Standing in the Sun

    "So, when do you leave?" Jeremy, or as his friend Gottfried calls him, "Germy," sounded much younger over digital communication.

    Gottfried watched his face stutter on the video feed, "About twenty hours from now."

    He was going off the atomic clock where he was currently residing. Where he was determined to relocate, however, was an installment without one, due to size and age. Lack of the former, excess of the latter.

    "What are you even gonna do for two weeks alone?"

    "I don't know, catch up on sleep maybe? Besides, you know I won't be alone, Germy."

    Jeremy tilted his head back, revealing the scruff accumulating under his jaw, "That's right..."

    Gottfried leaned forward to readjust in his seat, "He's been teaching himself board games without me. Then, he'll teach me his favorites on site. I figure that's a pretty natural thing to do in isolation."

    "I don't know how you can just let him traverse around anywhere he pleases like that. You really should sandbox him." Then, quieter, "Though I guess you'll both be sandboxed now."

    "It doesn't hurt to learn a little here and there." Gottfried argued.

    "Sure," Jeremy was reasonable, "but, Gott, when we go walking around our world, it's not like it'll make us go crazy or anything."

    "You sure about that?" Gottfried laughed.

    "It just seems like your buddy might pick up some kind of a virus if you leave him loose like that."

    "It's the internet, Germy, not a brothel."

    Jeremy scratched his head, looking at his watch, "Clearly you haven't seen as much of the internet as I. Let me know when you decide to change your buddy's avatar to something more attractive. I've got money riding on it."

    "Attractive based on your standards? That could be anything."

    He started to get up, "I'm really counting on you caving on this, uh, trip."

    "I wouldn't call a maintenance detail a trip."

    "Yeah, two weeks of downtime for pay, what a bad deal." Jeremy stood up, stretching, "See ya when you get back."

    "Bye." Gottfried struggled out of his seat to echo Jeremy's stretching.

    The artificial gravity didn't exactly put a strain on his aging joints, but he much preferred lower gravity. Ideally zero. He stepped away from his computer, easing side to side in a waddle one might experience after a long road trip. Gottfried inhaled slowly, calming himself.

    His personal rig was a middle-of-the-line frame housing moderately above-average processing power. The line of work he was in didn't exactly necessitate much more than that. Gottfried turned back to eye the portable, solid state liquid computation server. Running from it an entire personality, as close to living as he cared to ponder. Inside the small casing that could almost fit in his pocket, there was someone whom his entire career revolved.

    In the world of personal artificial intelligences, limitations were often only based upon two things. First, the creator or modifier of the intelligence. Two, what housed the intelligence. With near infinite variables in the world of corporate sponsored quantum computers, and commercial availability of liquid computing, it became a question of choice regarding what fit the need.

    Gottfried's entire career was like many in this age. In essence, he was an agent for his AI, networking with other humans to apply this intelligence in jobs it could accomplish, and do so with ease. Intelligences were often highly specialized. It wasn't rare for a contractor to prefer such specialization, as it meant less variables to concern themselves with regarding the behavior and function of the intelligence. It also likely indicated a certain degree of professionalism, being that the intelligence was trained for a specific purpose, and its owner likely owned several separate intelligences for various purposes.