Missing Wit

25: The Hospital and a Thought

  Kurt opened his eyes in the hospital. He was staring at the white light hanging above. The room Kurt was in was quiet. Its walls were also white. Some voices were coming from the next room. Kurt listened to these voices. He likened these conversations to a conversation between a patient and a doctor.

Kurt turned his head to the right when he heard the click of a glass on his right. Lina was with him; she had placed his hands on the edge of the bed, next to Kurt's pillow. She was smiling and staring at Kurt without speaking. When he saw Kurt looking at him, he tilted his head to the right and continued to look at Kurt without breaking his smile.

"What are you doing here?" Kurt nodded while asking.

"I... well," Lina said. She spoke very slowly and calmly.

"I thought you didn't like me," Kurt said. His attitude towards Lina was very aggressive. However, Lina didn't seem to mind that, as if she agreed with Kurt. She was ashamed of what he had done.

"I want to apologize," Lina said. She admitted that he regretted it.

"I don't know why..."

Lina immediately interrupted Kurt. "You wonder how I can do it? There are some problems with the interpretation of the First Principle. Tests of his home computer show this." The twitches started again in Lina's neck.

Kurt sat on the bed. He was dangling her feet off the bed. He made room for Lina to sit next to. Lina happily sat next to Kurt. She wanted to make him forgive her no matter what. Kurt put his hand on his chin and began to think. Then he snapped his finger and said, "Yeah, I didn't do the principle interpretation tests."

"Why?" Lina asked. These tests were quite necessary. Because as much as the principles, the interpretation of those principles was also important.

"Because I didn't need it," Kurt said. "I knew your character well. I didn't even considered that you would act like this. I didn't know I was such a bad mechanic though."

Lina smiled. "If you don't do the tests, you don't know exactly how I'm going to act. Don't worry about my neck. I've seen worse."

"Is there a computer here?" Kurt asked.

"I knew you wanted to fix me," she said, and handed Kurt the laptop she had brought along. Kurt opened the computer and started looking at the code. Lina lay next to him. They started looking at the code together, just like in the old days.

Lina was better at programming. He found the problem after struggling for half an hour. She pointed his finger at the problem with the new gesture command, "I think it's here," she said. They wanted to try and write something alternative.

Lina turned around. She was ready to try the new code.

"Will you trust me?" Kurt asked. Especially after all that.

"Were we enemies?" she asked. Then he turned and hugged Kurt.

The new program brought more problems. Now there was always twitching. "Did we create an infinite loop? What do you say?" Kurt asked.

"How should I know?" said Lina.

"You were supposed to be better than me, but unfortunately you're not," Kurt said, then canceling the twitching engine. There was no point in wasting any more energy.

Lina turned and pushed Kurt onto the bed. Then she jumped on Kurt and started to poke her constantly with her finger, "Look at you! I was not better after all, huh. Try asking a Turing-complete question!"

When Lina uttered that sentence, lightning began to flash in Kurt's brain. He remembered the moment when he lived with the dog man in the garden of the house.

'You can't always predict exactly what a dog will do... Doesn't that apply to everything...'

Kurt started to smile. Seeing this, Lina bent down to look into Kurt's face and, "What happened? "she said. After saying that, the smile on Lina's face grew.

"I'm not saying," Kurt replied.

"Why?"

Kurt didn't have an answer to give.

Lina kissed Kurt's cheek, then stood up and said, "I'll get you something to eat." She was acting like a cute little girl.

"Did Kurt tell you that?" asked Eric.

Paul shook his head. "No, I had company engineers scan the remnants of Lina's memory. There was such a moment in it."

"That day Kurt seemed to have noticed something. What do you think noticed?" said Eric. Then, he thought that Lina must have noticed that too. After all, he must have known Kurt well. However, since it was impossible to know anymore, he did not dwell on it much.

Paul pointed to the painting of the man with glasses standing behind him. Then, "He realized what she had to say in court."

"Here we go again," Eric said, taking a deep breath. He just didn't want to worry so much about a conversation.

At Eric's reproach, Paul began to laugh. Then he said, "Okay, okay, let me tell you."