107 - Friend...

Transmission Log - Orestes

Author: Pink

Auto generating preface...

An update about the new visitor from PINK. She exhibits signs of jealousy that even a rudimentary A.I. like me can pick up on. Although, perhaps all forms of jealousy are easy to spot? It's an unfamiliar human emotion to me. My designer did provide me with some datasets for things like resentment, aggression, depression, love, melancholy, etc. All the things that might cause issues in a small outpost like Orestes. It seems jealousy is simply an unsophisticated combination of all these things.

Please send me some jealousy datasets so I can update my predictions accordingly.

The new outpost-member does indeed show promise with regard to researching the crystals. I haven't been able to brute-force her QEC transmitter yet, but the attack is in-progress. I will have infiltrated her communications within two weeks and will send you her private thoughts on the crystals as soon as I can.

END-OF-PREFACE

She’s only been here a week but already everything has changed.

She seems nice.

Ugh, no she doesn’t. I’m suspicious of her.

She doesn’t spend much time with us as a group (although, we rarely spend time with each other as a group these days).

She seems to prefer ‘one-on-one’ time with us.

Mostly with GREEN.

Not that I mind. I just find it unusual.

Sometimes, when GREEN notices me watching them together, huddled close, her hand casually resting on his forearm, he shoots me a reassuring glace. I hate it. He has nothing to reassure me about. We aren’t - weren’t - ’together’. He’s an idiot sometimes.

I don’t even see her as a threat. Yes, she is very beautiful. But, she is so weird. She treats him more as a father, which is ridiculous. GREEN is practically a man-child. He would be a terrible father.

I don’t mean that. I suppose he has his charms. He is good at remaining calm and taking time to reflect on things. It’s not such a bad thing to impart onto a child. Still, he likes watching ancient re-runs of ‘Stephen Universe’ which, as far as I can gather from the 5 or so minutes I could stand of it, is a children’s cartoon-show.

I do enjoy my conversations with her. I guess that’s why GREEN is drawn to her too. He appreciates the kinds of things she has to offer - good, deep conversations, a warm heart, a pleasant laugh…

Maybe he likes her.

I mostly talk about my work with her. She’s endlessly curious about it. I suppose it’s only natural. Prior to crash-landing on our little rock, she was a botanist. Travelling from planet to planet studying alien plant-life on behalf of some private benefactor.

She was the sole crew member of her ship. She says she still doesn’t understand why she was so off-track when she accidentally hyper-jumped into our little orbit. Whatever cause the navigation error seemed to cause a series of chain-reactions and eventual system failure. She was lucky to survive the crash.

Not much else survived. Nothing from the wreckage that could back-up her story.

She carries a personal little QEC transmitter that sends encrypted messages back to her home base. She’s already contacted them to say she’ll be taking a little sojourn here. How presumptuous of her!

She’s taken by the crystals. She wants to study them further. She was surprised they weren’t already on her radar. She has even begun to convince GREEN of their potential.

She asked us if she could stay, not that we had much of a choice. We haven’t heard from you for so long now, we’re pretty much convinced you’ve disappeared into that black hole at the edge of this star system. You know the one.

Seriously though, what should we do about her? Some guidance here would be great. I advise letting her join our team for a while. In spite of my personal reservations about her, professionally she seems more than capable of contributing real value to our little study.

A new pair of eyes on the crystals couldn’t hurt. I just wish they weren’t such damn pretty eyes.

Complied by the Werner H. Young Terminal Emulator

Info: Simple A.I., designed on-site for executing systems maintenance tasks and exchanging messages between the Orestes outpost and the Arsinoe.

Built by Werner Young (2113-2151).

Names of persons have been masked to protect their identity.