The almost one meter tall robot was placed on the floor in the middle of the living room. That was done since booting it up on the wagon wasn’t ideal, learnt from previous experience. 

  “Hello. I am Stella. I am a mechanical assistant,” the robot presented itself.

  “A mechanical assistant?” Gem looked at Timothy with raised eyebrows. 

  “Yes, I was thinking that she could help me with my work,” Timothy explained.

  “This model was created to be co-pilots,” Gem said.

  “What can I do for you?” Stella asked according to her programming, not paying any attention to whether someone was speaking.

  “Can you show me your blueprints, please?” Timothy asked as he had done once before.

  In contrast to last time, Stella stayed in place and after letting out a few electronic sounds, she projected 3D-models of her blueprints. 

  “Here are the blueprints,” Stella said monotonically. 

  “Ha! Good, very good!” Timothy exclaimed and made a fist in declaration of victory.

  “Neat!” Andrea said and gave her friend a high five, genuinely happy to see his hard work pay out. 

  Thankful that the robot seemed to be working, but not as impressed, Gem had her two cents to put in regarding the blueprints.

  “See, this model is built for more than being an assistant. Plus, its legs are so short that they don’t lend themselves well to walking long distances. But it’s fine, I have a chip with all the protocols this robot will need to know for now.”

  “Wait, wait, wait-” Timothy began.

  “It won’t override your code, just enable it to use the functionalities it was built for,” Gem said to calm down a very protective Timothy. 

  “Okay, okay, let me have a look at the chip,” Timothy sighed.

  “Sure,” Gem said and went looking for the chip. “I should be somewhere...”

  Gem rummaged through a couple cupboards and drawers. After a few minutes, when she had found the chip, she handed it over to Timothy. Timothy picked up his handheld computer with which he inspected the chip and its content. Content with what he saw, he started to implement the changes needed to integrate the chip with the already existing code. 

  “So why do you need a co-pilot?” Andrea asked Gem.

  “Well, I don’t need it per say, but on some ships the autopilot sucks and if you want to be able to sleep without having to stop somewhere a co-pilot would be pretty neat.”

  “Okay, do you’ve got a ship?”

  “I used to, but it was taken away from me when I got here because the registration number I had wasn’t approved.”

  “What’s your plan then? Are you going to buy one?” Andrea asked as she thought that a spaceship would be pretty integral to leaving Earth.

  “I don’t have that kind of money but I do have a plan,” Gem replied confidently.

  “It would be great if you could tell us the plan of yours. Are we even part of it?” Timothy asked who had a hard time missing out on any conversation, especially ones that seemed crucial to his future and life. 

  “I’m not that heartless. I wouldn’t just steal that robot and go. You’re invited if you wanna join.”