"What's Zig doing?" Castro asked, turning to Lima. "Dunno. Combing through telemetry right now. Ask Zig?" Her face was tinted blue from the holodisplay she was staring at. "Li?" Castro waited for her to look up at him before continuing. "Look." He angled his head and raised his eyebrows. Lima rolled her eyes but humored him, looking to the center of the room where Zig stood below a waterfall of cables anchored to the ceiling rig. Her lip curled and one of her eyes narrowed. When she looked back at Castro she was shaking her head, her discomfort obvious. "Hey Zig?" "Yes Castro, how may I help you?" "What are you doing?" "I have no tasks assigned to me at the moment!" "No, I mean, yes, that's correct. Thank you for working through your queue. You were very fast." Castro glanced at Lima before continuing. "What are you doing with your face?" Zig's mouth widened, baring more teeth, while the rest of its face remained static, unchanged. "I am smiling! I have noticed humans do this often when together. I am practicing so that I may interact in a more natural way." "Did you decide that on your own?" Zig nodded with an abundance of enthusiasm. "That's a great goal! Your collaborators will appreciate that in the future." Castro paused to consider his word choice. Zig's childlike wonder often surprised him in a familiar way; he found himself reusing the tools he'd honed while raising his daughter. "There's more to a smile than just the mouth, though, and we're still improving the rest of your facial articulation. Here, take a look at this data set." With a few keystrokes he generated ten thousand headshots of smiling people and synced them to Zig's internal storage. Zig's posture changed, becoming more rigid—a behavioral tell that meant it was processing data. After several seconds Zig looked back to Castro, still smiling. "I am close! Most of the expression, proportionally, is in the mouth muscles." "Yes, Zig, you are close but there's more to it than that. An important part of how humans perceive faces—" "It's creepy, Zig." Lima didn't even looking up from her work to deliver the casual insult. Castro elbowed her in the side and, upon seeing his expression, she gave Zig her full attention. "It's not your fault! It's just... complicated. It's like an evolutionary thing.
There is an art to smiling in a way that others will believe. It is always important to include the eyes; otherwise, people will know you hate them.We're weird like that." Lima gave Castro a weak shrug. Zig's smile diminished. "But I do not hate you. Lima and Castro are friends." "We know!" they said in unison. They shared a look after, smirking at one another with warm eyes. "Oh, I see." Zig watched the exchange. "I will refrain from smiling." "No!" Lima blurted out, surprising herself. "A smile is a wonderful thing. We just want to make sure its received the right way." "I think we can move some things around and get to those eyes sooner than later." Castro glanced at Lima, checking in as he made the promise. She smiled again, giving him a quick nod. "Yeah, Zig, it's next on my list after those fingers of yours." Zig's smile returned. "Thank you. You are good friends, Castro and Lima." "You are, too, Zig," Castro replied. Lima chuckled. "Yeah, you're not so bad, Z." Zig tried to mimic her but the sound it produced was a series of mid-frequency staccato starts and stops. "Okay, we'll work on that, too," she added.