Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash
Her brows were furrowed as she tinkered with the wiring connecting to the processor. She was thinking that maybe it was a software issue, not that she would know anything about the programming of his father’s AI. All she could do was try to fix what she knew, what she could see and touch.
The processor was hot, as expected for such an involving task of sending a message back in time to the twenty first century. Looked like the cooling system was jammed. Trying to fix that would take an hour or two which she did not have so she tried the other alternative. She slapped the scrap in the side.
“Hey missy, it’s the thirtieth century. You don’t have to hit the junk for it to work.”
“You sound like my dad.” She sat at her desk, opened the topmost drawer, and picked a screw driver.
“Well, that could be because you have personalized my voice setting to sound just like him.”
“Alright KAI, I’ll get you back on default as soon as I figure this out.”
“No, not that dreary setting. I sound mechanical and everything is either black or white… it takes the whole advent of AI’s centuries back.”
She held the screw driver to one of the screws and pressed the button. The magnets started doing their thing. When KAI’s hologram turned into monochromatic pixels for a split second before turning pink and blue again, she pressed the reverse button and fixed the screw back into the processor.
“Excuse me young lady.” KAI was indignant. His tone had turned a rich baritone just like her father’s did anytime he felt disrespected -- often times by her. “Stop messing with my body parts. How would you feel if I messed with yours?”
“Not in the mood to banter, KAI.” She sat still and rummaged through her mind. Maybe some bright idea will pop up. Who was she kidding though? She hadn’t had a bright idea since her father died.
She dropped the screw driver back into the drawer, paced around the narrow computer room and finally crumbled on the floor of the earthship, burying her face in her palm.
“There, there. I could try to find out what’s blocking the transmission if you want.” KAI’s attempt at comforting her sounded rather patronizing.
“That could take you several hours…even days!” She lashed out at KAI. “This could be my only chance and I can’t afford to sit for days and watch you figure things out for me, god damn it!” She let the tears fall. She had been holding on to them in case there was a chance that she would not have to shed them. That chance was slimming down by the second.
“You can’t bring him back, you know?” KAI intoned.
“Yea? How would I know if I don’t try?”
The AI fell silent.
“I thought as much. You don’t know everything.”
She yanked the processor’s chord out of the power supply port the processor and gave fixing the processor another go. Yet one look at the rusty junk and the will to do so ebbed away completely. She kept it unplugged. At this point it was a waste of scarce energy anyway. She pushed her stool back and retreated to her sleeping chamber.
She was always careful not to step on the tomato plants in her way even though the red LED lights flooding the compartment made that close to impossible. It was her father’s genius idea. When the surface became almost impassable, he resorted to making the earthship more self-sustaining.
Initially, it was just one big space with the control center at the front and a travel pod in one lonesome corner. Then he transformed that large space into six compartments. The control center was made into a computer room, one room housed the travel pod, two other self-contained rooms -- one for him and the other for her. There was also a room for growing stuff, which he appropriately named the grow room. It also doubled as the kitchen. He only stepped in there to make some tea. Back then there used to be some space right in the middle of the ship, surrounded by all the room. He called that the day room. They played there when he was not busy fiddling with his machines.
But things got worse. Buying and selling was no longer possible, the risk it entailed was not worth the reward. So, her dad turned every available space into a grow room and the first to go was the day room. The grow room should be enough now that her father had managed to get himself killed. She made a mental note to clear the day room some time later in the week.
She was grateful for the white light when she made it to her room. She plopped into her bed and listened for the occasional thud of rubbish cubes hitting the surface burying her deeper in the ground. The thud was faint. Soon, she would have to move the ship to the surface.
It usually took three months for the ship to reach critical mass where it could no longer bear the weight from all the cubes, leaving her with about two to three weeks.
She let the thud lull her to sleep. Her father always hated that sound. He soundproofed his room for that exact reason. The thought of being buried under heaps of rubbish made him claustrophobic. To her, it was just another sound.
