Breakfast before the storm

Kensu’s shower was not as relaxing as he hoped it would be. Turns out, AIDA was very much like a cat in that the AI didn’t enjoy the sensation of getting wet. Not that he could blame her. She didn’t even have skin before yesterday. The sensory assault of being completely covered in an alien liquid must have been confusing at best and alien at worst.

Still, Kensu did manage to clear his head somewhat. He didn’t feel fine just yet, but he had to admit that his mood definitely improved since he woke up. Apparently, that self-care stuff wasn’t completely made up.

It was time to try the AI’s first pancakes. First meal ever, really. Back in the lab, AIDA didn’t even control the microwave.

The building where Kensu stayed the night was an old-fashioned three-story high house turned into a makeshift motel. Kensu followed his nose, letting the sweet scent of flour and milk guide him across the hallways of the abode. He descended the stairs straight into the kitchen, where a robotic puppet of AIDA was, sure enough, manning the cooking utensils.

AIDA was puppeteering a quite antiquated robotic helper. Its cheap holograms squashed the detail on AIDA’s erstwhile elegant face, making her look like she came straight from a retro video game. For some reason, she had tied up a blue apron around her waist... even though the holograms projected a blue dress around the robot’s body.

Two other people were already patiently waiting for AIDA’s cooking. An old grandma with so many wrinkles that her face resembled a mountain range, and the chubby boy who graciously loaned Kensu a chocolate bar on the train ride yesterday. Another kid was watching from the edge of the door, her face only half-peeking from the doorway.

“Ah, you are awake. Care to join us for breakfast?” the elderly woman asked.

“Sure, thanks. What’s for breakfast?” Kensu asked with feigned interest.

“Your lovely AI is making some pancakes for us.”

“Huh. I didn’t know she was also programmed to cook.”

“I wasn’t, but I downloaded the recipe online and am following it through the letter!” the robot said with a hint of pride in her electronic voice.

“Great! But, err, why are you cooking breakfast in the first place?”

“I wanted to repay these kind people for taking us in for the night,“ the puppet said.

“Oh, nonsense. My grandkid promised you could stay if you fixed our router, and you did. We are a family of our word.”

“Also, I’m not able to sleep,” AIDA said inside Kensu’s mind. “I couldn’t even enter hibernation mode last night. I got so bored I’ve even cleaned the floor and rearranged the motel’s library in alphabetical order.”

“Well, in any case, thanks for letting us stay with you, miss.”

“It’s no issue. With the spring break, the students I usually loan to are gone, so the house is empty. Just me and my two grandkids.”

Kensu turned towards the door, to the kid who glared at AIDA like she was cooking a bomb. “Ah, is that other kid…”

“Yep. But you’ll have to excuse her. We had classic movie night the other day, and I made the mistake of showing her Terminator. She has been scared to death of robots ever since.”

The cooking pan sizzled as AIDA poured the pancake mass over the fire. With the first pancake hardening above the fire, she turned her head 180° to face the kid, who gasped and almost retreated behind the door frame. Only the left eye peeked out.

“Ah, you don’t have anything to worry about kid! All AIs are programmed based on the original blueprint by Dr Tamano, who hard-baked the Laws into their code! I can’t harm you even if wanted to.”

Kensu served himself some water and took a sip out of it. “But you might damage the pancakes if you don’t keep an eye on them.”

“Nonsense. This robot has its cameras on the chest, so the position of my eyes is irrevel…”

“But what if you got the laws removed?!” the kid blurted out, stepping into the kitchen. “I have a friend who knows a guy who can jailbreak any phon-”

“Relax, child. No one has been able to remove the laws yet no matter how hard they had tried! Ah, the first pancake is done. Want it?” The robot shoved a plate straight into the kid’s face. AIDA put on the best 32-pixel smile her holograms could project. “I promised they are not poisoned.”

“Eeep!”The kid jumped back and looked like she was about to run away, but thankfully, his big brother was behind her to take the bullet for her. And her pancakes.

“Don’t mind If I do!”

“Not the best at this reassuring business, aren’t you AIDA?”

“Psychology was never one of my areas of expertise.”

“Got to say thought, it’s pretty rare for a guy to walk around with a full AI in his nape,” the old grandma continued the conversation as AIDA slowly served everyone their breakfast. She pointed at the port on Kensus’neck.

“Y-yeah, I get that a lot. It’s for research. Much easier to carry AIDA around than move half the lab’s equipment. You know how convenient it is to have an AI assistant help around the house.“

“I don’t Sonny. We don’t have an AI.”

“But, then, the helper bot?”

“That old pile of junk doesn’t have an AI, just a basic cleaning subroutine. I wanted to buy one of the newfangled models that come with an AI assistant, but they have gotten kind of expensive lately. You know, since those useless bums at the asteroid fields decided to not do their jobs.”

“Err, I would cut them some slack. You know how lethal space is. Can’t imagine what is like to work in an asteroid mine.”

“Please, it’s not like they swing their pickaxes themselves. They sit in their control panel and press buttons. The droids do most of the actual mining.”

“Well but-“

“Bone appetite!” AIDA came back just in the nick of time to break up the political chat. She placed a plate of pancakes in front of Kensu and the old lady.

“Thanks AIDA, I’ll start digging in.”

“Please do.” Kensu cut a little square of pancake and stabbed it with his fork. He held it under his nose, letting the aroma of the sugar fill his nostrils befo- “Please start eating faster.”

“You… are really curious what food tastes like, huh?”

“Can you blame me? By volume, food is the most talked about subject in the lab. I want to see what about it has you organics so enthralled.”

“Fine, here it goes. Hope you enjoy your first bite of real food.”

Kensu placed the pancake in his mouth. It was a bit dry and chewy, the flavor was a bit stale, with perhaps a bit too much flour thrown into the mix. A perfect 5 out of 10 if Kensu had ever tas-

“Hehehe!”

“AIDA, are you ok?”

“Why are there so many different sensations in the mouth? I have never felt anything like this before!”

“…I take it you enjoy this eating business, then.”

“Less talking, more eating! But eat slowly! I want to experience the full flavor of each ingredient I used!”

“Say, you look familiar, boy,” the grandma rekindled the conversation. “You remind me of this famed scientist from back in my day.”

Kensu narrowed his gaze… “You don’t mean, Professor Katashi, do you?”

“Katawhat? No, he was called… something with H, I believe. Oh, you should have seen in his youth. He was like you, but a lot more rugged, and a bit more handsome.”

“… Thanks?! Was that a compliment?”

“Came back around the block once, he did, after returning from some new-fangled planet in outer space. Shame he already had a wife then….”

“Well, you can’t catch them all?”

“Kensu, less talking more eating!”

“Yeah, well, I couldn’t show myself to him that time even if he was single. He visited around the Jovian Flu outbreak, you see, and the dammed disease had given these horrid scabs all over-“

“Err, can this wait until we are finished eating?”

“Oh don’t worry Sonny, I’m skipping over the actual disgusting symptoms. Heh, I bet you kids don’t even know what the Jovian Flu did. Well, allow me to enlighten you-”

“Dr Kensu, you already swallowed your food. Please insert another piece of pancake into your mouth.”

Kensu meekly obeyed and ate another square of pancakes. Stuck between a horrific story and a woman who insisted he never ate enough. It almost felt like the holidays with his family. At least AIDA wasn’t saying he looked skinny as a stick.

Although, it was slightly reassuring to live such a familiar scene in the maelstrom of insanity that became his life. Better deal with grandma pestilence than the military...

---

A drone flew fast around the neighborhood, its scanners analyzing every image they captured at the speed of lighting. It stopped right outside a kitchen window with a tray of pancakes cooling off.

"I got something!" a blonde drone operator stood up in the operation room hundreds of meters away from the house. "Call the Captain. We found them."