things. Whatever it was she was occupying her time
with he did not care, so long as she remained placated. As for
her affair, he supposed she was still carrying on with it, but
with whom, and where, he could not say. Nor did he care.
The rice paper screen silently slid open, and the waitress
entered carrying a tray. She handed them each a moist hot towel
and filled their mugs with green tea, and Matthew recited their
order.
The waitress exited, and he gave Laurence's knee a little
squeeze. "Don't worry, I picked a nice variety. No appalling
surprises, I promise."
* * *
"Amazing!" William Harrell said excitedly as the ISLE system
looked up a name he asked it to find in its sample phone
directory. "And what did you say ISLE stands for?"
"Intelligent Speech and Language Environment."
"Right," William said. "Tell me more about the recognition
interface."
"It was what really shifted our focus on this whole new design,"
Peter began. Byron, Paul, and Rick sat at the table also,
listening as Peter explained their design. "We had already
decided that intelligent agents were the next big step in
portable computers and devices, but it didn't seem like enough to
us.
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