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Amber put down her food container and leaned back with her hands behind her head. The motion pushed her breasts up a little higher, and somehow I managed to maintain rock-solid eye-contact. “Think about it. Star Wars is just the same old story anyone has ever told, but set in space. A big evil empire, and the plucky underdogs trying to fight back. I’ve read that story a thousand times in different settings. If you removed the space aspect of it, the entire story could take place in, say, Europe. A big kingdom with an evil ruler. Darth Vader could be a knight searching the kingdom for the rebels. Swords instead of lightsabers. The Death Star is just a big castle for the rebels to storm.” She mimed a deep yawn. “Boring!”
“So you’re arguing a story has to be perfectly unique to be good?” I replied. Her opinion felt like a personal attack on my Star Wars fandom, but I didn’t want to show it.
“It doesn’t have to be, but it helps,” she replied. “Case and point: Star Trek. Rather than copying-and-pasting the same tired story into a space setting, Gene Roddenberry imagined somethingdifferent. Something unique. The Enterprise isn’t a battleship roaming around looking for fights. It’s a science vessel!”
“Space: the final frontier,” I quoted, to make sure she knew I had nerd credibility. “These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds.”
“To seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go where no man has gone before!” she finished the quote. “Exactly! In the Star Trek world, earth has achieved peace. There’s no money. Nobody fights over currency. Their motivations aretotallyunique and pure. You won’t find examples of that in real life.”
“That’s not true,” I argued. “There have been plenty of science expeditions in human history. The Age of Sail was all about crossing the vast oceans for the sake of exploration.”
“For the sake ofmoney,” Amber said pointedly. “Magellan didn’t circumnavigate the globe for shits and giggles. He did it to establish better trade routes to China! He was literally bankrolled by Spain because they wanted to compete with Portugal on trade. That’s the case pretty much throughout history. When Columbus landed in the Americas, he didn’t make friends: he wanted to enslave the natives and steal their gold. Lewis and Clark were searching for the Northwest Passage, again for trade purposes. David Livingstone hunted for the source of the Nile River, which may have hadsomescientific motivation, but it led to the scramble for Africa by all of the European powers.”
She ticked off the points on her hand, and her voice was full of enthusiasm and excitement. “But the Starship Enterprise is pure. It’s exploring for the sake of exploration and knowledge. Starfleet personnel are prohibited from interfering in the development of any society, even if it means dying. It’s built right into the Prime Directive!That’swhy I like Star Trek more than Star Wars. It’s a story that has never been told before, and hasn’t been told since.” She gave an emphatic nod to conclude her argument.
“The motivations weren’t entirely pure,” I said. Amber began to tense, ready to continue arguing, until I said, “Captain Kirk wanted to bang as many alien lifeforms as possible. Andnotjust for science.”
Amber’s laugh was sudden and surprised. “Okay, you’ve got me there. I was always aNext Generationkind of girl, anyway.”
“Picard over Kirk. That’s something we can both agree on.” I grinned, and said, “Owen is a huge Star Trek fan, by the way.”
Amber’s face twisted with annoyance. “I figured as much, based on the Counselor Troi voice for his Home-AI. It sounds just like her.”
“That’s because itisher,” I said. “Owen actually hired Marina Sirtis, the actress who played Counselor Troi, to record a database of words and phrases. It was kind of cool to meet her. She’s a really nice person. Cost him like fifty thousand bucks, though.”
Amber’s eyes widened. “Holy shit. That’s what you get when someone has more money than common sense.”
“Are you saying you wouldn’t do something equally geeky if you had the money?” I asked.
“I wouldn’t let wealth change me,” I said curtly.
I narrowed my eyes at her. “Let me get this straight. If you had infinite money, and Patrick Stewart offered to show up to your birthday party and sing to you for fifty grand, you would say no?”
Amber glared at me. “Okay, fine. I would totally hire Patrick Stewart. And not just to sing me happy birthday. I would hire him to doallthe things! Recite the weather to me, follow me around and read my emails out loud, tell me I’m pretty.”
You don’t need Patrick Stewart to tell you that, I thought. Amber was gorgeous no matter who was saying so.
“Regardless,” she said, “I think it’s awfully arrogant to give your custom Home-AI the voice of Counselor Troi. And it’s just another reason Owen is—” she lowered her voice, “—a huge cunt-waffle.”
I laughed and said, “He says that it’s the little pleasures in life that keep him going.”
“I bet.” Amber took a sip of her energy drink and stared off at the wall. For a few seconds, it looked like someone had unplugged her power cord.
“You still here?” I asked.
She snapped back to attention. “Sorry. I was making a list.”
“A list?”
“It’s just something I do sometimes. When I need to make a decision. A pro- and con-list.”
“What decision were you trying to make?”
Amber froze, like she had been caught doing something awkward. “Um, what to make for dinner,” she eventually said. “I have to get groceries on the way home. I was deciding between fried rice and pasta.”
A healthy blush spread across her fair cheeks. I got the impression her list had nothing to do with dinner.
“So, Owen used to be a technical guy?” she asked.
