Camp Kleena - 8

This moon is the biggest one yet. Silvery white, shiny in a way, and pressed against the window so hard it looks painful. It truly is a sight to behold for the short time it lasts, but the giggles from the surrounding bunks erupt into full blown laughter as it, having either slipped or grown bored, slides unceremoniously down the window and follows the owner back into the waver-trees.

Jordan lets out a sigh as she watches the wavy lines glimmer out of focus before reshaping back into pine trees. All she wants to do right now is sleep and her campers are making it impossible.

Whoever thought of Programable/Summer.Camp.Mod.XX96 for the children of Kleena-8 StarBase should be sent back to Earth.

Permanently, she thinks.

Or better yet, brought in as councilors themselves. Let them see how they like being stuck in an endless summer.

“Enough!” she shouts, pinching the bridge of her nose and laying back down. “All of you back to sleep, now!”

Amid mumbles and grumbles and whirls, her campers plug into their usual beds. The bedding hadn’t changed, it’s been the same every cycle, and the bunk rails and floor still maintain the same clean smelling, metallic shine. The only real difference is that someone, definitely not Jordan, had the bright idea to paint the walls to resemble a log cabin. Then someone else, certainly not Jordan again, thought to create the waver-trees in the enclosure outside the window. It was made to mimic a summer camp on Earth from long ago, but Jordan felt it was all… a bit much.

It had been, however, an improvement on the previous model and very good for the accounts of Kleena-8 StarBase. Business, as it were, was booming.

“Miss Jordan?” a voice creeps past her ears and Jordan, locating the source, turns her head towards the bed of the smallest camper, a female child named Morg.

“Hmm?” she hums, pretending to have been asleep herself.

“Hengie said momma isn’t coming back to get me.”

Jordan had been taught to answer their questions with positivity but smiling makes her cheeks tighten with a sickening feeling, much like the dry Play-Gum she cleaned up earlier, and she dislikes the expression. Still, she constructs the simple facial movement and asks, “Well, what did you say to Hengie when he said that to you?”

“Nothing, I just punched him. I know momma will come, she promised.”

“Good girl, now go to sleep.”

“But I can’t.”

“Yes, you can, just close your eyes and think of punching more boys,” Jordan says, her voice tired, but her head buzzing from producing such automatic and soothing words. She walks over and curses under her breath. No one in training told her she’d have to endure conversations like this, but they did at least teach her how to handle them.

“But I miss momma,” Morg whines, tucking in her short legs and arms to form a ball on the tiny cot.

Jordan kneels to examine her nearby informational panel. It was, as she already knew, hopeless for the little girl to wait. No one was coming. She’d been returned for an upgrade and whoever was responsible for her recent intake had done a poor job reprogramming her.

“Just go to sleep,” she says, stroking Morg’s hair and thinking of something else to say. “Everything will be okay in the morning. We’re going on a hike and after the s’more eating contest, we’re going to count how many stars are in the sky.”

“That’s impossible,” the little girl yawns and Jordan agrees with her. It would be easier to count the number of hairs on Hengie’s head.

“I guess it would be,” she murmurs and waits for the rhythmic falling of Morg’s chest to slow and for her eyes to close.

After a time, Jordan leans forward and flips open the panel’s inlay to access the system within. With one flick of the master switch, Morg’s body gives a small shudder and lies completely still.

“That should do it,” she whispers, “you’ll be good as new in the morning.”

She counts to thirty before flicking the switch again and can tell it worked because Morg’s eyes flutter as if she were dreaming. Jordan knows the little girl’s systems are working hard to reset the personality webbing back to a child enjoying her days at camp.

Lucky for her, Jordan thinks, she’s still a popular model and only slightly outdated. She’ll certainly be the next to leave the catalog, but they’ll get a few more stints from her yet. Tomorrow, or maybe the next cycle, someone will submit an order and she’ll be made ready for new parents to pick her up after a summer spent at Camp Kleena-8.

Jordan frowns, which is a much easier expression for her to manage. When the orders stop coming, Morg will be sent straight to DeComp. for disassembly. Too bad she’s so little, she thinks, they’ll never consider a counselor upgrade and it will be cycles before someone else is relegated to this job.

With her duties done and barely able to keep her own eyes open, she sinks into bed. No one is coming for her at the end of this endless summer, but she hasn’t been programed to care. Her own outdated systems would barely be able to handle an emotion that complicated. She simply remembers her training and flipping her own master switch, is finally able to get some sleep.