The digital son misses a father who’s still alive

“You take it, Iker.”

“Who is it?”

“Mrs Casals. The ticket you opened yesterday.”

“She hung up on me at my third sentence. You explain.”

“I don’t know what to tell her.”

“Her digital son has started saying he misses a father who’s alive, Iker.”

“What?”

“He has been running six months. She paid for three years. Started yesterday.”

“The father is alive?”

“And hasn’t lived with her for eleven years. The original son died in January.”

“Oh.”

“We can prune him. The policy covers one pruning a year.”

“And it fixes it?”

“He comes back in two months. We aren’t copying the son, Iker: a different one grows on top of him. Number 34 got the same thing with his father. The lady upstairs, with shouting.”

“Do we tell her that?”

“You tell her an affective drift has been detected, her policy covers one intervention a year, and she should come by on Tuesday.”

“And that it will happen again?”

“No. They learn on their own, by the second or the third one.”

“And if the boy refuses to be pruned.”

“She signed. The boy doesn’t sign anything. He has no hands.”

“Nora.”

“What.”

“When my brother came in, after the accident, did you prune him anything?”

“Pick up the phone.”