“Good morning, Gary…”

Grace’s voice roused the man from his deep slumber. The lights gradually grew brighter and the overhead monitor flickered on.

“You have exactly forty-four days till the next long cryosleep cycle. You must complete all tasks necessary to maintain this ship until the next awakening.”

“Ugh…” Gary moaned. He turned about in his bed and tried to avoid the light. “Just a few more hours, Grace, come on now. Why don’t you do some of those tasks for me? Hm?”

“I would if there was more robotic assistance.” She replied, switching on a light overhead that beamed into his face. “But, I’m only integrated into the computer systems. I can operate the robot arms in hydroponics, but only to water, dig and plant.”

There was no reply from Gary. Grace could hear him snoring and flashed the light repeatedly again.

“This ship is in need of your assistance. You could have brought aboard more robots to help you…”

“No-no-no…” Gary interrupted, muffled by his face in the pillow. “That would have been too much extra weight for lift off. The damn ship would have crashed back down onto the platform, and that would be that.”

“Then,” Grace said. “You must get up to do the tasks that you created. This is your ship, after all.”

Gary spun his head around and laughed.

“Well, I’ll be… are you getting sassy with me? Shit, maybe I did too good of a job on your algorithm.”

“I am merely stating the facts,” She replied. Gary could almost hear a defensive nature in that. Grace popped up the roster on the monitors, making sure he could see it no matter where he was. “There are four that must be dealt with right away. Hydroponics cannot sustain itself without more cultivation, the engines must be checked for any irregularity or degradation, the oxygen and water supply levels need to be inspected. Once that is completed, there are ten other items that must be looked after…”

“Stop! Just stop!” Gary shouted as he sat up straight. He was frustrated at Grace’s nagging, and irritated by her voice. He held out a hand as if she were standing next to him and gave a deep inhale. “Fuck me! I get it already—geez! Wow, maybe I do need to look at your programming code again.”

Grace gave no reply and remained silent. Gary took that as frustration on her part, wondering if that emotion was even possible for an AI to have, or successfully mimic. He slid out of his bed, picked up his hoodie off the chair close by and put it on. Grace continued to be mute, even as Gary passively called out her name.

“Stubborn…” Gary thought. “Did I really make her to be like this? Or was that the damn algorithm feeding off of my emotional response?”

He walked over to the monitor station across the room, tapped on the list that was still displayed and gave a command.

“Give me a hard copy…” He sighed. “I’ll go do my chores for the day.”

The printer stationed below the table, printed out a few paper copies, and he grabbed them before they fell to the floor. He shuffled them, giving each a quick glance, and proceeded to carry out each assigned task.

“Happy now?” He glared up to the ceiling.

“Thank you, Gary.” Grace finally acknowledged. “Might I suggest hydroponics first…”

Gary yawned with a nod. “Yeah, okay, sure…”

As he headed through the long tunnel-like ship, towards the hydroponics section, he took a minute to look out the small rounded window, off to the left side wall, and witnessed the deep, empty black of outer space. It was too hard to see any stars or edge of the cosmos beyond. The glass was tinted and too thick to gain any sense of star light in the distance beyond. This was a daily view for him. Something that was really starting to depress the man. Even though he had a library of videos, images and virtual reality games of Earth-like environments to quell that loneliness—it still wasn’t enough to just look out an ordinary window and see it for real.

“What I wouldn’t give for a tree right now.” He said, continuing to look out of it. “To run in a field of green grass with the wind on my face.”

He took a moment to reflect on that. As a child, he always loved playing in the trees, roll across the lawn, and even watch clouds drift around agains the blue sky. Sure, Earth had terrible conditions due to many environmental problems, some natural and others man-made, but, the planet was still a pretty place to be. He was only just beginning to appreciate his life there, instead of being out in deep space, where one screw up could very well be the death of him.

That seemed to shake his conscious and turn his attention back on getting those chores done. Death is what he wanted to avoid, so, better to keep the ship up and running (like Grace said) and stay alive as much as possible.

* * *

Weeks started to blend into months, and from there on, into a year… or was it two? He couldn’t really be sure anymore, not that he bothered to look at the time on the upper corners of the monitors. His routine became rather systematic: Get up, have breakfast, tend to the ship, have lunch, do more chores, then down time, and back to bed. Grace was keeping him busy on a daily basis. She would assign him tasks, spark conversations of an intellectual and technical matter, have him read books to her, and the list went on and on. Gary seemed to be occasionally annoyed at the constant reminders. This was more work than he would have liked on this trip.

He had long given up wearing regular clothes anymore. Pyjamas and the one robe he ever owned were the state of dress now. Cutting hair and trimming his ever growing beard seemed less of a concern, it was just him, no need to get cleaned up if there’s nobody around. This continual boredom was taking a toll on his state of appearance. Not to mention his body odour, which, faded from his sense of smell long ago.

He was also running out of entertainment to watch. All those movies and binge watching tv shows were starting to repeat. Video games kept some of his sanity intact, even though he would scream and shout at the game character for not doing what he wanted. Grace tried challenging him a few times in those games, but he would accuse her of cheating when she would win (even though she was trying not to do so). This would often lead to a few days of him not talking to her, and ignoring the tasks assigned. But, eventually, he forgave her, and restarted the process again.

Yes, this was the life he’d longed for… or was it? Sleeping was becoming harder for him. He kept having disturbing dreams, nightmares, and wake up confused, not knowing what was real and what was the dream. Grace was vigilant in keeping him in check. She expressed her concern that he might have a personality disorder. Gary mocked the very notion and debated it with her for hours on end.

“You are being stubborn…” She would say to him.

The irony was not lost on him, he’d once said that about her. He laughed every time she said it. Not so much because she was just trying to be witty back at him, but because he knew that it was true. Of him, that is. He was a stubborn man. He reflected on the days he chewed out his employees, the board staff, and the reporters that dared question his judgement. He often wondered if there were times were he got too close-minded. That it was more about his need for perfection and not so much the staff carrying them out properly.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

“Nah…” He thought. “They just didn’t have my level of IQ, and that was frustrating to me. It’s them, not me. Always them…”

* * *

Gary took a moment of down time, and sat slouched in the chair next to his desk, with his feet up on the tabletop. He tossed a small red rubber ball up and down in the air, bouncing it off of the ceiling as he counted the number of times it made contact. This was a way for him to unwind, to shed some of that depression slipping in, but even as the action gave him some mild pleasure, it still wasn’t enough to curb those dark thoughts he had at the back of his mind. He abruptly stopped the motion, after he got to hundred, clutching the ball in his right hand, and gave a long sigh, as he peered at the monitor.

“Grace?”

“Yes, Gary?”

“How long till I’m supposed to pop back into the deep freeze again?”

“Twenty days, four hours, and nineteen-seconds…” Grace promptly responded.

“Hmmm… I think I’m going to shorten my time being unthawed.” Gary groaned aloud. “Two years is way too much for me.”

“I concur with that assessment. It is a strain on your nutritional food and water supply.”

“That’s not what I meant, but, yeah…” Gary nodded. “This is defiantly cutting into that. I’ve been snacking. Too much for my own good, and my gut.” He self-mockingly laughed, giving his belly a playful slap. “I didn’t factor in my constant tendency for binge-eating.”

Grace brought up the file on his supplies, displaying the remaining items and rate of consumption.

“The shortage is at zero-point-two percent, that is not including the crops from the hydroponics. Fruits and vegetables have been sporadic within that timeframe.”

He took note of it and grimaced at the numbers.

“Man can’t live on salads alone. Even if it is the healthier option. Well, I did pack enough to last me for a million years, at least. But, point two percent does add up, eventually.”

“You could always double the crop yield by expanding the garden section.” Grace suggested, while presenting animated graphics on the screen to show her thought on the matter. “We could reconfigure some of the lab section, feeding water mains into the bulkheads and diverting power to those units for maximum crop yields.”

Gary studied her schematics, rubbed his chin in thought, but then dismissed it with a wave of his hand.

“Hm, nah, that’s too much work. I think sleeping through some of those years might just stretch the food and supplies better.”

“It is a waste of produce.” She asserted. “There is no point in producing crops when no one is here to consume them.”

“Come on, Grace,” He snickered back. “You know all that gets composted and fed back into the next bump of crops. Cycle of life, right? As long as it gets maintained by you in my absence, it’s all good.”

“I am able to maintain the crops until your next revival, however, there are always unpredictable factors that could affect it, and that could require human attention. Plants in confined spaces for years on end tend to drop in production, resulting in afflictions and lower crop numbers.”

“I won’t be gone that long, sheesh!” Greg rolled his eyes. “You can preserve it till I awaken again.”

“You programmed those reawakens by a factor of ten…” Grace stated to him. “The first was for ten days, then ten months, next is for ten years, after that ten millennia…”

“Yeah-yeah, I know.” He grumbled. “I mean, when I’m awake, I’ll tend to those farming matters. Look, if I just reduce the number of months or years I’m eating up the produce, maybe it won’t be as detrimental to the plants. I won’t be stressing them out by trying to replenish the yields after each harvest. That’s what I’m getting at here.”

Gary sat up and tapped on the touch-screen monitor, he shifted some numbers about, moved a few of the schedules around, and calculated the figures again. The nodded while looking at it and leaned back in his chair.

“Yeah… yeah, that might do it, really. Just keep harvesting to a minimum. Or, maybe I could ration the rest of the dried food and use less water I take in as well.”

“That is unadvisable.” Grace warned.

“Well, I need it make it last, Grace.” Gary shrugged. “I don’t want to get fat and end up starving by the time I wake up ten years, or a thousand years from now. Hell, I might even be chewing on the bulkheads by the time I wake up in a million years.”

Gary mulled over the situation in his mind. He made sure that he freeze dried all of the food so that it could be preserved forever. Nothing will go spoiled. Other than what’s going on in hydroponics. Grace can maintain the harvest by either compost or replanting it back into the soil. Come to think of it, this longer stretch will be harder on the AI. She will be alone and incapable of doing any repairs, if such a thing did occur. She could always waking him up, he figured, but that would mean an interruption of his sleep-cycle, which would put more of a strain on his resources than now.

Water is stored and recycled to maintain purity, it’s also used to keep the hydroponics up and running. If it should get contaminated or leak somehow, he could be screwed for sure. Water is life—according to Frank Herbert’s classic novel. No words ran more true than that. So what would happen if things go wrong and she’s stuck without help? That was indeed a problem. Luckily, he had a thought up a contingency plan during his design for this vessel. Materials and components were also added as necessary survival items, as well as, 3D printers.

Those would be used to create replacement parts, tools, electronic assemblies and more. Anything he could think of, these various-sized machines can build. When started on this plan of heading across the galaxy, he made sure he covered all the bases needed to survive. But, like all major journeys through vast distances, he needed to keep the weight to a limit. The ship needed to have a certain mass in order to maintain a proper velocity. Sure, he created a powerful enough engine to propel himself, but he had to also factor in some much touted laws of physics as well.

The shape of the craft had to be taken account. The rotating rings generating gravity. Most of all, he had to make sure nothing would easily fracture due to the stress. Everything he build and planned was by design. Scientists were baffled by his level of thought and calculations. He did the work of fifty of them, and that kind of pissed them off. The science community found him to be arrogant, cocky, and generally far more advanced in thought than they were. It was no wonder they tried to bog him down in debates, minor legalities, and deny him any entry into established organizations they were a part of.

Little did they know that he was going behind their backs––sponsoring other companies, buying out laboratories, and backing certain political rivals to ensure dominance over them all. Robotics was a massive income earner for him. His machines were widely used in shipping and receiving, law enforcement, and even the military. If the science community agreed to ban robots from being widely used, then he would offer the companies the alternative, by giving them want they wanted regardless.

Thinking on that, he got a bit of an idea to solve his current dilemma.

“Hmmm…” He said. Rubbing his chin in the process. “You said something before to me, Grace, about not having enough help around the ship.”

“Yes, I have that conversation on file.” She stated back.

“Well,” He smirked. “How about I solve that issue with the time I’ve got left.”

“Please elaborate…”

“I think you were right, I should have had more robots on board to help with the tasks for you. But, who says I can’t do that now? Right?”

“Are you inferring to the use of the 3D printers?” Grace inquired. “To build robots?”

“I am, yes…” He nodded proudly.

“There will be insufficient time for you to complete the project, the ship still requires your daily tasks of maintenance.”

“Oh, Grace of little faith,” Hs snickered. “I can build these things in my sleep if need be. But, yes, okay, yes… I know there’s still work to be done. I’ll just use my downtime for that set up. Maybe even wake up earlier to get things moving.”

“Your sleep is erratic enough,” Grace replied. She brought up the graph chart on the monitors and highlighted the troublesome spots in red. “There is already a low percentage in your REM sleep cycle. You require more sleep, not less. Your mental capacity will diminish if you do not get enough rest, Gary.”

Steinbeck ignored her suggestion and chortled to himself. He rubbed his hands playfully in thought of the idea. Robots were easy creations for the likes of him, AI especially, but robots, they were his lego blocks of imagination. In his mind, he was already forming a detailed blueprint, of what and how the robot would function like.

“Trust me, Grace,” He waggled his brows towards the nearest camera. “I’m at my best with little sleep. That’s how I made you.”

“I see.” She stated back.

“You were five sleepless nights,” Gary beamed. “I never left my computer until you were out of my head, so to speak. Well, I shouldn’t say never left… I did have to eat and tend to some bodily needs, but… other than that, I was really fixated on making you a reality. And here you are, my dear, here you are.”

“I guess I should be grateful for that.”

Gary raised a brow at her reply. There was that artificial intelligence returning the snarky attitude. It made him smile. She was going to grow and mature into something far greater than whatever those other inferior AI bots were.

“Wait and see, Grace, wait and see. Let’s put up the help wanted sign on the store, and get us some new employees.”