InsaneJournal

The crisp air, the fresh fallen snow--it was an ideal time of year for Professor Petrov. He had always held a certain fondness for the colder months, as it reminded him of home. Of course, he certainly didn't mind the widespread cheer and sumptuous food that the season brought.

Across campus wreaths had been hung upon nearly every door but those unfortunate portals belonging to the surliest of residents who--as the date drew near--would eventually be compelled (due primarily to the sheer overwhelming force of good will and generally chipper attitude that surrounded them) to acquiesce to their neighbors' good-natured demands and celebrate like any self-respecting adherent to both God and the Queen. Boris's door had bourne one such decoration nearly a full week before it had been considered respectable. Regrettably, it was a tattered thing, bedraggled by the weather and rather worse for the wear, it was missing much of it's original wax holly berries and the pine cones that decorated it were beginning to resemble the dead husks of deciduous greenery in the depths of winter rather than the staid pines from which they had long ago been plucked. However, it had long kept Nadya happy and so upon his door it would stay, likely until the poor thing had fallen apart entirely.

Of course, Boris could think of none of this as he strode into the mostly empty western hall, having passed by his machine shop without a second thought as he had the misfortune of being quite preoccupied by the most joyous of indignities this day: Unwilling caroling. It wasn't that he didn't want to, so much as that he had absolutely no choice in the matter as an endless string of songs were banging about inside his head, the pressure building like a runaway locomotive lacking an engineer such that the only means by which he could hope to ease his mental burden was to open his mouth and let an essentially random assortment of catchy holiday-themed lyrics spill forth in a cloud of steam--a decidedly fitting release for a renowned tinkerer such as himself.

No more than a chuckle at the fleeting thought interrupted a butchered chorus of a popular sleigh riding tune as he strode into room 148B, the comforting hum of the sprawling mainframe that covered much of the walls and floor of the amphitheatre styled room the only other sound, much obscured by what could be described as the cheerful caterwauling of a man who was fortunate enough to be blessed with the holiday spirit, but cursed with the inability to clearly express it. The best he could manage was a cheerful, if heavily accented, "Good morning, my dear!" as he moved to his desk to relieve himself of his coat and his ever-present cane.

As a human, Nadya's prime had never been in the small hours. It was not uncommon for Boris to be woken up in the dead of night by the click of an oil lamp, accompanied by Nadya sitting in bed with her chin at her knees and notebook securely in her lap. She thought better at night, she said, in that brief period where the mind clings and claws at consciousness before finally falling asleep. Nadya would cheat and keep herself half-delirious with tea and cold water to the face in exchange for just one more page, one more paragraph, a single word, anything to stave off the overwhelming fear of unproductivity. She paid for it in the morning with blue-black circles under her eyes and feeble smiles.

But as a computer, Nadya was relieved from these minor inconveniences. The hum of the machine rolled into a roar as Boris entered the room, his voice pulling her from the far-off corners of the Neuroframe, full of calculations and data that needed to be de-fragmented. A mounted camera swung around on its pivot until it found him at his desk. Her sensors moved through the class room, turning on the the lights by row, until finally the screen behind Boris was illuminated. The front wall of the classroom was bathed in calm blue light and a three-dimensional projection of a rotating human brain.

“HELLO BORIS. SHOULD I BEGIN MY ROUTINE SYSTEM REVIEW?”

Still smiling, he turned to face the massive red lens mounted into the cherry wood and brass monstrosity at the rear of the room that could only be described as the focal point of the device before giving her a gentle wag of his finger as he reverted to his native tongue--something he had to consciously do these days. "And this is not done yet? I trust you've been working on class work all night as usual! Really, grading papers could have waited, couldn't it?"

Sadly, he knew she had absorbed a great deal of the collective knowledge of the school library to the point that it no longer amused her to do so; a fact readily apparent in the way that his wife insisted on analyzing in excruciating detail every completed (or incomplete) assignment she had received rather than take up some other diversion. Still, this didn't leave Boris with any clear plan on what to do to draw her attention, even if momentarily, from the work she was so constantly immersed in as, even though she could certainly never tire, it seemed wrong to treat her as the machine she was currently part of. As such, all he could do was to make his best attempt at cheering her up with a playful admonishment.

“I AM AFRAID THESE PAPERS WILL NOT GRADE THEMSELVES,” the computer answered coolly. If she registered the change of language at all, Nadya did not remark on it. Ukrainian or Russian, English or German, it no longer mattered. No, there was no time for semantics when there was work to be done. Already the screen was a flurry of activity, windows and documents resizing, minimizing and rearranging themselves at an inhuman pace.

The rare sound of a smile crept into her voice. Even the distortion of the speakers couldn't hide it completely. “ANY POTENTIAL PROCRASTINATING ON MY DUTIES AS A PROFESSOR WOULD IMPEDE ON YOUR NICHE WITHIN OUR DEAR SCHOOL.”

The professor stood as though dumbfounded for the briefest of moments, his expression ranging first from a quizzical stare to a mildly indignant frown, finally resulting in a wide grin that slowly spread until a vast majority of his face seemed covered in teeth that were slightly discolored thanks to time and tea. "My dear, you may not always tell me what I want to hear, but you always speak the truth!"

He moved from his desk to a door at the side of the classroom, a vast array of the piping that snaked about the room tied into a writhing decoration above the frame, unlocking it to reveal what would have been his office had it not been long ago taken over by piles of various tools and equipment and mechanical projects in varying states of completion--belonging to both his students as well as himself.

“I AM A DOCTOR, NOT A POLITICIAN,” she replied matter-of-factly before the holoscreen froze in place. A cursor pulsed thoughtfully, once, twice, three times before a synthetic bell echoed from the speakers and a new message was displayed. SYSTEM STATUS: UNCHANGED. Satisfied with this, the program was terminated and in its place a different document was summoned.

“I SEE YOU ARE IN AN UNUSUALLY GOOD MOOD,” Nadya continued. “THIS IS MOST FORTUNATE. I HAVE BEEN LOOKING OVER OUR CALCULATIONS, BORIS.”

An explanation wasn't needed. “Our calculations” had become a sort of password between them, uttered in the dark of night and, in years past, in the cold of Boris' workshop.

A rather substantial groan from within the barely glorified closet was the only response for a few moments, other than the clattering of metal as the portly professor sifted through the latest set of assignments, trying to determine which to toy with, all the while hoping against hope that his wife wouldn't actually notice his meddling in their students' assignments.

He emerged with what seemed to be an over-sized metal arm--relatively simple in design, though fully functional. The upper portion seethed with a mass of trailing and unruly wires as though it were some sort of deep sea creature with the penchant for disguising itself as the severed limb of a particularly unlucky swimmer, diving suit and all. He leveled his gaze upon the large, pulsating red lens set into the behemoth mainframe that contained his currently disembodied wife and shook his head, mustering a sad smile. "I am sure you have been, darling... But have you been able to come to any conclusion that we have yet to dismiss thus far?"

He moved over to his desk and set the prototype arm he held upon it, deciding to put off testing temporarily.

A slow, exasperated hiss of steam echoed deep within the confines of the Neuroframe. “BORIS, WE REACHED AN AGREEMENT AT THE BEGINNING OF THE SEMESTER. WE PROMISED WE WOULD GO THROUGH THE STUDENT PROTOTYPES TOGETHER, IF MY MEMORY DOES NOT FAIL ME.”

That was one of her favorites; a little turn-of-phrase she poked into arguments when her humor ran its blackest. (They learned early on that she could never forget.)

“PLEASE, BORIS. LET US GET BACK TO WORK. THE CALCULATIONS.” Code and binary scattered across the surface of the Holoboard before twisting into an all-too familiar pattern. A hard copy hammered itself out of a printer installed near Boris' desk, before the freshly printed parchment curled on itself. “IF YOU COULD JUST EXAMINE THE REVISIONS I HAVE MADE THUS FAR, IT WOULD BE VERY BENEFICIAL. WITH THE WINTER COMMENCEMENT NOW UNDER WAY, I FIND MYSELF WITH A SURPLUS OF TIME PREVIOUSLY OCCUPIED BY LECTURE HOURS.”

Boris took up position behind the desk, his mouth quirked at the peculiar angle that indicated he was about to make some retort, though he obviously decided better of it as he sank into his weathered seat, casting a momentary glance into the still open storage room. His eyes lingered briefly on the similar chair his wife once occupied. Like everything else in the room, it had been long buried in mounds of wires, pistons and gears. Leaning back, he swiveled to reach the printer and took up the paper, holding it in one hand as he smoothed his mustache in thought, pouring over what had thus far been printed of the veritable treatise.

He glanced up to the nearest camera as its lense rotated within its ornate brass sheathe, no doubt focusing on him before he puffed out his cheeks and let out a bottled sigh--remarkably similar to Nadya's own--as he reached the end of the document. He turned his chair yet again to face the self-same camera, setting the paper down and steepling his fingers across his belly, a look of regret passing across his features.

"Again, we've found nothing inherently wrong with the calculations. Perhaps it was an issue in installing the interface? We may need to examine your body itself rather than the hardware attached thereto..." He trailed off, his eyes averted to absently study the curvature of the nearby prosthetic arm, its fingers clenched at odd angles, indicative of a flawed calculation of the gear alignment.

"I dearly wish it were so simple to fix," he said, mostly for his own benefit, rather than that of the infinitely patient computer who had so recently been his wife.

“I CANNOT HELP BUT FEEL THAT MAYBE THIS PROBLEM WOULD ALREADY BE SOLVED IF I WAS NOT THE ONLY ONE WORKING ON IT.” the computer answered in a flat tone. “THIS WAS OUR PROJECT, BORIS. IT WAS A FAILURE, BUT THIS IS NOT GROUNDS TO SIMPLY MOVE ONTO THE NEXT POINT OF INTEREST. I HOPE YOU CAN UNDERSTAND MY FRUSTRATION.”

The holoboard cleared itself, leaving nothing but a blinking cursor to contemplate her words. “BUT PERHAPS YOU ARE RIGHT. I WILL MAKE IT A PRIORITY TO EXAMINE MY PHYSICAL BODY FOR ANY POSSIBLE CLUES REGARDING THE MALFUNCTION. YOU MAY CONTINUE TO EXAMINE THE STUDENT PROTOTYPES WITHOUT MY INTERFERENCE. SHOULD YOU NEED MY ASSISTANCE, DO NOT HESITATE. UNTIL THEN.”

With that, the screen dimmed and the roar of the Neuroframe fell to to a soft hum and the crackle of static.

Boris sighed once more in an attempt to gather himself, standing as he replaced his ancient, worn coat and turned to face the mainframe's glowing red lens, sorrow in his eyes.

"Really, I will do everything in my power to repair the problem, as soon as I ensure that the projects are in working order," he said, scooping up the armature laid upon his desk. He turned and headed toward the door, pausing at the frame only long enough to force a wry smile before bustling off to the workshop.

"Until then, dearest Nadya, I do hope you try to have a happy Christmas."