"Coming," Peter called, and hurriedly kissed Isle's fuzzy head.
Having temporarily moved into Peter's California mansion since they had come back from Maine after Isle's birth, the Holmeses had been a godsend. Grace was all too happy to help out with Isle, and Byron and Peter had resumed their project. He had still not seen or heard from Ivy, and she had refused his calls at the detoxification clinic where she was recovering.
Byron and Peter and their small team worked all hours of the day on the design they had settled on. The day Isle was born, Ivy had provided him with the missing link, the distinct component that he had been seeking. With the ISLE interface, they now had a model from which to refine the hardware, honing its design to provide the ultimate platform, the perfect stage upon which Ivy's invention could perform.
"Come here," Byron said enthusiastically, "Get a look at this." He was standing before a Joey Plus computer. It was connected to a small, open black box filled with a convolution of wires, circuits, and components. Peter stood beside his mentor in the makeshift partitioned lab they had set up in one of the large bedrooms.
"We've got the agent tied in to the speech recognizer and it's working like a charm. Here," Byron said, handing Peter a small microphone, "tell it you want to make a date."
Peter cleared his throat. "Computer," he said, the keyword that the ISLE speech recognizer listened for to carry out spoken commands, "lunch with Byron on Friday."
On the screen, a small month-view calendar opened and the upcoming Friday flashed. A moment later "12:00PM Byron Holmes / Lunch" appeared in the date box.
The Joey Plus's built-in speaker came to life with a robotic voice. "Lunch with Byron Holmes, noon, confirmed. Is there an agenda?"
Peter grinned and looked at Byron, who lowered his voice. "A little something we threw in this morning."
Peter spoke into the microphone. "Yes. Discuss computer enhancements and - "