couple. Right now they cost over ten million dollars. These two computers? They’ve invented their own language between themselves. A language humans can’t even begin to understand.”
“A language?” I said. “That nobody can decipher?”
“The computers had no choice. Our language is too goddamn slow for them to express and communicate with each other fast enough. They think so quickly they need their own language! A quantum computer can calculate the outcome of thousands, no, millions of possibilities.”
My mind swam off to my own possibilities, and the outcomes that could pursue me because of the bad choices I’d made recently. The various paths I could go down. I wondered what a quantum computer would advise me to do now.
Dan was marching around the room, pacing up and down, his hand pinching his chin in thought. “Computers are designed to work with the principle between one and zero. Any letter, any number, any word is coded like that. That’s the binary way. Even a picture is coded between one and zero. We humans decided, at some point, that the binary way was the best method for computers to find solutions to problems. Quantum computers will be able to be creative, because they won’t be limited.”
Kate laughed and said to Dan, “Don’t geek out on her, dude.”
“No, this is interesting,” I said. “Please go on.”
“Quantum computers will open up a shitstorm of possibilities,” Jen agreed. “Especially in the medical field. They could really help people. Help the environment too. Invent cures. Prevent disease.”
Dan said, “No doubt about it, robots and computers will take over the world as we know it.”
I pondered what he said. “What if all their knowledge and technology is used toward evil?” I asked.
Kate answered. “Evil for who? Evil’s relative. ‘Evil’ people usually think they’re working for some common good, so in essence, they’re not evil.”
I caught her eye and turned away.
“Our smartphones are going to seem so archaic soon,” Jen said languidly, her eyes flicking to mine as if to check if I was on her side.
“Do any of you own a drone, by any chance?” I asked suddenly.
“Next paycheck, maybe,” Dan said. “The one I have my eye on is pretty expensive.”
Was it my imagination or did his gaze shine ice-green for a brief moment? Then the look on his face relaxed, a gentle crinkle framed his eyes, and he smiled his big Dan smile.
“Remember that drone that closed down Gatwick Airport?” I said. “How come nobody could find its operator?”
“You can fly a drone from anywhere,” Dan explained. “In real time from the comfort of your chair at home. Via 4G or any mobile Internet or satellite phone. Like a military drone. As long as the geo-fencing’s set up there’s no way the drone can crash—”
“Geo-fencing? What’s—”
“Boring!” Jen sang. “Can’t we talk about something else? This conversation’s getting majorly geeky. Let’s talk about movies or books.”
I wondered why Jen felt so uncomfortable. “I was reading a novel the other day,” I told them, “and the protagonist, a police officer—our heroine—was texting and driving at the same time. The author lost me then. I couldn’t root for her character after that. I stopped reading. I just couldn’t accept a police officer texting and driving simultaneously. Is that very prim of me?”
“Not at all,” Dan said. “When someone who represents the law’s a hypocrite, it’s hard to root for them.”
I thought about my own profession as a lawyer. Representing the law, or at least an interpretation of the law, and how I’d not just broken my oath, but broken the law. I looked down at my feet and then stole a glance to see everyone’s reaction to Dan’s comment.
But nobody said anything. Awkward.
Kate silently arranged the potatoes and carrots in the casserole dish. Jen opened the fridge door and grabbed the half-drunk bottle of champagne and splashed some over the chicken. I wondered again if I’d be able to keep my hands off the booze over the course of the evening. I fished some napkins out of a drawer, linen ones that someone had given me and Juan for our wedding day, and laid them slowly on the table. I got out the crystal, too. Chunky, sparkly wine glasses—though none of us would be drinking wine—which chimed and echoed when you tapped them, and sprang prisms of rainbow light around the room. It was the golden hour. Sun streamed through the glass walls and doors. All yesterday’s clouds and mist had dissipated. The ocean was calmer, lit up in