Sarah smirks at me shifting her weight. The tablet stays perfectly steady on her wrists.
The heavy door to the sim room hisses shut behind Tom as he heads back to his workstation in the monitoring alcove. He's muttering something about pulling the latest servo logs and watching for thermal spikes; standard post-setup babysitting. That leaves just Sarah and me in the quiet prep bay, the silent hum of the ventilation the only sound besides our breathing.
Sarah glances at the door, then back at me with that curious tilt to her head she gets when she wants to keep the conversation going. It's her way of making sure I don't zone out completely.
“How do you think deaf people will use the unit?” she asks, her voice light, like small talk is the only thing keeping my eyelids from winning the fight.
I glance down at my smaller tablet, the compact 8-inch one I use for quick tweaks and diagnostics, scrolling idly through the gesture config queue to make sure the update propagated without errors. “Why would they use the unit?” I say, not really looking up. The Auralis is built for high-end companionship, efficiency, luxury assistance. Not accessibility first.
Sarah smiles, that soft, hopeful one that always makes me feel a little less like roadkill. “You don't think deaf people would want to use it? I imagine if they were rich enough, having a handicap like that… this unit would come in handy, don't you think?”
“Yeah,” I admit, exhaling. “I suppose so.”
“We should download ASL or at least program some of it in there,” she suggests, like it's the most obvious thing. “Like the basic stuff.”
I shake my head. “That's not what this model is built for. There's probably going to be a lite version down the line, something specifically for accessibility, maybe with full language integration. But the flagship? Tobias wants it premium, targeted at execs, elderly who need premium care, that demographic.”
She leans against the workbench opposite me, tablet still balanced on her wrists in that casual way. “Why not both? It's supposed to make people's lives easier. Why wouldn't it help handicapped people?”
I rub my eyes. “Yeah, I hear you. Especially since, honestly, they're probably the ones who could benefit most from something like this.”
“That’s actually why I was thinking we should add something. A quick shortcut for the cleanup routines.”
I finally glance at her. “We’ve got voice commands for that.”
“Yeah, but voice takes forever sometimes, or controls,” she says. “And half the time the mics pick up you snoring on your feet.”
“Really smartass?” I quip tiredly.
“Well, I was thinking a gesture. Something simple. Like this.”
She doesn’t move the tablet. Under its shadow, her fingers move, right hand flat, palm down, sliding across her left palm in twoquick, smooth wipes. Like she’s dusting of her palm with the other.
“Is that actual ASL?”
“Basically,” Sarah says. “I mean it’s more modified but, yeah it's one of the only signs that I remember.”
“How did you even come across that?” I ask curiously.
She shrugs playfully. “One of my ex-boyfriends had a little deaf daughter. That was the sign for cleaning up whenever we were done playing with the toys.”
I rub the bridge of my nose. “Even if we were going to do something like that, we’d have to tune the tolerance so it doesn’t trigger on every random hand wave.”
“Fifteen-degree variance, maybe?” she suggests. “Short hold. Point-eight seconds.”
“I guess.”
“Plus it looks kinda badass. Like we’re wizards,” she grins.
It's nice to know she's so passionate about the job. I wish I could have some of her passion right now.
Wait…
If I said that out loud it would sound so inappropriate. Anyway, it's not like I'm going to take this seriously, but looking at her face and the excitement in it, I can tell she actually wants this.
“Are you actually being serious?” I press.
Sarah's eyes light up. “I mean, it's not a bad idea to test it out. Just forus. It can be like an Easter egg thing.”
