Chapter 11

I spent most of my free time the next day in the workshop building the oven and watching Sven happily mixing different ingredients to create a perfect cake for Nhi’s birthday tomorrow. His enthusiasm made me smile, and in the end, I helped him with cooking, making him laugh at my suggestions.

I wasn’t sure why he reacted like that. It was true that I didn't need to eat, but my systems were well-equipped to predict the edibility of his experiments. I understood human biology better than he did. It didn’t bother me, though, and I enjoyed spending time with him, listening to the stories about his grandchildren, mixed with anecdotes about his time in ESA.

Eva and I went out of sync, and I never had a chance to give her a massage again. She was either in bed when I came back or stayed up late at night, forcing me to rest alone in our cabin. After analysing it, I came to the conclusion that both of us worked on something for Nhi’s birthday and tried to keep it a secret. The 61% possibility for that explanation left me a bit unsettled, but it was the best I had.

I asked Sven about the drawing he did for Nhi, but he just shrugged, saying,

“You know how she is… Sometimes it is just easier to do what she wants. She is worse than my wife”, he smiled.

Leaving me with yet another unanswered question.

The day of Nhi’s birthday started like any other day, and I went through my tasks yet again, finding comfort in the endless stream of data that required enough of my processing power to prevent me from thinking about Eva.

The oven was ready, and Sven had promised to bake during the lunch break so that the cake would be ready for the evening’s party. I was pretty confident that with the circuit breakers and the heat sensors I had built in, he would be able to use it safely without my supervision. Certainty of 99% was a rare occurrence, but the machines with their binary logic were much easier to predict than humans.

I never celebrated my birthday, it just wasn’t part of the android culture, and only a few of us still celebrated Assembling Day. The tradition reached way back to the time when we still tried to be as human as we could before a wave of reforms swept through the world, giving us citizenship and putting an end to such pointless efforts. It happened long before my time, and nowadays most of us frown on those old customs, so I was happy that no one here asked me when my birthday was.

All the crew put effort into integrating me into their team, and I did the same by learning their ways. So despite our obvious differences, we managed to work together really well and became friends shortly after we arrived at the station.

In the evening, we all gathered in the command centre, sitting down in any free space we could find. Of course, it would be more convenient to celebrate in the canteen, but it was Raul’s and Amin’s watch, and no one could imagine that Amin would be bending the rules and leaving his assigned post while on duty. After so much time we spent together at the station, we got used to each other's ways, and no one was bothered by it any longer.

I sat on a chair and watched how the party unfolded. Social events like this were never something I could fully understand and therefore participate in. I smiled at seeing how happy Nhi was with her cake. She ran to me and put her arms around me, saying thank you, before she did the same to Sven, leaving him blushing.

Amin sat next to me, and his oud filled the command centre with soft melodies. I really appreciated that he decided to keep me company for a while before joining Eva and Raul as they discussed something leaning against the door.

I spent my time letting my systems design a more efficient software that would control the power supply for the scanners. After analysing Raul’s report, I finally found why the scanners operated only on 98% of power and found a way to rectify it.

It was quite late when Eva walked up to me and briefly put her hand on my shoulders before sitting down and asking what I was thinking. I just smiled at her, not wanting to break her festive mood with my answer. She seemed happy and relaxed, and there was an 88% chance that by telling her what I did, I would force her to sit at her console and work on implementing my solution late into the night. It would leave her very tired on her morning shift, so I didn’t want to cause her such discomfort.

Shortly after, Nhi joined us, and Eva didn’t ask about it again, distracted by Nhi’s sudden suggestion that three of us should have Girl Night at one point. Neither Eva nor I, as far as I could see, saw much point in doing it, but in the end, we agreed to go along with her idea.