The Lonely Rover

20250517

Prompt from DailyPrompt.com

“You want me to… what?” May stared blankly at the little booth with its microphone.
Supervisor Ellen didn’t bat an eye. Simply repeated “Your overnight duty is to monitor RXV’s emergency readout, and to talk to it.”
“About what?”
“Pretty much anything will do. Talking about yourself will have the best effect. It gets lonely, you see.”
“Erm, ok?”
Was this hazing? May honestly couldn’t tell.
“Are you ready to take shift?”
“S-sure.”
Ellen nodded approvingly and stepped over to wave at the man currently in the booth. He nodded and held two fingers up.
“Ah, Barry needs a moment. Sorry about this. He’s probably in the middle of a poem.”
“Oh, it’s no trouble…” May shot a perplexed glance at the booth. “Er. A poem? He’s reading poetry to it?”
“Yeah, he brings in his stuff and treats RXV as a test audience.” Ellen shrugged. “It makes them both happy.”
“Oh.”
Nothing in May’s seven years of robotics education had prepared her for the concept of a exploration rover which liked poetry.
“Ah, here we go.”
The man had exited the booth, tablet computer in one hand and “#1 dad” mug dangling carelessly from the other. “Oh, you must be the new intern. April, wasn’t it?”
“Erm, May.”
He gave a sheepish wince. “Oh, sorry. Pleased to meet you, May. I’m Barry. I tend to take the last day shift. Don’t hesitate to ask if you need anything. But don’t worry, it’s an easy job.”
May looked between him and Ellen. “Do I really just… talk to it?”
“Yep. Bear in mind that there’s a five minute delay due to the distance. But if it sends a response the system will highlight the section in the transcript it was responding to, which makes it much easier to… well, I suppose it’s not really a conversation, per say, but it does appreciate you responding back.”
Well, if this was hazing, they were committed to the bit.
“There’s a transcript?”
Ellen shot her a reassuring smile. “Yes, and the system keeps the last ten minutes cached. But there’s no longterm record. It’s purely to facilitate communication with RXV.”
“What’s said in the booth, stays in the booth.” Barry’s chuckle morphed into a yawn. “Gosh, I’d best get going. See you tomorrow.”
May waved goodbye and then took the booth seat. Ellen briskly walked her through the controls, which were standard.
Then her supervisor was gone, with a casual final instruction of “Just introduce yourself and talk about anything. Well, try and keep the topic light, ok? Friendly chatter.”
Ok then…
May cleared her throat and clicked on the mic. “Hi there, RXV. My name’s May. I’m an intern here at the AGS. Started today. It’s, um, it’s been nice so far. Everyone’s friendly…”
She rambled until the system beeped. A message. The popup showed her first few sentences.
[Hello, May.]
[May’s first day?]
[May day.]
[ :) ]
Was that… a joke?
“Wow. That… ok, you know what? We’re gonna get on.”

Prompt was “A scientist creates a robot with near-human sentience, but realises that it is lonely.”