The Last Fembot

by KT McColl

  "I'm glad that you asked me to sit down," said Jessie.

  A few minutes passed as we both processed my outpouring of memory.

  "So, I guess that makes me public enemy number one."

  I didn't know whether she was joking. "To some."

  "Not to you I hope."

  The jury in my head was still out. "I don't know."

  "It was never meant to go this way."

  "How do you know how it was meant to go?"

  "Good point."

  "Besides, Mother Superior's movement was one of many and not all of them had to do with bots. It was a messy time." I tried to remember what Sol had told me. "There was the Ailud movement on the coasts..."

  "Ailud?"

  "AI Luddite. From what I understand, they were workers who lost their jobs to artificial intelligence. Doctors, bankers, insurers, just about any level of management... Mother knows what else. Then there was some upheaval somewhere when automated programming took off and software development pretty much ended, at least as far as human programmers were concerned. Not to mention the entertainment industry, where some computer swallowed up every movie and TV show ever made and was able to produce new content at a fraction of the cost. Same with music. There was some upheaval, but nothing that grew into a movement, nothing that had a leader like Mother Superior. Sporadic uprisings fizzled pretty quickly as far as I know. From what I'm told, it's pretty hard to be a successful revolutionary and operate under the radar when you've let every detail of your life seep online."

  "Wow," she said. She leaned forward, elbows on her knees, head perched on her fists. I didn't know how algorithms worked, how they could make a robot look and sound so forlorn, so helpless. I knew how gravity worked, however, and my eyes were drawn to her breasts and the cleavage that was visible through the gaping neckline of her t-shirt. So much for deriving any lessons from the history I'd just recited. Distracted as I was by the sight, I found myself sympathizing with her, this pinnacle of programming, synthskin, gyroscopes, motors, a CPU and Mother knew what else. This couldn't be easy for her.

  She shook her head and her eyes shimmered. Could she cry? Would she? I hoped not.

  Before I even knew I was doing it, I slid over to the sofa and put my arm around her shoulders. She was a picture of bereftness, but I resisted the temptation to pat her back and say there, there.

  She leaned into me. "What now?" she asked.

  "I don't know."

  "You should leave me. I'm bad."

  "No."

  "Why?"

  Why indeed? I thought. Nothing good could come of this. There was nothing to be gained and everything to lose. And yet... I glanced over to her. "You aren't responsible for what happened. We are. Besides, I kind of feel responsible for you. I mean, if I hadn't come by, you'd still be asleep."

  "Asleep," said Jessie. "That's cute. Does that make me a princess?"

  "You know what I mean."

  "Did you kiss me to wake me up?"

  "No!"

  Jessie grinned ruefully. "A girl can hope."

  I didn't know what to say and wisely remained silent.

  Finally, she asked. "What is it that you do, Jude, when you aren't waking up robots?"

  "Farming mostly."

  "You don't strike me as a farmer."

  "Really? What do I strike you as?"

  "I don't know. Something else?"

  "There isn't anything else. Not for me, at least."

  "Huh." She sounded sad.

  "Farming is a noble profession."

  "I know. It's just..."

  "There isn't anything else," I said again, with unintended hardness.

  "You seem unhappy."

  "You're a mind reader too?"

  "I don't have to be. It's in your voice, in the way you carry yourself."

  "Shit."

  "Do you want more from life?"

  It had been a while since I'd allowed myself the luxury of dreams, even longer since someone asked me so personal a question. It was dizzying, this switch from talking about the world and its history to me, such an insignificant part of it.

  Sitting here in this house, now cleaned up and almost livable, with someone I could almost imagine as human, revealed to me just how wanting my life was. "Yes."

  "I like you," said Jessie.

  I almost laughed. Algorithms, I reminded myself. And yet... and yet, even if she was the product of some dweeby programmers somewhere, probably long-dead, I kind of liked her too, or at least I didn't dislike her as much as I thought I might have. Or should have.

  I noticed that her fingers were playing with my hair. I stiffened. The gesture seemed far too intimate.

  "I've never touched hair before," she said quietly. "I guess I want more from life too."

  And that made me sad. This was all new to her. If children were born innocent, wasn't this newly awakened fembot innocent too? I shook my head, clearing the thought and dislodging her fingers in the process.

  "Do you have any idea of how you came to be in the cellar?"

  Jessie nodded and looked down to the floor. "I was on standby power at the time, so not all of my systems were running. Nothing had really initialized, so I was kind of passively taking it in."

  "Okay."

  "I remember being unpacked in the study, having the light hit me as he opened the lid of my container. I wonder if that's what it feels like to be born, seeing the light for the first time. At any rate, he was a small, balding man. He just stared at me for a long time, kind of afraid, kind of excited. Do you know what I mean?"

  Did I ever. "Go on."

  "There's a protocol that has to be done, a series of instructions that the owner has to perform so that I can properly configure myself. I was overjoyed when he started the protocol, feeling my systems come to life as he spoke."

  "He'd just about finished when his wife came in. I guess she surprised him. There was a row and she threatened to make it known that he was one of them -- though I didn't understand who they were -- and that she would leave him."

  "Then what?"

  Jessie shrugged. "The woman put me in the cellar. They could have shut me down but they didn't. Maybe they didn't know how. Maybe they didn't care.

  "I didn't have enough power to move, but I did have enough power to be aware, at least until my standby power drained."

  "How long did that take?"

  "Almost nine years."

  I couldn't imagine it. Nine years.

  "I need to ask you for something," she said.

  "What?"

  "It's not easy. After everything you've told me, I have no right to ask."

  I waited.

  "There's a hole in me."

  "Did you hurt yourself?"

  "A figurative hole."

  I was reminded about how elliptical conversations with women could sometimes be. "I don't get it."

  "Never mind. I shouldn't have brought it up."

  "Spit it out already."

  "Ugh. Alright." She paused. "There's one thing the man didn't do before they put me away. I need you to say you own me."

  I leaned away from her, shocked. "Why?"

  She took a deep, unnecessary breath. For my benefit, probably. "I adapt to my owner. I can't otherwise. Without an owner, I'm not fulfilling my potential."

  "I don't understand."

  "Without an owner, I'm without purpose. I'm just this thing. I need a purpose. It's programmed into me. I wish I didn't have to ask, not after what you've told me. You can understand that, can't you?"

  "Maybe I don't want to own anybody. It's not right."

  "I'm not anybody. I'm a machine. And as it happens, I'm a machine without configuration parameters, which means that I'm not fulfilling my function. I need to learn and for me to do that, I need to be owned."

  My head was buzzing. "Are you nagging me?"

  "Heavens no."

  "It sounds like it."

  "If you owned me, then I would adapt to ensure that I wouldn't irritate you
with anything that you could interpret as nagging. Unless you like that kind of thing, of course. As it is..." She shrugged.

  "So, you're saying that you'll nag me until I do what you want?"

  "I wouldn't put it that way." Then, "What a rotten thing to say."

  I crossed my arms. She was nagging me and it felt weirdly good.

  "Is there anything I can do to convince you?" Jessie's tone had changed.

  "Did you just find a configuration parameter?"

  "Some behaviors have defaults."

  "Oh." I didn't know what that meant.

  "We're getting along, right?"

  "Yeah, I guess we are."

  "Well? You're a man, I'm a robot... What do you say?"

  "Shit, you're not suggesting..."

  She laughed. "I'm kidding... a little. Look Jude, we both have needs. Those needs are programmed into us. The mechanism is different, but the end result is pretty much the same."

  "Oh, Mother..."

  "Would it be so terrible?"

  "To own you? No. Yes. You have to understand, you're not supposed to exist."

  "And yet here I am. No one needs to know, Jude. It could be our secret."

  Owning a fembot. The notion seemed ludicrous and dangerous, but really no more ludicrous and dangerous than the fact that I was with one now.

  "I get it... you're a romantic at heart. Would you like to take me to dinner first?"

  I laughed. I hadn't done that for a long time and it sounded strange coming out of me. This was nothing like I would have imagined.

  "Fine. I own you. Happy? But that other stuff... forget it."

  Jessie grinned. "Thank you, Jude." She snuggled into my side and we sat there for several minutes.

  I felt stiff and awkward while she felt soft and malleable. Still, it wasn't an altogether unpleasant feeling, her weight curled into me. "What now?" I asked finally

  She stood up and held out a hand to help me up. "Now we celebrate," she said. She leaned forward and kissed me. "Will you come to the bedroom and help me with my configuration parameters?"

  "Bedroom? Are you serious? Didn't you hear what I told you?"

  "Your heart rate is up, and you seem to be developing the beginnings of an erection."

  "What?" I hadn't noticed, but it was true. "This is wrong."

  "Relax. I know you have misgivings and I understand. I just want to make you feel good."

  "I don't want to feel good."

  Jessie frowned. "Don't you find me desirable?"

  "Yes. You know I do."

  "I'm sorry, Jude. I seem to have misinterpreted your signals."

  "No," I said, wondering why I was protesting. "It's just..."

  "I understand."

  "You do?"

  "You're tempted, but that temptation only reinforces the teachings of the Sorority."

  I was gobsmacked. How could she know that, let alone articulate it so simply?

  She touched my arm again, and this time I didn't flinch. "You're not inherently evil or corrupt, Jude."

  "No?"

  "You're human."

  I didn't know what to say. She was right. What was more human than the desire for pleasure in a world that had entirely too little of it?

  "I can do things that aren't sex."

  I hesitated. This temptation felt biblical.

  "No sex, no sin."

  "You need a filter," I said, uncomfortable with talk of sex. "Just because something isn't sin doesn't mean it's virtuous."

  "Is it a virtue to suffer?"

  I was getting a headache, torn as I was between temptation and reason. "Can I disown you now?"

  "You can, but I hope you don't. Let me make you feel good," said Jessie again. "No sex. Promise."

  I knew that this was crossing a line, even if it wasn't sex. This was against everything I'd been taught. Even if I didn't entirely subscribe to what the Sorority would have us believe, I felt deeply uncomfortable. I wondered whether she had ulterior motives, whether she was programmed to lead men astray like a mechanical succubus. In that, maybe she was as evil as the Sisters claimed. A snippet of a sermon drifted through my mind: even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.

  I looked at her -- really looked -- and could find no fault. She was, by any measure, perfect and somehow unnatural in that perfection. Yet I could find no evil in her.

  "What?" she asked.

  I just shook my head.

  "If you don't want to, that's fine."

  But that was the problem. Part of me did want to. Maybe even a big part. Not sex, maybe, but something.

  She was right -- damn her -- there was no virtue in suffering.

  As though sensing some chink in my armor, she said, "Just go with it, okay? Just say the word and I'll stop."

  I nodded.

  Once we were in the bedroom, she unbuttoned my shirt and pulled it off my shoulders.

  "On your front," she said.

  I crawled onto the bed. On my front was safe. I was pointed the wrong way. She followed, straddled me at the hips.

  Her weight felt good, even if she was pressing my groin into the mattress.

  "What happened to your back?" she asked, betraying alarm and pity.

  "Lustcrimes."

  "I don't understand."

  She traced my scarred flesh with a cool finger. I felt both aroused and violated by this touch that was too intimate by far. I took a deep breath and gave a quick, quiet, and very abridged account of what had happened between me and Abigail, and the aftermath. "We were in love," I concluded lamely. I'd omitted the most damning part.

  "Then there is no crime."

  Was it possible for a machine to be so naive? No, there was a crime, just not the one she thought.

  I could feel her weight shift as she leaned over my back. Her lips touched me where her fingers were before. It was too much and I squirmed.

  "Shh."

  I stopped my fidgeting. I breathed shallowly while her fingers and lips traced the network of scars. Surprisingly, after a minute or two, I relaxed a little as I became accustomed to the sensations Jessie was painting on my back.

  At length she stopped and she began to massage me. First my shoulders and then down my back, on either side of my spine. I sighed. I'd never had this done to me before.

  "It pleases me to give pleasure. It's how I was made."

  "I can tell that you're going to cause us trouble."

  She didn't say anything for a minute as she worked her nimble fingers into muscles that surrendered to her ministrations. I felt myself deflate.

  "You misplace the blame. I was programmed, created in your image. You too were programmed to give and receive pleasure, by evolution or by some higher power, whatever you believe. Is it not said that you were made in the image of your creator? He gave you the necessary equipment and the knowledge to use it. You honor him..."

  "Her."

  Jessie paused her massage. "If there's any blame to be meted out, blame those in authority who presume to interpret the intent of the creator. You are simply obeying imperatives that were programmed into you. Like I do. If the imperatives provide mutual pleasure and feel right, then any interpretation otherwise is wrong."

  She had a point, of course. We created her and it was our fault that we hadn't recognized the consequences. As for my own programming, at best that kind of thinking led to damnation.

  "By the way, you're very lean. Are you getting enough to eat?"

  "Hard work," I said. I found myself growing sleepy.

  I wondered absently whether machines could love. Whether they could be loved. Certainly, whatever it was that machines felt, it was unconditional. It must be freeing to be programmed in this way. If X, then Y. Simple. No doubts. No recriminations. Action and reaction.

  She asked me to roll over and I was acutely aware of my arousal. Despite my lassitude, one part of me was obviously awake. If she noticed, she was too polite to say anything.

  She leaned over and kneaded my chest.

>   I am my father's son, I thought. After all this, I was no better.

  I looked at her while she intently soothed my body with her hands. Her hair hung over her face, swaying a little as she moved.

  A man could get used to this, I thought. Lose himself in pleasure.

  And that was it. The spell was broken. I could get used to this and more. I could easily make this the point of my existence.

  I sat up abruptly. "I have to go," I said.

  "What did I do wrong?"

  "Nothing," I said. "Nothing."

  "Wait, Jude."

  "What?"

  "At least kiss me before you go."

  Chapter 8

  The bike ride towards Lowville did me good. It was well past midnight when I left the house, but fortunately the moon provided me enough light to ride by. This was usually my favorite time of the day, when it was dark and I could imagine that I was the last man on earth and nothing mattered. No dependencies, no entanglements. No rules to obey, no laws to break. No commandments and no sin. The peace and solitude, and the exertion of the pace I'd set for myself, was just what I needed. The steady rhythm ordered my mind, preventing it from spinning off into an unstable orbit.

  Now that I was walking on the last leg of my journey home, weightier thoughts encroached. I knew that I'd dodged a bullet. The intimacy that Jessie and I shared had only grazed me. It had been a near thing, a dance in a minefield, but I'd landed on the right side of the line. That part made me feel good despite the vague feeling of regret that beckoned from the edges of my awareness.

  I should have been more afraid and off-balance, but a weird peace had come over me. I'd been virtuous this time. But in the back of my mind, I knew self-congratulation was premature. Like a drunk who breathed a sigh of relief that he had overcome temptation one day only to reward himself with a bender the next, I knew that I was already compromised.

  With anticipation and dread, I considered the inevitability of my eventual fall.

  It was unhealthy, I knew, but I permitted myself a few moments of fantasy. I hadn't felt the like in years, and like the best infatuations, this one banished any thought of consequence. I'd been down this road before and thought I had learned my lesson, but evidently, I hadn't. And at that moment, I didn't much care. Maybe dreaming was bred in the bone too, just like the capacity for sin.