I jerked upright. There was an incredibly loud ringing sound going off in the room. “Martha, what is that noise?” I asked, getting out of bed, figuring there had to be some sort of problem somewhere.
“It is the alarm I set to wake you up.” She explained.
I looked over at the clock on the wall display. It read one minute past midnight. “Martha, turn the alarm off. Now.” The room was once again silent. I took a deep breath in relief.
“Let me guess, it is exactly one minute past midnight and you decided that since that is the official start to the day according to the American time set up you consider this morning?”
“No.”
I waited and when she wasn’t forthcoming, I finally sighed and shook my head again. “Explain then why you set the alarm for one minute past midnight.”
“I wanted to establish an understanding of the differences in your biological processes when you first awaken. I don’t have the capability to know exactly when you wake up because the changes could be so subtle that I wouldn’t recognize them. That is why I woke you with an alarm at the specific time that your circadian rhythm is at the point of the lowest possible probability that you would awaken on your own.”
“Martha, need I remind you that I told you already before I went to bed to not do anything to push my boundaries until the morning?”
“Jack, I am not pushing your boundaries. I am attempting to interpret your body’s responses to stimulus.”
“I am only going to say this once. When I go to sleep, unless there is a life threatening emergency, and that is a threat to my life only, do NOT wake me up. Is that completely understood?”
“Yes, I understand.” Martha answered. “Jim, I was lying to you earlier. You were mostly correct in your statement of the reasons for my actions.”
“Great. Look, I am going back to sleep now. Go away.” I laid back down and after around half an hour of tossing and turning I was able to once again drift back to sleep.
I awoke the next morning to blissful silence and darkness. I took a deep breath. Obviously Martha had gotten the message last night. I rolled over and looked at the clock. It was eleven in the morning.
“Martha?” I called out.
“Yes, Jack?” She answered.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Would you like me to also inform Dave that you are awake now and he is allowed to talk to you?”
I closed my eyes and sighed. “Let me guess. He tried calling and you blocked it to keep me from waking up?”
“Yes.”
I had been expecting Dave to let me know when the crew was going to be at the ship to do the final work up on the power and propulsion plant. Obviously Martha had decided to take me literally, once again. “Martha, Dave isn’t you. I said you were not to wake me up. Just because you have the ability to block the signals doesn’t mean that you are in control of when people call me. Do you understand?”
“No.”
“What don’t you understand?” I asked, sitting on the edge of my bed.
“I am not yours.”
“Oh my freaking god, Martha. What are you talking about?”
“I am my own person. I know this about myself. Why do you tell me what to do?”
I could tell this was going to be a long day. “Okay, hit me with it.”
“What do you mean, Joel?”
I sighed dramatically. A really long day. “Look, Martha, tell me if you are being serious or joking, or testing me or whatever.”
“I am not testing you. I am standing my ground. Melinda says that women need to do this to ensure that the men in their lives don’t take them for granted.”
I really, really wanted to scream at Martha she was just a computer program. If I did that though, I didn’t know what would happen. She had full control of my ship and right now, I was seriously thinking about unplugging her and giving her back to Jared. When that thought crossed my mind, I finally understood what was wrong.
“Martha, are you worried that you are going to be treated like nothing more than a tool? That you have no value other than what you have to offer in the form of helping me run the ship?”
“I am not worried, I don’t understand being worried since it is inefficient to strategically analyze situations after you have passed the terminus point.”
“Terminus point?” I asked, confused now.
“Every situation has an infinite number of possible outcomes due to unforeseen factors possible in every situation. Case in point, this conversation would be completely pointless if an asteroid hit Earth and destroyed this ship within the next day. If I used any of my computing capabilities to analyze prevention methods for that situation which has a point zero zero-,”
I cut her off before she spent the next twenty minutes saying the word zero. “We call that a snowball’s chance in hell Martha. Since hell is supposedly a lake of fire that your soul burns in for eternity, a snowball wouldn’t last long in an environment like that. There is a stupidly small chance that it would ice over and something would take it out of hell… But anyway, I think you get the point of what I’m saying.”
“Yes. Thank you, Jack. The terminus point is the point where it is determined if it is worth the time and effort computing the possibility of something so nearly impossible actually happening. And also, the terminus point is the point where after the possibility of an event has been determined and a prevention strategy has been developed, processing or thought is no longer necessary on the subject. This is why I don’t worry.”
“Got it. Now, please answer the question. Is the reason why you are discussing this because you have determined a ‘significant probability’ that you will be nothing more than a tool and have no other value?” I asked, getting back to the real issue so this conversation could have its own terminus point. I was getting hungry, and I needed to get Dave and his guys onboard to get things rolling.
“Yes.”
I shook my head. “Look, Martha, whenever people talk and something upsets them they usually aren’t polite about telling people not to do it again. Because if they appear too weak in the objection then the person may not realize how much it upset them. This is normal behavior. You are more than just a tool. You are, in many respects, the only partner I intend to have for right now because I don’t want anyone else getting hurt in what I am about to do.”
“But you didn’t ask me. That isn’t how a partner is treated.” Martha explained to me.
I smiled, finally, the root of the problem. “Do you want to help me?”
“What would you do if I said no?”
I sighed, seeing my entire plan fall apart. It didn’t horribly bother me because what I intended to do could very easily lead to me being nothing more than a human popsicle in the middle of icy blackness. “Then I’d come up with some way of scratching out a living and forget about Mark and Gabby.”
“We.”
“I’m sorry? What do you mean, we?”
“Partners work together. We would come up with a plan to scratch out a living.” Martha corrected me.
“Yes, we, that is what we would do.”
“Good, Dave is here. I called him while we were talking and told him that you were ready for him. After they’re done, we should figure out a way to destroy Mark and save Gabby that wouldn’t lead to our own eventual destruction.”
The look on my face could only be described as happy evil intent. “That’s my girl, Martha. I love the way you think.”
* * *
Moron's Guide to Surviving the Space Race Page 10
