Interview with Rome II - Part 1 of 9

As Steve Fisch and I get the scripts ready to sell Rome's Revolution as a streaming series, he asked me for a lot of background information that I did not have. So I took some time out to interview Rome and Rei. Rome was very talkative so I had to break up her interview into two parts. Here is the second half of Rome's interview, part 1 of 9.
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This interview takes place about 10 days after the first session. Again, the interviewer is Perry Chung, son of Paul and April Chung, two of the original colonists from the Ark II.

Perry: Thanks for notifying me that you were here. I must confess you caught me a little bit unprepared. I had to sort through my notes to figure out where we left off.
Rome: It’s OK. Take your time. I apologize for springing this on you but I happen to be back on campus. It was unexpected for me as well. I had the time. I figured, why not?
Perry: I’m just curious, why are you here? I mean it’s great but I was thinking it would be a little while before we saw each other again.
Rome: Me too. I thought I was retired. (Rome laughs). No, really. They’re getting ready to open up the new astro-geophysics lab and they were having a problem with the environmental controls. So of course, they called me.
(Perry tilts his head)
Perry: What kind of problem, if I may ask?
Rome: When they went to hook in the system to the Library OMCOM, he balked at the idea. They needed me to come back and, oh, I don’t know, talk him into it?
Perry: I don’t understand. It’s a computer. Isn’t that its job?
Rome: Yes. But you must understand, while we refer to most artificially intelligent distributed computers as OMCOMs, we use the term generically. But this particular one’s lineage is different. He was not built. He is actually a portion of Planet OMCOM and arrived here fully formed, already sentient. Along with the memrons, he inherited a little bit of attitude as well. He can be a bit prissy at times.
(Perry squints)
(Rome leans forward.)
Rome: (in a low voice) He said he had better things to do than be a glorified thermostat. (Rome raises her voice back to a normal level.) I had to come and explain to him that his charter encompasses not just his needs but all of mankind and this was one need that he had to take on to further his mission.
Perry: And it worked?
Rome: Begrudgingly, yes. He’s not a bad sort. He just needs some hand-holding occasionally.
Perry: Well good for you. It doesn’t seem like computers should give us a hard time about such things.
Rome: I agree. That’s why I came to talk to him. My husband calls me a computer whisperer.
Perry: I don’t understand what that means.
Rome: Neither do I, really. Most of his colloquialisms, I can figure out but my husband says a lot of things. Sometimes, while I understand each of the words individually, the context throws me off. In this case, I suppose if computers had ears, this would be the equivalent of me whispering in its ear.

Tomorrow, part 2