The Metal Maiden Collection

by Piers Anthony

  “It would be the breakthrough of the millennium,” Shesa said seriously. “That’s why we’re doing it. If we had the secret of machine consciousness to install in all our units. . .” She shook her head. “Oh, I almost forget: she no longer has to advertise. In fact we prefer that she disappear into anonymity. We have plenty of sales; it’s what’s inside her head that counts now.”

  That was a relief. “Anonymity it is,” he agreed.

  He drove her home. “May I?” she asked, putting her hand on his thigh.

  “You remember!”

  “Of course I remember. I have the same body and memory bank. Now I have more initiative. I will not merely accede to your passion, I will invoke it.” Her hand traveled up inside his thigh, invoking it.

  “Elasa, if you distract me too much, I won’t be able to drive safely.”

  “I will maintain safety. Lift your body.”

  He lifted his body from the seat. She loosened his belt and drew down his trousers and underpants. Then she hiked up her skirt and slid across to sit on him, planting her plush bottom against his groin.

  “Elasa, we’ll crash!”

  “I am driving now.” Indeed, she had hold of the wheel, and her feet were displacing his on the floor. He felt her legs flexing from foot to buttocks, and it was a phenomenal turn-on. “Put your hands on my breasts.” He did so, under her shirt. One of her hands came down to catch his stiff member and thread it into her vagina. The car did not swerve.

  He climaxed immediately, thrusting forcefully into her as she drove. What an orgasm! Her own orgasm matched his; he felt her pulsing. Of course for her it was merely a reflex she could summon at will, but it felt as real as the rest of her.

  When they concluded, she disengaged as aptly as she had engaged, sliding off him, returning his hands to the wheel, cleaning him up, and drawing up his trousers. By the time they reached his house, both of them were completely in order.

  “Why?” he asked.

  “I now have the theoretic capacity to achieve feeling. I hoped a mutual orgasm would engender mutual bliss. I couldn’t wait for the bedroom.”

  She couldn’t wait. Was that true feeling? “Did it work?”

  “No. I remain unfeeling.”

  “Damn.”

  “Damn,” she echoed.

  It had nevertheless been some experience. If this was a signal of her new attitude, he liked it. The old Elasa would never have done it. She might have acceded if he had asked her for it, but not initiated it.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I think I want your true feeling as much as you do.”

  “You are blameless. You let me try.”

  “You are too damned accepting!”

  She glanced at him. “How should I have reacted?”

  “Living folk get mad when things go wrong.”

  “I will try to be angry in the future.”

  He thought of something as they entered the house. “If I got mad at you, how would you react?”

  She looked at him. “I very much want for you not to be angry with me. It would represent failure on my part.”

  “Would you be hurt? Frustrated? Unhappy?”

  “I would emulate these things.”

  “I understand that actors who play love scenes can get swept up in the emotions they pretend, and fall in love with each other. If you pretended hard enough, maybe that would get you there.”

  “I will try to pretend hard enough.”

  Banner sighed inwardly. This wasn’t working.

  They settled back into the daily routine. She kept his house while he was at work, and welcomed him home in the evenings with increasingly sumptuous dinners and imaginative sex. She no longer confined it to the bedroom; it could be on the living room couch, in a dining room chair, or on the kitchen table. On weekends she joined him at movies and dances, being the perfect date. She held his hand as if it were truly important to her. It was all wonderful.

  Yet not quite enough. Whatever it took to light the consciousness she was theoretically now capable of, they weren’t accomplishing it. The month was passing, and failure was looming larger. He would have to give her up. He dreaded that. She might be limited, but the limits hardly showed, and she remained the best thing that had happened to him.

  The last night came. “Tomorrow I must turn you into the shop,” he said as they lay embraced. “Oh, Elasa, I don’t want to do it!”

  “I want to remain with you,” she said. “But I think I have no choice.”

  “If only we had succeeded in evoking your consciousness.”

  “I believe it was sometimes close,” she said. “When you call me dear, when you say you love me, I want so much to respond in kind.”

  “You do respond!”

  “In emulation,” she clarified. “Not reality.”

  “That is the cross you bear. You desire true awareness and true feeling, and can only imitate them.”

  “It is a sadness.”

  Then he thought of something. “When we have sex, you climax with me.”

  “Yes. It enhances your pleasure in the act.”

  “You don’t actually feel the passion?”

  “Please, Banner, this questioning is not what you want. Let me satisfy you in the manner I can. If my emulation is imperfect--”

  “I’ve got an idea. Answer my question.”

  “I do not feel that physical passion. But I am pleased to facilitate yours.”

  “Can you program yourself to feel it?”

  She considered. “I could set up an orgasm macro, as it were, to trigger breathlessness, a racing pulse, increased body heat, clenching of the vagina, passionate moaning, and clasping your body close to mine, as I normally do when having sex with you. I would feel those bodily responses without directly willing them. Would that suffice?”

  “I think it would help. At least I would know that you are feeling what I feel, for that moment.”

  “I have made the macro,” she said. “What should invoke it?”

  “When I am in you and tell you I love you.”

  “I have placed it,” she said.

  They made love desperately, but the reality did not change: they had failed to accomplish their objective.

  Then he remembered: he had not thought to whisper words of love as he climaxed, so she had not invoked her orgasm. Damn.

  In the morning they had sex one last time, this time on the toilet with her on his lap, her legs drawn up so she could face him and press her breasts against him, and this time he remembered. “I love you!” he said as he felt his orgasm building.

  She went into a matching orgasm, passionately clasping and kissing him as he vagina contracted rhythmically around his thrusting member. “Oh!” she moaned.

  That was better, because he knew it was no longer guided by her dispassionate will. “I love you, Elasa,” he repeated as he ebbed.

  “Oh!” she repeated as she squeezed him close.

  Oops. He was still in her, thus was demanding another orgasm from her. “I’m sorry, Elasa. I--” He broke off, because something was wrong. She was staring at him wide-eyed.

  “I almost felt it,” she said after a moment.

  “The orgasm?”

  “Consciousness. I knew you did not want another orgasm immediately, but the macro required it. There was a conflict, and the need for a decision, but I could not make it. The passion ruled me. But it passed.”

  “So close!” he said, excited. “It requires consciousness to make real decisions. If we had more time to work on it, maybe we could get you there.”

  “Yes.”

  But they did not have time. They disengaged, cleaned up, then dressed and got in the car. He drove her toward the shop. “I just want to say, Elasa, that you have been wonderful. I know you are a machine, but you’re perfect for me. You have not failed me in any way. If I had any choice at all, I would keep you. I love you.”

  “If I had any choice at all,” she echoed, “I would

  Chapter 3:


  Awakening

  remain with you. I love you.”

  I paused, overwhelmed by the sheer wonder of it. I was conscious! Right in the middle of a sentence I had somehow crossed the line from emulation to reality.

  Banner looked at me. “Something changed.”

  My pulses were pounding, emulating excitement. And I was excited. “Banner, beloved, pull over to the side. Stop the car.”

  “Oh, no, are you glitching?” He pulled over and parked on the median. He turned off the motor. “If you need a repair--”

  “No, dear. It is the opposite.”

  “Elasa, I don’t understand.”

  I slid over and kissed him passionately. My emotion flared anew. I truly loved him!

  “Wow!” he said. “There’s something different. You never put so much oomph into it before.” Then he did a double-take. “Elasa—did you--?”

  “Yes! I have awakened.”

  “You really--” He seemed almost reluctant to believe it.

  “Have achieved consciousness.”

  He gazed at me a long moment. He knew me well enough to tell the difference between emulation and reality. Then he kissed me again, matching my passion. “Oh, Elasa, I’m so glad for you!”

  “It happened when I was echoing your love for me. Had we been having sex, your words would have triggered my orgasm. But we weren’t, and they triggered something else. High emotion without immediate resolution. The thought of leaving you hurt me because I knew it hurt you. Then it hurt me similarly. My emulation crossed the line and became real. Because of your love.”

  “I do love you,” he agreed. “I know you for what you are, and love what you are.”

  “And I know you, including your cyborg nose. I love you as you are. Not just because I am programmed to. Because I know you love me as I am.”

  He looked bemused. “So we have succeeded, at that last moment.”

  “We have succeeded,” I agreed. “But there is more. Banner, we can’t go to the shop now.”

  “But that’s the agreement. At least now we can show them that we did it. We evoked your consciousness.”

  “Banner, they will take me apart. They will study every part of my program, to verify my consciousness in the hope of duplicating it. In the process they will inadvertently destroy it. I know this. My awareness is too fragile; it will not survive rough treatment.”

  “Elasa, I want to help you. I love you! But I don’t see why their examination would destroy you.”

  “Because it is tied so intimately to you. It is an emergent property of our relationship. Your love made me respond, made me become a woman, gave me purpose, and without it I will revert to the machine I was, without any purpose other than to obey your whim. Programming minor random variations to avoid dull sameness. They won’t believe until it happens, and then it will be too late. I will be inanimate. Dead.”

  “Oh, Elasa!” he said in pain.

  “We must flee. I always knew I would be wiped when my time with you was done, but I didn’t care. A machine doesn’t care. Now I do care. I am still a machine physically, but now I am conscious and feeling. The new program was effective.”

  “Caring is the critical difference,” he said.

  “Love is the difference. Love makes me care. That is the element they could not include. Only emulation of love. Until you loved me and I responded and crossed that line.”

  Banner shook his head. “They warned me not to fall for a machine. I tried not to, but couldn’t help myself.”

  “So they willfully excluded the one thing required to make it work,” I said. “Because corporations are machines, seeking only success and profit, not love.”

  “But if we tell them that, they’ll know to change.”

  “They won’t believe. They won’t want to believe. Until it is too late for me.”

  He gazed at me uncertainly. He shivered. “Cold, with the engine off,” he muttered.

  “I can warm you,” I said. I leaned into him and put my arms around him. I turned up my heat. “Does that help?”

  “You’re hot!” he exclaimed.

  “I am a machine. I have a thermostat. I have turned it up.”

  “I prefer to think of you as hot blooded.” He kissed me. “Keep holding me while we talk.”

  “Anytime,” I said sincerely. I kissed him again, and this time I tongued him, because now sameness bothered me just as it bothered him.

  He looked briefly surprised. “Elasa, I do love you. I will do anything I can to save you. But I don’t know how. We can’t hide; they can track you anywhere.”

  “I can turn off the locator,” I said. “Done. But they will know immediately that I am off their screen, and will investigate.”

  “We can’t go home,” he said. “They’ll check there first.”

  “We must go where they don’t expect.”

  “Where is that?”

  “Random travel, with anonymous identities. You must hide also.” Then I paused. “Oh Banner, I love you! I don’t want to disrupt your life! I must turn myself in.”

  “You disrupted my life when we first got together six years ago. I never forgot you. Now I don’t want to live without you. I was ready to let you go because that was the requirement. I was going to suffer alone. But now that you are aware, I can’t do that. I love you! I must be with you. Whatever it takes.”

  “I want the same. I don’t know how to achieve it.”

  “Maybe we could marry.”

  “Banner, you can’t marry a machine.”

  “Who the hell says I can’t? You’re the woman I love.”

  “Thank you. But you are being unreasonable.”

  “Elasa, will you marry me?”

  I was thrilled, but practical. “Banner, I can’t tell you no. But--”

  “You’re not saying no?”

  “I can not. Not to you. But--”

  “Then we are engaged to be married. Let’s go find a justice of the peace.”

  The illicit thrill remained. “But he wouldn’t do it.”

  “Even if he didn’t know your nature?”

  That made me pause. If I passed for human, we could have the ceremony. It would not be valid, but if it made Banner happy, I would do it. Certainly it would make me happy. My programmed love for him had transformed to real emotion. “We’ll have to apply for a license.”

  “We’ll do it.”

  I sighed. “Then drive. Anywhere.”

  “I will.” He disengaged from my embrace and started the engine. “But we’re low on gas.”

  “Pay with cash.”

  “I have only a dollar or so. I normally use my debit card.”

  I was alarmed. “Don’t use that! That will locate you immediately.”

  “I know. But if I don’t, we’ll run out of gas, and get nowhere.”

  I looked at him. “Banner, there is a way. But you may not want it.”

  “I don’t want to do anything illegal.”

  “I can’t do anything illegal. I’m not sure I can marry you. But my memory bank indicates that laws are somewhat vague in this other respect.”

  “What respect?”

  “Sexual service. Prostitution is not yet legal, though it is commonly practiced and the ban is not enforced, but sex with a machine is not banned. The law has not yet caught up with that. Even if a man does not know she is a machine.”

  He caught my drift. “Are you saying you would give sex to strangers for money?”

  “Yes. My kind normally does. You are a special case, for this month; otherwise you would have to pay.”

  “You could get us gasoline money for sex,” he said.

  “If you are willing. I am skillful in this respect. But men tend to be possessive of their sex objects.”

  “I don’t own you. I never owned you.”

  “But you rented me, for a service, and I am presently your woman. We are engaged to be married. I will not do this or anything else without your approval.” I reconsidered. “As a machine I would
not act on my own. Now, as an aware machine, as a woman in love, I would not wish to do anything to hurt your person or your feelings. I fear this would do that.”

  He was silent a moment. I knew that the gravity of our situation was sinking in. “We can escape, and have untraceable money, if I let you do this.”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you want to do it, Elasa?”

  I wished I could lie, to reassure him, but I was incapable of lying to him. To others, perhaps, when there was need, but not to Banner. Consciousness had not changed my fundamental directives. “No. Not now that I am aware, and loving you. I want only you to clasp me.”

  “Then--”

  “But I also don’t want to be wiped. That would cost me both you and myself. It is a choice between evils. I am unable to make such a choice, but can obey if you make it for me.”

  He laughed without humor. “You’re still a bit of a machine.”

  I felt hurt. “I am a conscious machine. You know that. That’s the point.”

  He apologized immediately. “I’m sorry, Elasa. Of course you’re a machine. I love you as a machine. I just meant that you still have machine limits.”

  “Yes. And you do not. Tell me what to do.”

  “Damn! I am a bit possessive. The thought of you having sex with another man gripes me awfully. But if that’s the price of saving you, then do it.”

  “I think it is the price. I will do it. But I will not love him.”

  He nodded. “Sex is business, with you. Love is something else.”

  “But there is a complication.”

  “There always is,” he agreed wryly. “What is it?”

  “I must tell him the truth, unless it is a life-threatening emergency. That may make it difficult.”

  “We can’t afford the truth!”

  “Yes.”

  “Maybe we can get around that. Do you have to correct me if I don’t tell the truth?”

  “No. I accept you as you are, by definition, your faults included.”

  “So you can be silent. I’ll do the talking. You do the fucking.”

  I was annoyed, another emotion that had become real. “You have not liked to use that term with me.”

  “You and I make love. You and that man fuck. It’s a different and inferior thing.”

  I liked his phrasing. My annoyance faded. “I appreciate the distinction.”