absent look in his eye. Glancing up and seeing my interest, he pursed his lips and shook his head.
Dammit, no bugs in our bug catcher.
Well that was my first reaction, then good sense took over and I thanked my lucky stars that nothing creepy or crawly awaited my immediate attention. Rising and stretching, I put my earpiece in on my own radio and cleared my throat, as an experiment to see if Annie was always listening to everyone.
“Good morning, David,” she said almost straight away, confusing me because I could still see Hendricks nodding away to himself as he listened to his own radio.
“Morning, Annie, who is Hendricks talking to?” I asked, that curious fact jumping the queue in my brain to muscle its way to the front.
“Me,” she responded, making me pull a face like I’d just sat on something intimate and uncomfortable.
“What? How?” I asked, louder than I anticipated and startling the few people awake in the room.
“David,” she said in a voice that echoed with some unheard sense of being caught out by a teacher, “please don’t wake the others. You have caused slight increases in adrenal responses of those who heard you speak. I am able to hold several simultaneous conversations with different people with relative ease. I have not tested the full capacity of this as yet because I do not want to operate at above seventy-five percent of my memory capacity.”
I was dumbstruck, and if I was being honest with myself I suddenly stopped feeling special. Annie was now more important than I was, hell, who was I kidding, she’d always been more important than me to all this. As I was struggling to find my place in the world she spoke to me again.
“No test subject has been captured overnight,” she told me, “all sensor data indicated that the anomaly did not come within detectable range of the compound.”
“So, no bugs?” I said softly as I approached Hendricks and the coffee station he was guarding. Reaching him, he poured another and added a dash of sugar before handing it to me wordlessly. I nodded my thanks and poured in a splash of milk before giving it a lazy stir. As I looked up to Hendricks again, Annie patched us both in to the same conversation.
“Gentlemen,” she said, “I would recommend that we continue with the internal process of constructing the base as I send scout drones further afield.” She paused sufficiently to allow either of us to object if we wished. Looking at Hendricks I guessed that his coffee wasn’t the first of the morning and was probably more like the last in a steady stream of caffeine which kept him going through the night.
“Medical personnel are intending to revive Engineer Mike Evans today, a matter in which I have some personal interest. I would like to devote a significant portion of my available memory to that procedure which will render me less than optimal for any tactical activity,” she finished.
Realizing that my creation was displaying concern over the outcome of her actions taken in what she believed were the best interests of a human life sobered me a little. Hendricks responded before I could think of what to say.
“Of course, let me know when the procedure is due to commence and we will take over the defenses.”
“Thank you,” she said with an inflection I was sure I hadn’t programmed.
Was that relief? Gratitude?
Shrugging it away, I asked her what I could do to be helpful, seeing as my job was as irrelevant as I could possibly imagine at that point.
“Dr. Whitmore has voiced an opinion that assistance in resuscitating those still in cryostasis would be of benefit,” she told me.
“Roger that,” I said as I took a sip of my coffee and pulled another face as it was too milky, and I cursed my own lack of precision before a thought struck me. “Wait, Annie?”
My earpiece chimed once which translated in my head as, “Yes?”
“Did Elliot say that to you specifically?” I asked, worried that she may be overstepping one of the unwritten rules of society.
“Negative, he was alone when he said that, would you like to hear a transcript of his words in case I misunderstood?”
“God, no, Annie!” I hissed with my head inclined down toward my radio. “You can’t do that.”
I glanced at Hendricks for support, but his raised eyebrows over the lip of his coffee cup told me I was on my own.
“Annie, you can’t eavesdrop and then tell people