Gabatrix: Minerva

Chapter 3: Eutera

Ericson stood in the lab as he looked at the subroutines displayed from his arm. He had been working for five hours. Minerva's face seemed different than the day before. He spent the time correcting the missing subroutines and nonfunctioning algorithms. The lab was as displayed as before, but there were changes. The planet Jupiter and Europa were no longer depicted on the left large screen. Instead, it had the waterfall of subroutines to his left as Minerva's face was on display beside it. The room was partially illuminated as before. It was pretty much the afternoon on the ship.

"Minerva," Ericson called out to her. "Report on your status."

"I am currently operating at 84% efficiency."

"That is good. We will keep working on that. I got the last of your human response subroutines fixed and operating now. Your memory core should be working at 99% now."

"My memory core is currently operating at 98.978% Doctor Ericson," she replied with an emotionless reaction.

He turned to look at her face. He was used to her voice by now. Even though it was a female voice, there was a lack of emotion in her words. She didn't sound like a robot, but she reacted as if she was unimpressed towards anything. It was the reaction that he was expecting from her. Her face seemed to operate much better now when it was displayed on the screen.

"Well," he said as he sighed a little bit. "It looks like I got you operating well enough that I can have a conversation with you now."

"I am capable of communicating with you Doctor Ericson," she replied back, affirming what he said.

"You look better when it comes to your face."

"You have made approximately five comments about my face. Why is that important?"

"I can look at you," he said. He deactivated his arm display as he perched and sat down on the center table. His legs hung from the table as he turned to look at her.

"Doctor Ericson, my....."

"Please, just call me Ericson. You don't have to call me doctor."

"Affirmative, Ericson," she replied with no emotion. "My program is currently running from the quantum computer that is currently on the table. My identity belongs to that. Why is it important for me to have a face?"

"Ummm.....I guess it is human nature for us to talk to somebody. Giving you a face allows us to communicate with you better."

Her white and blue eyes would periodically blink. Her voice synchronized perfectly as she spoke. Speakers around the room continued to allow her to talk normally. There was no screen flickering or anything. It confirmed with him more and more of her abilities as he spoke to her.

"Ericson, why is my face so important to you?" she asked.

"I guess your memory core is still not functioning correctly. You asked that question before."

"Negative. You have not provided enough answers to respond to my inquiry correctly. Why is my face important to you?"

"Well, it simply goes this way. Can you see my face right now?"

"Affirmative."

"What is your opinion on my face?"

The face of Minerva looked with the same intensity as before. She had the answer immediately. "Your face consists of numerous hair follicles, human tissue, a mouth, a nose, two eyes,....."

"What is your personal opinion?" he asked her again. He was testing to see if the subroutines and algorithms were working as he kept asking her questions.