It looks like they hate each other,  Kit said.

His father made a rueful face.  Software issues,  he said. He was a pressman for one of the bigger news-papers on theIsland , and in the process of the company converting from hot lead to electronic and laser printing, he had learned more than most people cared to know about the problems of converting from truly hard  hardware  to the computer kind.

 Nope,  Kit said.  I wish it were that simple.

 What is it, then 

Kit shook his head. Once upon a time, not so long ago, getting mechanical things to see things his way had been Kit s daily stock-in-trade. Now everything seemed to be getting more complex by the day.  Issuesthey ve got, all right,  he said.  I m not sure they make sense to me yet.

His father squeezed his shoulder.  Give it time, son,  he said.  You re abrujo; nothing can withstand your power.

 Nothing that s not made of silicon, anyway,  Kit said.

His father rolled his eyes.  Tell me all about it,  he said, and went away.

Kit sat there staring at the blue screen, trying to sort through the different strategies he d tried so far, determining which ones hadn t worked, which ones had worked a little bit, and which ones had seemed to be working just fine until without warning they crashed and burned. The manual for the new remote said that the new DVD player was supposed to look for channels on the TV once they were plugged into each other, but the remote and the DVD player didn t even want to acknowledge each other s existence so far, let alone exchange information. Neither the DVD s manual nor the remote s was any help. The two pieces of equipment both came from the same company, they were both made in the same year and, as far as Kit could tell, in the same place. But when he listened to them with a wizard s ear, he heard them singing two different songs in ferocious rivalry and making rude noises at each other during the pauses, when they thought no one was listening.