Emotion, Intelligence, Coffee and Simulation by Robert Ivy

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It was less thrilling to work late at night, but as usual some software exhibited mystical behaviours that he had to sort out.

The coffee machine's assessment of his personality certainly stung, even if it was completely mad. He didn't agree that Christina looked like a fish. If so, she was a very pretty fish. Her eyes were large and round and maybe her lips were kind of thin. He sighed. If only looks were everything, life would be so much simpler.

"Have I not earned my otium?" he asked out loud. Not even the flowers disputed this, possibly because they didn't know what the word meant, more likely because they were screaming for water as usual.

"We want water. We want water," they screamed.

He ignored them.

It wasn't that Christina didn't acknowledge his hard work when reminded. She just sort of didn't remember to think about it. But the main trouble was she didn't agree with his plan to escape to the past, and the date of the next launch was drawing closer. It was the second of three planned, and they wouldn't get another chance. For the last one the price would probably be out of reach. Perhaps it was unnatural as she claimed. Maybe she was scared. All the talk about crappy cars and ugly fashion was plain silly. Her claim that they had a backwards view of women had some more substance to it. But the people would not be from 1974, would they? Same dream, same people, but a new and better place, that was the whole idea.

He sighed again and put down his coffee, leaning over an electronic giraffe the company had put on the market a few years back. He had been one of the original project members and knew more about it than most in the company. It had of course gone through a year of rigourous testing before the product was finalised. Still, several units had recently developed depression in its software. It was generally considered, in the business, that when toys became depressed and attempted suicide, was the ultimate marketing nightmare. Simply replacing the unit often didn't work if the child had become emotionally attached to it. And parents disliked toys that didn't have a positive attitude. They should be chipper and teach children positive values.

"So why are you feeling so bad?" he asked the electronic giraffe.

"The world is full of violence, and the air is polluted. And don't you think my legs are long?"

"But your legs are supposed to be long. You're a giraffe."

"Who says?"

Clearly this specimen needed an attitude adjustment. He reached for his notepad and clicked his pen. "The time in Rome is 6 am," it said. He had no idea why it did that.

Opening the giraffe's head, he sighed. "You're right about the pollution though. It is rather depressing with rain every day, and no space to live anymore. Millions and millions of years old, we still have the dream, but no space." He looked inside the head and wrote down the hardware and software version on his notepad. "We can change it no less than we could put wheels on you and still call you giraffe." He flicked his laptop open and attached the debugger pod, and the other end to the connector inside.

"Hey, be gentle!" the giraffe said.

Leon put on his 3D goggles and started his computer.