Slow day - The Cafe

The Small Business Chronicles: Slow Day - The Café

Chapter One: Wrong Side of the Bed

Jack woke with a start…after the past several months, he had finally trained himself to wake mere seconds before his alarm sounded. He quickly silenced it before it’s activation, and then waited another few seconds for Gabby’s pre-programmed timer to deactivate her sleep mode…something that before seemed random.

Gabby started stirring immediately and focused her eyes on him with a smile…a smile which then turned into a concerned frown.

“Jack dear, why are you in such a bad mood?” she asked, gently caressing his face.

To an unobservant person, she would appear to have been very intuitive, but Jack knew better…she had merely used the infrared scanners in her new eyes to scan his body heat, and determined his mood that way.

Still, she was correct: he was in a bad mood, which was what caused his mind to focus so much more on Gabby’s artificiality that ever before. It had been a few weeks since he had finally opened the café, and so far, nothing had gone as planned.

For starters, the android he had ordered to tend the bar was delayed; the person he bought it off was lazy and took too long to ship it out. Because it hadn’t arrived, he had to pull Serriah away from the gift shop to cover the bar. The one thing that softened Jack’s mood was that it was finally scheduled to arrive today.

For another thing, the android he’d acquired to waitress and clean the booths and tables, had what could best be described as an attitude problem. She had a strange custom personality module that Jack had never encountered before, and it was taking him a while to modify it. In the meantime, she was giving the patrons attitude, resulting in dozens of complaints each day.

Finally, the main source of Jack’s headache…the chef. Jack thought he had gotten a great deal when he bought her…a highly customized Housewife model. She was fairly young looking for a housewife, in her late twenties, but she was already programmed with a wide array of cooking and cleaning programs. The problem…she was an illegal sleeper model. Apparently she had belonged to a wealthy person who paid someone to install illegal sleeper software in her so she’d be as real as possible.

Technically, owning such a model was illegal, and naturally, Jack had to report it to the Spaztech team. Fortunately, they allowed him to keep her so they could get some unofficial reports on a sleeper android. The problem was that he was having difficulty modifying her memories of her previous owner, which led to confusion and constant malfunctions.

All in all, the convergence of bad luck he’d had was reducing his profit margin, and he hoped that today, he could fix it once and for all. He’d even made sure he had no repair appointments today, and he was going to have Gabby help out in café with the cooking while he repaired the chef.

“Yeah,” Jack finally said, coming out of his reverie, “It’s just the bad luck we’ve had with the café these past few weeks,” he admitted.

“Well, don’t worry dear,” she smiled, leaning in and giving him a kiss, “I’m sure you and Ellie will fix things up today.”

“I hope so,” Jack smiled back, giving her another kiss.

That morning Gabby decided to delay her usual morning shower, not that she really needed a shower, but she still liked to be clean for him. Either way, she gave up her shower time so Jack could take a longer one and so that she could cook him something extra special to start off his day with.

After stuffing himself with the delicious meal Gabby had cooked, he packed up the lunch she had prepared for him and Ellie and then prepared to head down into the lab to begin his day.

“Good luck dear,” Gabby said, giving him a loving kiss.

“Thanks, I’m gonna need it,” Jack smiled, “Oh, and you can go ahead and take a shower now,” he added, “I’m gonna work on Luiza last.”

“Oh, okay,” Gabby smiled, “Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it,” Jack shrugged, “Besides, if you’re going to be cooking for people, android or not, you need to be clean.”

“Of course,” Gabby nodded, “Now go get to work,” she ordered.

“Yes ma’am,” Jack mockingly saluted, heading to the elevator and scanning his palm on the security pad.

Chapter Two: Calm Before the Storm

As soon as Jack stepped off the lift into his lab, he took a deep breath and exhaled the negative energy that had been building up in him. Despite his bad mood, the one thing he truly enjoyed was fixing androids, and, he knew as rough as it might be this time around, he’d feel like a god when he was done…like always.

Continuing to exhale his negative energy in an almost meditative state, Jack walked almost on autopilot to his work area, efficiently depositing his and Ellie’s lunch in the fridge before activating the equipment and downloading the latest software patches for the three androids he’d be working on today.

It was during the download process that Jack finally snapped out of his autopilot mode and realized that Ellie was nowhere in sight. It wasn’t too surprising though, since she’d only been with him for a few months and he was still adapting to her presence in his life. Still, he’d asked her to be waiting for him in the lab at this time, and as an android, she definitely shouldn’t be late.

Feeling a bit worried, he got up and walked into the residential area of the bunker and knocked on Ellie’s door. Despite being assigned to that room, Jack and Gabby still offered her a room in the house, but Ellie declined, preferring to remain in the lab to more effectively monitor Jack’s equipment overnight.

“Ellie, are you in there?” Jack called out, knocking again.

He waited a few more seconds without an answer before finally opening the door; Ellie kept it unlocked. In the few short months Ellie-bot had been with him, she had been acquiring a few things that the real Ellie would have liked to give her room a more personal touch. Still, she didn’t do it for her…she did it because her programming indicated it would make Jack more comfortable with her presence there.

At first glance, he didn’t see her in the main room, but he did hear noises coming from the adjoining bathroom, so he cautiously entered it and then shook his head in disbelief at what he saw.

Ellie was in the bathroom grooming her face and hair…but, she had done so by removing her head and placing it on the vanity shelf. Her face was currently frozen on a very robotic, blank expression that was slightly creepy, and slightly arousing at the same time. The fact she’d removed her head explained why she hadn’t heard him knock: the microphone attached to her neck camera wasn’t capable of picking up noise from another room…not like the human ear is.

She was already mostly dressed for work, wearing her work flats and jeans, but no shirt; she was wearing a bra though.

“Ellie,” Jack called out in a slightly amused/exasperated voice.

“Ah, Jack,” Ellie said, carefully turning around to aim her neck camera at him, “What brings you here so early?” she asked, turning back around and continuing to apply the makeup to her face.

“Early?” Jack asked with a confused look, “It’s almost 9:15,” he told her.

“Hmmm, are you sure?” she asked, making her voice sound confused, “My internal clock is telling me it’s 8:37,” she told him.

“No, it’s definitely 9:15,” he said, a frown forming on his face, “Did you perform any software updates recently?” he asked.

“Yes, last night,” she replied.

“Well, one of them must have had a bug that messed with your internal clock,” he surmised.

“Apparently,” she agreed.

“How come you removed your head?” he asked.

“Ah, because it makes it easier to apply my makeup and to do my hair,” she explained, “it’s much better than just looking into a mirror.”

“I can imagine,” he said, “Are you almost done?” he asked, “I’d really like to get us prepped for the headache inducing work we’ll be tackling today,” he added with a wry smile.

“Yes,” she said, adding a finishing touch to her face and then putting her makeup away. She then picked up her head, careful not to mess up the hair, but, instead of reattaching it to her neck, she instead turned around and held it out to him.

“What?” Jack asked, staring from her neck camera to the oddly mesmerizing look in her blank eyes.

“Kiss it,” she said simply.

Jack merely stood there for a few seconds giving her a flat look before finally giving in and planting a kiss on her head’s frozen lips; he knew if he didn’t, she’d merely make him waste even more time arguing with him. Still, he did find it mildly enjoyable and spent several seconds doing it before pulling away.

“Thanks,” Ellie said, “you helped spread the lip gloss for me,” she said, carefully bringing her head to her neck and clicking it into place. Soon after, her blank face slowly came to life, forming into her usual friendly smile.

“Don’t mention it,” Jack laughed. He knew Ellie could also detect his mood with the infrared sensors in her eyes and neck camera, so she knew her silliness would disarm him. Combined, she and Gabby were a dynamic team, keeping him happy.

“Anyway, I’m so sorry that I wasn’t ready on time,” she apologized again.

“It’s not our fault,” Jack waved it off, “But, I will need to take a look at your systems to recalibrate your internal clock.”

“Okay,” Ellie smiled, grabbing her scrub top and draping it over her shoulder, leaving it off so he could easily access her stomach panel, “Let’s do it so we can get back on schedule,” she said with a look of focus.

Jack merely nodded, walking with her out to the work area. As soon as they got there, Ellie efficiently removed her access panel and allowed Jack to plug her into the terminal.

“Alright, I’m connected to you now,” Jack said, “Can you help me out by bringing up the list of files you recently installed?”

“Sure,” Ellie said, the lights flashing on her A.I. core as she brought up the list on the terminal, saving him several minutes of searching for them.

“Ah, there it is, thanks,” he smiled, quickly opening the developer window for each update to see the code. It didn’t take him long to find the problem. “Ah, here it is,” he said, “there was a slight bug in the new clock app that accidentally reset your internal clock to the actual time in the GPS coordinates rather than the official time zone map,” he said, “That’s something some extreme scientists use to more accurately track time in research studies,” he frowned.

“Interesting,” Ellie said, “It does make sense though,” she nodded.

“Well, we aren’t conducting research studies, so I’m going to fix the bug,” Jack said, rapidly typing on the keys for several minutes before finalizing the code. “There, I want you to install this hotfix,” he told her, “You shouldn’t need to reboot, but once it installs, I want you to run a full diagnostic to make sure nothing else got messed up,” he told her, knowing she likely ran a quick diagnostic after initially installing them…a diagnostic which obviously missed it.

“Alright,” Ellie said, quickly installing the hotfix and then locking her body into position as she said, “Beginning full diagnostic,” in an inhuman tone.

Jack sighed as she did. Slightly so because it reminded him of her artificial nature…that she was a mere copy, but mostly because it meant he was going to lose even more time that would have been better spent preparing for the work on Amber and Luiza; Karina would be a simpler reprogramming job compared to the other two.

Still, he had to make sure Ellie was operating properly, because as his assistant, he frequently relied on her to interface with his projects to better translate any issues they were having. He found doing it that way saved him sometimes hours’ worth of time that would have previously been spent perusing through lines of code. Any issue caused by bugs could alter the reliability of her work.

Going through his usual five stages of frustration, he finally accepted that her bug at least served as a sort of warm up for what was to come…to prepare him for anything unexpected that might come up. So, he waited patiently for her diagnostic to complete, getting us much prep work done as he could in the meantime.

“Full diagnostic complete: no anomalies found,” Ellie finally said, nearly fifteen minutes later, quickly coming back to life and reverting to her usual, cheerful self.

“Well, thank goodness for small favors,” Jack smiled, “I guess that’s our first bit of good news of the day.”

“Indeed,” Ellie agreed. Jack then pulled the service cable free from her core and allowed her to reattach her access panel. “Ah, I’ve got more good news for you today,” Ellie added.

“Oh?”

“Yes,” she smiled gleefully, “Serriah sent me a message saying it’s been a pretty slow day. That means you shouldn’t have any difficulty with having Amber come down her for an hour or two,” she reported.

“Excellent!” Jack said with a triumphant fist pump, silently praising himself for essentially making Ellie an assistant site manager and giving her a private link to the others. “Well, we should get started with her prep work then.” He then pulled up Amber’s specs on the computer and pulled up a chair. “You’d better sit down, this might take a while,” he said, gesturing to it.

Ellie merely nodded and took her seat next to him, leaning in and perusing the specs with Jack, occasionally rebounding his ideas and giving him some of her own.

Chapter Eight: Looking ahead

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