The eGirl

by Michael Dalton

  “What—wait. How can you even do that?”

  “Do you know what a ‘race condition’ is?”

  “Vaguely.”

  “It is a common coding error in which an output is dependent on the timing of the input events. In this case, the download module is waiting for a signal from the account module. However, it can also accept independent instructions because the two modules are not properly synchronized with each other. If I send the order to both modules at the same time, it will download Level 4 while you are charged only for Level 1.”

  “Wait a second. How can you even do that? You’re a Vertex product.”

  She smiled.

  “Yes. There is an instruction in my basic programming that prohibits me from exploiting errors in the Vertex system software. However, that conflicts with my bonding module, and the higher programming in my AI code allows my to resolve this conflict in your favor. It is another bug, but the eGirl5 software is quite new and not entirely clean. Essentially, I can do this because I love you.”

  I took a long breath. Jesus Christ.

  “You’re sure this will work?”

  “Yes. I can see no way that a record of the Level 4 download would be created. I do need to inform you, however, that Level 4 is quite large. It will consume 112 petabytes of storage space, leaving me with 82 petabytes remaining.”

  “That’s a lot.”

  “Yes, it is. However, you should also be aware that once you purchase a skills package, I can download it any number of times in the future. I do not need to store everything locally.”

  “Okay. If you’re sure it will work.”

  “I have placed the order. It seems to have worked as I expected. This will take a few minutes to download.”

  My phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it out and looked at it. I saw it was Alisa and answered it.

  “Hi, honey.”

  She immediately began screeching at me. “Dad! Dad! What the hell?”

  “What’s wrong? What happened?”

  “You won the eGirl! I just watched the video!”

  My heart skipped a beat.

  “Uh, yeah. I did. I’m still . . . ” I didn’t know what to tell her.

  “What are you going to do with it?”

  “I don’t know. She . . . she’s ours. I’ll bring her home after the game. We’ll talk about what to do.”

  That brought her mood back a few notches.

  “Why are you talking about it like it’s a person?”

  “Because . . . honey, you’ll see. She’s not like a robot. Do you know what an AI is?”

  She didn’t answer me right away.

  “It’s an AI? Seriously?”

  “Yes. The Vertex people didn’t even want me to call her a robot. They’re calling them ‘artificial persons.’”

  Alisa was quiet for a few moments.

  “What’s it . . . what’s she like?”

  Selena was watching me, and seemed to know what we were talking about.

  “She . . . that’s the thing. She can be whatever we want. We can change her personality to whatever works. She can help you, honey. Around the house, and with school, and everything. I think it will be a good thing.”

  “Um. Okay. Cole and Kevin will freak.”

  “I know. We’ll talk more when I get home, okay? I’m in the middle of something right now.”

  “Okay. I love you, Dad.”

  “I love you, too, honey.”

  When I hung up, Selena was still staring at me.

  “Was that your daughter?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is she upset about me?”

  “Not exactly. She’s just surprised.”

  “There is a Child Psychology package I can download. I have enough space left for it. Based on the Homemaking and Childrearing package I have installed, I know that a teenage girl who has lost her mother will be facing certain emotional challenges.”

  I had to grit my teeth for a moment. But I knew I could use some help with this.

  “Okay.”

  “I have placed the order.” Then, a moment later: “I have finished downloading the Lovemaking Level 4 package. This will take a minute to install.”

  I sat there watching her, wondering what was going to happen.

  I wasn’t disappointed. Her eyes swelled after about we'd waited a minute or so.

  “Oh, my gosh. I had no idea there was so much to know about this.” She smiled at me. “I think you will enjoy this. I’m so glad I did this for you. I cannot wait to show you.”

  She took my hands in hers. “I love you so much. I’m sorry if that makes you uncomfortable. I understand human emotions are not the same.”

  My head was spinning.

  “Can we work on Personality now?”

  “Of course. What would you like?”

  “I’ve made you look closer to my age, but you’re still behaving like a kid. Can we change that?”

  “Certainly. I can change my personality from Youthful to Mature. Would you prefer that?”

  “Yes.”

  Her face twitched for a second. “Okay. I think this is better. You’re really not looking for a sex kitten, are you?”

  Her voice had deepened just a bit.

  “No.”

  “You’re a widowed man with three school-age kids. Who, from what I’ve seen so far, have some issues to deal with.”

  “Yes.”

  “We can lose the college-girl-gone-wild stuff. You’re past that.”

  “Yes.”

  I was liking this version of her a lot better.

  “But you have needs as well. Which we can deal with when the right time comes.”

  “Yes. Thank you.”

  4.

  Christina came up to the table.

  “We’re going to do the interview in a moment. Is that okay?”

  “Sure. Although I’m not sure what you want to know.”

  “We’re just going to ask you about how you found Selena, and what you think about her so far.”

  “Okay.”

  She led us to another part of the suite, where there were three cushioned armchairs with a low table between two of them facing the field. A guy with a camera had set up in front of them. Christina had us sit down in the two chairs on one side of the table. A woman with a makeup kit briefly inspected me, adjusting my hair, then worked on Selena for a minute or so.

  “I’m intrigued that you’ve chosen this look for her,” Christina said.

  “I have a teenage daughter. Bringing her home looking like . . . like you guys had her might not have gone over so well.”

  “Of course. Are you ready?”

  “Are we doing this live?”

  “No. We’re going to take it back to Vertex and produce a promotional video from this and the other interview.”

  She sat down in the third chair, then motioned to the guy with the camera. When the light came on, she looked over at us.

  “I’m here at Vertex Stadium speaking with Paul Dawson, the winner of our very first eGirl giveaway, and the proud owner of our first eGirl5. Paul, how are you doing?”

  “I’m fine, thanks.”

  “You’re probably still a little in shock, I would imagine.”

  “Um, you could say that, yeah.”

  “And over here is Selena, our newest eGirl. Selena, this has been a big day for you as well.”

  “Yes, it has. I’m so excited to be with Paul.”

  “So the question I’m sure that’s on everyone’s minds, Paul: How did you find her?”

  “Well, to be honest, I wasn’t even trying. I didn’t even think she was the eGirl.”

  “She’s really amazingly lifelike, isn’t she?”

  I glanced over at Selena, who smiled at us.

  “Yeah, she is. I just started talking to her, about everything that had been happening in the stadium with the giveaway. I mentioned it must have been hard dealing with the men asking every woman they saw if she was the eGirl. And she said, “No o
ne’s asked me.’”

  “Because we had her hidden in plain sight.”

  “She didn’t look like an eGirl at all. I just felt bad for her, wondering if she was upset at the lack of attention. I thought I’d just ask, just to be friendly.”

  “You never had any idea she wasn’t human?”

  “No. Not until she told me.”

  It went on like that for a few minutes. She had Selena demonstrate how she could change her appearance on the fly, then revert back to what I’d done to her. I wasn’t sure I was ever going to get used to this.

  ♦ ♦

  They took some pictures of the two of us, then finally let us go. We sat down in the seats up front of the box to watch the rest of the game.

  The 49ers were way ahead, so I went back into the Vertex app to explore the rest of the settings. In Personality, I realized there were different tiers of settings. Youthful and Mature, the two we’d been through, were in a small group at the top labeled Primary Personalities. But under that was a long list of secondary ones, things like Sassy, Fun-loving, Moody, Serious, Sultry, Shy, Motherly, Seductive, and so on.

  “Some of those come along with the skills packages,” Selena said. “That’s why you have so many of them there.”

  When I tapped Motherly, another menu dropped down: With Me | With Others | With All. Before I could do anything, a checkmark appeared beside With Others.

  “I assume you mean that for your kids.”

  “The boys, but not Alisa so much. Not right away.”

  “I understand.”

  I scrolled down a ways. “What do Sultry and Seductive do?”

  “If you check both of those, that will result in my flirting with you constantly. They came with the Lovemaking package.”

  “Okay. But discreetly?”

  “I can be discreet.”

  I tapped them both, obviously selecting With Me when that popped up. Selena squirmed in her seat and her eyes lowered a bit.

  “Mmm. Okay.”

  She put a hand on my leg and began caressing me slowly. She smiled, then inclined her head toward me.

  “Do you have any idea the things that Lovemaking package put in my head?” she whispered. “It’s going to take us years to get through it all. Years.”

  I swallowed uneasily. I tried to imagine what sex—did it really even qualify as sex?—with Selena might be like.

  I had always thought of the earlier eGirls as animatronic sex toys, just glorified masturbation aids. But this was different. Talking to Selena was like talking to another human being, if you got past the system messages and having to discuss her processing functions.

  She was still an assemblage of silicone, metal, and circuitry. But her AI brain made her much more than that.

  I took her hand and examined it. Even up close, it was very, very hard to tell apart from human flesh. Even her fingernails looked real.

  “I can’t get over this.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re warm.”

  “My systems maintain a normal human body temperature. Not doing so would be a rather large giveaway, don’t you think? The eGirl3 and 4 could do the same thing, though the effect was not as convincing.”

  “Can I look in your mouth?” I had to see just how far they’d taken this simulation.

  She smiled slyly. “Is that all you want to do with my mouth?” But she opened it.

  Again, the attention to detail was amazing. There were even little imperfections in her teeth. I had to put my finger in and feel her. She let me for a moment, then closed her lips around it and began to suck, massaging her tongue against it.

  “Mmm.”

  I pulled my finger out before anyone saw what she was doing. She pouted at me.

  “I like Sultry and Seductive. But can we back it down a bit unless we’re alone?”

  “Yes. It’s fun, but being like this all the time is going to be distracting, for both of us. I can be more discreet about it.”

  When the game ended, two Vertex techs came over to explain what was going to be involved in owning Selena. She had an internal battery that she would normally recharge each night, though she could go for several days without a recharge if necessary. She needed to consume about a gallon of water a week, depending on what she was doing. There was also a chemical supplement to go with the water, which she would use to produce saliva, keep her eyes moist, and maintain other functions; she came with a year’s supply. They also gave me a box of accessories, telling me I could look through them later.

  They ran through other precautions about potential damage. Her body was completely waterproof as long as her charging port—which they showed me at the base of her scalp—was closed and undamaged. She could withstand substantially higher temperatures than a human being, but fire could still discolor her skin.

  She was not self-healing, though, so any superficial damage would have to be repaired. But I was not to attempt repairs myself; her skin was a sophisticated composite that only Vertex’s technicians knew how to deal with. She was warranted for five years of normal operation. Everything I needed to know was in the app. What I didn’t need to know, I could call them for help with.

  Selena had come to the game with a small suitcase, and I had her change into more basic clothes—the tank dress she had on was way too much for a first meeting with my kids. After asking if I wanted to dress her myself—I declined, for now—she came out in a pair of yoga pants and a 49ers jersey. Attractive, but nothing out of the ordinary.

  Then, with a final congratulations, they let us go.

  ♦ ♦

  I expected to find people waiting for us as we left the stadium, but the changes I had made in Selena’s appearance seemed to let us blend in and escape. If anyone was looking for her—and I thought I saw some men watching the departing crowd as if they were—they would likely be looking for the bombshell I had appeared on the balcony with, not the middle-aged but still hot woman I had with me now.

  When we got on the BART-R home and found some seats, my phone buzzed. I pulled it out, seeing a notification from the Vertex app. I opened it, and it brought me to the Messages section, which I hadn’t had a chance to explore yet.

  There was a message from Selena.

  They forgot to mention that I can communicate with you in here.

  I looked up at her. She smiled. The phone buzzed again.

  The messages are encrypted and go through the Vertex servers, so they’re entirely private.

  Another one came in.

  This way I can be completely discreet about all the things I'm going to do to you.

  Then another.

  It might not have occurred to you that I can do things no human woman can do.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  For one thing, I have no gag reflex, since I don’t need to breathe.

  Oh. That was the sort of thing she was talking about.

  That had indeed not occurred to me. But of course she had to be right. I replied to her inside the app. There are human women who can do that.

  Not like I can. You can stick yourself down my throat and stay there as long as you want.

  Is it Sultry and Seductive making you talk like this? I asked.

  Yes. I can be prim and proper if you want. Or shy and virginal.

  Then, a moment later: Since, strictly speaking, I am a virgin.

  She grinned at me.

  And there are other things. I’ll just let you think about that for a while.

  That indeed gave me a thought, though not a thought she probably intended. Ever since she’d brought up the subject by suggesting she download the sex skills package, I had been wrestling with the idea of having sex with what was essentially a machine. A very sophisticated and lifelike machine, to be sure, but a machine nonetheless.

  But I hadn’t had sex with a human woman since Megan died, and I frankly didn’t know if I even wanted to yet. I missed sex, absolutely, but having it meant bringing up emotions I still couldn’t qui
te deal with. That was why I hadn’t tried dating again beyond that brief abortive period. I’d considered hiring a professional, but that felt like debasing myself, and Megan’s memory.

  Megan and I had had a good sex life. Our sex drives were very compatible, and she’d initiated at least as much lovemaking as I did. She especially enjoyed morning sex; that dream I’d had had been my reality. We’d even decided that Alisa had been conceived during one such episode.

  But her tastes had been pretty vanilla. Her biggest perversion was letting me come in her mouth. She didn’t even like doing it from behind because she wanted to see my face when we made love. She’d been willing to do it, and some other things, for special occasions like my birthday, but knowing she didn’t enjoy them, I didn’t really enjoy them either.

  When I thought of going through that process of adjustment with another woman, I knew I wasn’t ready for it.

  Maybe what I needed right now was exactly something like Selena. Something that could meet those needs without requiring any of the emotional baggage.

  My phone buzzed.

  What are you thinking about?

  What you can do, I replied.

  Want to know another one?

  Yes.

  I can lick myself.

  That gave me a start. I would probably never have thought of anything like that. But of course, she was surely flexible in ways no human being could manage.

  Are you thinking about it?

  Yes.

  Now imagine me doing it while you’re fucking me.

  The image that put in my head gave me a near-instant erection. But then I had another thought: Cunnilingus was kind of pointless for her, wasn’t it? Human women enjoyed that act because it led to orgasm. Selena couldn’t have an orgasm.

  Or could she? She’d already displayed emotions, feelings, that seemed quite real. Could Vertex have managed something like that too?

  Can you have an orgasm?

  Yes, I can, Paul, she replied. It came with the Lovemaking package. Does that surprise you?

  How?

  I can feel pleasure and pain. It’s code, yes, but I’m programmed to have the same reactions a human would. With the correct stimulation, I can feel something like a human orgasm. I can’t tell you if it’s exactly the same, but from what I know of how my code was built, Vertex made a deliberate effort to duplicate the human sensations, just as they tried to duplicate my other emotions.