Chapter: Monday, Scene 10Drinks after work

Sarba, Walf and Walf's shurpa, Junior, sat in a booth in the front window of the Jolly Robot, a downtown tech themed pub around the corner from the office building. The two humans had pints of India Pale Ale, a recipe still popular after 40 years.

Sarba

"It was bad, Walf," said Sarba, shaking her head. "I can't even tell you how bad. You should have seen the looks on their faces when Walf Jr. here barfed on the table. I thought they were going to lose it themselves. Bad."

"Oh. All right. Ok. I guess I screwed up this time. I never thought ... Well ok, I did notice Junior was acting a bit flaky in the morning. You weren't feeling very good, were you?" Walf asked the shurpa sitting across the table.

Junior.shurpa shook his head sadly from side to side."

"No Walf, you're not getting it," said Sarba. "It's not just that Junior had some sort of malfunction. The real problem is tha was there in the first place. You should have been there in person. Forge was really pissed about that. Junior barfing on the table was just the icing on the cake."

Walf

"But I'm a technical," said Walf. "They don't care about me. All they want is good analysis. Basically, they just want to see a well-trained shurpa, right?"

"They do want that, it's true. But I guess they won't have any confidence in Junior if they can't see that it's you behind tham," said Sarba.

Walf squirmed in thas seat and moved thas drink coaster in a geometric pattern on the table top.

"Walf, if they could only see you the way I see you, they'd know you were good. I mean the right person for this job. Don't be so afraid of showing yourself," said Sarba, placing thas hand on thas.

Walf let out a little sob and threw his arms around Sarba. They hugged and rocked in the booth until a waitress shurpa asked if everything was ok.

Walf dried thas eyes on thas sleeve and said, "Ok, you're right. I'll go into the office tomorrow. And thanks for being such a good friend."

Sarba smiled back and gave tham a little kiss on the nose.

"I guess Junior can go into console mode or stay on standby at home," said Walf. Turning to Junior.shurpa, tha asked, "So what was the problem this morning, little buddy? Have you done any self analysis?" 

Junior.shurpa opened thas mouth with a decidedly unnatural gesture where the lower jaw and chin separated from the head and floated unattached below the nose. Then a bit generator poked out from the oral cavity, extruding a narrow stream of raw hologenic data.

"There, tha is doing it again," said Sarba, "That's what tha was doing in the meeting. Eeew, it's disgusting."

"No, Junior is trying to tell us something. Tha is showing us the data, it's just that the display is out of whack. Look, tha is answering my question, only we can't translate," said Walf.

"Well, whatever. But you can't let this shurpa out in public. Not like this. If I were you, I'd delete it right away. Just get rid of it."

"I can't do that. I've had Junior for almost three years. I can't just delete tham." said Walf.

"Yes you can," said Sarba. "Everything is backed up automatically, right? Just upload your stuff into a new instance. You can do it. Do it for me. No, do it for us."

"Oh, maybe you're right. Junior's upgrades are getting a bit behind anyway." 

Walf took a long swig of beer and wiped his lips. "Sorry Junior," tha said, then gave the voice command "DELETE SHURPA Junior".

Junior disappeared with an electric snap and faint whiff of burnt ozone.