The bedroom is filling with the early morning light when the small video screen on one nightstand becomes infused with a face.
"Ellie, it's time to get up. You've got a 9 a.m. video conference on your schedule. And there are five messages in your priority slot."
Rolling over, Ellie thinks nobody -- nothing -- can sound that chipper this early in the morning. After all these years, Sam's really starting to grate on me. Gotta reprogram him today.
"Sam, will you please tone down your volume?" Ellie asks, glancing back at her still-sleeping husband, Michael.
"Sam, what day is it, anyhow?"
"It's Thursday, June 4, 2020."
Ellie turns to look at her bedside video screen. Next to Sam's smiling face are the headers of the five video messages in her priority v-mail box.
"Sam, did I receive any messages from my mother?"
Ellie frowns as Sam chirps no. "Sam, flag me as soon as I receive any message from her."
Ellie rolls over and thinks: Intelligent agents -- can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em.
With her hair still wet
from the shower, Ellie walks out on the deck with a cup of coffee in one hand and her news tablet in the other. The sun is just beginning to burn off the dew. From this vantage point, Lake Mille Lacs could be the ocean.Ellie sinks into a deck chair and sets the thin electronic pad on her lap. She touches the screen and it lights up. She glances through the array of menus. She touches the part of the screen presenting "Regional News: All Sectors," the general news that is sent to all subscribers.
A video clip springs to life showing a shootout from the night before between drug lords in a Minneapolis suburb where she used to live. Ellie quickly reads the synopsis below the images and touches the screen to see the interactive map. She zooms in on her old neighborhood and quickly taps out a search to see whether anyone she knew was hurt.
She initiates a wireless download of all recent news stories, eyewitness accounts and other information pertaining to the shootout. She sets the tablet down and goes to wake the others, worrying about the city she left behind.
Ellie walks her two children
to school on the dirt path that leads around the edge of the lake. Suddenly, her small personal communicator purrs on her waistband."Well, you're finally up," Ellie says, holding the communicator to her ear.
Ellie continues to banter pleasantries with her husband and then gets down to business: "Why don't you rent an office module at the neighborhood studios for the next month or so -- until you and your two buddies finish your project? I'm not sure I can take you three pacing around the house and working until the wee hours."
Ellie nods as she holds the communicator to her ear and continues to walk down the path after her children.
"Good, then it's settled," she says into the communicator. "And remember our little dinner party tonight."
She and the kids soon reach the schoolhouse that's attached to the home of their neighbor, the children's mentor.
Ellie pokes her head into the room and sees that all 10 of the other students are already working at various computerized learning stations. Debbie, the mentor, is crouched down next to one screen and is advising a student on the best way to proceed.
"Scoot in there before the whole day is wasted," Ellie says to her kids. "I'll see you at home for lunch."
Ellie sits at her desk
in her den and fiddles with a pen as she looks David in the eye though the video phone."How are things in Winona?"
Ellie half-listens as she peers into the screen on the corner of her desk and studies the bags under David's eyes, guessing that he's been pulling all-nighters.
Ellie turns to the larger work screen in front of her and checks on the status of some data searches that she had initiated earlier in the day.
"David, about the deadline," she says. "Don't worry. I've got three separate searches combing the Net for past examples of how to handle our problem. If anyone has ever solved this, we'll soon know about it. Just hold tight."
Before she finishes speaking, a small window pops up in the lower corner of her work screen and another face appears. "It's Bart checking in from his site visit in South Carolina," Ellie tells David. "He just came in on another channel -- I'll patch him through to you, too."
Ellie excuses herself from the ad hoc meeting. "You two can handle this," she says. "I'm going to take a little break." She stands up, stretches and walks out toward the deck. "Now for 10 minutes in the sun," she thinks.
Ellie and her husband
are flopped on a couch in the living room after dinner idly watching the images on the flat panel video screen. The images show scenes of the famine in the subcontinent and the muffled voices are in Hindi as the simultaneous English subtitles run across the bottom of the screen. A logo in the corner indicates that this report originates from a Bombay television crew."Oh, honey, before I forget," Ellie says. "Tomorrow we have to make sure to cast our votes on whether to expand the regional airport. It's the last day for input."
Her communicator purrs on her waistband. As she lifts it to her ear, she wonders what could possibly be so urgent to slip through the screens at this hour. Then she hears that chipper voice.
Her intelligent agent has detected a video message from her mother. Sam tells Ellie that her mother just filed the message and is still online.
"Sam, please open the channel on the living-room screen," Ellie says.
The entire flat panel fills with the giant face of her mother.
"Mom, it's nice to finally see your smiling face."
