by JJ Fallon
MacReadie
v
The Love Machine
by
JJ Fallon
Snapping Turtle
Rangiora, Canterbury, NZ
“The problem, Nick, is you’re not protected by copyright.”
“What?”
“You’re a living organism,” Stacey Tanner informed the man sitting in the plush hotel room’s only armchair. “One cannot trademark or patent living organisms.”
“Of course you can,” Nick said. “Universities do it all the time, don’t they?”
The panoramic city vista beyond the glass walls of the hotel room was quite hazy this evening. The Opera House was a blur of white sails, the harbor only a dark blue blur against a slightly darker sky. The only thing clearly visible from their 30th floor vantage was a billboard on the building opposite, mocking them.
Go on, you know you want to.
Stacey returned her attention to her client, trying not to let his appearance or the intimate nature of their surroundings distract her. It wasn’t every day, after all, that one found oneself alone in a hotel room with the Sexiest Man on Earth.
She straightened her shoulders, telling herself she this was all business and she was unaffected by Nick’s raw sex appeal, emanating from him like heat from a blast furnace, even when he was sitting there in a suit, discussing patent law.
Go on, you know you want to. . .
“Research and commercial organizations can apply for a patent to protect non-naturally occurring, non-human multi-cellular living organisms, including animals, within the scope of 35 USC 101,” Stacey explained. “Clearly, as you are, well. . . a living, breathing, person. . . you do not fall into that category.”
Nick glared at her. Stacey could almost see what he was thinking - what would you know, you smarmy, unhelpful bitch with your Chanel suit and your Rolex watch that my hard-earned cash has paid for. He was probably wondering if it was too late to change law firms. Her momentary, unprofessional lapse as she let herself get carried away by the intimacy of their surroundings was quickly over and done with. For an instant she’d forgotten what a royal, self-centered pain- in-the-ass Nick Macreadie could be. In fact, now she thought about it, Stacey wouldn’t mind if he did actually decide to change lawyers. That would make things easier, all ‘round.
He wouldn’t be a client, any longer, for one thing. . . Oh, stop being ridiculous. . .
Go on, you know you want to. . .
“There must be something you can do, Stacey. What about protecting my image?”
“You’re a public figure, Nick. One might even accuse you of actively courting the paparazzi on occasion.”
Understatement of the year, Stacey thought, although she wasn’t brave enough to say it aloud. Rumor had it that if the paparazzi weren’t clustered around Nick’s front door each morning, one of his minders would alert the media before he stepped foot outside. It made this secretive visit in an anonymous hotel room rather than her office-alone and unremarked by the media-both a little odd and a great relief. “You can’t now claim you don’t like the publicity. And you have to admit, you are getting a lot of publicity out of this.”
Nick frowned. “Mostly on websites that require,” he complained. He rose to his feet and began to pace. Then he stopped and stared at the huge billboard opposite. “Surely there’s something you can do? If that was Coca Cola and they were splashing my image all over their billboards without permission, we’d be suing their asses into oblivion. And what’s more we’d win, too. How is this different?”
“Well, for one thing, they’re insisting it’s not you, Nick.”
“No, that’s right. . . they’re calling this God-awful thing the ‘Brick McReedy Love Machine’. Nobody would ever confuse Brick McReedy with Nick Macreadie.”
Stacey tried not to smile. She privately considered the toy’s name a stroke of genius. “A rhyming, if unfortunate, coincidence, according to the manufacturers.”
Nick glanced at the bed where the object of their discussion was reclining naked, in all his anatomically correct glory. He shook his head with a baleful sigh. “He looks just like me.”
Wow, Stacey thought, feigning disinterest in the doll’s physique. Is that true or are you just indulging in a spot of wishful thinking?
“So do these men, unfortunately.” She dragged her attention back to her briefcase, opened the file she’d brought with her and tossed a pile of snapshots across the bedspread next to the life-sized doll. All of them were of men in their late twenties or early thirties, blond, blue-eyed, and-even Stacey had to admit-unnervingly good looking. Unfortunately, they all bore more than a passing resemblance to the man pacing the hotel room.
“Who are these guys?”
“The winner and eleven finalists of the Nick Macreadie Look-Alike Contest you judged a few months ago in California for the victims of the 2020 LA Earthquake Appeal. Ecstasy Toys are claiming your appearance is so. . .” she glanced down at her file and read from the letter that had accompanied the photos, “. . .’so generic, the features of the doll could be any one of a score of men’. Ecstasy supplied the photos, by the way, to prove their point. And several dozen more from other similar contests, held around the globe.” She indicated a fat envelope in her open briefcase and shrugged. “You authorized those contests, Nick.”
“Dave wanted me to do something charitable. Something for the refugees. He said we needed to soften my image.”
You’re not going to get an Oscar nod for playing a serial killer, were his manager’s exact words, Stacey knew, because the meeting had taken place in her office, if they think you’re an asshole in real-life, too.
Nick went along with it, as he did with most things designed to bolster his public profile. They’d raised millions for the cause. And he’d gotten his wretched Oscar, too, although in the Sydney Opera House, not the Kodak theatre, which had gone the way of the rest of LA and was nothing but a pile of waterlogged rubble, these days.
Nick frowned, studying the look-alikes with concern. “How many of these are there?”
“Several dozen,” she said, and then smiled, unable to resist adding, “My favorite is the Japanese Nick Macreadie, personally. The physical resemblance is a bit off, but there’s just something about him. . .”
Nick looked up from the photos with a frown. He didn’t think she was funny. “What about the robot’s voice? He sounds just like me.”
Stacey glanced across at the Brick McReedy Love Machine with a raised brow. She picked up the credit-card size remote and pointed it at the doll. After a few moments of listening to the mannequin emit a series of less than flattering, increasingly frantic, grunting and groaning noises, she muted the volume and looked at him. “Nick, do you really want me to go into an open court with the world’s media watching and insist that sounds just like you?”
“I meant when it was actually speaking,” Nick said, not in the slightest bit amused by what she was insinuating.
Stacey put down the remote and began gathering the photos into a pile on the bedspread. “Manny Deakin, or rather his company, Ecstasy Toys, are claiming-as they are with everything relating to this product-that the voice is artificially generated. It just happens to sound like you. Any similarity is unintentional.”
“It has an Australian accent!”
“They claim their market research shows-and they’ve sent us the documents to back up the claim-that women find that the sexiest accent.” Stacey smiled. “If they’d polled me, I would have said French or Italian, but they only sampled about a thousand women, so. . . there you go. No accounting for taste.”
“A thousand? Worldwide? That’s not a proper survey!”
“Perhaps not,” she
agreed, “but it’s enough to support their case, and the market research is dated prior to the doll going into production. They’ve covered their ass on this, Nick.”
“As if they knew we’d sue.”
“Probably,” she agreed with a shrug.
“At $1000 an hour, I’m not paying for shrugs, Stacey. Tell me what I’m supposed to do. They’re making a killing with this thing. And they’re using my face and my body to do it.”
“You have three choices,” Stacey told him, a part of her trying not to look too amused by his predicament. Nick was her client, and she owed him her complete loyalty, but she couldn’t help seeing the funny side of this, which was a good thing, because everyone in the office had been giving her hell ever since Ecstasy Toys-as requested-had delivered a Brick McReedy Love Machine to her office.
She pushed the photos aside and took a seat on the edge of the bed, holding up one hand. “One, you do nothing,” she said, ticking off their options with the other hand. “Maintain a dignified silence and hope the fuss will die down. This technology is still very new, after all. You might get lucky and it’ll last no longer than a score of other fads that have come and gone in recent years. And it’s by no means perfected. Even with their patented vibration-sensitive skin that generates its own power supply, there’s a major problem with the storage batteries. As it is, this model can’t go more than an hour without recharging from a mains outlet.”
“This thing is selling at the rate of 5000 units a month,” he said, looking at her oddly. He was probably wondering if she knew about the recharging problem from personal experience, or if she’d been reading the manual. Fortunately, Nick Macreadie could be relied upon to not dwell on anything that didn’t directly concern him for very long, so he didn’t ask her to elaborate. “At $10,000 a pop, it’s not a fad,” he added. “It’s a cash cow. What’re my other options?”
“The second option is to take Ecstasy Toys to court. Fight them with everything we have. We can file an injunction first thing in the morning to stop the sale of any further units, but we’d have to go to trial at some point in the future to prove that this. . . doll. . . is a blatant attempt to cash in on your popularity and your image. I can’t guarantee we’ll win, but I can guarantee you’ll be front page news for months, perhaps years, and the value of Brick McReedy over there will go through the roof the moment we’re granted an injunction halting production.”
Nick glared at the silent and inanimate Brick McReedy, stretched out on the bed beside her and began pacing again. This particular Brick McReedy’s name was actually Unit 439702A, according to the box in which he’d been delivered. He was programmed to respond to any name his new owner might choose to endow on him, the manual claimed. He’d answer to it, too.
In a startlingly accurate facsimile of Nick Macreadie’s voice.
But thinking about how he sounded apparently gave Nick another idea. He spun around to face her. “Can we get them on the dialogue, then? I mean, he’s repeating a whole lot of pre-recorded phrases, isn’t he? If any of them are lines from my movies. . .”
Stacey was shaking her head before he even got the whole sentence out. “This is state-of-the-art AI, Nick. There’re not pre-recorded phrases he’s repeating back by rote. The doll responds to the dialogue and tone of the person speaking to it. There are limitations, of course, to the way it responds. It can’t get angry, or violent, or abusive. It’s a purpose- built device, after all. Given time, however-and the individual unit’s learning ability-before long, each robot will have its own personality and it will be nothing like yours or any other similar unit’s.”
He scowled. “You should ask for a job in their marketing department.”
She shrugged. “Like it or loathe it, Nick, Manny Deakin and his people over at Ecstasy have done an amazing job. It really is a remarkable piece of technology.” It was probably unethical of her to admire their handiwork, but one could appreciate fine workmanship, even if one didn’t think its application was particularly commendable.
“It’s a sex toy, Stacey. A fucking great life-size vibrator. And it looks exactly like me.”
“You should be flattered, you know,” she said. “You’ve been voted the Sexiest Man Alive four times. Even independent market research indicates over 90% of women in the free world want to sleep with you.”
“But if we can prove they knew that when they were designing this thing. . . well, we can sue them, right?”
She shook her head. “That’s not Ecstasy’s research. That’s the lead story on the cover of last month’s Vogue.”
Nick sighed unhappily. “What’s my third option?”
“Run with it.”
“Excuse me?”
“Run with it. Make the most of it. Do a deal with Ecstasy Toys and get them to cut you in for a piece of action. Let them call their robot lover the Nick Macreadie Love Machine. Endorse the thing with a beaming smile and then sit back and enjoy watch the cash roll in. You won’t just be rich, Nick, you’ll be immortal.”
He was unimpressed by her suggestion. Or maybe her enthusiasm for it. He flopped back into the chair. “Did you miss the bit about this thing being a sex toy?”
“This version is,” she agreed. “But the AI technology they’ve developed here is remarkable and it’s going to have an impact on any number of other applications in the future. There is serious money to be made in this venture, Nick.”
He leaned back in his seat thoughtfully. There’d been a token offer in the beginning from Ecstasy for a settlement, but it was peanuts compared to what she was now suggesting. She’d proposed the same course of action several months ago, when the Brick McReedy Love Machine first hit the market, but as usual, her client wouldn’t listen to her until he thought his image was in trouble.
Nick leaned forward in his seat, his expression thoughtful. “Let me get this straight. You’re advising me to trade the rights to my likeness for a piece of the AI patent profits?”
“Exactly.”
“You’re advising me to sell my soul for a sex toy, Stacey.”
“Move beyond the sex toy, Nick,” she advised. “This is the beginning of a whole new world.”
“For you, maybe,” he said, maybe thinking of the enormous fee she’d charge to broker such a deal. He flopped back in the chair and then suddenly flashed his famous Nick Macreadie smile. “You could be right, I get that, but I’m still having trouble moving past the idea there’re thousands of women out there snapping these things up because Brick here has been programmed to know where their G spot is.”
Fortunately, Stacey had known Nick far too long to be seduced by that smile.
“When the Internet first exploded in the 1990s, porn sites pioneered much of the technology that allowed online commerce to flourish. This is the same thing, really, just on a larger. . . albeit slightly more personal scale.” She pointed to Brick McReedy. “You’re looking at the future of artificial intelligence, Nick. Why fight it when you can profit from it?”
“I am a serious actor,” he said.
Stacey managed to keep a straight face. “Your biggest grosses came from a movie called Attack of the Killer Clone Cheerleaders.”
“I’d never be taken seriously as an actor again.”
“Attack of the Killer Clone Cheerleaders,” she repeated heartlessly.
“I’ve won an Oscar.”
“You were fortunate enough to star in a film that swept the pool, Nick,” she reminded him bluntly. “And you had a studio with very deep pockets willing to go to bat for the film’s entire cast and crew, with a campaign war-chest most politicians would weep for. The caterers on that film would have won an Oscar if they’d had a category for them.”
Although what she said was quite true, Nick looked wounded to hear it from someone on the payroll. “I’d like to maintain some semblance of dignity.”
“Then have them ship the dolls out wearing a tux.”
Nick crossed his arms petulantly, and glanced out the window again. The sun
was setting behind the billboard opposite. The reclining figure of the impossibly perfect Brick McReedy Love Machine smiled back at them with the very same come-hither look Nick Macreadie had built his career on. Underneath his image, the endlessly scrolling display read: Go on, you know you want to, a direct rip-off of the tag line from his Oscar-winning turn as a serial killer who preyed on lonely spinsters.
Go on, you know you want to, was the chilling last line of the trailer. It was on every poster, every t-shirt, every crappy bit of merchandise the studio could slap it on when the film came out. The line had become so synonymous with Nick Macreadie’s name they’d probably carve it on his headstone.
The trouble for Nick (and the studio) was that Go on, you know you want to was also the favorite line of the real-life serial killer Nick portrayed in the movie, so the studio didn’t own the phrase, any more than Ecstasy Toys did. Stacey had even gone to court to prove that, when the publishers of the book on which the screenplay was based, tried to sue the studio for stealing their thunder.
“Is this thing safe?”
Stacey gave him a puzzled look. “What do you mean by safe?”
“Suppose it malfunctions? The damn thing weighs a ton. Suppose it shorts out and some little old lady gets crushed right in the middle of getting her jollies?”
Not an unreasonable fear, Stacey thought, given one in four people these days, was pushing eighty. She was a little surprised to hear Nick worrying about it, though.
“Or worse,” he added, “they can’t get to the off switch and it screws someone to death?”
“They claim that can’t happen. Something about the Three Laws of Robotics.”
“For a thousand bucks an hour, Stacey, I’d like something a little more reassuring about my exposure to liability from you, than a vague reference to a short story written in 1942 that you probably haven’t even read.”
She didn’t try to deny that she had no real notion what the Three Laws of Robotics were. Or where they’d originated. She was impressed Nick knew, however. “I can look into it. And we would, of course, make it a condition of any licensing agreement that you be shielded from litigation.”