I looked through the tall chain-link fence, at the ramp, launch tower, and mini space shuttle next to it, as the sun peaked above a cloudy horizon, casting an orange hue across Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS).
“Welcome to Complex 14,” read a sign on the fence branded with NASA shooting-star crew logos. “America’s First Person in Orbit,” launched from here, I read, and I was apparently standing in his old parking spot. “John H. Glenn, Jr., Lt. Col.” was engraved in a bronze plaque on a new concrete car stopper, three team members—Carpenter, Schirra, Cooper—on concrete car stoppers beside him. “General Dynamics, 6555th Aerospace Test Wing, United States Air Force,” read another sign. And on the launch tower, the logos of SpaceTek, TeloSky, CloudSpark, and the SNC Space Chaise: Space Ghost riding a rocket like a cowboy reining a horse-drawn chaise. We were doing launch practice beyond this fence in a few days, but I was meeting some crew members for a Space Chaise orientation. Another baby shuttle (literally, the miniature horse version) used for orientations and mock-ups was parked on the asphalt parking lot out here.
A tall man with broad shoulders startled me emerging from the blockhouse—a low-slung dome with a rectangular structure attached, the launch site’s office and warehouse. He walked to the mock-up shuttle with his back to me, and bent down to a rear tire under the right wing. I didn’t want to startle him, so I fidgeted with my feet to get his attention.
“Hi,” I said, as he stood. I approached with my hand out. “Jennifer.”
He turned. I stopped. He didn’t have any eyes.
“Randi,” he said, in a tone of voice I can only call “sincerely monotonous.” He extended his hand but I hesitated. He didn’t have any fucking eyes. But I saw no white cane, no dark glasses on his forehead, no Sonar for the Sightless system. His facial expression, taking a cue from “resting bitch face,” was resting blank face.
I plunged ahead and shook his hand—his grip was warm and firm. But I couldn’t take my eyes off his—lack of them. Instead of windows to the soul, I was peering at a pair of black holes nothing like the empty socket I saw when a Cal Tech smart ass took out his bio-electronic eye to use for selfies and other creepy gags.
Another voice startled me.
“Replicated Artificial Native Design Intelligence,” she said, coming from the direction of the blockhouse. “Or Natural Design Intelligence, depending on the software version.”
She took my hand in both of hers and I caught her name above a logo patch. “So cool to finally meet you, Jennifer. I’m Betty Waldo, payload crew chief. RANDI is a robot.”
“Um, nice to...A what?” I said.
I don’t know if it was the tone of my voice or the look in my eyes, but the weirdest thing happened. Randi’s face dropped—I mean, actually dropped—to the most aggrieved look of utter defeat. Resting blank face instantly became a cauldron of grief and despair.
“Randi.” Betty shook her head. Resting blank face immediately returned.
“I didn’t mean to offend him.” I turned to the robot. “I didn’t mean to offend you.” Then the opposite happened. His face burst with probably the prettiest smile I’d ever seen.
Oh my god.
Betty took me aside. “Randi’s programmed with an evolutionary facial recognition algorithm designed to evoke maximum response whenever his emotions are triggered. The look on his face can cripple a person. It’s almost a weapon. If he had eyes, it would be.”
“He gets triggered?”
“Just like you and me,” she said. “He’s been assigned to your flight.”
“My flight?”
“Mr. Telos pushed for years to automate—”
“Leon Telos?” I interrupted. This many unanswered questions, a few days before launch. I started worrying.
“He and Alex Sparks designed Randi. The Space Chaise is fully automated—it can get you to DSG without a pilot. But Randi, as Mr. Telos has said many times, is the ultimate fail safe. His onboard computer is networked to the vehicle’s. Follow me.” She turned to the robot. “Randi—you stay here.”
We walked around to the back of the shuttle and she quietly tapped it near the logo, out of his sight. “What am I doing?” she asked him.
“Repeatedly tapping your index finger on the left aft side of the hull,” he replied. “Approximately point two meters from—”
“Space Ghost. Thank you, Randi,” she said. “Anything goes wrong on this ship, he knows where, what, why, and in ninety nine percent of cases, how to fix it. He can even space walk—without a suit. And he’s strong, too, aren’tcha Randi?”
She took a heavy screwdriver from her back pocket and tossed it to him. He caught it, and with the most shit-eating grin I’d now ever seen, drove it into the asphalt. Just pressed it down, all the way to the shaft. I walked over and looked at it and the crack gradually opening around it. I looked up at Randi, I thought with my best resting blank face.
“Don’t worry,” he said. Then he reached down to pull the screwdriver out.
“Jennifer?”
I wheeled around to a welcome sight: Dr. Shonstein walking toward me, sporting a Seattle Mariners baseball cap, and Dr. Brando emerging from their rental car. I hurried their way.
“It’s so good to see you guys,” I said.
“You’re a sight for sore eyes yourself, girlfriend,” Shonstein said.
Dr. Brando took my hand and pulled me in for a hug. “Congratulations,” he said.
I flashed my NASA crew pin. “All official like.”
“I’m in awe,” Shonstein said.
I looked at her—something was different.
“Have you…?”
“Lost weight? As a matter of fact—” She took off the cap. “I’m in the peach fuzz phase,” she said. I opened my mouth. “Breast cancer,” she said.
“Oh no. When…?”
“About a month after you left. Found a lump. Asked Martin for his opinion, which after a sincere and studied palpation, turned out to be pretty worthless. So, I got another opinion.”
“Good news is, it’s gone,” Brando said, approaching behind her.
“Mm hmm,” she agreed with a smile.
“Malachi?”
“Super trooper. Both my guys—who are here, by the way.”
I wanted to keep catching up, then realized I’d forgotten my Midwestern manners. I walked us over and made introductions. With the cap’s visor pitched high on her head, Shonstein looked up at Randi with a mix of fear and shock, then looked at me with a WTF expression exaggerated by her hair loss. Brando kept smiling, like he was waiting for a punchline.
“Randi is...what’s the term again?” I asked Betty.
“Replicated Artificial Native Design Intelligence.”
“Get out,” Shonstein said.
Brando rose quizzically on his tiptoes for a closer look.
“I wouldn’t do that,” I said. “He’s very sensitive.”
“He’s sensitive?” Shonstein said.
I saw his crestfallen look coming on.
“Randi is a perfect mechanical clone of a payload chief some of us call ‘legendary,’” Betty said. “Dan Ryan died about nine years ago.”
“He was sensitive, too?” Brando asked.
“Yes—but not like Randi.”
“He’s taking me to DSG,” I announced with artificial glee. Shonstein looked incredulous. A self-driving forklift left the blockhouse and pulled up with a pallet of boxes and what looked like Styrofoam shapes.
“How are you?” I asked Brando. “How’s my main girl?”
“We’re great. And she’ll be here.”
“Outstanding! She’s not with you?”
“She’s coming with her mom,” he said, walking toward the pallet. “Yeah, really.” He started looking through the boxes.
“You and Melissa—” I said.
“They aren’t back together, thank God,” Dr. Shonstein whispered. She turned to the Space Chaise. “This thing is adorbs.”
“Randi will record how you want everything loaded,” Betty Waldo told Brando. “The Styrofoam approximates the dimensions of your equipment.”
Shonstein, Waldo and I walked up a short gangway, ducked, and stepped inside the little shuttle. Three seats; the rest open payload space. “You can fight with Randi over who sits where,” Waldo said.
I looked at the control panel, which seemed as compact as the ship.
“Bigger in here than it looks,” Shonstein said.
“Holds as much as the old shuttles did,” Waldo said. She pointed at controls and valves and the main back hatch, “which attaches to the space station. I wish I could clear you through the gates to the launch pad for a look at the real thing, but they wouldn’t let me.”
Looking out the window, Shonstein motioned me over. Brando and the robot were positioning shapes and handling boxes. The human reached for a box and the robot snatched it out of his hands like a spoiled child. Brando jumped back. He looked horrified; I could only imagine what Randi’s face looked like.
“Did we just see that?” Shonstein said. Waldo looked out the other window, then like a harried mom on a summer day, leaned out the shuttle door.
“Randi,” she said sternly.
She peered in and smiled meekly.
“Software bug?” Shonstein asked.
“No worries. Those boxes are empty,” she said. “The actual payload goes to the launch pad.”
She descended the gangway.