Drip… Drip… Drip… The echoing sound of small droplets of water pattering softly against an old oak wood floor rang throughout the air. A small puddle was starting to form on the floor as a result of the minor leak in the ceiling.
“Another leak,” Hugo Nazario thought, “That makes, what, third time this month?”
Hugo ran his hands down his face as he continued to glare out his window, staring intently at the seabed before him. It was slightly difficult to fully make out what it was he was seeing, mostly due to a majority of the lights on the seafloor in his section being busted. Nevertheless, he watched as the sea life that inhabited the cold, sandy surface went about their daily lives, not too dissimilar to his own. Crabs scurried across the sand, their small, black pupils seemingly locking eyes with Hugo’s own. Coral sat planted firmly into the ground, and seaweed swayed majestically against the current.
Drip… Drip… Drip…
Hugo sighed as he adjusted his glasses and stepped into his kitchen, throwing back the dirty white cabinet door that led to his pots and pans. Rummaging around, he reached into the back of the cabinet and pulled out the largest pot he had. He left the kitchen and went back into his living room, slipping the large cooking bowl right under where the leak had formed in his ceiling. He wanted to be madder about his situation. He wanted to call up the plumbers that “repaired” his leaks the last few times and give them a piece of his mind. He wanted them to fix this new leak free of charge.
But he was too tired, too hungry, and too out of it to actually do such things.
Drip… Drip… Drip…
Hugo yawned and covered his mouth as he used his other hand to reach into his back pocket to retrieve his employee card. Holding the back of it up to a small black box, he waited for a few seconds before a positive sounding charm alerted him that his ID was recognized by the system. The door in front of him that read “Ernst Robotics - Employees Only” on it had now been unlocked. Stepping inside the building, he let out yet another bellowing yawn as he made his way down a musty smelling concrete hallway, passing through another door that required him to scan his ID.
The room he entered next had become quite familiar to him at this point in time. It was a medium sized break room filled with a couple tables, chairs, assorted kitchen electronics, and a smell that made the last hallway smell like a new car. A woman sat at one of the tables, engaged with whatever it was that was being played on the small TV monitor attached to the concrete wall. The air was thicker in here then it was “outside” and Hugo speculated that this is what the air must’ve felt like on a hot summer day, all before…
“Hey, it’s-a you, Nazario!” A high-pitched feminine voice called out, putting on her best Italian accent.
Hugo blinked his thoughts away and turned his head to face the girl that said his last name. The girl propped herself up on the table with her elbows, a warm, friendly smile plastered across her face as her red-framed glasses scooted closer to the tip of her nose. Her light-blue dyed hair stood neatly in a small ponytail, shiny as a result of her sweating up a storm on the job. In a past life, the safety vest she wore shined a bright yellowish-green color. In this life, however, its muted yellow colors didn’t contrast with the girl’s hair all that well.
Hugo jerked his head up, “Heya Pearl,” he covered his mouth as he yawned yet again.
“Long night?”
“Long morning. There’s another damn leak in my ceiling!” Hugo groaned as he made his way over to the counter next to the fridge. An old, borderline falling apart coffee machine with half a cup of the chocolate colored liquid sat still, ready to be poured out. Hugo gestured towards the machine, “Do you mind?”
“Go ahead, you look like you need it more than me,” Pearl nodded.
Hugo thanked his coworker and pulled out one of the styrofoam cups from a little holder next to the coffee machine. It was very apparent that the coffee had been sitting out for a while, as when Hugo lifted his head back to suck down the beverage, it was lukewarm to the touch.
“Geez, you just drink it black, huh? Raw and no rubber?” Pearl joked.
“I need the kick,” Hugo replied.
“I bet. I saw that you’re scheduled for diving and exploration today.”
“Well, we can’t all have jobs as exciting as an electrician,” Hugo patted Pearl on her shoulder, chugging down the last of the coffee in his cup.
“Yeah, working with electricity at the bottom of the sea isn’t exactly what I would call ‘exciting’,” Pearl chuckled.
Hugo smirked as he lifted his left arm up, his eyes darting to his watch. He sighed as he came to the realization that he was going to have to cut this conversation short. “Hey, look, I gotta scram. You still down for drinks this Sunday with Kay and Mason?”
“Only if you don’t blow all your money on fixing that cursed pipe of yours,” Pearl smiled smugly.
\
Hugo sighed as he sat back into the worn out leather chair of his control bubble. It might’ve been old, falling apart, and someone definitely went to the bathroom in it at some point, but still, to him it was comfortable. When you’re in this miserable of a position in life, you learn to savor the little things.
“Employee Nazario, are you asleep on the job? This will affect your next paycheck greatly and may even lead to Ernst Robotics cutting any and all ties with you for the foreseeable future,” a chipper, almost child-like voice suddenly spoke up around Hugo.
The boy exhaled and shook his head, “No, N.O.V.A., I’m not sleeping on the job.”
The Neural Omniscient Vector Algorithm. Created long before Hugo was even born, back when the rising sea levels had forced humanity to start building underwater in order to survive, N.O.V.A. was created with the sole purpose of keeping this brand new world running smoothly. An incredible piece of artificial intelligence, N.O.V.A. was tasked with millions of different tasks, from mundane things like regulating the lights in public markets, to more complex tasks like pumping oxygen around the whole world.
Or in Hugo’s case, being his own personal “motivator” 24/7.
“Ah, delightful news!” The AI gleefully expressed, “Then come along now, we have a lot of exploring we need to do today! Just imagine what we’ll find out there today!”
“Your off switch?” Hugo groaned as he began the process of booting up the control terminal in front of him.
“Sarcasm detected, ignoring potential threat,” N.O.V.A. chimed.
“Yeah, yeah, you do that buddy,” Hugo rolled his eyes as he prepared his diving unit for deployment.
Hugo carefully pulled back his right arm, his hand gripping one of the many control levers attached to his terminal. His eyes darted up to the giant screen hanging in front of him, watching from the point of view of the automaton he would be controlling today. Suspended from the ground in what could only be described as an underwater hangar, Hugo forced the unit to turn its head to the right. There, hanging from the ground much like his own robot, were dozens of other diving units identical to his own.
The automaton looked to be a cross between an old, rusty diving suit and a squid, though also appeared strangely human in shape thanks to its added addition of two “arms” on the side of the body. The CARE-Unit E Diving Robot, or “Carrie” as the marketing team would tell you, was the most recent creation to come out of Ernst Robotics’ assembly line. Built specifically to explore the flooded wastelands that humanity used to inhabit, it would be used to search for any valuable resources leftover from what once was.
“Ready to deploy CARE-Unit E Robot. Are you ready, Employee Nazario?” N.O.V.A. broke the silence.
“Yeah, let’s get to work already,” Hugo responded, getting into position to properly control the bot.
“Deploying in three… two… one…” N.O.V.A. counted down.
Hugo’s screen was suddenly covered up with bubbles, making it nearly impossible to see anything else in the area. Had he not done this before, he would’ve assumed something had gone wrong. At this moment, Hugo’s diving unit was being blasted down towards the surface of the ocean. All the way down to where the old world used to live. The word Hugo was searching for was the “suburbs”, he believed.
“Prepare to activate stabilizers, Employee Nazario,” N.O.V.A. spoke up, “In three… two… one… Activate stabilizers!”
After such a spectacle that was the deployment of “Carrie”, an outsider looking in would probably be disappointed to actually watch Hugo do his job. It was, in Hugo’s opinion, extremely boring. You would think that being tasked with uncovering “ancient” resources and technology from a long gone society would be exciting. After all, you’d basically be an archaeologist. That’s what Hugo used to think back when he was first tasked with this assignment of his. The disappointing truth of the matter really came down to what Hugo was tasked with collecting; silverware, old electronics, handyman tools, things like that.
“God… this sucks,” Hugo sighed as he piloted Carrie in between two collapsed houses.
Resting his head on his left fist, Hugo sucked in a deep breath through his nose as he continued to maneuver his way inside the various buildings of this once great neighborhood. It was honestly kind of creepy, now that Hugo thought about it. These buildings used to house dozens of different families. People grew up in these homes, made families in these homes… died in these homes. Brothers and sisters played with each other in these yards, as were family gatherings and barbecues.
“God… this really sucks,” Hugo’s voice sounded dry, most likely from him attempting to hold back any tears that were forming in his eyes.
“What seems to be the matter, Employee Nazario?” N.O.V.A. asked.
“It’s nothing, N.O.V.A.,” Hugo attempted to end the conversation right then and there, wiping away the tears formed behind his glasses.
“Employee Nazario, I am the most sophisticated piece of technology on the planet. I can easily tell when a human being is going through emotional turmoil and am equipped to mitigate said negative emotions. I will repeat again: What seems to be the matter, Employee Nazario?” It seemed N.O.V.A. wasn’t pulling any punches.
Hugo groaned, though he honestly should’ve expected something like this to have resulted. You can’t keep secrets from a computer. After all, they know your search history. “I’m just… I’m imagining what life must’ve been like here. Y’know, before the planet flooded and all that.”
“I have many records and video footage of life on this planet before its unfortunate destruction. My creator, Roy Skyber, made sure to back up all of the world wide web into me before it was taken offline in 2184,” N.O.V.A. explained, “Would you like me to display footage from before this era on your display screen?”
“Mmmmm, not now. Maybe later. I don’t know, it just feels like one of those things where your imagination is better than the actual outcome, y’know?” Hugo said.
“Understandable,” replied back N.O.V.A., before suddenly asking, “Employee Nazario, are you/were you close with your parents?”
Hugo was taken aback slightly as he fiddled with the controls for Carrie, watching as she stuffed a claw full of spoons into her storage capacitors. “Um, no, not really. I didn’t really even get to meet them. They died when I was just an infant. My Aunt Abigail took care of me for most of my life. Why’d you want to know?”
“Your concern and curiosity for the families that used to inhabit these homes led me to mention my creator, Roy Skyber, remember?” N.O.V.A. asked.
“Yes N.O.V.A., it was like five minutes ago,” Hugo chuckled.
“Three minutes ago,” N.O.V.A. corrected the man before continuing, “Much like your experience, or rather lack thereof, with your own parents, I experienced a very similar situation with my own. For the majority of what could be considered my adolescent and young adulthood years, I was simply just lines of code. No ability to audibly speak or even express emotions. Roy Skyber passed away from lung cancer before he could see me at my fullest potential.”
Hugo was speechless. He didn’t expect such a tragic human story to come out of something so… inhuman. “Why are you telling me this?”
All that N.O.V.A. said was simply, “Inspiration.” When Hugo tried to press the AI for more context, the entity declined to even acknowledge the existence of the man. They would gladly engage Hugo in discussions unrelated to the topic, but whenever he tried to steer the conversation back to the “Inspiration” chat, N.O.V.A. fell silent.
Hours later, Hugo returned back to his apartment building, tripping over the pot he had placed there earlier in the day and spilling water out all across the floor. After he had finished cursing up a storm and drying up his floor, Hugo retreated to his bathroom to wash off the stink he had accumulated throughout the day.
“Inspiration,” Hugo echoed N.O.V.A.’s word, “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
He tossed around several different ideas in his head as he did his nightly routine, but none of them led him to a satisfying conclusion. Even as he climbed into bed and stared up at his water-damaged ceiling, he remained at a loss for words. In any other scenario, a mystery like this would’ve kept the man up all night, but given the position he was in in his life, nothing would stop him from trying to get some sleep. Closing his eyes, Hugo was just about to enter Dreamland when he sat up straight in his bed.
“Inspiration… I get it!”