“I know that you believe you understand what you think I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.”
- Robert McCloskey
"Don't be daft...", said Merlin, "why would you quit? This is a great opportunity! you're the first person on earth that actually does sales for an alien civilization. Think of all the experience you'll get!"
Noo grumpily looked at his phone and said, "Well, being nearly strip-searched by a coffee machine isn't the kind of experience I was looking for..."
"Ah, but it certainly is interesting! So what can you do to make this machine more successful?"
"Smashing it to bits with a sledgehammer comes to mind…”, Noo grumbled, determined not to let Merlin’s unwavering optimism break his sullen mood. “How can this…”, he hesitated, looking for the right word, “…monster ever be sold here? It’s a paranoid maniac! And then the coffee! It’s hideous!!!”
“Is it indeed?”, Merlin grinned, “and why is that?”
Noo shut up as he pondered that question. Why was that coffee so bad? He sniffed his cup and snarled… surely, it wasn’t…? Hmmm, maybe Merlin was right…
“You know, Merlin, I don’t know… yet”, he said after a bit, “Listen, I have to go now… investigate…”, he grinned. Merlin had done it again.
Merlin laughed, “No problem Noo, have fun and let me know. Let’s call again soon.”
Noo put his phone down and squeeked as he stared right in Lemon's friendly smiling face.
"Where did you come from?", Noo gasped
Lemon pointed at the door and his smile grew wider. "Helooo... Noo? You, meeting now"
"You shouldn't sneak up at me like that", Noo hissed, "you damn near gave me a heart attack..."
He packed his laptop and walked with Lemon to the meeting. It would be a long walk, for some reason the Hive offices came equipped with incredibly long corridors. The walls of the corridor were lined with machines looking grim to morbid to even plain ludicrous. Most machines were labeled ‘Testing. Please don’t touch’
"Why is sneak?", Lemon asked, smiling but obviously puzzled.
Noo laughed, "Sneak is when you walk to me without me hearing you...", he explained, trying to use words that would be in Lemon's grasp. "On earth it is considered...", he struggled to find a word that would not trigger the next 'what is...' question, "not good.", he finally decided.
Lemon’s answer was cut short as a machine that looked like a printer suddenly exploded in a screaming falsetto rendition of ‘Cherish the Love’
“Why are they doing this?”, Noo shouted, clasping his ears
“Is testing…”, Lemon explained in what he hoped was a friendly and non-threatening way. Going from Noo’s reactions, the Hive products could use some good marketing. Or maybe Noo was just a difficult customer, excellent study material though. He smiled as the machine screeched:
Cherish da Hiiiive – oh yeah
Cherish da love we have – while we is [digger digger]”
Noo almost cried, “On earth we torture people with this!!!”, he screamed.
Lemon’s smile widened, “So you like?”, he shouted back.
“No!!!”, Noo squealed, “please make it stop!”
Lemon was confused. “Noo, machine is printing, can no stop…”, he screamed back in his friendliest and most comforting voice, “why you not like Sin T’zin 2000 printer? Is latest and largest!”
“Me praise that mine dram will come truth”, the machine’s falsetto intensified to a piercing wail, “Cherish da Hiiiiiiiiive”
Lemon took the brochure and shouted convincingly, “The Sin T’zin print unit guarantees lower Total Clash of Owners, it provides a richdom pallet of colors ranging from black to white and improves slave morale by providing voluntary access to music to be chosen by management.”
The machine stopped abruptly and aggressively spat out a piece of printed paper. ‘Test’, it read.
The phrase ‘voluntary access to music to be chosen by management’ rang loudly through the corridor, and Lemon grinned an amused hiccup. “Good time, 6 minutes”, he concluded as he picked up the paper. Six Hiveans appeared out of nowhere and Lemon quickly instructed them in da Heiwa. The six quickly disappeared and Lemon turned his attention to Noo again.
“Soooo… what you think Noo?”, he asked, “Impressive, yes?”
Noo blinked.
“Is good Noo…”, assured Lemon, “I can see you emotion”. He smiled and was even a bit impressed himself, looking at earth’s first emotional response to the Sin T’zin 2000
Noo sighed. “Lemon, we really need to talk…”, he said, “I’m sorry to burst your bubble but this will never sell…”. He watched in wonder as Lemon blinked. Once.
“For starters”, continued Noo, “it took the machine five minutes to print one paper with the word ‘Test’ on it…”
“Da Heiwa minute?”, asked Lemon hesitantly
“Earth minutes”, Noo said and went on, “On earth, printers can print 1000 pages in that same time easily! This will never work in an office environment!”
“Ah, but Sin T’zin 2000 no spell errors… many checks”, Lemon objected.
“But Lemon…”, Noo rolled his eyes, “a printer should not check for spelling errors, it should print…”, and he yelped as the machine started singing again. This time it sounded as a whale on helium.
“Let’s take a wok together near the ocean short”, it slurred in a high squeaky threatening voice, “Manually, You and meeee”
“And what’s with the singing???”, Noo shouted, trying to overcome the machine that seemed to increase volume as he tried to make his point, “If I am emotional it’s only my desire to…”. His heartfelt desire got lost for posterity as the machine belted “Me often pry before me lie downward by your siiiide”
Again the machine stopped abruptly and spat out another piece of paper. ‘Test 2’ it read.
Lemon seemed overjoyed. “Big successss”, he said, “We now apply mood-skins to machine emotion!”
Noo blinked. Not once but many times.
“Lemon, I don’t understand… this time it took the machine even longer to print out the same amount of data…”
“Ah Noo, but more letters to check and more letters to print”, Lemon admonished and held up the two prints as proof:
‘Test’
‘Test 2’
“More important: Sin T’zin can now print in new mood!”, Lemon laughed merrily.
“New mood? What do you mean?”, Noo asked and then wished he hadn’t as Lemon touched a button on the machine, sending the conversation into sonic hell for the third time.
Finally, Noo picked up the third print (‘Test 3’) which was the result of the most morbid session of ‘Cherish the Love’ so far. Noo was still shaking from the menacing evil voice that had hissed ‘Could me make it through the night?’ at him. He handed it to Lemon and said, “We really have to talk. This machine could bankrupt your company… and please do not test while I tell you a couple of things”
“First: the singing… what do you want to accomplish? It will probably scare the heebyjeebies out of normal people. Nobody will want that”
“Ah, but singing is differentiator…”, Lemon suggested politely.
“Singing will get us thrown out of any serious bid…”, Noo retorted testily, “who says it is a differentiator?”
Lemon looked uncomfortable. “Product managers say”, he finally said and quoted the brochure, “Your employee ratings will rise because heavenly voices (“heavenly???”, shouted Noo) make slave day bright as Sin T’zin 2000 performs high security print”
“High security print…”, Noo mused, looked at Lemon and approached the machine. The ‘Print’ button beckoned him in inviting pink. He pressed it.
The machine roared to life. “Access to [digger digger] restricted!”, it barked and would have squinted at Noo if it could have, “Please insert employed passss!”
At the bottom a hatch opened exposing a small slot…
Noo looked at Lemon perplexed. “You haven’t…”, he stammered.
Lemon smiled broadly. “Yes! High security print!”, he replied proudly, “and we just sell 50,000!”
“To whom?”, Noo gulped.
“Ah, big successss, we sell to American government!”, Lemon beamed, “them start test next week.”
“We have to speak to Vaseline immediately!!!”, Noo croaked, “This could start a global war!!!”
“Yessss…”, Lemon smiled enthusiastically, “You, meeting now!”
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