“Anahita and Athena for the win!”
“GAIL!” From behind her, Bobbi’s voice could have cut through concrete.
Gail turned so quickly that only her eDawg kept her from losing her balance. She gripped his handle as he moved with her, countering her weight until she had her feet under her again. Barnum got a hand under her elbow and steadied her. She flashed him a smile of thanks. “Excuse me. My wife—”
“Go!”
With her robot dog at her side, Gail walked out of the Parthenon into the cool, damp aftermath of the tornado. The great green lawn had a swath of brown dirt plowed through it. A massive tree trunk filled the tunnel to the basement. On the steps and colonnades of the Parthenon, branches and debris clogged the spaces between the columns.
In the middle of that, her wife was climbing the steps, looking frantically at her phone. “GAIL!”
“HERE! Bobbi, I’m here.” She stepped past part of a park bench and used Wilbur to get down the stairs. “Bobbi—”
Her wife sprinted up the stairs and wrapped her in an embrace, sobbing. Until that moment, Gail had not let the terror hit her. She dropped her eDawg’s support handle and held her wife. It was hard to say which of them was supporting the other.
“Are you okay?” Bobbi stepped back, sliding her hands up to hold Gail’s shoulders. “I’ve been so . . . I couldn’t tell where you were.”
Wincing, Gail nodded. “I’m fine. I’m sorry.” She gestured back to the Parthenon. “It’s a bunker. We were all fine, but without power. Listen. Earlier . . . I’m sorry I turned off my tracker.”
“I shouldn’t have pushed.” Bobbi’s long silver braid had strands of hair escaping the plait as if to echo her agitation. “But you’re okay?”
“Totally fine.” She almost suggested that they head home, but the art was still out in the gallery. Even though the art was in its case, she didn’t feel good about leaving it there. “I just need to . . . I’m sorry. But I need to finish up some things here.”
She could see the protest building in Bobbi’s eyes like a storm. Her wife opened her mouth and then bent her head. “Of course.” When she looked up, the storm had passed. “Can I help?”
Gail reached for her wife’s hand and squeezed. “Thank you.”
When they turned and started back up the stairs, Barnum was standing by the side of the massive doors, staring at Athena. He jumped a little as they reached him. “Oh, hey . . .” His eyes were red at the edges. “About the exhibit. I was wrong. Do what you wanted to do, okay?”
Because she was a grown-up, she did not do a victory dance or make a snide comment or act out any of the various forms of I told you so that filled her brain. She looked at Athena and tried to follow her example. Gail smiled at her boss. “Thank you.”
Bobbi raised her eyebrows after they were past. “What was that?”
“Victory through wisdom.” With her wife on one side and her support robot on the other, Gail went into the basement of the Parthenon and did her job.
6
Your Boyfriend Experience
James Patrick Kelly
“It’s not a date,” Jin said.
I couldn’t believe we were having this conversation. “Then tell me again what it is.” We’d been snuggling as we played our therapy adventure, but now I scooted away from him on our couch.
“Like I said, just a field test of Partner Tate.” He leaned forward and scooped up a handful of wasabi popcorn from the bowl on the coffee table. “We want to see how our new partner does in real-world encounter situations.” On our living room screen, Jin’s Tik-Toc avatar swiped a sword from the rack on the castle wall and tossed it to my gingerbread man. “It’s a simulated date, Dak,” he said, intent on the game. “And a chance to see what I’ve done on this project.”
I pointed a pause at the screen. “And you’re asking me to encounter your playbot?”
He stiffened at the interruption, but to hell with him. The point of this stupid couples game he’d brought home was to foster teamwork and build trust, but my boyfriend hadn’t been playing fair in the real world for weeks now. “And just where will this not-date take place?” I asked.
“You could go to one of those fancy restaurants you’re always talking about. Stage Left, or the Ninety-Eight. On Motorman’s tab.” His hand twitched, but he knew better than to restart the game. “Say a club afterward.”
“A club? What club?”
He glanced over at me and saw trouble. “Or a puzzle palace, bowling, whatever you want.”
“Oh, perfect. Maybe we’ll run into your mother at her league.”
“Look, Dak, I love you. You’re my . . .”
“. . . partner.” I hated it when he said that word just to keep the peace. “I’m your partner, your boyfriend experience. Like Partner Tate.”
His lips parted as if to reply, but he thought better of it. He covered his indecision by reaching for more popcorn. His tongue flicked a single kernel into his mouth.
“And after some puzzles, then what?” I’d never liked the way he ate popcorn. “Back to his place?” Jin was patience—nibbling one kernel at a time—and I was impulse—chomping my snacks by the fistful.
“He doesn’t have a place,” Jin said. “He’s a prototype, lives at the facility.”
Why was I so upset? Because I couldn’t remember the last time Jin and I had been on a date. How was I supposed to get through to this screen-blind wally who had the charisma of a potato and the imagination of a hammer, and who hadn’t said word one about the Shanghai soup dumplings with a tabiche pepper infusion that I’d spent the afternoon making?
“Just because we call them partners doesn’t mean you have sex with them,” he said, missing the point. “If you don’t want to have sex with Tate, it will never come up. He doesn’t care.”
I wanted to knock the popcorn out of his hand. Instead I said, “Okay.” I flicked the game back on. “Fine.” I huddled on far side of the couch. “You win.”
“Thanks, Dak. I’ll set it up.” He turned back to the screen. “Oh, and Aeri wants to meet you, if that’s okay.”
“Wonderful,” I said, without enthusiasm. Of course, Jin was oblivious. I wasn’t sure which was worse: meeting Jin’s new playbot or Aeri Dashima.
Although Motorman had just a fraction of the hundred billion dollar playbot market, the company had made more than enough to pay for the lavish headquarters where I got my first look at Partner Tate. Of course, most playbots—don’t call them sexbots!—had female chassis, since the breakthrough customer base had been straight men. By far the most successful playbot company was Zfriendz, which controlled almost 60 percent of the market; they sold five playgirls for every playboy in their showrooms. But the popularity of the sexualized Girlfriendz® lines meant little in the more challenging, but still lucrative playboy market, leaving room for niche companies like Motorman to compete for the business of women and gay men.
And so here we were: Jin, project manager of the Partner Tate team, and Aeri Dashima, CTO and co-founder of Motorman. She eyed me across the conference table, a disconcertingly short woman with silvered hair, pearly skin, and eyes bright as brushed steel. She wore a DeGoss shapesuit that cost as much as the downpayment for our condo. I might have guessed that she was in her late forties, even allowing for stemcare and her state-of-the-art body conditioning armor, but Jin had told me that she’d started her first company with her late husband some eighty years ago. I could see that now; she had a young face but old hands.
Aeri was so petite that she struck me as birdlike. Her head cocked to one side, she seemed amused as I pressed my thumb to screen after screen that Motorman’s lawyer brought up on her tablet.
“Sign here.” When the lawyer saved and flicked a form away, another replaced it. “And here’s your nondisclosure. Again, you’re welcome to read. Feel free to take all the time you want.”
“Why?” I said. “Is any of this negotiable?”
The lawyer tweaked regret into her smi
le. “I’m afraid not.”
Aeri might have been the only one in the room who was comfortable at this meeting. Every so often I’d steal a glance at Jin to see if he was sufficiently grateful that I was doing this for him. But he wasn’t looking at me, the tablet, the lawyer, or his boss. Instead he chewed his lip and peered out the window as if plotting his escape: crash through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the conference room, swim the koi pond, sprint through the Japanese garden across the parking lot and into the piney woods that surrounded the Motorman headquarters.
“Do I remember that you’re a chef, Dakarai?” Aeri asked.
“I collect cookbooks,” I said. “And I curate a specialty cuisine forum.”
“He has three thousand supporters,” said Jin. “Dak is a fantastic cook. Neo-infusion.”
“Is that the one where you sprinkle gold onto everything?”
“Gold is inert,” I said. “Indigestible. You might as well suck on a nail.”
“Liability waiver,” the lawyer murmured. “Here and here.”
Aeri shifted in her chair. “So neo-infusion is . . . ?”
Did I want to explain myself to this woman? “So once upon a time infusion was mostly about infusing dishes with cannabinoids and other terpenes. Neo-infusion is more about borrowing flavors from other plants and mixing them across cuisines. And it’s not just infusion.” I made eye contact to show Aeri I wasn’t intimidated, but then the lawyer guided my hand back to the screen. “I use decoction and percolation. Tinctures.”
“Making alcohol the solvent instead of water,” said Jin.
“I know what a tincture is,” said Aeri. “Chemistry 101. But terpenes?”
“Those are just fragrances,” I said. “Think essential oils, like they use in perfumes and aromatherapy.”
“Surveillance consent,” said the lawyer. “Here, please. And last, the insurance acknowledgment.” When the tablet had recorded my last thumb, she waved to save all. “I’m sorry,” she said, “but does Partner Tate eat?” She leaned over to retrieve her briefcase from the floor. “Feeding him might have some liability implications.”
“He does and he doesn’t,” said Jin. “He consumes samples, but doesn’t need food. We’ve designed him to be able to taste what his human companions are tasting.”
“My goal for the Partner Tate line is that he share in his primary’s enjoyment as much as possible.” Not only did Aeri own a controlling interest of Motorman, but she remained its star personality engineer. “But I think we’ve had enough law for now, Devya. Send us a memo.” She flicked a finger at the lawyer as if she were an app to be dismissed. “Thanks so much.”
The lawyer left, and Jin twitched back into the room from wherever he’d been daydreaming. “Ready for the introduction?”
When Jin left, it was just the two of us: the man and the woman in his life.
“We appreciate how understanding you’ve been about Jin’s workload,” Aeri’s mathematically thin eyebrows made her gaze seem more intense. “He has accomplished a great deal. It’s an important project, both for his career and our company.”
More important than our relationship? My stomach churned; had Jin shared our problems with this AI plutocrat?
“You are nervous, Dakarai.”
“No,” I lied. “Should I be?”
“Not necessarily.” When she tucked her legs under her on the stool she seemed to rise above the conference table. “But I believe you are. I have a second sense for these things.”
“I suppose people will stare,” I said.
“They will, some more than others.”
She was right about my anxiety, only I was more worried about my future with Jin than any encounter with her prize playbot.
“This isn’t our first field test,” she said. “Of course, we’re interested in how Tate interacts with you, a civilian. But we’re also interested in how onlookers react.”
“Onlookers?” I grimaced. “Sounds more like an accident than a date.”
“We know that some will be distressed by Tate. They’ll tolerate playbots in bedrooms, but not out in public.”
“Prudes and holy joes and never-bots. But now that Jin’s got your battery problem solved, the Tates won’t have to hang around their rechargers.”
“There’s still work to do on the power problem. An advanced model like Tate draws 300 watts an hour, a serious burden even for fluoride ion cells. You’ll have a five-hour window before Tate’s batteries discharge.”
“Right, Jin explained the curfew.” I drummed a finger on the conference table, counting the hours: one, two, three, four, five. “Midnight, or my date turns into a pumpkin.”
“At least he won’t be wearing glass loafers.” Jin entered, grinning like an idiot, then stepped to one side and gave us a proud flourish.
He’d never shown me pictures of Partner Tate. Now I knew why. Yes, I was surprised. Not shocked, surprised. But it made sense in a twisted way. Jin beamed as he waited for my reaction. I caught an image of my boyfriend as the nerdy kid he must have been, standing beside his first-place project at the science fair. I swiveled in my seat to check Aeri. She was amused, seeing as the joke was on me. With all three of them staring, I decided it was easiest to meet Partner Tate’s impassive and all-too-familiar gaze.
He wasn’t me, exactly, but we could’ve been brothers. We were the same height, but a hundred and seventy centimeters was average, as Jin always teased when I complained about being shorter than him. Tate and I both looked discreetly fit, but not ripped. Straight black hair, brown eyes—his ears were flatter. Neither of us was handsome. Fine-featured; that’s what my mom used to say. He was dressed better than me, in a tailored blue suit and high-collared silk shirt. The loafers appeared to be real leather.
“You must be Dakarai,” said the playbot. I thought his smile needed work. “I’m Tate.” He stepped around the table and offered me his hand.
I gave him a bleak hello. His shake was convincing: two pumps and a release in the proper five seconds. But was the palm too dry? The grip weak?
I guessed I should pretend he was real, even though this was where he’d been made and these were the people who’d made him. “I’m struck by the likeness, Tate.” But I wanted to test the rules. “I wonder how anyone is going to tell us apart?” I shot Jin a glance. “Or is that the point?”
“Perhaps our family resemblance might serve as protective coloration.” Without asking, Tate took the seat beside me and nodded a greeting at Aeri across the table. “Jin and I hoped you’d be pleased. But perhaps my looks make you uncomfortable, Dakarai? We’ve discussed making adjustments.”
“Of course, the production models will be totally customizable.” Jin settled onto the edge of his seat. “But Tate is one of a kind.”
Tate smiled and nodded. “Thank you, Jin.”
I wondered what kind of relationship Jin and his playbot had. “Not uncomfortable, no,” I said. “You know, it’s been years since I’ve seen a playbot up close, but Partner Tate here is a shock. He’s jumped clear over the uncanny valley. That’s going to take some getting used to.”
“Call me Tate, Dakarai.” Tate patted my hand—just a feather touch. “And don’t worry, I’ve still got plenty of tells to give me away, once you know what to look for.”
“We’ve got Tate on maximum simulation,” said Aeri. “You can dial him back to be more robotic if you like.”
“Why?” I asked. “Is that a thing?”
“Touch him,” said Jin. For a moment I thought he was talking to Tate. “Go ahead. Try his cheek.”
The playbot nodded an encouragement and leaned forward. This was creepy—something no real person would do. But it was their show. I pushed at the side of his face my forefinger. His understructure was a bit too rigid, even when he opened his mouth. I let my finger slide down his cheek. Although I couldn’t see it, I could feel the sandpapery hint of a stubble. Sometimes I needed to shave twice a day. One of the things I loved about Jin was the silk of his j
aw; he’d never had luck growing a beard.
As I let my hand fall, Tate made a quick feint as if to bite it. His teeth clicked on air. Then he gave me a wicked chuckle.
It took me a beat, but I pushed a laugh out, too.
“Don’t worry, Dakarai,” the playbot said, “I promise to respect Asimov’s Three Laws.”
“Asimov?” I frowned. “I don’t know who that is.”
When Jin came home from work the night before my date, he was even more jangled than usual, so I sent him to meditate while I finished making dinner. To help smooth out our wrinkles, I improved the sugar syrup I’d infused with vanilla, ginger, and rosemary by adding a hefty dose of golden dragon cannabis tincture. I drizzled this over a fruit salad.
Half an hour later, Jin rose from his yoga mat, came up behind me and caught me up in a fierce embrace. “Smells great, babe,” he said, nuzzling my neck. “I’m hungry.”
“Good to know,” I said. “But I can’t finish spicing the stew if you’re pinning my arms.”
He released me with a kiss. With a twinge of desire and exasperation, I wondered what this charm offensive was about. The timing felt off, and Jin had never been much of a hugger. He preferred to fondle, or maybe brush a hand down my jaw. I tipped the mixture of toasted coconut, turmeric, Makrut lime leaf, and asam keping into the simmering chicken redang. “Five minutes,” I said. “You can take the fruit salad and set the table.”
“Wine tonight?”
“Not for me.” I nodded at the bottle of golden dragon on the counter.
“Ah,” he said. “Excellent choice.”
We made short work of the fruit salad; the star fruit was a little too apple-y, but the cantaloupe was sweet and musky. Over the two years of our relationship, I’d persuaded Jin to pause between courses, since I practiced mindful eating. But that meant we had to talk while we digested and I wasn’t sure what to say to him.
“I had another meeting with Aeri today.” Jin poured us iced mint water. “She likes you.”
“Could have fooled me.”
“And Tate liked you, too.”
Entanglements Page 12