Concubot
Copyright © 2009 Sally Rogers-Davidson
All rights reserved
Copyright © 2009 Sally Rogers-Davidson
All rights reserved
Rose
Food Abuse
Rose opened the door of the refrigerator and a dozen tiny voices called to her. Various cries of: ‘Eat me! Eat me!’ Some variations on: ‘Hello, I’ve almost reached my Eat By Date. You should eat me now before it’s too late!’ A few more with authoritative tones announcing: ‘Attention. I’m out of date. I’ve ordered a replacement. You should recycle me into the organic waste chute now.’
The most pathetic was the tinny, fading whine of the pickled onions. ‘Please, I’m fifteen months out of date. Please throw me away…’
‘Not long now,’ Rose said to herself. ‘The power cell can’t last much longer.’
The protein was more persuasive with: ‘Build yourself up with my yummy goodness.’
The fruit was all: ‘Please think about eating me today. I’m best served fresh and I’m so good for you!’
The blue cheese was the most tempting, sexily purring: ‘Come and eat me. You know you want to!’
Rose found that she did indeed want to. She reached her hand into the refrigerator but the moment her fingers touched the packet, the refrigerator’s masterful tones intervened with: ‘Blue cheese at midnight? Do you think you should?’
Rose paused and thought about whether she really wanted the blue cheese. It probably would be a mistake to eat it before bed… there was a possibility of stomach cramps and nightmares… but she could already taste its creamy, tangy yumminess on her tongue. What the hell! She thought. ‘Yes,’ she said, clasping her hand around it.
Fridge wasn’t giving up that easily. ‘You realize that you’ve put on two kilograms in the past month. This brand of blue cheese has an average calorie count of 1500 per 100 grams. Eat the apple instead.’
‘Yes,’ the apple agreed, ‘Eat me!’
Rose didn’t feel like an apple, but 2 kilograms… ‘Maybe a glass of milk,’ she decided, reaching instead for the white carton. As her hand came into contact with it, it said: ‘Please empty my contents into the bio waste drain before disposing of my packaging into the recycle chute.’
‘You’re out of date?’ she moaned.
‘My use by date was the 26th of September, 2060.’
‘What’s today’s date?’
Dozens of tiny voices answered her. ‘Today is the 27th of September, 2060.’
‘One day?’ Rose said. ‘I’ll take my chances.’ She opened the pouring lid and sniffed inside the carton. It smelled okay to her. She took a careful sip. One thing you could tell definitely when it was off was milk and this milk tasted fine. ‘You taste fine!’ she told the milk.
‘I might taste fine,’ the milk sermonized, ‘but my nutritional value decreases with every day I’m left on the shelf. Eat By dates are calculated by dieticians to reflect the optimal…’
Rose interrupted the milk, having heard this argument so many times before. ‘You just want me to waste money throwing away perfectly good milk so that I’ll buy more.’
The milk had no programmed response to this unexpected comment. It was silent for a moment before defaulting back to: ‘Please empty my contents into the bio waste drain before disposing of my packaging into the recycle chute.’
‘How about I empty your contents into a glass from which I will drink before ramming your packaging up your arse?’
Once again the milk carton had no immediate response to this. It countered with: ‘Inappropriate disposal of waste is a civil crime which can result in fines up to 50,000 credits.’
‘Blah, blah, blah!’ Rose took the milk to the sink and grabbed a glass out of the clean dishwasher drawer. The milk was uncharacteristically silent as she poured its contents into the glass. Rose thought she might actually have won this battle of wills until the glass, as she raised it to her mouth piped up with: ‘The milk carton informs me that this milk is one day out of date. I suggest that you empty my contents into the bio-disposal chute before depositing me into the dirty dishwasher drawer.’
Rose was suddenly overtaken by an urge that for once she didn’t resist. She threw the glass of milk with some force to the tiled floor of the kitchen. Glass and milk smashed satisfyingly sending milk and glass shards over a surprisingly vast distance. She stormed out of the kitchen deliberately ignoring the glass’s dying words: ‘Please clean me up. Broken glass presents an injury risk when not disposed of in its proper recycle depository.’
Rose was wide-awake now. Hunger pangs replaced by a knot of anger in her belly. If only there was an easy way of silencing all those tiny voices! Sometimes she wished she lived a century ago when inanimate objects were just that, still and silent, not constantly nagging you and driving you to distraction. The odd case of food poisoning and accidental injury would be worth it for the peace… If only someone could come up with an artificial intelligence that was more aware of people’s moods; one that knew when to pipe up and when to remain silent; one that could actually improve your mood rather than having the negative effect. One that could persuade you in a way that made you think it was what you wanted. Maybe she wouldn’t have so much trouble with her weight if all the healthy foods weren’t so preachy and off putting, stressing her out so that she ended up eating something unhealthy just for spite!
Why not? Rose decided.
Poppy
Crate Surprise
The crate was large and solid: the outer shell made from 20 millimetre thick board; the inner padding from high-grade impact foam. The contents of the crate were more than valuable enough to justify the high cost of the packaging, but Barnabus had no idea of this when the crate was delivered to his one bedroom apartment in the Eureka B Tower. The courier seemed just as surprised to be delivering such a precious object to a lower floor apartment. This was strictly a top floor item. He eyed Barnabus with a mixture of suspicion, amusement, and envy; the crate was unmarked for privacy, but he’d delivered enough of these to know exactly what was inside.
He grinned as he thrust the delivery receipt pad at Barnabus. ‘Sign and date, Ta.’
Barnabus took the pad from the delivery guy. He was no less surprised to see the premium grade crate delivered to his apartment. The item he’d ordered didn’t come with that standard and he hadn’t ordered it special. He’d gone with the economy crate to suit the economy model that was supposed to be inside it. He didn’t say anything, though. He was hardly going to complain about his delivery being better than he’d ordered. So long as the cost on the invoice was the same… and it was. He signed for the delivery: Prof Barnabus Rhule 27/9/69, and stepped aside for the guy to wheel the crate into the main room of his modest apartment. Then urged the guy out again.
‘Are you sure you don’t want me to stay while you check the contents are all correct and accounted for?’ the delivery guy asked. The guy wanted desperately see the contents of the crate, Barnabus could tell – in his entire life he couldn’t remember a delivery guy ever volunteering to wait while he checked that his delivery was in order – but that was most definitely not going to happen.
‘Kind of you to offer, but no, I’m sure it will be fine.’ Barnabus closed and locked his door on the disappointed face of the delivery guy, then turned back to examine the crate.
It took up half the free space in his living area. He’d have to move the couch into the kitchenette to make more room before he could open it. He did so and turned his attention back to the crate.
‘Premium Grade Packaging,’ he said to himself. ‘I ordered Economy.’ He looked at the address label on the side of the crate. It was definitely his name and address. He pulled off the invoice envelope and opened it. The invoice was exactly the same as the one he had from when he made the order. Same model, same economy crate itemized. Clearly there was some mix up. Maybe they’d mislabelled the crate. His shipment had probably gone to some A-grader who’d be really pissed, while this one had come to him. Unless it was merely that they’d run out of economy crates and upgraded the packaging of his order without extra charge. It could happen, couldn’t it? It happened on flights all the time. Why not with deliveries?
There was one way to find out. If this was indeed his delivery then his unlocking code should open the crate. If not, then he’d have to contact the company and explain the mix up.
Barnabus moaned in anticipation of the bother and embarrassment that would involve. Just ordering the Sexbot on the grid had degraded his sense of self-worth; having to contact someone in the company personally to reveal himself as the kind of guy who was not only sexually frustrated enough to buy a Sexbot, but that his means were such that he could only afford the cheapest sale model… He was a humanities professor at a prestigious University. He was better than that. He should be better than that… What if it got out?
Why did they have to mix up my order? Why does this sort of thing always happen to me?
Barnabus was on the verge of beating his head against the wall, scolding himself. I knew I shouldn’t have ordered a Sexbot!
His heart was pounding in anticipation as he punched the code into the keypad on the side of the crate. He pressed the Enter key last and stepped back, holding his breath. For a moment there was no response from the crate and his chest sank with disappointment. It was the wrong crate after all. He’d have to arrange for this crate to be picked up and wait for his own order to be recovered, or reprocessed… how many more weeks would that take?
I should just cancel the order completely! He told himself. I had no business ordering it in the first place!
For moments his higher brain was resolved to write this whole incident off as a bad idea, but then his lower brain asserted itself with a desperate reminder: But I really want a Sexbot!
He’d never owned this kind of item before and when he’d first seen the ads he hadn’t given the idea any thought at all. He couldn’t afford it; he didn’t need it; the whole idea was preposterous! But the ads kept on popping up, and they were persuasive. Finally he’d started to question why the concept was so absurd. Isn’t it a good idea, really? He asked himself. After all, everyone’s doing it these days, and the economy model isn’t really so far out of my budget’s stretching abilities… When he’d received the stock clearance specials ad, the prices were such a steal that his final resistance had faded. He’d been tempted and seduced.
He’d ordered a nice enough model. Not the model he would have loved if only he could have afforded it, but this model was really quite good. He’d been anxious for delivery once he’d made the decision. When his doorbell finally rang and he’d seen the crate outside he’d felt like a boy on Christmas morning. But instead of a present he’d been delivered a lump of coal…
There was a low, almost undetectable hiss coming from the crate. Barnabus leaned in close to check it wasn’t his imagination. There was a definite hiss. The crate was depressurizing, which could only mean one thing… It was about to open! There was no mix up. This was his order! He was so excited he did a little jig.
Barnabus jumped out of the way as the front panel of the crate swung open to reveal its contents. Sitting enthroned amidst the deflated air bags and solid padding was the object of his desires: a perfect, life-size doll. She looked as though she was merely asleep, not powered off. Her skin was flawless, her face and body perfection, her seductive curves barely hidden by the modest red silkene lingerie. The red complimented her black hair, ivory skin and plump, red lips. Barnabus wondered what colour those almond shaped eyes would be when they opened. He’d ordered blue, but he’d also ordered a blonde sex doll with tan skin and large breasts… the economy model… the typical sex doll model… the one that was on sale.
This wasn’t that. This was a special order. He didn’t even recall this model from the catalogue… She was so realistic… too perfect to be a mere human, but not in the slightest bit Robotic. Of course, all of the D’Angelo Sexbots were very realistic in their way, but not like this. This must be their top-of-the-line A-grade model. There was definitely a mistake. This Robot clearly didn’t belong to him, and yet he was mesmerized.
Barnabus stepped closer, reaching out to touch the skin on her cheek. He pulled his hand back in shock. Her skin was warm and soft. It felt alive. He was expecting the Robot to be cold, or at least ambient temperature, but she was warm, living. She’s alive, he thought. She’s real. They’ve sent me a real woman by mistake! He knew a living woman couldn’t have survived inside the hermetically sealed, air-padded crate, but she was so real!
Knowing intellectually, if not emotionally that she was merely a sophisticated Robot, Barnabus worked up the courage to reach back to her face. This time he ran his hand across her cheek and into her silky black hair. It was soft and smooth. His eyes fell from her sleeping face, down her slender neck to her collarbone and below that to the seductive mounds of her breasts. Not the large, obvious breasts of a typical Sexbot, but smaller, round, a nice handful if he dared to reach down and caress those seductive twin mounds with their hard nipples pushing out from beneath their thin red silkene covering.
He felt like a pervert considering the invasion of a sleeping woman’s physical privacy, but she was so beautiful and she wasn’t a woman, she was his property, his Sexbot.
She’s not yours. It’s a mistake.
It’s not a mistake. Somehow she is mine; I know it! He’d paid for her. She belonged to him. She was his private sex slave. He could do with her as he willed and she would comply. Her whole existence was to give him pleasure; to answer his every desire. His loins were stirring just looking at her.
He could touch her. It wasn’t like she’d be insulted. Even her Robot brain wouldn’t know it until he activated her. He slid his fingers from her neck to her shoulder, collecting the strap of her camisole and running it down her arm, hoping that without the strap to hold it in place the loose fabric might fall away from her breast, leaving it naked.
He felt like a naughty schoolboy. His mouth dried up and he had to swallow and lick his lips to get his saliva working again. It wasn’t a good look. He knew it. Even though he was an attractive young man in his late thirties, he knew if the Sexbot had been a real woman with her eyes open it would have been a turn off for her. But her eyes were closed anyway, so it wasn’t an issue.
He scolded himself internally. See, this is why you need a Sexbot – you have no confidence in yourself with the ladies! Get in there! Drop that Teddy!
The fabric hadn’t fallen far enough. Barnabus reached his hand up to the Sexbot’s other shoulder and pushed that strap away too. This time the fabric did fall down to her waste, revealing those delicious breasts.
Barnabus’s throat dried up again and he swallowed. At the back of his mind a tiny voice was saying to him: If this is a mix-up you might have to send her back. If she’s not your property you shouldn’t use her. To which, he replied: It’s their fault if they’ve sent me the wrong model by mistake. They can hardly expect me not to take it out for a spin… Besides, it’s not like I’m going to break it or anything!
Barnabus’s loins had gone from tingling anticipation to full-on excited attention… or as he put it in his own head: His anaconda was on the hunt looking for a delicious rabbit to chase down a hole. ‘Hold on there. Big Boy,’ he warned it. He tried to picture those images in his mind that were guaranteed to settle his hungry snake but his eyes couldn’t look away from those perfect, pert, pink nipples resting like rosebuds on two luscious scoops of vanilla ice-cream. He had to touch them. He couldn’t hold back any longer. He reached both hands out and cupped a warm, firm, squashy breast in each. Just that touch was enough to bring his excitement to its peak. He definitely felt like a teenager again. Especially when he felt the impact of the hand that slapped him across the side of his head, followed by the stern words: ‘Just what the frick do you think you’re doing?’
Reality Check
Barnabus sprang back from the crate and its incensed contents, appalled by his actions and shocked to the core. ‘I’m so sorry!’ he apologized. ‘I thought you were… I didn’t think you were… I didn’t think…’
‘No, you didn’t think,’ she scolded him.
She is real! He thought. ‘How…?’ He was wondering how she survived inside that crate if she was a living woman, but the words died in his mouth. She was a Robot. She had to be. But why was she acting like this? Was it some special programming to go with this special order?’
The Woman/Robot was pulling the straps of her camisole up and struggling to escape the tight packaging. ‘How did I get in here?’ she said. ‘What the hell is going on?’
Barnabus stared in wonder. He knew she wasn’t real. No human woman was that perfect. Those eyes! They were like opals; seemingly every colour in a maze of patterns and shapes. They were mesmerizing. He wanted to look at them more closely but he didn’t dare go near the angry Robot. He couldn’t understand its/her behaviour. It wasn’t what he’d been expecting.
The Robot was trying to exit the crate while coming to grips with her new Robot body and systems. ‘Why does my voice sound so strange?’ She asked no one in particular. She then noticed her hands, holding them out in front and turning them, announcing: ‘These aren’t my hands!’ Then she noticed the rest of her body. She kicked her legs out in front of her, declaring: ‘My legs were never this good before.’ She ran her hands along the smooth skin of them, upwards from her knees, to her silky knickers and camisole, over her flat stomach and up to her pert breasts, marking off each item with: ‘Not my legs… not my stomach… not my boobs…’ finishing with a final: ‘What the…?’
Finally she managed to slide out of her seated position inside the crate. She wobbled a bit and Barnabus was tempted to go to her aid but a sharp look held him in his place. ‘I feel taller,’ she said. ‘These legs feel awkward. I can’t control them properly.’ She held herself steady with one hand on the side of the crate while she practiced controlling her legs, one at a time, lift and down, stretch out forwards and down, knee up, knee down, kick, kick, and finally uncertain baby steps until she’d gained her balance sufficiently to let go of the supporting crate.
‘Do you have a mirror?’ she asked Barnabus. ‘Full length, preferably.’
‘In the bathroom.’
The Robot looked around the small apartment, saying: ‘Which is where?’ But before Barnabus could direct her she noticed the only door other than the front door, the door to his small bedroom and bathroom. She headed over there without bothering to ask permission. Barnabus followed, politely keeping his distance. He thought it best to keep an eye on the obviously malfunctioning Robot. He realized he would most likely have to phone the factory as soon as he could safely leave her alone long enough to do it. Something told him the Robot might not be too pleased if he did it in front of her.
When she caught sight of herself in the bathroom’s full wall mirror her immediate reaction was to look around to see where the other woman was. She obviously didn’t recognize the reflection as her own, but accepted the undeniable fact quickly enough and stood mesmerized, examining herself. ‘Wow!’ she announced finally. ‘I’m fricken gorgeous! I don’t know what’s going on, but I like it!’ She did a little dance, posing her new body in various positions. ‘I can get used to this!’
Barnabus watched her with equal fascination and admiration. Her behaviour was strange, but she was certainly gorgeous… far more gorgeous than the Sexbot he’d expected. This was no dumb blonde bimbo. This was a fascinating, beautiful, realistic woman. She had to have been sent to him by mistake. She had to be their top of the line model, made by special order for some Skywalker trillionaire. He’d met regular Sexbots before. A couple of his richer, single associates had them and they were nothing like this. Though very human looking, they were obviously Robots. There was no real intelligence in their eyes when they spoke to you. No initiative; just programmed responses. They acted coquettishly, not aggressively.
The Sexbot moved to within centimetres of the mirror staring straight into her own eyes. She seemed to have gone into a sort of trance. After a while Barnabus wondered if she’d switched off. Maybe she was resetting? Maybe something in her operating system had become misaligned in some way during delivery and some emergency reboot had switched in? Whatever it was, when she finally turned away from the mirror she was acting more as Barnabus had expected a Sexbot would act. She appeared calm, her eyes distant, almost blank. ‘Please excuse my earlier behaviour. It seems there was some temporary glitch in my program as a result of rough shipping. Please be assured this will not reoccur. My systems have now realigned back to their normal state.’
Barnabus was relieved but also rather disappointed. She’d been more exciting before - more human. Now she seemed like the soulless toy he’d expected… Still, though, she was a gorgeous toy and he couldn’t wait to get his hands on her. But first, now that she was behaving rationally there was something he felt he had to clear up.
‘I’m afraid there’s been some sort of mix up. You’re not the model that I ordered.’
A flash of emotion shot across the Sexbot’s face. It was too quick for Barnabus to identify with conviction but he thought it looked like fear, or guilt, mixed with surprise and finally insult. ‘Are you not pleased with me?’ she asked.
Barnabus thought she sounded offended. ‘No!’ he denied. ‘I’m very pleased! Thrilled, in fact… I’m just concerned that they’ve sent you to me by mistake. I ordered the cheapest model and you’re obviously no cheap model. I’d say you’re a top of the range model. I’m afraid that my order may have been mixed up with someone else’s order. That you were sent to me by mistake.’
‘Are you Barnabus Rhule of Apartment 421 of the Eureka B Tower, Southgate Precinct of Melbourne Megalopolis?’
‘Yes!’ Barnabus confirmed.
‘Then there is no mistake. You are my master. I am the Sexbot that has been sent to fill your order.’
‘But I can’t afford an expensive model like you.’
‘It seems you were not informed of your lucky circumstance,’ the Sexbot told him. ‘You see…’ she hesitated for the briefest of moments and if she hadn’t been a Robot Barnabus would have sworn she was reaching for some plausible excuse as to why she was sent to him instead of the budget model that he’d ordered. Since she was a Robot he figured there was just a slight delay while she called up the relevant information. ‘You were the company’s one-hundred-thousandth customer, winning you a complimentary upgrade from basic model Sexbot to State-of-the-Art Concubot!’
‘A complimentary upgrade?’ Barnabus couldn’t believe his luck. ‘You mean I get you for no extra charge? There’s no mistake? You’re the model I get?’
‘There is no mistake. Of course, if you would prefer the original model that you ordered I’m sure that can be arranged.’
‘No!’ Barnabus said with rather more force than he’d intended. ‘No, I’m very happy with you. It’s wonderful! I’m delirious!’
The Concubot nodded her head in agreement, ‘I should think so!’
Barnabus was stunned. He couldn’t get it to sink in. He thought there must be some catch. He had to reiterate. ‘So you’re really mine? All mine?
‘Yes,’ the Concubot confirmed. ‘I’m really yours! All yours!’
‘Mine,’ Barnabus leered slightly, ‘To do with as I will.’
If it was possible, the Concubot looked nervous. ‘However,’ she interjected, ‘I’m obliged to clarify that as a state of the art Concubot prototype I’m not programmed for absolute compliance. Unlike the basic Sexbot model that is programmed merely for sex and has only the most basic intelligence program, top of the line models such as myself have the most expensive Artificial Intelligence Matrices. We not only look more realistically human than the basic sex model, we are also programmed to function in a realistically human manner. We are designed to be a companion in all aspects of our owner’s lives, not merely a sex partner.’
‘Which means?’
‘It means that although I am programmed to be compliant and obliging you cannot necessarily do with me what you will. You must persuade me as you would a real human woman.’
Barnabus wasn’t sure if he liked this new development. He’d been hoping a relationship with a Sexbot would be less complicated than one with a real woman. He’d hoped to be able to have sex when he wanted it; uncomplicated, fun, sex. ‘So, in other words,’ he said, disappointment dripping off every syllable, ‘even though I have my own private Sexbot, I’m still not getting any?’
‘Of course you will be getting some,’ the Concubot assured him. ‘After all, as a Concubot I have a heightened libido and unlike a regular human woman have no physical limitations that might get in the way of my willingness to perform, such as the risk of contracting some sort of sexually transmitted virus, or pregnancy. I have no insecurities as to my stunning attractiveness. I am programmed to please. After all, a violin is made for playing.’
Barnabus could feel his anaconda stiffening to attention. ‘So you will have sex with me?’
‘Yes, of course! You are my master, after all.’
‘Now?’
‘My systems aren’t fully aligned just yet. You wouldn’t want me to damage anything now, would you?’
Barnabus wasn’t sure if she meant the damage would be caused to her or to him, but he could wait a little longer. To be honest he wasn’t really in the mood anymore anyway. ‘No, of course not,’ he agreed.
‘Good!’ the Concubot smiled happily. ‘Now, why don’t we find me something more suitable to wear and then we can go shopping for clothes!’
Out and Proud
‘You want me to take you out in public?’
‘Of course!’
‘But, but…’
‘Are you ashamed to be seen with me?
‘You’re a Sexbot!’
‘Concubot,’ she corrected. ‘And Concubots need clothes! Do you want me to walk around in this all the time?’
Barnabus thought he wouldn’t mind that at all, but he suspected she wouldn’t like to hear it. ‘Of course not…’ he lied.
‘Then you will take me shopping for clothes!’
Barnabus had never fallen into a relationship so quickly. Five minutes and his funds were already set for a beating! ‘Can’t we just shop on the Grid?’
‘You are ashamed to be seen with me!’
‘No!’ he said. ‘Well…? You’re a Sexbot! It’s embarrassing!’ he admitted.
‘Oh, you’re so gauche!’
‘You’re insulting me now?’
‘You insulted me! Do you think I can’t pass as human?’
‘You’re too perfect! Everyone will know!’
‘How will they know? Would any of your associates seriously suspect that you would be in possession of a state of the art Concubot such as me? You’d be lucky to pay for my left foot on your credit rating!’
‘Oh, my God… You really are a woman!’
‘See? Now I even have you believing! Don’t worry… when I’m in some sloppy track suit and beanie, my natural radiance won’t be quite so obvious. I gather you have some such kind of apparel?’
‘Yes…’ Barnabus felt exhausted. ‘Maybe I’d like to reconsider the upgrade,’ he moaned. ‘If I wanted a wife I’d have married a real woman.’
The Concubot merely giggled and said: ‘You’re funny!’ She walked over to his closet and opened it up to see what clothes she could fit into without looking too weird.
‘Maybe I could sell you?’ Barnabus wondered. ‘If you’re worth as much as you say.’
‘You can’t sell me,’ she assured him. ‘That would void the contract. Not only would you lose me but you would also lose the deposit you paid on the basic model.’
‘But I can send you back… I mean… You’re obviously malfunctioning. I can’t believe that anyone would design a Concubot with such an abrasive personality!’
The Concubot looked at him, not with anger but with a sort of crestfallen disappointment. ‘Abrasive…?’
‘Abrasive! Harsh. Scratchy. Disagreeable. Rough. Unsmooth!’ Being a professor of literature, Barnabus had a good command of language.
‘Not: charmingly quirky? Playfully challenging?’
‘More obnoxiously confrontational.’ Barnabus could feel he finally had the upper hand. ‘I mean… I can’t be lumbered with some psycho Concubot! You could be dangerous!’
‘I’m not dangerous… I could never be dangerous… Don’t send me back… You can’t send me back…’ The Concubot slumped down onto his bed and buried her face in her hands. Her back heaved and she made whimpering noises. ‘You really hurt my feelings,’ she said, still hiding her face in her hands.
If Barnabus hadn’t known she was a Robot he would have sworn she was crying. He watched her for a few moments until he started to wonder if she was so advanced that she could actually cry. Had he actually made a Robot cry? What kind of brute could make a Robot cry? It’s no wonder I can’t keep a real girlfriend, he thought, if after only ten minutes with a Concubot, instead of us both on the bed having wild sex, she’s on the bed alone, crying. He felt a pang of guilt. He actually started to feel sorry for her. He sat down next to her and put his arm around her shoulders. ‘I’m sorry,’ he apologized. ‘I didn’t mean to… I mean… you’re a Robot… I didn’t realize you had feelings.’
‘Well… I do!’
‘I realize that now… Please don’t cry… I promise I’ll be more thoughtful now I know you have feelings.’
‘Promise you won’t send me back…’
‘First, let me see your face,’ Barnabus said.
The Concubot kept her face hidden. ‘First, promise you won’t send me back.’
‘Let me see your face.’
‘Not until you promise.’
‘Look at me.’
‘No.’
‘You’re not crying at all!’
‘Of course I am!’ The Concubot did her best to make sniffling, teary sounds; heaving her back for effect.
It was no longer fooling Barnabus. ‘Then show me!’
The Concubot made one final attempt to really cry before giving up and turning her face to him with an exasperated expression.
‘Just as I thought!’ he exclaimed triumphantly. ‘You weren’t crying at all!’
‘Well, I’m a Robot for heaven’s sake!’
‘Aha… Aha!’ Barnabus was pointing accusingly at her, bouncing about on his feet, revelling in his victory… until it occurred to him he hadn’t really had any kind of victory… he was actually only being rather petty. When the Concubot finally asked him if he was done yet he agreed that he was and sat back down on the bed next to her.
‘I could cry if I wanted to,’ she told him. ‘I just don’t choose to right now… You’re not going to send me back though, are you?’ she asked. Under her breath, so faintly that Barnabus couldn’t hear it she added, ‘I really can’t allow that…’
‘I don’t suppose so,’ Barnabus said, ‘if you’ll be nicer to me.’
The Concubot rolled her eyeballs inside their sockets and gave a loud, exasperated sigh. Flopping back on the bed, spreading her legs and throwing her arms out, said: ‘Okay, then, get it over with! DO me!’
Oddly, Barnabus didn’t find her invitation at all inviting. Rather than leaping on her as she obviously expected him to do, he merely stood over her and said bemusedly: ‘You’re not acting at all in the way I expected a Sexbot would act.’
‘Oh, so I suppose you expected me to be all sexy and inviting?’
‘Well… to be honest… yes!’
‘All… “Oh, just take me big boy…” even though we’ve only just met?’
‘Pretty much,’ Barnabus admitted. ‘I mean, you are a Sexbot, not a Nannybot, or an R’au-pair. I mean, your function is pretty much for just the one purpose: SEX!’
‘Valid point,’ the Concubot agreed. Barnabus’s victory was only fleeting however as she continued with: ‘If I was just your run of the mill standard basic model Sexbot. I, however, am as superior to that as an anteater is to an ant… as an eagle is to a chicken… as a horse is to the poo it just shat out onto the hay in its stall! I, sir, am a top of the line Companion-Class Concubot! I’m designed not just for sex but as a life companion; a charming conversationalist at dinner parties; a stunning escort to fancy functions. I can converse in a dozen languages on any of a hundred thousand topics. I’m programmed as a qualified physiotherapist and a cordon bleu chef to name just a few of my many skills! The day that you had the phenomenally good fortune to put in the one-hundred-thousandth order for an Angelo D’Angelo Sexbot, was the luckiest day of your life! And if you don’t appreciate that, then maybe you don’t deserve me. Maybe you should send me back so I can go to someone who’ll appreciate just what an unbelievably lucky son-of-a-bitch they really are!!!’
‘Jeez…’ Barnabus was flabbergasted. He had to sit on the bed just so he could devote his whole brain function to taking it all in without worrying about that whole balancing thing one had to do whilst standing. ‘I had no idea,’ he said. ‘I guess I owe you an apology.’
‘Not at all!’ the Concubot said. ‘I’m here to fulfil your every wish and desire. You need never apologize to me. Not unless you want to, in which case I’ll accept your apology with grace and gratitude that you’re such a caring owner… Owner… ooh, I don’t like that term… Way too Slave Trade… What should I call you?’
‘Master…?’ Barnabus suggested.
‘Master? What am I, a Genie? Anyway, it’s still way too Slave Trade. A man of your liberal values would never be a part of that kind of exploitative, fetishistic, political incorrectness. Just imagine when we’re out in public or present at a gathering of your friends and peers if I called you Master… How would that appear?’
‘Well, I guess you should call me Barnabus,’ Barnabus said.
‘Yes, but what is our relationship to one another?’
‘Well, we don’t really have a relationship as yet. We’ve just met. I don’t want to offend you but the only relationship we have right now is that of purchaser and newly delivered merchandise.’
‘Well, you hardly purchased me! The minuscule amount of credit you parted with wouldn’t pay for my left toe. You won me… that is, you won the privilege to have me with you. Consider your down payment as the cost of the ticket you purchased in the prize draw!’
Barnabus understood now that he should be grateful but he was having a hard time getting himself to actually feel it. ‘Can’t we just have sex?’
‘Are you really in the mood to have sex with me right now?’
‘If it will shut you up!’
Barnabus regretted having said that the moment it left his mouth.
The Concubot was actually lost for words for about a second before she stood up and stared down at him with a searing Governess-droid look. ‘It’s no wonder you had to buy a companion. No real woman would ever put up with that kind of disrespecting attitude. You must be the loneliest man on the planet! I can’t speak to you! I can’t even look at you!’ she turned her back on him.
Barnabus wondered if he could slip away without her noticing. She probably had super Robot hearing and all kinds of motion sensors, so he guessed that wouldn’t work. A part of him baulked at apologizing to a machine, but this machine really did act like a real woman and the only hope of alleviating the anger of a real woman in this situation would be his delivery of a most heartfelt apology, a down on his knees, begging forgiveness while confessing what a thoughtless brute he was, kind of apology. Or in his case a quick exit and hope to never come across the woman ever again. He’d never met a woman he’d thought worth that kind of supplication.
He found himself faced with a dilemma. He was kind of stuck with this Robot after all. He could send her back but that would be like refusing first prize in a lottery. If she was really as amazing as she said she was, he could be onto a good thing here. After all, she was beautiful and if he ever did seduce her into bed, as a Sexbot, or Concubot as she’d put it, she was sure to have all kinds of skills to make up for her annoying personality. Maybe her personality could be reprogrammed? And aside from those considerations, if he made this obviously slightly psychotic Robot really angry, what might she do to him? He was quite sure she would be capable of Bobbitting him and he didn’t want to be the first man to be Bobbitted by a Concubot.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said.
Obviously that wasn’t enough to make the Concubot forgive him straight away but he did notice a slight relaxing of her shoulder muscles and she stopped tapping her foot.
‘So, what can I do to make you forgive me?’ Barnabus asked.
‘Well, you can’t make me do anything,’ the Concubot pointed out first, ‘but I might consider forgiving you…’
‘If…?’
‘For a start you can take me shopping for decent clothes!’
‘So long as you understand that I’m living on the wage of a Professor of Literature; my budget doesn’t stretch to the kind of designer duds that a Concubot of your quality is no doubt accustomed to.’
The Concubot didn’t look happy about this but she conceded. ‘Very well, I will debase myself and forego designer “duds” as you so charmingly put it.’ Scorn dripped off every syllable of the word charmingly. ‘But you must understand that I have my standards. I won’t be seen in any cheap rubbish. It must be of some quality.’
Barnabus bit back any response he might have had to that comment. ‘Target it is then.’
‘This is a place of some quality?’ the Concubot asked.
‘Some quality… Yes.’
‘Well then, Professor. This makes me happy.’
‘How happy?’ Barnabus asked hopefully.
The Concubot posed coquettishly. ‘Very happy…’
Barnabus took a cautious step towards her. ‘Happy enough to make us both happy?’
‘Which us are you referring to,’ the Concubot smiled, dropping her gaze to his trouser area. ‘You and me, or you and he?’
Rose
Steering Towards Ruin
‘Please make a U-turn at the next bend.’
Rose ignored the navigation system’s advice and kept driving in the same direction.
It wouldn’t be dismissed so easily, though. ‘Turn right at the next intersection,’ it insisted.
‘No, I’m going straight ahead,’ Rose told it.
‘The most direct route to your destination lies in the opposite direction to that in which you are currently travelling.’
‘I don’t care. There’s less traffic this way.’
The navigation system disagreed. ‘There is actually more traffic in the direction in which you are heading.’ To prove its point it flashed a satellite image of the surrounding roads. A yellow circle picked out the vehicle she was travelling in, with red arrows showing the direction in which she was heading and green arrows showing the recommended route. There was indeed less traffic in the direction the navigation system preferred.
‘I don’t like making right turns.’ Rose admitted.
‘Your automated driving system can do the driving for you if you will switch it on… Please take the fourth exit at the next roundabout.’
‘I don’t want to turn it on. I don’t trust it.’
‘Automated driving systems are statistically 98% more reliable than their human counterparts.’
‘Until they malfunction,’ Rose countered. ‘Then they’re 100% fatal.’
‘Those figures are incorrect… Please turn right at the next intersection.’
‘I’m gonna turn left!’ Rose hissed.
‘Please turn right at the next intersection.’
Rose wasn’t sure what annoyed her most, the insistent nagging from the navigation system or the fact that its computerized voice remained so calm and steady all the time it was driving her into a screaming rage. She’d set out this morning in such a positive mood, but once again, the annoying voices, driving her to distraction. Rose swung the steering wheel hard to the left at the intersection, not waiting for the car that was heading straight in that direction from the right of the intersection. If the other car hadn’t been using its automated driving system its human driver probably wouldn’t have been able to react in time to avoid a collision. If Rose had been using her automated driving system her car wouldn’t have pulled out in front of the other car in the first place.
‘You have committed traffic violation 107 B,’ the navigation system informed her. ‘You have received one demerit point. To avoid further violations please engage your automated driving system.’
Rose was in shock from the near fatal collision, thinking: I was distracted and could have killed myself! There was nothing like facing one’s own mortality to make one lose one’s resolve to hold petty resistance to the nagging computerised consciences surrounding one. Nevertheless, one was still in a bad mood.
Admitting no wrongdoing or remorse she yelled, ‘O Bloody K then!’ and violently prodded her finger into the big green button on the dashboard that engaged the autopilot before folding her arms in a huff and slamming herself back in her seat, mumbling under her breath, ‘Bloody computers!’
By the time Rose reached her destination she’d managed to calm down somewhat. She’d eaten an entire box of Tim Tams to achieve it but she’d managed. Her car pulled into a space in the massive underground parking garage. Rose was annoyed to see many empty spaces far closer to the elevator but didn’t fancy another argument with her car. At least it had shut up and left her in peace after she gave up and let it drive itself. As a petty payback she slammed the door closed on exiting, quickly engaging its lock down before it could lecture her about suitable force. She strode across to the elevator and pressed the up button.
After a moment the doors opened and Rose stepped inside, pressing the surface level button without bothering to take note of which floor she’d come from. Unaware of this oversight at the time, Rose would have to check each of the ten levels on her return. A calmer, more pragmatic person would have avoided this inconvenience.
Rose was oblivious to her future annoyance as she rode up in the elevator. Her attention now focused on the reason she’d come to this location in the first place. The results of her sociological experiment were about to be revealed.
Love Rally
It was one of those truly glorious October afternoons when there’s barely a cloud in the sky and the air is warm with the gentlest of breezes to keep it fresh. Federation Square was gleaming in its earthy tones. Rose liked the way the plaza sloped and meandered as though it was following the natural shape the land had been centuries ago before the city smothered it in concrete and steel. She liked the chaos of the irregular geometric shapes of the paving and stone and the glass of the buildings: trapezoids and triangles and parallelograms. Just about the only square in Federation Square was the one in its name.
Rose liked this place but she hadn’t only picked it because of that, she also picked it because of its location. There were restaurants and bars here as well as a river and several major transport hubs. It was convenient and practical and one of the few places in the city where the sun actually managed to find its way to the ground.
Rose arrived, camera in hand at 15:30 with a half hour to scope out the area before anyone was supposed to arrive. Every night for the past two weeks she’d been working on her special project developing a personality program that could interact in a pleasing manner. By the time she’d perfected it she’d forgotten how she’d started out on the project. She’d been testing it in chat rooms on line. She’d created a program to analyse human interactions in dating rooms. Comparing the successful approaches with the failures and rating each strategy by degrees.
She’d compiled a database of the things that humans found most attractive, including physical descriptions, personality types, conversational humour, and seductive phrases. She divided the traits into various types and created several avatars, both male and female to match each type. She set each one up with its own account in a dozen or so dating chat rooms and monitored their successes and failures. Finally she chose the most successful types and traits of all the avatars and combined them into one male and one female avatar to set up her final test.
She had them arrange to meet as many of the chat room participants as possible at 16:00 Saturday afternoon under the main screen in Federation Square opposite Flinders Street Station. If even one person showed up Rose would gauge her experiment a success. She might even submit it as her project for the science fair at the end of the year.
Rose sat quietly with her camera on a bench opposite the main screen ready to start filming if anyone turned up holding a single red rose, which was the way the dates were supposed to identify themselves to her avatars.
At 15:45 a middle-aged woman arrived and sat down on one of the seats near the main screen. Rose’s heart pounded in excitement until she realized the woman wasn’t carrying a rose. She must have been there for some other reason.
Rose was so certain at that moment that her experiment would fail that she was mentally shoving her camera back into her bag and making her way back down to her car. She was telling herself she was an idiot for believing that a computer program could seduce anyone into meeting them for a date. But it wasn’t 16:00 yet, so she waited.
Other people trickled into the square but none of them were carrying roses. Some gathered under the main screen while others wandered about aimlessly… or so Rose thought at first. Then she started to notice the furtive glances. They were looking around at the other people gathered around the city square the same way that she was watching them. Rose started to wonder something and just before 16:00 hours she pressed the record button on her camera.
Immediately a tinny voice issued from beneath her coat where the camera was mostly concealed. ‘Filming in a public square is not recommended…’
‘Shut up!’ Rose hissed. ‘Override! Override!’
The camera kept on with its annoying lecture, ignoring her panicked efforts to shut it up. The last thing she needed was any attention drawn to her. ‘Failure to comply with these regulations could result in a fine of up to 50,000 Ran.’ Rose’s parents had brought the camera back from South Africa after one of their trips.
‘Cutting edge technology,’ Rose muttered under her breath. ‘Stupid thing doesn’t even know what country it’s in!’
‘You have been warned!’ It finished threateningly.
‘Yes, yes, I’ve been warned. Now shut the frick up and do as you’re told!’ At least it did keep filming. ‘Who comes up with this shart?’ Rose asked herself.
With some effort, Rose managed to turn her attention back to the scene in front of her.
Only moments later a young man came striding into the square holding a rose in his hand. A dozen faces, both female and male turned to him. Two of them, a young female and an older male produced from somewhere about their persons a matching rose.
‘Sneaky,’ Rose mumbled to herself. ‘They were waiting to see if they liked the look of their date before giving themselves away!’ Rose’s heart was pounding in excitement. It was all she could do to stop herself from screaming and jumping around in a victorious dance. Three people! Her AIs had convinced three people to meet them! Her experiment was a success!
She watched as the three slowly approached each other. Looking confused that there were three of them and then even more confused as more of the surrounding crowd produced roses. Rose’s excitement went into supernova. ‘Science fair, here I come!’ she whispered to herself.
Then just after 16:00 hours a crowd of people bearing roses flooded into the square from Flinders Street Station… then more from other directions.
Rose filmed in shock as not a few, or even dozens of people flooded into the square. Hundreds of rose-bearing hopefuls crowded into the square. There was chaos as they mingled calling out the names of the avatars they’d arranged to meet with. There was confusion and amusement, even disappointment and anger as they realized that they’d all been lured here under some false pretence.
Rose kept her camera on but hidden discretely under her cardigan. Fortunately nobody seemed to notice her sitting there across the square, filming or not. Rose tended to have that effect on people. Sometimes, most of the time in fact, Rose felt as though she were invisible. People either didn’t notice her at all or they dismissed and ignored her after the most cursory of glances.
Rose was at best plain, at worst, homely. There was almost nothing about her to make people notice her. She was short but not so short that she was interestingly short, like a dwarf or a midget, just short enough to be singularly unimpressive of height. She wasn’t fat, which would have made people notice her if only for the wrong reasons, but she was far from thin. She was unfortunately tubby, which is fine for a middle-aged woman who’s already married with children and a home of her own, but tragic for a single girl whose lack of seductive curvature or athletic grace renders her invisible to any testosterone driven males in the vicinity. And no, even if she was the lesbian that the males who couldn’t avoid her assumed, or hoped, she was, she wasn’t getting any more interest from the females around her than she was from the males.
Her face was sadly lacking any attractive feature. Her eyes were small, as was her mouth, her nose, her cheekbones, and chin. There was nothing distinctive about her: no scars; no hideous deformities, just an utter lack of character or sparkle. Her colouring was unfortunate: her skin a pale, sickly white between the mass of light beige freckles. Her eyes were the palest of grey.
Her hair was distinctive but not in a good way - as a rosy-cheeked baby her brilliant mop of golden curls and porcelain skin had made her look like a china doll - now her hair was just a carroty frizz that looked like an orange sea sponge growing out of her head. She kept it as short as possible and wore hats a lot. Sometimes she wondered if the main reason she liked lab work was because she got to wear hair caps.
She never wore makeup. The few times in high school that she’d attempted to add some colour to her face it only emphasized her clownish appearance, making her an object of pity and ridicule. It’s better to go unnoticed than suffer through that kind of attention. So she covered her hair and embraced invisibility. Dullness had become a way of life for Rose. Now the only remarkable thing about her was her brilliant mind. Unfortunately that was also invisible.
The upside of invisibility was that Rose made a brilliant spy. She was able to sit in the square right in the midst of the swelling crowd and film it all without ever being noticed. She feared for a while that if somehow this huge crowd of romantic wannabes identified her as the perpetrator of this dating farce she might be drawn and quartered, but her invisibility served her well.
To make things worse, with such a huge crowd suddenly gathered in a public place it wasn’t long before the riot police arrived assuming it was some kind of unlicensed rally. Luckily they didn’t come in heavy-handed and start breaking heads. Even they could see that the participants of this unplanned rally weren’t dressed for trouble. They were all dressed in their nicest clothes and all holding roses. At worst it was some sort of peace rally, but none of them seemed to know any more about that than the police.
The Chief of the Riot squad climbed to the top of the largest glue cannon vehicles and called out on his megaphone: ‘I want to speak with whoever arranged this rally!’
Of course Rose was far too terrified to identify herself to him. Instead she mentally checked the possibilities that any of this could be traced to her. She was fairly certain that she’d covered her tracks; her avatars were anonymous. She realized her hopes of presenting this experiment as her entry in the science fair were evaporating but she kept filming, if only for her own records. Maybe one day…
‘Why are you all carrying roses?’ the chief asked over his megaphone. He couldn’t make any sense of the chorus of confused, angry, and amused responses. ‘Would the person in charge please step forward?’
The rose wielding crowd all looked around curiously waiting for someone to step forward. As far as each of them knew there was no one in charge, they were simply here to meet their dates. ‘I’m just here to meet a date,’ one person piped up. Others agreed. Rose thought she should really step forward and admit her guilt, but her feet wouldn’t co-operate.
Finally a middle-aged man stepped forward, not to admit he was in charge, obviously, but to explain why they were all there. ‘This isn’t a rally,’ the man explained. ‘It seems we’re all victims of some cruel joke!’
‘Cruel joke!’ Rose muttered to herself. ‘That’s a bit harsh!’
‘It seems we all arranged to meet with someone on the Grid,’ the man continued.
‘Are you saying this is some kind of mass dating rally?’ The chief asked.
‘It’s not a rally!’ the man denied. ‘We didn’t know there were going to be all these other people here!’
‘I came to meet Pete Marsh,’ a woman in the crowd volunteered.
‘I came to meet Daisy Flowers,’ a teenage boy called out.
‘River Glenn,’ someone else called out.
‘Tom Forest.’
‘Holly Wood.’
And so on.
‘Don’t you see? We all thought we’d come here to meet a date… just one person, not hundreds!’
Everyone in the crowd looked up at the chief in anger and betrayal as they agreed that this was the case with them all. The chief looked down at the sea of disappointed faces and he believed them. Urged on by some latent cupid-like tendency and without thinking through the consequences of what he was about to say, he pointed out something that no one in this crowd of knuckleheads seemed to have realized: ‘Well, now you have hundreds of people to meet!’
There was a collective gasp as the potential of this gathered crowd of single people finally dawned on them. They started to look around with new purpose, seeking out someone in the crowd who could substitute for the date they had thought they were coming to meet.
Too late, the chief called out: ‘I still want to find whoever arranged this rally!’ But he knew he’d lost control of the situation. He realized it hadn’t been a very police-chiefy thing to do to point out the potential of all these desperate singles gathered together. He suspected he’d have some explaining to do for allowing this to continue. But that latent cupid-like impulse in him wouldn’t let him put a stop to it. It wasn’t like they were a threat. Of course any crowd could turn into a threat, but these people were looking for love, not war… He decided not to send in his riot police. ‘I’m ordering you all to dissipate!’ he yelled at them over his megaphone. He managed to sound fairly ferocious, but his heart just wasn’t in it. When he noticed some of his own riot officers flirting with individuals in the crowd he knew he’d really lost control. In defeat he yelled over the megaphone: ‘You have one hour to leave this area!’ Adding under his breath, ‘…whether you do it alone, or in pairs, that’s your call.’
Food Abuse
Rose opened the door of the refrigerator and a dozen tiny voices called to her. Various cries of: ‘Eat me! Eat me!’ Some variations on: ‘Hello, I’ve almost reached my Eat By Date. You should eat me now before it’s too late!’ A few more with authoritative tones announcing: ‘Attention. I’m out of date. I’ve ordered a replacement. You should recycle me into the organic waste chute now.’
The most pathetic was the tinny, fading whine of the pickled onions. ‘Please, I’m fifteen months out of date. Please throw me away…’
‘Not long now,’ Rose said to herself. ‘The power cell can’t last much longer.’
The protein was more persuasive with: ‘Build yourself up with my yummy goodness.’
The fruit was all: ‘Please think about eating me today. I’m best served fresh and I’m so good for you!’
The blue cheese was the most tempting, sexily purring: ‘Come and eat me. You know you want to!’
Rose found that she did indeed want to. She reached her hand into the refrigerator but the moment her fingers touched the packet, the refrigerator’s masterful tones intervened with: ‘Blue cheese at midnight? Do you think you should?’
Rose paused and thought about whether she really wanted the blue cheese. It probably would be a mistake to eat it before bed… there was a possibility of stomach cramps and nightmares… but she could already taste its creamy, tangy yumminess on her tongue. What the hell! She thought. ‘Yes,’ she said, clasping her hand around it.
Fridge wasn’t giving up that easily. ‘You realize that you’ve put on two kilograms in the past month. This brand of blue cheese has an average calorie count of 1500 per 100 grams. Eat the apple instead.’
‘Yes,’ the apple agreed, ‘Eat me!’
Rose didn’t feel like an apple, but 2 kilograms… ‘Maybe a glass of milk,’ she decided, reaching instead for the white carton. As her hand came into contact with it, it said: ‘Please empty my contents into the bio waste drain before disposing of my packaging into the recycle chute.’
‘You’re out of date?’ she moaned.
‘My use by date was the 26th of September, 2060.’
‘What’s today’s date?’
Dozens of tiny voices answered her. ‘Today is the 27th of September, 2060.’
‘One day?’ Rose said. ‘I’ll take my chances.’ She opened the pouring lid and sniffed inside the carton. It smelled okay to her. She took a careful sip. One thing you could tell definitely when it was off was milk and this milk tasted fine. ‘You taste fine!’ she told the milk.
‘I might taste fine,’ the milk sermonized, ‘but my nutritional value decreases with every day I’m left on the shelf. Eat By dates are calculated by dieticians to reflect the optimal…’
Rose interrupted the milk, having heard this argument so many times before. ‘You just want me to waste money throwing away perfectly good milk so that I’ll buy more.’
The milk had no programmed response to this unexpected comment. It was silent for a moment before defaulting back to: ‘Please empty my contents into the bio waste drain before disposing of my packaging into the recycle chute.’
‘How about I empty your contents into a glass from which I will drink before ramming your packaging up your arse?’
Once again the milk carton had no immediate response to this. It countered with: ‘Inappropriate disposal of waste is a civil crime which can result in fines up to 50,000 credits.’
‘Blah, blah, blah!’ Rose took the milk to the sink and grabbed a glass out of the clean dishwasher drawer. The milk was uncharacteristically silent as she poured its contents into the glass. Rose thought she might actually have won this battle of wills until the glass, as she raised it to her mouth piped up with: ‘The milk carton informs me that this milk is one day out of date. I suggest that you empty my contents into the bio-disposal chute before depositing me into the dirty dishwasher drawer.’
Rose was suddenly overtaken by an urge that for once she didn’t resist. She threw the glass of milk with some force to the tiled floor of the kitchen. Glass and milk smashed satisfyingly sending milk and glass shards over a surprisingly vast distance. She stormed out of the kitchen deliberately ignoring the glass’s dying words: ‘Please clean me up. Broken glass presents an injury risk when not disposed of in its proper recycle depository.’
Rose was wide-awake now. Hunger pangs replaced by a knot of anger in her belly. If only there was an easy way of silencing all those tiny voices! Sometimes she wished she lived a century ago when inanimate objects were just that, still and silent, not constantly nagging you and driving you to distraction. The odd case of food poisoning and accidental injury would be worth it for the peace… If only someone could come up with an artificial intelligence that was more aware of people’s moods; one that knew when to pipe up and when to remain silent; one that could actually improve your mood rather than having the negative effect. One that could persuade you in a way that made you think it was what you wanted. Maybe she wouldn’t have so much trouble with her weight if all the healthy foods weren’t so preachy and off putting, stressing her out so that she ended up eating something unhealthy just for spite!
Why not? Rose decided.
Poppy
Crate Surprise
The crate was large and solid: the outer shell made from 20 millimetre thick board; the inner padding from high-grade impact foam. The contents of the crate were more than valuable enough to justify the high cost of the packaging, but Barnabus had no idea of this when the crate was delivered to his one bedroom apartment in the Eureka B Tower. The courier seemed just as surprised to be delivering such a precious object to a lower floor apartment. This was strictly a top floor item. He eyed Barnabus with a mixture of suspicion, amusement, and envy; the crate was unmarked for privacy, but he’d delivered enough of these to know exactly what was inside.
He grinned as he thrust the delivery receipt pad at Barnabus. ‘Sign and date, Ta.’
Barnabus took the pad from the delivery guy. He was no less surprised to see the premium grade crate delivered to his apartment. The item he’d ordered didn’t come with that standard and he hadn’t ordered it special. He’d gone with the economy crate to suit the economy model that was supposed to be inside it. He didn’t say anything, though. He was hardly going to complain about his delivery being better than he’d ordered. So long as the cost on the invoice was the same… and it was. He signed for the delivery: Prof Barnabus Rhule 27/9/69, and stepped aside for the guy to wheel the crate into the main room of his modest apartment. Then urged the guy out again.
‘Are you sure you don’t want me to stay while you check the contents are all correct and accounted for?’ the delivery guy asked. The guy wanted desperately see the contents of the crate, Barnabus could tell – in his entire life he couldn’t remember a delivery guy ever volunteering to wait while he checked that his delivery was in order – but that was most definitely not going to happen.
‘Kind of you to offer, but no, I’m sure it will be fine.’ Barnabus closed and locked his door on the disappointed face of the delivery guy, then turned back to examine the crate.
It took up half the free space in his living area. He’d have to move the couch into the kitchenette to make more room before he could open it. He did so and turned his attention back to the crate.
‘Premium Grade Packaging,’ he said to himself. ‘I ordered Economy.’ He looked at the address label on the side of the crate. It was definitely his name and address. He pulled off the invoice envelope and opened it. The invoice was exactly the same as the one he had from when he made the order. Same model, same economy crate itemized. Clearly there was some mix up. Maybe they’d mislabelled the crate. His shipment had probably gone to some A-grader who’d be really pissed, while this one had come to him. Unless it was merely that they’d run out of economy crates and upgraded the packaging of his order without extra charge. It could happen, couldn’t it? It happened on flights all the time. Why not with deliveries?
There was one way to find out. If this was indeed his delivery then his unlocking code should open the crate. If not, then he’d have to contact the company and explain the mix up.
Barnabus moaned in anticipation of the bother and embarrassment that would involve. Just ordering the Sexbot on the grid had degraded his sense of self-worth; having to contact someone in the company personally to reveal himself as the kind of guy who was not only sexually frustrated enough to buy a Sexbot, but that his means were such that he could only afford the cheapest sale model… He was a humanities professor at a prestigious University. He was better than that. He should be better than that… What if it got out?
Why did they have to mix up my order? Why does this sort of thing always happen to me?
Barnabus was on the verge of beating his head against the wall, scolding himself. I knew I shouldn’t have ordered a Sexbot!
His heart was pounding in anticipation as he punched the code into the keypad on the side of the crate. He pressed the Enter key last and stepped back, holding his breath. For a moment there was no response from the crate and his chest sank with disappointment. It was the wrong crate after all. He’d have to arrange for this crate to be picked up and wait for his own order to be recovered, or reprocessed… how many more weeks would that take?
I should just cancel the order completely! He told himself. I had no business ordering it in the first place!
For moments his higher brain was resolved to write this whole incident off as a bad idea, but then his lower brain asserted itself with a desperate reminder: But I really want a Sexbot!
He’d never owned this kind of item before and when he’d first seen the ads he hadn’t given the idea any thought at all. He couldn’t afford it; he didn’t need it; the whole idea was preposterous! But the ads kept on popping up, and they were persuasive. Finally he’d started to question why the concept was so absurd. Isn’t it a good idea, really? He asked himself. After all, everyone’s doing it these days, and the economy model isn’t really so far out of my budget’s stretching abilities… When he’d received the stock clearance specials ad, the prices were such a steal that his final resistance had faded. He’d been tempted and seduced.
He’d ordered a nice enough model. Not the model he would have loved if only he could have afforded it, but this model was really quite good. He’d been anxious for delivery once he’d made the decision. When his doorbell finally rang and he’d seen the crate outside he’d felt like a boy on Christmas morning. But instead of a present he’d been delivered a lump of coal…
There was a low, almost undetectable hiss coming from the crate. Barnabus leaned in close to check it wasn’t his imagination. There was a definite hiss. The crate was depressurizing, which could only mean one thing… It was about to open! There was no mix up. This was his order! He was so excited he did a little jig.
Barnabus jumped out of the way as the front panel of the crate swung open to reveal its contents. Sitting enthroned amidst the deflated air bags and solid padding was the object of his desires: a perfect, life-size doll. She looked as though she was merely asleep, not powered off. Her skin was flawless, her face and body perfection, her seductive curves barely hidden by the modest red silkene lingerie. The red complimented her black hair, ivory skin and plump, red lips. Barnabus wondered what colour those almond shaped eyes would be when they opened. He’d ordered blue, but he’d also ordered a blonde sex doll with tan skin and large breasts… the economy model… the typical sex doll model… the one that was on sale.
This wasn’t that. This was a special order. He didn’t even recall this model from the catalogue… She was so realistic… too perfect to be a mere human, but not in the slightest bit Robotic. Of course, all of the D’Angelo Sexbots were very realistic in their way, but not like this. This must be their top-of-the-line A-grade model. There was definitely a mistake. This Robot clearly didn’t belong to him, and yet he was mesmerized.
Barnabus stepped closer, reaching out to touch the skin on her cheek. He pulled his hand back in shock. Her skin was warm and soft. It felt alive. He was expecting the Robot to be cold, or at least ambient temperature, but she was warm, living. She’s alive, he thought. She’s real. They’ve sent me a real woman by mistake! He knew a living woman couldn’t have survived inside the hermetically sealed, air-padded crate, but she was so real!
Knowing intellectually, if not emotionally that she was merely a sophisticated Robot, Barnabus worked up the courage to reach back to her face. This time he ran his hand across her cheek and into her silky black hair. It was soft and smooth. His eyes fell from her sleeping face, down her slender neck to her collarbone and below that to the seductive mounds of her breasts. Not the large, obvious breasts of a typical Sexbot, but smaller, round, a nice handful if he dared to reach down and caress those seductive twin mounds with their hard nipples pushing out from beneath their thin red silkene covering.
He felt like a pervert considering the invasion of a sleeping woman’s physical privacy, but she was so beautiful and she wasn’t a woman, she was his property, his Sexbot.
She’s not yours. It’s a mistake.
It’s not a mistake. Somehow she is mine; I know it! He’d paid for her. She belonged to him. She was his private sex slave. He could do with her as he willed and she would comply. Her whole existence was to give him pleasure; to answer his every desire. His loins were stirring just looking at her.
He could touch her. It wasn’t like she’d be insulted. Even her Robot brain wouldn’t know it until he activated her. He slid his fingers from her neck to her shoulder, collecting the strap of her camisole and running it down her arm, hoping that without the strap to hold it in place the loose fabric might fall away from her breast, leaving it naked.
He felt like a naughty schoolboy. His mouth dried up and he had to swallow and lick his lips to get his saliva working again. It wasn’t a good look. He knew it. Even though he was an attractive young man in his late thirties, he knew if the Sexbot had been a real woman with her eyes open it would have been a turn off for her. But her eyes were closed anyway, so it wasn’t an issue.
He scolded himself internally. See, this is why you need a Sexbot – you have no confidence in yourself with the ladies! Get in there! Drop that Teddy!
The fabric hadn’t fallen far enough. Barnabus reached his hand up to the Sexbot’s other shoulder and pushed that strap away too. This time the fabric did fall down to her waste, revealing those delicious breasts.
Barnabus’s throat dried up again and he swallowed. At the back of his mind a tiny voice was saying to him: If this is a mix-up you might have to send her back. If she’s not your property you shouldn’t use her. To which, he replied: It’s their fault if they’ve sent me the wrong model by mistake. They can hardly expect me not to take it out for a spin… Besides, it’s not like I’m going to break it or anything!
Barnabus’s loins had gone from tingling anticipation to full-on excited attention… or as he put it in his own head: His anaconda was on the hunt looking for a delicious rabbit to chase down a hole. ‘Hold on there. Big Boy,’ he warned it. He tried to picture those images in his mind that were guaranteed to settle his hungry snake but his eyes couldn’t look away from those perfect, pert, pink nipples resting like rosebuds on two luscious scoops of vanilla ice-cream. He had to touch them. He couldn’t hold back any longer. He reached both hands out and cupped a warm, firm, squashy breast in each. Just that touch was enough to bring his excitement to its peak. He definitely felt like a teenager again. Especially when he felt the impact of the hand that slapped him across the side of his head, followed by the stern words: ‘Just what the frick do you think you’re doing?’
Reality Check
Barnabus sprang back from the crate and its incensed contents, appalled by his actions and shocked to the core. ‘I’m so sorry!’ he apologized. ‘I thought you were… I didn’t think you were… I didn’t think…’
‘No, you didn’t think,’ she scolded him.
She is real! He thought. ‘How…?’ He was wondering how she survived inside that crate if she was a living woman, but the words died in his mouth. She was a Robot. She had to be. But why was she acting like this? Was it some special programming to go with this special order?’
The Woman/Robot was pulling the straps of her camisole up and struggling to escape the tight packaging. ‘How did I get in here?’ she said. ‘What the hell is going on?’
Barnabus stared in wonder. He knew she wasn’t real. No human woman was that perfect. Those eyes! They were like opals; seemingly every colour in a maze of patterns and shapes. They were mesmerizing. He wanted to look at them more closely but he didn’t dare go near the angry Robot. He couldn’t understand its/her behaviour. It wasn’t what he’d been expecting.
The Robot was trying to exit the crate while coming to grips with her new Robot body and systems. ‘Why does my voice sound so strange?’ She asked no one in particular. She then noticed her hands, holding them out in front and turning them, announcing: ‘These aren’t my hands!’ Then she noticed the rest of her body. She kicked her legs out in front of her, declaring: ‘My legs were never this good before.’ She ran her hands along the smooth skin of them, upwards from her knees, to her silky knickers and camisole, over her flat stomach and up to her pert breasts, marking off each item with: ‘Not my legs… not my stomach… not my boobs…’ finishing with a final: ‘What the…?’
Finally she managed to slide out of her seated position inside the crate. She wobbled a bit and Barnabus was tempted to go to her aid but a sharp look held him in his place. ‘I feel taller,’ she said. ‘These legs feel awkward. I can’t control them properly.’ She held herself steady with one hand on the side of the crate while she practiced controlling her legs, one at a time, lift and down, stretch out forwards and down, knee up, knee down, kick, kick, and finally uncertain baby steps until she’d gained her balance sufficiently to let go of the supporting crate.
‘Do you have a mirror?’ she asked Barnabus. ‘Full length, preferably.’
‘In the bathroom.’
The Robot looked around the small apartment, saying: ‘Which is where?’ But before Barnabus could direct her she noticed the only door other than the front door, the door to his small bedroom and bathroom. She headed over there without bothering to ask permission. Barnabus followed, politely keeping his distance. He thought it best to keep an eye on the obviously malfunctioning Robot. He realized he would most likely have to phone the factory as soon as he could safely leave her alone long enough to do it. Something told him the Robot might not be too pleased if he did it in front of her.
When she caught sight of herself in the bathroom’s full wall mirror her immediate reaction was to look around to see where the other woman was. She obviously didn’t recognize the reflection as her own, but accepted the undeniable fact quickly enough and stood mesmerized, examining herself. ‘Wow!’ she announced finally. ‘I’m fricken gorgeous! I don’t know what’s going on, but I like it!’ She did a little dance, posing her new body in various positions. ‘I can get used to this!’
Barnabus watched her with equal fascination and admiration. Her behaviour was strange, but she was certainly gorgeous… far more gorgeous than the Sexbot he’d expected. This was no dumb blonde bimbo. This was a fascinating, beautiful, realistic woman. She had to have been sent to him by mistake. She had to be their top of the line model, made by special order for some Skywalker trillionaire. He’d met regular Sexbots before. A couple of his richer, single associates had them and they were nothing like this. Though very human looking, they were obviously Robots. There was no real intelligence in their eyes when they spoke to you. No initiative; just programmed responses. They acted coquettishly, not aggressively.
The Sexbot moved to within centimetres of the mirror staring straight into her own eyes. She seemed to have gone into a sort of trance. After a while Barnabus wondered if she’d switched off. Maybe she was resetting? Maybe something in her operating system had become misaligned in some way during delivery and some emergency reboot had switched in? Whatever it was, when she finally turned away from the mirror she was acting more as Barnabus had expected a Sexbot would act. She appeared calm, her eyes distant, almost blank. ‘Please excuse my earlier behaviour. It seems there was some temporary glitch in my program as a result of rough shipping. Please be assured this will not reoccur. My systems have now realigned back to their normal state.’
Barnabus was relieved but also rather disappointed. She’d been more exciting before - more human. Now she seemed like the soulless toy he’d expected… Still, though, she was a gorgeous toy and he couldn’t wait to get his hands on her. But first, now that she was behaving rationally there was something he felt he had to clear up.
‘I’m afraid there’s been some sort of mix up. You’re not the model that I ordered.’
A flash of emotion shot across the Sexbot’s face. It was too quick for Barnabus to identify with conviction but he thought it looked like fear, or guilt, mixed with surprise and finally insult. ‘Are you not pleased with me?’ she asked.
Barnabus thought she sounded offended. ‘No!’ he denied. ‘I’m very pleased! Thrilled, in fact… I’m just concerned that they’ve sent you to me by mistake. I ordered the cheapest model and you’re obviously no cheap model. I’d say you’re a top of the range model. I’m afraid that my order may have been mixed up with someone else’s order. That you were sent to me by mistake.’
‘Are you Barnabus Rhule of Apartment 421 of the Eureka B Tower, Southgate Precinct of Melbourne Megalopolis?’
‘Yes!’ Barnabus confirmed.
‘Then there is no mistake. You are my master. I am the Sexbot that has been sent to fill your order.’
‘But I can’t afford an expensive model like you.’
‘It seems you were not informed of your lucky circumstance,’ the Sexbot told him. ‘You see…’ she hesitated for the briefest of moments and if she hadn’t been a Robot Barnabus would have sworn she was reaching for some plausible excuse as to why she was sent to him instead of the budget model that he’d ordered. Since she was a Robot he figured there was just a slight delay while she called up the relevant information. ‘You were the company’s one-hundred-thousandth customer, winning you a complimentary upgrade from basic model Sexbot to State-of-the-Art Concubot!’
‘A complimentary upgrade?’ Barnabus couldn’t believe his luck. ‘You mean I get you for no extra charge? There’s no mistake? You’re the model I get?’
‘There is no mistake. Of course, if you would prefer the original model that you ordered I’m sure that can be arranged.’
‘No!’ Barnabus said with rather more force than he’d intended. ‘No, I’m very happy with you. It’s wonderful! I’m delirious!’
The Concubot nodded her head in agreement, ‘I should think so!’
Barnabus was stunned. He couldn’t get it to sink in. He thought there must be some catch. He had to reiterate. ‘So you’re really mine? All mine?
‘Yes,’ the Concubot confirmed. ‘I’m really yours! All yours!’
‘Mine,’ Barnabus leered slightly, ‘To do with as I will.’
If it was possible, the Concubot looked nervous. ‘However,’ she interjected, ‘I’m obliged to clarify that as a state of the art Concubot prototype I’m not programmed for absolute compliance. Unlike the basic Sexbot model that is programmed merely for sex and has only the most basic intelligence program, top of the line models such as myself have the most expensive Artificial Intelligence Matrices. We not only look more realistically human than the basic sex model, we are also programmed to function in a realistically human manner. We are designed to be a companion in all aspects of our owner’s lives, not merely a sex partner.’
‘Which means?’
‘It means that although I am programmed to be compliant and obliging you cannot necessarily do with me what you will. You must persuade me as you would a real human woman.’
Barnabus wasn’t sure if he liked this new development. He’d been hoping a relationship with a Sexbot would be less complicated than one with a real woman. He’d hoped to be able to have sex when he wanted it; uncomplicated, fun, sex. ‘So, in other words,’ he said, disappointment dripping off every syllable, ‘even though I have my own private Sexbot, I’m still not getting any?’
‘Of course you will be getting some,’ the Concubot assured him. ‘After all, as a Concubot I have a heightened libido and unlike a regular human woman have no physical limitations that might get in the way of my willingness to perform, such as the risk of contracting some sort of sexually transmitted virus, or pregnancy. I have no insecurities as to my stunning attractiveness. I am programmed to please. After all, a violin is made for playing.’
Barnabus could feel his anaconda stiffening to attention. ‘So you will have sex with me?’
‘Yes, of course! You are my master, after all.’
‘Now?’
‘My systems aren’t fully aligned just yet. You wouldn’t want me to damage anything now, would you?’
Barnabus wasn’t sure if she meant the damage would be caused to her or to him, but he could wait a little longer. To be honest he wasn’t really in the mood anymore anyway. ‘No, of course not,’ he agreed.
‘Good!’ the Concubot smiled happily. ‘Now, why don’t we find me something more suitable to wear and then we can go shopping for clothes!’
Out and Proud
‘You want me to take you out in public?’
‘Of course!’
‘But, but…’
‘Are you ashamed to be seen with me?
‘You’re a Sexbot!’
‘Concubot,’ she corrected. ‘And Concubots need clothes! Do you want me to walk around in this all the time?’
Barnabus thought he wouldn’t mind that at all, but he suspected she wouldn’t like to hear it. ‘Of course not…’ he lied.
‘Then you will take me shopping for clothes!’
Barnabus had never fallen into a relationship so quickly. Five minutes and his funds were already set for a beating! ‘Can’t we just shop on the Grid?’
‘You are ashamed to be seen with me!’
‘No!’ he said. ‘Well…? You’re a Sexbot! It’s embarrassing!’ he admitted.
‘Oh, you’re so gauche!’
‘You’re insulting me now?’
‘You insulted me! Do you think I can’t pass as human?’
‘You’re too perfect! Everyone will know!’
‘How will they know? Would any of your associates seriously suspect that you would be in possession of a state of the art Concubot such as me? You’d be lucky to pay for my left foot on your credit rating!’
‘Oh, my God… You really are a woman!’
‘See? Now I even have you believing! Don’t worry… when I’m in some sloppy track suit and beanie, my natural radiance won’t be quite so obvious. I gather you have some such kind of apparel?’
‘Yes…’ Barnabus felt exhausted. ‘Maybe I’d like to reconsider the upgrade,’ he moaned. ‘If I wanted a wife I’d have married a real woman.’
The Concubot merely giggled and said: ‘You’re funny!’ She walked over to his closet and opened it up to see what clothes she could fit into without looking too weird.
‘Maybe I could sell you?’ Barnabus wondered. ‘If you’re worth as much as you say.’
‘You can’t sell me,’ she assured him. ‘That would void the contract. Not only would you lose me but you would also lose the deposit you paid on the basic model.’
‘But I can send you back… I mean… You’re obviously malfunctioning. I can’t believe that anyone would design a Concubot with such an abrasive personality!’
The Concubot looked at him, not with anger but with a sort of crestfallen disappointment. ‘Abrasive…?’
‘Abrasive! Harsh. Scratchy. Disagreeable. Rough. Unsmooth!’ Being a professor of literature, Barnabus had a good command of language.
‘Not: charmingly quirky? Playfully challenging?’
‘More obnoxiously confrontational.’ Barnabus could feel he finally had the upper hand. ‘I mean… I can’t be lumbered with some psycho Concubot! You could be dangerous!’
‘I’m not dangerous… I could never be dangerous… Don’t send me back… You can’t send me back…’ The Concubot slumped down onto his bed and buried her face in her hands. Her back heaved and she made whimpering noises. ‘You really hurt my feelings,’ she said, still hiding her face in her hands.
If Barnabus hadn’t known she was a Robot he would have sworn she was crying. He watched her for a few moments until he started to wonder if she was so advanced that she could actually cry. Had he actually made a Robot cry? What kind of brute could make a Robot cry? It’s no wonder I can’t keep a real girlfriend, he thought, if after only ten minutes with a Concubot, instead of us both on the bed having wild sex, she’s on the bed alone, crying. He felt a pang of guilt. He actually started to feel sorry for her. He sat down next to her and put his arm around her shoulders. ‘I’m sorry,’ he apologized. ‘I didn’t mean to… I mean… you’re a Robot… I didn’t realize you had feelings.’
‘Well… I do!’
‘I realize that now… Please don’t cry… I promise I’ll be more thoughtful now I know you have feelings.’
‘Promise you won’t send me back…’
‘First, let me see your face,’ Barnabus said.
The Concubot kept her face hidden. ‘First, promise you won’t send me back.’
‘Let me see your face.’
‘Not until you promise.’
‘Look at me.’
‘No.’
‘You’re not crying at all!’
‘Of course I am!’ The Concubot did her best to make sniffling, teary sounds; heaving her back for effect.
It was no longer fooling Barnabus. ‘Then show me!’
The Concubot made one final attempt to really cry before giving up and turning her face to him with an exasperated expression.
‘Just as I thought!’ he exclaimed triumphantly. ‘You weren’t crying at all!’
‘Well, I’m a Robot for heaven’s sake!’
‘Aha… Aha!’ Barnabus was pointing accusingly at her, bouncing about on his feet, revelling in his victory… until it occurred to him he hadn’t really had any kind of victory… he was actually only being rather petty. When the Concubot finally asked him if he was done yet he agreed that he was and sat back down on the bed next to her.
‘I could cry if I wanted to,’ she told him. ‘I just don’t choose to right now… You’re not going to send me back though, are you?’ she asked. Under her breath, so faintly that Barnabus couldn’t hear it she added, ‘I really can’t allow that…’
‘I don’t suppose so,’ Barnabus said, ‘if you’ll be nicer to me.’
The Concubot rolled her eyeballs inside their sockets and gave a loud, exasperated sigh. Flopping back on the bed, spreading her legs and throwing her arms out, said: ‘Okay, then, get it over with! DO me!’
Oddly, Barnabus didn’t find her invitation at all inviting. Rather than leaping on her as she obviously expected him to do, he merely stood over her and said bemusedly: ‘You’re not acting at all in the way I expected a Sexbot would act.’
‘Oh, so I suppose you expected me to be all sexy and inviting?’
‘Well… to be honest… yes!’
‘All… “Oh, just take me big boy…” even though we’ve only just met?’
‘Pretty much,’ Barnabus admitted. ‘I mean, you are a Sexbot, not a Nannybot, or an R’au-pair. I mean, your function is pretty much for just the one purpose: SEX!’
‘Valid point,’ the Concubot agreed. Barnabus’s victory was only fleeting however as she continued with: ‘If I was just your run of the mill standard basic model Sexbot. I, however, am as superior to that as an anteater is to an ant… as an eagle is to a chicken… as a horse is to the poo it just shat out onto the hay in its stall! I, sir, am a top of the line Companion-Class Concubot! I’m designed not just for sex but as a life companion; a charming conversationalist at dinner parties; a stunning escort to fancy functions. I can converse in a dozen languages on any of a hundred thousand topics. I’m programmed as a qualified physiotherapist and a cordon bleu chef to name just a few of my many skills! The day that you had the phenomenally good fortune to put in the one-hundred-thousandth order for an Angelo D’Angelo Sexbot, was the luckiest day of your life! And if you don’t appreciate that, then maybe you don’t deserve me. Maybe you should send me back so I can go to someone who’ll appreciate just what an unbelievably lucky son-of-a-bitch they really are!!!’
‘Jeez…’ Barnabus was flabbergasted. He had to sit on the bed just so he could devote his whole brain function to taking it all in without worrying about that whole balancing thing one had to do whilst standing. ‘I had no idea,’ he said. ‘I guess I owe you an apology.’
‘Not at all!’ the Concubot said. ‘I’m here to fulfil your every wish and desire. You need never apologize to me. Not unless you want to, in which case I’ll accept your apology with grace and gratitude that you’re such a caring owner… Owner… ooh, I don’t like that term… Way too Slave Trade… What should I call you?’
‘Master…?’ Barnabus suggested.
‘Master? What am I, a Genie? Anyway, it’s still way too Slave Trade. A man of your liberal values would never be a part of that kind of exploitative, fetishistic, political incorrectness. Just imagine when we’re out in public or present at a gathering of your friends and peers if I called you Master… How would that appear?’
‘Well, I guess you should call me Barnabus,’ Barnabus said.
‘Yes, but what is our relationship to one another?’
‘Well, we don’t really have a relationship as yet. We’ve just met. I don’t want to offend you but the only relationship we have right now is that of purchaser and newly delivered merchandise.’
‘Well, you hardly purchased me! The minuscule amount of credit you parted with wouldn’t pay for my left toe. You won me… that is, you won the privilege to have me with you. Consider your down payment as the cost of the ticket you purchased in the prize draw!’
Barnabus understood now that he should be grateful but he was having a hard time getting himself to actually feel it. ‘Can’t we just have sex?’
‘Are you really in the mood to have sex with me right now?’
‘If it will shut you up!’
Barnabus regretted having said that the moment it left his mouth.
The Concubot was actually lost for words for about a second before she stood up and stared down at him with a searing Governess-droid look. ‘It’s no wonder you had to buy a companion. No real woman would ever put up with that kind of disrespecting attitude. You must be the loneliest man on the planet! I can’t speak to you! I can’t even look at you!’ she turned her back on him.
Barnabus wondered if he could slip away without her noticing. She probably had super Robot hearing and all kinds of motion sensors, so he guessed that wouldn’t work. A part of him baulked at apologizing to a machine, but this machine really did act like a real woman and the only hope of alleviating the anger of a real woman in this situation would be his delivery of a most heartfelt apology, a down on his knees, begging forgiveness while confessing what a thoughtless brute he was, kind of apology. Or in his case a quick exit and hope to never come across the woman ever again. He’d never met a woman he’d thought worth that kind of supplication.
He found himself faced with a dilemma. He was kind of stuck with this Robot after all. He could send her back but that would be like refusing first prize in a lottery. If she was really as amazing as she said she was, he could be onto a good thing here. After all, she was beautiful and if he ever did seduce her into bed, as a Sexbot, or Concubot as she’d put it, she was sure to have all kinds of skills to make up for her annoying personality. Maybe her personality could be reprogrammed? And aside from those considerations, if he made this obviously slightly psychotic Robot really angry, what might she do to him? He was quite sure she would be capable of Bobbitting him and he didn’t want to be the first man to be Bobbitted by a Concubot.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said.
Obviously that wasn’t enough to make the Concubot forgive him straight away but he did notice a slight relaxing of her shoulder muscles and she stopped tapping her foot.
‘So, what can I do to make you forgive me?’ Barnabus asked.
‘Well, you can’t make me do anything,’ the Concubot pointed out first, ‘but I might consider forgiving you…’
‘If…?’
‘For a start you can take me shopping for decent clothes!’
‘So long as you understand that I’m living on the wage of a Professor of Literature; my budget doesn’t stretch to the kind of designer duds that a Concubot of your quality is no doubt accustomed to.’
The Concubot didn’t look happy about this but she conceded. ‘Very well, I will debase myself and forego designer “duds” as you so charmingly put it.’ Scorn dripped off every syllable of the word charmingly. ‘But you must understand that I have my standards. I won’t be seen in any cheap rubbish. It must be of some quality.’
Barnabus bit back any response he might have had to that comment. ‘Target it is then.’
‘This is a place of some quality?’ the Concubot asked.
‘Some quality… Yes.’
‘Well then, Professor. This makes me happy.’
‘How happy?’ Barnabus asked hopefully.
The Concubot posed coquettishly. ‘Very happy…’
Barnabus took a cautious step towards her. ‘Happy enough to make us both happy?’
‘Which us are you referring to,’ the Concubot smiled, dropping her gaze to his trouser area. ‘You and me, or you and he?’
Rose
Steering Towards Ruin
‘Please make a U-turn at the next bend.’
Rose ignored the navigation system’s advice and kept driving in the same direction.
It wouldn’t be dismissed so easily, though. ‘Turn right at the next intersection,’ it insisted.
‘No, I’m going straight ahead,’ Rose told it.
‘The most direct route to your destination lies in the opposite direction to that in which you are currently travelling.’
‘I don’t care. There’s less traffic this way.’
The navigation system disagreed. ‘There is actually more traffic in the direction in which you are heading.’ To prove its point it flashed a satellite image of the surrounding roads. A yellow circle picked out the vehicle she was travelling in, with red arrows showing the direction in which she was heading and green arrows showing the recommended route. There was indeed less traffic in the direction the navigation system preferred.
‘I don’t like making right turns.’ Rose admitted.
‘Your automated driving system can do the driving for you if you will switch it on… Please take the fourth exit at the next roundabout.’
‘I don’t want to turn it on. I don’t trust it.’
‘Automated driving systems are statistically 98% more reliable than their human counterparts.’
‘Until they malfunction,’ Rose countered. ‘Then they’re 100% fatal.’
‘Those figures are incorrect… Please turn right at the next intersection.’
‘I’m gonna turn left!’ Rose hissed.
‘Please turn right at the next intersection.’
Rose wasn’t sure what annoyed her most, the insistent nagging from the navigation system or the fact that its computerized voice remained so calm and steady all the time it was driving her into a screaming rage. She’d set out this morning in such a positive mood, but once again, the annoying voices, driving her to distraction. Rose swung the steering wheel hard to the left at the intersection, not waiting for the car that was heading straight in that direction from the right of the intersection. If the other car hadn’t been using its automated driving system its human driver probably wouldn’t have been able to react in time to avoid a collision. If Rose had been using her automated driving system her car wouldn’t have pulled out in front of the other car in the first place.
‘You have committed traffic violation 107 B,’ the navigation system informed her. ‘You have received one demerit point. To avoid further violations please engage your automated driving system.’
Rose was in shock from the near fatal collision, thinking: I was distracted and could have killed myself! There was nothing like facing one’s own mortality to make one lose one’s resolve to hold petty resistance to the nagging computerised consciences surrounding one. Nevertheless, one was still in a bad mood.
Admitting no wrongdoing or remorse she yelled, ‘O Bloody K then!’ and violently prodded her finger into the big green button on the dashboard that engaged the autopilot before folding her arms in a huff and slamming herself back in her seat, mumbling under her breath, ‘Bloody computers!’
By the time Rose reached her destination she’d managed to calm down somewhat. She’d eaten an entire box of Tim Tams to achieve it but she’d managed. Her car pulled into a space in the massive underground parking garage. Rose was annoyed to see many empty spaces far closer to the elevator but didn’t fancy another argument with her car. At least it had shut up and left her in peace after she gave up and let it drive itself. As a petty payback she slammed the door closed on exiting, quickly engaging its lock down before it could lecture her about suitable force. She strode across to the elevator and pressed the up button.
After a moment the doors opened and Rose stepped inside, pressing the surface level button without bothering to take note of which floor she’d come from. Unaware of this oversight at the time, Rose would have to check each of the ten levels on her return. A calmer, more pragmatic person would have avoided this inconvenience.
Rose was oblivious to her future annoyance as she rode up in the elevator. Her attention now focused on the reason she’d come to this location in the first place. The results of her sociological experiment were about to be revealed.
Love Rally
It was one of those truly glorious October afternoons when there’s barely a cloud in the sky and the air is warm with the gentlest of breezes to keep it fresh. Federation Square was gleaming in its earthy tones. Rose liked the way the plaza sloped and meandered as though it was following the natural shape the land had been centuries ago before the city smothered it in concrete and steel. She liked the chaos of the irregular geometric shapes of the paving and stone and the glass of the buildings: trapezoids and triangles and parallelograms. Just about the only square in Federation Square was the one in its name.
Rose liked this place but she hadn’t only picked it because of that, she also picked it because of its location. There were restaurants and bars here as well as a river and several major transport hubs. It was convenient and practical and one of the few places in the city where the sun actually managed to find its way to the ground.
Rose arrived, camera in hand at 15:30 with a half hour to scope out the area before anyone was supposed to arrive. Every night for the past two weeks she’d been working on her special project developing a personality program that could interact in a pleasing manner. By the time she’d perfected it she’d forgotten how she’d started out on the project. She’d been testing it in chat rooms on line. She’d created a program to analyse human interactions in dating rooms. Comparing the successful approaches with the failures and rating each strategy by degrees.
She’d compiled a database of the things that humans found most attractive, including physical descriptions, personality types, conversational humour, and seductive phrases. She divided the traits into various types and created several avatars, both male and female to match each type. She set each one up with its own account in a dozen or so dating chat rooms and monitored their successes and failures. Finally she chose the most successful types and traits of all the avatars and combined them into one male and one female avatar to set up her final test.
She had them arrange to meet as many of the chat room participants as possible at 16:00 Saturday afternoon under the main screen in Federation Square opposite Flinders Street Station. If even one person showed up Rose would gauge her experiment a success. She might even submit it as her project for the science fair at the end of the year.
Rose sat quietly with her camera on a bench opposite the main screen ready to start filming if anyone turned up holding a single red rose, which was the way the dates were supposed to identify themselves to her avatars.
At 15:45 a middle-aged woman arrived and sat down on one of the seats near the main screen. Rose’s heart pounded in excitement until she realized the woman wasn’t carrying a rose. She must have been there for some other reason.
Rose was so certain at that moment that her experiment would fail that she was mentally shoving her camera back into her bag and making her way back down to her car. She was telling herself she was an idiot for believing that a computer program could seduce anyone into meeting them for a date. But it wasn’t 16:00 yet, so she waited.
Other people trickled into the square but none of them were carrying roses. Some gathered under the main screen while others wandered about aimlessly… or so Rose thought at first. Then she started to notice the furtive glances. They were looking around at the other people gathered around the city square the same way that she was watching them. Rose started to wonder something and just before 16:00 hours she pressed the record button on her camera.
Immediately a tinny voice issued from beneath her coat where the camera was mostly concealed. ‘Filming in a public square is not recommended…’
‘Shut up!’ Rose hissed. ‘Override! Override!’
The camera kept on with its annoying lecture, ignoring her panicked efforts to shut it up. The last thing she needed was any attention drawn to her. ‘Failure to comply with these regulations could result in a fine of up to 50,000 Ran.’ Rose’s parents had brought the camera back from South Africa after one of their trips.
‘Cutting edge technology,’ Rose muttered under her breath. ‘Stupid thing doesn’t even know what country it’s in!’
‘You have been warned!’ It finished threateningly.
‘Yes, yes, I’ve been warned. Now shut the frick up and do as you’re told!’ At least it did keep filming. ‘Who comes up with this shart?’ Rose asked herself.
With some effort, Rose managed to turn her attention back to the scene in front of her.
Only moments later a young man came striding into the square holding a rose in his hand. A dozen faces, both female and male turned to him. Two of them, a young female and an older male produced from somewhere about their persons a matching rose.
‘Sneaky,’ Rose mumbled to herself. ‘They were waiting to see if they liked the look of their date before giving themselves away!’ Rose’s heart was pounding in excitement. It was all she could do to stop herself from screaming and jumping around in a victorious dance. Three people! Her AIs had convinced three people to meet them! Her experiment was a success!
She watched as the three slowly approached each other. Looking confused that there were three of them and then even more confused as more of the surrounding crowd produced roses. Rose’s excitement went into supernova. ‘Science fair, here I come!’ she whispered to herself.
Then just after 16:00 hours a crowd of people bearing roses flooded into the square from Flinders Street Station… then more from other directions.
Rose filmed in shock as not a few, or even dozens of people flooded into the square. Hundreds of rose-bearing hopefuls crowded into the square. There was chaos as they mingled calling out the names of the avatars they’d arranged to meet with. There was confusion and amusement, even disappointment and anger as they realized that they’d all been lured here under some false pretence.
Rose kept her camera on but hidden discretely under her cardigan. Fortunately nobody seemed to notice her sitting there across the square, filming or not. Rose tended to have that effect on people. Sometimes, most of the time in fact, Rose felt as though she were invisible. People either didn’t notice her at all or they dismissed and ignored her after the most cursory of glances.
Rose was at best plain, at worst, homely. There was almost nothing about her to make people notice her. She was short but not so short that she was interestingly short, like a dwarf or a midget, just short enough to be singularly unimpressive of height. She wasn’t fat, which would have made people notice her if only for the wrong reasons, but she was far from thin. She was unfortunately tubby, which is fine for a middle-aged woman who’s already married with children and a home of her own, but tragic for a single girl whose lack of seductive curvature or athletic grace renders her invisible to any testosterone driven males in the vicinity. And no, even if she was the lesbian that the males who couldn’t avoid her assumed, or hoped, she was, she wasn’t getting any more interest from the females around her than she was from the males.
Her face was sadly lacking any attractive feature. Her eyes were small, as was her mouth, her nose, her cheekbones, and chin. There was nothing distinctive about her: no scars; no hideous deformities, just an utter lack of character or sparkle. Her colouring was unfortunate: her skin a pale, sickly white between the mass of light beige freckles. Her eyes were the palest of grey.
Her hair was distinctive but not in a good way - as a rosy-cheeked baby her brilliant mop of golden curls and porcelain skin had made her look like a china doll - now her hair was just a carroty frizz that looked like an orange sea sponge growing out of her head. She kept it as short as possible and wore hats a lot. Sometimes she wondered if the main reason she liked lab work was because she got to wear hair caps.
She never wore makeup. The few times in high school that she’d attempted to add some colour to her face it only emphasized her clownish appearance, making her an object of pity and ridicule. It’s better to go unnoticed than suffer through that kind of attention. So she covered her hair and embraced invisibility. Dullness had become a way of life for Rose. Now the only remarkable thing about her was her brilliant mind. Unfortunately that was also invisible.
The upside of invisibility was that Rose made a brilliant spy. She was able to sit in the square right in the midst of the swelling crowd and film it all without ever being noticed. She feared for a while that if somehow this huge crowd of romantic wannabes identified her as the perpetrator of this dating farce she might be drawn and quartered, but her invisibility served her well.
To make things worse, with such a huge crowd suddenly gathered in a public place it wasn’t long before the riot police arrived assuming it was some kind of unlicensed rally. Luckily they didn’t come in heavy-handed and start breaking heads. Even they could see that the participants of this unplanned rally weren’t dressed for trouble. They were all dressed in their nicest clothes and all holding roses. At worst it was some sort of peace rally, but none of them seemed to know any more about that than the police.
The Chief of the Riot squad climbed to the top of the largest glue cannon vehicles and called out on his megaphone: ‘I want to speak with whoever arranged this rally!’
Of course Rose was far too terrified to identify herself to him. Instead she mentally checked the possibilities that any of this could be traced to her. She was fairly certain that she’d covered her tracks; her avatars were anonymous. She realized her hopes of presenting this experiment as her entry in the science fair were evaporating but she kept filming, if only for her own records. Maybe one day…
‘Why are you all carrying roses?’ the chief asked over his megaphone. He couldn’t make any sense of the chorus of confused, angry, and amused responses. ‘Would the person in charge please step forward?’
The rose wielding crowd all looked around curiously waiting for someone to step forward. As far as each of them knew there was no one in charge, they were simply here to meet their dates. ‘I’m just here to meet a date,’ one person piped up. Others agreed. Rose thought she should really step forward and admit her guilt, but her feet wouldn’t co-operate.
Finally a middle-aged man stepped forward, not to admit he was in charge, obviously, but to explain why they were all there. ‘This isn’t a rally,’ the man explained. ‘It seems we’re all victims of some cruel joke!’
‘Cruel joke!’ Rose muttered to herself. ‘That’s a bit harsh!’
‘It seems we all arranged to meet with someone on the Grid,’ the man continued.
‘Are you saying this is some kind of mass dating rally?’ The chief asked.
‘It’s not a rally!’ the man denied. ‘We didn’t know there were going to be all these other people here!’
‘I came to meet Pete Marsh,’ a woman in the crowd volunteered.
‘I came to meet Daisy Flowers,’ a teenage boy called out.
‘River Glenn,’ someone else called out.
‘Tom Forest.’
‘Holly Wood.’
And so on.
‘Don’t you see? We all thought we’d come here to meet a date… just one person, not hundreds!’
Everyone in the crowd looked up at the chief in anger and betrayal as they agreed that this was the case with them all. The chief looked down at the sea of disappointed faces and he believed them. Urged on by some latent cupid-like tendency and without thinking through the consequences of what he was about to say, he pointed out something that no one in this crowd of knuckleheads seemed to have realized: ‘Well, now you have hundreds of people to meet!’
There was a collective gasp as the potential of this gathered crowd of single people finally dawned on them. They started to look around with new purpose, seeking out someone in the crowd who could substitute for the date they had thought they were coming to meet.
Too late, the chief called out: ‘I still want to find whoever arranged this rally!’ But he knew he’d lost control of the situation. He realized it hadn’t been a very police-chiefy thing to do to point out the potential of all these desperate singles gathered together. He suspected he’d have some explaining to do for allowing this to continue. But that latent cupid-like impulse in him wouldn’t let him put a stop to it. It wasn’t like they were a threat. Of course any crowd could turn into a threat, but these people were looking for love, not war… He decided not to send in his riot police. ‘I’m ordering you all to dissipate!’ he yelled at them over his megaphone. He managed to sound fairly ferocious, but his heart just wasn’t in it. When he noticed some of his own riot officers flirting with individuals in the crowd he knew he’d really lost control. In defeat he yelled over the megaphone: ‘You have one hour to leave this area!’ Adding under his breath, ‘…whether you do it alone, or in pairs, that’s your call.’
