The Night Before Departure - flash story on cali

The Night Before Departure

 I press a finger to my temple panel and engage the scanners built into my eyes. My gait is slow but purposeful as I walk through the corridors of The Curiosity. The ship will be taking off tomorrow, taking me with it. I like to think that I will be taking off tomorrow, dragging the ship with me, instead of the other way around. This thing is my charge, after all. I look after her. And this task, scanning the ship for tiny damages, is my job. It's what I was built to do, literally. As a TechniCality model, I exist to scan for and discover damages to The Curiosity. I can't actually fix many of them, that's for a lot of the other AI models in the SpaceSafety line. And for other human mechanics here on The Curiosity, like that cute one I see sometimes in the engine room.

"Of course," I mutter to the ship, "he'll never want anything to do with me. I can't sexually reproduce, don't even have the physiology necessary, and don't all human men want that? Isn't that all they ever want?" Pausing, in my words and my steps, I let out a sigh. I'd allowed myself to become distracted. Glancing through my scan history, I notice that the plastic light covering three panels back had a hairline crack in it. That I can fix. I turn on my heel and approach the panel.

"C'mon, Cali, face it. The only way you'll ever figure out if human men want anything more than sexual relations is if you actually talk to one of them. Which is terrifying." I know that The Curiosity isn't ever listening when I talk to her, but talking to a spaceship seems better than only ever talking to myself.

With a tap at my wrist, my fingertips become like tiny shower heads that spray a soft mist of sealant on the crack only my eyes can see. The sealant takes only about ten minutes to set, and the plastic light cover will be perfect within the hour.

"Much better," I say with a smile before tapping my wrist again, reverting my fingertips back to normal, and head down the corridor.

I'm walking and scanning and thinking for a while. I can't find any other damages, which is simultaneously calming and unsettling. Calming because I don't want my girl to break on her way out of orbit, unsettling because there might have been some damages that I missed. But that's just the anxiety that comes along with the job. I have to trust that the artificial intelligence producers that built me did so correctly, even though no one knows which AI production company actually put out the SpaceSafety line. Some, like a couple of the Forgers I know, think that the SpaceSafety line was a coalition of AI companies. I'm not sure I agree with them.

Eventually, I arrive at the observatory that's in the belly of The Curiosity. It's a large room with a glass floor that would look out on the expanse of space if we were actually out there. The glass, as thick as the stuff up at the bridge, is something I have to scan every morning. Other TechniCality models scan it at intervals throughout the day. The outer glass sections of the ship get scanned the most often, as a crack in the glass could mean death for everybody on board if it went unaddressed.

"I like having the morning shift," I say, my voice quiet, as I look out past my feet to the scaffolding and structures holding The Curiosity out of the dirt, "It lets me get my work out of the way and then enjoy the rest of my day."

The ship is being held at an angle, with her jet engines closest to the ground and her nose pointed towards to stars we'll be among tomorrow. I can't wait to get off planet. It'll be nice to look out of this observatory and see the stars populating the emptiness of space rather than this scaffolding-and-dirt look we've got going on right now.

I do another thorough scan of the observatory glass, double checking for any fissures. Not finding any, I start the long journey up to my quarters, satisfied with my work. I fiddle with my temple panel for a moment, saving my scan data and submitting it to the head of the TechniCality line with a statement of my time card. Then I switch off my scanners and my vision returns to normal, the blue scanning filter dropping out of view.

Finally arriving at my quarters--I should have used the transport, or at least the elevator--I blip the computer in the door and it slides open. That's one benefit, I suppose, of being a walking supercomputer, I don't have to do the fingerprint scans that all of the humans have to do to get into their quarters.

"TechniCality!" A voice calls from down the hallway a bit. I'm halfway through the doorway when they call it, and when you're not sure who exactly they're trying to get the attention of, you might as well respond. I backtrack into the hallway, looking for the source of the voice.

A man, I can't tell yet if he's AI or human, is jogging up to me.

After a moment, I recognize him to be Forge, one of the Forgers I've called on a couple times to reforge a damaged metal panel.

I roll my eyes and step back into my quarters, blipping the door computer again. It slides shut right before Forge can come barreling in here. I really don't want to deal with his poor excuse for flirting today. He always--without fail--calls me TechniCality, even though I tell him every time that I like to go by Cali.

I collapse onto the couch in my front room with a sigh. Forge tries blipping my door computer, and it buzzes aggressively. "Will he never learn?"