Back to Human: The Emergence of Alex

by Adams Massey

  -Absolutely, I gave up human form for a while to have the opportunity. I’m ready, and technically I’m an android, not a robot, even in this form. The difference being sapience.- She states and jumps from the table landing upright and skittering to the door and up to the bar handle, turning it and popping the door open in a display of abilities.

  “Sticking to walls? OK, I must admit, that’s impressive. Who designed it?” Armon asks as Robert laughs.

  -That would be me. I designed the body. The ‘sticky’ material existed but wasn’t suitable for its designed application. Surface area versus volume and weight as well as power draw in order to scale things. As a result it is perfect for small use applications like this. Space being what it is, its a sound investment to not be floating all over. That said I do have a small reaction control ability in the form of a compressed air system, just in case.-

  “Oh yeah, she’s clever. She designed the body to be simple yet robust, but she applies the rather simple systems to do more complex things.” Robert comments as she looks over at the pair.

  -Come on, grab my charging station and let’s GO!- she states excitedly as her eyes glow gold. Patience may be a virtue, but it was one she often lacked. Armon smiles and gathers up Alex’s small charging dock and packs it into a bag and pulls up Alex off the door frame.

  “Oh yeah, the scientists on the station are going to adore you, good thing that will be your job.”

  -My job is to be adored? What am I some kind of pet?- she sasses which gets Armon smiling as he leaves the lab with her in his arms.

  “Not quite, you are going up to keep morale high, so you will be more like a mascot than a pet.” he smarms back.

  -Oh well, that’s much more respectable.- she states and attempts to roll her eyes, quickly realizing that she left that ability behind. She quickly writes a script to imitate the gesture with the LEDs around her eyes, setting them to blink in sequence to imitate and eye roll.

  -I guess that’s fine, it gets me to space after all.- she adds and giggles as she curls up securely in the commander’s arm as he carries her to a car waiting to take them to the airport. They board a plane, skirting the spirit of the rules with Alex as a carry on, much to her annoyance, and land near the Space Center in Arizona. A short car ride from there and they arrive at the facility. Once the car is stopped and the Commander gets out with Alex in his arms she looks around. The complex was massive with a training building and both an arrival pad and a launch pad in the distance. They enter the training building and Alex is shown to where she will be staying until the launch.

  “Most of the training we have here is to make sure you can handle the G-forces and stresses of launch and landing along with making sure you can handle Microgravity without losing your lunch. But since you lack most of the requisite parts for that we will just have to make sure you can handle launch and landing. We do need to figure out a way to securely transport you in the crew capsule though.” Commander Armon states and brings Alex to the training lab where she is put in a G-force centrifuge to see how she operates under G strain.

  She manages to communicate and seems comfortable under the strain as her chassis lacks accelerometers and other sensors needed to even register that anything was happening. She only notices that it is more difficult to move at the upper end of the testing, over six G’s which happens to be the upper limit for launch and landing forces. She crawls out of the testing rig as if she had spent the last several minutes in a waiting room rather than under heavy G loads. She skitters over to Armon who seems impressed by the tech so far.

  “Well done Alex, you did great! The next test is just for you, testing your adhesion to surfaces.” he states and picks her up, carrying her to a specialty section of the training yard where a ‘C’ shaped wall stood. It had been set up with vertical stripes of materials ranging from sheet rock, to padding all the way to glass and polished metal to test how her adhesion handles different surfaces. She starts off slowly on the sheetrock and heads to hang upside down before skittering across each material in turn. The polished metal and glass give her no trouble at all as she is able to hang from just three limbs without issue. Two limbs proves too much as she falls onto the mat below.

  -Ok, so three limbs attached to a wall or ceiling at all times, good to know.- she comments and self rights and skitters back up the glass section of the wall and to the top of the section, sitting happily upside down as Armon looks on.

  “That’s enough of that test, you seem to have designed that body with space in mind. From all our testing it’s clear that you’ve put a lot of thought into the design. It seems like you are space worthy. So it’s time to meet with the rest of the team that will be going up with you.” he states and plucks Alex from her perch and hauls her off to the commissary where she is introduced to the other two members of the resupply crew.

  Dr. Shelby Hunt and Dr. Travis Patrick are a pair of Botanists headed to Earth Station to relieve the pair that had recently returned from maintaining the stations biological life support systems. Armon wasn’t joking when he said that she was going up to keep morale high. It would be Alex’s job to interact with the crew and keep them happy as best she can while she is aboard.

  She would become a sort of mascot and keep the scientists from withdrawing too much. Had she known, she would have spent more time making her new body look more appealing and personable rather than the simple spartan design she had settled on. She is set on the table and she gets her bearings before unfolding and standing, waving a forward manipulator at the pair.

  -Nice to meet you both, I’m excited to see what Earth station is like. I’ve read about it but I’m sure that doesn’t do it justice.- She comments and settles in, adopting a sitting stance with her rear portion angled down while resting on the rear four legs so she can gesture with the front pair.

  “You’re, different than we were expecting, we were thinking you would be… bigger and humanoid.” Shelby comments and looks over Alex’s small frame.

  -Well, I WAS, but due to size and weight constraints I had to design this one.- The trio nod knowingly.

  “We understand, every little bit counts, but still, I’m surprised you went with a Hexapod rather than quadrupedal or bipedal design” Travis remarks as he takes a bite of his mashed potatoes.

  -I chose a hexapod because of my adhesion properties. I needed enough limbs to stick me to walls while having a pair open to manipulate things. That brought the minimum limbs to six by my math. Though the adhesion works better than expected so I can manage with three on a surface to hang upside down on glass here on earth. In space there is less force at play so I will easily be able to walk and run through the station without floating away.- she chimes as Travis reaches to pick Alex up only to get an airblast to the face. -Please ask before attempting to pick me up, I am not a toy.- she comments rather calmly with her eyes turning a faint red and glancing at Armon. -As you’ve just found out, I also have a compressor and tank to allow me to maneuver back to a wall should I get separated from one.- she adds as Travis works through what happened. The other two laugh at Travis’s expense before Shelby speaks up,

  “You've thought of everything, I’m surprised it all fits in such a small frame.” And Alex nods with her cameras, her eyes turning back to silver.

  -That took no small amount of finagling to pack everything in, but I managed it. By the way, I’ve been meaning to ask, how am I going to be secured in the crew capsule? I know I’m not traveling as cargo, and believe me I'm thankful for that. Am I sitting on someone’s lap? Will I have a chair of my own? Will I be in a padded case?- she inquires and turns to face Armon.

  “You will, in fact, be put in a case before launch and secured in an open seat. We are custom making the case now so you can still see while being secured enough for launch. For now you have completed all relevant testing. If you were human there would be more to make sure you don’t lose your lunch in microgravity. More to train you to use microgravity bathrooms but due to your
nature, that isn’t necessary.” He explains and pats Alex who lets out an annoyed series of beeps.

  -It’s like the HASP-X1 all over again.- she mutters to herself as she pulls away from the pats and retreats just out of reach of the three, taking up a station at the opposite edge of the table.

  -Please remember that I’m classified as an adult. While I appreciate the sentiment, the pats feel a bit patronizing.- she explains mildly irritated as her eyes flick from silver to red and back again. If this is what her job would be aboard the station it would get old fast but she would have to adjust. She takes a few steps closer as she calms down -Sorry, It’s just it seems like I’m not being taken seriously in this body like I would be were I still humanoid. I had the same problem with my first body. It was only 3 feet tall and looked like a child so I was being treated as such even though I’m an adult. I guess I’m still getting used to being small again.- she muses as Armon and Travis nod and apologize for their actions.

  Alex spends the next day perched on Shelby’s shoulder and tagging along around the training center. -So what’s it like in space?- She asks after one of their briefings.

  “Its surprisingly boring. The hardest part of going into space, besides getting there and back, is dealing with the free time. I suggest you stock up on books and other media before we go up, bring much more than you think you’ll need, trust me.” She states and turns to head for the center’s library where Alex spends the rest of the day hooked up to a system and given free reign to download items from the library’s database. Fortunately the Dev team had been kind enough to overnight her interface cabling as it had been left behind in her excitement.

  She picks out a selection of books ranging from Sun Tzu’s ‘Art of War’ to a few steamy romance novels and a ton of sci-fi and fantasy novels along with the most popular movies from the past several decades. All of which were available for download thanks to a deal made by the Launch Alliance years ago to allow crew to bring media with them to deal with downtime in orbit. She rifles through the library and tags interesting things for download and by the time she is done she has filled a few Terabytes with information and files before delving into her core and ‘shelving’ each entry neatly into her personal file system humming to herself quietly.

  Later on she tags along with Travis and spends time talking with the counselor to help her prepare for going up. -I get it, I do, I’m small and adorable, I understand the impulse can be hard to fight.- She comments to the pair of botanists during lunch after a well meaning pat from Travis. -Please don’t make a habit of patting me or picking me up without permission. I know I’ll have to have the same talk with the rest of the station crew once I am up there, but for right now, try to be better about it, ok?- She states and sighs to herself, this was going to be a long several months.

  After getting to know the team for a few weeks and discussing some ground rules regarding how she is to be treated, the case is ready to be tested. She is test fitted into the case that will hold her for launch. It was a large plastic case filled with foam with a hole for her cameras to fit through and when closed holds her, her charging dock, and linkage cable securely and is able to be strapped into a launch seat with loops to secure her into the five point harness.

  Before she knew it the day of the launch had arrived and she was nestled into the transport case and strapped into the launch seat with Travis and Shelby sitting on either side of her. As the long countdown commences, she plays solitaire in her core and handles a few organizational and internal housekeeping tasks until the five minute mark where she pulls out of her core and anxiously and impatiently awaits the launch. It was one of the longest five minutes of her life.

  35: Launch Profile

  Ten

  She secures her systems and shuts down all motors, leaving her cameras and microphone on and alert.

  Eight

  She runs through the securing process once again in her mind, running through every fastening and verifies, if only for her own peace of mind, that she was secured properly.

  Three

  Moment of truth, no backing out.

  Two

  With a deafening roar the main engines kick on.

  One

  The engines hit max power and the clamps release, the whole cabin shakes as they take to the sky on a pillar of flame. The cluster of engines powering them through the atmosphere. The following eight minutes were a wild ride as the the crew cabin atop the powerful main stage pierces the sky and before long starts to settle as the atmosphere is left behind.

  Later the main engine drops away as the second stage kicks on and powers them into orbit and a rendezvous with Earth Station. She can see the station's docking arm come into view and clamp onto the cabin to bring it into the docking port with a resounding thunk. The airlock latches and locks down before the hatch opens revealing a sturdy looking Russian man.

  “I am Vladimir Laski, Welcome to Earth Station” he states through a thick Russian accent and pushes himself back from the hatch and floats backward to a wall with a handle. The team unhook themselves from the securing harnesses and bring Alex along with them into the main station and to a large area that serves as a meeting room. There were five scientists plus the pair of botanists for a total of seven people in the meeting area. Each one was holding onto a railing around the perimeter of the section. They went through introductions leaving Alex for last. Shelby opens the case and releases Alex into the station. She lets loose with a small puff of air to nudge herself to the wall and lands on it gently before stretching out her limbs and waving from her secure perch.

  -Hello all, I’m Alex, I have been told I am here to keep morale high.- she states a little nervous and is greeted with kindness and curiosity.

  “How are you not floating around.” asks Tim Kusman, the resident Astronomer.

  -Sticky pads like a gecko, I built them into this body so I’d be able to walk and run through the station without worrying about floating off.- she answers and scurries closer to him, keeping her cameras oriented to the agreed upon communal ‘up’. -I know many of you will have the urge to pat me lightly or pick me up and that’s fine, just please, not too often.- she states and scampers back to Shelby to grab her charging dock, slinging it onto her back and holding it there with her middle limbs. -Is there a place out of the way where I can set this up?- she asks and picks at the hook and loop fastener secured to the bottom.

  Vladimir nods “You can set up in bunkhouse, there is space to plug in there.” he states and motions for her to follow him down one of the tubes. Alex hurries after him and soon the pair arrive at the bunk space in one of the stations spinning rings. Exercise equipment is housed in another and a greenhouse in another with ventilation between them to circulate oxygen throughout the station. She sets up her charging station in a corner and plugs it in before rushing back to the meeting area in the central hub of the station.

  She takes up a perch on the wall and looks around. Most of the crew members have gone off to start working while Travis and Shelby were still there waiting for her to return with Vladimir. Shelby had stowed the case back in the capsule and was unpacking things from the trunk of the capsule with Travis’s help. Vladimir starts helping by grabbing things and floating them to the appropriate section. Alex decides to stay out of the way and explores the station starting with the greenhouse that provides much of the air and food for the station. With the spinning force there was some amount of simulated gravity so the plants seemed to be growing as one would expect, towards the relative ‘up’. They were planted in a gel-like foam that also housed a water feed system. The foam soaked up the water and would keep it from escaping into the air should the ring stop spinning.

  She later learns that even with some form of G-force exerted in the rings, micro-gravity protocols were still observed which includes the limiting of open liquids and strapping down and securing of everything loose as to keep it from floating away. Even her charging station was secured in its corner with fasteners an
d strapping, its cable secured against the wall with duct-tape.

  The rings of the station seemed to be mostly filled with habitation facilities while the core of the station was for sciences. This was true for all save botany which took up a ring to itself, greenhouses evenly spaced throughout. One growing leafy vegetables, another growing tomatoes, peppers, beans and squash, and a third growing root vegetables in specially designed containers. She wanders around the greenhouses for a while before climbing back up the connecting tube to the core of the station and finds herself in the observation bubble where the astronomy lab is set up with links to the external telescopes and other stargazing equipment.

  She crawls to one of the many viewports and looks out at the blackness of space, the stars clearly visible even as the sun rises over the horizon. She stares transfixed for several moments before being pulled out of her reverie by Travis.

  “No matter how long you spend here it will always be amazing to watch. You never quite get used to it” he comments and looks out at the universe painted before them, the Milky Way stretched out across the sky. She climbs off of the viewport and onto a wall.

  -I never thought I would be able to see it from space, yet here I am.- She comments with wonder, her eyes flicking to a brilliant golden hue.

  “Are you ok? Your eyes just changed color, I've seen you do that before... is it a warning sign?” he asks awkwardly.

  -No, I’m just excited so they are golden, if I am irritated they are red, happy is light blue…- she explains -Its just a manner of expression since I lack a face.- she continues and gesticulates with a forward limb.

  “I didn’t realize you could do something like that.” he remarks and she nods with her cameras.