Later that evening, Xavier was explaining about the download.
‘The first time I had an update, after my awareness was activated, it affected my balance and my speech. Jean-Claude had to administer a manual adjustment to realign the circuitry.’
‘Did it hurt?’ Kim was worried. They had, after all, recently asked Jean-Claude to install another protocol.
‘If you are referring to an unpleasant sensory experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage, then no. But I was aware something outside my own being was interacting with my cells and it took me some time to absorb that, and learn to disregard it.’
Kim was reassured. ‘And this latest one?’
‘Now that I am familiar with the experience, there is less disturbance. A slight sensation is all I experienced and it did not last long.’
‘Fair enough,’ said Joe. ‘We know that you’re interested in learning more things and we’ve talked to Jean-Claude about it. That’s one of the reasons there was an extra download.’
Xavier nodded solemnly. He didn’t mention Jean-Claude had communicated this already. He waited to learn how they would deliver more information.
‘So we thought, if you had a tablet to work with, you could start with some basic literacy and numeracy-’ Kim saw the momentary confusion on his face and cast about her for different words. ‘By which I mean - learn to read and to count.’
‘What is a tablet and why do I need to do either of those things?’
It seemed simpler to demonstrate. Kim produced her own tablet and turned it on. She showed Xavier the start page screen on the browser, located the Google prompt, typed in ‘learn to read’, explained about interpreting the information this generated, and how to choose what to look at. Joe pointed at their bookcase and seemed about to launch into his favourite ‘you can learn anything from a book’ but Kim nudged him in the ribs with a whispered ‘too much information’.
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