We, Robots

by Simon Ings

  After the first shock, I did not find this unpalatable. Quite the contrary—I might as well admit that I became deeply interested in the films of myself and Elaine. I suppose some stuffy psychiatrist would call this a case of voyeurism, or worse. But that would be to ignore the deeper philosophical implications. After all, what man has not dreamed of being able to view himself in action? It is a common fantasy to imagine one’s own hidden cameras recording one’s every move. Given the chance, who could resist the extraordinary privilege of being simultaneously actor and audience?

  My dramas with Elaine developed in a direction that surprised me. A quality of desperation began to show itself, a love-madness of which I would never have believed myself capable. Our evenings became imbued with a quality of delicious sadness, a sense of imminent loss. Sometimes we didn’t speak at all, just held hands and looked at each other. And once Elaine wept for no discernible reason, and I stroked her hair, and she said to me, “What can we do?” and I looked at her and did not reply.

  I am perfectly aware that these things happened to the robot, of course. But the robot was an aspect or attribute of me—my shadow, twin, double, animus, doppelganger. He was a projection of my personality into a particular situation; therefore whatever happened to him became my experience. Metaphysically there can be no doubt of this.

  It was all very interesting. But at last I had to bring the courtship to an end. It was time for Elaine and me to plan our marriage and to coordinate our schedules. Accordingly, exactly two months after its inception, I told the robot to propose a wedding date and to terminate the courtship as of that night.

  “You have done extremely well,” I told him. “When this is over, you will receive a new personality, plastic surgery and a respected place in my organization.”

  “Thank you, sir,” he said. His face was unreadable, as is my own. I heard no hint of anything in his voice except perfect obedience. He left carrying my latest gift to Elaine.

  Midnight came and Charles II didn’t return. An hour later I felt disturbed. By three a.m. I was in a state of agitation, experiencing erotic and masochistic fantasies, seeing him with her in every conceivable combination of mechano-physical lewdness. The minutes dragged by, Charles II still did not return, and my fantasies became sadistic. I imagined the slow and terrible ways in which I would take my revenge on both of them, the robot for his presumption and Elaine for her stupidity in being deceived by a mechanical substitute for a real man.

  The long night crept slowly by. At last I fell into a fitful sleep.

  I awoke early. Charles II still had not returned. I canceled my appointments for the entire morning and rushed over to Elaine’s apartment.

  “Charles!” she said. “What an unexpected pleasure!”

  I entered her apartment with an air of nonchalance. I was determined to remain calm until I had learned exactly what had happened last night. Beyond that, I didn’t know what I might do.

  “Unexpected?” I said. “Didn’t I mention last night that I might come by for breakfast?”

  “You may have,” Elaine said. “To tell the truth, I was much too emotional to remember everything you said.”

  “But you do remember what happened?”

  She blushed prettily. “Of course, Charles. I still have marks on my arm.”

  “Do you, indeed!”

  “And my mouth is bruised. Why do you grind your teeth that way?”

  “I haven’t had my coffee yet,” I told her.

  She led me into the breakfast nook and poured coffee. I drained mine in two gulps and asked, “Do I really seem to you like the man I was last night?”

  “Of course,” she said. “I’ve come to know your moods. Charles, what’s wrong? Did something upset you last night?”

  “Yes!” I cried wildly. “I was just remembering how you danced naked on the terrace.” I stared at her, waiting for her to deny it.

  “It was only for a moment,” Elaine said. “And I wasn’t really naked, you know, I had on my body stocking. Anyhow, you asked me to do it.”

  “Yes,” I said. “Yes, yes.” I was confused. I decided to continue probing. “But then when you drank champagne from my desert boot—”

  “I only took a sip,” she said. “Was I too daring?”

  “You were splendid,” I said, feeling chilled all over. “I suppose it’s unfair of me to remind you of these things now…”

  “Nonsense, I like to talk about it.”

  “What about that absurd moment when we exchanged clothing?”

  “That was wicked of us,” she said, laughing.

  I stood up. “Elaine,” I said, “just exactly what in hell were you doing last night?”

  “What a question,” she said. “I was with you.”

  “No, Elaine.”

  “But Charles—those things you just spoke about—”

  “I made them up.”

  “Then who were you with last night?”

  “I was home, alone.”

  Elaine thought about that for a few moments. Then she said, “I’m afraid I have a confession to make.”

  I folded my arms and waited.

  “I too was home alone last night.”

  I raised one eyebrow. “And the other nights?”

  She took a deep breath. “Charles, I can no longer deceive you. I really had wanted an old-fashioned courtship. But when the time came, I couldn’t seem to fit it into my schedule. You see, it was finals time in my Aztec pottery class, and I had just been elected chairwoman of the Aleutian Assistance League, and my new boutique needed special attention—”

  “So what did you do?”

  “Well—I simply couldn’t say to you, ‘Look, let’s drop the courtship and just get married.’ After all, I hardly knew you.”

  “What did you do?”

  She sighed. “I knew several girls who had gotten themselves into this kind of a spot. They went to this really clever robot-maker named Snaithe… Why are you laughing?”

  I said, “I too have a confession to make. I have used Mr. Snaithe, too.”

  “Charles! You actually sent a robot here to court me? How could you! Suppose I had really been me?”

  “I don’t think either of us is in a position to express much indignation. Did your robot come home last night?”

  “No. I thought that Elaine II and you—”

  I shook my head. “I have never met Elaine II, and you have never met Charles II. What happened, apparently, is that our robots met, courted and now have run away together.”

  “But robots can’t do that!”

  “Ours did. I suppose they managed to reprogram each other.”

  “Or maybe they just fell in love,” Elaine said wistfully.

  I said, “I will find out what happened. But now, Elaine, let us think of ourselves. I propose that at our earliest possible convenience we get married.”

  “Yes, Charles,” she murmured. We kissed. And then, gently, lovingly, we began to coordinate our schedules.

  I was able to trace the runaway robots to Kennedy Spaceport. They had taken the shuttle to Space Platform 5, and changed there for the Centauri Express. I didn’t bother trying to investigate any further. They could be on any one of a dozen worlds.

  Elaine and I were deeply affected by the experience. We realized that we had become overspecialized, too intent upon productivity, too neglectful of the simple, ancient pleasures. We acted upon this insight, taking an additional hour out of every day—seven hours a week—in which simply to be with each other. Our friends consider us romantic fools, but we don’t care. We know that Charles II and Elaine II, our alter egos, would approve.

  There is only this to add. One night Elaine woke up in a state of hysteria. She had had a nightmare. In it she had become aware that Charles II and Elaine II were the real people who had escaped the inhumanity of Earth to some simpler and more rewarding world. And we were the robots they had left in their places, programmed to believe that we were human.

  I told Elai
ne how ridiculous that was. It took me a long time to convince her, but at last I did. We are happy now and we lead good, productive, loving lives. Now I must stop writing this and get back to work.

  (1973)

  MISS BOKKO

  Bokko-chan

  Shinichi Hoshi

  Shinichi Hoshi (1926–1997) became the first full-time sf writer in Japan. He was dubbed the Japanese Ray Bradbury, though his talents inclined more towards satire. He became expert at O. Henry-style “shoto-shoto” (short short stories), each one (and by 1983 there were over a thousand of them) bearing a sting in its tail. Shinichi’s longer works are more personally revealing: Koe No Ami (“The Voice Net”, 1970), in which a telephone network becomes conscious and takes over civic life, neatly captures his contempt for modern society, while his roman a clef Jinmin wa yowashi kanri wa tsuyoshi (“The public are weak: the government is powerful”: words uttered by his bankrupt father) reveals his family’s troubled history, driven to bankruptcy by government bureaucracy and official interference.

  The robotic woman was very well made. Being artificial, it was possible to make it look as beautiful as the creator wished. Indeed, the robot had a look of perfection. Its design incorporated all the elements of a beautiful woman. This included arrogance because, of course, conceit is one of the attributes of a beautiful woman.

  No one else would have considered making a robot like this. It was deemed a waste of time to create a robot that functioned just like a human. If one had enough money to build such a thing, he or she would have chosen to make a more efficient machine. Besides, there were plenty of humans who needed jobs.

  This robot, however, was a hobby. Its creator owned a bar. Like most bartenders, this man didn’t usually feel like drinking after work. Liquor was the tool of his trade and not something he would pay to consume. His drunken customers paid him plenty. So, with time and money to spare, he’d made the robot for fun.

  Since it was a hobby, he could attend to every detail as elaborately as he chose. He had even gotten the texture of the surface to feel just like human skin. No one could tell the difference, not even by touch. In a way, this robot looked more human than some actual humans.

  The inside of its head, however, was almost completely empty. The bartender had spent all of his time and money on the surface and, thus, couldn’t afford to do much with the insides. The robot could respond to simple conversation. Other than that, all it did was drink.

  When the bartender finally finished the robot, he brought it to his bar. There were tables, but he placed it behind the counter. There was less of a chance that people would realize it was a robot from there.

  Customers enthusiastically greeted the pretty newcomer. When asked for a name and age, the robot was able to answer. It said little else, yet no one suspected it was a robot.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Bokko.”

  “How old are you?”

  “I’m still quite young.”

  “How old are you, then?”

  “I’m still quite young.”

  “So, how old are you?”

  “I’m still quite young.”

  The customers were polite enough not to ask further.

  “That’s a pretty dress.”

  “Isn’t this a pretty dress?”

  “Can I buy you a drink?”

  “You can buy me a drink.”

  “Would you like a gin fizz?”

  “I would like a gin fizz.”

  Bokko could drink all day and night and never get drunk.

  Men gathered to see Bokko after hearing rumors of her beauty and conceit. They all wanted to talk with Bokko, drink with Bokko, and buy drinks for Bokko.

  “Which one of us do you like most?”

  “Which one of you do I like most?”

  “Do you like me?”

  “I like you.”

  “Let’s go to a movie some time.”

  “Shall we go to a movie some time?”

  “When do you want to go?”

  When Bokko was unable to reply, it would send a signal to the bartender for help.

  “Please, sir,” the bartender would come and say in such cases. “Why don’t you leave her alone for now.” Whatever their prior conversation had been, this was usually enough to end it. The customer would stop talking and grin, embarrassed.

  The bartender crouched down behind the counter periodically to collect the liquor from the plastic tube that poked out from Bokko’s leg. Then he’d re-serve it to his customers. No one ever noticed.

  Everyone who set eyes on Bokko was attracted to her. They’d say, “She’s young, yet so reserved,” or “She really isn’t your everyday flirt, and she never seems to get drunk, either.”

  As Bokko became popular, more people visited the bar. Among them was a young man who fell in love with Bokko. Soon, he became a regular at the bar. This young man felt that Bokko seemed to like him, too. But he could never really be sure, and this made him even more obsessed with Bokko. He spent so much money at the bar trying to impress Bokko that eventually he went broke and into debt. When he tried to steal money from his parents to pay his bar tab, his father bawled him out.

  “You must never go there again! Use this to pay your debt, but let this be the end of it.”

  The young man returned to the bar to pay back the money he owed. Upset that he would never see Bokko again, he started drinking heavily. He bought many drinks for Bokko, too, sealing his farewell.

  “I can’t come any more.”

  “You can’t come any more.”

  “Are you sad?”

  “I am sad.”

  “You’re not really that sad, are you?”

  “I’m not really that sad.”

  “I don’t know anyone as cold as you are.”

  “You don’t know anyone as cold as I am.”

  “Do you want me to kill you?”

  “I want you to kill me.”

  The young man took out a package of powder from his pocket, sprinkled it into his drink and pushed it toward Bokko.

  “Will you drink it?”

  “I will drink it.”

  Right there, in front of him, Bokko drank what the young man had offered.

  “Die as you please, then,” he said nastily and walked away.

  “I will die as I please, then,” Bokko replied to his back as he paid the bartender and left. It was almost midnight.

  After the young man left the bar, the bartender announced, “Drinks are on me for the rest of the night, so… drink up!”

  He figured that there wouldn’t be any new customers coming in that night to whom he could re-sell the large quantity of liquor he’d collected from Bokko’s plastic tube. So he decided to just give it away.

  “Right on!”

  “Sounds good!”

  The customers and hostesses gave a toast. Behind the counter, the bartender, too, lifted his glass into the air and then drank.

  *

  That night, the lights in the bar remained lit. The radio continued to play music. No one had left, yet no one was talking anymore either.

  Eventually, a voice on the radio said, “Good night,” and the station ended programming for the day.

  Bokko murmured back, “Good night.” And then, the stunningly beautiful robot waited for the next customer to approach.

  (1958)

  THE DANCING PARTNER

  Jerome K. Jerome

  Jerome Klapka Jerome (1859–1927) was an Englishman best known for his novels and plays, which sometimes incorporated supernatural ingredients. “The Dancing-Partner,” by contrast, is a stark horror story—and not so farfetched. The level of electric automation it describes, while considered science fiction in its day, in fact was under experimentation by gadgeteers as early as 1893, when this excerpt from Jerome’s serial Novel Notes appeared in The Idler.

  “This story,” commenced MacShaugnassy, “comes from Furtwangen, a small town in the Black Forest. There lived there a very wonderfu
l old fellow named Nicholaus Geibel. His business was the making of mechanical toys, at which work he had acquired an almost European reputation. He made rabbits that would emerge from the heart of a cabbage, flop their ears, smooth their whiskers, and disappear again; cats that would wash their faces, and mew so naturally that dogs would mistake them for real cats and fly at them; dolls with phonographs concealed within them, that would raise their hats and say, ‘Good morning; how do you do?’ and some that would even sing a song.

  “But, he was something more than a mere mechanic; he was an artist. His work was with him a hobby, almost a passion. His shop was filled with all manner of strange things that never would, or could, be sold – things he had made for the pure love of making them. He had contrived a mechanical donkey that would trot for two hours by means of stored electricity, and trot, too, much faster than the live article, and with less need for exertion on the part of the driver, a bird that would shoot up into the air, fly round and round in a circle, and drop to earth at the exact spot from where it started; a skeleton that, supported by an upright iron bar, would dance a hornpipe, a life-size lady doll that could play the fiddle, and a gentleman with a hollow inside who could smoke a pipe and drink more lager beer than any three average German students put together, which is saying much.

  “Indeed, it was the belief of the town that old Geibel could make a man capable of doing everything that a respectable man need want to do. One day he made a man who did too much, and it came about in this way:

  “Young Doctor Follen had a baby, and the baby had a birthday. Its first birthday put Doctor Follen’s household into somewhat of a flurry, but on the occasion of its second birthday, Mrs. Doctor Follen gave a ball in honour of the event. Old Geibel and his daughter Olga were among the guests.

  “During the afternoon of the next day some three or four of Olga’s bosom friends, who had also been present at the ball, dropped in to have a chat about it. They naturally fell to discussing the men, and to criticizing their dancing. Old Geibel was in the room, but he appeared to be absorbed in his newspaper, and the girls took no notice of him.