It was that time of year again.
Single file lines. Two rows. Follow the straight white lights toward the Launch area. It was time for the annual trip to Earth.
EVE was, to be frank, giddy. This was always her favorite time of the year, even if it was also the most frustrating. Yes, she would have to be deactivated and stored on board some stuffy spaceship for several days to make the journey. Yes, she would have to deal with the aggravation that always accompanied a failure to fulfill her Directive. Yes, she would have to eventually go through the grueling analysis process once she got back. Yet all that was worth it, because she still got to go to Earth. Her last trip was still fresh in the young probe's memory banks: canyons as wide as the eye could see, open space for miles on edge...no one around for miles. It was perfect.
Left turn down Hallway A12. Even pace. Head to elevator hatch 12-X.
It was not that EVE disliked company. Rather, it was that the company she kept always felt so...hollow. The white pod recalled the first time she had been among the Probes chosen to go to Earth. She had just recently been activated. Destined for a new world, fantasies of the wondrous things she would discover there flashing about in her processors without cease...the young drone had been so excited, she just HAD to share her joy with her sisters. That was what she had thought of the other EVE probes back then...as sisters. That, however, had quickly changed.
Enter elevator hatch in pairs of two. Wait for everyone to be on the same floor before continuing. Group is re-united.
"Earth!" she remembered squealing excitedly to the drone next to her, bouncing energetically up and down. "Earth!"
The probe had not responded, simply looking blankly ahead as if EVE was not there at all. EVE had been confused then; was it something she had done? Had she spoken in the wrong tone? She understood now, of course. She was different from the other probes. To them, this was just...nothing. It was not even a job. It was everything they were, their actions. Context, Directive, excitement...to her sisters, those things did not exist. All that existed were the motions they went through to get where they needed to go.
Board Transport rack. Head down Transport Tunnel B-13. Prepare for Stasis Lock.
To
her, however...she was not just the sum of her actions. She was
EVE. She could fly, explore whole new worlds
without limit or restriction, see their beauty and uncover their
mysteries. That meant something, and she could never express it
when she was on board the Axiom, because her sisters were all she had
there, and none of them understood it. That was why being alone
on Earth meant so much. On The Axiom, she had to just be
another one of the drones. On Earth, she could be EVE.
Transport Rack arrives. Stasis Lock activated. Directive Protocols initialized.
As her systems began to fall asleep, the white pod felt one last image of that beautifully empty world pass through her sensors. When next she awoke, that was where she would be. Home.
EVE loved this time of year.
End