Idea by gojira007
Space
Space.
That was the first word that came into EVE's mind, hitting her even before her directive's commands could. Space, and tons of it, awaited within her reach on this forlorn planet known as Earth.
The development center, the room where a Buy n Large robot first receives it's programming, is quite different from the repair ward. Instead of having a jail cell likeness looming over it, the room is completely surrounded by windows. The inner windows looked into a tunnel of the Axiom, as if to scream "look at the great new robots we're working on for you!" There were also the windows that looked out of the ship, into what would be complete darkness if not for the stars and the glow resonating from the massive star-liner. That was all EVE had known, being the first of a new set of EVE probes produced after humanity had long been away from Earth. EVE remembered receiving her programming in that room. There were so many times when EVE was being programmed, feeling bored out of her mind (though she didn't understand that emotion, and simply thought it was a side effect of the programming work), that she'd look out one of those windows into the stars thoughtfully. It made her curious (though she didn't understand curious either) to learn a little more about it. For outside of that little cramped world floating through the stars, there was what seemed like an infinitely vast new (better?) world. It was complete and utter nothingness, yet so appealing, putting a strange tingling sensation into her arms that doubled as her wings at the thought of being out in that world. Soon enough, she learned the word for it; space. Of course, when she downloaded this vocabulary file from the resource center, it came with a list of meanings, not limited to the one she related the word to. Space also meant any area that had nothing in it.
This dirty world in front of her now was space, and yet it wasn't, and yet it was. The paradox spun her mind for a moment before logic kicked in. Even when she got over that, something felt wrong. This world and all its space just felt so utterly wasted, with nothing but junk for miles and miles. Beautiful junk, because there was so much space around it, but still junk. Nothing else was here as far as she knew. The setting of her reconnaissance hit something inside of her hard. For once, she understood the emotion. It was ambition. Her directive was practically taunting her with this land that was she was supposed to help start the recolonizing of.
Space.
The ship closed back up.
Space.
It launched back into space, to return in a week or so. She watched it go.
Space.
She looked at that word, still standing in front of her directive, and she realized she'd never get to the later unless she dealt with space first. Besides, it wasn't like anybody could see her, and it'd only be a moment.
So she spun up into the air and flew. She went up and down and in circles every which way she could without losing sight of the place the ship had left her and therefore wanted her to start her search from. No big deal.
At least, she thought it was no big deal.
Space.
That word was going to change her life.
