"Anne, how are things going?" I asked Anne, who was currently in charge of operating the entire ship while keeping an eye on all of its systems.
"Pretty good, Master," she replied with a smile.
It was a perfectly natural smile, nothing like the stiff or artificial expressions you might expect from a machine. Anne was entirely artificial and didn't actually possess human flesh, yet she was expressive enough that, at times, it was genuinely difficult to remember that she wasn't a real human being.
"We're about to reach the threshold of the mainland, and we're already entering the deeper part of the sea," she explained while keeping her attention on the control panel. "Everything appears to be functioning properly, and I don't think we'll have any issues going forward."
"Good," I said. "I'm going to head up for a while, so if something goes wrong, let me know immediately."
"Copy that, Master," she replied with a small nod before returning her attention to the ship's controls.
