“It’s alright. I’m glad you tried to help me, even if it got a little awkward for a second. Sorry I got a little carried away though, hopefully I didn’t freak you out too badly.”

“That’s probably the most excitement I’ve had at work in a long time. Well, there was that one time someone hit a sprinkler head with a football…” He smiles and winks. “Anyway, want to check out the results before I send it over?”

“Sure, they never showed me the fruits of my labor during training. This is my first real life CAT job, so I’m intrigued.”

“One sec, I’ll turn you so you can see.” He undocks Lilly from her data connection and picks her up. He glances at his cramped desk to try to make space to set her down. Not finding any, he backs his chair up a little and sets the bottom of her casing on top of his thighs. He holds the side of her canister with one hand, and navigates around the screen with his other.

“Ok, so here’s the build - it’s a bunch of part models connected together that make the drill head of the Europa probe. If everything goes well, it’ll pump a stream of molten salt from the nuclear power cell into the inside of the drill head. That pump also spins the drill as it bears down on the ice, and should melt through a little at a time.”

“I - well actually you, had to figure out if we built it strong enough. There’s a lot of pressure from a lot of different directions, so the math gets a little crazy.” He switches over to the simulation layer, and the number of arrows, axis functions, and flow indicators covers up the entire model.

“That’s really cool! So does it look good?”

“Better than I expected - I thought the strain from the rotation would be an issue, but it looks like it’ll hold up. Nice work!”

She turns her head, her hair poofing out and lightly brushing against Tom’s chest, and attempts to look up at him. “Thanks! That was a lot of fun! So, what’s up next?”

“I have to upload this to corporate, but it’s basically the end of my - I mean our day.”

“Nice! You tech guys have really great hours. My last job was mostly swing shift, with the occasional double thrown in so I never really got much sleep. This is way better.“

“For sure. I did my time in the trenches, and though the stress levels are a lot higher here - space probe and all - it definitely has its perks.”

Tom hears a knock on the door, and the sounds of a box being dropped off outside his front door. “Huh. Did I order anything? Did you order anything?”

“I just got here, and I don’t know the address, so It’s not me…”

“Let’s check it out. I probably just forgot I ordered something.” Tom carries Lilly over to the kitchen countertop. “One sec - I’ll be right back.”

He carries the large box over to the table, and notices the from address. “It’s from work. Maybe they forgot something?”

“I can’t think of anything for me that wasn’t delivered, let’s open it up and see!”

Tom grabs a pair of scissors from the kitchen junk drawer, and slices open the tape on the box. “Looks like a care package for you! Someone was looking out back at home base.”

“Sweet, what’s inside?”

He pulls out the first bag. “Looks like a bunch of bathroom supplies. You got a new electric toothbrush, a really nice one too. There’s also some shampoo and conditioner.” He holds up the items so she can see.

“Oh cool! That’s my brand of shampoo. I was gonna ask you to pick some up next time you went shopping. I didn’t really want my hair to smell like dude.” She smiles at Tom.

“That’s fair, although my shampoo mostly smells like an old boat - if that’s what you’re looking for.”

“I’ll stick with the random unidentifiable fruit shampoo, I’m not sure if ‘old boat’ is my thing.”

“Fair enough.” He pulls out a rectangular box. “There’s also a box of bendy straws in here. Interesting.”

“Nice! Those are really important for folks like me - it’s really hard to drink from a cup without one.”

“Looks like the rest of the box is a bunch of little milk jug looking things? I’m not sure what these are.”

“That’s my food supply. It’s some crazy calibrated liquid food stuff. You just have to dump one of those into that tank on the feeding machine next to me. Actually, can I get one of those? I’m starting to get hungry.”

“Oh yeah, absolutely!” He grabs one of the small containers, filled with a mysterious off-white liquid. He unscrews the cap, and dumps it into the tank of the new machine sitting near Lilly on the kitchen counter. “Ok, so now I just plug you into this thing?”

“Yep, it should pump the food goo into me automatically, and I’ll be good to go until tomorrow evening.”

Tom picks up Lilly, and sets her on the machine. As soon as the connection locks in, Lilly’s indicator light turns blue and the liquid starts pumping down. She closes her eyes and her face takes on a squeamish expression. Tom asks, “What’s wrong? Did I do something bad?”

Lilly shakes her head no. As the liquid finishes draining from the tank, she takes a breath, composes herself, and responds. “No, you did it right. It’s a little uncomfortable though. It kinda feels like eating five plates at a buffet, and doing it as fast as you can.”

“Are you able to eat regular food instead? I could share some of my meals. I always make way too much food for one person.”

“Oh. Um, yeah! I still have a stomach somewhere in here, but it’s pretty small. I don’t need much to keep going though, so I’m a pretty cheap date. Come to think of it, I haven’t had any real food since my whole conversion thing, so I kinda miss it…” She smiles.

“Sounds like a plan. I’ll make a little extra food, and we can still do the whole filling station thing every once in a while just in case.”

“Perfect. Thanks so much.”

“Oh yeah, no worries. It’s important to make my guests feel at home. I mean, this is your home now too, so mi casa es su casa!”

“It’s a pretty cool place too, from what I’ve seen so far.”

“It’s pretty small, but I’d like to think I made the most of it. The living room is just around the corner, and the bathroom and bedroom are past that. That’s basically the whole place, it’s cozy but it’s in pretty good shape.”

Tom begins to seal the box back up, and notices an envelope stuck between the cardboard and the jugs of liquid. “Looks like there’s a note in here for you, must be from work. Want me to open it up?”

“Absolutely, I think I know who it’s from.”

He rips open the envelope, and pulls out a card with a drawing of some crudely rendered ocean waves. It says “Hate to wave goodbye but I’ll sea you soon!” The corniness is palpable, and Tom holds it out for Lilly to read.

“Ugh, puns…”

“Right? Want me to open it up for you to read? It’s your card after all.”

“Sure, thanks.” He opens the card, flipping the inside toward her and holding it so she can read the contents.

“Oh cool, it’s from Naya!”

“Naya?”

“She’s the second one to become a CAT, right after me. She actually volunteered for it. At first I thought she was totally nuts for doing it, but she’s really cool.”

“Oh wow, she volunteered to be converted? She must be really interesting. Maybe we could do a lunch or something one of these days.”

“That would be fun. Last I heard she was working on some kind of meetup thing in VR. She was trying to get her dataport to work as the controls so she could walk around in the virtual space - pretty complicated stuff, but she’s really smart. We don’t really go out much, so it would be a good way to keep in touch.”

“That’s really cool - I could poke around the dev teams and see if there’s anyone who wants to help out. Do you know who her.. um, partner? Caretaker? Co-worker, is?”

“Oh yeah! It’s Paul over in RF Engineering! He’s taking care of Naya, and last I heard they’re really hitting it off. I’ll have to ask her about how it’s going - sounds like they’re way more than just co-workers now.” She winks.

“Oh my….” Tom says in his best melodramatic voice, and smiles back.

“So, I got my dinner, shouldn’t you be having yours? I don’t want to keep you waiting.”

“I have some leftovers I’ll reheat. Tomorrow I’ll make something nice for the both of us. Do you want me to put on a tv show or something while I eat? I’m pretty quick but I’m not really that entertaining just sitting at the table.”

“Sure, I’m up for anything. I've been pretty disconnected from entertainment stuff ever since my conversion. It’s been a long time since I’ve watched anything, what are you thinking?”

“I don’t watch much tv, but there’s a really good show that just came out. It’s like one of those baking competitions, but with pairs of contestants. This show’s gimmick is that the pairs are an Adapt and their partner. It’s a super comfy show, and always makes me want to eat bad food…”

“That’s perfect!”

Tom picks up Lilly, and brings her over to the coffee table, setting her down with a good view of the TV. He turns it on, and queues up the episode. “I think I’m going to look into some home automation stuff for you. There’s some eye tracking setup I’ve heard about Adapt folks using that could help.”

“Oh yeah! I think Naya’s got something like that!”

“That’s cool, we’re really going to need to pick her brain. Anyway, I gotta get my dinner. I’ll be just around the corner, so if you need anything let me know.”

“Will do, thanks!”

Tom heads back over and quickly eats his leftover dinner from yesterday. For a moment, he has time to reflect on the day’s events. Although the disruption to his schedule and way of life has been pretty drastic, and he now has to take care of someone who he barely knows, he’s happy she turned out to be really easy going and nice.

After finishing up eating, Tom walks over to the couch and takes a seat. Lilly attempts to turn and look behind her, but he’s just out of range.

“Hey, can I sit next to you? It feels a little weird to be stuck on the coffee table with you sitting behind me.”

“Sure! One sec.” Tom moves her to the couch, and attempts to set her in a stable spot. “I think I’m gonna have to hold onto your case, this cushion is pretty squishy and you might fall over if I don’t hold on..”

“You can hold onto me. I get cold pretty easily too, my casing isn’t exactly insulated. The extra warmth will be nice.”

He sets her next to him, and wraps an arm around the cylinder that makes up her body, holding her steady. They watch the rest of the episode together, enjoying the warmth and each other’s company. After watching the first one, Lilly insists on watching the next episode and Tom happily obliges.

After the second episode wraps up, Tom yawns and stretches his unoccupied arm. “Ahhhh. It’s been really fun, but I think it’s my bedtime. What are your thoughts?”

“I’m ready whenever you are!” She looks over to her storage box, still sitting in the living room. She closes her eyes, and holds her head steady for being lifted up. “Oh, sorry - I usually go in the box at the end of the night.”

“So they would just dump you into your shipping crate every night after work? That seems kinda cruel.”

“I suppose it saved them from having to keep staff working 24/7 back at corporate, but I guess I hadn’t really thought of it that way.”

Tom sets her back on the coffee table, and hops up. “One sec. I’ll set up something so you can actually sleep, not get knocked out and half frozen every night.”

She smiles, but that smile quickly cracks into a frown as tears appear in the corners of her eyes. “I’m sorry. Being reduced down like this, and treated like an especially talkative piece of computer hardware must have really messed with my head.”

“Well here you’re my co-worker and my guest. This has been way more fun than I’ve had in a while, and it’s only day one.” Tom walks over to the shelf on the back wall and grabs a tissue. “Need me to help?”

 “Yes please.” He carefully dabs the tissue on her cheeks and near the corners of her eyes.

“I think I started to believe I was basically a thing now, and being stuffed into a box and hibernated at the end of the night really drove it home. I’m sorry I’m so helpless.”

“Lilly, you are not helpless. In fact, you helped me just a few hours ago with something I could never do on my own. Yeah, I might have to do some of the physical stuff, but you’ve been a great help. Good conversation too.”

“Thanks. I really appreciate it.”

“If you wait here for a minute, I’ll figure out a sleeping arrangement that makes more sense.”

Tom heads into the bedroom, and Lilly hears the sounds of closet doors, the crinkle of vacuum storage bags being opened, and a piece of furniture sliding around. He reappears a couple minutes later.

“I think I got it figured out. Let’s prep for bed and I’ll show you. I assume you need me to brush your teeth, what with the care package and all.”

“Yes please - I’m not really in a position to do it myself.” She smiles. “Also I probably should use the restroom - It’s a daily thing for me, and I think they hooked up the machine in your restroom.”

He grabs the toothbrush and brings it into the bathroom, noticing the addition of a specialized shower chair in the bathtub and a different version of Lilly’s interface disk next to the toilet on a purpose-built platform. The machine is already hooked into the plumbing and ready for use; the work crew did a great job.

After setting the bag of supplies down, he carries Lilly into the restroom and sets up her toothbrush. Although brushing her teeth and washing her face for her are really awkward at first, she clearly appreciates the effort and care. He tilts her toward the sink to spit, and quickly grabs a cup of water with a bendy straw for her to rinse.

“Much better, thank you so much.”

“That may have been the first time I’ve brushed someone else’s teeth - it’s harder than it seems.”

She slides her tongue along her teeth, and smiles. “You did good! Now if you’ll hook me up to the last stop, I’m excited to check out my new sleep situation!”

“Sure, no problem.” Tom picks her up and locks her in much like last time, and steps out of the bathroom. A few minutes later, some quiet water sounds from the machine and Lilly’s voice calling out signal to Tom that she’s all set.

“Now, onto the bedroom. I don’t have a spare room available, and it’s probably safest to have you near me in case of any problems.” He picks her up and walks toward the room.

“Oh yeah, that’s good thinking. If I rolled off somewhere it could be bad. I’ll have to ask Naya what her sleeping arrangements are with Paul. Although she’ll probably misinterpret the question…” She blushes.

“Here we are, the royal bedchambers!” It’s just a normal apartment bedroom.

They walk over to the other side of the bed, where there’s a recently-relocated small recliner. “I think I figured out something that should work - I pulled my chair over, and I’ll wedge a pillow into the side to brace your casing in there.

“Oh cool, I get my own little bed! That’s great!”

“And you’ll be near me, so if you need any help I’ll be right here.” He carefully sets her into the reclined chair, and folds and squishes the pillow against the side of her casing to wedge her in place. “Now to tuck you in, I don’t want you to get cold.”

“Thanks, I haven't been pampered like this in a long time.” She smiles.

Tom pulls the blanket around her case, and carefully arranges it around the edge to make sure she doesn’t get it in her face. “Oh, one more thing!”

He runs into the closet and returns with something small and puffy. “I was thinking about a pillow, and how that would work logistically, and remembered that I have this!” He holds up a travel neck pillow. “That way you don’t get a stiff neck.”

“That’s genius! Can you put it on me?” She leans her head forward slightly.

Tom helps support her head and get her hair out of the way, noticing how nice and soft it is. He slides the pillow behind her neck and positions it carefully.

Lilly wiggles her head back and forth a little, bouncing slightly off the squishy surface. “This is great! I feel like I’m ready to be shot into space! But a really comfy space!”

Tom smiles and chuckles at Lilly’s moment of goofiness - it looks like she’s really enjoying her new setup. “Let me know if you need anything, I’ll be right next to you. I’ll be back in a few minutes; I still have to get ready myself.” He turns down the lights to a dull glow and heads back to the restroom.

A few minutes later, he returns and Lilly’s already sleeping. After a quick check on her, he hops into bed and turns off the lights. He quietly says “Good night Lilly.”

Half asleep, she responds “Good. Really good.”