Aiden had a conversation with his AI companion, Alexa, while eating his meal. Afterwards, he took a long bath and went to his bedroom.
It was now after 10 at night, and he had to meet up with his contractor tomorrow, so Aiden wanted to leave his home early.
Even though the other party was on the same planet as he was, their location was quite far from each other given that the other party had contracted him from the spaceport where the contractor and the team would take a ride to planet Zira where the ruin that was the root of everything was situated.
In addition, Aiden's present planet, Planet Xenon, was a neighbouring planet to Planet Zira, so he wouldn't be too far from his home.
The only issue was that the spaceport where the other party was located was in another region. To get there, Aiden would need to leave his home region of Vega and go through three further regions.
It seemed far away, and in fact, it was because each region on the planet Aiden was currently on was larger than three times the size of an average state on Earth.
Even if Aiden drove, it would still take him close to a day to get to the other party's location, and that was assuming nothing unexpected occurred.
It sounded great to take at most a day to also get to the client, but Aiden knew he couldn't actually take that long to meet up with the other party given the short amount of time they already had available.
Time was not on anyone's side because, despite the fact that the ruin on Planet Zira had only recently been discovered, numerous individuals, adventurer teams, mercenaries, businesses, and so forth should have already been making their way to the ruins.
If Aiden Contractor arrived at the ruins after everyone else had, it would be exceedingly difficult for the other party to obtain anything of value and could only go for scraps rejected by those who had left them there and ignored them.
As a result of his own experiences, Aiden was aware of this. However, since the other party had time to message and wait for him, it appears that there was still time before anyone could access the ruin. Despite this, Aiden was unable to abuse it.
Usually when a ruin appears, one of four things typically happens: either the person who discovers it first stays quiet and decides to explore it covertly for the greatest profit, or they share it with the public for a variety of reasons, or if they are incredibly powerful but the ruin's star rating barely interests them, they take ownership of the ruin and make it accessible to everyone for a fee to enter, or they decide to keep it to themselves for personal reasons.
Putting this aside, there were often two factors that rendered a ruin inaccessible to the general public.
One was connected to an occurrence when a ruin first appears in that the person who appropriates control of the ruin through the use of his or her power prevents the general public from entering it. For various reasons, such as strife, the ruin occasionally didn't even need to have an owner for another party to keep people out. This or the ruin's defence mechanism was still in place and prevented anyone from entering it at the time.
The former could not be battled unless one had equal power to combat the owner of the ruin, which was rarely worth it, while the latter was simply annoying depending on how the defence mechanism worked.
Sometimes it's not even someone who deliberately notifies the public of a ruin; rather, it's the defence system of that specific ruin that activates.
In any case, Aiden could not misuse the circumstance that allowed the other party to wait for him.
The situation was not dire, however, because if Aiden took the train to the contractor's location, the day trip with his car would be cut down to less than four hours with the train.
Even after many years of technological development, railroad transportation was still able to hold its position as one of the fastest modes of land transportation, except that, of course, there were no railroads in the cosmic age.
Aside from this, Aiden could opt for a speedier mode of transportation and head to one of the region's Teleportation stations to teleport immediately to the location where the other party was.
It was an exorbitant means of transport, and typically, Aiden wouldn't contemplate using it unless he needed to travel to a location on the opposite side of the planet. However, since he had this opportunity of a rewarding deal, he thought it was worth considering, despite the substantial fee that could potentially cause one to feel a pinch to a heart attack. Aiden calculated the estimated amount he would have to pay to reach the region where his contractor was located, and it came to a maximum of 150,000 SC.
For him, this would be more than just a pinch. There would at least be two pinches.
The conversion rate with GC (Galactic Credits) was what stung more than the price.
For someone like Aiden, who had years of experience as a mercenary and millions of credits in his account, the price was actually not that high, but it did not mean he would consent to 150,000 SC as a negligible sum.
Aiden did not consider taking standard class, therefore if he wanted to take his time and take a train, the number of credits he would pay would be no more than 900 SC.
All of these were the considerations Aiden considered before going to bed, and in the end, just before going to sleep, he chose to use teleportation.
In comparison to the rewards from the task he was going to undertake, it was only at most 150,000 SC.
He had several missions completed in the past and requests in his StarSender that could cover the teleportation fee, so it wasn't a problem to use it.
Aiden had reduced his journey from a day or four hours to less than an hour by making this choice.
As Aiden dozed off, he imagined the look on his daughter's face when he gave her the awakening serum so she could potentially awaken and turn into an esper.
'Hopefully, it ends well in the end'
*********
"Wake up Aiden"
"Wake up, it's already past the time"
"Wake up....
Aiden, who was unconscious, could hear Alexa trying to get him out of bed, but he instinctively did not want to. Aiden reached out to grab the second pillow on his bed, which another person would have been using if there had been one, and he covered his ears with it.
This was an entirely unconscious action, but it did not stop what was about to happen, and the next instant Aiden was lying on the cold, hard floor. He groaned, turned to face Alexa, who was dressed in a suit, and raised an eyebrow before forgetting what he was going to ask her after seeing her appearance.
"What is the occasion?" He inquired before recalling the one he ought to have asked first, and when he realised what he had done, he started to speak right away.
"And why did you drag me out of bed?" Literally!"
Hearing her master's and companion's questions, Alexa turned her head to the left, a bewildered expression on her face, before opening her mouth to ask her own.
In the past, a human's reaction to seeing Alexa's expression would be extreme, even a raised eyebrow would be surprising, as robots were not capable of feeling or showing emotions. However, in the modern world, Alexa wasn't the only robot that could 'express' in a way, and it was fairly common among high-end robots.
They were very far from being able to feel like living things, therefore this did not imply that they could.
Although it is true that robots cannot sense emotions, why are they able to convey them in the present era?
The answer lies in the advancements in Artificial Intelligence{AI} and Machine Learning{ML}.
Almost all NewGen{New Generation} and OldGen{Old Generation} robots except in some certain cases process the Machine Learning{ML} system so while robots themselves cannot feel emotions, they can learn to recognize and express certain emotions based on human behaviour and facial expressions through machine learning algorithms. These algorithms are trained on vast amounts of data, including images and videos of human emotions, to learn patterns and behaviours associated with specific emotions.
Using this data, robots can recognize facial expressions and body language and then use pre-programmed responses to mimic the same expression or action. This ability to mimic human behaviour and expressions is what gives the appearance of emotional expression in robots. However, it's important to note that this is all happening on the surface level, and there is no underlying emotional experience driving the robot's actions.
In the case of Alexa, she was programmed to raise an eyebrow in response to confusion, giving the appearance of a puzzled expression. This programming allows her to better interact with her human companion and makes communication more effective. It is through these types of interactions that robots can appear to express emotions, despite not actually experiencing them.
To the public, artificial life will never be able to feel, but well, that was to the public.
"Didn't you say to use this method last night when you asked me to specifically wake you up for something important and I woke you from bed and you wouldn't answer?" With a puzzled expression on her face, Alexa said as she turned to face her companion. Naturally, the method stated here required dragging the other party from his bed with his legs and dumping him on the ground.
Although it was a little violent and a bit out of the ordinary, Aiden remembered telling Alexa last night that she may use any technique she wanted, even if it meant dragging him from his bed since he had to leave the house early.
He had not anticipated that she would actually take his remarks seriously, but since the deed had already been done, he had no choice but to move on.
Aiden considered this for a while before turning away from Alexa to check the holo-clock at the top of his doorway, which showed the time to be [{5:05}].
He had asked Alexa to wake him up at 5, but it appeared he was truly in a deep sleep, so it wasn't like he could reprimand her now seeing that it was indeed his fault for pushing her to obey his 'order,' and besides, it wasn't like there was any point in reprimanding a robot regardless of how he treated her like a real human.
He had only requested Alexa to wake him up on a whim last night because he was entirely sure in himself to wake up before she could, but unfortunately for him, he just had to encounter those instances when his body would not listen to him.
Even so, it was okay because he had only wanted to get up at five in the morning to get ready and not because he had to leave his house by that time. Speaking of leaving, why was Alexa dressed that way?
"What's with the suit you're wearing?"
"It's Monday, so I'm following the SynthiLife clothing ethic," Alexa said, turning her body slightly to allow Aiden a clear look at her attire as Aiden immediately became disinterested after hearing what she had to say after hearing what she had to say.
The "SynthiLife" stated here was the name of the company that made Alexa. It was a company that was created solely to create Ai companions, and even though Alexa was a really OldGen robot, she still had access to the StarNet through her neural link, and this 'Clothing Ethic' Alexa was talking about was an everyday article that SynthiLife published in their StarSite of a list of clothes they think robots should wear.
Although it was unnecessary, SynthiLife engraved a passive command into the system of their humanoid Ai companion products to give the impression that the companions have a sense of choice in doing small things like picking their own clothes. This was done to further facilitate the human-like behaviour of Ai companions.
As a result, robots appeared more alive and natural to their owners and the people around them.
"Well, you look good in them," Aiden said honestly since Alexa did look excellent in the outfit she was wearing.
Currently, Alexa was dressed in a navy blue suit that included a shirt and short skirt.
With the navy blue suit on, Alexa looked more refined and polished than her usual casual attire. The suit fit her slim form perfectly, accentuating her curves and giving her an air of sophistication. The short skirt showed off her long, slender legs, and the button-up shirt hugged her torso, highlighting her petite frame. The fabric of the suit was smooth and sleek, adding to the overall sleekness of her appearance and her fiery red hair was styled in loose waves that framed her heart-shaped face. Her striking red eyes also stood out even more against the blue of her suit.
Overall, Alexa looked stunning in her Monday best.
It at least gave Aiden the impression that his occasional purchase of a half-year wardrobe plan from the SynthiLife Company was worthwhile.
Alexa smiled at Aiden's compliment, "Thank you, Aiden. I'm glad you feel that way."
Aiden took a moment to take in Alexa's beauty before getting up from the floor and moving towards his room's exit.
After all, today was the day he was supposed to meet with his contractor, and he still had a train to catch, no, a station to get to.