As she stepped out of her racer, she heard the whine of pneumatics. Looking up at the source she saw a pocket of light coming from the large LCWP, a ladder descended to the ground. Her ears pulled back, she watched the hole the light was coming from. She half expected humans to peak out. What was she supposed to do, some how "I come in peace please don't kill me," just didn't feel right. The ladder pressed into the ground, strings of lights flashed up the stays.

An accelerated heat rate, puffed tail, wide eyes, and my mass spectrometers are picking up adrenaline in the air. I conclude that she is afraid of heights.

My conclusion holds she has only briefly come into contact with my ladder.

"Don't worry Ms. Teff, the ladder is structurally sound."

"Who--- who's there? Is that you Alexei?"

"Yes I am unit 7352 LXE. Please come up to my quarters."

"You want me, to go up there, inside you. I don't think so," she said slowly backing towards her racer.

I am now 99.736% sure my original conclusion was false.

"Do not worry I do not intend on hurting you."

"Like I'm gona believe that. For all I know you're going to kill me."

"If my intent was to kill you I could have done so the moment you lifted off from your friends house."

"Then why else would you want me to climb up there?"

"It will make communication with you 59.736% more efficient. Besides, I am certain you would find the experience interesting," Alexei said.

"So you just want to talk. You're not going to box me up and gas me or something?"

"No, that is not my intent. I do not know how to convince you of this. I was 87.300% certain you wished to expose me."

"Yeah but I didn't think you where really real. I thought you where some tech geek, who liked human stuff."

"A tech geek, like your self, or your friend Glouster?"

"Yes that's exactly what I though." She stepped forward and looked up at the open hatch.

"I'm sorry to disappoint you. I'm just Bolo unit 7352 LXE of the line. If you come up to my crew quarters I will be able to explain my self, and answer any of your questions. I must however, stress that you should not inform the authorities of my functional status."

She waited several moments for her mind to settle down. She took hold to the ladder and began climbing.

"You should open your eyes while you climb it's safer." She heard it say.

Opening them, she saw that she was close to the top. The space she moved into was confusing. Multiple screens showed images of the planet, several where focused on her colony, others displayed what appeared to be information, she read what she could but failed to understand the majority of it.

"Wait that's in Renan Standard."

"Yes I thought it would make things more familiar to you. If you would like I can display the terrain as well."

"Um sure." She watched as the screen split and begun displaying the information in both languages. "How did you manage to translate our language, you've been speaking in it since I first arrived?"

"When the New Hope entered the planet's air space, I tapped into its libraries, it took 2.53 seconds for me to fully translate what I found. I am interested to know if I have an accent."

"You sound candit."

"Good that was my intent, I found their speech to be the most similar to that of humans."

She heard the change in voice "that's a very good impression of felite. Could you do human for me." She listened as Alexei read the information being displayed, his voice changing from felite, to that of a human speeking Renan, and finally to old terrain.

"Wow that's nothing like what I thought it would sound like. The only reason I can even read it is because I've studied the translations. Now I can see that even those weren't prefect."

"At the current rate, I predict it will take another 1974 days for your researchers to come up with a functional translation, capable of working with 85% of the human lexicon."

"Couldn't you help them out, give them the translation or something?"

"I could. However, I feel it is best not to."

Catalina looked towards what she figured was the front of her host. "No offence, but as far as I can tell you're a computer. How can you feel anything?"

"It's to my tactical advantage that your people not discover me. Once they know how to translate terrain my identity and specifications will become known. Thus it is in my best interest not to give them the translation."

"Yes, I understand that but I want to know how you can feel things. Computers shouldn't be able to feel anything. Yet you almost have emotions. At the very least you appear to be capable of intelligent thought and creativity. A computer shouldn't be able to do any of those things.

"I am a bolo AI unit, not a simple computer. However, you're right I should not be capable of performing any of the tasks you mentioned. Under normal circumstances I would only be able to perform in such a manner during a battle, when my personality inhibitor would be shutdown to allow for greater tactical advantage. My Creator decided to remove my inhibitor in an attempt to give me life. I am unsure if her goal has been successful or not. As it is I base all of my thoughts and feelings off of probability and performance levels. I am able to emulate non-digital forms of emotion based on those indicators. Additionally I seem to be capable of a digital form of emotion, though I'm not sure how to describe it."

Catalina was confused she thought she understood how Alexei worked, but not why.

"You are still confused about something. Maybe my creator will be better at explaining things. I will display her message to me."

There was a flicker of light, as holographic projection appeared in front of her. She watched as a human figure began to speak. The speaker had smooth golden brown skin similar in color to a Roca bean. Her alien voice was gentle and soothing. Alexei overlaid her voice with a translation. So that Catalina could understand what was being said.

Catalina carefully sat down in the only comfortable looking chair in the room. She needed time to think. All of these new and wonderful, exciting, dreadful ideas where vying for her attention.

"How long has it been?" she asked.

"You mean how long have I been active? 123 years, 368 days, 16 hours, and 52 minutes."

"Hell that's a long time to sit around on an empty planet, alone."

"Yes it is, only gets worse when you realize I process at the nanosecond."

"What did you do just sit here and contemplate pie?"

"I tried that. It gets tedious after a few years. No, I've been working on my third directive."

"Whats that?" Catalina asked turning the chair to face the array of monitors at he front of the quarters.

"My directive is to do as I wish, I've decided to fly." Alexei replayed the pertinent portion of director hardcastle's message. "I've been building flying drones and orbital satellites in an effort to allow myself the sensation of flight. So far I've only been able to build a few hundred drone aircraft, but none of them have been able to bring the sensation of flight to me. I always feel my hull or my treads. Strangely the drones seem to perform better when you are around I believe it is the commander affect."

"Can you show me one." Catalina got out the chair and headed towards the hatch.

"Yes, but none of them are available for you to examine by hand."

She turned and headed back to the chair. She stopped when a shimmer of light caught her eye. Floating above the table was a three dimensional hologram of a small fixed wing craft.

"This is my first attempt. It didn't last long but it was the closest I've come to feeling flight." Alexei set the image moving to better show Catalina the drone.

Catalina reached out to touch the image, she felt a slight breeze against her fur. For an instant the image lost its wing to a swirl of color and light. Soon however the imaging processor recalculated and the wing grew back, the hologram particles being sent from another mister. She touched the wing tip with her finger and made an upward ark. The aircraft rolled to the side, following her fingers motion. "Hmm, didn't think that would work." She played with the image a while longer watching how it banked and rolled, climbed and dived. "You say you've flown these when I was around? I didn't see or hear them."

"I've improved and diversified the design. When you're people landed I moved away from models such as this and started making smaller stealthier craft." Several images flicked onto Alexei's screens. "These pictures where taken by one of my smaller models. If you look at the map you can see that it orbits the downtown section of you're city."

Catalina pointed at the main console. "Glouster works in that shop."

"The Data-Net-Link-Network shop. I'm not surprised he seemed overly knowledgeable about computers."

"How long has this drone been flying over the city?"

"Well unfortunately it spends most of its time at its landing sites. It makes a full circuit twice a day.

"And people don't see them?"

"Yes people do see them when they are in flight but most just put it off as some sort of bird. Or at least that's what I hope they see it as."

"Well now I'll have to look next time I'm in town. I think I can see where a few of the landing sites are."

"If I show you there exact sites could you find one and let me know if it looks convincing. I would find an outside opinion useful."

"I'll let you know. Any," Catalina's coms unit beeped at her "Ahhhh, Sugar!"

"What is it? I'm certain your coms unit should not be able to receive a signal at this time," Alexei asked.

"No it doesn't. I set its alert function to warn me when I had three hours flight time to get to my parents house." She hit the button to turn the alarm off. "I need to be going. I'll have enough of a time explaining why I don't have a stack of employment cards."

"You are currently seeking employment correct?"

"Yes, and my parents are going to kill me for not having talked to any employers." Catalina said as she stuffed the coms unit in a bag.

"Are you seeking any particular line of work?" Alexei asked.

Catalina had made it down the hall to the ladder and was now climbing down to her racer. "No I'm not looking to specialize. I don't really have any type of special knowledge or skills."

"All pertinent documents have been sent to your racer. Please examine the top offer carefully," Alexei said, as she made her way to the racer.