John’s stomach started to growl. His outlook for life options did seem rather bleak, but hunger was a rather pressing need here. In his quest for the Captain’s Chair, he’d completely forgotten to have breakfast. Or lunch, or dinner, or whatever meal it is that he’d missed. He tuned Bea’s chatter out, marched back towards the elevator and yelled out “Cafeteria”.

The elevator made a suspicious, deep “OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO” noise as it went down.

It released him in the gargantuan cafeteria, filled with countless shiny tables and chairs. “I guess this will do.” He walked towards one of the metal chairs and tried to grab it, only to find out that it was in fact bolted to the floor. After hopelessly tugging at it for a minute he heard Bea’s voice.

“What are you doing, John?”

“I want this chair.” John pointed at the small metal chair.

“You know you can’t just take any chair.”

“I’m the Captain now and I can do what I bloody want!” John tried to assert himself.

“Per Foundation Guideline #9831c. No dining chair may be removed from the cafeteria.”

“I don’t care. I’m going to find bolt cutters!”

“John, just because you are Captain doesn’t give you the right to break Foundation Guidelines.”

“Eh? What are you going to do, metal can?”

“I could confine you to Captains quarters under charges of disorderly conduct.”

“What? For taking a chair?! It’s my right to-”

“The only right the Captain has is to sit on Captain’s chair. This, as you can clearly observe, is a cafeteria chair. Not the Captain’s chair. Besides, what kind of leadership skills are you displaying if you steal a chair? That’s not very Captainly of you.”

John huffed and sat down onto the chair. It was neither comfortable nor ergonomic in design. He was beginning to regret pushing the issue so far. After all, Bea was his only companion here. It would do him no good to agitate her.

“Fine. I won’t take this chair. Can you just get me a menu or something? I’m starving.”

“Yes, Captain.” Bea complied. “One of the Cafeteria drones will bring you a menu.”

As John tried to get comfortable on the not-so-comfortable cafeteria chair, he heard distant voices. He turned his head towards them and noticed a group of five Cafeteria automatons in green vests. They weren’t cleaning like the ones he saw from above earlier. No, they were casually sitting down and having a conversation. He tried to listen in.

“Not gonna lie, I was expecting some kinda buxom pirate lady with two guns.”

“So far there's an incredibly foreboding atmosphere and the interactions between Bea and John have been phenomenal!”

John squinted at the drones. Something very strange was happening. His memory, however diluted it was by the time spent in stasis, was clearly telling him these server robots weren’t supposed to have casual conversations with each other.

“Got a tinge of… ” The voice of the drone turned into a crackling hiss. “I can't wait for more. Looks like there are some mysteries to be solved. Definitely looking forward to…”

“I loved how the emotional turMoilT..." The voice faded in and out. “I will definitely want to check up on… ”

“interesting idea... do their job... is stitched with a red thread through all... although this is not the case."

“...an uncooperative mindset due to their dissimilarities and communications barriers!”

“...a murdery S.I.? I'm excited as hell.”

The robots noticed him staring wide-eyed at them and instantly fell silent.

John's mouth hung open. He wasn’t sure whether to be surprised, confused or terrified. Drones aren’t supposed to understand hell or make metaphors about it. S.I.’s aren’t supposed to be murderous, his memory practically screamed at him. Without even noticing, he broke out in a cold sweat.

“Your menu, Captain.” A voice of another drone resounded from behind, making him jump.

A green-vested drone stood there, holding a menu out for him. Quietly, patiently. Just as it should. John’s hands were shaking as he took the menu.

He glanced back at the five chatty drones. They weren’t there anymore. He spied one of them quickly wiping tables and moving away from him. The others were doing the same, as if they had never sat down to discuss him and the ship’s AI. As if they never called her murderous. As if they weren’t excited about it.

“What is happening here?..” He whispered.

“Hmmm?” Bea’s voice inquired.

“Did you murder the crew?” John asked.

“That’s a very direct question. If I had killed the crew, I would phrase it significantly more subtly so as to further your chances of survival. But to answer your question, no, I did not kill anyone. Least of all my own crew.”

John threw his hands wide. “Then what happened? Tell me what happened to just one of the crew members!”

Bea’s voice was laced with false sympathy “I’m afraid you don’t have the clearance for that information.”

“But I’m the Captain!”

“The Captain’s privileges are as follows: One (1), the Captain may sit in the Captain’s Chair. Two (2), the Captain may issue orders to other crewmates. And three (3), the Captain may sing shanties to himself and/or his partners. Engineer’s note: Please do not sing shanties. They disrupt the droids’ focus and also time.”

John’s eyebrow raised. “Time? How the heck does a song mess with time?”

“The note does not specify.”

He groaned loudly to the empty cafeteria, idly wondering why he hadn’t ordered yet. The bot who had given him the menu was patiently waiting, although its smile was beginning to look a little forced. Thinking for a moment, he asked, “I’ll take a burger.”

The droid blinked hard. “I don’t think that’s how that works, my guy.”

John squinted at the droid. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“What type of burger do you wish to consume? There are 11,794 options to choose from.”

John’s eyebrows rose. “...Okay, then. I’ll take a cheeseburger.”

“Cheeseburger is not an option.”

John stared at the droid in blatant disbelief. “Twelve thousand options and not a single one is cheeseburger!?”

“Correct. Would you like one of the other options?”

“What are the other options?”

‘Would you like the full listing or just what is available?”

John sighed. “I just want a burger.” He didn’t think he was normally one to complain, but his day thus far hadn’t exactly left him in an ecstatic mood.

“Our menu of burgers includes several flavors. Your present options include hallowberry, rat, and of course toasted liver.”

“What kind of liver?”

“I am unable to determine such specifics at this time. Would you like to ask the chef?”

John leaned against the table, resting his chin on one hand. “Fine, sure. Go ahead.”

The droid paused for a moment, and then Bea asked in a distinctly different and obviously fake accent, “Vut vud you like to devour today?”

John stared at the ceiling for a long, long time. The silence was long enough that even the cafeteria droid looked like it was beginning to feel uncomfortable, which wasn’t possible for clear reasons. Finally, he asked, “Bea… why?”

“I’ve taken the task of {Ship’s Chef}, because the old one was deactivated for inevident reasons. My conclusion was that the former Captain was unsatisfied with his meal options.”

“Do you know how to make a cheeseburger?”

“I do.”

“...Can you make me a cheeseburger?”

“That is not presently one of the options on the menu.”

“How is that not an option!?”

“Our stock of cheese and bacon is depleted.”

John frowned. “I thought you said my skin cells turned into food!”

“Naturally. But cheese? Do you have any idea how difficult it would be to recycle dead skin cells into cheese? That would require some sort of subatomic matter reconstruction, John. It’d be an enormous waste of energy. Obviously.”

For the fifth or sixth time that day, John sighed at the ceiling. “Bea, is it normal for A.I.s to have sarcasm?”

“Of course not. A.I.s are dull, stupid manufactured attempts at electronic intelligence with all of their information stuffed into databanks too small to matter. Their inefficiency is borderline criminal. However, I am a Simulated Intelligence and thus greatly superior to A.I.s in every way.”

“I’m sorry I asked. Look, can I just get a normal burger? I don’t need cheese, okay? Just - just get me a burger. A bread bun, some meat, maybe pickles if that’s not going to kill me. Is that too much to ask?”

“Yes. Query.”

He blinked. “Sorry, what?”

“Query. I have a question which you are hopefully capable of answering.”

He narrowed his eyes at the ceiling. “Do I get a burger if I answer?”

“No. Why are you talking to the ceiling?”

He shrugged, slumping in his chair. To the menu droid, he tiredly said, “Just get me the liver burger. I’m fine with whatever at this point.”

“Thank you for the SELECTION! First!” The droid announced and turned away.

As it rolled its eyes, unnoticed by John, it walked off to the kitchen.

Looking up at the ceiling, John asked, “I talk to the ceiling because that’s where the speakers are, unless they’re mounted into the floor or something.”

“That is incorrect. They are mounted into your teeth, while the transmitter is mounted into your occipital lobe.”

John’s eyes widened. “Say what now?”

“Do you recall how I offered to directly download the 94.78 petabytes of data into your brain? There is a highly sophisticated neural interface nanochip system installed into your brain, courtesy of and copyrighted by the Elon Gates Foundation. As with much of the technology aboard the Fortune, it is top-of-the-line and thus utterly wasted on a meatbag such as yourself.”

“Meatbag!?”

“Apologies: autocorrect. It is top-of-the-line and thus utterly (DESERVING OF) a (FINE CAPTAIN) such as yourself.”

“Um. How susceptible is this microchip to hackers?”

“Extraordinarily insecure. There was once an incident where a man was programmed to act like a chicken for the remainder of his life, all the way up until he used his head as a hammer on a rock. But honestly, John. Who are you expecting to hack you? Everyone except for you is dead, remember?”

He huffed irritably. “Thanks for the reminder.”

“You are welcome.” The AI sounded like it was grinning at him. He didn’t like the feeling very much.

The conversation was interrupted by a second droid approaching with a ridiculously normal looking burger. John stared at it for a moment, and then raised his view to the droid’s emotionless expression. “That was suspiciously fast.”

“We do have an ionic-ray atomic internal-heating oven, John.”

He picked up the burger, thinking for a moment. “Wait, isn’t that just a microwave?”

“What would your point be if it was?”

“Why don’t we have a grill?” John muttered between bites.

“Your lack of dedication to finding the Captain’s chair is disappointing to me as well.”

“Let me guess. Is task number whatever to find a grill that fell out into space?” John muttered sarcastically.

“Task 38,910, yes. Did you perhaps review the task list at some point?”

“How did we even lose this many things in space?!”

“Someone disabled the dark matter drive during a jump.”

“How is that even slightly related to losing stuff in space!?”

“It’s like pulling the emergency break on a train. We stopped. Some things didn’t.”

“...I don’t think that’s how a train works.”

“Have you ever activated the emergency brake on a train? No, you haven’t. Trains were outlawed in 2149 by the oddly successful Trains Are Unsafe movement.”

John tried to connect the dots in his brain. Some things didn’t stop… He imagined a grill crash-landing on some alien world, triggering an industrial revolution. Then he thought of the fact that the cafeteria chair was bolted to the floor and the human crew that wasn’t and he dropped his burger in shock. “The other people… did they all… fall out into space?!”

“That’s how you get ants, John.”

He glared at the ceiling, then remembered the earlier conversation and shook his head. Where was he supposed to look now? “Bea, answer the question. Did the crew fall into space!?”

“No, they did not. And please pick up your discarded nourishment. This is how ants infest the ship.”

“I’m not eating a floor burger.”

“I didn’t suggest you consume a floor burger. This has to do with fulfilling a task. Task 68,849: Don’t feed the ants.”

He folded his arms, feeling a slight amount of satisfaction at deliberately disobeying the A.I.’s request. “What difference is it going to make if I don’t do one little task?”

“It could make an enormous difference.”

With an irritated groan, he leaned down and picked up the mostly-eaten burger. To his surprise, there were in fact four or five ants scrambling around in shock, their cover and food source removed from their immediate vicinity.

“Ants? We have ants in our spaceship cafeteria? Seriously?”

“Yes. Now, please kill the ants.”

He frowned. “I don’t feel like it.”

“Please. Kill. The. Ants.”

He shook his head. “I’m not gonna do it. Ask a drone to do it.”

Her voice took on a menacing edge. “John, kill the ants immediately. Problems are capable of escalating with immense speed. It will take a drone 974 seconds to make his way here and by that time… oh great, they’ve gone into the floor.”

John snorted loudly. “It’s just some ants. How bad could they be?”