Chapter Nine
Stratos bolted upright with a new invention design burning in his brain. Clear and tangible now, the concept could vanish if he didn’t capture it. He leaped out of bed.
The joy was back! Oh, how he’d missed creating.
The exhilaration arising out of pure inspiration was the best feeling in the world.
Concepts used to come to him all the time, but then he got promoted out of Research and Development and into management, then to the executive board, and his ideas began to dry up.
His staff designed and developed new products, but they weren’t his ideas.
“Good morning! Would you care for breakfast?” Aaia said.
“No, just a cup of kaffii. I’ll have it after I cleanse.”
“Very well.”
He emerged from the cleansing unit to find a steaming cup of dark-green liquid waiting for him. He downed it, and, while design ideas swirled in his head, he dressed.
He was about to leave his penthouse when Aaia stopped him. “Are you going to the office, Stratos?”
“Yes.”
“Do you wish to put on shoes before you go?”
His gaze shot to his bare feet. After donning a pair of shoes, he asked, “Everything okay now?”
“You’re good to go.”
Aaia was his greatest creation. He didn’t create artificial intelligence—it had already existed— but he’d been the one to envision and map out how a single integrated AI could run homes across the planet.
“She”—it had no gender, but he thought of it as a she, hence the female voice—had earned the company billions and saved consumers billions more, although they probably didn’t realize it.
Aaia optimized economies of scale. For instance, rather than each household ordering small quantities of kaffii for their morning libation, Aaia, with the knowledge of how much was ordered collectively, bargained for bulk prices, with the savings returned to the individual buyers.
She could barter among households. If someone needed more energy credits than he’d been allotted, but rarely used public transport, she could swap his transport credits with the energy allotments of someone who traveled all the time and was never home.
In the Central Province, where OberTech was headquartered and wielded the most clout, about half the homes had installed Aaia.
However, not everyone felt comfortable with her.
His own mother and sister refused to allow her.
The western governor had banned her in his province, and usage was spotty in the other three planetary sectors.
He didn’t understand the reluctance to embrace her. An efficient, unflappable home assistant, she anticipated a person’s needs and filled them without one having to ask. She took orders without any back talk.
Unlike his new office assistant.
He couldn’t fault Savannah’s efficiency. Just two weeks on the job, she was every bit as competent as Verilla. Maybe more so.
But the back talk! She did not mince words when she deemed him out of line, which apparently she thought occurred often.
She seemed to forget he was the boss and she worked for him.
Sometimes he had to catch himself before he laughed at some brazen retort.
He shouldn’t find her insubordination amusing, but he often did.
Did she ever withhold a thought?
She’d called him an asshole within minutes of meeting him.
Others had called him that, too, but he brushed it off, considering them slackers and incompetents.
He didn’t think he asked too much for people to do their jobs and not interfere with him doing his.
But, for some reason, her saying it, and so soon after meeting him, caused him to wonder. Am I an asshole?
When he got to work, the complex was vacant, except for the nighttime security guard manning the reception desk and the cleaning bot finishing up the floors. The daytime shift change hadn’t occurred yet.
“Good morning!” the guard commented.
“Yes.” He had no time for pleasantries. A hot design burned in his brain.
The tube shot him to his sector, and he bolted to his suite, stopping short at the sight of Savannah. She always beat him to the office, but he did not expect it today, since he was so early.
Since Kep’s comment about her homeliness, he’d started paying attention to her appearance. Today, her green eyes appeared tired. Was he working her too hard? She didn’t have to come in this early. But despite the dark circles around her eyes, she did not look homely. She is rather unhomely.
Her hair, normally twisted into a knot and pinned atop her head, dusted her shoulders today.
It hid her graceful neck but attractively framed her deceptively innocent face and pretty eyes.
She was borderline insolent, but he sometimes goaded her for amusement.
He would never admit it to her, but her sharp retorts and snarky remarks kept him on his toes.
“You’re staring,” she said.
“What are you doing here?”
“As far as I know, I still work here.”
“It’s early.”
“Does that mean it’s too soon to tell, or it’s early in the morning?”
“Depends how good the kaffii is you’re going to bring me.” For the past week, she’d taken it upon herself to bring him a kaffii and a nuknuk. It was silly how much he looked forward to that. He proceeded into his office and called up the design software.
He was immersed in it when Savannah entered. She placed a cup and his favorite meat-filled breakfast pastry on his desk away from the 3D model of his ideation.
“Thank you,” he said, focusing on the design taking shape.
She wasn’t leaving. He looked up. “What?”
“That’s a first,” she said.
“The model? It’s a brand-new idea I got in the middle of the night.”
“No, thanking me. You’ve never thanked me before.”
“I’m sure I have.”
“No, you haven’t.”
“Well it’s no wonder considering what an issue you make of it.”
“I didn’t have a chance to do the summary yet.”
“I wouldn’t have read it until later anyway.”
Every day, he received fifty to a hundred comms, reports, and holograms, with updates, requests, and issues the sender believed warranted his immediate attention.
Savannah had taken the initiative to review, summarize, and prioritize the comms into a single report.
It had been an immensely helpful timesaver.
She was still standing there, distracting him with her presence and her exotic, almost-alluring scent. He scowled. “What is that you’re wearing?”
She glanced down at herself. “Slacks, a jacket, and a blouse. Same basic outfit I wear every day.”
“I meant the smell.” He sniffed.
Her face turned a little pink, and she stiffened. “I wouldn’t know.” Her expression prim, she said, “You do remember you have a 7 a.m. holographic meeting with Marketing.”
“What idiot scheduled that?”
“That would be you.”
Gods those salespeople liked to talk. Did they ever just get to the point?
Their chatter could drive him insane on the best of days.
He wanted to work on his creation! It had been so long since he’d had a burning idea, he had to pursue it.
“Reschedule it. Reschedule anything else on my calendar today and hold all comms. Don’t disturb me for any reason or anybody. No exceptions.”
“What if the governor wants to speak with you?”
He scowled at the preposterous notion. “The governor is not going to call me!”
“I’m trying to determine the parameters.”
“The parameters are nobody gets through to me today. No exceptions.”
“Kyra?”
“No exceptions.”
“Okay. If the building catches fire, I’ll tell the firefighters to skip your office.”
“Now you understand.”
She flounced out.
“We have a fire suppression system,” he muttered to the closed door. Her disconcerting scent lingered, but at least she was gone. Governor! How did she come up with that stuff? Grinning, he returned to his design.
* * * *
This was a side of him she hadn’t seen since she started two weeks ago.
Oh, he was still his same terse, abrupt self, but this morning, he’d looked…
happy, for lack of a better word. Energized in a way she’d never seen before, and the man wore her out with his boundless energy.
Clearly, his design concept excited him.
With Stratos occupied with his project, hopefully he wouldn’t make too many demands, and she could gain some headway on reorganizing the filing system. Maybe I can get some work done today, maybe find the memo.
She didn’t hold out much hope it would resurface. If it did, she’d address the issue, but otherwise, she’d decided to let the matter drop. The whole issue was moot anyway. He had an assistant—her—so he did not require the services of Personnel.
Settling behind her desk, she stifled a yawn. She’d awakened way too early, thanks to a glitch in her apartment AI. Lights and music had blasted on two hours before she normally arose.
“Aaia, what the hell?” Savannah had covered her face with the pillow. “Turn that off! Are you crazy?”
“My apologies. But now that you’re awake, perhaps you should report to work.”
“No. Turn off the lights and music. Wake me in two hours.”
The AI complied, and she rolled over and tried to go back to sleep. But the damage had been done. Wide awake, she gave up and trudged into the office. Nobody was around except for the security guards. She’d been shocked when Stratos showed up shortly after she did—a
Stratos she’d never met before. His face had looked lighter, his eyes brighter, and she’d swear he’d almost smiled once or twice. He’d thanked her for the kaffii!
Then he spoiled it by insinuating she stank.
I do not smell! She had washed with a new body gel that Aaia had ordered, but it smelled nice. She preferred it to the original that had been in the apartment. So, Mr. Snooty-Nose could deal with it! She sniffed her forearm. I’m fine. I’m not like Denise.
Denise was a lady at Karing whose overpowering perfume had nearly asphyxiated her entire department. Chuck had the uncomfortable task of calling her into HR and telling her to stop wearing it.