James
Part two of the Engineer's story
“H.U.N.I.I.” I said, I was so excited I could barely hold it in. “If I can create H.U.N.I.I. and rewrite it to actually be able to do work, then none of us will ever have a question go unanswered, we’ll never be lonely...” I looked up at the HUB in my ceiling. “If I can wire it into the ship’s mainframe.... We’ll never have to work again!” I looked back at Gunther, who still seemed confused. “Vell, you do zat. And em. I’ll go back to ze kitchen.” he backed out of the room with the cart. He thought I was crazy and I didn’t care. He popped back in, “Oh, by ze vay. Anozer vone of your machines broke. Froze and just stopped vorking.” “It’s probably just a paradox in the commands.” I ran passed him and all the way down to Dover’s office. As soon as I got to the double doors I threw them open and shouted. “I’ve got it!” Dover jumped up. “What?” “I’ve got the code that will allow me to create a person in the computer. And I can rewrite it so that they can do work for us! All I need is your permissions to get into the ship’s main computer!” She looked at me just like Gunther did. I sighed. “I have the codes to a program that my grandfather was trying to develop before he died, which was basically a person in a computer. I can make it so that it’s not just a person in the computer though. I can make it do work for us too! And if I can load it onto the ship, then we’ll have time to do all of the things we want! Life will be so much easier for us!” Dover thought for a moment. “I want a draft of this program. Develop something that can work before we load it onto the ship.” I saluted, “Aye Captain!” I ran back to my room and started working immediately. I began threading everything together. Tieing in codes and processes to create the program. I was ready to make a big difference. -----------------------------------------------------Begin Segment---------------------------------------------------- Entry 7620 … 7620? 7623? … 7620 Late Night or Early Morning, I’m not sure which. The clock in my room has stopped working correctly, I can no longer differentiate between night and morning darkness. This process is taking much longer than expected. I hadn’t anticipated how convoluted these codes could become, especially since I had written them myself. I suppose I could redact some bits of data to speed it up, but then I wouldn’t even have the same program. I need to keep going with what I have now. The crew is expecting this fantastic program from me, if I don’t give them what I promised then what’ll they do? They’ll probably relieve me of my duties. I’ll be nothing more than a janitor on a big ship. I need to finish this program. -----------------------------------------------------End Segment------------------------------------------------------ I leaned back in my chair, looking at the mess of data, bits of machinery and circuitry. The window was black aside from the faint twinkling of the stars. I could see the ship running through the water from my window. I pressed my head against the cold glass, the first bit of relief I’ve felt since I started working on this. “I need to finish this program...” I brought my head back up, turned off the light in my HUB and promptly fell into bed. “But not today...” And I fell asleep.