"Yeah. Tell that to everybody else. Everyone saw how miserable you looked. When you come into work, youalwayslook tired."
"That's because ofwork."
"So it hasnothingto do with your life at home?"
"Sarah, stop. Seriously, my wife isn't doing anything. If anything,I'mmaking her stressed out."
"What does she have to be stressed out over? She doesn't work."
"Shedoeswork. Just because she works remotely doesn't mean her job is any less important."
"But your job isclearlymore important, and you told me you paid off all the debts for both of you. Most of those debts were her debts, so I really—I mean—"
I pause, scratch my head, and scoff lightly. "I'm really sorry. Maybe I'm being a bitch, but I don't get what it is that she's so upset over. And as a woman, I can tell you if you really don't stand up on your two feet and tell her how you feel and don't accept that kind of behavior, she's going to walk all over you," I tell him.
"Are you speaking from experience?" Lincoln asks.
"Yes. That's how I treat guys that I don't respect, and then I always end up leaving them."
"Wow. You sound like a heartbreaker."
"Yeah. When someone doesn't stand up and show me that they deserve to be respected."
I can actuallyseethe gears turning in his head.
"It's a lot more complicated than that," he murmurs.
"It really isn't, Lincoln. It's either she understands you and trusts you or she doesn't. And if that's something that's going to be an issue, you gotta start thinking about your own mental health."
He’s listening to me. Really listening, and I’ve never seen him look lonelier than he does right now. I want to cheer him up. I want to be the person who pulls him out of this.
"Hey," I whisper, getting his attention.
He looks tired, like he barely slept. So I shift the topic, lighten it a little.
"Okay, question," I say. "If the Series-4 cognitive shell learned to improvise its own speech patterns, like, not pre-approved ones, but ones based only on observed human habits, do you think it would become more sarcastic or more literal?"
He actually laughs, a soft, confused sound.
"What does that even have to do with anything?" he asks, shaking his head.
I grin. "Come on, answer."
"Uh… probably sarcastic. The team talks too much shit around it," he replies.
"And what about when it comes to choosing between two commands?" I push. "Like… hmmm ‘follow safety protocol’ versus ‘follow a direct order’? Which one wins if the robot isn’t explicitly programmed to choose?"
"Safety protocol," he says confidently. "Everysingle time. Otherwise people could game the system and get themselves killed."
"Okay… " I stop, smirking, then toss the ball back at him. "Your turn. Ask me something."
He raises a brow. "Like what?"
"Anything. Tech. Life. Whatever."
He thinks for a second, then asks me something about sensor calibration preferences, and I answer, bouncing another one back his way. For a moment it feels like it’s just us in here, the two of us trading little hypotheticals like nothing else exists.
Then I tilt my head.
