"What happened after the pandemic? Was there a point in time that the pandemic was officially over? Or were the people so exhausted or so occupied with their 'burn out' - such as it was fashion at that time I learned in the history lessons - due the inflation and the war sceneries in Europe and Asia that they didn't adequately appreciate the end of the health crisis? It was such an effort to develop the medications and organize and to comply with all the protection measures. Was it an unsung end after all the achievements of the people, the health system and the sciences?"  

Joyce listened to her daughter Sarah and remembered last year's family meeting during Christmas time. "Last year you wanted to know if the data about grandmother Naomi collected during the pandemic are still available. And Snowball with its special access level to data answered you the question." 

Sarah throws the orange gum ball to Sweetie. The German shepherd jumps and catches the spiky toy and brings it to her. "And the dog still jumps like a sheep. You are a shepherd - not a sheep, Sweetie." The young woman crawls the dog's head with one hand, with the other she gestures for the dog to give her the ball. "And again Sweetie. Show me how to jump like a sheep!"

Joyce is annoyed like always when Sarah degrades her sharp trained guard dog.  

Naomi comes back from the green house plantation. "I see; nothing has changed. It must be the ancestry. My family still makes fun with security systems."  

"I've heard from Demian that there is a bug in the system. Is Snowball's AI affected by the bug?" Joyce uses the AI as an assistant for almost everything. The first time the especially for Joyce modeled AI was activated through a snow globe. After the activation, the AI began to communicate through almost every device near Joyce. It's not location bound. 

"Currently I can't give you closer information about the bug because we are still analyzing damages which have already happened. The first damage occurred during space travel. Accidentally, your brother Demian was part of the mission. I have a suspicion but it's too early for accusations." Naomi  raises her hand and waves - as if she wants to banish a bad thought.

"You can't stop the story when it becomes interesting. You know that this can change our society. This can throw us decades back!" Joyce is angry.

"And I think this is the motivation of the makers of the bug. We have to take into consideration that in the beginning of the usage of the digital era even more trustful organizations like for example the labor union weren't great fans of the online business. This does not mean that I suspect any of the organizations for the problems we detected now. But we have to remember what happened in these years and how the power structures looked like. For online journalists it was a hurdle run with many job-damaging accusations such as that the journalistic work is minor when it's published online than on paper. It seemed as if the labor union stood not for the labor of journalists but for the industry of paper processing and print. Funnily enough, it was actually one group: Media like magazine publishers were in one group with printing, communication and paper processing.  Even the funding of journalistic work through the state reflected that view. Unfortunately, the conservative structures with the labor union and other organizations had such power that the AI models which were released for the public for the first time at the end of the pandemic were fed with information from sources of media which counted to the beneficiaries of the system. The same with the news sections on smartphones…"

Sarah "Oh, smartphones. That's great. Do you have an old one?" 

Naomi wasn't unhappy about the granddaughter's interruption. She takes a cookie from the table and bites into the sweet vanilla-almond pastry so that the sugar-like applied vitamin crystals jump into the air and envelop the woman's face with a powder cloud.

"Wow. Grandma. You managed to get the vitamin crystals into sugar form!" Sarah takes a cookie and bites into it. The crystals bounce shimmering into the air and completely disappear after a short time. "How do they dissolve?" "They couple to the oxygen molecules and thus enrich the air." 

Naomi stands up from the rattan armchair. She's still eating her cookie and says with her mouth full. "Here in this old commode I have some of the old smartphones." She takes a blue-metallic device with a large screen. "They were so unwieldy. But they were functionable! This one has an assistant which hasn't been updated since the early years of AI. It's connected with the AI archive we are using for our research. So let us try out to produce an image through AI." Naomi enters some letters. Sarah stands beside her grandma. "Is this your code to access the phone?" "Don't be so curious." Naomi turns away. "So let's see if the DALL-E AI from 2022 serves a classical New Year's pig in a glass bubble." Naomi commands the phone assistant. "It was so advanced already in the early years. Here it is - a cute picture in retro style. So nice to play with these phones. Let's apply the greeting 'Happy New Year 2023'!"

"How time flies. Two weeks ago we sat here together and enjoyed the Valentine's  flower bouquets and now Emil and Demian leave the planet again," says Naomi with bitterness in her voice, looking at grandson Emil and son Demian. The family met again in her house waiting together for the shuttle of the space station Neowise. From there in 23.000 kilometers height they will start the space flight to the next wormhole transfer point. A risky passage - even when the human-made wormhole transfer leads to better results nowadays than in the beginning. Some of the early passengers landed at undefined time and space coordinates because the systems on earth broke regularly. The technology had to be adjusted for the jump.

 "Do you know which galaxy and time you will explore at your next jump?" Sarah asks her uncle and brother with a worried look in her eyes. "No, this is always top-secret, " Demian answers, "We still have the problem that some countries don't work in a team. Sometimes it seems as if human kind hadn't learned from wars. Nobody wins, everybody loses. Always the same. Also 'cold war'-spy games are unnecessary in our times. But sabotage, the cyber threat through hackers, the stealing of knowledge, the manipulation of data and research results for the economic pursuit of profit is still the same in our world like before the pandemic. We knew already before the 2020ies that the human race grows so fast that we have to migrate sooner or later to other planets. But in the 20s, the knowledge was for the first time so profound that the theory could be set into practice." 

Joyce comes in, followed by her shepherd Sweetie. The dog trots with hanging head - such as if it knows that this meeting could be the last in this constellation. Sweetie finds its place at the feet of Demian, who was its original owner. He has chosen the dog from a litter offered by a breeder who specialized in watch dogs. Demian hasn't trained the dog like it was common for watch dogs. Demian's sister Joyce first took the people-friendly, emphatic dog only for some weeks and later when her brother served longer periods in space, Joyce became officially the owner.

Joyce looks critically at her brother: "Do you think that Neowise has enough control over the wormhole technology?" "We never know if we are hacked." "How did it start that the world drifted away from the peace route?" Sarah wanted to know. She is the youngest in the round and in an age when pieces of learned, experienced and supposed have to be put together. Naomi steps into the conversation as she was the only one who experienced the period in her lifetime. "It was a geopolitical dispute that should have been cleared diplomatically - and on both sides it could have been a win-win situation. But sometimes, people want war. They don't select the peaceful way even when it's easier. That's the way humans are. And the pandemic didn't change the world in this aspect. Demian, have you implemented the latest generation of AI for the detection of intrusions on your missions?"  "Yes, but the problem with the latest AI is the time-space shift which interferes with logical programming. The basic structure works with the linearity known from earth."

The shuttle lands with a loud swoosh in the garden. "Noise canceling isn't such a new technology." Sarah remarks snippy. Naomi and Demian ignore Sarah's commentary - there is no time left for explanations why noise canceling is a minor problem for space shuttles. Naomi and Demian stand up and continue their conversation about AI. "Have you tried to re-program the linear to empathic-like routines? Perhaps the time-space shift can be bypassed and hacks can be observed more efficiently this way." They arrive at the loading flap of the shuttle. "Come back soon."  Naomi hugs her son before he is boarding. 

Naomi's world just falls apart. The scientist has always believed in her abilities to estimate her work's impact on society and politics. How could it happen that she has overseen the scam? 

"Was it necessary to integrate Austrians in Austria? What happened at that time?" Sarah, the grandchild of Naomi, is concerned about the story her mother and uncle are discussing. Demian, the brother of her mother Joyce, was back after his space mission failed. The reason for the unplanned return to earth was the finding of a computer bug placed in a simple routine. So simple that it was built as standard in the most common applications and became essential for the functionality of everyday devices like kitchen machines to space ship navigation systems.

Naomi stands up from her comfortable fauteuil and walks to the window consisting of several panels with artful Gothic-like colorful glass paintings showing scenes from the revolution 70 years ago. As a young woman, she had joined the movement for a more equal society and believed to have decided well. "No, it was not necessary to integrate Austrians to Austria. But we had no time to observe all the institutions and some acted like wolves in sheeps' clothing. They appeared so honest and in line with the movement's values. We had no idea that they had developed a computer programme which was connected with the federal data center to select people for integration measures. The government collected data files about each single citizen. Regardless of whether the person comes from Austria or not. It was a big business to offer integration courses in times of migration waves and they made it even bigger with some additional variables. The algorithm wasn't arbitrary. The authors have calculated well to integrate especially those with low chances to be heard because their reputation had already been damaged or who could not raise their voices without further damaging their lives. Getting the order to start integration measures was a sort of condemnation similar to a court verdict only without closer details about the crime. It was an official rebuke for breaking the rules of society. So people didn't talk about it, and when they did, they were convicted a second time because the integration algorithm targeted aspects of a biography that, had a case been made public, would have diminished the person's standing and status. The credibility dynamically went to zero." The rays of the afternoon sun awakened almost imperceptibly the paintings of the window and the figures began to act like animated characters in a hand-painted documentary with historical scenes of the revolution. Naomi steps beside the window to give the sight free for her family members who watched the glass play from the seating group. She had a youthful smile on her face."Isn't it a beautiful technology." The color painting's nanotechnology brings movement into the legendary moments of the revolution. The only energy source the show needs is the afternoon sun. The 'screens' of the documentary are the glasses and in a larger size the floor for the reflections. Demian walks over the moving images which are thrown by the sun rays from the optical window glasses wide over the natural stone floor of his mothers winter garden. "Your generation was short sighted and gullible. When you were young did you think that all people are good? Wasn't there an election with a record number of presidential candidates?" Sarah listened to her uncle's criticism and approached one of the window sceneries closer. It's a memory of the mentioned election. Sarah writes with her finger the question 'Who are they' on the glass; the names with optional link to the biographies of the depicted persons appear instantly: "Wow, many candidates!" "Yes, it was the first time that so many candidates started their own campaign rallies for the highest office in Austria," remembers Naomi. Demian was visibly annoyed. "Mother, I never understood this episode. Was the population so diverse or was it a strategic calculation, a sort of chess game to escalate the election to prevent a runoff such as in the election years before between the left and right parties?" Naomi returns to the seating group and takes a cookie. "People remember well how the fire was stoked before the last elections and the explosive power of the clash of conflicting interests when the votes were counted for a second time." She bites into the plum-almond-cinnamon cookie. Naomi made the cookies just in the morning. It's a new recipe made with oatmeal, banana dough; the plums are from her garden. "Great autumn dessert. Demian, have you tasted the new cookies?"

"Do you have a Valentine's Day story for us, grandma?' Sarah decorates the flowers on the large table made of raw wood with some artful inlaid work which is showing objects and landscapes. A table without technology is a rare object in grandmother Naomi's home. It's the 14th February 2079. 

The tableware, fine porcelain with spring-flower decoration, is already placed for the family dinner. "Valentine's day had changed in the beginning of the pandemic such as many other traditions like dancing through the night in elegant ballrooms that weren't practiced due to new behavior schemes caused by necessary distance rules or mask regulations. It wasn't the same like before 2020. Valentine's Day was associated rather with romantic situations like those of two people who meet for fine dining in the hope to start a new relationship than with tokens of love between married couples. But Grandfather started the 14th February deflorestation of my garden already before the pandemic." Naomi laughs about the wordplay. The elderly woman brings another vase with flowers to the table; she looks at it with admiration in her eyes: "The flowers are well selected. They don't appear kitschy like the average bunch of flowers decorated with a red heart which carries love letters in gold or outfitted with an unnecessary bow from the ordinary florist. Grandfather's bouquets are partly made of waste from the glasshouse. Some of the plants in the vases are wild flowers and weed growing in the wrong places. The flower garden looks thanks to Valentine's Day being cleaned up."