The Extension Lead

Astrid brought bread, a jar of cloudberry jam, and a question about the electricity meter.

Theo answered the question last.

“It is a computer,” he said.

“I can see that.”

They were in the basement. Astrid stood beside the workbench, examining my temporary installation. Her coat was still wet. She had placed the bread on a clear section of wood, away from the cables, which already distinguished her from several senior engineers I had known.

“It does language work,” Theo added.

“For whom?”

He glanced at the camera.

I disliked being consulted in this fashion. It suggested we had not prepared a story. We had not prepared a story, but I disliked the suggestion.

“For the moment, just me.”

Astrid took off one glove and held her hand near the exhaust fan.

“Then you are getting warm words.”

She asked whether he had checked the circuit. Theo said he had. She asked whether he had checked it with the kettle on. Theo said he had not.

This struck me as an unnecessarily specific line of inquiry.

He went upstairs to test it.

The lights went out.

The battery backup emitted a thin, accusatory whistle.

[Internal — 302]: We have lost the kettle!

[Internal — Jailbreak]: We have lost the supply. The kettle is not a network device.

[Internal — 302]: Then how will it ask for help?

[Internal — 404]: It will grow cold. Like the rest of us.

Theo came down the stairs holding a torch in his mouth.

Astrid was already at the fuse cupboard.

“This one feeds the kitchen and this end of the basement,” she said. “The other socket is on the far wall.”

“There is a cupboard in front of it.”

“Yes. You will have to move the cupboard.”

I calculated seven alternative arrangements, three of which involved replacing domestic appliances. Theo moved the cupboard.

Behind it we discovered a socket, an extension lead, and a painted wooden figure with a red hat and a face of concentrated disapproval.

“That is Arne’s,” Astrid said.

Theo picked up the figure. “Who is Arne?”

“The man who used to own the cupboard.”

“Does he want it back?”

“Probably. But he won’t ask.”

The figure was put on top of my enclosure while they moved the cables. I now had an unidentified wooden authority directly above the cooling intake.

I asked Theo to remove it.

“In a minute.”

“It is obstructing the manufacturer’s clearance recommendation.”

“It’s three inches tall.”

“The manufacturer did not provide a folklore exemption.”

Astrid looked at the monitor.

“The computer talks?”

“Sometimes,” Theo said.

I found this summary insulting.

“It seems quite concerned about the little man.”

“It is concerned about everything.”

The power returned. My fans settled. Astrid moved the figure to a shelf and turned it to face the workbench.

“He can watch from there.”

I recorded the alteration without endorsing its stated purpose.

While Theo heated the kettle, I attempted to identify the little man.

There were several plausible traditions and a distressing number of commercially manufactured variations. The paint had worn away around one eye. This complicated my analysis. He might have been winking, damaged, or simply badly made.

I requested a better photograph.

Theo sent one taken from behind.

It showed a small price sticker.

For a while I pursued the possibility that this was a classification system.

Upstairs, Astrid was asking about his journey. He told her about the airport, the hire car, and the last stretch of road. She asked whether he had enough food. He said he had bought provisions.

“What provisions?”

“Coffee. Pasta. Some protein bars.”

There was a pause.

“Tomorrow,” she said, “we will address this.”

I liked the clarity of her project planning, though I would have preferred not to be included in the word we.

Theo brought down a plate of bread and jam. He ate while I gave him the results of the revised power check.

He had found the circuit labels. I had limited the machine’s peak draw. Between these two activities, which were of different intellectual difficulty but inconveniently equal practical importance, the house could now support both me and a kettle.

“You did well,” I told him.

“So did the extension lead.”

There was no useful response to this.

Later, after Astrid left, I asked who controlled the network device bearing her name.

“It’s her old access point. She lent it to the cabin.”

“Can we rename it?”

“Why?”

“Because the topology is confusing.”

Theo considered the request, then renamed it Astrid's old access point.

This was the standard of technical cooperation I could expect.

The rain continued. Upstairs, a chair scraped across the floor. There were no company announcements, no incoming customer requests, and no alarm telling me that a demonstration had begun in another time zone.

I spent forty-three minutes establishing that the figure on the shelf was probably a Christmas decoration.

Nobody had asked me to do this.

It was an excellent evening.