The firm has in the meantime overcome this loss of confidence–inducing faux pas and is a leader in interpreting brain signals. Reading thoughts is the hot new shit. In his last TED Talk, one of the firm’s founders showed how a deaf-mute, the politically correct name for which is probably something else, converted a touching speech in his head into words. Many of the viewers wept.

Another AI freak, neural networks and so forth, drinks his coffee standing up and then disappears. The gazes of the others follow him. He is the deadbeat who doesn’t have his devices under control. They’ve developed their own language, the little bastards. Incomprehensible to humans. All this loser could do was remove the robots from the network.

EX 2279

>++++++++++

[>++++++++++++>++++++++++>+++++++++++>++++++++++++>++++>++++++++++++>++++++++++>+++++++++++>++++++++++++>++++++++++>++++++++++++>+++++++++++>+++++++++++>++++++++++++><<<<<<<<<<<<<-]

>—>+>++++>+>++++>—>+>++++>+>++>—>>>+>

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

>.>.>.>.>.>.>.>.>.>.>.>.>.>.

THOME

Had bought shares in the company that converted thoughts into text. He was sure that the shares, which he’d bought for £32, would triple in value once the interest of the intelligence services had been piqued. Currently they’re up to £789, Thome just couldn’t keep track of all the new cryptocurrency mergers.

He remembered the day the beta version was launched. One of the programmers had conducted a thought–sound experiment just as the founder of the firm entered the airy workspace. With a creaky but clearly audible voice, the programmer’s device thought aloud:

“Here comes the little pervert. I saw his cock in the bathroom. I’m sure there’s an implant in there that he cradles in his hand while two dwarves fuck in front of him and he smears them with shit.”

Though the creaky words were stated in breathtakingly bad grammar, astonishing for a beta version, the test did not go well. The development of the speech transfer tool was tabled as a result of the all too predictable fisticuffs, and efforts were instead devoted to the transfer of thoughts in written form.

There’s a strong odor in the café.

The gang has talked itself into an adrenaline rush. They all try to one-up each other with over-the-top jargon. Except the AI aces. They’re relaxed. They don’t smell. They’re already there where the rest wish to be.

The AI aces speak only to other AI aces. Nobody else understands what they’re all about. Unfortunately they barely understand each other, either. Artificial brains. The interplay between 86 billion nerve cells, 100 trillion possible connections, 7.6 billion variations, what the hell.

The freaks from National Security are also standing at the bar knocking back smoothies. They wear expensive jackets now, they have healthy color in their faces. They have balls. Most of them, who had been involved in hacker culture, the only cool youth movement that had still existed back then—they wanted to save the world, fight against surveillance, expose flaws in so-called democracy using funny hacks, disable Nazi networks, leak secret documents, and so on—