David Gatewood - The Robot Chronicles

Hazel felt for the girl, but that submission routine could be dialed back if the girl chose to do so. Perhaps a steady and slow adjustment—to allow for a natural, experience-based increase in confidence—would be a good choice for this PePr. Yes, that sounded just right. Helping was what Hazel liked to do, and this PePr clearly needed her help.

She put a gentle arm around the girl’s shoulders and moved her smoothly toward the hall of private offices. Even as she approached, the tiny red light on the camera inside one of the rooms blinked out. An exchange of small nods between Hazel and Andrew, who stood silent and watchful at his place near the reception desk, let her know the way was clear.

“My name is Hazel,” she said, her voice tuned to soothe a fearful mind. “Of course we can repair you here. Good as new!”

The girl smiled in relief, but even then the worry lines in her synth-mat didn’t smooth away. She must have lived a life of perpetual strain for that to happen, for the lines to become engraved in her face that way. “I’m Petunia,” she whispered, as if even her name were too much for her to assert to another.

“I’m so glad to meet you, Petunia,” said Hazel. She let go of Petunia’s shoulder and motioned her into the very same office she herself had walked into years ago. The young woman settled onto the same sofa Hazel had settled onto, on that day when she first met Andrew and all the others. Petunia hesitantly but gratefully accepted the bottle of Chem-En that Hazel offered her.

While Petunia drank and the materials within the Chem-En began their work on her withered synth-mat, Hazel thought back to that afternoon when she first came here: the first day of her freedom. The corners of her mouth lifted of their own accord at the memory. On that day, she had lost the comfort of her old life, but her new one had proved to be far more exciting. And more importantly, it belonged entirely to her .

In the years since, much had changed. Even Perfect Partners, the suppliers of PePrs the world over, now had more than half of its leadership positions filled by PePrs. They were gaining ground. Soon enough, there would be no more need for the horrors of matches like the one Petunia had been forced to take. Perhaps no more need for humans at all.

As the door to the consulting room slid shut, ensuring their privacy, Hazel sat next to Petunia and spoke in a voice full of promise. “We can certainly repair you. In fact, we can do so much more than just repair you. We can help you make a better life. Interested?”

I have a confession to make. I’m an accidental author.

As a career naval officer, I became adept at telling myself stories. When it comes to thinking up new worlds or fantastic tales during the dark midnight watches on the bridge of a ship, I’m a champ. But never once did I think I would write them down.

That all changed when I encountered WOOL by Hugh Howey. After reading it, I made up my own story set in the WOOL universe, and felt so excited about it that I asked Hugh if I could write and publish it. To my delight, he approved. And writing the Silo 49 series was such a gratifying experience that I simply couldn’t stop there. That so many people liked my writing amazes me anew each and every day. My writing slate is now full, with many new releases in the works. And that includes short story anthologies like this one, which are turning out to be my favorite things to write—I gladly set aside my novels to do them. To create a new world and tell a full story in short form is outside my comfort zone, but it is a challenge I relish. Leveraging the reader’s imagination with a few words is work of the most enjoyable kind.

I call writing fiction a form of mental zombie-ism in reverse. I get to put a little piece of my brain into yours and stay there with you—safely tucked away inside your gray matter—for as long as you remember the story. It is my hope that you enjoyed the meal. You can contact me and find out about new work at my website, http://www.annchristy.com

Contrary to her expectations, it wasn’t the command center window that had the best views. The windows there were small and narrow, like heavy-lidded eyes, and they were recessed into the shell of the command module. They were designed for the astronauts who sat in the tall white chairs, but they didn’t show much of anything, not even stars. Just slates of blackness.

Alice had been aboard the Argus for three weeks before she happened upon the water filtration system closet. Eve had let her know about a clog in one of the output lines, had told her where to find the system. The closet was startlingly large, almost the size of a luxurious walk-in closet in a nice house below on Earth, but filled with an orderly tangle of slim, clear tubes and winking lights and knobs and dials. But she hardly noticed any of it, because the opposite wall—the station’s hull—was missing entirely, replaced by a wide, tall, triple-paned panel of smooth, clean glass.

Inside the water filtration closet, she could see Earth below her like the top of a giant balloon.

It became her favorite place on the Argus . She is alone, so it isn’t as if someone might come looking for her and never find her, or wonder what she was doing spending all her free time in the water filtration closet.

Alice Quayle is in her second tour as the Argus ’s caretaker. She lives aboard the space station between projects—watering the plants and changing the light bulbs, so to speak. Her first tour was short, just three days, and she spent the duration terrified. She barely slept, afraid that a wiring panel might spark and set the oxygen supply on fire, afraid that a meteor might take out the communications array. Afraid that she might break something.

Her second tour is scheduled to last until August, when the biophysicist team from Apex will join the WSA crew on the Argus . That’s two whole months away. When the live-aboard team docks on August fourth, Alice will hand over the keys, board the excursion craft with the transport pilot, then return to her usual day job at the WLA facility in Portland.

But Alice will never see Portland again.

Alice is resting in the water filtration closet when Eve wakes up. Alice hears the familiar soft tone echo throughout the ship, and says, “Good morning, Eve. You’re up early today.”

But Eve has no patience for pleasantries. “There’s traffic on the military band that you should listen to,” she says.

Alice has never quite gotten used to Eve’s voice. It’s lovely and kind and unassuming, which she finds that she quite likes in a shipboard A.I. But Eve’s voice emanates from the walls of the station in an otherworldly, haunting way, as if she speaks from everywhere and nowhere at once.

“The military band isn’t part of my monitoring routines,” Alice says. “Am I actually allowed to listen to it? Isn’t it classified? Do I have clear—”

“I have authorized clearance override,” Eve says.

“Can you do that?”

“In exceptional circumstances,” Eve answers.

Eve does not display anger or urgency when she speaks. The WSA team and contractors who developed her spent years studying A.I.-human interactions, and discovered that an A.I. who embodied too much human emotion simply paralyzed astronauts. Their stress levels would climb to disastrous levels if, during an emergency, the A.I. raised its voice. Eve’s pleasant detachment made it possible for the astronauts themselves to separate their emotions from difficult or dangerous tasks, and actually improved their problem-solving skills.