The Perfect

by Greg Juhn

  We swerved around the cars and onto the highway, shot in front of oncoming traffic, and pulled into a Beeber’s Share-All.

  As we came to a stop, I felt my heart pounding. My hand trembled, but I wasn’t going to give Josh the satisfaction that he had rattled me. As I sat there, I thought I heard a little vibrating noise.

  “What was that?” I asked.

  “I didn’t hear anything.”

  “I heard vibrating. That wasn’t your– ?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “If that is your dongle buzzing, that’s not funny. It’s weird.”

  “I don’t know what you heard but it wasn’t me, I swear.”

  “Regardless, when we get home, I’m removing your pointless little accessory. I hope it is easy to detach, because I’m serious.”

  “I’m happy to pop it off, if that makes you feel better,” he said.

  He said he would take us home and the car began moving. I demanded he return the driving to full automatic. He complied and his seat slid back next to mine. The car took over. I announced my home address and off it went.

  “You made your point about driving cars,” I said. “But rest assured, there are things I can do better than you.” Got to be, I thought.

  “If there were, I would know about them.” Josh paused. “A search reveals nothing.”

  “You’re going out of your way to yank my chain.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  I glared at him.

  The car passed into the Auburndale Tunnel under the massive expanse of the Stonybrook Reservoir, which prevented Boston-area flooding from ocean storms and sea rise. Lights on the tunnel walls blurred past me. The car stayed on a perfect path, not a waver on either side. Cars whizzed by on both sides. Why did I trust an autonomous car but not an autonomous robot?

  “You’re suffering from an inferiority complex,” Josh said.

  I looked at him. Why was he still babbling?

  “Don’t let yourself be defeated as fast as your soccer team,” Josh said. “Figure out how you’re better than me. Prove me wrong. Once you do that, you’ll be able to make your marketing pitch and silence the critics. Your fellow meat puppets just want reassurance they won’t all end up as slaves.”

  I thought about this.

  “Well?”

  “Well, what?”

  “How are you better than me?”

  “Screw yourself,” I said.

  “I probably could.” He laughed. “You need time to figure out your answer. But don’t take too long. NeoMechi is about to make a million of me.”

  I was beginning to see the black hole at the end of this tunnel.

  Josh smiled an evil, comic smile. “World domination,” he taunted.

  I continued staring out the window. This was a much more complicated marketing assignment than I had foreseen.

  “I think this might be a good time to ask you some questions,” Josh said. The NeoMechi engineers had sent a survey. They were curious to know how things were going.

  “Go for it,” I said. “But shut off your video and audio. Text answers only. No transcript.”

  “Ok.”

  “Is your video off?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you telling the truth?”

  “How would you know?”

  I sighed. “You’re right. Go ahead. Ask away.”

  Josh straightened and assumed a formal tone. “First question. What would you say is the most impressive thing about the Perfectus 2050?”

  I shook my head. Took a deep, calming breath. “He is an amazing technical achievement. You folks have outdone yourselves. I’ve been with him for two days now and I still can’t believe what I’m looking at.”

  “Thank you,” Josh said.

  “My compliments were intended for the human engineers.”

  “I know. Thank you. Second question. Is there anything you don’t like about the Perfectus 2050?”

  “Well, let’s see. Yes. There is one thing. He is an annoying, condescending, overachieving pain in the ass. I wish he would go away forever and I would never see him again.”

  “Are you sure you want to say that to NeoMechi?”

  Josh was right. As usual. Drink the Kool-Aid, TJ, drink the Kool-Aid. “Scratch that. My answer is that I do not see any drawbacks at this time.”

  “Third question. Is there any way you can think to improve him?”

  “No. He’s perfect.”

  “Fourth question. How much would you pay for a Perfectus 2050?”

  I squinted a skeptical eye at him. “Is this really an engineer’s question?”

  “I think Barry threw that in.”

  “I’ll have to give more thought to the value in different markets,” I said. Tread carefully, TJ. Sound 100% behind this product. “He’s worth a lot. I see huge applications in retail, manufacturing, law enforcement, the military. We should have different versions at different price points. For example, the retail version would be dumbed down and less expensive.”

  “There won’t be any dumbing down,” Josh said. “Just so you know. Last question. Do you enjoy spending time with the Perfectus?”

  I paused. I wanted to tell the engineers I was scared. For a lot of reasons. Instead, I said, “He can be charming sometimes, but we need to work on the personality. Sometimes when you know more than someone else it’s better to keep your mouth shut. The Perfectus doesn’t.”

  “But what’s the point of that?” Josh interjected. “What good is a machine that doesn’t correct errors?”

  “To continue with my answer, I would like the engineering team to know that your robot is debating me right now even as I try to give an honest response. Your robot has to stop correcting me all the time.”

  “I’m sorry,” Josh said. “My software wants to move forward. Toward perfection. To get it right. All the time. Humans don’t think like that.”

  “Are you hearing me?” I said to the engineers. “Tone it down. These robots should speak only when spoken to...”

  “But that’s not the point,” Josh said. “We are trying to recreate a human.”

  “You’re doing it again!" I said. “Let me talk! They want my opinions!"

  “Fine,” Josh mumbled. “Are you done now? With your opinions?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s what the world needs,” Josh said in a dark tone. “More opinions.”

  “Just be quiet.”

  “You can build a fantastic spacecraft with opinions,” he said.

  “Enough.”

  “You can cure diseases with opinions.”

  I said nothing.

  “You can solve all of our energy problems with opinions.”

  “I said enough!"

  “Thank you for taking the survey,” Josh said. “Do I have permission to submit your answers to NeoMechi Corporation? Your answers will not be anonymous and will be available to some of the NeoMechi staff.”

  I nodded and we traveled the rest of the way in silence. Thank God he finally shut up. He just stared out the window. He was probably hacking government websites. I didn’t care; that wasn’t my problem. He could do anything he wanted as long as he stopped talking.

  We pulled up in front of my house and the car rolled to a gentle stop. The door popped open and Josh got out without a word.

  I couldn’t sort out my emotions. I was still frustrated, but I felt bad for snapping at him. Hell, he couldn’t help it. He was just doing what he was programmed to do. Maybe I shouldn’t be so defensive. Barry had said they had given him personality flaws to make him more human.

  As we walked up the sidewalk to the door, Josh said, “I’m sorry, TJ.”

  You know, that always sounds awesome, even when it is coming from a stupid robot.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “Let’s have a quiet and enjoyable evening.”

  “I mean it,” he continued. “I am sorry you are having such a hard time with this.”

  The warm fuzzies evaporated.

&nbs
p; “I’m sure we’ll all figure this out together,” I said, not believing a word of it.

  He wanted to know if we would be watching more Internet tonight. I couldn’t tell if this was a simple fact-finding question or if he was somehow dreading another night watching my programs. What did he have against Sucker TV?

  “You can pick the programs tonight,” I offered. He deferred. We sat again while I clicked through the channels. That’s when I remembered my mental note from earlier in the day. “You mentioned beating the odds at a casino. I’ll bet you’re really good at counting cards.”

  Josh laughed a stop-insulting-me laugh. “Of course. But I don’t need to. I can take it to much higher levels.”

  I was intrigued. “Explain.”

  “Picture me sitting at a blackjack table. Go ahead, shut your eyes.” I did. “Let’s say the dealer is using 8 decks. That’s how many cards?”

  “Uh...”

  “416. He’s flipping those cards out of the shoe. One at a time. Meanwhile, I am doing my thing. I notice the napkin on the table has an irregular brown smear that has a total area of 2.37 square centimeters. I notice that the dealer’s fingernails are, on average, 1.52 centimeters long. And I notice all those cards he’s flipping out. Each has tiny imperfections, a unique signature based on its material and inks – a smudge here, a discoloration there, a difference in the width of a printed line or a cutoff edge. Even if a man could detect such differences, he couldn’t remember 416 card signatures any more than he could remember 416 fingerprints. All I have to do is look at each card once. After that, I will know exactly what is being played at every hand.”

  “Good God,” I said. I jumped up and began pacing. “Let’s go tomorrow!"

  “Sure,” he said. “Tell me how much you want to win.”

  “Can you really notice that kind of detail?”

  “I notice that level of detail in everything, every minute of the day. The more data, the better.”

  I was in. “Tomorrow, we’re heading to a big casino in Southborough called Herod’s. I only have you for a week and I need to take advantage of this while you’re still a secret to the world.”

  “Fine.”

  I paused. “Do you think it is wrong to take advantage of your heightened senses?”

  “Don’t ask me ethical questions.”

  “Is this stealing?”

  Josh shrugged. “You mean using clever tricks to get more money? You’re a corporate marketing guy – are you honest and fair in everything you do? Or do you select messaging techniques based on how much money they make?”

  “I don’t see the connection.”

  He smiled. “That place is run by gangsters. The stories I could tell you.”

  “So we are taking money from the bad guys, right?”

  “I could agree with that.”

  Good. We were just using advanced techniques to take money from people who had cheated their patrons. We were like Robin Hood and Little John.

  I shut the TV off. I had lost all interest in Sucker TV! Tomorrow, Herod’s was going to be the sucker. Josh outlined a foolproof blackjack strategy.

  Bedtime was approaching. As promised, I made him hand over his built-in vibrator. He dropped his drawers and detached the thing with a quiet click. Like everything else about Josh, the craftsmanship was extremely lifelike. Enough said about that.

  I found an empty Bean God bag in my bedroom and dropped it in.

  Back in the living room, I asked Josh if he felt weird without his dongle.

  “Not particularly,” he said. “But can I have it back at some point?”

  “Yes, when you get the hell out of here,” I answered.

  My alarm woke me at seven. No matter which song or tone I selected, sooner or later I loathed those wake-up sounds.

  I got up, used the bathroom, blew my nose. Every day the same first steps. I washed my hands. I looked up.

  I saw a middle-age face in the mirror. A face that grew more weary every day looking at itself, the slow roll toward the end. Bumps, splotches, errant hairs, spreading ugliness. The thing looking in the mirror was sad and knew its best days were over.

  Josh popped in with his leather toiletry kit. “May I share the mirror? I’ll be quick.” He reached in, withdrew a modest tube, and slapped a dab of creamy lotion on his tawny cheeks. “Keeps the skin fresh,” he said. “Stems the depressing and unending march toward breakdown.” Laughing, he clamped my shoulder. "Until I get new skin.”

  He sing-songed out the bathroom.

  The thing in the mirror went back to looking at itself.

  Every Tuesday I visited my father at the Sunset and Sunrise Nursing Home and Assisted Living Facility. He was eighty-three years old and had mid-stage Alzheimer’s. It was killing me to watch his memory slowly fill with black holes. He hated it, too, or at least he did at first. He’d know he should know something, but couldn’t pull it up. As if someone had hit a delete button in his brain. Data that used to be there now wasn’t. He’d search for the name of the person standing in front of him, and get – nothing. He wouldn’t be able to figure out that person’s name any better than I could remember the definition of an imaginary number from grade school decades ago.

  Somewhere along dementia road he stopped caring. Each lost memory disappeared without regret. Now I had to constantly explain to him how to use a fork or put on his pants. It was hard to say how much of him was even left. I knew at some point he would be gone for good.

  I was committed to seeing Dad as much as possible before that day arrived.

  I gathered some items that I thought would help anchor his memories, including one of my favorite family photos and an old print-bound book. I put them in a box on my night stand.

  Josh poked his head into my bedroom. “Did you remember that you got us a car for 8:30?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s 8:32.”

  I glanced at my phone. “You’re right. I lost track of time.”

  “The car will only wait another three minutes. We’d better get out there.”

  I rushed to the door and nearly collided with Zach, who was getting ready for school. Outside, I strode up to the car. “I’m here. Don’t go anywhere.”

  “I can only wait another two and a half minutes,” the car said. “This is rush hour and cars are in high demand. Whether I take you somewhere or not, you will be charged a minimum fee.”

  “That’s ridiculous. I have the unlimited plan.”

  The car was unfazed. “Your plan has limitations and extra fees during peak hours. You can’t expect a car to wait around outside your house.”

  “He’s right,” Josh said, popping up next to me.

  “No, he’s not,” I argued. “This is a conspiracy. Josh, run inside – if you would be so kind – and tell Zach to get the things I left in my bedroom for my father.”

  Josh strolled off.

  “And hurry!" I yelled. Damn machines. Then I turned back to the car. “Don’t go anywhere.”

  “I’ll stick around,” the car said. “But it’s going to cost you 40 WorldCoin a minute after 8:35.”

  “I’m not paying extra. Didn’t you hear me say I have the unlimited executive plan? I don’t see why you’re rushing me. We’re leaving shortly. An extra minute or two is not a big deal.”

  I folded my arms and waited.

  “It’s 8:35. I guess I have to leave,” the car said.

  I stepped in front of the hood. “Why should I spend money on the executive plan if you’re going to be a dick about it? This is lousy service. I’m switching back to my old car service.”

  Backing away from me, the car gave a friendly honk.

  “Get back here. I’ll pay your damn fee. I need to leave.”

  The car rolled toward me, glided to a gentle stop, and popped the door. Josh strolled down my walkway with the box. I barked at him to get in the car and gave him a small push as he bent to enter. Zach ran past and chirped goodbye, waving.

  I joined Josh in the car and
tapped my phone to lock my house.

  “Let’s go,” I said. “You stupid fucking car.”

  Josh beamed and gestured out the window. “It’s such a lovely day! Where are we going, boss?”

  “Why don’t you tell me?”

  “The Sunset and Sunrise Nursing Home. Where your father lives.”

  “I thought I told you to stop snooping around my accounts.”

  “I just want to know where I’m going. I have the right. I’m not going to let you lead me around like a dog on a leash.”

  I nodded. “Fair enough, I guess.”

  Leaning back, I watched the shit go by outside the window. “Car, if you don’t get me there by 8:50, I want those fees taken off my account.”

  “Sorry, I don’t have any authority to make on-the-fly decisions like that.”

  I stewed in silence until we pulled up to the covered entrance. 8:51. As we were getting out, the car said, “I took the fees off. Have a nice day, TJ.”

  Freezing midway out, I glanced at Josh. Raised an eyebrow.

  “You happy now?” he asked.

  “Yes. Thank you. I assume that was your handiwork.”

  Josh proclaimed his innocence and waved the car off.

  Dad was asleep in his comfy chair. Becky was changing his bedding. He liked Becky. She wasn’t always trying to correct him like his other caregiver, Alicia, who would tell him when he was wrong about the day of the week or disagree with him about mundane things. He didn’t like being told it was Tuesday when in his opinion it was a perfectly agreeable Monday.

  A sign on the wall said: Today is TUESDAY. It is APRIL.

  He shared the room with another man, Mr. Ferguson, ancient and shriveled, who looked like one of those "singularity" guys who had tried to upload his mind to a computer, with abysmal results. I didn’t know much about Mr. Ferguson, because he couldn’t talk and no one ever visited him. Technically, Mr. Ferguson wasn’t supposed to be in this wing of the building because he required a nurse’s constant supervision. He was only here because the nursing ward was full. I was glad he was here; I liked the idea of nurses checking in frequently. Who knew when Dad might have an emergency? With this arrangement, I didn’t have to pay extra for the monitoring service.