Coral-600

by Roxy Mews

  “Dr. Franklin, I was the one who was captured. Do you really think you could have acquired me if I didn’t go willingly?”

  “Point taken.”

  Dr. Randall cleared his throat. “Since the voltage obviously didn’t wipe your hard drive like it should have, could you tell us what happened up until your last malfunction transmission? The data we have from that submission was…odd.”

  “I had an orgasm.”

  Both men mimicked fish aspirating out of water.

  “Did you need me to repeat?”

  Both men looked at each other and continued to move their jaws up and down without saying anything. I raised my volume and slowed my vocal pace.

  “I had an orgasm. I had it during sex. My body’s enjoyment was too much for my processors. When I let my body shut down, my backup system filed the transmission.”

  “Is she for real?” Dr. Franklin asked.

  “Can robots orgasm?” Dr. Randall asked him.

  It appeared there was a conversation that was going on that I was not needed for. So I began a systems check. I no longer possessed the syringe Miss Matilda had given me. I couldn’t take control of my own dismantling any longer. My legs passed initial inspection. I could run if I had to.

  “Anyone who can orgasm is human in my book. I’m not cutting the skin off of a woman.” Dr. Randall pointed to me. “And that is a woman.”

  At his declaration I resumed listening to their conversation.

  “So what, are you saying she’s human? That Bio-Dyne created a human? That doesn’t happen. Even if we did release her, would she go back to being owned?” Dr. Franklin pointed at me. “If you don’t wipe her clean, we’re looking at a giant clusterfuck.”

  “So are we keeping her here? Wiping her memory? That already failed once. What if it doesn’t work the second time, or worse, what if we harm her? Like I said, I reviewed the data. I didn’t believe it, but she confirmed that her responses were those of pleasure. She had a human response to sex. I say she’s human and has human rights, and I won’t be a part in violating them.”

  Dr. Franklin sucked in his breath and looked around the room. Then he retrieved his stun baton and charged it up. Blue electricity arced between the rings on the end. I readied my legs, but before I commanded them to move, the doctor went to a corner of the room, opened a small door and stuck the baton inside. I flinched at the power surge and small pops of explosions that occurred in every corner of the room.

  “We need to be real here. That should corrupt the camera feed and memory discs.” Dr. Franklin tossed the baton on the ground and looked at me. “I agree with him, but I can’t be heard saying so, Coral.”

  I couldn’t process the data fast enough.

  “You are letting me go?”

  Both doctors frowned.

  “The Department of Mechanical Affairs isn’t exactly the United Nations, lady.” Dr. Franklin said. “They give the mobs of the twentieth century a run for their money. Only difference now is they have government backing and higher tech weaponry. I swear those stupid Terminator movies are in their cautionary training manuals.”

  “You realize if we are discussing releasing her, we have to establish a viable protocol here. This type of…thing…hasn’t happened before.” Dr. Randall looked to me. “I don’t know how to fix this, Coral.”

  “Do you believe I am human?” I asked.

  For some reason I wanted him to say yes. I wanted to be human under the law. I didn’t want to change who I was, but I sure wanted to have the freedom to continue the changes I had begun inside myself.

  “I believe you are more than a mechanical being.” Dr. Franklin said. “But there is no established law for someone in between non-human and human.”

  “It would be easier to kill me, wouldn’t it?” I asked.

  “We aren’t going to kill you.” Dr. Randall shook his head. “I mean, we aren’t going to try and shut you down again.”

  “Why?”

  Both men stared again. I got to my feet. I was so tired of sitting down. They didn’t know what I was, and I didn’t know what I was. Nobody knew me. Nobody but Quinn. Quinn might not realize it, but because he knew me, even if he didn’t understand me, it meant something. I wasn’t wiping that off my hard drive. I was important, and I was worth knowing. These men were strong, and they had weapons, but if they were going to shut down my mechanics they would have done it already. And they didn’t want to kill a person.

  They were still silent, so I repeated, “Why won’t you kill me?”

  “I can’t destroy something just because I don’t understand it. It goes against every scientific responsibility I have inside my heart.”

  I moved towards the men. They eyed me warily, but I hoped they saw that I wouldn’t harm them either.

  “Are you going to detain me? Are you going to hold me here and experiment on me? Knowing full well that I am conscious and feel pain when you slice into my skin? My neck is still sore.” I reminded them.

  “We can’t let a malfunctioning machine go back without fixing the problem.” Dr. Frankin said.

  “Who said my malfunction is a problem?”

  I found it easy to talk to scientists. Their analytical minds worked well alongside my CPU. I could draw parallels that made sense to them.

  “We have to file certain paperwork on any malfunction. We can’t say the malfunction isn’t a malfunction. It just doesn’t work like that.” Dr. Franklin stopped talking to me and asked Dr. Randall, “What are we even going to say the malfunction was? I’m not writing orgasm on that paper.”

  “I could write it if you need help,” I volunteered. “I have excellent penmanship.”

  “So…what are we saying? We are going to say that she can orgasm, therefore she is human, and there was no malfunction?”

  Sounded reasonable to me. I was pretty sure there wasn’t a human alive who didn’t appreciate the value of a good orgasm.

  Outside a pair of sealed metal doors, chatter from other humans began to get louder and louder as the sources of that sound came closer. The voices were not in an elevated happy octave.

  “Guess they figured out the camera feed was fried,” Dr. Franklin said. His upper lip began to dot with perspiration.

  “Yeah.” Dr. Randall wiped his brow. He was also sweating. Since the temperature of the room hadn’t changed, they must have both been very nervous about what was going to come through that door. “Guess our ever vigilant security guard woke up from his nightly nap.”

  The doors began to slowly slide open, and the noises exploded inside the room. Angry voices yelled before the doors opened enough to reveal the sources.

  “Your protocol is not my concern. Was I, or was I not, gifted the Coral-600? She has been with my family for decades, and she poses absolutely no danger to anyone but dust mites.” It was the queen.

  “I was the one that caused the…um…malfunction. So like I said, if she is harmed in any way it will have been my fault and I can’t live with that. You people put this shit inside me. Are you going to fry my brain too?” Quinn.

  When the doors revealed the scene on the other side there were three men dressed like Dr. Randall and Dr. Franklin, and three other men with black suits and wired ear pieces. The queen was the first one to enter the room.

  “Coral. Are you harmed?” the queen walked up to me and held my arms. She was seven-and-three-quarters inches shorter than me, and smaller than all the men in the room, but her air of authority made her presence take up far more space than her physical form.

  “Yes, your majesty. They used a stun baton on my neck. The area will take another few days to heal. But I have no crippling injuries.”

  “How dare you take her from me without so much as a consultation.”

  “Your majesty, she resisted arrest,” one of the men in suits said.

  Quinn ra
ised his hand. I heard the quiet click of his gears as he wiggled his fingers in the air. “Actually that was me. I assaulted the DMA officers who were attempting to shove her into a van.”

  The queen sighed. “Not helping, Quinn.”

  “I was just pointing out that Coral herself committed no crime.”

  I thought about that. “Other than orgasming. They have deemed that a crime.”

  Men apparently malfunctioned when women discussed sexual pleasure. The word “orgasm” rendered all men in the room speechless.

  The queen smiled at me and linked arms. “Coral, it should be considered a crime if we don’t have one. Come on. I’ve come to take you back to the palace.”

  Dr. Franklin regained his voice and threw his hands up in the air. “Fine. If Coral continues to consult with us on the changes occurring in her infrastructure, I see no reason she can’t return to her owner.”

  I locked my legs down. “No.”

  The queen rolled her shoulders like I had seen her do multiple times before she yelled at the king.

  “Coral, I am vouching for your proper operations. I am your owner, and I have to be the one to take you back to the palace. Let’s not give the DMA any more ammunition here. They—”

  Interrupting a person who was speaking was truly poor manners, and to be a machine interrupting the queen was an offense that could lead to dismantling, but…

  “I don’t want to be owned any longer. These men said I was human. Quinn definitely makes me feel human and gives my body human responses. Even Paisley said I was her friend. I don’t want to be owned…I want to own myself now.”

  “Coral...they can’t change the laws.” Quinn said.

  I pointed to the woman next to me. “The queen can.”

  Once again I stated something I considered obvious, but no one else had ever thought of before.

  “Fuck.” The queen said before running her hands through her hair and exiting the room.

  I whispered to Quinn low enough that only he and I could hear. “Everyone here really wants to have sex. I completely understand that emotion, but I thought it wasn’t polite to talk about it. Has there been a cultural shift that I should update in my database?”

  Quinn pulled me towards him and embraced me. His arms clicked as they tightened around me, and I enjoyed that he hugged me harder than any mere human could. “Coral, you might have started one of the biggest cultural shifts in history. Whatever happens, I won’t let them separate us again.”

  I pulled back and eyed him. “Are you saying you want to have sex again?”

  “I want so much more than that, Coral. I want to be with you every step of the way as you learn how to be human.”

  “And maybe I can teach you things about mechanics?” I would enjoy sharing some of the great things about mechanical life forms with Quinn. I’d wager he didn’t even know how his pace could be increased by using a violet wand. That might be fun to play with during sex, as well. Although I wouldn’t want Quinn to be too fast when we had sex.

  “I don’t know what you’re thinking, Coral, but you’ve taught me so much already. I’d love to learn whatever you want to teach me.”

  My cooling system hiccupped a bit at his words. He wouldn’t own me. We’d learn from each other and grow together. That sounded…human. No, not just human. It was more. It would be wonderful, because everything I did with Quinn filled me with wonder.

  I smiled at him. This wasn’t the practiced movement of muscles that I used to appear unassuming and polite, this time I felt happy. Even with the arguments among the queen and DMA staff, the smile Quinn gave me back, and the way his iris gears widened to take in more detail of my image, was worth it.

  Chapter Nine

  The thick piece of paper held its shape even in the punishing grip of my hands. I never wanted to let it go. As I sat in a chair in front of the magistrate’s desk, the pads of my fingers assessed the texture. My eyes took in enough detail that my CPU told me the ink was permanent and the paper was acid-free to ensure the document would last. I noted that a holographic image was being filed into the government mainframe as well. But this document meant more than the details of its composition. This paper meant the world. This paper gave me the right to enter the world.

  Certificate of Humanity

  Those were the most beautiful words that had ever been written, and I had read many things in my existence. Unlike a birth certificate, this document didn’t declare a birth date and weight. It declared my creation date and lubricant type. My model number and creation location were listed.

  I yanked my arm away from the woman who was fiddling with my arm. The DMA required my DNA to be on file. I thought it was ludicrous to take it from my skin, when a hair would have done the job. I think the government just wanted to make me as uncomfortable as possible.

  The nurse looked to the ceiling. “Why did I volunteer to care for her?”

  I looked up at the ceiling and then back to the nurse. “The ceiling asked you to watch over me?”

  She smiled. Then her eyes triple blinked. She contained mechanics.

  “I was told you would make a difference. Don’t let me down.”

  The nurse packed up her kit and, after depositing my fluid into an evaluation pod, used an ink printer to load a record of my DNA onto the appropriate line of the document.

  Quinn thanked her and pulled his chair closer to mine. He grabbed my hand.

  I squeezed it back hard. I wouldn’t break his solidly constructed fingers. The nurse was right. This was important.

  The magistrate took the document from my fingers and looked at everyone in the room. The nurse had cleared out, but the small office was still very full. The queen and king were present, officially to oversee the new process, but the queen told me as she drank coffee from the Starbucks downstairs that she wanted to be here for me. Paisley was here to support me too. She was also trying to talk me into moving back into the palace, but Quinn and I had other plans.

  “Coral Sechshundert,” the magistrate read. “Is that the name we have all decided upon?”

  I stared at the paper. The data would not compute. I accessed my archives and checked every government file I could break into through the backdoors of. This wasn’t real. It was too amazing to be real.

  The government frowned on numbers as last names, but I knew that the magistrate didn’t speak German, and I had decided in that exam room that I would no longer change anything about myself. I was Coral-600, but it would take steps like this and small compromises that would let me prove to the world something Quinn had taught me.

  Humanity wasn’t something that could be identified in black and white terms. Quinn and I were both in a beautiful grey area, but that didn’t mean we didn’t deserve the right to find our way on our own.

  “It is my name, sir.” I spoke for myself, and I was happy that every other human in the room let me do so.

  It was notarized. It was official.

  A high-pitched whistle rang out behind me. It grated against my sound receptors, but it made me smile to hear a vocalization of Paisley’s joy.

  “First round is on me tonight when we go out to celebrate, Coral.” She slapped me on the shoulder before she hugged me.

  The queen and king rounded the small desk we were sitting at and shook the magistrate’s hand. “You’ve done something amazing here today, Ralph.”

  “I have stepped into uncharted territory, your majesties. Time will tell if it is amazing or crippling to our way of life.” The magistrate removed his official robes and pulled his arms into a suit jacket.

  “Well, I’ve got three million mechanics already knocking on the door, and I need to get paperwork finalized. I will be working from home for the rest of the night. Coral, I’ll see you tomorrow morning to get started with the review process.” He frowned and gave a brief nod to everyone in the room. “St
ay as long as you like, my secretary will lock up after you.”

  “Paisley, please accompany us to the lobby.” The queen didn’t slow down as she grabbed Paisley’s arm and pulled her along through the door.

  “But I’m celebrating with Coral tonight.” Paisley said as they shuffled toward the elevator.

  “Dear girl, that couple wants to have their own party, and I know you and Coral are close, but I don’t think you’re invited,” the king mumbled.

  The elevator doors dinged open, and Paisley’s laughter was the last I heard before they were cut off and descending.

  His highness was right. I wanted to be with Quinn tonight. But there were a few parameters we needed to establish.

  “I want to recalculate the data I have involving my…feelings…for you.” It still seemed wrong according to the programming I began with to use a word indicating emotion, but it felt more right than anything I had ever experienced.

  “What feelings do you have for me, Coral? Because I have some strong ones for you.”

  My cooling systems malfunctioned a bit at his words. “I need to investigate. There are a lot of feelings and I am still new to having them.”

  Quinn smiled. “But you want to have sex while we figure it out?”

  I grabbed his hands and yanked his body over mine. He stood over me and held himself above me with his fists on the arms of the chair.

  I reached up to touch his face. He had a bit of stubble on his chin. I liked the feel of it. It reminded me of the feel of his facial hair against my inner thigh.

  “I want to have lots of sex,” I said. “But I want you to know that I only want to have it with you. Something tells me that’s important for me to say.”

  “It means something to me.” Then Quinn kissed me.

  I had pleased Quinn. My body began to warm where his forearms brushed against my sides. I wanted to be naked. I wanted to see if he would give me an orgasm. I wanted to experience everything I could. Not just because I was collecting data. I wanted to let myself be happy. And maybe, just maybe, let myself love.