“Morgan!” Karina shouts at me as I approach. She’s got the biggest smile I’ve seen on her in ages. Also, she looks... very tired. She wasn’t lying about being super busy. Poor Karina.

As she yells, a lot of the other suited men look at her with neutral expressions, but annoyed eyes. I don’t think they like that she can break their self-imposed rule of being calm and professional and actually get away with it. She’s wearing a pantsuit, but she is far from a businesswoman.

“How’ve you been?” I ask. “I was looking all over for you.”

“I’m okay, I’m, okay. How about you? You look pretty tired,” she says.

“Yeah, I’ve been looking around the place fo all sorts of stuff.” I say this without divulging the fact that R8PR asked me to check out if there were any hints of serious or suspicious activities going on, because I am not letting Karina worry about that while she’s got the tech expo going on already. “What’s this that you’re doing?”

“Well, see this behind me?” She points to an enclosed area with furniture and appliances, like one of those model home areas you’ll see in bigger hardware stores sometimes, only this one’s nearly complete other than no roof and only three walls. “My dad designed it. It’s called the Home Bot.”

“‘Home Bot’... did he name it, too?”

Karina sullenly nods her head. “It’s a whole home system controlled by AI. So it keeps the room at a good temperature, keeps track of how much food you have in the fridge, brews coffee when you wake up... That kind of thing.”

“That’s all kind of...”

“Kind of...?”

“Rich people stuff.”

“Yeah... I’m not a big fan,” she says. “But the most important part is... it doesn’t actually work.”

“Eh? What?”

“It’s broke.”

“Smart home machine’s broke?”

“Broke.”

“Understandable. Have a nice day, then,” I say. “I guess I’ll check out the other Sakaguchi stuff.”

“Aww, but you would have been so entertaining if you’d have seen it,” Karina says.

“Me? I’d have been entertaining? What do you mean by that?”

“You’d see the really silly AI technology and get really surprised by the auto-toaster and do your usual thing where you complain about everything.”

“That’s a huge exaggeration! I don’t always complain! You’re so mean...”

“Complaining...”

“Yeah, but it’s warranted because you’re mean, Karina.”

“And you’re very nice, but that doesn’t mean you don’t constantly complain.” Karina puts her hands on her hips as if she were seriously taking me down. She isn’t. My willpower is far too strong to be defeated by slanderous lies.

“So if the Home Bot thing is broken, why are you here?” I ask. “Shouldn’t you be helping out?”

“My dad’s in the back right now trying to fix it. He has no idea what went wrong; it just started malfunctioning this morning, along with half of everything else we had set up. Maybe a big electrical outage or something? We got everything else fixed, so the Home Bot’s the only thing that’s still wonky though. I’m just here to direct traffic.”

“Yeah, but you...”

“Do I look like I could actually do anything?”

“You’re a mechanical engineer major.”

“And film studies.”

“You’re one half a mechanical engineer major.”

“Yes, but...” Karina takes her hands off her hips. “They told me it’d be better if I stood here and helped explain it to convention-goers around before they accidentally wander into the broken Home Bot unit.”

“So you’re a cute girl standing around pointing people in the right direction,” I say. “Doesn’t that mean you’re...”

“Well, if you put it that way...”

“You are, aren’t you?”

“I mean, not really, but...”

“You’re a booth babe!” I exclaim. “Karina Kodama is a booth babe at a nerd convention. The day has finally come.”

“That’s so sexist.”

“I agree. Booth babes should be abolished, except when they wear sensible pantsuits like you.”

“So abolish everyone but me.”

“Exactly,” I say. “Karina, you’re reading my mind.”

“I will be the one who directs people to the correct exhibits across the entire convention center,” Karina says. “I will be the master of pointing.”

“Finally, a purpose in life for my dear friend.”

“Oh how I’ve longed for the day,” she says. Then, she segues into a new topic, saying, “By the way, I saw Mr. Larkins earlier. He came by here with two very pretty women. He said he’s looking for you. So, uh, keep your eyes out I guess.”

“Two women? Like, his daughters?”

“No, I think they were...--”

“So, Karina, how’s the weather?”

“I’ve been in this building all morning,” she says. “How am I supposed to know what-- Oh, I see what you did.”

“Yes, I hope you did.”

I realize that there’s a lot of Sakaguchi businessmen who are giving us very dirty looks for our loud conversation that has nothing to do with the tech expo anymore. “Uh, hey, I’m going to check some more stuff out. If you’re ever free, just give me a call and we can hang out and stuff.”

“Don’t think I’ll have time, but... Thanks for the offer, Morgan.” She gives me a small thumbs-up. “See you around.”

“Yeah, same.”

I sure hope she makes it through this convention alright.

Okay, now what’s next?

...

...

Oh, okay, now I am way too hungry to function at this tech expo anymore, and I am not paying convention prices for food. Time to leave and get some lunch.