My scifi flash ‘a girl in every port’ has been published on 365tommorrows – http://tiny.cc/kewse I have also entered this as my #Fridayflash if you want to comment please do here.
The ‘bots are uploading gossip about me. This time they’re going to send an error report to my line manager , I know it.
Ok so the terraform was my project, I admit that maybe I could of made a better job of it, kept my eye on the ball. Maybe they’re right, I did fail to co-ordinate between contractors, but you can’t do everything right?
The project started well, on programme, on budget and the client was pleased as punch with our work, it was just a little oversight on my part, no biggie.
The spec was simple and I followed it nearly to the letter, oceans, continents, a balance between habitable land and wilder areas to encourage diversity. It was pretty much to terraform standard, just a few variations.
Ok so I got some of the colour schemes wrong, but, I will say the purple deserts were quite attractive, I don’t care what those anal colour ‘bots say, I really don’t.
The real problem was the cleaners, they were supposed to come in and remove any unwanted residue, dangerous foliage, unstable tectonics, former inhabitants, that sort of thing. I had booked them to come in before we started; it’s not my fault they hadn’t turned up.
That’s the problem of employing cheap human labour to do ‘bots work. What was I supposed to do? We had milestones to meet, performance indicators, graphs on the wall and all that, I had to push the job through.
The engineering consultant was pretty unfair in what he said I think, yeah so there are a few dead bodies here and there, so a few robot teams never made it back. All things considered, it could of been worse, we haven’t populated yet.
Who would of known how the terraforming process would affect those little critters like it did. They were an un-evolved species; they even looked cute before they got caught up in the processing, it could of gone either way.
Seriously I wouldn’t of thought those critters could cause so much trouble, wrecking the machines, destroying the landscaping ‘bots, even killing the armed security squad I sent in, I mean, seriously no-one could of known that.
I will sort it out before the population lands though. I’ve got a good couple of hours left and I’ve hired a flame-thrower from facilities.
I will make good my mistakes, I always do. Give it six weeks or so it will all be water under the bridge, again.
Flame on!
