Tomorrowland: Frank and Athena

Chapter 1 - Athena

December, 1963

Background information regarding a certain person flashed across her computer screen as Athena sat at her desk in her room, scanning and analyzing each page. Someone watching her would note that she was an exceptionally fast reader, though not suspiciously – inhumanly – fast. While she was much faster at most things than humans, particularly physical things, the processing of new information was only about 50% faster than a typical bright human due to the complexity of her cybernetic brain, which in many ways was as complex as a human brain. The individual parts of her brain equivalent to neuron clusters were electronic and thus much, much faster than human neurons, but she needed far fewer of them, which balanced out.

The room was quite sparse, since Athena didn't need anything like what humans needed in a room. Technically, she didn't need a room at all and would have been perfectly content staying in a small corner of the apartment. But her mum had given her the room with a desk, where she could do her work. The room did contain a bed which folded out of the wall for space efficiency, but Athena never used that, since she didn't require sleep.

The room was decorated, however. Her mother had installed various furnishings, none of which mattered significantly to Athena, but she knew it pleased her mother to put "cute" things in it, such as her mum's collection of miniature movie and book robots, many of which Caroline had made herself. On a shelf held many small figurines, such as Gort from The Day the Earth Stood Still, an R.U.R. (Rossum Universal Robot), and an R. Daneel Olivaw from Asimov's robot books. There was also a Frankenstein Monster, which in Athena's opinion didn't fit the pattern, but her mother included him anyway because (as she had said with a grin), "the monster was created by a human, the Frankenstein novel was very influential, and besides, the novel was written by a woman, Mary Shelley, who is one of my heroes. And I don't have to be completely consistent, so there!"

Occasionally people came to stay with them and they would use Athena's room. This didn't bother her, but Caroline asked that she refer to it during these times as "the guest room" rather than "her room." This, of course, was also fine with Athena. She had a number of rules regarding behavior when she and her mother were alone together versus around other people.

Her door opened, sliding up into the top of the frame, and her mum entered the room. "Athena, darling, for your trip to Siberia tomorrow, I would like you to give yourself a full charge," Caroline Chaumers said. "I don't expect the trip to last more than a few days, but there's a chance it may extend significantly longer. And, as you know, this one is unusually difficult."

Athena smiled, excited by the idea of going on the recruitment excursion. "All right, Mummy. I'll plug in after I finish this batch of documents," she said, in the same Northern England accent her mother had. She would have done this anyway, but it pleased her mother to fuss over her.

"Thank you, sweetie," Caroline said, kissing her head. She then stood next to Athena, just looking at her.

Athena looked up at her mum. Examining her face, she determined that Caroline was worried. Her human empathy was a crucial part of her primary function, which was to evaluate recruits and hopefully convince them to join Plus Ultra, the organization Athena and Caroline worked for. Her mother had told her at one time that her empathy interface had been one of the most difficult sub-systems to develop, requiring much research before Athena's initial activation and many, many pattern training sessions afterward. It was usually very reliable at determining human mental states and emotions, though not perfect with very complex ones. The feedback that it gave helped Athena immensely with understanding how her behaviors affected humans.

"Don't worry. I'll be careful tomorrow," Athena assured her, having concluded that her mother's worry was most likely related to her mission.

Caroline smiled at her. "I know you will, and you'll be doing exactly what I designed you to do. But a mum still worries." She kissed her again and walked out of the room, the door sliding closed once again.