and some more briefing

On the fourth day, the mayor, Deina (an old love of his), two criticists momentarily without target, three psytronicians and few others net-connected together. In some cases there were three of them by the same screen, on pretence of not being able to connect. Or an extraordinary situation drew them closer, as the psytronicians stated later.

Let us start. Did you find anything out?

-Here, on technical: city has a reserve command system.

-C'mon translate it.

-Well, roughly, anyone can go into the room where the machines are and check all he wants, order anything, even against the majority. That's what emerges from this report, here, look.

-Isn't it a bit dangerous? What if some fool goes and removes all the works of his favourite opponent?

-Could make worse, if one knew how. The room was made two-three hundred years ago, recognizes a modest vocabulary of commands, doesn't observe intonation and all in all it's handy to use as if one used heavy laser metal cutter for shaving. I was there, and the only thing I managed to turn on was the room heating. Or it switched on by itself, for I couldn't switch it off. It may still be working.

-Then the thing is unusable.

-Maybe it isn't. It has hand controls, too. Camera left ten. See the little blue screen and the sea of buttons on the console? And the cursor ball above? That's the controls. It seems the commands need not be spoken, but compiled a letter at time, pressing button by button. Confirm please. As you see, so it is.

-Maybe we could ask one by one, without getting flooded with heaps of data?

-This reminds me of an old guesswork game. One hides something, and the others ask what it is, but he must answer "yes" or "no". If the question asks for a wider answer, he's silent.

-Things of the kind should be known by... do we have any aristotellers? Or semanticians? Semioticians?

-I may do. I am an amateur, but do get it going.

-Could you try to assemble such a series of questions?

-Why not. When should it be ready?

-Don't prepare, improvise. Avoid anything that may pull a widespread answer. Start now.

-Sorry for jumping in, but don't you think we had it better before?

-C'mon, Deina, just don't cry for good old times; they do make crying times.