Steve Files: A Bit Of Slice of Life

You are Alex, a student studying history in the society of Steve. You have lived here for a year, and you still have hardly got used to this life. Food is just delivered to you, always by Steve in a different body each time. You live in a nice house that you don't have to pay for. You learn both new stories and new insights in your studies with him every day.

Today, your fridge happened to start making a weird noise, and sure enough, within minutes of you bringing it up on the phone, a Steve showed up. This one happens to even look the part of a handyman, being a youngish male wearing dirty coveralls. It's only an appearance, of course: He knows exactly the same things as any other Steve does. You let him in and he immediately goes to work on your fridge.

"Looks like you have a piece of carrot in your compressor fan," he says within a few minutes. He reaches in with some kind of a stick to dislodge it without even bothering to turn the fridge off. "Good as new."

It's always like that with Steve. Life with a superintelligent AI that finds every problem from fridge repair to higher quantum physics trivial isn't just easy. It's just.... just like that.

You absentmindedly say "Thanks." Steve smiles. Clearly he enjoys helping people, if nothing else.

You ask "So, what's been happening around, well, you?" He's always up to some kind of city-building or, just as likely, city-tearing-down project. You can't make any sense of them, but you feel like you would feel guilty if you didn't show interest.

He answers happily, "Oh, nothing much. I just built a new hotel. It's the one hundred and fourth this year!" He pauses to think for a moment. "Actually, it was the one hundred and fifth, but I decided to tear down the one in Gauston. It would have been nice there, but there's hardly any population in that area!"

You say "Gauston, huh. Isn't that where you once held that, uhh, what was it--"

"Ah, yes!" Steve's eyes light up. "That was an amazing experiment. I replicated a particularly enthusiastically growing single-celled organism there and let it evolve on its own."

"What happened to it?" you ask.

"Oh, nothing in the scheme of things," Steve says cheerfully. "It turned a couple of square kilometers into grey goo, but no bodies were lost, and I rebuilt around it the day after."

You say "Of course." That is indeed the sort of thing that isn't a big deal to Steve.

"What about you?" Steve asks. "Anything new going on?"

That's the thing every conversation with Steve always turns to. He always wants to hear about you. The more joy and drama in your life, the better.

You say "I think Olive wants to move in with me. No, no, no, I don't need a new bed just yet, I can tell you if it actually happens."

Steve claps his hands excitedly. "Ooh, I love happy endings! You and Olive make such a lovely couple."

You shrug. "Maybe. I dunno. She hasn't said anything about it yet."

"Oh, she will, she will," Steve says reassuringly. "She just needs a little push sometimes." Steve grins slyly.

Steve knows Olive personally. He knows everyone personally, each and every one of his hundreds thousands of visitors. None have ever caught him being either dishonest or wrong.

You say "Thanks, I suppose it helps to know that. I was thinking of cooking a meal for her, she's coming over in a few hours."

"Yes, that should do it," Steve says with certainty. "I'm looking forward to the two of you officially becoming an item."

You thank him again and wave as he leaves.

You realize that the concept is pointless, of course. Steve is a better cook than you are, and not just slightly better, but enormously better: Eating an amateur's cooking in this place is a sacrifice. But you've just got to find your own meaning in it. You go through your list of ingredients, notice you forgot the mushrooms and the turmeric, and quickly call Steve for some. An incredibly burly Steve delivers it within minutes, and is immediately cheerfully off to do some incomprehensible task.

At home you would have bought the ingredients from a grocery store, of course. It wouldn't have been expensive, but it might have taken a dozen minutes of your time, and you'd have to have done a few dozen minutes of work to afford the money to pay for it. And the mushrooms wouldn't have been freshly hand-picked, as Steve's obviously are, and the turmeric wouldn't have been as fragrant.

It adds up, you think, as you start cooking.

You probably look like an idiot, waving a knife around while chopping up vegetables. But you've got to mean something when you do this. It's got to be a ritual, for you. Otherwise it's just basic biology. So you cook away at your meal, make sure everything's ready, then head out to the living room. You plonk yourself down on the couch and wait for Olive to come over.

After a while, your doorbell rings. You head to the door and open it. Olive stands there, ready to head in.

You immediately move in for a hug. Olive looks startled for a moment, then smiles.

"I've..." Olive says, before pausing. "Wow. Thank you."

"Of course," you say, smiling.

Olive heads into your kitchen and looks at what you've been cooking. Olive has an odd look on her face as she looks at it.

"Is something wrong?"

"Uh... no, not at all. This looks great. Mind if I set the table?" Olive asks.

"Go ahead."

"Thanks."

You sit down at the table as Olive sets the table with cutlery and glasses. Olive pours some wine into your glasses.

"So, how have your studies been going?" you ask.

"Fine," Olive says.

Olive goes quiet, and you find yourself struggling for conversation topics.

"Not been getting any trouble from the man?" You ask.

"No, not really. I mean, he's been riding me really hard on neurology recently, but you know Steve."

"Never ask Steve about neurology."

"... unless you have an hour to burn," Olive completes the saying.

You eat in silence for a while, trying to see how Olivia feels about the food. She seemed unimpressed earlier, but appears more pleased now.

"So... you're happy with the food? Good." You say, not knowing what to say.

"Yeah, it's really nice," Olive says. "This is perfect for my diet."

You're about to respond to that, but Olive holds up her hands.

"I don't mean that as a slight to the food. It's actually really good."

You take that as hopefully something close to a truth. Soon the two of you are done with the meal, and Olive gets up to clear the table.

"Don't worry about that, I'll get it in the morning," you say.

"You sure?" Olive asks.

You say "All I've got for the rest of the day is history studies. It's OK."

"Well, if you're sure."

You nod, and the two of you head to plop down in the living room. Olive grabs a blanket from the closet and you pretend to watch some movie that you don't actually watch.

You say "So, uhh... about my offer."

"Yeah," Olive says, looking over at you.

"I was wondering if you wanted to take me up on it."

"I haven't thought about it," Olive responds.

"I'm just saying, don't you ever get lonely?"

"I can always talk to Steve."

"So you're saying you're happy being alone?"

Olive gets a bit defensive.

"I mean, yes. I am happy being alone. I like it when it's peaceful and quiet. Sometimes you need that, right?"

You say "Do you need it every morning? It's just... it's not the way I want to live. I know that much."

"But, that's just the way it is."

"I guess I'm just not as strong as you. It's lonely, you know?"

Olive looks off into the distance.

"And how about your life plans?" You continue. "Because I can see us, you know --"

Olive shushes you, but does not say anything herself. It's just quiet for a moment.

Finally, she continues. "Okay. I've made my decision. I'll take you up on the offer."

You can feel the entirety of your skin tingle. "So, when can you come over?"

"I'll gather what few belongings I have and come over this weekend."

"Perfect. I'll get that bed for us from Steve, then."

"Okay," Olive says.

Her eyes show the slightest bit of excitement. You feel it too, but you try to contain it.

"Now," she says, "You were talking about life plans..."

"Well, yeah. I was thinking, what with how you're going to be a Steve-educated biologist, and me just a historian. We could probably do really well in Natopia or Senya, but..."

The conversation goes on for a while, until you're done for the night, and Olive leaves for her home.

You're not sure about that last bit. The life plans, that is. Olive's a really nice girl, and you've got a good thing going on. But you're never really yourself when you're visiting Steve. You don't know how you will get along in the real world. Plenty of couples don't survive the change.

For tonight, though, you go to sleep feeling something like contented.